The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 28, 1928, Page 6

Page Si THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1925 Y= Worker Published by NATIONAL DAILY WORKER F PUBLISHING AS ; Inc., Daily, Except Sunday 26-28 Union Square; New York, N. Y. Cable Address: “Deiwork” Phone, Stuyvesant 1696-7- By Mail (in New York « r $4 ) 0 six months hree months $8 per y SUBSCRIPTION RAT. 3 | ES By Mail (outside of New York): $6.00 per year $3.50 six months $2 three months Address and mail out to THE DAILY WORKER, 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. Editor Assistant Editor. ROBERT MINOR WM. F. DUNNE -class mail at the post -office at New York, N. Y. under the act @f March 3, 1879 | VOTE COMMUNIST! For Vice-President BENJAMIN GITLOW For President WILLIAM Z. FOSTER For the Workers! For the Party of the Class Struggle! Against the Capitalists! The Platform‘of Class Struggle The keynote of the “Platform of the Class Struggle,” the National Platform of the Work- ers (Communist) Party in the 1928 elections, issued yesterday by the National Election Cam- paign Committee of the Workers (Communist) Party, is one of relentless, uncompromising struggle against capitalist society. The platform was adopted at the Nominat- ing Convention of the Party held recently in New York. This is the platform on which William Z. Foster, Communist candidate for president, and Benjamin Gitlow, Communist candidate for vice president, will stand before “the workers and exploited farmers of the United States in the election campaign, against the democratic and republican candidates as well as the reformist socialists, who have be- trayed the workers by renouncing the class struggle and allying themselves with the reac- tionary bureaucracy in the American trade union movement. Analyzing the parties of big and small busi- ness, the platform says in part: “With the exception of the Workers (Commu- nist) Party all political parties and groups are de- fenders of the present capitalist society. The two capitalist parties, the republican and democratic, are twin brothers in the expression of the interests of the bosses. “The republican party, which in the interests of the then revolutionary capitalism conducted a war against chattel slavery, is today working in the in- terests of the now epgunter-revolutionary capitalism for the perpetuation of wage slavery. The republi- can party of today is nothing but the party of trusts, of finance capital, of the biggest business interests of the country. “The democratic party was in the early stages of its history the party of slavery, against north- ern capitalism and in the interests of the southern plantation owners. Today, though many. times masked with phrases of liberalism, it stands for the perpetuation of the peonage of Negroes in the south and for thermaintenance of wage slavery throughout the country. “There are no real political differences between the two big political parties, Both are parties of the enemies of the working class.’ The very exist- ence of the two-party system is the most reaction- ary factor in American politics, is one of the fac- tors which are responsible for the lack of an inde- Pendent mass political party of the working class.” ‘The platform brands the attitude of the so- ,ealled progressives as cowardly. It states that '~@ they have gone back meekly into the old capi- talist parties. After calling attention to the ‘ support of the Smith candidacy by Wheeler, to the action of Borah in mouthing against im- perialism and then supporting the Coolidge pol- dy ley in Nicaragua, to Senator Shipstead posing { asca farmer-laborite though actually a republi- ean, the Communist platform states: “All these progressives and semi-progressives serve as a prop of the present capitalist society and must be combatted by all honest workers.” + The platform brands the official leaders of the American Federation of Labor as “part- ners of the bosses” and charges them with sabotaging the work of organizing the unor- ganized. “They have come out openly,” it ', States, “for a policy of common exploitation of » all Latin American peoples by the capitalists * and workers of the United States.” The Communist view of the socialist party | expressed in the national platform summed up is as follows: The socialist party, which still claims to be a working class par is a party of the lower middle class, with its leadership a part of the bureaucracy of the A. F. of L. The militant spirit of Eugene V. Debs has been wiped out. In the city of Reading, Pennsylvania, the city officials of the socialist party have pledged themselves to act like capitalist officials rather than socialists. Norman Thomas, the presidential candidate of the socialist party, is declared’ to be “the worst kind of a pacifist, a typical preacher, who performs the greatest service for American imperialism by creating illusions about the League of Nations, about the possibility of pre- venting wars by peaceful means.” The National Platform further declares that the socialist party is an advocate of the League of Nations, supports Kellogg’s hypocritical ges- TWO' KINDS OF LABOR LEADERS tures towards the outlawing of war, and is cri- tical of the war against Nicaragua not because it is an imperialist war but because it is “un- authorized and unsanctioned by the people or | | congress.” | The socialist labor party is dismissed with | three lines and a half as a “fossilized” sect | which plays no role in the life of the country. | The platform concludes its analysis of the | political parties with the following statement }on the Workers (Communist) Party: | “The Workers (Communist) Party is today the | only genuine working class party. It is the sole party which has a program for the workers and working farmers. “It is the only party which con- ducts a relentless struggle against capitalism, against the old parties of the bosses, and against the corrupt labor bureaucracy and the treacherous socialist party. “The Workers (Communist) Party is the party of the class struggle. It is the deadly enemy of class collaboration because it is the deadly enemy of capitalism. It is the revolutionary party of the working class. The Workers (Communist) Party is the champion of the interests of the working class and the working farmers, It is the advocate of the most exploited stratum of the working class, the unskilled workers. It is the champion of the oppressed Negro race. It is the organizer of the struggle against imperialism, against imperialist wars.” # The platform deals extensively with unem- | ployment, the open shop wage-cutting offensive of the bosses, the miners’ strike, colonies and imperialist war, the defense of the Soviet Union, the government in its role as a strike- breaking agency, a labor party, social legis- lation, tariff and taxation, the plight of the farmers, the oppression of the Negroes, the foreign-born workers, working women, youth, child labor and education, housing, prohibition, and ends by urging the workers and e. farmers to organize for the goal of fand a Every worker loyal to his is should con- | sider it a matter of class pride to make himself a distributor of this booklet, issued by the Na- | tional Election Campaign Committee, 43 East 125th St., New York. Since the committee has |accomplished the remarkable feat of pulling the price down to ten cents, it ought to be pos- sible to give it enormous distribution, and our lass will gain by every copy that is read by a worker. Adventures of an African Trader Reviewed By ART SHIELDS (Federated Press). (OOTLEGGING tales are topical a political season when the wgier of illicit wares is a sub- for campaign chatter. This narrative of violence, bribery humor lives up to the best legging tale traditions, though business was not in rum but in records of this co 2 risky than a Remus would famous Brazilian ve . Adventures of An African Slaver Ys the life story, of Captain Theo- ‘dore Canot, bootlegger extraor- dinary, as told by himself in 1854 " with the aid of a Baltimore journal-| ist, and now reissued. Canot flour- jghed in the second quarter of the/ nineteenth century, running Negro captives from the Guinea coast to the western hemisphere at a time his fetched $350 in fe risks ate up his successful at ti tugal. | fate of pirates if they could not es-/reserve or a or bribe their way out. | slaves, till in 185: Su Slee ,.| . The bandit-business man of this| storical tale was the child of an) mother and French father, as one of the chief incre, black workers to America, * tofthe west. In he deserves a place in the labor} voyage he packed 118 boys and Big fortunes were reaped in this bootlegging traffic, though it was Perdo Blanco, a Portuguese, retired with one million dollars, some but the rest netted, big profits. A say one million pounds, a sum that accumulated hundreds of wives Dahomey harems profits in the trade. ing $20 to $50 on the Guinea coast laid down in New Orleans, an as- i differential prices f. 0. b. and delivered. Canot shared in the big winnings but the the rum runners, the slavers fought | coons bursting with slaves, and cof- when the traffic was outlawed by! fers filled with gold at his African America, Britain, Spain and_all| headquarters, his luck would change ‘other northern countries but Por-|as cruisers captured his cargo or Captured slavers risked the|himsal!’, as graft ate up his cash pestilence jout, “tadging for drinks” on the harves of Baltimo: N°. passengers were ever packed so \4" tightly as the black immigrants ntinent. girls under 15 in the hold of a 40- ton boat, in a space 22 inches high, each passenger lying on his right the bootlegging of | side and fitting into the lap of the one behind. On this trip three died, bigger cargo on a 90-ton boat later not disdain. The netted $41,000. Crowding brought mulatto, Cha Cha. | disease that wiped out profits some- in| times. Once he lost 300 out of 800 from his| by smallpox. Cleanliness was im- Negroes cost-| possible. A British officer, quoted in the introduction, says he could Cuba and $1,100 smell a slaver “five miles down the wind.” | Navy cruisers~ then corresponded | to the rum chasers of todaj\ Like! between profits. mes, Lavishly back, fled or destroyed the evidence with barra-| by dumping the cargo when a cruis- | er approached. Canot does not con- fess to such atrocities, but the in- troduction gives a grewsome story about Captain Homas of the slaver Brillante. Seeing four cruisers sur- | rounding him, the captain brought) 600 slaves to the deck, shackled them to a chain connecting with the anchor and dropped the anchor, over the side with the victims trail- | ing after, their groans going up| into the night as their bodies went down, era killed his 3 he was down and ‘ Canot’s first slave By Jacob Burck Our Party’s Election Campaign (Continued.) By JAY LOVESTONE. UR Party was born as a result of the breakup of the old socialist party in 1919. Through this split it inherited a wholesome opposition to parliamentary cretinism, to the miserable opportunism of the old socialist party parliamentary politi- cians. | But in this wholesome reaction, | there was also carried over a danger- | ous syndicalist opposition to partici- | pation in parliamentary activities per se. | Thus in the 1920 presidential elec- | tions, our party’s national slogan} was “boycott the elections.” In 1924 we had great difficulty in mobiliz- ing our party for active participa- tion in the election campaign. We have not yet completely shaken these syndicalist prejudices. An es-| sential part of the present election | campaign of our party has been to| elevate the ideological level of the} membership so as to give'them an increasing understanding of Lenin- ist, revolutionary, Communist parti- cipation in the election campaigns. Districts On Industrial Lines. Our party districts are organized along the line of industrial sections. We have one district, for instance, covering the Pittsburgh coal and steel territory known as the Western Pennsylvania distries. We have ah- other district consisting of the metropolitan area of New York City and neighboring New Jersey indus- trial cities in which are found such industries as textile, oil refining and metal products. We have other dis- tricts like the Kansas districts which include a number of states equiva- lent to an area of five or six of the European countries. States like New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania are included in several districts while districts like the agricultural, the Seattle, the Kansas, the Minneapolis and the south, consist of several states. But for the election campaign, the individual state is the unit. It is therefore necessary for our party to adjust its organization and set up special election machinery. Difficulties of “Democracy.” ESIDES, there are innumerable difficulties set up by the much- vaunted American bourgeois demo- cracy to make it almost impossible for a revolutionary proletarian party like our own to participate ef- fectively in parliamentary elections, Each of the forty-eight states has its own set of election laws limiting the ways arid means of parties get- ting on the ballot. The slightest technical error can be used to deny the Communist Party the right to be on the ballot. In 1924 the, Communist Party was on the ballot in only fifteen states. The aim of these election laws is to prevent the organization of new parties and perpetuate the so-called two-party system—republican and democratic. Comrade Lenin has thus characterized the two-party system: x 1 Setting Up the Election Machinery; Preparing for the Campaign “This so-called ‘two-party sys- tem’ reigning in America . . . has been one of the most powerful methods of preventing the founda- | tion of an independent labor, that is, a genuine Socialist Party.” Industrial States Hardest. In a number of industrial states where the party has the best pros- pects, these legal restrictions are the worst. For example, in Ohio, our Party must secure a petition for placing it on the ballot signed by about 25,000 citizens, before it can put up its can- didates. In New York, an even larger num- ber of signatures is required. In California, a minimum of 30,- 000 signatures must be secured in oe to place the party on the bal- lot. These endérsements of the party’s being on the ballot by citizens are not valid unless they are from all sections of a particular state. A minimum number of signatures is required from each county of the state. It oftens occurs that in a number of rural counties our party organization is either very weak or non-existent. If one ineligible per- son signs such a petition, then the whole list is challenged and our party is denied the right to appear om the ballot. Then in such states like Oklahoma and other Southern states, the Secre- tary of State who is in charge of such work often simply refuses to recognize the Communist Party’s right to-appear on the ballot and | doesn’t even consider petitions when | presented. | Mobilizing the Party. | MOBILIZATION of the member- ship for participation in the |election campaign began rather early this year. This was oceasioned | by the following facts: First of all, we have a splendid opportunity, due to the economic de- | pression and the rising readiness of | the masses for struggle against the capitalist offensive to utilize the election campaign for Commpnist propaganda and mobilization of the | working masses for struggle. Then, | there is the need to overcome the | lingering indifference and even hos- | tility in our ranks towards Party | participation in parliamentary cam- paigns. Third is the great number of barriers put up by American Democracy against Communist par- | ticipation in election campaigns, The presidential election takes | place on November 6th. Simultan- |eously, there are elections for the | United States Senate and highest | state offices in a number of states. | In the February Plenum of the | Central Committee of our party it | was made clear to the party that the | vrospects for a National Labor Party ‘or even a United Labor Ticket in By SOL AUERBACH. A whirl of dust, chickens skid whet] “droshka” rolls undecidedly and stops before the Soviet House at Olschan. A burly peasant sits erect at the driver’s seat and holds the two heavily shanked horses at bay. We bid goodby to our village friends and mount. There is a sense of importance in the driver's squared shoulders as he snaps the whip and the horses fly off at a gallop. Across wide stretches of steppes ing the black raw meat of the Ukraine. The peasant driver picks his way unerringly over mazes of unplowed earth that serve for roads. A church spire over the brim of a hill promises a village. From the hill top we see the huts, painted white or green, clustered about the golden-domed church, which has lost its luster for lack of polish. The peasant signals S-S-S-S and the horses back on their haunches to flatten the slope. Past a pond, hit- street of the village. Again the pea- sant talks Br-s-s—mad wa some to across the road, and.the Soviet four- | skinned of their harvest and expos- | ting up a cloud of dust thru the one | | a sudden halt before the Soviet House. ‘We spend most of the day talk- |ing to the peasants, while they are turning their plentiful wheat into grain thru the jaws of their new harvesting machine hitched to a Fordson tractor. They take great | pains to explain to us the intricate | working of their new machine which |they own in common. When the | novelty of our visit has worn off and the peasants are again serious- ly turning out their next year's food supply we return to the Soviet. Our peasant driver is on the seat of his droshka where we have left him. His shoulders are drooped and his back is a bowed accusation. He mutters one word, “Chleb” (Bread), We had forgotten to give him food! We ourselves had eaten at the village cooperative and we stop these now on our way out to re- pair our serious omission. Our driver returns and bounds on to his seat with two large white rolls un- der his arm and a whiff of “vodka” in his breath, We go off at a gal- op. “Dedutschka, what wa you do be- fore the revolution?” £ | 1928 were exceedingly slight. Great | emphasis was placed on the need for | mobilizing the party resources to get on the ballot. Various political let- | ters were sent to the units to coun- teract the indifference and hostility | still pervading the attitude of cer- | tain sections of our party towards | Communist participation in election campaigns, as well as to warn | against opportunist errors. | As early as February 29, the | Political Committee instructed all | districts to prepare for putting peti- tions into the field for Foster and | Gitlow. Immediately, special | machinery was set up to help the districts overcome the technical ob- stacles for the Party’s getting on the ballot. On March 19, all districts |.were instructed to put full Workers Party tickets into the field. A Na- tional Election Campaign Committee was elected and similar committees were elected on a district scale. On March 28, the political commit- | tee appointed additional field organ- izers for the election campaign and announced its decision to propose Comrades Foster and Gitlow who were our standard bearers in 1924, Special organizers were sent into the South and Southwest. Our mobilization for the election campaign began with the prepara- tions of the party itself, then the mobilization of sympathetic masses | and their organizations, These preparations were ideologi- cal and organizational. The party | units’ were given material preparing |them for the issues and various | phases of the election campaign. (To Be Continued) DEDUTSCHKA | Dedutschka turns catty-cornered to us and allows the horses to find their own way. He shrugs his shoulders and points to the land about us. “T worked for the landowner here. All this land was his. He had six hundred dessiatyns. I took care of his horses and drove his family about. The landowner lived in a beautiful house. It had large rooms and wooden floors and many large windows. In one room there was gold on the walls and ceiling and large pictures of the czar and czar- ina, And the floor was as smooth as the pond when it is.frozen. And the revolution came and took it away. And I became driver for the Soviet. And now the peasants walk over that beautiful floor with their dirty boots. “But, Dedutschka, now even you can go into that room.” “Ah, but those were the good old bourgeois times! Near the house there was a large white tombstone. And what did the revolution do?’ It tore it up—that’s what the revolu- tion did. The revolution is at an end, That beautiful large white tombstone!” A drop of vodka has loosened his Told You So TBs are over a quarter of a million jobless in Great Britain at the moment, though reports say that the number of entployed is greater than at any time in the his- |tory of the country. The reason for this is that owing to the ruin of a large section of the middle classes |by the heavy burdens of debt and |the loss of trade that followed the | war they were forced into the labor market to compete with the already existing industrial population. This |standing army of unemployed has | its advantages to British capitalism jas well as its disadvantages. It is a constant menace to the standard |of living of the workers, which is steadily going down. * * * eee is nothing unusual in the following story: A detective who was hired to protect a guest of the Ambassador Hotel in Atlantic City was arrested on a charge of having stolen a diamond ring valued at |$2,800, a diamond pin valued at $700 and $30 in cash from his |charge. If the guest had robbed the detective that would be news. * * * ENATOR GEORGE H. MOSES of New Hampshire is of the opinion jthat the G. O. P. is up against the hardest struggle of its career. An Al if not an Allah has come to judg- ment. Whether Al or Herbert wins |it does not make a whit of differ- ence to the working class, but the | senator from New Hampshire fears | mightily that it will take more than one Moses to keep the Tammany Tigér out of the Promised Land. * i 'HINGS are getting so hot in crim- inal circles in New York City that the entire membership of the Rotary Club of the metropolis has offered itself for jury ser¥ice. |Should they be accepted the job of |a court reporter armed with a copy \of the American Mercury might. not be something to sneeze at. Son OS hesty tongue and we add fire to it. This old peasant speaks of “bourgeois | times” and the “proletarians,” and of the revolution and of the counter- | revolution. The revolution has seep- ed thru to the very soil of the Sov- iet Union and old Dedutschka has had his fill. Thru the hazy mind of this peasant, memories and words filter—words created by the revolu- tion of the masses. He tells us of the time when Budiken was in the country and how his landowner had «promised him, now that he thought that he could regain his power, that he would hang every peasant on the estate. But, Dedutschka added with a sense of mystery and premonition, the landowner himself was killed. Dedutschka’s tongue goes on find- ing its own words. In his village there lives an officer of the old czar- ist police. He has two dessiatyns of land and he is left alone to work it the best he can, One day this officer came to the village Soviet and said: “Wait until my time comes. I will hang you all.” |. The blood of Dedutschka still | boils at the memory of those words, |He himself was present when the officer spoke. “Why should he be allowed to say such a thing? The president of the Soviet allowed him to say that he would hang me. Do you call this taking care of the peasantry? Is this.the “link”? I would kill him on the spot!” against the Soviet. He thinks that we come from the city and he wants us to inform the people there of what is going on in his village. For example, his son is living in a house that is falling all about his ears, When it rains there are puddles on the floor. The windows are broken and the door cannot be locked. The Soviet promised that it would re- pair the house but all it does is say, “Wait until we get the money,” “Well, Dedutschka, do you want the landowners to come back and fix it for you?” we ask. “No, no, no, no, Let the Soviet do it. Let it find the money.” As night begins to fall and the steppes breathe a soft greynesa Dedutschka tells us of the myths of his country-side. In the olden times, so long ago that no one can remember, a group of bandits. har- assed his village. The peasants say that their treasures, innumerable golden roubles and silk curtains and shirts and boots, were buried some- where near the Black Sea under three oak trees. After the revolu- tion some peasants from his vil- lage went on a pilgrimage to the Black Sea and hunted for the trea- sure. Under three large oak trees they dug up some old axes. They were sent to the museum in the city. There they said that they were thousands of years old. Prisoners Transferred to Avoid | Questions e SOFIA, July 27.—The seven polit- ical prisoners in the central prison of Sofia who have been on hunger strike because their sentence was in- creased by ten days, have been pun- ished by additional sentence of one month: Besides they have been transferred to the military prison of Widin. Other political prisoners were transfered from Schumen and Var- na to Sliwen. The reason for the transfer is to separate them from their friends and relatives, so that they can be mistreated without any- one knowing of it. After that they can be announced as shot “while at- tempting to escape.” L > J Dedutschka is full of complaints