The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 17, 1927, Page 8

Page Eight THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1927 THE DAILY WORKER 'N, Inc. | Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS Daily, Except Sunday 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. Cable Address: Phone, Orchard 1680 “Daiwork” | oele = | SUBSCRIPTION RATES : eet By Mail (in New York only): By Mail (outside of New York): §8.00 per year $4.50 six months $6.00 per year $u.50 six months $2.50 three months. (0 three months. " Addrest and mail out checks to | THE DAILY WOR First Street, New York, N. Y. -ROBERT MINOR WM. F. DUNNE st 21 eae Assistant Editor. office at New York, N. 1879. Entered as second-class mail the act of March 3, Can Hearst Injure His Profession? | A month or more after The DAILY WORKER proved by | unimpeachable documentary evidence that the very firs install- | ment of the Hearst documents against Mexico appeared with two | different dates in the editions of the New York American, all | purporting to be photos of one “original” document, the capitalist press of New York becomes morally indignant over Hearst’s al- leged degradation of the newspaper profession in general. The Hearst series of forgeries and faked documents, some | of which we proved to have been concocted right here in New | York City aroused no adverse comment on the part of the other metropolitan capitalist papers until Hearst, himself, in a snivel- ling, crawling exhibition before a sympathetic senate committee admitted that the whole series was based upon the activity of one of his own miserable hirelings, an unprincipled adventurer who has had a checkered career, including that of a spy on the Mexican border for the military “intelligence” service. At this late date the rest of the kept press bemoans the fact that Hearst has sullied its profession. Says the New York Times, Wall Street organ par excellence: “* * * already the results go far to discredit the methods used by the Hearst newspapers in this case and by so much to injure the repute of the press in general. It is this injury to his own profession wrought by Mr. Hearst which newspaper men will most keenly feel and resent.” The Times, despite its resentment against Hearst, has fol- lowed a consistent policy of publishing stories against the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics from the white-guard and imperialist | forgery mills in Riga, Berlin, Bucharest, and other nests of sw ind- | lers who for pay will concoct any sort of document. It published | as authentic the forged documents invented by the British spy | system to justify the tory raid on Arcos, the raid on the Soviet embassy at Peking and to this day frequently refers editorially to the mythical Zinoviev letter used in the tory elections in Britain | that placed Baldwin and his cutthroats in power. | The only reason that the Times and other papers today be- | labor Hearst is because this millionaire proprietor of a chain of | gutter newspapers speaks for a certain section of the capitalist class as opposed to the dominant power of Wall Street. One role of Ambassador Morrow of the House of Morgan in Mexico is that of trying to induce President Calles of Mexico to serve the interests of the big finance capitalists with heavy investments in Mexican | bonds. ‘Lhis threatened rapprochement between the House of | ‘uorgan and the Mexican government is viewed with alarm by Hearst and other oil, land and mine owners for whom he speaks. Hence his chain of newspapers is used for the purpose of com- bacing this tendency. he Coolidge-Mellon-Kellogg administration, however, can- not disclaim responsibility for such attacks on Mexico. It is evident that the Hearst campaign was based upon their own policies, obviously followed until Morrow began his efforts to bring Calles under Wall Street influence. The Hearst papers in- sisted, not without reason that their campaign was in perfect har- mony with the Coolidge policy. Certainly Kellogg, secretary of state, repeated the same sort of infamous attacks against the Mexican government. The New York Times and other papers that try to confine the present disgraceful exposures of the Hearst press to Hearst and his individual associates are guilty of a form of distortion of fact equally as vile as the Hearst fakes. Why doesn’t the Times! get indignant at Coolidge and his cabinet members who issued similar statements against Mexico? The difference between the Hearst publications and the New York Times is not to be viewed idealistically as a struggle between | good and bad newspapers—those who uphold some metaphysical | * entity known as “honest journalism” and those who besmirch the profession by resorting to the publication of fake documents. Tt is a conflict that has deep class roots, reflecting a division! (Continued from Last Issue.) XXXVUI The Days Departed HERE was another tramp poet in that happy age. He wandered over the country with a bundle of ‘Rhymes to be Traded for Bread,” and he made strange ecstatic draw- ings of his native town, which was going to become better than it was. Seing hungry for a better America, and. for young poets to make it so, { became a friend of Vachel Lindsay, and cheered him up and up—like a sky-rocket. We met in New York, and it was a queer session; sitting at lunch, he eyed me anxiously for a while, and suddenly broke out, “You’re disappointed, I don’t look the way you thought I would!” It was true in a way, for Vachel doesn’t appear the poet, except that he has a wild eye; the rest of him might be any well- ordered young business-man. I am disappointed now-a-days, and have told him so, because I can see little purpose or meaning in the hings he contributes to our highbrow magazines. Long ago I suggested to nim a theme for one of his chants— the Soap-box. He promised to do it, and years later I reminded him of his promise and he told me that he had within the ranks of the capitalist class itself. Hearst represents the smaller fry, while the Times speaks for Wall Street. It is a| conflict of policy. | The capitalist press, whether it is of the blatant Hearst calibre, | or the more suave, but none the less mendacious old-established | “organs of Wail Street, is maintained for the purpose of di: torting | the news in the interest of the class or the particular division of | the class it serves. The editors of all such sheets are journalists | prostituted to capitalism, who are ready at any time to grovel | just as low as is necessary to serve those who pay them. Such a depraved profession cannot be debased even by such cimen as William Randolph Hearst. a Negro in the Soviet Union written the poem; I had read it, and hadn’t known what it was about! Aniong my requirements for poetry |are that it shall lie within the limits of my understanding! if it does not, I leave it for more subtle critics. But I say of Vachel what I said of Harry Kemp: what he writes now does not alter what he wrote years ago, and will not count against him in the final reckoning. He has given jus one of our great radical poems, the tribute to Governor Altgeld, “Sleep softly eagle forgotten . under the stone.” And “The Congo” is a thing of glory, which needs nothing else to support it. Very probably, as Floyd Dell has pointed out, its rhythm and spirit were de- rived from Chesterton’s “Lepanto”; but that need not trouble us—ail By THOMAS L. DABNEY. E contrast betwe of the average American towara the Negro and that of the average ‘Russian is ciearly revealed in the ex- perience which Richard Hill, senior @t Lincoli University, had during his | trip. This group was very much di the conduct! appointed on finding that the Rus Th sians were go attentive to Hill. Russian students everywhere comed Hill as a comrade, and insisted | on his speaking, often asking for no| other speaker in the delegation. | trip to Russia the past summei r.| Out in the wilds of Til: went to Russia as a member of|one_ of the t the second delegation of American|broke down; and while they S.udents. waiting to get d on th Ni White Students Object. }over the mountains, a group of ous the party eager to get the latest news nm conversation with Mr. Hill re- gathered around htly the writer learned that his ex- erience with the white members of he delegation was, for the most part, discouraging. Some of the hhites objected to Hill as a member the delegation, and they tried to ve him displaced by a white stu- almost until the day the delega- sailed from New York. Mr. Hill, ver, insisted in remaining on the ation, and with the help of the peasants from America. The moment they dis- covered Hill’ in the rear of the car, they crowded around him, and on learning that he was an American Negro, they began to ply him with questions about the treatment of | Negroes in America. Among others the peasants asked: “Are Negroes still lynched in America?” “Can Ne- groes and whites intermarry?” “Do white and Negro students attend the | poets have to learn their tricks, and |if there were no origins and influ- ences, there would be nothing for the mpilers of doctoral theses to be lezrmed about. Vechel Lindsay as a man is worthy }of henor. He has lived for his high ling, and not soiled his name with wantonness. He has earned a simpic »| living by lecturing and reading his (pj. | poetry to audiences, I write of him here as a comrade, and say only what I have said to him personaily when we meet. I plead with poets, as with all other writers, to make use of the gigantic themes of our time, the so- cial struggles, and gropings of the masses towards freedom. Also, 1 plead with them to write simply, as the great writers have nearly always been willing to do, And much the same I have to re- port concerning another Socialist poet, Carl Sandburg. I got a thrill element in the delegation, he e ip. nts, who could \to same schools and colleges?” Every- where, according to Mr. Hill, Russians exhibited keen interest in the rac luring question and the Negro, y contributing to the “Chi . a Dons out of his early Chicago stuff, which I have failed to get from his later writings. He is earning his living by RE lie RF) cst Money Writes News”, and I understand our news- papers too well to expect him to say much of importance there. Just now, as I revise these proofs, one of the most popular of American journalists, Heywood Broun, is separated from the “New York World”, for the of- fense of speaking the truth about the Sacco-Vanzetti case. American journalism has devoured one poet after another whom I could name. I open a Sunday paper and find James Oppenheim writing about psychoanalysis. 1 have no quarrel with this subject, but I prefer Oppen- heim as the author of “Bread and Roses.” If we have a single poet in America who is able to live by his poetry alone, I don’t know who it can be, except possibly Edgar Guest. Poets have to recite, and give lectures—the wander- ing minstrel, as of yore. It is an improvement that the minstrel is not drenched and storm-beaten, but ar- rives in a taxi-cab, and has his berth in the sleeping-car paid for by his lecture bureau. But the fact remains that a poet who has to travel with the bourgeoisie, and be displayed be- fore them, comes automatically and unconsciously under the spell of our system of mass production, which op- erates upon men’s minds as well as their bodies, and ordains that every man shall look like a tailor’s adver- tisement, and shall think like the writer of the advertisement. * * * XXXIX A Friend In Need HERE are other novelists who are sticking to their jobs, and upon whom my hopes are centered. I be- gin with one whom I know weil, and to whom I cannot pay enough tribute, Twenty-two years ago she/came to be my secretary on a farm near Princeton — a quiet, unpretentious little woman, red-haired and bespec- tacled, and glad of a refuge from the maulings of fate. She had been a wage-slave of the Standard diction- ary, and her eye-sight was ruined, and her life a torment as a result. When you got to know her you dis- covered that she could observe, and understand what she saw, and her sly sense of humor could become a weap- on of defense in case of need. But no one knew she was a genius—I doubt if she knew it herself. We took her to Helicon Hall, and there she met Allan Updegraff, a young poet, whom later she married, “Up” was there as Sinclair Lewis’s chum, and those three had a litte table in our dining-hall, and doubtless did no end of laughing at the queer assortment of humans about them. It was a laboratory for writers—I count ten who were then known or have since become so. Edith and “Up” parted, and she married a work- ingman and went to live with him in the tobacco country of Kentucky. So we have one of the classics of Amer- ican fiction, “Weeds,” by Edith Sum- mers Kelley. I do not know of any quality which a novel of workingclass life could have which this novel lacks. It has - Daily grace of style, dignity of manner, in- rs | “I JUST HAD LUNCH WITH THE PRESIDENT.” Tavob BU RC/ mma By Burek tensity of feeling, exactness of ob- servation, ‘and depth of insight. It has beauty, tenderness, wisdom; yet it is nothing but the story of a young country couple, tenant farmers, who struggle and suffer and fail, as a mil- lion of the soil-slaves of America fail- ed last year. It is certainly an en- during book, but I am not content to have it recognized by the next gen- eration. I want it to be recognized now, so that its author can write other books. Edith’s husband is a wage-earner, and she has two chil- dren to protect from capitalist Amer- ica; also, she is half blind. “Me,” she writes, in a letter not meant for the public—‘me, I am as discouraged as a wet caterpillar. For nearly a year I have been taking an eye cure, and although I have made a great deal of progress, I am still a long way from being able to read with any sort of ease. Just think, for nearly a year By Upton Sinclair [that I sometimes wonder if I can ever I have read absolutely nothing. My daughter, who is now fifteen, occa- sionally reads aloud a little of an eve- ning and that is all. I am getting so dead for lack of mental stimulation come to life again.” Having been myself at various times both poor and ill, I am aware that fine words butter no literary parsnips. I write this in the hope that someone will not merely get “Weeds” and recognize a proletarian masterpiece, but will take steps to see that Mrs. Kelly gets the help she needs. She has another book under way; and all my life I have been will- ing to do unconventional things to save a worthwhile book, my own or another’s. Great books are the seeds of the future, and the most import- ant things we have in our world. (To Be Continued.) By JAMES P. CANNON The New York Times, the organ of big business, is making its annual plea for contributions for Christma. to the “100 Neediest Cases.” Other capitalist papers and organizations are conducting similar drives. The men, women and children of the work- ing class who have been on the rack of capitalist exploitation and are now dropped into the abyss of misery and poverty are chosen and classified by these arch-hypocrites so their sancti- monious appeal can be made to the comfortable capitalists to soften the bitterness of these few workers with the insuit. of charity and to salve their own conscience by ‘acts of “gen- erosity.” This horrible farce is annually re- peated in scores of other cities. Xmas and Class War. The militant workers have nothing but hatred and contempt for such ap- peals and drives. This year, there- fore, they are again following the world-wide custom that has developed in the-ranks of the working class for many years. It is the custom of rais- jing a special fund for the men in prison for the labor cause and their wives and’ children, of transforming the hypocritical spirit of Christmas into the spirit of solidarity with the class war fighters behind bars. The International Labor Defense has already started a campaign for a Christmas Fund for the men in prison, and their dependants who suffer on the outside. The labor mili- tants throughout the entire country are working to collect this fund. No- where has the appeal or the response been made on the basis of charity, That has been left to the harpies of capitalism. Everywhere has been em- phasized the duty of the men who are outside toward the men on the inside. Aid Class Prisoners. The imprisoned fighters know the value of the money that is sent to them regularly by the International Labor Defense, and especially the Christmas gift of $25 to each prison- er, $50 to each family, and $5 to each child, And they appreciate even more the feeling of solidarity they get inthe BUILD THE DAILY WORKER! A Christmas Fund of Our Own knowledge that the movement outside is still interested and is still deter- mined to fight for their liberation. The workers belonging to the I. L. D. and supporting its work have not forgotten them and their dependent families. The men in prison are still a part of the living class movement. The Christmas Fund drive of International Labor Defense is a means of inform- ing them that the workers of Ameri- ca have not forgotten their duty to- ward the men to whom we are all linked by bonds of solidarity. It is the Christmas drive of Labor and must have its generous support! William Pickens Shows Class Basis of White Subjection of Negroes “White psychosis and ideology has for its purpose the sordid business of one group or class living by the sweat of an economically subjugated Negro”, declared William Pickens, field secretary of the National Asso- ciation for the Advancement of Col- ored People, before the Harlem Edu- cational Forum, 170 W. 130th St., on the subject of “The Condition and Prospet of the Negro.” “The color question resolves itself primarily into the economic struggle and only secondarily into the color problem”, he declared, after citing the case of how the colored barbers monopolized their trade in the South until the barber trade has become eco- nomically desirable and the whites began to pass laws to protect white women from Negro barbers. “The lot of colored paople in the United States is that of an economically in- ferior class with racial super- stition thrown in, “Negro capitalists have same out- look upon efforts for economic re- form as the white capitalists.” “The ultimate solution of the prob- lem is really in economic co-operation of the white and colored workers,” font Red Rays ies workers’ revolution in Canton, China appears to have been crushed for the moment and the crushing was accomplished with typical imperialist ruthlessness. The following Associa- ted Press dispatch gives a picture of the manner in which the revolution- ists were massacred: “The need for a trial, which could only have had one result, was a thing nobody thot of. They (the radicals) were led to a va- cant lot not far from the central po- lice station. Five times rifles spat their leaded charge, five bodies in turn wilted to rise no more.” *. * . ‘HIS short paragraph speaks volumes. The Chinese militarists, panic stricken with the fear that the exploited millions would succeed in winning the fight for economic and political freedom, vented their rage against the masses when the oppor- tunity presented itself. Now, the Chi- nese nationalist press is howling with the imperialist wolves against the Soviet Union. This same press hailed with joy the assistance rendered to the Chinese nation by the Soviet Union when China was being made the cock-pit of foreign imperialist war and the civil wars of the native mili- tarists now, that the nationalists have gotten the price of their treachery, they would have no more of the Soviet Union. Cee eae eae most recent attempt of the Chi- nese workers and peasants to break their chains has ended, for the mo- ment in defeat. This is no new his- torical phenomena. But as sure as the guns of the militarists spat out their messages of death into the bod- ies of the proletarian leaders of the workers and peasants, the Chinese revolution will eventually succeed. * * * Ree socialists of the type of James Oneal, editor of the New Leader are peeved over the impres- sions that James Maurer of Pennsyl- vania took home with him from the Soviet Union. Maurer was well pleased with the progress made by the workers and peasants of the for- mer empire of the Czars on the road to socialism. The yellow socialists would have the masses believe that there was no progress being made in the direction of socializing industry. This for the workers who believe in socialism. But when appealing to those who oppose socialism, the right wingers told a story of Communist dictatorship and persecution of big and little business men. * * . No™: Maurer, a socialist of stand- ing and one in whom the masses in Pennsylvania have confidence re- turns from a visit to the Soviet Union with the conclusion that the workers are improving their economic condi- tions, that the government is in reality a government of the workers and peasants and that the workers thru their unions and other economic organizations have a determining voice in the fashioning of the policies by which they steer their way thru the economic shoals that dot their course. The right wing socialists are very angry with Maurer, which is not surprising. * * THREE hours ‘before Lindbergh landed in Mexico City, three New York newspapers appeared on the streets with the news that the aviator had already reached his goal. They simply took a chance. Another news- paper, chagrined because its competi- tors got the jump on it, issued an ex- tra, exposing the news fake pulled off by the go-getting sheets. Lindbergh got there eventually and one of the rags that anticipated his landing, brazenly boasted of its turpitude, with a picture of the headline announcing Lindbergh’s arrival three hours be- fore he actually landed in Mexico City and the usual “if you want the news while it is news read the Evening Piffle.” At that, a newspaper that gives you the news before it happens should be more deserving of support than one thet only gives the news after it takes place. . * . (eee RANDOLPH #EARST took the witness stand Thursday in the senatorial investigation of his Mexican forgeries and admitted that he did not know whether the docu- ments were genuine or not, but that he believed some of them were, The suspicion that Hearst is the victim of, a mild form of lunacy may be diffi cult to prove, but that he took a lo chance in suggesting that four Umi- ted States senators took Calles’ money ~—a chance only a lunatic would take, since senators are crazy like foxes— is now quite obvious. We shall wait with more or less impatience to see what happens to “Willie.” * * * HE G. O. P. may step into the Queens sewer scandal, we hear. This is not surprising. If there is a scandal hanging around all dressed up and with no place to go, you can depend on the G. 0. P. to pick it up. Juicy sewer scandals are its favorites. Since it happens that the democracy also has a crush on sewers there is a good deal of rivalry. The logical thing for both to do would to be to try common ownership. of sewer graft. But apparently the boys can= not agree on the division of the spoils. As the anti-socialists say “you cannot change human nature.” oe. * FAMOUS last phrase: See you at the Color-Light and Costume Ball ht.