The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 29, 1928, Page 6

THE DAILY WORKER Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS'N, Inc. Daily, Except Sunday $3 First Street, New York, N. Y. Cable Address: SUBSCRIPTION RATES : By Mail (in New York only): By Mail (outside of New Yor.’ 0C per vear $4.50 six raciths $6.50 per year 3.50 six mor ‘ 8°] three months, $2.00 three months. Phone, Orchard 1680 “Dalwork” Address and matl out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York. N. Y. ...ROBERT MINOR ...WM. F. DUNNE t New York, N. ¥., under Assistant Editor. < «» secona-class mail at the post-office a secopa-cias® Tene act of March §, 1879 John Lewis and John Rockefeller Under the caption, “The Cure for Coal,” the New York Sun- day News publishes the following editorial: “John D. Rockefeller jr.’s Consolidated Coal company decides to sone : ten of its mines in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. | “The action results from a tip said to have been handed the soft coal industry two years ago by John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America. “Its object is to begin the process of shrinking pro- duction to fit demand, which alone can halt strikes, riots and shutdowns in the soft coal industry. “The cure is a painful one. No one but will sympathize with the work- ers and employers thus caught in the economic mill, But, administered from within by the industry or from with- out by government, it is the only cure there is.” With this unusually clear ad- mission by a big capitalist news- paper that capitalism and the sup- porters of capitalism within the labor movement have no cure for the conditions which are driv- ing the workers in the mine industry to despera- tion, except to drive them to further desperation, the capitalist newspaper publishes the very handsomest portraits of John L. Lewis on one side and John D. Rockefeller jr. on the other. | The first part of what the News says is undoubtedly true—} that Lewis did actually convey to scab coal operators and to John | D. Rockefeller jr., the psalm-singing scab coal operator, his readi- | ness to accept such a plan. John L. Lewis agrees to this; Rockefeller does it; a capitalist sheet admits that “the cure is a painful one” and offers its “sym- pathy” to the thousands of mine workers and to the poor, starv- ing Mr. Rockefeller alike for the pain they have to endure. But the News, of course, lies when it says “it is the only cure there is.” Mr. Lewis, Mr. Rockefeller and the capitalist editor all know perfectly well that there is another cure, and that they are lying when they say that labor conflicts, which they call “strikes, riots and shutdowns,” will be a thing of the past when they throw thousands of workers permanently out of employment, to add to the five million already unemployed. Rockefeller wants to increase the amount of surplus value that he can get out of each man who digs coal, by lengthening: the number of hours that each one works beyond the working time necessary to keep each one alive. If a miner works six hours a day, Rockefeller will have to pay at least enough to keep him alive enough to work; and if each miner works eight or nine hours a day, Rockefeller need not pay him any more than just enough to keep him alive. Mr. Lewis, who is a business man like Mr. Rockefeller, but whose business is in selling out labor unions and “the labor vote” to the big capitalists—Mr. Lewis also has something to gain. The best and bravest of the coal miners are on his trail, and are now exposing his treason. Mr. Lewis wants these mine workers thrown out of the Union. He has a common interest with Mr. Rockefeller. Also Lewis thinks that if he can reduce the once-magnificent structure of the United Mine Workers to the character of a com- pany union, the operators may well afford to let him run it for them and to continue the $12,000 a year salary which the miners are getting tired of paying. Mr. Lewis thinks also he may get into a “Teapot Dome cabinet” as secretary of labor if he shows himself a useful servant to the Rockefellers who pay for the re- publican party to which Lewis belongs. But the capitalist editor lies when he says there is no cure. There is no cure under the capitalist system. But there is a cure, by overthrowing the capitalist system, and the rule of the Rocke- fellers and their stool-pigeons, in the Unions such as Lewis. The interesting editorial on the two Johns was published on the same day that the platform of the Workers (Communist) Party was adopted and William Z. Foster and Ben Gitlow were nominated as the red candidates of the working class for the com- ing election. All workers should study this Communist platform which clearly shows them that there is indeed no “cure for coal’ under capitalism, but it also shows the immediate steps to take to “cure” Messrs. Lewis and Rockefeller and also those steps to take to lib- erate the working class from slavery and unemployment. John D. Rockefeller Jr. John L. Lewis Cabitalist “Confessionals” By LELAND OLDS, (Federated Press). | individual, but power is concentrating \in great banking and investment or- CHICAGO, May 28.—That money |ganizations with world-wide financial power rules America is acknowledged |relations and inter-relations, which by Gov. Albert C. Ritchie of Maryland |are able to organize not only the ac- in the Atlantic Monthly under the|cumulated wealth but the credit of title, “The Imperialism of the Dollar.”| mankind into the most effective sort Ritchie, who has been considered by|of power the world has ever known.” business interests as the plutocratic| Ritchie enumerates the various ave- lieutenant and Coolidge of the demo- nues through which “the banker is evatic party, makes a show of expos-|bhy way of becoming the authentic ing the irresponsible domination of leader of the social order.” The bank- the banking oligarchy as a warning |er, he holds, secures this power “not to big business in whose interests he |sy much through the control of money wor ‘as through the control of both public Ritchie believes it obvious “that|and private credit.” The investment vew and startling developments. of {banker “is gradually acquiring a Jeep social and political significance mortgage on the industry of the na- are taking place in the power of | tion—he dominates practically the money, and that these developments |whole field of industry and enter- are giving the dollar, as the symbol | prise.” The ownership of wealth “is of that power, a truly imperialistic becoming abstract and depersonal- aspect.” He holds it “not extrava- ized.” gant” to say that the power domity | Finally he admits what has been ant in America today is the power |said of all autocracies that have risen of money, |to power and decayed in the past: The politician touches briefly on; “The power of’ money is not as the new devices and investment forms |everlasting as the rock of Gibraltar by which financial leaders “are man-|A money power that is politically aging to separate the legal ownership!sterile or indifferent, or politically says: “Ownership may remain in the of the dollar from the legal control {selfish or shortsighted, may well be of what the dollar represents.” He riding for a fall.” | WITH THIS WE CONQUER Miners Rally to Workers Party By REBECCA GRECHT. The membership drive carried on by the Pittsburgh district of the Workers (Communist) Party of America during the last four wees has made great headway among the striking miners in western Pennsyl- vania. Big Gains for Workers Party. Over 350 miners and their wives have joined the Party in Washington and Allegheny Counties alone. Four- teem new units have been organized in the most important mining cen- ters, each with a membership rang- ing from fifteen to thirty-five, and more are in the process of formation. Never in the history of the Party in this district has there been such an enthusiastic response among the min- ers to the call of the Party and such a rapid steady influx of these heroic fighters into the ranks of the Com- munist movement. The bitter struggle in the soft coal fields, now fourteen months old, is opening the eyes of the strikers in western Pennsylvania to the character of the capitalist system of exploita- tion which oppresses and enslaves them. They are learning what class war means. They are beginning to understand how the bosses’ govern- ment functions. Injunctions, evictions, the reign of terrorism which has been established in the organized and unorganized fields by coal and iron police and state troopers, brutal club- bings of men and women pickets alike, breaking up of progressive meetings have given daily demonstra- tions of the open alliance existing be- tween the coal operators and the gov- ernment in the assault upon the min- ers. Ever greater numbers of the mili- tants who are today battling to save the union, organize the unorganized miners and restore union conditions {n the industry, realize that the pre- sent fight is not an end in itself, but is a part of the great struggle going on in America between the working class and the capitalists, a struggle which will end only when the work- ers themselves assume power and take control of industry and govern- ment. Miners Loosing Illusions. The striking miners who are join- ing the Party in western Pennsyl- vania have been through several THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MAY 29, 1928 severe conflicts. They remember the strike, however, has been so pro- tracted and bitter as the present one. Never before has there been such a determined attempt to destroy the miners union and thus help to demol- ish the organized labor movement of America—an attempt which obvious- ly has the open or tacit support of government officials. Senate Investigation Failed. Added to this the complete fail- ure of the senate investigation of the coal strike. Whatever little hope existed among the miners when the senate investigating committee first began its very arduous labor in March on the eve of the primary elections in Pennsylvania that this would lead to a favorable settlement, has today col- lapsed. While coal operators and cor- rupt mine union leaders “testify” in Washington, evictions of hundreds of strikers families in Ohio and Penn- sylvania proceed. Injunctions and sheriff’s anti-picketing proclamations are even more drastically enforced. The slugging campaign of state troop- ers and coal and iron police increase in violence, and the coal operators calmly and deliberately continue with their plans to smash the union at any cost. The aggressive strikers see through this investigation as a political ma- neuyer. They recognize that the sen- ate, like other government bodies, backs ‘the operators, and that the miners cannot expect to win their fight through action of congress or any other government agency. As these facts sink into their minds, many of the progressive miners lose their illusions about capitalist dem- ocracy and freedom. The gospel of “peace and harmony” between work- er and boss no longer blinds them to the truths of the class struggle. They are turning to the Workers Party for guidance and leadership, for a solu- tion to their problems, to their bitter struggles and suffering. Party Units Established. In Washington County, new units of the Party have been established in Meadowlands, Houston, Washington, Mollenauer, McDonald, Cherry Val- ley and Fredericktown, while the membership of the Coverdale and Canonsburg units have been more than doubled. Throughout the Alle- gheny Valley, which has developed strikes of 1910, 1919, 1922. No past | ee eau WoRWers jinto a progressive stronghold and has been the center of attack by the reac- tionary union machine, the most ac- |tive strikers are joining the Party. New units have been organized in Ren- ton, Russelton, Rural Ridge, Kinlock, North Bessemer, Harwick, and Har- marville. Miners have also joined the Party in Daisytown, California and Bentleyville.* | It is significant that miners’ wives jare seeking admission into the Party, jas in Bishop, North Bessemer, Rural |Ridge, and Russelton. They are the! jleaders of the progressive women in these mining camps.’ They have dem- onstrated their fighting spirit and understanding of the issues involved in the struggle by their activity on the picket line, in relief work, in the fight against the reactionaries. Now they are entering the Party together with their men, for the first time in Western Pennsylvania, again showing that a new era has indeed opened for the women in the mining camps. Many of these miners have in the past supported the republican or democratic party. Now, they declare, they are through supporting ‘the parties of the coal operators, the rail- road and steel trusts. They have learned in the struggle that the cap- italist parties are merely the tools of the bosses. As some of the miners express it: “Before we voted for the boss, now we’re going to vote for ourselves and support our own party —the Workers Party.” Leave Socialist Party. Former members of the socialist party are also joining, as in Meadow- lands, Bishop, and Cherry Valley. They are emphatic in their assertions that the socialist party has ceased to represent the workers, that it sup- ports Lewis and the ¢oal operators in its opposition to the progressive miners movement. The action of James Maurer, former secretaty of the Pennsylvania State Federation of Labor, and now vice-presidential ~scitieuedaa by the Party in the last month in| the mining camps has definitely shown that the active miners in west- | ern Pennsylvania look upon the | Workers (Communist) Party as the} only political organization that fights | for the interests of the workers. Ap-/| peals to build the party are received with enthusiasm. Party Appeals Successful. In Cherry Valley, for instance, where the Party had had no connec- tions formerly, 10 members joined at the first meeting, 13 at the second, and 11 more at the third, with the number of miners asking to be ad- mitted steadily growing. In Renton, at a meeting of about 40 miners, 34 joined the Party, stating that they would double the membership with- out any difficulty. The same can be said of Bishop, Kinlock and other centers. The success of the campaign for new members has indicated that the Party, with correct methods and in- creased activity, can gain a mass following in many mining camps. This points to splendid possibilities for the Party’s presidential election campaign in western Pennsylvania. The miners are beginning to drift away from the capitalist parties, as was seen in recent primary elec- tions held in western Pennsylvania, when in Washington, Fayette, and other counties, the vote was reported the lowest cast in many years in these sections. The socialist party has been discredited. Among the ac- tive progressives the Workers Party is now recognized as the only poli- tical party that represents the work- ingelass and merits the workers sup- port. The National Nominating Conven- tion of the Workers (Communist) Party met in a period of increasing reaction and intensified struggle. For the striking miners in the bituminous coal fields especially, this convention assumes great importance. Without doubt an effective drive for the candidate on the socialist ticket, in uniting with the most reactionary elements of the Pennsylvania labor movement to fight the progressive delegates to the recent convention of the Pennsylvania State Federation of Labor, has proven to these miners the complete bankruptcy of the so- cialist party. The organization work carried on Workers Party candidates will stir the mining, camps in western Penn- syvania and lead to highly favorable results, New forces are developing in the coal fields. Our Party will receive the support of new proletarian masses who have been awakened by their bitter fight, their daily experiences of class war and class government, Another Milestone Along the Imperial Road By SCOTT NEARING (Fed. Press). Figures published by the United States department of commerce show that the American Empire has be- come the chief lending country in the world. Another milestone along the imperialist highroad! Before the war the business men of Great Britain were the world’s chief lenders. Indeed, British foreign loans in 1918 totaled about $20,000,000,000, as compared with $8,000,000,000 for Pwance; $7,500,000,000 for Germany and $8,000,000,000 for the United States. In prewar years the loans of the British Empire were more than equal to the loans of Germany, France and the United States combined, . Tables are Turned, The war turned the tables. Post- war developments clinched the Ameri- can position. Today the business class of the United States is lending more than the business class of any other empire. ¥ From 1920 to 1927 Great Britain were $6,836,000,000, or 65 per cent more than the loans made by British business interests. Each year, from 1920 to 1927, with the exception of 1928, the foreign loans of the United States exceeded the foreign loans of Great Britain. In Early Stages, The United States is still in the early stages of its foreign loan de- velopment. In Great Britain, from 1921 to 1924, foreign loans exceeded in amount the loans to home industry. From 1925 to 1927 British foreign loans were 44 per cent and domestic loans were 56 per cent.. In the United States, loans to home industry were 4 to 7 times as great as the foreign loans. The United States has just begun the practice of foreign lending. Its total income, total anual surplus and total capacity for capital export are far in excess of Great Britain. The | Steadily push British bankers. out of} | the foreign investment field. U. S. Bankers Replace British. | | Already British investors have been! driven out of the U. S. market. In 1913 they invested $111,000,000 in | the United States; in 1927 $1,500,000, | \ U. S. bankers, meanwhile, have re- placed British bankers in Latin America, Canada and even in Europe as the leading investors. In Latin America, for 1927, U.*S. bankers placed $359,000,000 in loans; British} bankers $11,000,000. Latin /me was formerly a stronghold of Bri financing. British bankers sent $32%,-| 000,000 to Canada in 1913 | cent of their total foreign loans. In} 1927 British loans to Canada were only $51,000,000, compared with $368 000.009 loaned in Canada by U. S. bankers. The Canadian investment market was almost exclusively British prior to 1900. Until the war, British loaned abroad $4,121,000,000. During! future holds promise of a titantic| lending predominated. In 1927 UV. S.; the same years, U. S. foreign loans) struggle in which U. S. bankers will) loans were more than 5 times British | loans. Even on the continent of Lurope, at Britain’s back door, in 1927 U. S. loans were $571,000,000— more than 4 times the British total of $130,000,C00. Marine and Dollar Diplomacy. With the sweep of this rapid ex- pansion in the foreign investment field solemn assurances from Hughes and moralizings from Coolidge are dry leaves in the wind. Words are idle. American business interests are spreading investments far and n| wide with the knowledge and usually with the approval of the U. S. depart- ment of state. Threats to “American | | lives and American property” will be repeated wherever interests are en- dangered. With the spread of invest- ments go inevitably the wider and more frequent resort to marine diploma . HANaouTS, CARFACE AL CAPONE, for- merly chief gat impresario of Chicago’s world of vice has entered the cleaners’ and dyers’ trade and been made a partner to Morris Becker in the Sanitary Cleaning Shops, Inc. The New York Times mistakes the appearance of a crook in business for a piece of news and prints the story on the first page. But this isn’t the first time that a | gangster has found himself behind | a.counter. How sad is the downfall | of a good bandit. If Capone’s de- | moralization continues he will end | up as president of the Chamber of | Commerce. | * * * | AFTER Stanley Clark of Oklahoma, \** Anita Whitney of California and |B, H. Lauderdale of Texas had spoken ; |at the Nominating Convention the | capitalist reporters were at last ready | to admit that the Workers (Commun- jist) Party was not a sect of New | York needle trade workers. i eee Soa | Among the technical advances of{ | capitalism may be noted the radio by! which we may hear songs without! |having to see prima donnas, | esi ay. Increased clarity, politically, on the| | part of the New York Times is indi-| | cated by its admission that the social-; | democratic government of Gerniany | | will have to make some concessions | ; to the working class “ve to the pres- | sure of the Communists.” | * * * Nursery Tales ° x “Oh, Mother look at the pretty pic- ture! Who is the big boy with the long pants playing: with the girls?” “That is President Coolidge, my child.” “Oh, is he a man?” “Be still, Adolph!” “Why is he playing with, the other children?” “He is giving a cyspelling bee.” “Is that what are for, Mother?” “Yes, 1” “Well, Mother what has happened to his face?” “Adolph, go | to bed!” * * * THE JERICHO ROAD. The Priest and Levite once went by The robbed man on the road, Till the Samaritan drew nigh, And true compassion showed; And yet the robberies went on Today the Priest and Levite raise A Fund, or old, or new, And organize a “Drive,” that pays A salary or two; | But who, or what, the “Chest” relieves, | We leave the road still to the thieves. | —Robert Whitaker. * * * | The following item from the leading fascist news organ, L’Impero, besides being an uncommon specimen of drivel contains a piece of news of great importance to J. P. Morgan. The excerpt concerns A. P. Giannini, an Italian banker of San Francisco and is as follows: “Originating from Italy, one of the poorest countries with the poor- est banks, Signor Giannini has suc- ceeded in financially dominating the United States, the world’s richest country. “This indicates the real strength of that empire of civilization which tomorrow’s Italy will become. A® | Napoleon once dominated Europe » through France, so this modern Italian financially dominates Amer- ica through the United States. “He has conquered the Americans | at their own game. . .Giannini, until yesterday a great Italian citi- zen of America, is now a great citi- zen of Italy. . .Countries become great through such citizens and Romegfounded the greatest political and human civilization in the world through such personal abnegation and honesty.” | " * * * VISION. He travelled far, he travelled wide, And saw just what he saw; While she, to her own village tied, Looked on a leaf with awe. * * * ‘The invention of phosgene should not be completely condemn as long as the composer of 0 “Romon till 4