The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 25, 1928, Page 6

By THE DAILY WORKER Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS'N, Inc. Daily, Except Sunday $3 First Street, New York, N. Y. Cable Address: i SUBSCRIPTION RATES By Mail (in New York only): By Mail (outside of New. York): $8.00 per year $4.50 six months $6.00 per year $3.50 six months $2.50 three months. $2.00 three months. ‘Addresr and mall out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. Y.- Editor... .-ROBERT MINOR Assistant .WM. F. DUNNE Bntered as second-class mail at the post-office at New York, N. ¥. the act of March 3, 1879. Phone, Orchard 1680 “Dalwork” —_— under Fletcher Supplements Coolidge’s Message When Coolidge delivered his “message” to the opening ses- THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 1928 KING OIL sion of the Pan-American conference, he emphasized as a part of his “good-will” program the necessity of establishing air mail | routes to the Latin-American republics. Now comes Henry Py letcher, Latin-American expert on the United States committee | at the conference, with supplementary explanations that reveal the real motive behind the Coolidge proposition. Fletcher, who returned to America from his post as am-| bassador to the fascist tyranny of Mussolini at Rome, for the | specific purpose of aiding in the conspiracy at Havana, announced to the conference that the United States could not accept the | proposed draft of a commercial aviation treaty unless certain changes were made that would safeguard the United States naval | bases and the Panama Canal from any possibility of air attacks by other powers. Fletcher specifically mentioned the necessity of amendments to the general commercial air treaty that would safeguard Guantanamo, the United States naval base just east | of Santiago on the southern shore of Cuba. Thus, the good-will drivel of President Coolidge is translated by Fletcher into mili- tary terms. Fletcher’s proposals mean nothing else than that the United States intends to utilize the present conference at Havana to draft air treaties that will force all other powers to) “eircle Panama by flying over the sea and to avoid Guantanamo in the same manner. The puppet governments of Cuba and Panama will grant its imperialist master any restrictions it de- sires to impose upon other powers; that is one of the conditions of their existence. In spite of all the twaddle about the non-political character of the conference at Havana, and the deceptive claim that the Pan-American Union is a purely economic organization, the veno- mous features of the war-monger, the insatiable ravager of na- tions, can be clearly perceived. The menace to Latin-America is combined with a threat to European nations that also have imperialist interests in the southern republics. financial power that is slowly stifling British influence in Latin- Amerca is supplemented with military preparations. And such preparations are political, just as all wars are political reflexes of profound economic antagonisms. Commercial aviation is only a very thin disguise for the building of a whole series of military air bases. The same planes that carry mail can also carry high explosives to wreck death and destruction upon whole popula- | tions. -This fact Fletcher does not attempt to gloss over but frankly, in contrast to Coolidge, discussed commercial aviation in terms of military preparedness. The Pan-American conference is a warning to the American working class that the war-mongers are driving forward at a terrific pace toward the next world conflagration in which mil- lions of workers will be called upon to lay down their lives in all | parts of the world to defend the far-flung imperialism of Wall Street. In this, as in many other respects, the working class of the United States and the victims of Yankee frightfulness in the Latin-American countries have a common task of fighting with all their power against the machinations of the imperialists at the Pan-American conference. i A combined drive of the working class and impoverished farmers of this country with a bloc of Latin-American nations against American imperialism is the only effective answer to Coolidge, Hughes, Fletcher and the rest of the war-mongers. A Lady Politician Plays the Game Randall J. LeBoeuff, commissioner appointed. by the Tam- Many governor of New York to investigate the census scandals involving a lady republican politician, Mrs. Florence E. S. Knapp, has made his report, which reveals the lady as almost as expert in the traditional game of American graft as the best trained Tammanyites of the democratic party. His report charges the elegant lady, luminary of the Mellon-Coolidge-Hoover forces in New York state, with sundry high crimes and misdemeanors, in- cluding juggling of payrolls by the old device of false audits, mak- ing false certifications, forgery, grand larceny, removal of public records and padding payrolls in behalf of a whole list of relatives, —mother, cousins, brothers, sisters, various in-laws. Criminal prosecution is recommended in the report and anticipated by the actions of the district attorney of Albany who announces that he will consider the possibility of placing the whole mess before the grand jury. Mrs. Knapp is the first woman to hold a high state office in New York state, and her record indicates that women servants of the capitalist class in public office can play the game with the same abandon as the men. A capitalist politician, whether male or female, when indulging in plunder of the so-called public treasury, acts entirely in the spirit of the class he or she represents. Some are unfortunate enough to be exposed. Let no one imagine for a moment, though, that the investiga- tion which has just been concluded by Tammany politicians at the behest of Al Smith, is indicative of the fact that Tammany is averse to such practices. As a matter of fact the investigation was started by Smith as a counter-blast to the speech of Teapot Teddy Roosevelt at the republican state convention, which ar- raigned Tammany as still the old beast of prey, wallowing in cor- ruption. The burden of the Roosevelt speech was that Tammany had not changed its stripes. The speech was instantly followed by the investigation of Roosevelt’s political associate, Mrs. Knapp, and the whole Knapp family. Such revelations are becoming so common these days that they no longer evoke widespread interest. The public, for the most part, remains apathetic, taking it for granted that one of the prerogatives of politicians is to enrich themselves from the spoils of office. The working class should study and learn the lessons of such incidents. It can get the true meaning of the matter only if it does not fall for the bunk about honest business administration. From a working class point of view the question of graft reveals not only the calibre of the political lackeys of the master class parties, but also impels recognition of the fact.that the very sys- tem itself, based as it is upon violence against the working class in order to maintain the out hindrance, must The relentless | By Fred Ellis New York Lenin Memorial Shows Drive Possibilities |By JACK STACHEL, National Or- | ganization Secretary, Workers (Com- munist) Party of America. HE tremendous demonstration at Madison Square Garden Saturday evening at which 23,000 workers of the city of New York gathered to pay homage to the great leader, Len- in, on the fourth anniversary of his death, shows the immense influence jenjoyed by the Party in the New | York district. | This achievement is particularly no- table in view of the fact chat a series of very important meetings and af- fairs have been held only a short time |prior to the Lenin Memorial Meet- jing. Among them the Defense | Bazaar of the New York needle trades workers, meetings of protest against the Nicaragua invasion by the United States marines, and only a few days before the splendid demonstration which marked thé fourth anniversary of The DAILY WORKER at Mecca Temple at which some four thousand workers attended. Added to this must be the fact that an admission charge was made at the Garden meet- | ing and in the face of tremendous un- employment existing here. | Yellows Surprised. The enemies of our Party looked forward with great impatience to this Lenin Memorial Meeting, for they surely believed now that the struggle in the needle trades has not yet come to a head, that the struggle is still very sharp and that the conditions of the workers in the factories are not very good, that the open shop is gaining ground; they believed that this would enable them to lay the blame for the demoralization of the union on the shoulders of the Com- munists and left wing and that they would find a response among the masses. This demonstration at Lenin Mem- orial is again proof of the fact that the masses understand that it is the right wing Sigman machine, that it is the right wing furriers, and the right wing in the needle trades gen- erally that are responsble for the present conditions in the needle trades, and that it is thanks to the fact that the left wing had been on the job fighting, raising the slogans of struggle against the bosses, con- ducting a struggle against the em- »loyers in the industry, that there is still some unionization in the in- dustry. This demonsfration is proof of the fact that the masses in the needle vades still follow and will continue to follow the Communist and left wing leadership and succeed in com- pletely destroying the influence of | the capitalist class to exploit the There is no remedy in findi the right wing machine, drive them out of the union, and re-establish a strong and powerful industrial union in the needle trades. Party Influence Grows. Not alone among the needle trades can the Workers Party record its in- fluence, but the last year has seen the growing influence of the Party among other workers such as the water-front workers, the traction workers, metal workers, and many other sections of the working popu- lation of the city. This again thanks to the fact that the Workers (Com- munist) Party has been the only force, which together with the left wing, thru its leadership, has suc- ceeded in bringing many sections of the workers nearer to it and have them adopt its slogans of struggle. The Lenin Memorial demonstration shows that the Workers (Communist) Party of the New York district has great possibilities in the Lenin and Ruthenberg Memorial Membership and DAILY WORKER Drive. This influence of the Party must be crystallized into organization. Hundreds and even thousands of those who attended the meeting are ready to join the Party and must be approached in every way possible and drawn into our Party as added forces for renewed and more intensive struggle against the capitalist class and against its agents in the labor movement. Already at the meeting hundreds of workers have signified their in- tention of becoming members of the Party. These workers must be fol- lowed up immediately and brought in contact with the Party organization in the various sections of the city. Every effort must be made to reach those others that were not yet ready to fill out the application on Satur- day night, but who with additionaf*in- formation and literature and agita- tion will be ready to join our ranks. One of the means of drawing these workers closer to our Party is to make them regular readers of our central organ. This is the task of our Party mem- bership at the present moment. Our Party thru its nuclei in the factories, thru its fractions in the trade unions and fraternal organiza- tions, must approach all sympathetic workers with a view of having them become readers of our DAILY WORKER and finally with a view of drawing them into the Party organi- zation. In approaching this membership drive we had to take into account the tremendous unemployment that exists at the present time, and we must make it our motto that no eo est” or “dishonest” they exist as a part of the state apparatus that itself exists only to perpetuate class inequalities—enabling working class. ing “honest” politicians to serve the capitalist state. Not all capitalist politicians indulge in such flagrant graft; the more astute of them realize that the same results can be obtained without becoming entangled in the corrupt practices acts. For the working class the issue is not good and bad politicians, but the class character of the old political parties, Tammany Hall, Al Smith’s machine, is as deeply: steeped in graft as any aggregation of political crooks in the world. The recent revelations in the Queens sewer scandal, involving Con- nelly, Tammany borough president, in grafting contracts, smells as bad as any sewer explosion and reveals the Tammanyites still at their old game. The Knapp case is brought up at this time not merely for state political purposes, but has national significance. It will be utilized in the coming presidential campaigns, in order to silence the Roosevelts and other republican politicians who threatened at the New York convention of their party to make Tammany graft tional campaign issue against AbSmith. It is at best a ques- of the pot calling the kettle black. ane a fe i worker should fail to receive our paper, The DAILY WORKER, sim- ply because he is unemployed. Those of our comrades that come in contact with unemployed workers or workers on strike must send their names to The DAILY WORKER and explain that these workers are unemployed or on strike and The DAILY WORK- ER will make provisions for them to receive a free copy of The DAILY WORKER at the headquarters of the DAILY WORKER or the district of- fice. Also our Party members must buy copies and distribute them free to those of our sympathizers who are unemployed or on strike. The Workers (Communist) Party has also made arrangements that those workers who are unemployed or on strike will be admitted into the Party without initiation fee and will receive exempt stamps until they are employed. We can look forward to a big and successful drive for membership in the New York district that should net our Party a minimum of a thous- and new members within the next six weeks. Let’s go to it! The job is worth while! In the drive for 5000 new members New York can even go above its quota of 1000. i By LELAND OLDS, (Fed. Press). How the Rockefeller Standard Oil interests with their allied bankers of the Kuhn-Loeb group, will reap mill- ions in profits from their reorganiza- tion of the Chicago Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad is suggested in a scath- ing dissenting opinion by Com- missioner J. B. Eastman. He objects to the interstate commerce com- mission ruling authorizing the bank- ers to proceed with the plan. His discussion makes it clear that this is just one more of the intensely profit- able financial juggles which the dominant financiers have put over on railroad and industrial corporations in order to cement their control. Eastman points out that specula- tion has been rife all along the line and that the stock offered the best op- portunities. He says: “Most of the large stockholders of the old company unloaded some time before the receivership. Immediately thereafter the common fell to about $3.25 and the preferred to about $7.50 a share. The announcement of the reorganization plan, providing very generously for the stockholders, stimulated the upward movement. Present prices are around $20 for the common and $37 for the preferred. Transactions have been heavy.” The large stockholders, prior to the reorganization, were the Rockefellers and the other nabobs of Standard Oil’s National City bank family. A study of New York stock market quotations shows that these financiers could have unloaded in 1923 at prices rang- ing as high as $26.37 for St. Paul com- mon and $45.50 for the preferred and in 1924 at prices ranging up to $18.75 for common and $32.12 for preferred. Immediately following the announce- ment of the receivership March 18, 1925 they could -have repurchased and added enormously to their hold- ings at less than $5 a share for com- (By Young Colorado Miner) A that operates for the “people.” |The form of government now in ex- istence in this country is what the capitalists call a democracy. i Are not the miners people and not dogs? If they are people are they not entitled to live as human beings should live? The government is supposed to be for the peovle, and yet when some of |these people strike for living wages and living conditions this government “for the people” sends out gunmen to slaughter them like dogs. This is capitalistic democracy. This shows Rockefellers Clean Up On St. Paul R. R. Loot mon and less than $10 a share for preferred. The stock market records also show that transactions in St. Paul stocks during 1925 exceeded those of any re- cent year, involving the sale of more than 2,000,000 shares of common and 3,000,000 shares of preferred. As there were actually outstanding only about 1,170,000 shares of common and 1,160,000 shares of preferred it is apparent that the opportunity for the big boys to gobble up St. Paul stock on the bargain counter was practically unlimited. The preferred stockholders com- mittee is practically 100 per cent Standard-Oil Kuhn-Loeb. It consists of chairman M. N. Buckner of the New York Trust Co., President A. W. Loasby of the Equitable Trust, Pres- ident John McHugh of the Mechanics & Metals National Bank, Harold 1. Pratt of the Standard Oil Pratt family and a Milwaukee banker. New York Trust, Equitable Trust and Mechanics & Metals bank are recog- nized instruments of the Rockefeller Kuhn-Loeb outfit. The committee’s counsel is a Rockefeller corporation lawyer. The common stockholders committee is just aS clearly ‘repre- sentative of the inner circle of this banker-oil combination. From this it is clear that the St. Paul reorganization was pulled for the benefit of this group. To the millions in fees collected as reorgani- zation managers they will add tens of millions as result of increase in the value of the stock which they se- cured for almost nothing in the period of uncertainty when only insiders knew what was to be done with the looted railroad. ‘The reorganization is not satisfactory even to the ma- jerity of the interstate commerce commission who let it go through, but it is eminently satisfactory to the looters. DEMOCRACY ° this fs, are the handful of bosses and DEMOCRACY is a government |vot the great mass of the toiling peo- ple. 4 When a man kills a dog he is fined and sometimes thrown in jail. When some gunmen kill six miners, not even a proper investigation is made. This is American democracy. There are thousands of miners now on strike and are being treated like dogs, not human beings. Are we, the working\class youth, going to let this go on without giving utmost effort to organize relief? Organize relief! For it is one of the most important factors in winning this struggle. It is a battle to make that the “people” whose government |us human beings and not slaves. SPARKS from the NEWS ‘HE American Communists have for some time been emphasizing the increasing menace of the war danger. One of the worst enemies of the American workers in the fight against the war danger is the vacifist and his deadly propaganda. The other day Rear Admiral Charles Plunkett, commander of the Brook- lyn Navy Yard, told his friends in the National Republican Club a se- cret that will be heard round the world. He said: “Another war is in- evitable, as long as our commercial and industrial expansion continues and our foreign trade increases in volume and extent against that of competing nations. Efficiency in business, too damned much of it, perhaps, has brought us wealth, which is exactly the reason why we are in danger of a conflict today. We hold a command- ing position in world trade and we are going to keep it. We need a navy equal to that of any other power. We have our choice of creating one or of submitting to bullying and dragging our heritage of honor in the muck, crawling along on our belly like a worm and doing our best to play safe.” This is a vulgarization of some of the truths that we have been repeat- ing to the American workers in re- cent months. Congressman LaGuardia, who has in the past received the endorsement of the socialist party and who is a good standing republican, told the ad- miral that he was talking nonsense and that it was impossible to conceive of a war between England and America. LaGuardia, in one respect, is a worse enemy of the workers and ex- ploited farmers than Plunkett. Even the politically backward American workers can detect the dangers in Plunkett’s promises but they cannot yet see the insidious poison in La- Guardia’s illusions. Besides La- Guardia, like the rest of the pacifists, will as much remain pacifist during the war that is on the way as he and his coterie did in the last imperialist war. Pacifism only serves to blind and mislead the workers. Pacifism is in the last resort an ally of imperialism. Captain “Comrade” LaGuardia had better keep such advice for himself. The workers will heed Plunkett’s words. But they can do so effec- tively and profitably only if they mo- bilize to declare war and to fight a war against imperialist war. * * * Mie Filipinos are awakening to a sorry fact. They have been spend- ing hundreds of thousands of dollars sending their nationalist representa- tives to Washington. Quezon, Os- mena, Roxas and Gueverra and such others, have been lavishly entertain- ing and almost as lavishly been en- tertained in Washington at the ex- pense of the Filipino workers and farmers. These gentlemen thought that in this way they could get con- cessions from the American govern- ment. For some time they were fighting against General Woods’ “cavalry cab- inet.” Woods died. The Filipinos heaved a sigh of relief tho they ex- pressed sorrow. Colonel Stimson, the “pacifier” of Nicaragua, was then sent in to work to take Woods’ place. For a moment, the leading nationalist leaders, whose lickspittle attitude towards American imperialism often borders on the line beyond disgust, had illtsions about Stimson. They thought that their sycophantic kow- towing attitude had at last brought them “reward. And a reward it was, for, tho Woods is gone, his cavalry cabinet remains. Brigadier General Halsted Dorey is going back to the Philippines to help Stimson and to hurt the Filipinos. On this basis the Filipino Senator Quirino says: “The worst is yet to come.” There is only one way in which the worst can be avoided for the Fili- pinos. The Filipino workers must as- sume the leadership, must become the backbone of the movement against American imperialism. They must clean out the corrupt elements now heading the Filipino struggle for in- dependence from Wall Street. If Quezon and Osmena won't fight Wall Street, then they should be fought to a finish and cleaned out. Things are bad enough for the Filipinos at pres- ent. There is no reason why the worst should come, —JAY LOVESTONE. Cops Bought “Bottled Sunshine” JERSEY CITY, N. J., Jan. 24— Police officials and business men of this city were gulled into investing $200,000 in a “bottled sunlight,’ in- vention of one Tomadelli which its in- ventor claimed would draw energy from the sun and ‘thus furnish con- ‘inual electric energy. The affairs of the Tomadelli Blecttronic Corpora- tion, which failed in 1926, @re now be- ing investigated by the State At- torney General with a view to prose- cuting Tomadelli for fraudulent {