The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 22, 1928, Page 6

Page Six THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK. FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 1928 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 pies By Mail (in New York Jy): By Mail (outside of New York): $8.00 per vear $4.50 si: waths $6.50 per year %3.60 six months £2.50 three months. $2.00 three months. Phone, Orchard 1680 “Datwork” Address and mati out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. Y- ....ROBERT MINOR ..WM. F. DUNNE Editor.. Assistant itor. . a» second-class mail at the po the act of March 3, Death of Chang Tso Lin Chang Tso Lin started out as a simple chief of an armed band of thieves and cut-throats, living by the petty gains of sacking villages, stealing cattle and looting shops. But Chang Tso Lin learned the way to the larger opportunities of the trade of banditry and murder. Imperialism has better use for Persh- ings, Joffres, Hindenburgs and Chang Tso Lins than to let them waste their talents on stealing chickens. Chang Tso Lin, the bandit, became Chang Tso Lin the war- lord; the cut-throat became the “civilizer.” the looter became the ism” on the pay-roll of more than 187 “savior of China from Comnij one imperialist foreign powel The revolutionary masses of China will rejoice that this murderer is dead. But the masses of China must not think that the passing of this defeated general out of the picture will great- ly affect the situation. There are still the “gentlemen-bandits,” ears, Chiang Kai-shek, Fu Tso-yi and other ex-nationalists, who rule, pillage and murder the Chinese people for the pay of the imperialist foreigners. Chinese workers and peasants, with the support of interna- tional working class, must strengthen their own iron batallions, and must build up the influence and leadership of their Commu- nist Party—these being the only means of driving the imperialists and their hired bandit-generals into the sea. Speak Easy, Mr. Mack Norman E. Mack, democratic national committeeman of Buf- falo, talked too much. He said: +. “Take the Province of Ontario in Canada, for instance. Millions of dollars have been spent in that province by American people, rincipally for liquor. The people in the states of Michigan, Ohio, ere diana, Illinois and New York spend a great part of their time of thead money imbibing the liquors so easily obtained in Canada in the (S02 srious provinces. It is absolutely criminal for this country to lose t ae the tremendous amount of money to foreign nations simply because of prehibition.... “Governor Smith believes that if any state desires a certain alcoholic content of beverage; that state has the right to determine that content.” Of course this is a true picture of the mind of a very large section of the smaller business men in the democratic party. That’s just the trouble. Mack ought to know better, just before a party convention in which success can be measured by the skill used in lying to the masses. . ‘i Mack is “repudiated” by Al Smith’s campaign manager for telling the world in outright plain English what Al Smith is hinting to his prospective followers in the lower layers of the capitalist class. Many of the latter are against prohibition for exactly the reason that Mack gave, but in this capitalist society anti-prohibition viows must be handled on the “speak-easy” plan, just as prohibition whisky is handled. But whatever impression Smith is boot-legging around to the effect that his election would mean an end to the spree which the official gunmen and graft-taking bureaucracy of Volsteadism are enjoying, the fact is that Smith, if elected, will do just exactly the same thing in regard to prohibition that Hoover would. Smith’s personal views cut very little ice for this high-ball. His political actions would be precisely those actions dictated by his masters, the big business and banking interests of the country, whe are also Hoover’s masters. rs, and consequently the dominant stratum of the ruling c are for prohibition because it aids them in the exploitation of labor. Capital wants to control the persona! lives of the workers, so that they will be more efficient slaves. Big empl Al Smith wants votes, so he speaks for the petty business class, but he will do what big capital wants him to do when it comes to acts. The working class should, of course, fight against alcoholism. ism to foster upon them an even greater control over their lives, and certainly not the attempt to govern their actions during the few hours outside the slave-pens of the bosses. The workers should fight against the maintenance of the piratical crew of spies, gunmen, gratters and petty tyrants which constitutes the prohibition enforcement arm of government. Rail “> The railroads reported fewer work- in March, compared with 1,730,661 in in every department in March parol 1927 and 1,816,479 in March pong hey had on their payrolls’ 0 |1923. Railroad workers have been re- they hi : ‘duced 104,254 or 6 percent in the last rch, 1927, according to the month- | year and 190,072 or more than 10 per- Wage statistics of the interstate jcent in the last five years. “Commerce commission, Every de-; During March the railroads paid partment of railroad work also showed $237,634,118 in wages, compared with @ reduction compared with a year $249,655,580 in March 1927 and $2565,- ‘ago in the average numbef of hours |447,764 in March 1923. In the course “per working day, \of five years speedup tactics have re- March marks the regular annual jduced the spending power of railroad expansion of railroad working forces, workers as a group $17,813,646 or particularly in fhe maintenance of |about 7 percent. way department. This year the car-| As a result of the speeding up the Tiers took on 18,036 additional men, ‘railroads reduced the average number of whom 14,610 were maintenance of of freight carmen from 91,604 in 1924 way workers. The only other impor- jto 80,026 in 1927 in spite of consid- tant increase over February was 2,686 jerable increase in traffic. This is train and engine service workers add- |typical throughout the industry, par- ed to the payrolls. ticularly in shop work.’ More produc- The commission reports 1,626,407 |tion with fewer workers is the rule workers employed by class 1 railroads in railroading as in manufacture. * f d ro d Workers Decrease a Toftice at New York, N. ¥.. under | %. (Continued From Previous Issue.) THE CRISIS IN THE LABOR MOVEMENT. In this situation the reactionary trade union leaders have proved them- selves absolutely incapable of organ- izing and leading the masses. They refuse to fight the bosses. Their aim is to become the industrial drivers of the bosses, to speed up the workers. | Their aim is to company-unionize the trade unions of the United States, and to become the. personnel managers of the employers. Under the leadership of this reactionary bureaucracy the |trade union movement of the United States, built by seventy years of bit- ter struggles by the workers, is being gradually destroyed. | Now it is not too much to say that under the combined efforts of the em- |ployers’ offensive and the leaders’ jtreachery, the American trade union | movement is in,a death crisis. It is lin danger of being either wiped out }completely or so deeply degenerated in the direction of company unionism jas to be of no value to the workers. |Loss of members, loss of militancy, jloss of control in strategic industries, irestriction of the unions to skilled | workers—this is the experience of the |American trade union movement. With its antiquated structure, craft |policies and reactionary leaders, the |trade union movement is unable to |stand in the face of the great open |shop attack by trustified capital. The |eraft union movement, hopelessly an- |tiquated, is slated for destruction. | Reactionary Labor Leaders. | As the trade union movement goes | more deeply into the crisis we find | that the trade union leaders turn more and more to the right. The latest | lexample of this policy, fatal to the | | development, of organization amongst |the workers, fatal to a successful de- ;fense of the workers’ standards of | \living, was the surrender of the Street | | But intelligent workers cannot support the attempts of capital-|Carmen’s Union to the Mitten Plan of |unemployed miners and to protect |Philadelphia. Here was a_ direct, amalgamation of trade unionism and | company unionism, Such is the pro- | |gram of the American Federation of |Labor and the conservative indepen- jdent unions. It is the ideal of the |misleaders of labor. This is their ‘fondest desire--to bring about an jagreement with the capitalists so !that the trade union leaders can turn ‘the trade unions into company unions ‘and use them as instruments for the ‘exploitation of the workers. Then, , |although the interests of the workers | would be sacrificed, the group inter-| lests of the labor bureaucracy would be conserved, In Coal Industry. Another example of policy which I may briefly cite to indicate the gen- eral tendency of the labor leaders to the right, is what is taken place in jthe coal industry. John L. Lewis has several points in his program. One way that instead of a militant cam- paign to organize the unorganized miners in West Virginia, he demand- ed the removal of the railroad rate discrimination in favor of the West Virginia mines against the mines in the Pittsburgh district. This, he de- clafed, would win the strike and solve the union’s problems. But now this rate discrimination has been abolished and who have been the gainers—the | that alternative. |such policies as this, with the union Pittsburgh Coal Company and the other big coal companies in the Pitts- a THE HALL IS DECORATED burgh district who are fighting the miners. That first point of Lewis’ was capitalist in character, Lewis has a second point in his pro- gram, equally capitalistic. This is that the industry shall be monopo- lized, the “uneconomic” mines closed down and 250,000 surplus miners driven out of the industry. Now we seem to be on the way also to have this point accomplished. The recent announcement by the Rockefeller in- terests that they will close down many of their “uneconomic” mines and turn loose into the surfeited la- bor market the surplus miners from | the shut-down mines, is the beginning of the acceptance of the second pro- posal of John L, Lewis. In fact, Rockefeller publicly thanks Lewis for his assistance to the capitalists in monopolizing the industry. Who will profit by such a proce- dure? Will the miners gain by it or the coal operators? It does not re- quire much analysis to show which. What will happen in the Rockefeller properties and in the other districts where similar plans may be put into effect? The operation of the ‘“un- economic” mines, so-called, constitutes a sort of division of work amongst the great body of miners. What work there is is spread over most of the workers. But now the proposal is to throw large numbers of these miners into unemployment altogether and to give the others relatively steady work. The displaced miners will be thrust into the great army of the un- employed, there to starve. They have Or, they may try to stay in the industry and compete with | the workers who have jobs and in this | way serve as an industrial reserve | army to break down the conditions of the miners as a whole. Lewis Is Bosses’ Man. | Lewis, instead of organizing the unorganized miners and making a fight to establish the 6 hour day, 5} day week, and thus to re-absorb the their interests during the impending reorganization and trustification of the coal industry, acts as an effi- ciency expert of the operators by co- operating with them to close down the uneconomic mines at the expense of the miners. His policy sacrifices the interests of the workers and pro- | tects those of the capitalists, The whole thing is an open shop proposal. It means more economy in produc- tion, elimination of competitors, and hence more profits for the employers. It means starvation for hundreds of thousands of miners, the breakdown of wage and working standards, and the ruin of the U. M. W. A, It is leaders acting as the agents of the bosses, that are liquidating the unions. The socialist trade union leaders are proving themselves as reactionary as the old A. F. of L. leadership, In fact they are often taking the lead in the movement to the right, of surren- der to the employers. The standards of production of Sidney Hillman were among the first signs of real company unionism in the American labor move- ment. It was the socialist trade union leaders in the needle trades who in- tensified the struggle against the left wing in the unions to the extent of splitting the organizations, In the Foster's Acceptance Speech ment cooperative” and the whole em- ployer program of devitalizing and company-unionizing the trade unions. The socialists are every bit as inca- pable of leading the workers in this crisis as the most reactionary fakers of the American labor movement. The Struggle of the Coal Miners. The debacle now taking place in the United Mine Workers of America is a basic expression of the crisis in the labor movement, a conclusive example of the absolutely incapacity of the present leadership of the trade unions to organize and lead the masses. The U, M. W. A., which just a few years ago controlled 80 per cent of produc- reduced by the loss of district after district, to where it now controls not more than 20 per cent of the bitum- inous production. In the present strike the employers are destroying three of the key sections of the U. M. W. A. and thereby destroying the base of the whole union. All the heroic strug- gles of these miners have not been able to avail them against the treach- ery of their leaders in the face of this great, attack by the employers. The present miners’ strike is the most important strike in the history of America. Bound up with this strike is the very life of the old trade union movement. The breakdown of the miners’ union in this struggle throws the whole trade union movement of the country into jeopardy. It is not my point here today to dwell upon the heroic struggle of these miners, as it has been very much discussed during this conven- tion, The rank and file miners seem to realize the tremendous significance of the strike. They have fought for 14 months against the coal operators, jagainst the government, with a hero- ism unparalleled. One of the things, comrades, that we must do with all our vigor when we return to our var- ious districts, is to mobilize-all our forces to gather every possible dollar of relief for the brave coal miners of the strike districts. This relief mon- ey we must not send to the American Federation of Labor or to the U. M. W. A. where it would be used for the shameful purpose of paying the huge salaries of John L. Lewis and his la- \bor grafter friends (which run to $12,000 a year) while the striking miners starve. Send it to the Nation- al Miners’ Relief Committee in Pitts- ‘burgh which will use the money for actually feeding the impoverished miners who-are out on strike. (Ap- plause.) The hope and promise of the coal industry is the growing revolt of the rank and file miners, More and more they are learning the futility of Lew- is’ policies, and realizing that such policies can only lead to the loss of their union conditions and the liqui- dation of all union organization. The Save-the-Union movement, with its historic slogans of “Lewis must go” and “Workers, Take Control of Your Union,” is the greatest upheaval ever known in the American labor move- ment. From among the ruins of the U. M. W. A. wrecked by the treach- jery of the Lewis regime, the rank and file miners are building a new or- ganization, one which, animated by a spirit of class struggle, will organize the great mass of miners and lead them victoriously against the oper- needle trades they are the champtons of piece work, of a “union manage- ators. Our Party may well be proud \of the role played by it in the pres- tion in the bituminous fields, has been | By Fred Ellis | i i poorer ent great struggle of the miners. (Applause.) The present great task of our Par- ty is to organize the millions of un- organized workers and lead them in struggle against the employers and | erated bread.” HANdOuTS GEMS OF LEARNING The newspapers put the acquittal of Stewart on the front page as | though it were news. t * * . The apt attention which the Brit- ish House of Commons pays to getting a food supply for the millions of un- employed is indicated by its keen in- terest in the debate on the new Pray- er Book. The evangelical position on \ the proposed changes is that they “encourage adoration of the conse- What the jobless are worrying about is, where they can get some, * * Philadelphia was described yester- day as a “workingman’s paradise” by William H. Taylor. This judge of heavenly conditions for workingmen is President of the Philadelphia Elec- tric company. * * * * Golfers and other proletarian read- ers of the Milwaukee Leader, Victor Berger’s socialist paper, should get a |real thrill out of this editorial para- \graph: “You no longer hear vocal sympathy for the horny-handed. Golfers don’t need any sympathy.” * * * Slight lack of confidence in the American workers’ ability to resist Communist ideas is indicated by the Providence Journal which ends up a 500-word editorial’ on the Workers ) (Communist) Party with the sentence, “The Workers Party will do well if| it polls as many votes as it did in 1924. It does not*deserve to do even as well as that for it is based on the attempted transfer of Russian revo- lutionary ideas to this side of the: world where there ought to be no con- genial soil for them.” * * * Working class organizations should not fail to snap up the bargain ad- vertised in the following note from the Kiwanis Magazine: “The Inter- national Committee on Kiwanis edu- cation has prepared a splendid set of slides of the activities of Kiwanis. Accompanying them is an interesting and informative lecture. Slides and lectures are obtainable without cost except postage from Chicago and re- turn.” » Thinks He’s Working the state. With ever larger num- bers of unskilled and semi-skilled workers developing more militant moods, under the pressure of wage cuts, speed-up, etc., the possibilities for mass organization and mass struggles become brighter. In the '|strikes, of the workers in the coal, textile, needle, shoe and other indus- tries during the recent period, our Party has played a central role. No big strikes take place now in the United States without the Commu- nists taking a decisive part. But in the still bigger struggles not far ahead our Party will have to play an even more decisive role, The organization of the unorgan- ized, the unification of the great masses of unorganized exploited work- ers, is our basic task in the industrial work and we must further that task with all our forces. Some may ask why it is that during a political cam- paign we talk about organizing the unorganized. This is because our Party is not merely a Party of vote- getters, It is a revolutionary Party of struggle. It organizes the work- ers for the fight on every front. It is especially in the election campaign when we have the ear of many thou- sands of workers that we must drive home to them the fundamental ne- cessity of building great mass organ- izations in the industries, More than ever it becomes neces- formation of new unions in the in- dustries, The old unions have been wiped out of many industries and have become hopelessly decrepit in many more. The reactionary leaders will not organize the unorganized. This is the task of the left wing. We must not limit ourselves to the old unions. We must be the champions, the leaders in the formation of new unions among the unorganized indus- tries. Here we must place the great emphasis of our efforts to organize the unorganized. But does this mean that we shall desert the old trade unions? By no means. The Communists will never surrender the control of 3,000,000 or- ganized workers. to the reactionary leadership of the A, F. of L. (ap- plause.) We will fight to save, to build up, and to revolutionize all those trade unions which possess a mass character and real vitality, We will give active support to the TUEL and to all kinds of left opposition movements in these organizations aiming to revolutionize them. The present situation teaches us this: the old trade unionism is going. American imperialism with its mo- nopolized, highly mechanized indus- try, mass production, speed-up sys- tem, company unionism, open shop drive and ruthless use of state pow- er, is too much for traditional craft unionism. The old unionism is being crushed and liquidated. A new and ‘more revolutionary unionism is being (born. It will be industrial in form and founded principally on the semi- skilled and unskilled in the trustified }|industries. It is a basic task of our ‘Party to lead in the foundation of this new unionism. (To Be Continued.) { sary for us to take the lead in the} “Qh, Mama, who is he?” “That's Ex-Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. He’s a prisoner at Doorn.” “Well, what’s he doing with tha meat chopper?” “That’s an axe.” “Oh does he have to chop wood for a living?” “No. For publicity. The govern- ment pays his expenses. He was just voted a million for female entertain- ers.” “Why is he a prisoner?” “He lost the war so the other capa italists said he started it.’ ° “Did he?” “No. They all started together lika @ train of cars.” “Well, why does he look so pers plexed?” “It’s the first time he’s had an are im his hand.” * Interest of the American Legion inf enlightenment is seen in the fact that the Springfield, Mass., post is giving free subs to the legion monthly ta ministers, judges, clubs and fraternal organizations. * * Self-hypnotism of some American editors is shown by this sentence from an ad for the Seripps-Howard newspapers carried in a New York magazine: “Their editors listen to na commands.” The real ruler of the press, however, is suggested by the last word of the sentence which fol- lowed: “And their readers form what is perhaps the most closely-knit and responsive body of buyers available to the advertiser.” i * * * * It is difficult to tell whether Cal Coolidge’s movement is progression or retrogression. He has just beem elected honorary president of tl senior class at Amherst college. this keeps up he will soon be monitor — in a school for boys and a little someone will hand him a bottle a rubber nipple.