The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 18, 1928, Page 6

THE DAILY WORKER Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS’N, Inc. Daily, Except Sunday 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. Cable Address: Phone, Orchard 1680 “Dalwork” SUBSCRIPTION RATES By Mail (in New York only): By Mail (outside of New York): $8.00 per year $4.50 six roaths $6.50 per year $3.50 six months $2.50 three months. $2.00 three months. Address and mail out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. Y- 1 .-ROBERT MINOR sais ..WM. F. DUNNE ae ep tee oe LTD, Enterea as second-class mail at the post-office at New York, N, Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Where Bill Kenny Will Not Contribute it seems that George Van Namee was lying when he said the $70,000 from Bill Kenny to Al Smith was partly a “loan.” Smith | was present when this lie was told to the willing ears of the sen- | ate committee, and Smith smiled approvingly, apparently | hoping the lie would stick. But now it is admitted that the big hand-out of the Tammany contractor to the Tammany governor was an outright gift of a cool fortune. The average working man does not in his whole lifetime of labor receive as much in wages as this bribe given to the governor of New York by a man interested in the matter of state ex- penditures influenced by the governor. Smith and his manager tried to conceal the information as to the amount of outright gift, but now the contractor admits that no part of it was a loan, but the entire sum was a “gift to Al.” Another big prowler after the advantages of contact of business and politics says he gave Smith $10,000 out of “love and affection for the governor.” What do the workers think about this? Why do they think Jim Riordan of the New York County Trust Company, and Bill Todd, who builds ferry boats for public money, gave $5,000 to the governor of New York? And what do they think to this man Smith, who sits by and smiles while his campaign manager lies under oath about it, and smiles again when the lie is “corrected” after it fails to go through? . In centuries gone by it was the custom for any rich man having a case before a public official, to give a “present” to the official—but to do it openly. The presents that are given by Sinclair to Albert B. Fall and others of the Harding-Coolidge crowd, and by Doheny (as attorney’s fees) to McAdoo, and by Tammany contractors, bankers, etc., to the governor of New York and candidate for president,—are different from the earlier style of bribes only in this—that the effort is made to cover them up. But the “love and affection for the governor’ is otherwise no different from the “love and affection for the judge” which } in cruder times inspired rich litigants. The “love and affection” backed up by the gifts of fortunes, is a mutual love and affection. Smith, Hoover, Coolidge and all other candidates of the capitalist political parties are the outright servants, bought and paid for, of the capitalist class as a whole and of certain groups of capitalists. in particular. But in this election campaign of 1928 there will be a revo- lutionary Communist candidate for president. The general opin- ion is that William Z. Foster, a member of the working class, will be the red candidate for president and that Ben Gitlow, an- other worker, will be the Communist candidate for vice-president. It-is safe to say that neither of these men in his entire lifetime ever saw (unless by accident) as much money as the Tammany contractor gives to this public official. The Workers Communist | Party, which will have its ticket in the election, receives its entire | support from the dimes and quarters of the kind of working~peo- ple who slave their lives away in bondage to such labor-grinders as Bill Kenny and Jim Riordan. What will the workers think of this line-up? On one side two or more sets of candidates for public office for whom capitalists and bankers have such “love and affection” as is written into $70,000 checks (and $3,080,000 oil-graft deals). On the other side a single set of candidates who cannot even rent a hall without asking the workers, who attend, to pay for the rent and other costs. It is simply the century-old line-up of capital and labor. . The Workers Communist Party in this election represents what the picket line represents in a smaller way, and the Smiths and Hoovers represent the thugs, the “mine-guards,” the gunmen to whom also the same capitalists pay for services merely out of “love and affection.” (The so-called socialist party can truth- fully be said to represent merely the strike-breakers who would like to be the armed guards of the capitalist state.) The national nominating convention of the Workers Commu- nist Party which opens next week in New York, will be t®uly a great historical event for the working class of America. In it will be dramatized the contrast between the uncompromising re- volutionary party of labor and the bought and paid-for political parties of the capitalist cl Some of the delegates are now on their way—in broken-down and overloaded Fords and on freight trains. The Bill Kennys and Jim Riordans, and the bigger Rocke- fellers and Morgans know that here is the party of the enemy class—the party which participates in their sham elections only to bring the working class and working farmers to understand that not mere participation in framed-up elections, but the over- throw of the ruling class is their historical task. Scab Mine Made Safe by Judge which -was in the right. Others of Assistant Editor... a _ sopeciai to The Duily Worker) PITTSBURGH, Pa., May 15. —The notorious injunction issued by Feder- al Judge Langham in favor of the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corpora: tion against striking coal miners at Rossiter, Pa., has resulted in success- iui operation of the mine in that town .y scab labor. This fact was brought . it during a preliminary hearing on che temporary injunction in the Indi- ama, Pa., federal court, Saturday, May 12 according to reports of the ring received by the National Min- ers Relief Committee. V3 Forbids Singing. - The injunction was issued by Judge Langham several months ago at the of the mining company when i SO ips. of strikers gathered in the kk yard of the Magyar church at iter and sang hymns as strike- passed to and from the mine. the hymns dealt with the of victory for the side 4 the songs called upon “sinners to join the cause of the lord.” It is charged that the wording of many of these tunes were changed to, make them more effective for strike use. For this “crime” Judge Langham is- sued the injunction which the Senate sub-committee condemned as unconsti- tutional and a complete abrogation of | civil liberties, Hypocrisy Speaks. | Judge Langham, to show the world jthat he had not acted in an unfair |manner, donated a sum of money to jthe Rossiter strikers “with which to buy hymn books,” following the issu- jance of the injunction. Meanwhile the strike and the accompanying star- vation at Rossiter go on. The strik- ling coal diggers don’t want psalm) |books. They want beans, bacon, bread and coffee. Rush all contrilu- tions immediately to the National Miners Relief Committee, 611 Penn AS SS TON REMOTE MESA RNRIY IEDR SOM oe, THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, FRIDAY, MAY 18, 1928 CALL TO ORDER! yee The mighty hand of the membership reaches in to take control of the United Mine Workers Union, which is being wrecked by the corrupt officials in conspiracy with the coal operators. The mine workers will rap the gavel for the emergency district conventions which are to turn out the foul crew of John L. Lewi: is, agents of the bosses. Intimate of Wilson Aid To Lobbyist WASHINGTON, (FP) May 17.— Joe Tumulty, who was secretary to President Wilson for eight years, bobbed up in the first batch of tele- mission subpoenaed from the Postal | wited correspondence of Josiah T. Newcomb, lobbyist in Washington for | the Joint Committee of National | Utility Associations. This mention of | Tumulty came in two wires which ‘ Newcomb sent to B. J. Mullaney, , director, of the Illinois Committee on | Public Utility Information, on June | 28 and June 29, 1927. Newcomb asked | Mullaney to meet him in New Yor at the Belmont Hotel, and said that “Tumulty” had called him from New York and would see Newcomb there | on the following Saturday. Thorne Browne, former secretary, “|member and chairman of the Nebras- ka State Railroad Commission, which had authority over electric railroad securities and rates, was on the stand as director of the power trust infor- | mation bureau at Lincoln, operating | in Nebraska especially. In his files was a circular issued by J. S. Sheridan, a former sports re- porter, now secretary of the Missouri Committee on Public Utility Informa- tion, boasting of triumphs in Missouri. This circular set forth that 97 per cent of the high school pupils in that state were being taught their public utility economics from books furn- ished by the committee; that 88,453 pupils were thus being taught in the { right line; that 7,167 columns of (propaganda) reading matter from its | writers had been used in Missouri! newspapers in the year ending Nov. 1, 1927. Who Are the Rats, Mr. James Maurer? By HERBERT BENJAMIN, For over thirteen months thousands of Pennsylvania miners have been waging one of the most heroic strug- gles in the annals of the American labor movement, Never has a strug- gle of workers in this country been fought under greater difficulties. Never were workers required to show greater courage and fortitude in the face of every form of suffering and persecution. For six months their suffering was entirely ignored. No effort was made by the officialdom of their union or of the A. F. of L. to relieve their dis- t during this period. Nothing ef- fective was done to prevent the oper- ation of the mines with scabs. When finally they started to organ- ize their own relief campaign, their officials openly sabotaged the relief work. When the workers began to rally to the support of the striking mi and came forward with relief funds to help provide food and cloth- | ing for the miners and their fami- lies, the bureaucrats in the miners’ union diverted these funds to their own pockets in the form of princely salaries and expense accounts, draw- ing from the union funds over $300,- 000 in salaries for a six month per- iod, Driven to desperation, knowing that their heroie struggle would be de- feated and that they would be forced into the worst kind of slavery unless they rid thenjselves of the paralyzing hold of the enemy in their own ranks —the Lewis-Fagan-Kennedy-Cappel- lini gang of traitors and agents of the coal operators—the miners turned to this task as part of the struggle to save their union from destruction. Few Represented. There were not many representa- tives of the fighting miners in the 27th annual convention of the Penn- sylvania State Federation of Labor which closed last Saturday. The treasuries of the local unions had long ago been exhausted. But a few did manage to make the 300 mile trip to Philadelphia, which was probably chosen for this convention with a view to preventing representatives of the strikers from coming. Their lead- er was Isaac Munsey, whose father was a chattel slave and whose more than sixty years have been spent in slavery even worse than his father suffered. For 37 years a member of | the miners’ union and before that of |the Knights of Labor, he had nursed the union, he said, and was now | fighting to save it. With these rep- also a few trade unionist delegates of rank and file workers in other in- dustries, under the leadership of such veterans of the struggles of the American workers as Pat Cush, a steel worker who helped meet the at- tack of the Pinkertons in the historic Homestead strike of 1892, and John | Otis, whose lone voice in the confer- ence on the miners’ strike called by Wm. Green, shook the complacency of the “fat-boys” and focused atten- tion upon the real demands of the miners. They came, these delegates, to demand that the unions shall meet squarely the attacks of the ruling class of this country against the most basic interests of the workers. Constructive Program, | They came with a constructive and |practical program for the organizing of the great masses of unorganized workers; for a fight against and mass |violation of the strikebreaking injunc- |tions; for relief of the millions of un- jemployed workers; for a systematic jand consistant effort to develop the |political power of labor through a labor party; for a struggle against company unions and the company- unionization of the trade unions thru such treacherous schemes as the “Mit- ten Plan”; for a struggle against im- perialism and the danger of imperial- ist war which now threatens the en- tire working class of the world; for advancing trade unionism among women, Negro and youth workers, Against them was arrayed a mob }of the choicest labor-fakers in the country, Kennedy, Fagan, Cappelini and a whole army of lesser bureau- crats, united with such cynical graft- ers, as Frank Feeney, who has been quoted by none other than Jim Maur- jer himself as saying, “Sure I’m a grafter—I’m for Frank Feeney.” Men capable of and in many cases guilty of every crime from petty-larceny and graft. to cold-blooded murder were there. In this array were to be found scores of men who a year hence will have been exposed as under-cover agents, detectives in the employ of the worst enemies of labor. Even as in previous years there were among them the Frank Farringtons and the Jim Cronins (the latter a pet of the ¥ resentatives of the miners, there came} Feeney gang is now openly running a detective and scab supplying agen- cy im Philadelphia). And Who Heads Lot? Presiding over this convention was James H. Maurer, “socialist,” “pro- gressive” candidate of the socialist party for vice president, running mate of the Reverend Norman Thomas, |representing the ‘‘peepul” of Reading, Pa., in the city council. Jim Maurer knows the “Pennsylvania gang” very well. Sixteen years ago he was elected president of the State Federa-. tion by workers in revolt against the Feeneys, Cappelinis, Kennedys and |Fagans of that time. He was now re- tiring, he was turning the federation lover to a new executive and in doing jso he was to express his views, the views of the socialist party and of his “progressive” group. The opening of ithe convention found him strangely silent, On the second day of the con- \vention, when the militants Munsey land Harvey were denied seats in the jeonvention at the demand of the Fa- {gan-Cappelini gang, he was strange- \ly absent. On the third day, however, when a \bitter fight was waging between the militants and the reactionary bureau- crats, while the treacherous despots of the miners’ unions were mobilizing |their gangsters and gunmen for an jassault upon the little group of cour- ageous rank and file delegates who were denouncing the treachery of the labor-fakers—then Maurer spoke— then he delivered his parting shot. From his place on the platform he shouted: “You and your bunch are the worst bunch of rats I’ve ever run into in my sixteen years as president of this federation.” Against Whom. But, it was not against Frank Feen- ey, the cynical grafter, nor against Cappelini responsible for the assassin- ation of Lillis, Campbell and Reilly that this attack was directed by the socialist and “progressive”? Jim Maurer, No! That would have re- quired honesty and courage! And who can expect to find an honest and courageous leader of what remains of the yellow socialist party? This vi- cious attack was directed by the lead- er and spokesman of the socialist party and the “progressives” against Pat Cysh, the valiant steel worker, whose name appears on the blacklist of every steel company in Pennsyl+ vania and against the little group of miners whose struggle to prevent the ‘destruction of the once powerful min- jers’ union must serve as an inspira- |tion to the entire working class. Jim Maurer was elected president jof the Pennsylvania Federation of \Labor sixteen years ago as the spokesman and representative of a militant working class that sought to make the federation an instrument for the advancement of the interests of the workers by taking it out of the hands of the corrupt and reactionary forces who were using it against the workers. He passed out of the con- vention a few days ago, a miserable failure and a cowardly renegade. His attack upon the small group of hon- est representatives of tha workers came not as the result of a sudden ‘and uncontrollable burst of temper. His attack was the result of a calcu- lated systematic policy of betrayal and surrender to the worst and black- est elements who curse the labor movement, Jim Maurer, as the spokesman of the sociglist party and of the coward- ly “progressives,” delivered the Penn- sylvania Federation of Labor into the the hands of Lewis and their capi- talist masters, Together with his un- |derstudy John Phillips, whom he fail- ed to elect as his successor, Maurer made a united front against the strik- ing miners, against the only elements who are fighting to prevent the de- struction of the trade union move- ment. Consciously and with deliber- ate purpose Maurer and his group in the convention defeated every pro- gressive “policy put forward by the left wing in an effort to placate the insatiable reaction of Bill Green, John L. Lewis, Matthew Woll and Co. Read the Record. They allowed delegates against whom Fagan and Cappelini made ob- jection to be expelled; they permitted the betrayers of the miners’ strike to eastigate the militant miners; they helped defeat a move against com- resolution against the “Mitten Plan” although they previously had ex- pressed themselves against this vi- cious method of destroying the unions; they helped discredit a reso- lution for relief of the unemployed; denouncing as impractical a proposal for unemployment insurance. funds for which are to be derived by taxing the swollen profits of the employers; hands of Cappelini, which means into | pany unionism by voting down the| they deliberately avoided taking is- sue on the militarization of the youth dy allowing a resolution against’ the C. M. T. C. to be tabled; they buried | a resolution demanding the release! of Sam Bonita, victim of the Lewis- Cappelini murder and frame-up ma-: chine; and finally Jim Maurer, who pretends to be a progressive by virtue of his support of the Soviet Union, frankly admitted his cowardice by de- claring that he could not press for) adoption of a resolution demanding recognition of the First Workers’ Re-| public and allowed this resolution too, | ito be buried. During this short period of the con- vention, Maurer and the socialists and |“‘progressives” perpetrated every form jot betrayal and exposed in all its \filthy nakedness all the treachery and ‘all the cowardice of which the social- lists and fake progressives are ca- jpable. The net result of the conven- \tion is that the notorious Vare-Mellon machine will, in the words of one of its supporters, “be compelled to spend jabout $50,000 to ‘win’ the support of ithe federation and its new president, \the democratic John Casey.” Communists Alone Dependable. But for the honest workers who at- tended this convention, for those dele- | gates who cast 75 votes for John Otis, the candidate of the militants, and for many thousands of workers thru- out the country who will have learn- ed from this convention that only those leaders who are grouped around the Workers (Communist) Party and the Trade Union Educational League can be depended on militantly to wage the fight against all the forces of re- action; for these thousands of work- ers the convention will have served as a great purpose. In the eyes of those workers who are battling the sinister forces that threaten the destruction of the trade unions and block the progress of the workers, the little handful of mili- tant delegates who stood up in the convention and fought the Lewis- Cappelini - Kennedy - Fagan - Feeney gang and their thugs and gunmen, when it required real courage and de- termination, will not appear as rats. But Jim Maurer and _ the socialist party of which he is a member and the spineless pseudo progressives who are grouped around him and who dared not oppose, dared not fight— these, Mr. Maurer, are the rats. Wall St. Brings More Trouble to the Latin Americans By SCOTT NEARING. President Simons of the New York Stock Exchange calls attention, in his annual report, to the rapid. shift in United States foreign invest- ments that has taken place during the last three years. Immediately after the war United States bankers poured the economic surplus into Europe, To- day it is going to Latin America. Listings of governmental bond is- jsues on the New York Stock Ex- change show an increase from Aus- tralasia of 1 in 1925, none in 1926 and 8 in 1927. They totalled 10 in 1928. Asiatic government issues did not increase in 1925; increased by 1 in Ave., Pittsurgh, Pa. 1926 and by 1 in 1927, Five were listed inthe New York Exchange in 1928. North American government issues, exclusive of the United States, de- ereased by 1 in 1925 and have stood since-that time at 17. European government issues in- creased by 5 in 1925, 9 in 1926 and 7 im 1927. Their total at the be- ginning of 1928 was 74, By comparison South and Central American government issues show a very rapid growth. They increased by 6 in 1925; by 9 in 1926, and by 21 in 1927. Their total on January 1, 1928, was 61, While European governments still lead in the total number of issues listed on the stock exchange, the rate of increase is plainly very much greater than that for Europe. United States capital is building itself into the economic and political structure of Monroe Doctrined Latin America, This matter-of-fact announcement by the president of the New York Stock Exchange of the rapid growth of United States capital investments in Latin American government se- curities has had some curious accom- paniments. Dr, Frederic C. Howe, speaking at a meeting of the Amer- ican Academy of Political and Social Science in Philadelphia seriously questioned whether it was “neces- sary” for United States surplus capi- tal to venture abroad in search of in- vestment opportunities, Charles Evans Hughes, former secretary of state, made another of his pompous 4 legalistic declarations in which he in- sisted that the United States war on Nicaragua was no war at all but merely a fulfillment of the treaty obligations which the United States had assumed toward that unfortunate state. Meanwhile United States capi- tal is pouring into Latin America. Colonial Subjugation. American workers have little idea what-is going on, They are busy with movies, with the new baseball sea- son, and with the preliminaries of the presidential campaign between big bankers and business men on the one side and big bankers and business men. on the other, American business interests do everything in their power to keep the 'workers in ignorance as to the devel- opments and the implications of im- perial power. Mr. Simmons goes as far as any of the economic leaders at the present time. He merely commits himself to the proposition that United States capital is rapidly penetrating Latin America, With what result? First, rival European capitalists are being forced out of the Latin- American market. é Second. “voluntarily” entering into treaties — according to which Washington de- cides their policies, eo: The New York Stock grams which the Federal Trade Com- , Telegraph Co., in its search of hi ‘ | | Latin American states are BB