The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 16, 1928, Page 4

Fl em o o &8 a am R : » Wid Page Four THE DAILY WORKER| Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS’N, Ine Daily, Except Sunday $3 First Street, New York, N. Y. : Cable Address SUBSCRIPTION RATES eC (in New York orly): By Mail (outside of New Yors): | vear $4.50 six 1. cths $6.50 per year 3.60 six months | 50 three months. $2.00 three months. | | Phone, Orchard 1680 “Dalwork” ‘ “Address and mail out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. Y. Editor .-ROBERT MINOR Assistant Editor... ..WM. F. DUNNE m= second-class mail at the post-office at New York, N. ¥., under the act of March 3, 1879. Capitalist Efficiency Politics The republican convention was surely the most remarkable | example that has yet been seen of efficient “trust” methods in | politics. The most colossal merger of banking and industrial inter- ests that has ever acted with a single purpose planned the course of the convention and dictated its outcome with almost that| precision which is attained in the construction of a fifty-story | skyscraper in New York. | Now that Hoover is put over as candidate there are two | main jobs for the great engineering concern of Wall Street to} go through with—first to cover up completely, in the eyes of | the masses, the fact’ that Hoover is manufactured in Wall Street, and, second, to nominate (at the democratic convention) a fitting alternate for Hoover with the assurance that if accidents make | Hoever’s election difficult the democratie alternate of Wall! Street’s choice will go through. | A remarkable editorial which appeared Friday morning in the string of Scripps-Howard newspapers is a model of the highly | skilled journalistic lying with which this job will be completed. | The 26 newspapers, including the New York Telegram, but con- sisting largely of the “liberal” small-town type of papers, were recently enlisted as a bloc in the service of the Hoover campaign. | Obviously it was an arrangément to “sell” the fat Wall Street | candidate to the Middle West where the selling could be done} only by this type of paper. | Speaking of the most completely boss-controlled convention ever seen, and in which the agents of these bosses with perfect adrojtness controlled and diverted the “farm revolt” into their own mill-race this editorial says: Cénspiracies of party bosses could not use the legitimate farm revolt for their selfish purpose. Financial interests could not kill the candidate they feared. \ . Speaking of a man who for eight years conspired with the Harding-Coolidge gang as a member of the cabinet to protect the Teapot Dome plunderers; it says: : Hoover has come none too soon. His historic and once-proud party is rotting with corruption. His predecessors have failed to check this ravage of the vitals of government by predatory wealth, theft and sale ef public resources, pollution of the polls by officials whom it has not disavowgd. 3 To cover up the significance of the fact that Hoover and Curtis were put over by the Wall Street “interests” and the gang of bosses the editorial says: From this day forward Hoover will be under pressure from the bosses and the interests. They have fastened themselves on him. Failing to destrey him, they crawled to the winning side. Some tried to change their spots before and others during the convertion. Now they claim credit for his victory. They plot to share the fruits thereof. And then, in recognition of the fact that Wall Street, through its certainty of nominating another agent, Smith, in the demo- cratic convention, is insured against any losses in this election, the Scripps-Howard editorial continues: Hoover, in all probability, will go out to meet a fair and worthy opponent, Alfred E. Smith. Differing in type, in heritage and in party, they share a common character and consecration to duty. Rarely has this nation been more fortunate in both its party leaders. Never has it needed such leadership more. But, registering Wall Street’s policy of avoiding any unneces- sary break in the continuity of the bureaucracy: In this era, when the increasingly complex domestic and foreign problems of our government are those of social engineering, we believe that Herbert Hoover is better fitted by training and experience for the presidency than is Smith. And then ,the final demagogic flourish for the benefit of the small-town “democracy”. Of the Wall Street “social engi- neer” whose function is to crush out the last remaining shreds of what capitalism calls civil liberties, to consolidate the rule of finance capital, to steer this rule tarough the process of expropri- ation of the small farmers, to fasten the open shop and gunman control over the entire labor relations of industry, and to lead the most gigantic military power of all history’in world con- quest, this “liberal” editorial says: Will he restore civil liberties? , Will he guard the public resources and curb the encroachments of financial and giant power interests? Will he give to our farms an economic equality with industry? Will he mitigate unemployment resulting from maladjustments of the machine system and widen the opportunity of labor to share the fruits of its toil? Will he renounce the imperialism which preys upon weaker coun- tries? AWiil he keep the peace in the family of nations by justice toward others, by patience when provoked, and by lessening the economic and political conflicts which cause wars? We have faith in Herbert Hoover. This is indeed the triumph of American capitalist efficiency. | The advent of Hoover at the head of the classic political party of THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 16, 1928 . Growth of Soviet Trade'Unions The following is from “Soviet Trade Unions,” by Robert W. Dunn, | published by the “VtMPRRrE“PPESE: * * * | ‘HE Russian trade unions are com- |* paratively young organizations. Capitalism got a very late start in the Russian Empire and the protec- tive organizations of the workers were correspondingly late in making |their"appearanee. Among the Rus- sian trade unionists of today there are very few old workers who can share reminiscences about the early ‘struggles of the unions as such. But {you will find many who were active jin the work of the Social Democratic |Labor Party and who participated in |spontaneous strikes before 1905 and in the difficult illegal political life of those days. If the Russian trade junion leader has a “past,” it will be \largely a political rather than a union one. For the former was the domi- nant form of organization in the early days. Beginning with the seventies and eighties of the last century the work- ers did resort to sporadic stritws. The leaders of these strikes were usually connected with some revolutionary party such as the Social Democrats. Such strikes, although often. surpris- ingly widespread considering the small organization behind them, were usually crushed by the police and the leaders imprisoned or exiled to Si- beria. There were thus strikes and struggles of the workers but not real unions. Mere membership in an or- ganization was a crime. Clause 318 of the Russian Criminal Code of 1874 read in part: “Persons accused ‘of belonging to societies having the’ aim of rousing hostility between employers and workers as well as provoking strikes are liable to imprisonment for eight months with deprivation of tights and property and exile to Siberia.” In spite of this, however, there were underground workers’ organiza- tions with a political leadership. Christian HRISTIAN civilization showed its true colorg in the African slave trade,—greed,} ferocity, callous indif- ference to human suffering, self- righteous piety. | The’ Portuguese began the slave | trade about 1450, At that time their merchant ships brought six or | seven hundred Ne- groes each year from Africa to be sold in Western Europe, Slaves were still luxury. There was no con- ¢apitalism, is an omen for the American working class of not only | Scott ‘Neartng beer ‘i Rogan ‘ é Hi ‘ i hi . n which they were the sharpest regime of strike-breaking, union-smashing and polit- employed. ‘For’ the moat ja they ieal repression, accompanied by ruthless expropriation of farm- ers,—but also the most efficient methods of such activities of the capitalist government ever known in history. Hoover is capitalism’s efficiency engineer. Smith alternate. * Vote Communist! is his * M4 were house or body servants, adding to the distinction rather than the wealth of their masters. * 5 * After the sugar planting began to succeed the Company of Royal Ad- venturers Trading Into Africa was started in 1662. The Queen Dowager aud James II of England both took They collected strike funds and were jcapable, under favorable conditions, lof calling widespread strikes. The mere distribution of a leaflet by such a@ group often resulted in a city-wide Strike, even though only a handful of workers were members of the secret organization. These strikes frequently effective in forcing the government to pass some law slightly reducing the hours of work for wom- en and children or in getting other legislative crumbs calculated to keep down discontent. Although the government promptly suppressed any organization that re- sembled a union, it permitted, under rigid supervision, the existence of mutual aid societies, credit. organiza- tions, sick and death benefit societies and similarly named fraternal bodies. These organizations were intended to have no relation to the economic or political struggles of the masses, and, if they showed any suspicious activ~ ity, were immediately disbanded by the police, Such societies were par- ticularly popular among the printing trades. Mention should also be made of the “Jegal” labor organizations sponsored by the police to combat the subver- isive, revolutionary influence. of un- derground radical groups. The pur- pose of these police unions was to keep the attention of the working class centered on non-political and non-economic matters such as mutual aid and burial benefits. Unfortun- ately, however, from the point of view of the czarist government, these bo- dies frequently became centers for economic demands and even for strikes, and although fostered by the | police to offset the influence of revo- lutionary groups, they ended by tak- ing part in the agitation leading to the attempted revolution of 1905 and the labor outbreaks which accom- panied it. 1905 and After. Real unions came into existence with the uprisings of 1905. They were jformed in practically every large town and city in the empire. Organ- (stock in the company, which contract ed to deliver 3,000 African slaves per year to the British West Indies. Un- der the treaty of Assiento. (March 18, 1718), British traders and American colonists agreed to furnish slaves to the Spanish West Indies, who were to take 4800 Negroes a year for 30 years In return the Royal Company agreed among other things to pay a quarter of its profits each to the Spanish and English kings. oy, : Thus the royal houses in Europe, ruling bythe grace of God, not only ‘protected the'slave trade but profited directly from it. i ‘sth * * por ‘a time the Portuguese and Span- ish” ers, representing the two great Catholic countries of Western Europe, held a virtual monopoly on the slave trade. During this period the Roman Church as well as Euro- pean royalty were directly allied with the traffic in Africans, The Protestant God as well as the Catholic God took a hand in the. busi- ness. J, C. Spears in his American Slave Trade quotes a bill of lading of the Sierra Leone, a Yankee slaver of the middle of the 18th century, “ship- ped by the grace of God in good order izations previously underground ap- peared on the surface, A wave of jand seven unions. Some of the rea- {sons given for their suppression shed strikes, led in part by these unions,|light on the conditions prevailing un- swept the country. The revolutionary |der the Romanoffs. Unions and work- parties took the leadership in these|ers’ societies were closed by the po- were strikes and did their rengthen. and build substantial ‘unions, making them the organs of ‘political agitation. The first All-Russian Trade Union Conference, Composed chiefly of dele-_, gates from Moscow unions, was held in that city in October, 1905. Or- ‘ganizations, no matter what their ‘ames, that were “directly or indi- _rectly fighting capital’ were repre- sented at this conference, It organ- ized a Moscow District Bureau and a Central Bureau for the calling of a second conference which was held in 1906. This conference, with repre- sentatives from more than ten cities, reported that some 200,000 workers had been organized. It went on rec- “ord in favor of continuing to form \bona fide bodies independent of po- \lice persuasion. It ‘also advocated the “one shop, one union” principal | which was later to become the pre- vailing form of organization after 1917. The Revolution of 1905 was drowned in’ blood and the labor union movement which had just | gotten on its feet during the strug- \gles_was again driven underground and suffered the terrible vengeance of the monarchy. A period of severe repression set in.» According to Los- jovsky, “The unions were prohibited from assisting strikers; they were closed down for attempting to inter- vene in the great strike movement; members of the exectitives were ar- rested and exiled to Siberia, funds lwere confiscated and books taken to lthe police stations; police were pres+ lent at all-meetings, which were closed {down on the slightest pretext, and, lvery often, without any reasoft at all & ..the iron fist of the victorious re-, jaction ruthlessly crushed the, labor jorganizations at their birth.” The czarist police reported in 1907 that it had closed down one hundred and well conditioned” .. . rum, rood land shackles and other necessary ma- terials for the slave trade... “and so God send the good schooner to her desired port in safety, Amen.” * * * Spears tells the story of one good New England elder whose ventures on the slave coast had uniformly turned out well. He “always returned thanks on the Sunday following the arrival of the slayer in the harbor of Newport that an overruling Provi- dence had been pleased to bring to this land of freedom another cargo of benighted heathen to enjoy the blessings of gospel dispensation.” Slavery at the beginning of the 19th century was widespread, English colonies held 800,000 slaves, French 250,060, Danish 27,000, Spanish and Portuguese 600,000, Dutch 50,000, Swedish 600, There were also about 2,000,000 slaves in Brazil and 900,000 in the United States. Christendom was building its prosperity on the African slave trade. bn * * * At this period the slave trade was important and profitable. The trad- utmost tojlice for (1) Advocating strikes, (2) Participating in strikes, (3) Attack- ing employers in the press for dis- charging a union member, (4) Poli- tical unreliability of certain members of the society, (5) Participation of the members in political propaganda, (6) Distribution of revolutionary manifestos, (7) Discovery of. socialist |, pamphlets in the dining room of a so- ciety, (8) A telegram to the second Duma promising to rise in its de- fense, (9) Opening of libraries with- out the permission of the police, (10) Passing \resolutions for the celebra- tion of the First of May, (11) Greet- ing the Social, Democrats in the Du- ma, (12) Convening general member- ship meetings without police permit, (18) Collecting money for unspecified purposes, As a result of this systematic sup- pression by the police the union. move- ment declined, and almost disappeared from sight during the years 1908 to 1911, But in 1912 and 1913, just be- fore the outbreak of the World War, revolutionary and strike agitation be- came more intense. This wave of or, ganization was met by the govern- ment and the employers with ruth- less measures of repression. Spies and provocateurs unearthed the secret meeting places of the unions. Their members were discharged and ‘black- lists were.drawn up. Cossacks rode into picket lines_and demonstrations just as they had in 1905. From 1914 on, soldiers stood over the workers in ‘the shops to prevent any organiza- tion, especially among the industrics manufacturing war materials. The unions were thus practically wiped’ out again and it is stated that there were not more than 1,500 members in what we would call real labor unions in all Russia in the winter of 1916- 1917. (To Be Continued.) Civilization Has Shown Its Colors the active assistance of their political governments. “In Liverpool it made millions, and elsewhere in England, Europe and New England it brought prosperity not’only to ship owners but to the distillers of rum and the manufacturers of other trade goods.” (Phillips, American Negro Slavery.) prom these beginnings in the mid- dle of the 15th century until the Proclamation of Emancipation in 1863, 400 years later, slavery was one of the principal sources of wealth among the Christian nations. Millions of Africans were torn from their homes, villages were devastated and turned back into wilderness, but the turned back into wildreness, but the plantation owners of the Americas got their labor and the rising trading |every worker in Italy into having class of New England, New York dnd |more children. The workers are kick- Samuel Hop- |ing. pee their profits. HANdOuTS, QrezoneipENee in the average legionnaire’s capacity for mental calisthenics is suggested in the fol- lowing lines by Frederick Palmer in the American Legion Monthly: “Among the delegates to the great political conventions will. be legion members back of every candidate pre- sented, Each legionnaire by complete- | ly divorcing his Legion self from his political self will be able to make his | party’s rule the better for the nation —thus holding the respect which he / most prizes, that of his fellow legion- | naires. As a legionnaires he may sit in| only one national convention this | year, that at San Antonio.” * * * There is a campaign on foot by the militarists to persuade the sons | of deceased war veterans te go to West Point and Annapolis, in accord- ance with a bill passed’ by the gov- ernment. Boys who grew up without fathers may now be able to fix it so that their own sons may have the } same advantages, * Swaggering pretense and insulting lies born of avarice are seen in the spacious advertising of the capitalists. Joe Cook, star of Rain or Shine, in orderjto raise a few extra dollars with which to buy Melachrino cigarettes, allow his name to be added to the following prize balogna: “I thank good old Lucky Strikes for helping me to bé versatile. I smoke Luckies all the time. They |keep my voice clear and have never jaffected my wind. These are two assets of vital importance in my work, And that is why I can imitate | four Hawaiians,” \ ‘ * An infallible method of beating the, ponies is by padding payrolls, ac- * * * . .| gording to William J. Oswald, indiet- ;ed Tammany district, street cleaning superintendent of the Bronx. Oswald declared that the “horses” never fail- ed to win. Lougheed, his subordin- ate, agreed on the winnings but in- sisted on the padded payrolls as a more certain source of revenue. Without quite saying so Oswald implied that his almost perfect rec- | ord with the race horses was a re- | sult of his churchly ways. Oswald is a choir singer and regularly can be heard te warble: f “Let's all stand up for Jesus, we'll all stand up for Jesus.” Whereupon Oswald would go out to get a few more names to stand up on the payroll. = * * ‘ Learning Politics Clarence Chamberlain (Right), transatlantic flyer, has recently been appointed city’s air chief and will direct the construction of the city airport. In picture above one of the city officials is initiating him into the political mysteries of a metropolis and giving him les- sons on how to deport himself, as @ political figure in a big city. Chamberlain is expected to attend the summer semester at Tammany egllege and take the full course @® contract grafting. He may be given the privilege of having Mrs. Knapp as a private tutor for the rather knotty subject of payrolk padding. He will then study at first hand the methods used in the great Bronx street cleaning experiment about which the whole world is talking. He will finish up with a post-grad- uate course in Queens sewer scan- dal. He will then be ready to take his place in the city hall. Even though he will be among more ex- perienced men he won't have to feel ill at ease or ashamed of his ignor- ance. ' A SUDDEN swing way from greed toward magnanimity on the part of the employing class ds noted in the following virtuous words of Roe Fulkerson, labor exploiter: “Unfortunately, many of us mis- take the constituents of happiness.) We think happiness consists of get- ting things; houses, lands, bonds, au- tomobiles or what not. The: dreams, airy piffle which, when ac- quired? become masters» instead of! servants.” “S, HH ‘ * * USSOLINI ls still running around! belligerently trying to intimidate * * * } is quoted by Spears as stating| An Italian paper has figured thei that Rhode Island alone had 150 ves-|cost of supporting a family of fivi sels in the slave trade in 1770. In |which Mussolini thinks should be the 1787 Hopkins declares that “this |average. The cost of just keeping a — trade in human species has been the | family alive is set at $65 in Ame first. wheel. of commerce in Newport, | money. The average worker ge’ on which every other movement in |equivalent of $32 per month. business has depended. . . .. By it the |dently Mussolini doesn’t realize ers in every important mercantile jinhabitants have gotten most of the’ country were competing for it with 8 Pepin’ 7 are the raising of children depends are but #*