The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 9, 1927, Page 6

t THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1927 Page Six Published by th JONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING 4 : Daily, Except Sunday 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. Cable Address SUBSCRIPTION RATES sre Z By Mail (in New York only): By Mail (outside of New York): $8.00 per year $4.50 six months $6.00 per year 0 six months 2.50 three months. 0 three months. Phone, Orchard 168¢ Daiwork” Address and mail out checks to Courts Are The arguments made by President William Green in the last issue of the American Federationist against the use of injune- tions in labor disputes are the arguments of a middle class busi- nessman. , Green bases his case against injunctions on “the principle of competitive business.” He says that “labor holds it is mani-/ festly unfair to allow the courts to become the ally of the employ- ers in a partisan struggle.” ‘ | It would hardly be possible to display a greater ignorance of the role of the courts than Green shows in this sentence. That} role was established long ago. Feudal and clerical courts bul-| warked the interests of the ruling class of that time, courts of | the rising capitalist class ruled for it and against the feudal | yemnants and the working class. But property rights remained | supreme. It is only in the Soviet Union that courts rule for the) workers. There the workers hold state power. Green appears to think that the courts can be separated | from other suppressive agencies of capitalist government and | his reference to the use of courts in “partisan” struggles be- tween workers and-bosses shows a total lack of knowledge as to| the “partisan” character of the government of which the courts | are a part. The courts do not become “allies of employers.” The courts | are not “allies of the employers.” THE COURTS ARE INSTRU-| MENTS OF THE EMPLOYERS—of the capitalist class just as} are the other departments of government and the government itself. According to Green the courts are fundamentally all right) but have been corrupted by the bosses. Green wants to rescue the courts because injunction rulings tend to break down the} faith of workers in courts as impartial agencies. He asks only | that courts be prohibited from issuing injunctions against unions | and that the anti-trust laws be repealed or amended so that they | do not apply to labor unions. | The labor movement is back where it was before the passage | of the Clayton Act. The three leading editorials in the current) number of The Federationist deal with injunctions—in general | and particular. But no program for the fight against them is offered other than that mentioned above. “Trade unionists,” says Green, “are face to face with a con- dition which menaces the very life of our movement.” _. By the time that a certain measure of legislative relief for this particular evil is obtained by the methods outlined—if it ever is—the labor movement will be crippled and the capitalists will) have devised new means of suppression. Only by building the unions in spite of injunctions, by mass violations of injunctions, can labor develop sufficient power to smash the injunction and other suppressive measures. In such a struggle the labor movement can develop a strength and understanding that will laugh at such a false and dangerous conception of the role of the courts and government as Green puts forward. On Some Pacifist [lusions One of the main obstacles for an effective fight against im- perialist war is the prevalence of peace illusions among the masses. . Some of these illusions of the possibility of peace under capi-| talism are spread by the imperialists to cover up their actual war preparations. A particularly pernicious illusion, spread chiefly by socialist Yeaders and liberal pacifists and trade union reactionaries, is the one which advocates the idea that the road to peace lies through combination and agreement between the big imperialist powers, the cessation of the revolutionary struggle led by the Communist International, and the surrender by the toiling masses of the Soviet Union of their working class rule and socialist system. This is a dangerous illusion. Peace under imperialism is only a temporary phase of hidden war, a period devoted to the preparation for open war. Combina- tion and agreement of the big imperialist powers is always of short duration because of the irreconcilable contradictions of in- terests which eventually lead to larger and bloodier wars. Such alliances of the imperialist powers of the world, and the tempo- rary softening of struggle among them, are always brought into life for the purpose of crushing the revolutionary struggles of op- pressed peoples, the working class and the peasantry. It is just such an imperialist combination that British capi- talism is striving to create at the present moment to wage war against the Chinese revolution and the Soviet Union. And it is precisely the revolutionary struggle of the working class, led by the Communist International, together with the growth of socialism in the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, that are hastening the downfall of world capitalism, that is, lead- ing to the final abolition of armaments and war. Standard Oil, the Courts and the Coal Miners The Standard Oil company has been given a clean bill of health by the decision just handed down by a master in ch.ncery. For three years an investigation has been conducted to determine whether the Standard Oil and its constituent companies have boon violating the Sherman Anti-trust act—passed ostensibly to deal with restraint of trade in articles of interstate commerce. The master in chancery declares that there is not a scintiltA of evidence to support the accusation that Standard Oil violates the anti-trust law by restraining free trade in articles of inter- state commerce, Coal miners should be unusually interested in this decision. In the state of West Virginia a supreme court decision has out- lawed the United Mine Workers by ruling that efforts to organize | eee \ “They Are Too Often Subjected to Thoughtless and Inconsiderate Treatment.” —President Coolidge in his message to Congress. By FRED ELLIS. Money Writes XXXI. Artificial Selection My friend H. L. Mencken reads this |manuscript, and favors me with his expert opinion: “There is, in fact, only the very faintest desire among the literati that I know to write anything other than {what they do write—and I probably. know even more of them than you do.” This makes me think of a conver- sation which I once had with a lead- ing Republican statesman of New York; I happened to refer to the cor- |ruption of our courts, and the states- man corrected me with a smile: “No, our judges are not bought, they are selected.” The distinction is one of manners, and marks a stage of culture; it ap- plies to the arts, as well as to the judiciary, and I beg my friend Mencken not to think me so crude as to picture the writers of my country yearning to serve the cause of social justice, and brutally bribed into writ- ing against it. No, the system is more efficiently run. The masters of the tropisms | have the shrewdest brains in the world |to help them understand the literary temperament. They produce a social environment in which the sensitive young writer finds a hundred good reasons for respecting the sanctity of | privilege, and a thousand for looking down upon crude and noisy malcon- tents. And then, very gently and deftly, the sheep are sorted from the goats; those who acquire the leisure class manner are lifted up to prom- inence, while those who fail in the tests of gentility are put to selling in- surance or digging the ground. My friend Mencken is a man who fights hard for his ideas. He has called me a “tub-thumper” and other lively names in the course of our pub- lie battles, and he will expect to re- ceive as good as he has given. There- fore I am going to illustrate the pro- cess of artificial selection which goes on among authors, by telling my. ex- periences with the editor of a certain highbrow monthly magazine with ar- senical green covers. The editor of this magazine happens to know me, and being a human and kindly cuss, he is moved to ask me for contribu- tions. I, being the same sort of cuss, think up an idea or two, and suggest them to my editor friend; and so I test the process of polite selection hereby our literature is kept in | order, . I was asked to write something for the maiden issue. All right, TI wered. I would write an article discussing the editor of the “Ameri- can Mercury,” showing how his ignor- ance of economics made futile his thinking about the modern world, But this suggestion, for some reason, did hot meet with editorial favor! A second time I was invited, and sub- mitted a sketch of Jack London, which you may read as a chapter of he miners, or to call a strike, violated the anti-trust law and in-| -erfered With interstate commer In Pennsylvania a similar {“Mammonart.” I will stake my rep- utation upon the statement that this article is full of meat, as interesting a study of a man of letters as the “American Mercury” has ever pub- lished.- But it came back; and why? Because the life of Jack London hap- pens to illustrate the devastating ef- fects of aleohol upon genius. And don’t think that is a joke. My friend Mencken wrote me: “This magazine is committed to the policy of the re- turn of the American saloon.” I tried to argue with him; surely. it is the duty of a wise and tolerant editor to give both sides a hearing; if the side of the prohibitionists is weak, what better than to let them display their weakness? But Mencken answered that the question was one which did not permit of discussion; no dis- courtesy to John Barleycorn would be permitted to shock the sensitive readers of the “American Mercury.” One day a vagrant idea wandered into my mind, and I wrote a little sketch of Edward MacDowell, as I had known him, as a student at Col- umbia University. This manuscript had no social implications—unless you count the inability of Nicholas Murray Butler to comprehend the phenomenon of genius. My friend Mencken ‘was enraptured—‘“a most charming thing,” and so for the first time, and the last, I obtained admis- “en between the arsenical green covers. The article made such a hit that Mencken wrote more than once, inviting me to do a series of articles about the interesting people I had met during my life. But how could I do it, in the face of the pronibition against prohibition? The most in- teresting man I had ever known was George Sterling. I had known him for twenty-five years, and he had been a suitor for my wife’s hand in the days before our marriage, so she also had known him intimately; be- tween us we could tell the inner be- ing of one of America’s greatest poets, a most reserved and shy per- sonality. But alas! it would be an- other sermon against John Barley- corn, Mencken replied by asking me to write about George without men- tioning aleohol, which is funnier than Mencken could ever be brought to un- derstand—Hamlet without the ghost }would not-be a circumstance to it. So here you see a great editor in the process of “sélecting” the writers of America, in the interest of the saloon, Shall I be crude, and suggest that this editor is subsidized by the liquor interests? I have heard this said, and Mencken has heard it also, and the last time we met he: cited it among the dishonesties of prohibi- tion controversy. I have no doubt whatever that he told me the truth; he belongs, not among the judges who are bought, but among the judges who jare “selected.” He is of German de- iscent and continental tastes; an old newspaper man, he has always had his jcochtails, and always-meens to have them, and resents with personal fury the idea that anyone shall keep him from having them. It happens that Se SS ce. decision has been handed down. Mvietions, hunger, lack of clothing and the brutalities of the coal ind iron police torment the strikers who are fighting to save their union, In the face of such facts as these only fools and agents of the! bosses will call the courts impartial. Capitalist courts are no more impartial than a gun in the han ds of the Pennsylgania coal and iron police. | gentlemen of wealth share this point of view, and, observing Mencken’s ar- dor and ability, are moved to put up money to found a magazine for him, so that he may “select” writers who defend the American saloon, and eliminate_writers who point out the destructive effects of aleohol upon genius. After this process of arti- ficial selection has been going on for a sufficient length of time, my friend Mencken will look about him and observe that all the leading young writers of America are in favor of the return of the saloon, and he will cite that as a powerful argument in favor of his policy. As to John Barleycorn, there are two opposing camps, and I could get financial backing for a magazine to fight Mencken. But when it comes to hereditary privilege, this is not the ease, the holders of privilege consti- tute a solid phalanx for its defense in every field of human life.. They mean to keep their privilege and to pass it on to their descendants; and they are thoroughly organized, and thoroughly conscious. Their program, so far as concerns literature, may be put into one sentence—that all those writers who oppose privilege shall earn their living : by selling insurance or dig- ging the ground. Ever since the Bolshevik revolution, this program has been deliberately willed and executed, as much so as the latest merger of railroads or the subsidizing of Fascism throughout the world. There are a dozen men commanding billion dollar resources, who meet in Wall Street offices and decide what American culture shall be, and create the propaganda mach- inery to make it exactly that. The little man whom they have chosen to run these United States for them was a classmate at college with one of the group, so they know him thoroughly; he has been an office boy to the rich for thirty years, carrying out the bidding of those special in- terests which subsidize the Republican machine of his state. Now his friend and counsellor, a member of the firm of J. P. Morgan and Company, travels down to Washington and makes sug- gestions; and he has the backing of By Upton Sinclair Mr. Hoover, who has been a servant to millionaires all his life, and of old Mr. Mellon, who is so rich that no president could ever reject his advice. They have put a leading Republican politician in charge of our baseball, ‘and another in charge of our movies and three more in charge of our radio. They have got our newspapers so firmly in hand that out of several hundred Washington correspondents there is not one single man to prick the expanding bubble known as ‘the Strong Silent Man of the White House.” As to the question of which authors | shall write and which shall sell insur- ance or dig the ground, this rests with the publishers of our great maga- zines; and for these mighty men there exists a little system of breakfasts and luncheons at the White House, and week-end trips upon the naval vessel which is used as a presiden- tfal yacht at public expense. These honors are extended in regular rote, and the mighty men go away thrilled and inspired, knowing exactly what must next be done to keep the country in the right path. Don’t forget that these same publishers all come to the Wall Street banking houses when they need a few millions for their newest mergers. There are no independent magazines of big circulations left in America—they are all “chains” now, the Curtis chain and the Butterick chain and the Hearst chain and the Capper chain and the Medill-Patter- son chain and the Crowell chain—all of them run exactly like the depart- ment stores and shoe factory chains, upon the same principles of stand- ardizatién and mass production. They know what they are going to want a year from now, and they order their stories as they order their trainloads of paper from the mills; they even order their writers, they will take a young genius and “make” him, exact- ly as Lasky or Paramount will turn a manicure girl with pretty pouting lips into a world-famous “star.” And the result of all their activities you have just heard Mencken set forth: “There is, in fact, only the very faint- est desire among the literati that I knowW to write anything other than what they do write.” EVICTED % This has been home. Our children here have played Upon these floors and sorrow here, has laid Its hand upon us. Also we have known A little happiness. The winds have blown Us good and ill. Beneath this sagging roof My wife has toiled, borne children, held aloof From grim despair, while I down in the pits Have worked long hours where sunlight never hits, With one bright thought to keep me on my way The coming home again at end of day. Now all is changed. The lockout. Mine shut down. I've been without a job for months. The town Is dead. No work. The court long since decreed We must get out. What of the bitter need Of shelter for our children. What of wind And biting cold. The weather’s most unkind. The company has said that we must go, And here our furniture lies in the snow. Those red upholstered pieces that we bought In days more prosperous when we both thought America was free, the promised place Toward which we turned with hope upon our face, Where life held lots of fun for two such folk Who worked and liked it. The system played on us. That was all a joke Now here we stand Evicted from our home—in Freedom’s land! HENRY REICH, Jr. “‘|be for poverty? | Red Rays | NO Cane Alvin T. Fuller, of Mas- | setts who was chairman ex- officio, at the legal murder of Sacco and Vanzetti has returned from an icognito visit to Europe. Coincident- ally with his return it is announced that the ruling classes of Massachu- will take steps to amend their nal law so that it will be im- possible for workers convicted on a med murder charge to dodge the ir for six years. They will see to it that Sacco and Vanzetti have not died in vain! * * * Seer, a weekly magazine, of Dece: 10th, carries a letter from a person by the name of Earl Brennan of Los Angeles, which | sounds as if Mr. Brennan belongs to the stoolpigeon variation of the hu- man species. He claims that Sacco and Vanzetti were kept alive for six years so that the “hat could be passed and repassed.” This, fellow claims that Moscow “sent over here, raised over $350,000 and took it back to Russia.” Mr. Brennan claims that he was “on the inside.” What’s the lowdown on this bird? Or is he just | nutty like the great majority of Los Angelians? | * eee big contest for the publicity | championship of the world is now in its last lap with the field reduced to George Bernard Shaw and E, ‘laldeman—Julius. Shaw is a tongue ahead of Julius as these lines are | written, but the Girard whirlwind may pull off an illegitimate story at any moment that may have Shaw skulking | #mong the want ads, | * * * * ed has resorted to many schemes to get the Irish mad witn him, but despite Ins efforts he was not eminently successful untu iase week. it is true that he irritated many of them by taking sly digs at the pope, but the great majority of the Irish jare decidedly anti-papal and privately relished the dramatists’ castigation of the holy man on the Tiber. Shaw is getting old, and fearing that he might die without getting the entire Irish race on his neck, he made a last bold fiing for success and brought home the bacon. \ * * * HE charged the inhabitants of the trish Free State with being in- corrigible and incurable beggars. This blanket charge took them all in/ atheists, anti-clericals, catholics, so- cialists, laborites, intellectuals, petty bourgeois and bartenders. The come- back was like the reaction of a tem- peramental mule to the tickling of his heel. George is good for the front page for at least a month, or until all Irishmen who need a little pub- licity find the newspapers closed to their anti-Shaw fulminations. eal * * E HALDEMAN-JULIUS got most of his publicity, until recently by purchasing full-page advertisements in the big dailies. He has been sell- ing his “little blue books” with a “one more week only” slogan for the past five years. After all, a man that must pay for his publicity has some- thing wrong with his style. Taking his cue from Will Durant, who wrote a book about himself and his wife and child, Julius decided to marry his al- leged daughter to one of hi em- ployes. In order to give the affair standing he branded the thing a “Companionate marriage.” * * * HE made the grade, but he was not satisfied. So he decided to marry his wife a second time. This was good for a few more sticks of type but it was not enough. His next stunt was to declare that his alleged daugh- ter was illegitim&te, born six years. before his marriage to Miss Halde- man. And this is just where he wrecked himself. A Kansas miner whose daughter the girl is, went on the war path in defense of his daugh- ter’s honor and Julius is now leaving Girard, Kansas for Freeport, Illinois. Shaw wins. It is better to be cursed at than laughed at. eo 8 8 foe end of all poverty is near, says Dean Dexter S. Kimball, of Cor- nell University. Har, Har, Dean and Cheerio! You have lifted a heavy load off our chest. Somehow thit are looking brighter now; indeed fat this moment the sun has just emer from a cloud or a cloud floated; by the sun. Anyhow the sun is shYnine and we smell food. * * * Ya Dean does not think a volu- tion will be necessary to {abolish poverty. The big-hearted capitalists will accomplish this worthy aim. Ox productive capacity is developing > fast that there will be plenty for everybody, so what excuse can there This is the way it looks to the Dean. But drat it, if we are not full of skepticism, since we know that those big fellows have all the prosperity that is good for them just now, and that a further increase in-our productive machinery would only mean more prosperity for those who own the machines and not for those who make them hum. The work- ingclass will only enjoy prosperity when they help themselves to it—as a_ class. ie 1g [R= treasurer of a fund to establish a home for superannuated funda- mentalists, having disappeared under suspicious circumstances, was re- moved from his office by his board of directors. Perhaps he is taking a rest. in some cottage-by-the-sea after the fashion of adeiat go-getting evan- gelist. The treasurer’s elopement, strikes at fundamentalism in a very fundamental manner, so to speak. - O’FLAHERTY, | —T. J. Ce hs