The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 15, 1928, Page 6

~ «Page Sx THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WED DAY, FEB. 15, ‘528 THE DAILY WORKER /!"¢HT For THE “DAILY” ee ORRASISERGS 8 aa aS Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS'N, Inc. ‘ Daily, Except Sunday 83 Ficst Street, New York, N. Y. Cable Address: “Dsiwork” 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. Phone, Orchard 1680 — ‘and mail out checks to Addt THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. Y. SES Etitor.....-- > oeevences .-ROBERT MINOR Assistant Editor........+- ..WM, F. DUNNE Entered as second-class mail at the the act of penton at New York, N. ¥. under larch 3, 1879. Defending Radio Stoolpigeonism in the Name of Debs--- -. The Latest Infamy of Socialist Party Leaders “Free speech for stoolpigeons in institutions paid for by Workers” is the latest slogan of The New Leader, official organ of the socialist party. WEVD, the radio station erected to the memory of Gene Debs, allowed one J. R. O’Brien to defend the conquest of Nica- ragua thru its broadcasting apparatus recently and The New Leader for February 11 compliments the management and re- marks: “The station is living up to its claim that all opinions ean be expressed through it and it is the only station in this country of which this can be said.” O’Brien is a professional stoolpigeon and agent-provocateur of the lowest type. The New Leader claims that he spoke for the American Legion and if this is so it means only that O’Brien has attached himself to this fascist organization because it offers him an opportunity to get its backing for his stoolpigeon activities. In 1920-21 O’Brien was acting as a police informer among the | Trish Republicans and in such organizations of revolutionary workers as Irish American Labor League. At the height of the prosecutions which followed the Palmer raids and during the crisis created by the Wall Street explosion and the attempt of William J. Burns to use it for new persecutions, O’Brien was connected with and speaking for such anti-labor organizations as the Con- stitutional Defense League, the National Security League, etc. O’Brien was shrieking for the jailing and deportation of all work- ers who did not accept the mass arrests and the open shop drive as a blessing. O’Brien also maintained close connections with Harold Lord Varney, the miserable degenerate who left the I. W. W., became a government spy and who specialized in turning over Trish and Hindu revolutionists to the British authorities. From time to time O’Brien has tried to set himself up in business as the head of an independent stoolpigeon agency but these attempts apparently were not successful since he always ay turns up as the agent of some established anti-working-clags spy ft and propaganda agency. The body of Debs, the grand old fighter who was hounded by stoolpigeons to the day of his death, must have turned over in his grave as the voice of a professional provocateur went out from the station which bears his name. Many crimes have been committed in the name of free speech but this latest action of the socialist party bureaucracy is not only a crime against the working class but an insult to the memory of Debs and to every working class fighter living and dead. By what process of reasoning does The New Leader arrive at the conclusion that to allow a known stoolpigeon to use the Debs radio station to defend the rape of Nicaragua and the mags murder of Nicaraguans by Wall Street imperialism is a service to the masses who must make war against imperialist war? From every other station in the United States (with the possible exception of the station of the Chicago Federation of Labor) go speeches upholding Wall Street and its Government in their bloody imperialistic Nicaraguan adventure. If the Debs station is anything else than a camouflaged adjunct of the impe- rialist propaganda apparatus it is its duty to announce that no defense of American invasion of Nicaragua will be permitted thru its channels. It is not the task of working-class institutions in war situations to prove,a devotion to free speech in the abstract put to use to their capacity their power to counteract the flood of imperialist propaganda. The socialist bureaucrats of WEVD have permitted one of the lowest varieties of stoolpigeon to justify the war on Nicaragua and have laid the basis for an appeal for enlistments in the army and navy of Wall Street being broadcasted from the station that bears the name of the revolutionist who served three years in Atlanta for his opposition to imperialist war. If the socialist party leadership puts free speech in the ab- stract before struggle against imperialist war then they will cer- | | | | | By Fred Ellis Capitalism, thru jingo organizations, is trying to smash The DAIL Y WORKER. Help the American working class, by helping the “Daily.” | © | | | | By H. M. WICKS. HOUSANDS of impoverished men stand in breadlines on the Bowery and the Lower East Side in this, the wealthiest city of the world. In the bitter cold of winter masses of half- clothed, hungry men are huddled to- gether for hours in the bread-lines that grow longer with each passing day, waiting like docile beasts for their crust of bread and cup of swill that passes for coffee. The capitalist press canvassed a few of the missions on Sunday and found the totals’ at each of the six leading ones higher than at any pre- vious time since the close of the world war. As early as two o’clock in the afternoon a breadline begins to form in the Bowery between Houston and First Street, just one block from the office of The DAILY WORKER. In the terrific storm of a week ago thou- sands of men stood in that one bread- line, soaked to the skin and chilled to the bone in the bitter driving sleet that was falling. Slowly, almost im- perceptibly those who had stood for hours passed into the filthy, smelly dump called a relief station, raven- ously gnawed the crust of garbage, gulped a cup of black liquid and passed into the bleak night. As the hours of the night slowly vanished the pile of bread-crusts grew smaller. When it disappeared completely, there were still hundreds of men who had patiently and silently stood on the bread-line who were told that there was nothing for them. Still many of them stood, they had no place to go. They had guessed wrong in their pla- cid desire to secure a bite of bread. The other bread-lines were closed} they could not again try to obtain relief from the line until the next day, * * pRer the unemployed men, denied | even the crust of bread because they were not in the line early enough, |did not stand there contemplating | their fate very long. The people who | conduct the “relief station” had no- | tified the police that closing time was | near and that many would have to be *. | turned away. To permit hungry men} , to stand too long after they realized) ; they could not obtain even the most ~* “tainly allow recruiting appeals to be broadcasted. This will clinch | meagre crust might result in demon- a still further their claim to be “the only sincere advocates of free speech.” The right of way given to O’Brien, the professional stool-! pigeon, by a radio station which claims to have a workingclass character, for the purpose of strengthening Wall Street’s war program, is a nauseating incident but no accident. It is an in- fallible indication of what is to be expected from the socialist party leadership as the war plans of American imperialism ma- ture and the masses begin to mobilize for struggle against them. Masking themselves with pacifist and democratic phrases these socialist leaders will act as agents of the imperialist war machine. The O’Brien incident and the shameless defense of their action by The New Leader occurs while only a “little” imperialist | war is in progress. But as is the case with the army and navy of imperialism in Nicaragua, the “little” war is preliminary training ior a big one. The recent exercise in radio stoolpigeonism by the ‘socialist party leaders while this “little” war goes on is a setting- /_up exercise to fit them for more ambitious efforts when the big ‘war breaks out. ~The Debs station must either be rescued from the hands of hperialism’s “socialists” or exposed as a camouflaged Wall Street anda outpost. ‘Stoolpigeonism in the name of Debs should arouse those workers who still accept the leadership of the socialist party to stern protest against the use of the glorious Debs tradition by socialist party bureaucrats against the interests of the working ? ait. | strations that would be highly un- pleasant reading for those who stil! prate about “Coolidge ‘prosperity.” | Hungry men, brought together in the hope of obtaining a scrap of garbage to eat, and then refused even that, |might together discuss their plight, | and decide to try to obtain something from the elegant shops a few blocks hunger, have been known to smash {shop windows to obtain food. They have broken into churches and public buildings to find shelter. The docility lof the men on the bread-lines | might | vanish in the course of mass diseus- sion. So almost simultaneously with the devouring of the last crust by | some ravenous. worker unable .o ob- tain employment, the uniformed min- ions of “law and order” appeai and brutally disperse the remainder cf the breadline, careful always to prevent the forming of even small groups. feet along the Bowery, under the shadow of the “L,” trying to find doorways in which they may” stond during the remainder of the miserale night. ¢ * ESIDES these tens of thous: who haunt the breadlines, there a other thousands who still manage +9 nds shelter themselves and faritilies i: 'cause they must become mothers of, i houses, apartments and tenements, but who daily visit the slave market applying anxiously.to.the employment sharks fora chance to earn a living. The homes of these workers beggar description. -A’ few weeks’ idleness means intense. poverty and indescrib- able suffering. Countless thousands of children go to school- hungry every day .in. New York ‘and other cities throughout the country. In times of unemployment the pangs of hunger knaw deeper. Each evening women and-children, wives of the unemployed men, wait’ anxiously the return of the father who has been in search of a job, only to be plunged deeper into the slough of despair. Four million, or nearly ten per cent of the tota! number of workers in the United States are unemployed, according to statistics a month old. Another mil- lion. or two must have been added since these figures were gathered. But figures alone can never depict the actual devastation of unemployment. When millions of men are out of em- ployment it means many more mil- lions of human beings dependent upon away. Masses of men, impelled by'| Then the individuals drag their wary’ 'e| dogs is not endangered. them suffer hunger, misery and de- gradation. . * 'HILE the breadlines grow ever longer in the Bowery and the Lower East Side, a short distance away, on Park Avenue, Riverside Drive, and other nests of parasites, those who have reaped millions off] the-unpaid labor of the working class, a part of which now comprises the unemployed army, daily give to their wives or other kept women, millions of dollars in platinum, diamond and pearl baubles. One kept lady on Park Avenue receives. from a Wall Street banker a gift to adorn her hair that would feed ‘ten thousand men for a week. _Back=in—the-Bowery Mission, 800 men sat on Sunday and listened to the ignorant-bellowing of a pulpit pound- er;-Who_ told them-that God would provide:for them ‘and that the institu- tions-of today-are ordained by: God, before-they- were permitted to receive a travesty on sandwiches and coffee. ~But-comparisons between those who live in‘idleness, ‘luxury and~ debauch- ery_off--the wealth created by the ‘Workers, “and the army of unemployed is-@ commonplace. .We ‘will pursue that: comparison no further. 3 “s+ 8 ET us. make another comparison. Madison Square Garden is warm and comfortable—even gorgeous— these d Two thousand dogs are t ient being ministered to by paid ‘sefvants- of, the “ plutocracy. They do not have to listen to poison- ous talks: to the effect that if they are. good dogs, content with their ex- istence here upon earth they will go to. a dog heaven where there is warmth, brightness, an abundance. of fresh-killed meat and plenty of health- ful fresh milk. They get all that and more and none, of.them ever stands in a’ breadline: one second. Not one of the lackeys that care for the Madi- son. Square dogs would dare offer one of them the food that men on the Bowery stand for hours in the hope of getting. 3 These 2,000 dogs are assembled at Madison Square Garden for the an- nual dog show of the Westminister Kennel Club. It is one of the events of the season for the nabobs of the country. The temperature of the place that shelters the dogs is kept at a certain point so that the health of the The bitch dogs are objects of special care, be- | the future thoroughbreds. The sug- gestion that the same care be bestowed upon working class mothers would be considered intolerable impudence. . * * pes for dog and man for man the dogs have a far better time of it in New York. Even the capitalist state, the instrument of oppression that exists for the special purpose of perpetuating economic inequalities, has laws against cruelty to animals, and would penalize any person who forced a dog to stand for hours, soak- ing wet and cold in a blizzard before being permitted a bite to eat. Nor would the owners of the dogs now on exhibition at Madison Square Gar- den consent to permit their whelps to inhabit, even for one night, the miserable quarters that shelter fam- ilies of the working class. This contrast between dogs and men under capitalism is glaring in its inequalities. The working class is not considered the equal of the ruling class. We are not even considered the equals of the dogs of the ruling class. 5 In face of such contrasts as the Bowery and Madison Square Garden this week we are told that it is sinful to preach class hatred; that the capi- talists are nice people and that we ought not: despise them; that all of us are products of our environment, Sentimentalists and preachers of dirty sermons to the working class forget that the present system of cap- italist’ exploitation which reduces hu- man beings to a condition inferior to that of dogs is maintained precisely by that capitalist class through the use of its government—police, army, courts, hangmen, and the rest of the array that makes up its executive and legislative and judicial branches —and that the working class must come to loath and despise the s m and its beneficiaries as its implagable enemy that must be destroyed before “Men and Dogs in New York we have a world where workers will be considered as good as dogs. Woy ae ee effort must be made by the advanced section of the labor move- ment, the left wing and by that mo- tive force of militant labor struggles, our Workers (Communist) Party to organize the unemployed workers into Unemployed Councils throughout the whole country and put forward in- sistent demands, not requests, for re- lief -of the unemployed workers and their families. If Madison Square Garden and other public buildings can be used for dog shows they can be used to shelter unemployed and _ homeless workers. The masses of workers on the breadlines must be mobilized to march in thousands and tens of thou- sands and force the opening of the churches and other public buildings as places of shelter. A special fund for unemployment insurance should be raised by a tax on the industries of the state and nation. Public works should be started and men employed at full union wages and those not able to obtain work should also re- ceive union wages. Public schools should be forced to feed the children of unemployed parents and no land- lord should be permitted to evict the family of an unemployed worker. The labor unions should instantly begin the inauguration of shorter hours, without wage cuts, in order to en- able a larger number of workers to be employed. Every effort must be put forth to mobilize the army of the unemployed into the class-conscious labor move- ment in order to strengthen the revo- lutionary forces of the United States so that we can bring nearer the day when the masses will avenge thei? degradation by defeating the capital- ist class and its government and pro- ceeding to destroy the very soil upon which capitalism grows. Poverty and Prosperity—Charity and the Poor By BILL DUNNE. DEERE the period of “prosperity” |. now ending, the weight of the ma- terial put out by the capitalist propa- Gls ganda machine has been so heavy that it has almost smothered criti- cism of the daily effects of the capi- talist system manifested in the liv- ing. conditions of the masses... Now that unemployment is increas- ing and the Labor Bureau, Inc., esti- mates the unemployed army at 4)-’ 000,000, when.a slackening of produc- tion is noticeable in” practically.all basic industries, there are appearing once more the surveys of living con- ditions, income minimum budgets ‘worked out by various “social wel- fare” organizations. Such @ survey has been. made re- cently in Philadelphia—a typical At- lantic seaboard city containing prac- tically all kinds of industry from tex- tiles to locomotive building.- The sur- vey is based upon 552 families apply- bad for aid to a charitable organiza- ion. Eighty-eight per cent of the heads of the families cited were earning ess than the $38.15 per week which the Philadelphia Bureau of Municipal Research fixed as the “cost of living” income consistent with a “decent liv- ing minimum” for a family of five. The lowest possible budget for a family of five in Philadelphia has been. fixed at $22.57, It is all Rent: . A glance at this budget is suffi- nt to show its utter inadequacy for anything “except a miserable exist- ence. Yet it is on such budgets as these"that arguments as to the extent of poverty in America are based. --But- even below this starvation level: for a family of five the survey disclosed another stratum consisting of 79 families, out of 552 studied, whose ‘income was less than $20 per week. jIt must also be noted that the weekly income figures give an exag- werated idea’ of the total yearly in- come since it is cut down in the ma- jority of cases by sickness (which brings added expense) and by unem- plcyment for short or long periods. The following conclusions are drawn by the compilers of the above statistics: “In the wage group of less than $40 per week there were twice as many families in which there was sickness as in the wage group of $40 or more a week. The lower the wage the larger the number of families in which there was illness, the greatest number being in the less than $20 a week group. A student of infant in Johnstown, Pe....by the The End of “Prosperity” Federal Children’s Bureau, showed that infant mortality was the highest where the wages of the father were lowest and that infant mortality was lowest where the wages of the father were highest, the death rate of babies falling in each higher wage level.... It would seem as if physically as well as financially the poor were really poor.” Not only are the poor “really poor” but there are millions more than is ever indicated by the welfare work- ers. There is in the United States no government social insurance, unh- employment insurance, sick insur- ance, maternity insurance, etc., whose work compels the collection of the mass of statistical data so necessary for an accurate estimate of the ex- tent of actual poverty. Furthermore, the individualism still rampant in the American work- ing class, the remnants of the tradi- tion that poverty in America is the fault of the poverty-stricken them- selves, the dominant tendency to as- sign shiftlessness and laxness as the primary causes of poverty—a theory carefully nurtured in the columns of the capitalist press, the movies, the schools, etc.—all impel the average worker suffering from the effects of capitalism in this respect to conceal his misery rather than apply for and accept charity. The belief in the unshakable sta- bility of American capitalism, the idea that America is still a land of boundless opportunity—a survival of the free land epoch and the period of tremendous industrial expansion—all tend to make the poverty-stricken masses in the United States suffer in silence. Occasionally revolt breaks out but it is still correct to say that unemployment has as yet produced no great upheavals in the United States and Coxey’s army is treated as a sub- ject for ridicule. Neither has the fact that millions of American workers and their families are living at or be- low the subsistence level produced a really great mass movement. The weight of tradition is one rea- son. Another is that among this sec- tion of the population there is the minimum of organization. All this must be changed. ‘The col- lapse of the permanent prosperity myth after so much emphasis put on it by the paid publicists of capitalism including the official labor leader- ship, will lay the foundations for re- volts of this bitterly exploited section of the masses. Unaided and without some political clarity being infused they will fritter out into nothingness and leave no tradition of struggle.” Especial efforts must be made to get out literature-leaflets, pamphlets, ete.—dealing with elementary issues —and either distribute it free or at a price within the means of the low- est paid worker. Remember that the “welfare” budgets make no provision for reading matter of any kind. The contract between the conditions of the workers in the Soviet Union, where all forms of social insurance-- death, accident, sick and unemploy- ment provisions—are taken as a mat- ter of course and administered jointly by the unions and the government, can be drawn easily. Struggle on the basis’ of remedying the miserable conditions under which the lowest paid workers live—struggle for high- er wages, against high rents and high prices—can be organized. Demands for the establishment of the various forms of state social in- surance can be raised and the cam- paign for a labor party as an impor- tant medium for securing these re- forms carried on effectively. There is another important angle to the work among the masses living at or below subsistence level: It is that in raising the demands for cer- tain forms of government insurance a blow is struck at the class coopera- tion policies of the capitalists and their agents. The lack of existence of these palliative measures and the refusal of the official labor leadership to make a fight for them, allows the capitalists, with their welfare schemes and forms of social insur- ance, to appear as philanthropists, as though they were giving the workers something—over and above their ac- tual wages. The “full dinner pail” slogan. can still be used by the capitalist politi- cal parties and with some modifiea- tions is still used as in the days of Mark Hanna. It is our task to take advantage of the weakening of the permanent prosperity idea to direct the resentment of the poverty-strick- en millidns towards the capitalist class and its government. To do this successfully we must expose the daily curse that capitalism is in the lives of the working class and show that only by struggle can even the most fla- grant evils be eradicated. Struggle around elementary issues of this kind will give the most exploited workers the training and experience for great- er and more decisive struggles against imperialism. Oil King Gobbles Up Small Upstate Town TARRYTOWN, N. Y., Feb, 14, — Further encroachments off the town of Pocantico Hills have been made by the family of John D. Rockefeller, when the oil king’s family bought out the property of two more inhabitants of the town yesterday. Before the Rockefellers arrived 25 years ago, Pocantico Hills was a flouris! town of over 1,000 inhabitants, acquisitions by. the Rockefellers now reduced it to a hamlet with | \