The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 19, 1928, Page 5

RE ER NET EP TN EEE A EE ENE POE THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 19, 1928 MULCAHEY: A STORY ABOUT 20 DOLLARS (In Two Instalments), By STIRLING BOWEN. HE electric lights were lit in the editorial office of the weekly newspaper published by the revolu- tionary organization. The office, though, was deserted. The veteran organizer and ,pam- phleteer, Patrick Muleahey, had gone out and left the lights burning. Above the electric light switch by the door where Mulcahey went out was a conspicuous hand-lettered pla- card reading: “DOUSE THE LIGHT WHEN YOU SAY GOOD NIGHT.” But Mulcahey’s mind had been or other things. In the typewriter on the battered desk in the corner, which he had been using, was the first page of an article he was writing for the next issue of the paper. The writing extended two-thirds of the way down the page This desk, like the desks of James MeFee, who was the editor, Peter Lingstrom and Eugene Strauss, was piled high at the back and littered around the edges with pamphlets and magazines. The nickel-plated alarm clock on the ‘rough pine shelf over MeFee’s desk was not going. The clock hands were pointing to three. But it was only seven-thirty in the evening. Motor vehicle traffic outside was still rumbling along heavily with over- time orders. Though it was spring the windows were closed. It was cold even in the day-time. But the sound of the trucks came through. And down the street a few doors was the Sixth Avenue “L” where the trains rolled back and forth day and night. Somebody was coming up the stairs. He stopped outside the door a minute before poking his head in. It was a Western Union:messenger boy. This messenger boy was about 65 years old and wizened. “Telegram?” he called question- ingly. His eyes blinked in the glare from the three unshaded bulbs that hung on wires at different points from the low ceiling. The chairs before the four desks were empty. Yet each desk had the appearance of having just been in use, The room looked as if the staff had vanished just a moment before and was only in the next room. The mes- senger looked and looked. But no one was there. And no one answered. So after a glance at the unopened tele- gram! in his hand he pulled his head out the door again and returned down the stairs. Then there were voices down on the landing. The messenger had met Someone coming in and was deliver- ing the telegram. -In @ minute two men began climbing the stairs to the editorial room door. McFee and Lingstrom came in, McFee opening the telegram as he advanced into the office. “Expecting new secretary tomor- row,” McFee said, reading from the yellow sheet of paper. Then he said to Lingstrom: “It’s from Parsons in Buffalo.” He stood under the electric light bulb nearest the door studying the telegram. “Isn’t Mulecahey going over to Buf- felo?” Lingstrom asked. “Yes,” McFee answered, “this wire refers to Mulcahey.” Lingstrom looked around the office. He said: “I thought he was supposed to be here tonight.” “He was,” McFee said. he’d be.” McFee walked over to the desk “He said where Mulcahey had been writing and! said: ‘“He’s been here and must have stepped out for something. Here’s the first page of his article in the ma- chine here.” McFee lifted a corner of the type- written sheet and looked down through the words. “He must have been in a hell of a hurry when he went out,” Lingstrom said. “He left all the lights burning.” “He would,” MeFee said. Lingstrom said he supposed Mulca- hey went out to “brighten up his mind a little.” He asked McFee if Mulca- hey had any money. ..McFee said: “I gave him $20 for the trip to Buffalo and I suppose he had a little change besides. That saw-buck I gave him was all we had here. He said something to me, too. about his kid expecting him and he might have gone over to his room to take in some chuck or take the kid out to eat.” ’ McFee sat down in front of the desk where Mulcahey’s unfinished ar- ticle was in the machine and swung around sidewise so as to be able to hook his arm over the back of the chair. Lingstrom sat on his own desk, putting his feet on the chair. “T hope to hell he goes home and not to Udell’s gin mill,” Lingstrom said. © McFee said: “Yes or I might have to finish his article myself.” ~ “You might just as well anyhow,” Lingstrom said, “you know what he’s going to say. He’s been writing the same thing for 20 years.” ~ “And most.of the stiffs don’t un- derstand it yet,” McFee said. “Understand what?” “«. understand what he’s been writing for 20 years,” McFee said. Lingstrom laughed and said: “I’m not so.sure Muleahey understands it himself.” He laughed some more and ts just a lot of words to McFee said he wished there were 50 men in the country who knew as much as Mulcahey did about the labor movement. Then he said: “The only trouble is that we’ve got to have his article in this coming issue for a spe- cial distribution on the coast. And he’s got to write it before he leaves town tonight.” “QO he’ll be here all right,” Ling- strom said, McFee said: “He’d better be if he doesn’t want me on his neck.” McFee took a cigaret from a pack and handed the pack across toward Lingstrom. e898 PTOWN a few blocks on Third Ave- nue was Mulcahey’s furnished room, It was where he was stopping temporarily. His son John was living with him. It was a front room three flights up, near 11th Street. Four nights ago he had paid a week’s rent for himself and the boy. Two win- dows looked out on the steel trestle of the Third Avenue “L”. The landlady’s fancy gilt clock on the mantle shelf above the unused fireplace was as silent as the clock on the shelf in the editorial room where Mulcahey’s unfinished article lay in the typewriter, where McFee and Lingstrom sat talking about him The fireplace was sheeted up with metal. But one of Mulcahey’s possessions was an alarm clock. It stood on the small oak veneer table in the center of the room ticking energetically There was a wash bowl in a corner fed with one faucet. On the white enamel handle of the faucet was the word, “COLD.” On the center table beside the alarm clock was a small box half full of crackers. A large brown suit case lay open in the corner of the room. In it were the socks, shirts, underwear and neck-ties of Mulca- hey and his son John, in addition to three or four books. And against the inside wall of the room was the double bed where the father and son slept. not alone in the sound but in the presence’ of the Third Avenue “L,” which was only a few feet outside their window. There was also a bureau in the room. And on the soiled white cloth on the bureau half of an old white comb, with a few wisps of gray hair in it from Mulcahey’s head, was a symbol of grudging recognition of culture under capitalism. There was*aughter-in the*hall and a key turned in the door. John Mul- eahey, the son, came in. Behind him came his friend, Arthur Crome, son of a bargeman, “—_nice and warm in here,” Ar- thur said, rubbing his hands, hunch- ing his shoulders from the effects of the chill in the air outside. » probably nothing though,” John said. John inspected the cracker box on the table. He took out a cracker holding it between his thumb and first finger, turning it back and forth, looking at it questioningly. Then he put it all in his mouth. S ‘want one?” he asked Arthur. He passed the box toward Arthur who leaned over to look inside. Tak- ing three crackers at one time Arthur backed away a few paces to sit down. “Crackers aren’t bad eating,” Ar- thur said, munching. iy go better with butter cheese,” John suggested. John looked aroundthe room again with his tongue pushing the softened eracker out of the groove between his gums and cheek, where it always lodged when he ate a whole cracker at once, Crunching more crackers as he walked around he looked on the mantle, on the shelf under the table in the bureau drawers. “No,” he said, “I guess not.” John sat down in the rocking chair. “What were you looking for?” Ar- thur asked. “—something more to eat,” John said. “I thought maybe ‘there was a hunk of cheese or butter around. Have some more crackers? Go ahead. ——might as well eat them up.” Both boys reached forward for more crackers without getting out of their chairs. Arthur asked John what time his father said he would be home. “He didn’t say exactly,” John said. “but ’twould be about this time. This clock says 7:30.” “I guess that’s about the right time all right,” Arthur said. Two passing “L” trains careening “Shocks” Timid Boston to eat. or oe Vilna, Delmar, 23, of New York, whose first novel “Bad Girl,” a story of married life in Harlem, has been banned by the Boston authorities. Upton Sinclair’s “Oil” and Sinclair Phe has Resp fy Pica notew y books sus: old lady censors of Boston. “Law and Order” in Coal Fields “When the Pennsylvania Cossacks Let Loose’—A drawing by John Sloan in the “Labor Defender.” The By A. B. ae MAGIL. Walking up and down wasn’t the worst of it, nor the bright cold nibbling, nibbling at the flesh. These were things that could be cursed together with the bosses and the gat some coal and iron thug was always pok- ing at you. And being walloped in the mud and dragged to jail wasn’t much of a joke either, with all that warm shining blood oozing out of you. But not that nor any such hurts could hurt so deep as the thought of Polish Mary standing at the door, talking, maybe telling you something you ought to have done—the thought with all the sunlight crushed aguinst her hair. of her just standing there WRITINGS OF STALIN “Leninism” Will Be NTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS; will bring out an May 25 the first comprehensive study of Leninism from the pen of Joseph Stalin, trans- lated for the first time in English. The translators are the well known English authors, Eden and Cedar Paul, and in the volume which is be- ing brought out under the title “Len- inism”? are collected the most im- portant political writings of Stalin during recent years. Stalin’s writings take up both the theoretical founda- tions of Leninism as well as the tac- tical problems which have come up during the thirty years of Lenin’s ideological leadership of the Russian revolutionary movement. Stalin pre- sents in this book a systematization of Leninism which explain the forces back of the Russian Revolution as well as the practical policies which form the basis of the present Soviet State. The book is divided into several parts. The first deals with The Problems of Leninism, which serves as an introduction to the book. The second part entitled “Foundations of Published Here Soon ¢Leninism,” which is based upon lec- tures delivered at Sverdloff Univer- sity. and deals with the basic ques- tions of Communism in theory and practice. Here we have a discussion ‘on the Theory of the Proletarian Rev- olution, The Dictatorship of the Pro- letariat, The Peasant Problem, The Nai al Question, Strategy and Tac- ties, and a thorough discussion on The Role of the Communist Party. Another part of the book deals with the analysis of The November Rey- olution and the tactics of the Russian Bolsheviks on the eve of the uprising in 1917. A large portion of the book is devoted to the controversy in the | Soviet Union Communist Party, par- ticularly in the political report of | Stalin to the last Party Congress. | Writings on the revolutionary move- ment in the East, the Communist tac- \ties with regard to the nationalist | movements, and special contributions on the tasks of young Communists | are also included. The book is of octavo size, cloth bound, and contains 464 pages, price $2.50. Eee by in opposite directions were shak- ing the old building from roof to cel- lar, causing the hammer in Mulca- hey’s alarm clock to tinkle faintly against its gong. The window frama rattled. The windows were closed but the roaring of the trains beat in upon the room. Arthur said: the ‘L’ here.” John nodded. “Yes,” he said, “they’re pretty noisy sometimes.” He got up and walked over to one of the windows and stood looking down into Third Avenue. After a minute Arthur said: “Well “You certainly hear what do you think you'll do? Or don’t you know?” John didn’t answer. So Arthur said: “John?” John looked around. “What do you think you'll do? Ox don’t you know?” “you mean now? John asked. “Or do you mean later? Do you mean about eating?” “No, I mean later,” Arthur said. “A little while ago you said some- thing about school.” “That’s what dad wants me to do,”| y John said. “So I suppose I will.” He turned away from the window and sat down in the chair again. “—_go to school?” Arthur asked. John said; “Yes, but I think I’d pet some kind of a job some- 4. asked. John nedded.. “But I don’t know where to get one,” he said. “Besides there isn’t anything much I know how to do.” “You're not the only one that doesn’t know .where to get a job,” Arthur said. “Did you see that bunch lined up outside that mission down on the Bowery? Holy cats!” i “Well,” John said, “I don’t very much want to go to school.” John began going through his pockets. He went through them twice. The second time he brought forth a dime from his pants pocket “Have you got a nickel?” he asked Arthur, “Dad didn’t have much change this morning, so I’ve only got this dime. I haven’t got any, cigar- ets and I'll go get some if you can spare a nickel.” Arthur told him to keep his dime. “I’ve got some money,” Arthur said. “T’ll go get some. You wait here.” Arthur stood up and buttoned his coat, “Well,” John said, “all right. But better take this dime, hadn’t you?” “Put it in your pocket,” Arthur said. “I’ve got money.” 3 He opened the door and went. ou saying: “I'll be right back.” So John was alone with the ticking alarm clock, than go to school?” Arthur AND FOREI By ROBERT W. DUNN. estes is certainly nothing novel in the statement that the flow of American capital to foreign countries has run parallel with the growth of the United States as a world imperi- alist power. Although this country ever since its unjust and aggressive war against Mexico had manifested strong annexationist tendencies it has been only during the period of the export of capital both to the re- latively backward countries of Latin America and, more recently, to Euro- pean countries that it has assumed the role of the world’s dominant fin- ancial empire. The Spanish-American war made America “accept the burden thrust upon us unsought”—to use the words of President McKinley—of protecting Cuba and creating dependencies out of Porto Rico, Guam and the Philip- pines. A vigorous president “took” Panama from Colombia after, as he put it, making “every effort to per- suade Colombia to allow herself to be benefited” by the act. Since then this country has established what even the history text books describe as virtual protectorates over Haiti, Liberia, Nicaragua and Santo Do- mingo, and has brought several other formerly independent and sovereign states under its control. It has inter- vened by force at least thirty times | in the internal affairs of nine sov- ereign Latin-American countries. 4. What has driven the United States jinto this relationship toward these |countries? Is it, to use the words of the late President Harding, “the lure of the waters, or the march of em- pire, or the call of commerce, or in- serutable destiny?” Perhaps a little of each, if you will. But I should be inclined to lay much the greater em- Liberals Prefer Their Wars Nice And as Per Law |MACHINE-GUN DIPLOMACY. By J. A. H. Hopkins & Melinda Alex- ander. * i ea alleged progressives in the sen- ate were duly indignant about the war which the United States is wag- ing in Nicaragua. They pointed. out that killing Nicaraguans cost the Navy Department money; they ob- served that a number of marines had spirits even mentioned the word im- perialism. But when the shouting was all over and all of the pretty speeches had been made, the liberals voted to main- tain marines in Nicaragua—at least until the country had been made safe by marine-supervised elections. “Machine-Gun Diplomacy” ex- presses. the liberal point of view on American imperialism in Latin Amer- ica. The principal objection which the j}authors seem to have to the Nicara- | cuan war is that it has not been duly sanctioned by. congress. They like their wars nice and legal. In outlining their views in the in- troduction, the authors say: “It is the belief of a large propor- tion of the electorate of qur country that the United States government should protect its nationals wherever they may be residing; that it should protect the property and business in- vestments and interests of its nation- als in so far as is possible through the goodly offices of its foreign em- bassies, ministries and state depart- ment, but that it should guarantee to no American citizen the use of the United States Army, Navy and Ma- rines in protecting investments in for- | eign countries except and only after | formal declaration of war.” After recounting (on the basis of good, legal and formal documents pre- U. S. INVESTMENTS Lewis Copeland Co. $2.50. | Fe ae nleeed tits dy. United Reviewed by HARRY FREEMAN. {gtecss ferinn poliew oll eciiume lessential democracy or lack of dem- been killed in the fighting. The bolder , jin the future. Page Five GN POLICY phasis on such tangible factors as the investments of American bankers and industrialists in the securities and properties of these countries. Military and diplomatic reasons have always had their roots firmly gripping econ- omic soil although the fact has not always been too apparent to the aver- age citizen. | $e HE owning class in the United) States has amassed surplus wealth that it has greatly profited it to in-| vest abroad. Whether our bankers | have been able to secure a return on) their money greater than their fore-| runners—the British finance capital-| ists who are undoubtedly past masters | in the art of foreign investment—is | of no great concern to the common} man. The fact is that they have| been able to make investments over-| seas that yield somewhat higher than| those made in comparable enterprises at home. Therefore the money has} gone abroad and will continue to go.| And the search for extra-territorial | business opportunities is bound to| continue not only in the form of in-| vestments in government and cor-| porate securities but also in enter- prises that are a part of the Amer- ican quest for certain raw materials. It should be noticed, incidentally, that American dollars will go any- where they can discern a prospect of profit no matter what type of native government may be involved so long | as the borrowing country is essenti | ally capitalistic in its economic s: tem. To be sure the Soviet Union, which operates a system abhorrent to the rulers of the United States, will not be the recipient of long term loans until she consents to mend her ways to comply with the standards of Mr. Kellogg. But all other coun- tries will be able to secure capital from Wall Street no matter what their political forms. Our bankers, with the aid of the State Depart- ment, and the State Department, as-| sisted by the bankers—the relation- ship is generally reciprocal—will con- tinue to lend dollars to such dictator-| ships. as those now prevailing in} Italy, Hungary, Haiti, Chile, Vene-! zuela and Peru. Indeed it is now to the advantage of the American in- vestors to see that these dictator- ships are maintained. Otherwise American loans and _ investments States foreign policy will continue to be shaped not by any reference to the ocracy of the borrowing state but purely by the ability of the native ‘government and the native industry to function along normal capitalistic lines. rR, @ How does this export of capital, this financial penetration, effect American foreign policy? In various ways depending upon the strength of the borrowing country, the form in which the capital is invested, the influence of the capital exporter and a number of other factors. But basic- ally the policy of the United States is, to use the words of President Coolidge, that “the person and prop- erty of a citizen are a part of the general domain of a nation, even when abroad.” Its policy is to use whatever force is necessary to pro- tect that person and that property. This policy has already lead your government into wars, interventions, the extortions of treaties, the occupa- | tion of territory, the declaration of/ “neutral zones,” embargoes on arms, violations of rights of foreign peo-! ples, seizures of customs houses, the! support d€ revolutions in one coun-! try at one period, and their ‘sup-| pression in another country or at an- other period in the same country de- pending solely upon the extent to which American economic interests were advanced by the move. This pol- icy is bound to lead to similar parti-| cipation in the “white man’s burden” More than that, the American concessionaire abroad has been able to use your State Depart-/ ment to assist him in securing his| original concession or economic claim! in the backward country. At other: sented at senate hearings) the bloody history of American imperialism in Latin America, the authors offer as a panacea the adoption by the United States government “of the Doctrine of the Self Determination of Nations” which, the authors believe, “is the na- tural complement to the Monroe Doc- trine.” 7 © «* times he has used it to prevent the cancellation of his concession through a change in the native government. Ka ae a connection with loans made by American financial interests to these foreign governments of the weaker sort we find your State De- partment or the president of the The book contains a number of ex- cellent accounts of marine rule in Latin America. Dr Gruening’s repori on the occupation of Haiti, presented before the Sub-Committee of the Com- mittee of Foreign Relations in 1925 tells the story of the murder and the actual enslavement of thousands o natives, It is for documents like these and not for its editorializing, which shows the liberal in the full glory of his impotence, that the book has any value. —————————— Outside the “L” trains were boom- ing. Underneath them the trucks rumbled. The whistles of traffic offi- cers and the squawking of truck and taxicab horns broke __piercingly through the dull thundering of wheels, John waited for his father. He was waiting now for Arthur to come back with the cigarettes, too. But particu- larly he waited for his father. His mother was dead, (To hag continued) United States playing a rather im- portant role. For insuring the pay- ment of loans and to facilitate their collection we find, for example, in |tions Heaven jd the Dominican Republic an American canner erwin ages Subseribe Today! WORKERS LIBRA OFFICIAL, ORGAN OF THE EXECUTIVE COM- MITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL, Appears bi-monthly. 389 EAST 125th STREET NEW YORK CITY Sonnets to Mrs. Upton Sinclair By G. Sterling SONNETS TO CRAIG. By George Sterling. Upton Sinclair, Long Beach, Calif. $1. Reviewed by WALTER SNOW. fas “Money Writes,” Upton Sinclair refers to these sonnets of Sterling as “the most beautiful in the world.” Sterling was his friend and Mary Craig is now Mrs, Upton Sinclair. The subject of the sonnets, however, passed @ more exact estimate upon them, Once the poet told Craig she looked “like a star in alabaster.” Sinclair came up and said that she looked like a “skull” because she was overwork- ing. The poet grew angry. “Some day Iam going to kill that man,” he told Craig. “That is the first man that ever told me the truth in my life. I am going to marry him,” she replied. This incident gives the story of the triangle; this book contains about 100 pages of Sterling’s extravagant excla- mations. me and again he writes such stuff a Ah God! in that pure Paradise to rest.” In fact he men- and Paradise some forty times and God about twenty times in the 100 sonnets. The rebel poet who once wrote of the Statue of Lib $ “Oh! is it bale-fire in thy brazen hand— The traitor-light set on betraying coasts ” writes to Cr “Thou who hast d the world of loveliness” and: ‘The face that God hath made so very dear Is now a star on heavens remote and clear.” In fact there are only three or four sonnets in the entire volume thet are worth reading and only one really good one, beginning: “O paths of stone, whereon the weary stray From toil to toil, from sin to tawdy sin.” A much better collection of sonnets has come from the publishing house of Upton Sinclair—those of “M.C.S.,” Craig herself. But they belong to the iterature of protest. ee general receiver named by the pres- ident of the United States. In Nica- ragua we find an American collector, acting on order of a high commission of three, one appointed by the Amer- iean bankers and another by the United States Department of State. There is also, to be sure, in more recent days, Brig. Gen. McCoy and his staff conducting their “free and fair elections.” In Haiti the control is still more complete. An American receiver general and an American financial advisor are nominated by the president of the United States and appointed by a mariorctte native president. They have control of thé entire revenue system of the country. An American high commissioner and the marines complete the Haitian pic- ture of American domination. . In Salvador the loans of the American bankers are served by an American official who collects the customs. He is chosen by an American corporation with the approval of the American State Department. Even in Bolivia, a stronger country, the service of loans of the American bankers in- volves a permanent fiscal commission consisting of three members, two of them appointed by the president of Bolivia upon recommendation of the bankers. One of these two is chair- man of the commission which virtu- ally holds the key to the economic life of the country. In Peru, Ecuador and other countries American finan- cial advisors and agents have played their part in directing. financial pol- icies in conformity with the desires of the American investing class. (To be continued.) (The foregoing is the first instal- ment of an address made by Dunn at the American Academy of Polit- ical and Social Sciences recently.) Bucking U. S. Capital Augustino Sandino, leader of the national forces fighting American imperialism in Nicaragua. $2.00 Per Year. RY PUBLISHERS