The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 24, 1928, Page 8

rage Eight THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURD. MARCH 24, 1926 THE DAILY WORKER) Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS'N, Ine. ; Daily, Except Sunday 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. Phone, Orchard 1680 | Cable Address aiwork” SUBSCRIP’ ae RJ a ms By Mail (in New York only): je of New York): $8.00 per year $4.50 six mor $3.50 six months $2.50 three months. }0 three months. Address and mail out checks DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, } ew York, N. Y. RT MINOR F, DUNNE THE tor. tant Editor. . WM. Entered as second-class: mail York, N. Y., under the ce at New 1879, at the post-of act of March 3, Against the Tide He is planning still another move John L, Lewis, through fraud and terror, agent in the workers’ ranks for the most vicious and brazenly corrupt, government clique in American | history, representative of all that is reactionary in the American labor ney ement, has yet another move to make before the tide ye-The-Union Conference sweeps him under, is lying low these days. Hardly bombastic arch-traitor while wave after: wave of the| e forces have been sweeping over the mine districts. Lewis is lying in his lair waiting for the moment which he} thinks opportune for a last desperate gesture. Lewis is planning an eleventh hour lion’s roar which he hopes will drive terror into the hearts of the weaker insurgents. But Lewis has waited too long. the power of his customary weapons, bombast, fraud, murder. The movement of the mine workers has passed beyond the! point at which it will be stopped by such forces. The events of the past few months have driven this fact home to the minds | even of the Lewis henchmen. The tide has already risen to leveis | on which the Lewis machine can no longer operate. One more blast from Lewis to frighten the delegates to the April 1 Pittsburgh conference. One more threat of expulsion and reprisals. One more move to hinder the miners’ efforts by other | means. | The miners and their delegates understand that Lewis will} make one more such final gesture before he goes down. They | ‘not be deceived nor frightened, All that Lewis is capable of tready been done. The movement has passed beyond the} of Lewis-Cappelini-Fishwick-Hall-Kennedy and the others. such decayed driftwood will not stop the tide. Coolidge---a Candidate When Coolidge sends his answer to the Wyoming state cen- tral committee declining to admit that he is a candidate, we won- der if he is absent-mindedly addressing the Wyoming Committee at Teapot Dome, Wyoming. The biggest of Wall Street’s finance-capitalists would have hked to continue Coolidge in office because he is so completely bought, because his retention for another term would minimize the election strain and because his election to a third term would establish a precedent favorable to centralization of government. The character of Coolidge as the central figure in a history of eight years of direct bribery and as the chief present figure, to- gether with Hoover and Weeks, in the solicitation of the funds with which Sinclair bribed the government, makes it expedient for the financial oligarchy to hold Coolidge out of formal can- didacy. However, the increased pressure of the scandal may have the exact opposite effect between now and the convention date. It may result in the exact reverse of the former policy of with- holding Coolidge. The pressure, with alternative (and less awe- inspiring) candidates so obviously smeared as much as Coolidge, might drive the big financiers to throw Coolidge brazenly into | the race as a “drafted” candidate, electing him as the “one pure| man” of all. This would not be unprecedented. Roosevelt was financed and eleeted by the trusts as the “trust buster,” and Morgan threw the United States into the world-war by electing | Wilson on the platform “He Kept Us Out of War.” It is not at} all impossible that Rockefeller, Morgan and Mellon will find it most expedient to elect Coolidge, the central figure of government corruption, as the “pure” candidate against corruption. | The scandal of the purchase of two presidents and their cab- | inets (not to speak of their predecessors) is destructive to illu- } sions about the nature of the capitalist state, Coolidge, oil-soaked hide and all, may be the “vindication” candidate. First F actory Strike in U.S. HE first strike of factory worke in the United States s deelar in 1828, a hundred years ago. Men| in the mills. spinners and the children and women| But the solidarity of all the work-| in the factories of Paterson, New) ers, striking together, women, chil-| Jersey, walked out at 12 o’clock of a| dren, men of the factories, mechanics, July day and were joined by the car-/ masons and carventers, was feared | penters, masons and mechanics of the| even then by the masters. Another | tion argue y, that it was good | to work long hours | president of the United Mine Workers | a word has come} Lewis has overestimated | terror, | | | These detachments again appeared in | grad town. | The masters had “coneeived that it would add to the comfort and health ef the children to take their dinner at one instead of 12 o’clock it being a more equal division of time between their meals.” The workers struck for the 12 o’clock noon hour. Their fel- low workers in building trades and machine shops struck at the same time in sympathy, and all demanded a shorter day of ten instead of eleven hours. The bosses, with the excep- tion of two, united to resist the ef- s of workers to better their con- ns, called out the militia to drive n, women and children back to di rged the strike leaders, nen gaye in on the noon hour on. It was the first time in jerica that the militia was used ainst the workers. * * “ HSE children under sixteen were from the families of the men spin- ners whe all lived in company-owned tenements, just as the southern mill workers do today. There were more women than men in the mills. They all worked, as many southern mill workers do now, 11, 12, 13, or 14 hours a day, from sunrise to sunset. The bosses, backed up by public opinion, argued, as the Manufact x Associ- rf | strike in Philadelphia that summer called forth an editorial in the New York Evening Post, “We cannot too deeply regret the frequent recurrence of these disorders which tend to throw a shadow over,the brilliant hopes which the philanthropist and the pa- triot have formed for our country.” The first labor party was started that same summer of 1828, a hundred years ago. The Working Men’s Party was organized in Philadelphia in July, by the first labor union, the Mecha- nie’s Union of Trade Associations. They sent out a call for a meeting to “confer with any committee of mechanics or working men that might meet them on the subject of the next general election.” The members of that first + labor union, The Mechanics’ Union of Trade | Associations, were not fully class-con- scious. But they wrote that they worked unceasingly for a meagre sub- sistence in order to maintain “in af- fluence and Juxury the rich who never labor,” that the products of their work were aceuinulating into “vast, pernicious masses,” and would “pre- pare the minds of the possessors for |the exercise of lawless rule and des- potism, to overawe the meagre multi- ude and frighten away that shadow of freedom which still lingers among us.” + | Jimmy Walker, traveling salesman of the democratic party is looking for buyers in Miami, Florida. By JULIUS CODKIND | In the presidential election cam- paign now on hand the Workers (Communist) Party is facing a task which is of decisive importance to the future of the movement and the political development of the working class. In the course of our work we have fought in every struggle of the work- ing class. Passaic, Colorado, the textile, the coal miners’, and the New | York needle trades’ fights, as well as numerous minor battles have seen the Party heavily engaged, and almost everywhere introducing itself to new masses. Fighting the Workers’ Battles. In Passaic, West Virginia, Pennsyl- vania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Colo- rado, Kansas, the jand the Labor Party campaign of {Minnesota and the Northwest, etc., the Party has succeeded in gaining New England | States, in the auto industry of Michi- | gan, the traction fight of New York, |, \of the puritan Coolidge has exploded contact with masses of the skilled, the semi-skilled, and unskilled work- ers; as well as numerous elements: of |\the agricultural population, among |whom are large masses of native as well as foreign-born workers. In New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other large centers we have met the socialist bureaucracy lin battle in the needle trades and suc- jceeded in enlightening thousands of \their former followers on the true ‘role of the socialists. | We now face the tremendous prob- lem of crystallizing the vast senti- ment that has been aroused by our many struggles into a mighty ex- |Pression of the voice of the working \class i in the form of a Workers Party | vote that will reach into the hundreds of thousands. Opportunity Favorable. The opportunity is most favorable. The sanctimonious administration in a terrific burst of oil and graft. The Coolidge “prosperity” bubble has Throughout the period of its devel- opment, the Bolshevik Party paid ex- clusively great attention to the mili- tary organization of the working class. The Party many a time laid stress through Lenin on the fact that the “great historical problems can be solved only by force and that the or- ganization of force during the present struggle is a military organization.” Labor Soldiers in 1905. Under the leadership of the Bolshe- viks the first workers’ detachments of the Red Guard were organized in the period of the 1905 revolution. 1917 after the February revolution. In June, 1917, there were in Lenin- alone 10,000 organized Red Guards. The Red Guards and the sides. The young Red Army was put to the test. The Party issued the slogan: All to the front! Tens of thousands of Com- munists were mobilized hy the Cen- tral Committee for the front. An in- stitute of political commissars was organized to be at the head of the fighting detachments side by side with the war experts, The Communist army officers ra- pidly increased in number. Side by side with the mcbilized Communists (toward the end of the war there were about 56,000) there were tens of thou- sands of Communist volunteers. In munists in the ranks of the Red Army; in October, 1919, the number of Communists in the army was al- ready 121,681 and in October, 1920, best elements of the old ezarist army decided the fate of the October revo- lution. The civil war developed. Innumer- able counter-reyolutionary forces sur- rounded the Soviet Republic from all By LEON P! PLATT. The significance of Lindbergh to the American working class is not lis daring personality nor heroism «8 an individual. The capitalist class does not ‘consider Lindbergh from this point of view. The name of so widely played up by the capitalist press. Lindbergh flew to South America not as an individual, but as the “Good Will Ambassador” of Amer- ican imperialism. Lindbergh’s flights | are therefore political flights, with definite tasks to accomplish. The Importance of Aviation. .As_a result of Lindbergh’s flight to South America, there immediately began a a for ge advance- 4) Lindbergh is connected with mass | movements which he succeeded in cre- | ating through his general popularity, | 278,040. members were at the front and about 62 per cent of the Moscow and Lenin- grad organizations were in the ranks of the Red Army, There.were at the beginning of 1921 10,728 purely Com- October, 1918, there were 35,000 Com- | About half of the Party | failed to prevent or even postpone a wave of economic depression carry- ing with it unemployment, wage re- ductions, and fresh miseries for the |very workers. from whose labor power the octopus of American im- perialism draws its might. It is our dutyas well as our oppor- tunity to rally the masses of the dis- illusioned together with those. who have been lately won to our standard and to show them their might when united. The best avenue for this pur- pose lies in the election campaign, which is highly dramatic and will help to gain attention. Let us now get together to put across the campaign of the Party to establish itself as the recognized leader of all sections of militant workers and as the center of thetr re- sistance. The burden of financial support has been heavy upon each in- dividual, and in this campaign we can expect it to fall heavier than ever be- fore, because we are still so few in numbers. Still we can confidently Workers Party Faces Test 1n 1928 expect that the Workers (Communist) Party’s presidential election campaign of 1928 will gain us heavy increases in membership and the ten-fold multi- plication of our following generally, so that for the future we can expect the financial burdens to be more thinly spread and to weigh less heavily. We can expect that the Central Committee of the Party will soon an- nounce the official opening of the campaign and with it an appeal for a campaign fund of $100,000. This looks like a tremendous amount of money, but we must remember that a national campaign properly carried out should cost far more, and no doubt the total contributions will go far beyond this figure. ss It is of considerable importance to remember that a large part of the sum will have to be raised very early in the campaign to allow the Party to carry out the job of placing its candidates in nomination in the vari- ous states. munist nuclei in the Red Army. The Communist Commissars forged the Red Army by their heroism and with their blood, they transformed it into granite against which the forces of the counter-revolution were smash- ed. The Party lost 49,510 of its best elements during the civil war. On a Peace Footing. The civil war ended and the Party took up and solved the task of plac- ing the Red Army on a peace foot- ing, reducing its numbers frgm 5,- 000,000 to 562,000. The XI Party Congress took up the | system into the Red Army, pointing out that the Soviet militia system |tact between the army and the pro- cess of production so that the living human elements of certain economic districts should at the same time be living human energy of the given military sections. At the present time the militia or question of introducing the militia} must consist in establishing close con- | How Communist Party Organized Red Army territorial system has become the basis of the armed forces of the U, S. S. R. The number of territorial divisions already constitutes more than half of all divisions of the Red Army. The relative strength of the Party organizations in the Red Army, also continually increases; the authority of the Communist nuclei among the non-party soldiers is growing, which can be seen from the numerical growth of Party members in the Red Army; on the first of January 1925 |they numbered 57,690, on January 1, 1926 there were 74,327 and in 1927 the number was 90,461. The number of young Communists also rapidly increases in the Red Army. Their number at the present time is 130,000. Under the leadership of the CPSU, true to Lenin’s traditions, the Red Army is firmly guarding the con- quests of the October revolution. ment of aviation in is country. The purpose is the establishment of air lines between the U. S. and Latin America given by the N. Y. Times: “The speeding-up of a communica- tion (by afr) and the corresponding saving of time and money would give American business a consider- Charles ‘A. Lindbergh Lindbergh Used as a Puppet in War able advantage over European com- petition in the Central’ American mar- ket.” Till the present time the avi- ation industry wasn’t a paying propo- sition, the majority of airplane fac- tories are running at a loss. In its air mail service the government lost $1000. There are two main reasons for this situation. First: commercial aviation is undeveloped yet in this country, We have only 9,000 miles of sir routes. Secondly, aviation, be- cause of the many accidents, is not so popular with the masses. Thirty out of the fitty leading life insur- ence companies in the U. S, and Ca- nada will not consider an applicant for life insurance who either travels by air as a passenger or is identified with the industry. The aviation in- terests in this country were there- fore looking for some factor which would stimulate aviation, and Lind- bergh was one of the best means used for this purpose. 4 } 4 Preparation The air lines established between the U. S. and other countries wili not only be limited to commercial use. This is a disguise to develop aviation for military purposes. It is very easy to convert a commercial plane for military use, and according to Secretary Wilbur “aircraft is ab- solutely indispensible in naval war- fare.” Therefore, Rear-Admiral A. Moffett, chief of the navy buro for aeronautics demanded 7,759 planes to complete the billion dollar naval pro- gram. Without their air planes American troops could have never penetrated the impregnable sections of Nicaragua. The militarists of this country are therefore utilizing Lind- bergh as a tool to develop aviation in connection with the general mil- itarization of the country. At the same time Lindbergh is also success- fully utilized to help to militarize the youth of this country. The League must therefore take effective meas- ures to expose the militaristic role of Lindbergh. < Points West— Impressions On the Road WaEn you hear the old familiar call of the train announcer, “Kansas City ... and all points west,” you are entering the middle of the real U. |S. A. and, if you feel like I do about it, you are glad to be back. The small and middle-sized cities in this region speak a_ distinct and_ specifically American tongue which people with a genuine national point of view listen to most attentively. * * * Old Radical Centre. The pre-war radical and socialist movement had a great sweep in these parts. It was the center of the Ap- peal to Reason Belt. The socialistic influence was the real motive power behind the militant activities of the Kansas miners. And don’t forget that the great sweeping movement of the agricultural workers in the old “400” of the I. W. W., an organiza- tion unique in American labor. his- tory, had its inception in the Kansas City Convention in 1915. How well has the modern Com- munist movement—the virile force in the labor movement today—built on these old foundations? How does it stand today, and what are its pros- pects? This question is naturally uppermost in my mind as I draw near the old stamping ground. * * * Remember War Terror. To record the impressions with complete frankness a certain appear- ance of decline in morale and scope must be recorded. In many places a handful of foreign-born comrades hold the thing together. In summing |up the observations made in ten or twelve places along the route, I think of a movement sagging a pit, but keeping alive under the greatest dif- ficultiés. * * * There are reasons. The Middle West remembers the war-time terror \and the Palmer raids. It is one thing to face suppression in the hig cities where numbers bring courage and some protection. To go up against it with a handful of comrades who can be swept up in a single raid is another thing. The blacklist in the smaller towns is also a potent weapon of ter- torism. Active workers soon become “spotted” and known. Suppression of meetings is often arbitrary. Re- member this is America with a capi- tal “A” and foreign-born workers have no recognized rights. “You're lucky to be here without saying any- thing at all!” is a common retort to the demand for “Free Speech.” 2 * * * Misleaders Wrecked Unions. The trade union movement is a mere shadow of its former self. The railroad shopmen’s unions, once a militant and virile force, have been broken up, and the packing-house unions likewise. The central labor unions are shells, officered by as cor- rupt and incompetent a collection of fakers and common crooks as the world has ever produced. The brazen graft and treachery practiced sys- tematically by these skates beggars description. The crux of the diffi- culty in the trade unions, as well as in the Party and other left wing or- ganizations of this section, is the lack ef new forces, new blood. For this, of course. there is an economic basia. “Prosperity” has been visiting the industrial parts of the middle west jn recent: years. Steady work and wages damped down discontent. Pes- simism was engendered by the big defeats suffered by the railroad and packing house unions in 1920-22. |'There have been no big labor strug- gles. The recruiting of new forces has thus been impeded. + * «# Turning Point at Hand. The turning point is at hand now. “Hard Times” have hit the middle west. One can learn that without statistics. The Babbits I talk with lin the- smoking cars squeal pitifully about the terrible “sales resistance.” | High pressure methods and install- | ment buying don’t do the trick any more; and the past over-selling by these methods is beginning to react with terrible force. There is much unemployment everywhere and with it the noticeable beginning of a turn toward the radicalism of discontent. The crowds at the meetings are big- ger than before as a rule, and new faces are seen. A growth of this dis- content and its proper exploitation will change everything. An infusion of new blood will recharge the move- ment with energy and confidence. _ * * Miners Swing to Left. The great progressive swing in the miners’ union is reaching the middle west also. A successful rank and file conference has been held in the Kansas fields and another is under way in Iowa. The foundations of the Lewis machine are cracking here as-in the other districts, Sentiment for a Labor Party is particularly strong amongst the miners of Iowa. The big need there is the organization of the Communist nucleus which is the prin- cipal unifying and inspiring force in the labor movement these days. PoE ielilo’ ‘ “All out for Denver!” says the train perter. - Here, they used to say, is where the west begins. Jd P. CANNON. 4 ! 4 !