The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 27, 1928, Page 6

THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, FRIDAY, JULY 27, 1928 scr Published by NATIONAL DAILY WORKER P UBLISHING ASS’N, Inc., Daily, Except Sunday 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. Cable Address: “Daiwork” Phone, Stuyvesant 1696-7-8 SUBSCRIPT By Mail (in New York only): $8 per year $4.50 six months $2.50 three months Pp ION RATES By Mail (outside of New York): $6.00 per year $3.50 six months $2 three months Address and mail out checks to THE DAILY W ORKER, 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. comma Editor... -ROBERT MINOR = Assistant ..WM. F, DUNNE —_ t-office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. For President WILLIAM Z. FOSTER For the Party of t For the Workers! VOTE COMMUNIST! For Vice-President BENJAMIN GITLOW aE he Class Struggle! Against the Capitalists! Mooney and Billings Rot in Jail Because Labor Leaders are Yellow Twelve years ago, July 27, 1916, the Francisco sheriff locked into five cells in the county jail the organizer of a streetcar strike, Thomas J. Mooney, an assistant in the strike, Warren K. Mooney’s wife and two California labor illings, other men well known in the movement. The charge was murder. The frame-up was based upon the explosion of a bomb in a “pre- paredness’’ parade which had killed or mortally wounded ten persons. Since then every civilized country in the world has felt the storm of its class struggle blow stronger by at least some degree on the issue of the “Mooney case.” The “Mooney case” became the most cele- brated case in all labor history. What the Drey- fus case was for the lower middle class cause of “justice,” the Mooney case became for the swelling tide of the militant labor movement which, already breaking through the chains of | military restrictions in one great country, was about to overthrow the Russian Empire. The martyrdom of Mooney and Billings is an American epic. The Mooney case, which reached the point of a death sentence for Mooney com- muted to life imprisonment only because Wood- row Wilsoh’s imperialist war plans were im- peded by the wave of anger it caused, is twin to the Sacco-Vanzetti case. The whole world knows that Mooney and Billings had nothing to do with the “prepared- ness day” tragedy in San Francisco—to argue on that point would be a waste of time. No one seriously claims any longer that they had anything to do with the crime of which they | were convicted. b And so it is commonly said that Mooney and Billings are in the penitentiary because the capitalist class wishes to keep them there. But to leave it at that and say no more would be} only an incomplete truth and therefore an in- direct lie. Let us speak again the truth on this twelfth anniversary of the imprisonment of | Mooney and Billings—the other half of the | truth which is that Mooney and Billings are in jail because the official labor movement of the| United States is foully corrupted by class col- | laboration and because the controlling leaders | of the trade unions in the main are in a con- scious alliance with the capitalist powers. | Our memory is not so short as not to recall that Mooney and his co-defendants were ar- San | (the Mooney-Billings defense organization of | that time) goes to show that the bureaucratic | instinct of the masses’ power was correct. And we tell the workers today that the way to deal with the Mooney-Billings case is to arouse the American and international work- ing class on a class-struggle basis. The labor movement is not dead, it is only dead “at the top”’ Let us arouse the rank and file to get Mooney and Billings out. The International Labor Defense is under- taking to do this in connection with the twelfth anniversary of Mooney’s and Billings’ arrest. Support its splendid effort! Join the Interna- tional Labor Defense and fight for our class- war prisoners rotting in capitalist peniten- tiaries. Capitalist Democracy’s “Niggers” ground that they are Negroes, can be barred from voting in the democratic party primaries in Texas, a federal district court decides at Houston. The noble judge reaches this con- clusion on the ground that the sacred liberties guaranteed by our democratic form of govern- ment must be maintained. A Negro appealed to the federal court which held: “The action complained of by plaintiffs, being purely party action as to which the holding is universal; that like other voluntary as- sociations they have complete delectus personarum and may select or reject as members whom they will, it is unnecessary to decide the second point, whether, if the plaintiff’s rights had been invaded, equity could grant relief, other than to say that the point is greatly in doubt, the books being full of cases declaring the doctrine that equity is con- cerned only with matters of property and the main- tenance of civil rights and will{not interfere for the protection of rights which are merely politi- cal.” And that: “This view finds support, not only in the law, but in the history of this country and always will find support while free institutions are maintained.” With the mighty words “delectus person- arum” ringing in his ears the Negro can go off and think it over. The ruling class thinks by such methods to keep its slaves in a con- dition of complete subjection without civil rights of any sort. But can anyone figure out why a Negro wants to vote for the democratic party? We do not offer this as an excuse for accepting the action of the court in its consequences. On the contrary, we say the decision is a challenge that must be met with a ringing answer. But rested with the direct connivance of Brouillet, -pesident of the San Francisco Labor Council, 'P. H. McCarthy, the bribe enriched president of | the California building trades unions, and the whole official family of California trade union bureaucracy, supported craftily by the Exec- utive Council of the American Federation of Tabor. We have not forgotten that, although “ene Debs defied his party to come out openly at the beginning for Mooney and Billings, the ocialist party as an organization, national and state, remained publicly non-committal and worked privately to withhold working class sup- port for Mooney whom it characterized as an “anarchist” although he was a member of the y- a is true that after the tide of working class support had in spite of them, reached a high point, the A. F. of L. bureaucracy and the Socialist Party bureaucracy made formal gestures in behalf of Mooney and Billings. But every man and woman familiar with the labor movement knows now and knew then that these were only formal gestures to an aroused mass sentiment. These bureaucrats knew only “too well, what proved to be the fact, that every ‘militant left wing tendency in the trade unions d in the Socialist Party would be crystallized around the Mooney-Billings defense move- “ment. That nearly all of the older figures now the left wing trade union movement, guided ‘by the Trade Union Educational League, and ly all of the older leaders of the present munist Party, were then the leaders of International Workers’ Defense League the answer cannot be written on a ballot sup- porting the democratic party—the party of slavery. Nor a ballot supporting the republi- can party, which is of exactly the same char- acter. The answer of the Negro masses should be, and one day will be, to support the party of their own class, the party which will overturn the whole system of capitalist “democracy” in which the exploited masses are “democratized” out of all rights. Some three-quarters of a century ago the United States supreme court made a little de- cision by which a Negro slave, Dred Scott, was returned to his master. This decision was to stand “for all time.”” Where is it now? But it took the most terrific class struggle the country had ever seen to overthrow the Dred Scott decision and the system it upheld. Let the Negro masses understand that their present enslavement, exploitation and depriva- tion of civil rights can be upheld by a thou- sand courts, but will come to an end in a social Negroes as Negroes, and purely on the | | tural |which resulted from the clash of “WAIT FOR ME, JAMES, ’LL BE RIGHT BACK.” By ROBERT W. DUNN. (Continued.) It ought to be clear to anyone who has studied American history that the imperialist course of this country is not due to any accident cr to any mere “mistaken policy” cn the part of the American ruling class. It is not just the result of diplomatic “blundering.” On the contrary, it is the result of the na- | development. of our whole economic society. The World War, rival imperialist powers, destroyed | the German, the Austria-Hungarian and the Russian empires. It weak- ened the French and accentuated the forces making for the decline of the British empire. At the same time it opened the way for the United States to become the fore- most lending nation and the world’s richest power. So long as the forces of capitalist society operate in America, as_they operated in Eu- rope before they culminated in the world struggle of 1914, America must grow increasingly imperialis- tic. This is not therefore a for- tuitous phenomenon. It has ad- vanced step by step with the growth and consolidation of American finance capital. . It is almost trite to assert that the domestic policies of this coun- try are dominated by the represen- tatives of what for a better term we call big business. The same group undoubtedly shapes our for- eign policies, It would be politic- ally naive to assume that this group will not protect its interests abroad as fully and as consciously as it protects them at home. The pro- tection of these private holdings abroad must inevitably lead to fur- ther incursions against the weaker nations and still further steps along the path of empire. Economie pen- etration of backward countries, financial aggrandizement there, the export of capital, are but the ac- companiments of capitalism in upheaval bigger than that of 1861. However, their freedom can come only with their loyal support of their own cause. Negro workers and farmers! To hell with the democratic primaries, and the republican too! : . Vote for your own working class party—the Workers (Communist) Party. With its pro- gram, through struggles mightier than those that Lincoln led, you will be freed. Join the party of your class, not the parties of slavery. By HUGO OEHLER. Some Little Rock citizens would) here deserted the “sandidates were not born in Arkan- white collared slave in Arkansas tc big raw-bone you! ‘he that out party?” 1 iti i | i these young butks in- party petition hoofers will be|and having y : ‘Whi i to work|form me that they could not vote| ship here. n : h et to Meevonte ee got & aaa. because they were not old enough | petition and said we already have sailles treaties. Those treaties were |I am now in favor of having all/a dictatorship. AMPAIGN CORNER A number of parlor pinks down| children in Arkansas vote. I ar ship like rats de-| positive the workers’ condition would i ut. Foster|sert a sinking one when they heard | be better under their rule than under Be crete tatldt boosie our! of our position on Negro question. | the present democrat dictatorship. After listening to some replies of | sas. |adult Arkansas workers on the elec- f A likely reply by the well-dressed|tion issue and after asking many A well-dressed man overheard the argument with a worker on the need of the Communist in Arkansas. The | America just as they have been dur- |ing the last century in Europe, | * * \WHAT is to be expected as the | fruit of this growth. If it con- | tinues, certainly the same fruit that Europe gathered in 1914. The riv- alry in trade, the expansion of po- litical power for the protection of expanding financial interests, leads to clashes with other powers also seeking outlets for surplus goods and surplus capital. A struggle of | Standard Oil against Royal Dutch Shell necessarily, and in the nature of the present order, entails the dip- lomatic support of thei home govern- ment affected. For a time there may be a balancing of forces as be- tween one group of nations and an- other. But these agreements and balances are precarious and un- steady, for they are usually based on group rivalries. And further- more, they are usually based on the | existing set-up of power between the different states. But this basis well-dressed man butted in and said we don’t need any Russian Dictator- The worker signed the ng bucks to sign may shift just as the relative posi- |tions of Germany and Italy, for ex- ample, has shifted since the Ver- | built on the then existing balance of | é Wall Street Dollars Bring Slavery to Natives of Many Countries political and economic forces. But making for new sources of conflict. The nations that have the most ter- ritory and markets and fields for investment want to hold on to what they have, while the recovering and developing states are ever grasping ter into the international situation |those forces are already shifting, | arising out of imperialism. - Here | are the countries where your loans and investments have been made. They are beginning to get restless under the yoke, tired of being divided, of having their rulers se- lected for them by a foreign power, | for new opportunities for investment | tired of being shot down when they | vent this focad Burch. Foreign Investments and Foreign Policy dentally, how carefully the rights of | the few foreign concessionaires in |that country are limited, It is be-| cause of this example of the Soviet Union that the imperialist powers are eager for its destruction and for the negation of its influence. The war-like acts of the British—notably the Arcos and Peking raids of last year—were provocative measures that under ordinary circumstances | would have made for war between | | two nations. But the strong desire | of the Soviet Union for peace pre- eventuality. Whether and trade and must resist the as-| resist the cppression of the power- similar provocation will ultimately sumptions and claims of the great powers. |ful nations. They may perhaps | want, like China, to have something |lead to war it is impossible to pre-| dict, but certainly the British em- All this makes for new and larger | like an equal status before the world. pire would do its utmost to draw in armament programs, for as H. N.|China wants the inequalities that the | the United States on its side should Brailsford wrote, “the backing of imperialist countries have estab-|such a war come. Great as are the investments by diplomacy means in- evitably an increase of the arma- ments which are the diplomat’s last word.” In spite of the continual exchange of peace notes and the dis- armament conferences that have no real intention of disarming, the preparations for war are advancing at a more rapid tempo than before 1914. The armaments continue to pile up even while the air is satur- ated with peace talk. The situation is in some respects analagous to that prevailing in the days when Hague conferences were in the head- lines and Mr. Roosevelt, Tsar Nicho- las and Kaiser Wilhelm were all the graceful recipjents of the various peace prizes. The cynical reception accorded the Soviet proposals for genuine disarmament at Geneva would almost lead one to the conclu- sion that the holding of interna- tional peace conferences was but a part of the stage-setting for an- other war. It is, of course, often pointed out, as recently by the British ambassa- dor, that war between the great na- tions is “unthinkable.” Whether this is true or not—and it certainly is not—it may be well to consider some of the other factors that en- lished for her abolished. China has |thus turned from a passive nation into one that is increasingly con- scious of the fact that the only way to get rid of the foreign exploiting nations is by a display of force, a | language the great powers are able |to understand. At times the native |capitalists in such countries may | unite with the foreigners in resist- ing the demands of the workers and peasants. But this only makes the | bitterness of these doubly exploited | masses all the more intense. They fight not only as workers against the normal exploitation of their na- tive capitalists and landowners, but against the foreigner who is taking his toll from this exploitation. Progress of Soviet Union. singh progress of the Soviet Union is a factor that must also be considered in this connection. The Soviet Union is an inspiring example folks in these countries, These back- ward peoples are beginning to learn what the Russian workers and peas- ants did to one of the world’s pow- erful empires, what they are now doing for themselves under their | new order of society, and how fairly _minority nationalities are treated | within the Soviet Union, and inci- The Soviet Rescue Ship Le The Krassin ploughed her way Thru endless fields of ice, Thru blinding shrouds of fog; Braved all the perils of the Arctic wastes, And steered her trying course To rescue and success. Il. There is more than just a ship Manned by brave men, Who saved some human lives In this great episode. In this I see a symbol that transcends Immeasurably the stirring facts, The ice, the fog, the frost— Greed, ignorance, reaction. Humanity the castaways. The rescue ship’s triumphant Revolution. By ADOLF WOLFF potential sources of rivalry between the United States and the British jempire these two countries would unite temporarily if the opportunity | came to crush the power and influ- | ence of the Soviet Union. But what- against the Soviet Union there can | be no doubt that our present policies | of protecting the investor and specu- | lator abroad will lead this country | into. new interventions and finally into war with rival economic em- pires. At various times during the last 50 years there have been in this country certain groups of progres- sives who have become alarmed at the rapid development of the United | States along the imperialist road. They have raised their voices in opposition to the rabid jingoes and annexationists particularly during the Spanish-American war. There are a few remnants of such groups today who want to block the more subtle imperialism that proceeds without the necessity for territorial annexation. Such groups are at- tempting to register, check and regulate the flow of capital abroad by introducing legislation into con- gress. They would also make it illegal to use the armed forces of the country to protect private in- terests abroad without a formal declaration of war. Colonials Fight Imperialism. HE most vigorous agitation against imperialism, however, as I have suggested, comes not from this country or Great Britain, but from those subject nationalities who suffer from the effects of imperial- istic conquest. These colonial and semi-colonial peoples, as the recent history of the British empire shows, will be in the forefront of the fight against imperialism. But in the im- |perialist home countries groups of workers will also, in time, begin to realize keenly that they are suffer- ing under the same system and that the great industrial and financial combines that drive down wages at home are the same that seek raw materials abroad and that often take advantage of the lower labor costs in those foreign countries. Together these two groups—the more poorly paid and militant workers of the im- perialist countries and the revolu- tionary liberation groups in the colonies and backward countries— will carry on the future struggle against imperialism both at home and abroad. ¥ ever the immediate prospects of war, ifs August number of the “Labor Defender,” with a graphic pic- |ture of the New Bedford strike on | the front cover and several splendid | articles inside; about the murder of. |Sacco and Vanzetti, the Centrali | case, Mooney and Billings, the inch | ing of a Negro at Houston, and oth. |ers, seems to have succeeded in sur- passing in merit previous issues— a real accomplishment. Perhaps the most interesting article in the | magazine is the report of six months’ activities of the International Labor Defense by Acting Secretary Abern. | We learn that 70 new branches have | been organized and that the “Labor |Defender’s” circulation is now | 22,000. | * * * | | c is not surprising that the maga~ |* zine should have a large circula- \tion, because, from every point of | view, typographically as well as in |the character of the article appear- ing in it, the “Labor Defender” ig the liveliest and best illustrated | magazine of the class struggle ever | published in this country, to my | knowledge. It has a mass appear- | ance and one can see reflected in th \I. L. D. organ the grip that the } | ganization of which it is the mouth |piece has on the class-consciou |workers of this country. One dol- |lar forwarded to the National Of- |fice of the I. L. D. at 80 E. 11th St, |New York, will bring the “Labor | Defender” to your door for one year. Don’t fail to send in your dollar. * ENITO MUSSOLINI has again spoken, this time to warn the |world and its wives that they had | better stop talking in a critical way |of the cowardly conduct of his Gen- eral Nobile, commander of the, air- ship Italia that flew oyer the North Pole and on its return became a |erepper. The story is so well known that it does not have to be told |again. How Nobile flew away in |the first. rescue plane that hove in. | sight, leaving his colleagues to dicé on the ice, and how the ships anc | Planes of the Soviet Union covered, themselves with glory in rescue work are facts well known in every part |of the world. * Dp. though the prejudice against the Soviet Union was, even its most bitter enemies were forced to | admit that the conduct of its repre- sentatives on ship and plane shone out in contrast to the craven con- duct of the fascist boasters. Now, | Mussolini wants to stifle the flood |of criticism that has been pouring |from the presses of the world on the head of his black shirt com- mander. It will take many speeches and threats from the loud-mouthed boaster to retrieve the loss of pres- tige he sustained in the Italia ad- venture. | i} | * * * UX-PREMIER GIOLITTI of Italy, | who died last week, had the repu | tation of being a political fox. Bu like every such character, he go caught in a trap. Giolitti used the | black shirts to crush the revolution- ary movement in Italy when the |workers took over the factories. |Once this was done he thought he | could go back to his former methods of political juggling. But the fas- cists were organized and supported by the big industrialists who wanted a dictatership. So Giolitti and the liberals soon found themselves out in the cold, with Mussolini sittiig. in the warm places. Of course much though Giolitti hated Musso- |lini as a successful rival, he hated |and feared the revolutionary work- |ing class more. Benito would not | interfere with the wealth he amassed | under the capitalist system, but he knew that if the Communists seized power he would have to render some useful. service to the state and get along like everybody else on enough to provide him with the necessities of life. * * * UIS N. MORONES, head of “Crom,” or the Regional federation of Labor of Mexico, ‘i been bounced out of the Calles cab- inet through the pressure of the Obregonistas, who charge him with | being the “intellectual author”: the Obregon assassination. means that a crisis is rapidly proaching in Mexico that may wind — up in civil war. Whether Calles Jet Morones out in order to gain time and prepare himself for a show- down with the Obregonistas, or whether he has broken with Mo- rones, remains to be seen. Hitherto Calles and Morones were staunch allies, and, with government aid, the — latter was able to build up a pow- — erful political machine. Needless to say, the Mexican workers who went: on strike under the Calles-Morones regime faced the rifles of fed troops just as they would if Obi gon managed to remain alive u he assumed the presidency. Sn See ROT army revolt has and gone in Portugal. ing to dispatches, it was engir = by elements that opposed the icta- torship. Portugal is prolific in rev- olutions, but the only ic they have is the question of group of grafters is going to the British or French payroll, tugal is always on the auction and the principal bidders are E land and France. I forget power at this time has Port .