The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 16, 1927, Page 6

Page Stx THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1927 TH z£ p AILY wo R K ER KEEP THE COAL MINERS’ POT BOILING Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS’N, 11 Daily, Except Sunday 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. Cable Address: Phone, Orchard 1680 “Daiwork” SUBSCRIPTION RATES By Mail (in New York only): $8.00 per year $4.50 six months $2.50 three months, By Mail (outside of New York): $6.00 per year $3.50 six months $2.00 three months. Address and mail out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. Y. Editor... asewtant itor... . ROBERT MINOR .. WM. F. DUNNE i&ntered as second-class mail at the the act of March 3, New York, N. ¥. under ost-office a fs 1879. Throttle the Imperialist Butchers! Again the bloody fangs of American imperialism have sunk | into the bodies of workers and peasants of China. Again under the pretext of protecting American lives and | property the gunmen of Wall Street have played a murderous | role by participating in the counter-revolutionary drive of foreign imperialists, the bloody Chinese war-lords and the reactionary | bourgeoisie against the matchless heroism of the workers and | peasants of China. Not all the facts regarding the struggle in Canton can be obtained for the reason that the imperialist and counter-revolu- | tionary ring has isolated the city and only news favorable to them | can reach the outside world. So vicious, so filled with hatred | - and fear of the revolution are the stories in the capitalist press | * that no credence can be given Times correspondence that “the them. We are informed by the radical rabble has been routed,” that “the rebels, who were comprised of the riff-raff of the city, were linked up with certain robber bands of the country districts.” It is thus that the reptile press describes the revolutionary work- ers and peasants of China who are fighting against the despoila- tion of their country by the imperialist marauders and their} native agents, the bourgeois generals who are for sale to the) highest bidder. In spite of the paens of victory that are bellowed forth by the enemy press, even the most malicious of them admit that fighting is still in progress and that the revolutionaries still hold the police station, which is in reality an arsenal, still have re- luctantly to confess that the flag of the Soviets, the red banner of the revolution, still floats defiantly to the breeze. But even though that symbol of the revolution is temporarily brought down, not any excess of tyranny can long stifle the movement. Not even the most frightful mass executions can do other than} to more firmly steel the workers and peasants. new and more widespread uprisings are inevitable. In spite of all defeats, against all the international banditti and their native lackeys, the Chinese revolution will continue and eventually annihilate the bourgeois counter-revolution and scourge from the soil of China the armed forces of the imperialist powers. In this struggle the workers of this country can aid the Chi- nese workers by an unrelenting struggle against imperialism, agai who resist dollar despotism. cs ~=evard-of the Chinese Soviets! We must demand that the the war on China and the bloody ravaging of other peoples Workers’ organizations of the United States must come to armed forces be instantly with- drawn and the workers on the docks and in transportation service must be made acquainted with the monstrous role of the armed forces of America in China so that the shipments of arms, muni- tions and provisions to maintain can be stopped. Coolidge Contradicts In his message to congress their war on revolutionary China Own Prosperity Talk the opening paragraph of which was the repetition of the banalities about our “unexampled pros- perity,” President Coolidge had occasion to refer to the Mellon tax program, wherein he inadvertantly contradicated himself. Speaking of tax exemptions “until 115,000,000 people make returns.” Coolidge said they had increased but 2,500,000 individual taxable Let us pause here and briefly analyze this statement in the light of the much-vaunted prosperity the republican propa- gandists claim for the country. All incomes of married heads of | families under $3,500 are tax exempt; incomes of single persons are exempt up to $1,500. THe vast majority of the two and a half million who pay individual income taxes are capitalists, large or small. According to reports of the internal revenue department wage earners who pay income taxes are less than 900,000. are thousands of high salaried them economically in the small capitalist category. Included in this category executives whose income places Of actual wage-workers who pay income taxes there are no precise figures, but it is no exaggeration to state that they must be below the half million mark. To be sure Coolidge does not even refer to the classification * of individual income-tax payers, but lumps them all together, big bankers, merchants, industrialists, professional classes, and the well-paid workers who receive wages far above the average. Including all these, only one person out of 46 in the United States pays income taxes. Out of his own mouth the president proves that his pros- | perity talk is baseless. The: Workers Forum | A Society Woman’s Benevolence. Editor, DAILY WORKER: | A New York and Chicago society woman who lost one of her ears in \ an automobile accident advertised for i, oltered uWwo invusanu S and five hundred dollars,for an ear tym a white persou not over twenty- Vive years of age. A mother of a baby who had heavy bills to pay, offered her ear for four thousand dollars. The &odiety woman is willing to pay the ‘amount if the operation is success- ful. Is it not a crime of that woman without the ear to seek out some poverty stricken mother, (for only a poverty-stricken mother whose love for her child is so intensified by the jaw of nature would sell an ear te save her baby), and tempt her with money? The petiy reason she gives ior her |seeking an ear is that she has been | forced to wear long hair to cover the |deformity. She now \her hair | desires to bob | Little does that poor, young mother | realize in what jeopardy she puts her- { in and also her baby. Her opera- tion may not be successful. SHe is likely to get blood poison and die. We need a different system of so- ciety. We need sanitary houses to live in, wholesome food, a four-hour day work, more time for recuperation, and individual development, also bet- ter schools for our children. This could easily be accomplished if we would do away with such parasitic creatures as society people are. —FREDA MARGULIS. New York Citv. New struggles, | } PER ee mere, RAR Ee | Thousands of striking miners and their dependends are in dire need and living in outdoor camps because of eviction3 from company “homes.” They need money, food and clothing to keep them alive thru this struggle until they win. — (Continued from Last Issue.) XXXVII. Boobus Americanus poe how to open this chap- |* ter, through some whim of mem- ory I return to the fashion that was {taught me in my tender youth, We \had, in our homely old college, an in- \stitution known as “chapel.” At eight-forty-five every morning we as- sembled in a large hall, to gaze upon a platform decorated by a row of white-haired old gentlemen, the fac- ulty. Our “prexy,” an ex-brigadier- general, would read us from an expur- gated edition of the Bible, and then a more or less rattled upper classman would be summoned to the platform to pronounce an oration of his own inspired composition. For a week or two in advance he had been coached for the ordeal by an instructor of elocution, ho would take his manu- | script and mark it here and there on |the margin with cryptic initials, seg? | which meant a gesture with the right |hand, “lg” which meant a gesture with the left hand, and “gbh” which meant a moment of especial inspira- tion, signalized by a generous, all embracing gesture with both hands. So we would take our stand upstage centre, with sixteen hundred eyes \fixed upon us, and trembling visibly in the knees, and quavering in the voice, we would begin, according to an ancient and immutably established pattern, as follows: Henry Louis Mencken, one of the most influential and widely-discussed of modern critics, was born in Balti- more, Maryland, on the 12th of Sep- tember, 1880. He is of German par- entage, and was educated in the pub- lic schools of his native city, and in the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. He began his career as a journalist, }and was for many years connected with the, daily which Baltimoreans know as the “Sunpaper.” He then became editor of the “Smart Set,” and for ten years imparted to that monthly a character unique and sui generis. (We had compulsory Latin for five years at our college, and we always got some of it in.) He then founded the “American Mercury,” and has built up a large circulation and still wider influence by crificism | expressed in a pungent and arresting | | style— | | I get that far, but 1t doesn’t seem | right, and at last I realize what is! the matter: never during the entire! \five years of my interment in this} venerable college did I hear an ora- ion pronounced upon a subject who} s guilty of the vulgarity of being alive. So that was a false start, and I try again, in the fashion of those pungent and arresting biographical sketches which appear each month be- tween the arsenical green covers. So: Upon an overstuffed, plush sofa in the reception-room of the fashionable Women’s Athletic Club of Los An- geles there sits a short and solidly made gentleman with bright china- blue eyes and the round rosy face ot inatural and inevitable manifestations jof thé boobus Americanus. ~ Money Writes graphed the district superintendent, and this worthy had notified the con- ductor of the train and all the station agents on the line, so that hospitality might not cease during any hour of the day or night. The steward of the dining-car brought pots of steaming coffee, and the “butcher” brought: baskets of fruit, and the train con- ductor brought real Scotch, or so he said, and the Pullman conductor con- jured' a magical mint-julip, and at every stop there was a local deputa- tion, with flowers and brass bands and beautiful. smiling maidens; in short, it was exactly like a presiden- tial campaign tour, except that the victim would rather have been read- ing a book. His china-blue eyes twinkled with mischief and his rosy face grew apoplectic as he pictured the efforts of a weary editor to close his eyes in slumber while the outside air rang with “Hail to the Chief!” and the door of the compartment had the varnish worn off* by tapping knuckles, The eminent editor had written that he was coming to see me; and I had mentioned the matter to friends, | never dreaming the risk I was run-/| ning. One day the story exploded like a bomb-shell in the newspapers, | and after that my telephone was never still. One newspaper announced that I had announced that Mencken was going to address the local Bab- bitts; and then it printed an inter- view with the secretary of the local Babbitts, saying that Mr. Mencken wasn’t going to address them, and who was Mr. Mencken anyhow? An- other paper announced that I was going to make a socialist out of Mencken, and then came an interview with Mencken en route, saying that it was a mistake, heywas going to make a drunkard out of me, All the newspaper men I know begged for a seat at that fight when it came off. But it was a poor show; you don’t argue with Niagara, and you don’t interrupt a circus. Mencken is in a Berserk . rage against stupidity, dullness and sham; he is a whole army, horse, foot, ar- tillery, aviation and general staff all in one, mobilized in a war upon his enemies. He has a spy bureau all over the country, which collects for him illustrations of the absurdities of democracy, and he sorts them out by states, and once a month they appear between the arsenical green covers, and once a year they make a book, “Americana, 1927.” If you ask Men- cken what is the remedy for these horrors, he will tell you they are the If you ask him why then labor so monstrous ly, he will say that it is for his own enjoyment, he is so constituted that he fds his recreation in laughing .at his fellow boobs. But watch him a hile, and you will see the light of hilarity“die out of his eyes, and you will note lines of tiredness in his iface, and lines of not quite perfect health, and you will realize that he is lying to himself and to you; he is a new-style crusader, a Christian Anti-Christ, a tireless propagandist a cherub, He is about to play the, lion at a luncheon in the dining room, and meantime he is entertaining small group with a diverting accoun of the adventures of a Babbitt-hun: ter in the land of Babbitts, H. L, Mencken has been making a tour o: the South; and when he boarded th train in New Orleans, very much in need of sleep after days of festivities, he discovered that the general pas- senger agent of the road had_ tele- of no-propaganda. Once I got him to be serious, and he told me the real basis of his faith, which is liberty; he wishes to abolish every restriction upon thought and expression, and to reduce restrictions upon action to the absolute minimum, hepatic cells; when I tell him that such a man becomes a dangereous lunatic driving a fast machine on a public highway, Mencken says get off the highway; when I say that he de- stroys the health of his posterity, Mencken says that is posterity’s hard luck. At least that is the best I could make of it; he has a tendency to be- come incoherent when the subject of prohibition is raised, and it took sev- eral samples of my rich uncle’s pre- Volstead stock to soothe him into rationality again. 4 He, lashes with his powerful lan- guage the stupidities of bureaucrats and the knaveries of*politicians. He declares that government is “the com- mon enemy of all well-disposed, in- dustrious and decent men.” I protest to him that this is a rather sweeping statement; for example, our govern- ment distributes the ‘American Mer- cury,” and is it then “the common enemy of well-disposed, industrious and decent men’? He replies—I am quoting from a written controversy— that the government doesn’t want to distribute the “Mercury,” and wouldn’t if it could help it. But that is ob- viously no reply, we are discussing a matter of business, not of psychology, and the fact is that the government does distribute the “Mercury,” on precisely the same terms as all other magazines. I cite the fact that it issues many postal orders for five dollars each, which the publishers of Mencken’s magazine collect. He re- plies that the government loses most of these orders. I cite the fact that the government will. come and save his house if it catches fire, and he answers that fire departments are so inefficient that most fires burn out. These statements illustrate an un- fortunate weakness of our great lib- ertarian crusader, he has very littie regard for facts; all he is thinking about is to amuse and startie. he once made a tunny newspaper article about me as the man who has believed more things than any other man alive; he managed to compile a plausible list, by including a number of things which I don’t believe and never did; also, a number of things which all sensibic men believe—inciuding Mene- ken himself, if you could pin him down; and finally, a few things which 1 believe because I have investigated them, and which Mencken disbesieves because he is ignorant about them. For example, fasting. 41 have pub- lished a book setung forth the iact that fasting will cure many diseases. Mencken has never fasted, and has never read a book on the sub,ect—I managed in our correspondence to bring out that fact. i have taken the precaution to fast twenty or. thirty times for longer or shorter periods, and I have received letters from thou- sands of others who have tried ij Since -my book appeared, sixt years ago, many of my contentions have been vindicated by exact scien- tific research, at the Carnegie lab- oratories and other places. I offer to my friend Mencken the results of work done at the Hull Biological Laboratory of the University of Chi- cago, and reported in the “Journal of Metabolic Reseafch,” showing the re- sults of thirty and forty-day fasts upon human beings and dogs, a per- manent increase in the metabolic rate of five or six per cent. Inasmuch as decrease in the metabolic rate is one of the phenomena of old age, it fol- lows that the effect of fasting is re- those things which are obviously and immediately harmful. When I sug- est that a man who takes alcohol into his system destroys his hepatic lis, Mencken says to hell with his juvenation—which is exactly wha: I have been asserting for sixteen years, But did Mencken trouble to consult the “Journal of Metabolic Research” before compiling his list of Sinclair absurdities? No indeed, and he By Upton Sinclair didn’t consult it afterwards; I am still waiting for him to tell his readers the vitally important facts which have been established about fasting. Again, I was rebuked in Mencken’s review of “Mammonart,” for having suggested an identity in the funda- mental ideas of Jesus and Nietzsche. That seemed to Mencken the height of absurdity; but he did not give his readers the words I had quoted from Jesus and Nietzsche, which are in sub- stance identical. My friend Halde- man-Julius came forward to rebuke me for disputing with such a Nietzsche authority as Mencken; so pardon me if I mention that Mencken’s study of Nietzsche bears the date 1908, while you will find in my “Journal of Arthur Stirling,” pub- lished in 1903, a complete statement of the Nietzsche philosophy, with translations of many passages. Liberty, says Mencken. So let me quote him a few words from his great master. “Art thou such a one that can escape a yoke? Free from what? What is that to Zarathustra! Clear shall your eye tell me: free to what?” And that is the time when Mencken’s eye becomes clouded. The darling and idol of the young intelligenzia has no message to give them, except that they are free to do what they please— which they interpret to mean that they are to g& drunk, and read ele- gant pornography, and mock at the stupidities and blunders of people with less expensive educations. Mencken has “made his school,” as the French say; he has raised up a host of young persons as clever as their master, and able to write with the same shillelah swing. For the present, that is all that is required; that is the mood of the time, cynicism, ridicule, and con- tempt for democratic bungling. But some day the time spirit will change; <merieca will realize that its problems really have to be solved, and that will take serious study of exploitation and wage-slavery, of co-operation and the democratic control of industry— matters concerning which Mencken is as ignorant as any Babbitt-boob. There lies on my desk his new book, an onslaught upon democracy. In the fly leaf he has written: “Up- ton Sinclair, to make hinr yell!” And perhaps this is yelling: ige for yourself. My friend Mencken has made the discovery that the masses of the people are inferior to himself; but that political fact was known to every French marquis of the ancient regime. We agree that we want the wise and competent in power; the q is, how are they to get th ue! 2 been given a long t omits fo tell us wh of wars and intrigu tions he finds the i present we have a on the right of ac ing capital to have this system the “A ‘an Mercury” has built up a hundred thousand cir- culation, and the popular editor not nearly sd discontented as he talk But meantime the masses of labor s themselves disinherited and dispos- sessed, and the rumble of their pro- test grows audible. Sooner or later my friend Mencken will have to face these new facts, and choose between the bloody reaction of Fascism and the new dawn of industrial brother- hood. Being seven’ hundred and twenty-three davs olded than he, I am going to be his euide and mentor through those tryine times, and he will learn, even while he fusses and scolds and insists that he won't. (To be Continued) > WIGHT MORROW, our ambassa- dor to Mexico, did not give Lind- vergn his pajamas but he gave him his blessing. That’s more than William Randolph Hearst would give nim, unless the pajamas could be forged. At that “Lindy” is worth his {room rent to the House of Morgan. | And just now he is as valuable as a dose of prussic acid to Hearst. Tho few will believe it just now, Lindbergh . is a more dangerous enemy of the Mexican masses than the discredited He: Even the readers of the rror know that Hearst is an un- upulous war-maniac. But they can- not see that the genial Lindbergh is a ser ble tool of the dominant wing of American imperialism which flies the eagle of war or the dove of peace as the situation demands. But the im- perialist dove is just as predatory a bird as the imperialist eagle. * * S these lines are written Hearst may be on the witness stand “be- sore a senatorial committee to tell where and how he secured the forger- ies which he has been using in his papers in his campaign against the ane: n government, I have already referred to the seif-styled “interna- uonal spy” “Dr.” Joseph Nosovitsky, who first broke into the news thru ais activities in the radical movement, or rather on the fringe of it. Noso- vitsky not only spied on the leaders the radicai movement, but he windled those who empioyed him to spy on them. Which proves that Joseph is a perfect spy, than whom there is no lower form of animal life, * vt | * Noe is an “expert” on Mexican affairs. He was employed a few years ago by a capitalist named Marsh and former police com missioner Woods of New York to sup- ply them with the “facts” on Mexico’s alieged relations with the Communist International and the inevitable Mexi- can plot to capture this country. Joseph hired a comfortable room in New York City and produced the goods, for which he received money trom Marsh and Woods and more from the Hearst papers. * * TPs column is taking form before the origin of the latest collection of forgeries has been traced, but it is logical to assume that Hearst, need- ing some ammunition in his private war against the Mexican government should turn to his family stoolpigeon for aid. Even should it be proved that Hearst knowingly purchased the forgeries from Nosovitsky, the pub- lisher is already so thoroly discredited that any more contumely that may accrue to him thru the probable ex- posure of his political turpitude will be as barren of result as a dose of castor oil to a dead mule. * * * * NOSOVIESKY tried to horn in on the Passaic strike, but he stubbed his toe against the strike organiza- tion and was forced to retire for shelter to his favorite sewer. He was employed by the Korn Detective Agency to spy on the Hungarian Count Karoyli; and is now suing the finkery (slang for detective agency) for $100,000. Should the scope of the present senate investigation be widened to a thoro probe of forgery mills and detective agencies, Hearst may have unwittingly done the Ameri- can workers a good turn, * * * Wo on the subject of spies, it may interest our readers to know that the government has approxi- mately 4,500 spies on the payroll right now, according to a Washington news dispatch in the United Press News Service. After the Teapot Dome scan- dal exploded and blew Daugherty, Burns and other patriots out of the Department of Justice, and the brains out of Jess Smith, a small army of stoolpigeons were given an indefinite leave of absence by the Coolidge ad- ministration. But it appears that a new set of snoopers has been hired since then, And they are not all working for the bootlegging industry, that valuable by-product of the pro- hibition amendment. * * 'HE field of operations for go- getting Russian countesses and baronesses is shrinking like a magic carpet in the possession of a man of many needs. Since the Russian revo- lution, divers nobles of both sexes have panhandled their grub on Fifth and Park Avenues to the great delight of our democratic aristocracy and the profit of the expropriated nobles, Bui ten years is a’ long time and ot ich must find fresh thrills, t refugees should know better ay poor so long. Continual insolvency is the most ‘irritating hue man weakness. A * * ND this is exactly’ what Countess 3ronislawa Lampricht de Pets- chenko learned to her sorrqw. The countess organized a ball for the benefit of Russian refugees and high moguls of New York society lent their names to the charitable’ effort, But suddenly suspicion began to breed rumors and the countess developed a convenient illness. Exclusive cireles are now wendering whether Mme. de Petschenko is a countess or merely an ambitious chambermaid. Anyhow the ball is off and the residents of our two most fashionable avenues are hoping that another European mon- archy goes broke so that a fresh crop of unquestionably legitimate nobles may be available. ~T. J. O'FLAHERTY. ‘