The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 8, 1928, Page 6

Page Six Baily Central Organ of the Workers (Communist) Party ed by NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1928 =" SEWERS 0. V YORK : _ | F NEY By Fred Ellis Told Y ou S 0 yAaeenz politicians are so crooked that they won’t even die straight. Thus it has come to pass |that the- big pipe and plumbing | king, John M. Phillips, who was sup- 79 posed to have died recently now | suspected of having pulled off am ASS'N, Inc., Daily, Except Sunday Cable Address: “Daiwork' SUBSCRIPTION RATES By Mail (outside of New York): Phone, Stuyvesant 1696-7-8 By Mail (in New York only) cB 68 per year .50 six months 0 three months $6.00 per year $3.50 six months $2 three months 5 — a 2 other fake. Phiilip’s family physi- Address and mail out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. |cian, Dr. Louis H. Taylor, asserts << ; : --ROBERT MINOR that he doubts that the body buried a Assistant Editor. -WM. F. DUNNE in Old Calvary Cemetery was the Entered as second-class the post-office af New York, N, ¥., under the act of March 3, 1879. carcass that once encompased the spirit of Mr. Phillips; in fact that what was buried must have been a For President WILLIAM Z. FOSTER Q/ For the Workers: For the Party of the Class Struggle! Against the Capitalists! VOTE COMMUNIST! For Vice-P lent BENJAMIN GITLOW The Miners’ National Convention at Pittsburgh. tors have broken up the U. M. W. A. The Lewis machine criminally neglected the neces- sary preparations for the strike. It sabotaged means all of you. couple of other fellows. eee, Reh HE story is well-known to our well-informed readers, which However, we pick up a new reader now and then who may not be ac- quainted with the history of the Queen’s sewerpipes, (not by Dumas but just as good) so we propose to the organization of the unorganized. It has | devote a few | ; Nea signed up individual agreements. It has be- | ines hi Sunday marks the opening at Pittsburgh irayed) thelcousacolla aetionkifagrednenc ode amet. of the most important trade union conven- has split the movement by ousting everybody Phillips was, tion in the United States in many long years. from the union who wants a militant struggle. and _ probably It is cutting off relief from every striking still is, a leader It is the convention which must mark the miner who dares to criticize it. It is trying to of the demo- definite foundation of the national union of the bituminous and anthracite coal industry in the United States. The United Mine Workers Union was in its day the backbone of the American trade union movement. The corruption of the bureaucracy of that once-great union, its collaboration and ‘conspiracy with the mine owners against the vital interests and needs of the workers, culminating in the most brazenly open betrayal by the Lewis machine during the crisis in the industry, when Lewis and his henchmen in all dis- tricts deliberately starved out and broke the strike—has resulted finally in the downfall and hopeless destruction of the union. Upon the pitiful fragments of a Union which, when it lived, had been the greatest mass organization that trade unionism in this country had been able to produce,— upon the wreckage of the United Mine Workers Union, sits a discredited, unmasked and desperate gang of strikebreakers headed by John L. Lewis and calling them- selves still by the meaningless name of the dead union. This wreckage is transformed into nothing more than a machine for strikebreaking and the prevention of the organization of the coal industry. Those who control the machine of this union are but gunmen and strikebreakers in the vir- tual, and sometimes literal pay of the coal operators. Lewis’ only bid for survival is a bid to the coal operators to make use of him and his machine as instruments for the strangling of the movement for organiza- tion in the industry. Within the eight years of the power of John L. Lewis over the union, the employers with his assistance have beaten the organ- ized section of the workers in the industry down from the position where they once held 70 per cent of production, down to where even the most charitable have ceased to claim 30 per cent of production as unionized. Never fully organized, the coal mining in- dustry required, from the point of view. of the workers, above all the organization during this crisis of the unorganized fields which were being used as a lever to crush the unionized workers. With the shrewd ingenuity of a specialist in strikebreaking, Lewis and high-salaried bureaucracy went into this situation, not with the necessary energetic drive for the organization of the unorganized fields, but with the slogan borrowed from the scab mine operators to squeeze out of the industry a quarter of a million coal miners. When in spite of the Lewis bureaucracy the unorganized miners enforce a. yellow dog pledge of starvation. The last vestiges of democracy have been eradicated from the union. Lewis stole the elections. The Lewis machine is not a leadership set up by the rank and file, but a leadership set up with the aid of the bosses over the rank and file. From June to December, 1927, while the strik- ing miners were starving on a dollar or two a week relief, Lewis drew $11,093.66 in salary and personal expenses.” This is a ghastly picture, but coal diggers who have been in the struggle know. that it is a plain picture of the facts. After having carried the struggle against the mine workers to the point where it ap- peared to the anti-union experts that a touch of the hand would cause a complete collapse of unionism in the industry, John L. Lewis himself suddenly announced that the strike was over, that the Jacksonville scale must be abandoned for a drastic lowering of all standards, and that every district should desert the struggle for a na- tional agreement, each making what scab arrangements could be made with individual bosses or in separate fields. By the hand of John L. Lewis the United Mine Workers of America is dead. But the wili of the mine workers to fight for their rights as men, is only brought to its final strength by this blow of treason. From all over the United States are gathering in Pittsburgh the representatives of the most militant fighting mine workers of all parts of the country. These men are going to form the nation- wide Union of the coal industry. They bring with them all the heroic tra- ditions of the old Union. They bring with them the sacred cause of our class, and they bring the courage and they will gen- erate the power to defend the cause. The Union they form will become the backbone of the trade union movement dur- ing the next period. . But it will be somé- thing more than the United Mine Workers Union was, for these are different times and different conditions. As the old union was the backbone of the organized trade union movement—but even at that the back- bone of a hunchback, of a dwarfed and stunted trade union movement—the new National Miners’ Union will be the back- bone of a finer, greater, stronger trade union movement. The coal mining situation is not alone in a vacuum. The whole labor movement of the world, including particularly the United States, is now undergoing the most feroci- ous attacks for its destruction. ~News from England today is enough to show that not alone here but also throughout other Lovestone Dissects U.S. Empire | This is the second instalment of | Comrade Jay Lovestone’s speech | at the Sixth World Congress of the Defends Bukharin’s Thesis at Sixth Communist | Communist International. | oi pee | | | | (Continued.) | | A few words about the role of {American imperialism. The Cen: | tral Committee that the |growing aggressiveness of Ameri- jcan imperialism today is based on \its growing strength. This is the| | special feature of the present world | | situation. Our opposition says that |the growing aggressiveness is based jon “the diminishing reserve power jof American imperialism.” ‘his is |false and is a wrong “elaboration” of the theses. The opposition can- |not see that the growth and aggres- siveness of American imperialism can go together. Here is where they |get their criticism of the Party in |certain fields. They believe so firmly in their false conclusions that American imperialism is about to |decline, that they ‘charge that the |C. E. C. policies towards Anglo- {American and Japanese-American |conflicts are based on a supposed | notion attributed to the C. E. C. of | America being the tail to British |and Japanese imperialism on China. Let us examine some facts. I |read from the estimate of the An- |glo-American relations made by one of the “theoreticians” of our oppo- sition. Comrade Dunne in estimat- | |ing the Anglo-American relations \has declared: | | “If American imperialism really | desires peace for herself and the imperialist world (we consider in | this article only the inner imperial- |ist conflicts and not the general | struggle of imperialism against the Soviet Union), the requisite pro- cedure seems quite simple. It would | be sufficient for immediate purposes for the two most powerful imperial- | ist nations—America and declares |national and involves th: World Congress United States government, which oppresses the American workers. Is there a radicalization process going on in the United States? The Central Committee sa: yes. The volume of radicalization today is greater than at any time since the LaFollette movement was at its height. We say, furthermore, it is increasing, but if it were of a na- tional and deep-going character there would be some mass political expression of it. There would be many economic struggles of the workers. There would be a wave of strikes. But Green, Woll and the reactionary trade union fakers and the capitalist politicians still have the overwhelming majority of the working class following their pol- icy. The error of the opposition on the question of radicalization is that they maintain that radicalization in the United States today is: already bulk of the working class. This is due to the fact that they think radicaliza- tion can come only when capitalism goes down and that American im- perialism is already going down. They fail to see that the developing rength of American imperialism elf develops contradictions which are a source of radicalization. Briefly about unemployment: America with its mass unemploy- ment and with its consequent de- veloping unrest affords increasing |race antagonism, but by the fact | Md shoe, and rubber, we are opportunities for our Party. Our|that the American workers in gen- | gaged in organizing new unions. In In those | textile, mining and the needle trades Party has responded well. Much has been said here hy our |opposition about the fight against the Right danger. The American Party has consistently fought the Right danger for a number of years. Great |Qur opposition is making a carica- |e for dual Negro unions. ism was first renounced by the then | majority of our Central Committee led by Foster and Lore. 5. The whole of the trade union work was then based upon the skilled wor the labor aristoc- racy. The sole attention was paid |to the amalgamation of the exist- jing trade unions. All our efforts jto p the organization of the un- organized (1923 Convention) were | rejected. | 6. Lore, who was then the real | ideological leader of the Foster ma- | jority, has since been expelled. At the Fifth Congress, special instruc- | tions were given to our Party to have the then majority of Foster | break with the Lore forces, now out- |side the Party, and unite with the |followers of Ruthenberg. 7. The C, I. further declared at | its Fifth World Congress that: “The |comrades gathered around Comrade Cannon have made a number of dec- |larations which have shown that in their efforts to secure influence on lthe petty-bourgeoisie they have failed to maintain the Communist position.” | 8. What was the policy of these | self-styled Left Wingers of today on the Negro work at that time? \I read from a speech delivered at |the Third Comintern Congress by |Comrade Dunne of the opposition: | “That the black workers are not jeral are not organized. |branches of industry in which Ne- groes work, they are accepted in the trade unions as members on a | basis of equality. If we are against |dual unions in general, we cannot Race | Britain—to sign a treaty against war |ture of the fight against the Right Prejudice exists, it is true, but the and agree to move jointly against | any other imperialist nation or na- | tions, which disturbed the peace. | The combination of forces would be | too powerful for any possible group- | ling of capitalist nations to chal- | lenge.” | The Central Committee rejects |this opportunist non-Leninist esti- | | mate of the Anglo-Amerian conflict, | and maintains that the Anglo-Amer- | |iean conflict has displaced the An- | glo-German conflict . of pre-war | days. | | Now let us see about the Japanese | danger. Comrades, I want to give you a brief survey of the development of our Party.—-In the first stage we made errors mainly of an ultra-Left character. For instance, Comrade | Cannon, now parading here as one | of the Left, had a shortcut method of fighting the ultra-Lefts by pro- posing to expel 5,000 workers from our Party. We fortunately rejected that method. In the second period of our Party our orientation was largely a Right Wing orientation, that was in 1924 best means of struggle agninst it | will be the acceptance of white and |black workers in one organization, |and for the mobilization of the Ne- groes on one side of the barrier and | the whites on the other.” “If Comrade Losovsky insists |upon the organization of separate |Negro unions in America, then we ‘invite him to come to America and | try to occupy himself with this ques- | tion for at least a year. I am con- vinced that at the next Congress he would demand the head of that com- |rade who might propose such a solu- 5. We have made considerable headway in the unification of the Party, ideologically as well as or- ganizationally. 6. We have laid the beginning of mass work among the Negroes, 7. We have conducted the fight against opportunism, continuing the fight against Lore, and the fight against the ideologically damaging effects of American imperialism on the working class and even on cer- tain sections of our Party—the pres- ent opposition. Comrade Swabeck, one of the leaders of the opposition, declared there was pessimism in the Party because the Russian Revolution is no longer a source ofjinspiration to the American workers. This comrade saw a conflict be- tween the ideals of the proletarian |revolution in Russia and the obiec- | tives of the Party in active partici- | pation in the every-day struggles of | the working class. We rejected this | theory vigorously as an example of |the most dangerous cpportunism. And when Comrade Foster devei- oped the theory that the trade union bureaucracy is invincible, and that the savings of the workers in Amer- ica have “dynamic possibilities,” we rejected it as another evidence of the dangerous effects of the strength of imperialism on .the ideology of our Party. Our Party is eng: |thg work of organizing the unor- ganized. The Trade Union Eduea- tional League has been so organized as to provide place for the unorgan- ized workers in its structure. In d primarily in Queens. is also a philanthropist and being concerned with the borough, he decided to go into the sewerpipe business. T.J.O’Flaherty cratic Party in the borough of He was, and perhaps still health of the In this char- itable work he amassed an enormous fortune which is usually the reward of virtue according to the pulpit. ose ae BE that as it may, jealousy was born in the breasts of divers other democratic philanthropists who failed to pipe the dough in the sewers. The upshot of the whole thing was that Phillips and several of his fellow philanthropists got into the toils of the law. Fearing that his conduct might be misunderstood, Phillips is alleged to have come down to Atlantic City, parked a keg of booze near his bed, attached a tube to the bung hole and sucked himself to death. te ad OLLOWING the alleged demise of Phillips, a couple of other demo- cratic leaders took off for Valhalla, under suspicious circumstances. Un- der ordinary conditions the death of a Tammany leader would not incite the public to make exhaustive in- vestigation of the cause of their de- mise, a feeling of relief rather than sorrow being the rule rather than the exception. But now, all the tabloids and some of the more digni- fied newspapers are demanding an investigation and no doubt the state- ment of Dr. Taylor will mean over- time for the gravediggers. Pees ni 6*THE trick wouldn’t be beyond him,” observed Dr. Taylor when he broke the story to the press. Should the doctor’s doubts be con- firmed we are faced with the pos- sibility of having a new religion on our hands. If the late Mr. Phillips is found running a night club or should it be learned that he is one of the recent ‘millionaire bolters from the democratic to the republican party, it would be just like him to claim that he arose from the dead and is a brand new Jesus with a mandate to found a new religion. | organizéd is not to be explained by | Mining, textile, needle trades, boot We await the result of the possible investigation of the Phillips coffin with as much interest as an old pro- fessor would the rummaging of a en- | we already have new unions organ- jized. The Party is in the center of jevery strike in the country. The | Passaic strike and many others, the Sacco and Vanzetti movement, the |fight against the American imper- |ialist war in Nicaragua, the struggle against the oppression of the colo- nial masses—in all these our Party has been the leader. Today our Party has the complete hegemony over the Left Wing. Comrade Cannon spoke here crit- ically about our election campaign. T can only refer to an article of his in the “Daily. Worker” (June 5, 1928) before he came to Moscow, in which he wrote the highest praise of our election campaign. With reference to the Negro work, we have made many errors, hut we | have made a definite beginning in Pharaoh’s grave. * * * Wie touching on the subject of religion it is interesting to note that Aimee McPherson, the four- square eyangelist, did the square thing by the Los Angeles judge who sat on her kidnaping case or rather sat on those who prosecuted Aimee for pulling off an alleged fake. The upright judge received the sum of $2,500, but he assures us that it did not affect his judgement in’ the slightest. He would have freed the red-headed girl if she had only given him a nickel cigar. thie Sa HE thirty-day sentence imposed on Mrs. Florence Knapp will just about give her time for a good of Western Pennsylvania formed their own countries, the trade union blreaucracy is en- | question. Our Central Committee | N17, opentaiio Docc rumeenitan ene he Neer vob A. wap | IS Work. lig salwepe Ltlaad’ tote, heaaiine i issi i sane : | maintai Japanese- i- Pick | Our Central C ee ha svati s rekon Po locals, applied for admission to the interna- gaged in helping the capitalist class in the pareetiae ceatbae asia man constituting the heart and head | forth a totally different policy, ED Sh a the Hise de wes Sas reading: “Short Rap For Knapp, union and joined the strike of 1922, | effort to force the whole of our class on its |ing and are bound to sharpen. But |! Ur then Party leadership. Let | out Comrade Losovsky’s assistance |) 2'tY 2PParatus is centralized. We|«Brief Nap For Knapp” would be | tional a | = 4 a ed iz a rpen. us briefly look at the line of: our thi id have brought in more than 1,000 new|more appropriate. However, Mrs. the Lewis bureaucracy cut the throats of | knees. Opportunist trade union “leaders” | particularly because of the strong| Cental Committee at that time. on this question. members in the mining campaign: | Knapp is lucky she did not steal a . | “socialist” i fight which | persistent anti-Japanese propaganda , Then let us come to the present BP i b ki ettlement with and “socialist” leaders are in the fight which |p ‘ bit ery nh 1. Labor bank: vhich ‘i Ani ith | We, have more than 15,000 members | pound of corned beef. Even a cop ay mening ee i ~ | can only result in the destruction of the |°f American imperialism and the| 3+ babor banltng, which every- period of our Party, beginning with | in the Party today, with an average | would be liable to lose a week’ ; © out their inclusion. In the struggle of 1919, | C42 OMY ; propaganda of Wall Street that the |ne denounces today, was officially | the close of 1925. * | monthly increase of 600. members| *o scan: barra ‘ nas ; unions or the destruction of themselves by | United States is a friend of China— | endorsed in the Labor Herald, edited! We now see the beginning of the for 1928, We now have 28 factory |{or Stealing @ banana. » the buréaucracy of the United Mine Work- the workers. it is necessary for us to expose this m Boaters i eee hie of the |development towards a Bolshevik nualel pepers with a circulation ee e 8 ia ial Woitenenetn v19e0 : ki | Trade Union Educational League. Party, with the present Central i ; i [gee petreved sha ty a ithe dike: in The present convention in Pittsburgh will [Propaganda by making clear the | "1%" The convention in which the |Committee leading the Party. phased Vi mee PIPRE is a good story going the f again the leaders 80 ou e stri e. not only build a great, fighting union for |can imperialism. American imper- | Foster-Bittelman-Lore-Cannon group | 1, We organized the Party on a (To Be Continued.) rounds in Wall beat ase anys * 1925 again. And in the long and bitter | themselves, but in the same act they will |ialism is today temporarily giving |were the majority, was greeted by | Bolshevik basis of shop nuclei. of a cop who in being shi ed to8 ea Je of 1927 and 1928 Lewis and his F ighting front for th ki 1 Japan, to a certain extent, some|)ore in the “Volkszeitung,” his | 2. We raised the ideological level new beat walked into a restauran fe yettuggie oO } build’ a fighting front for’ the working class” | t Sodom because of the greater come |pavenias the: victory fw maionity| or the Party, Rivers Continue and asked the cashier for a cigar. * district lieutenants deliberately played the | against the bosses and va the ae (bres danger of 4 revolutionary | for Trotekyiem, And when pa tried 8. We have driven the Party into ila Pin bout The girl gave him the weed, then ee ithin th i i rh butchering the labor movement‘ {i to repudiate this, we were defeated|mass work. Today 47 per cent of ount in ached into a drawer and hai 3 union of wrecking the or- | who are iz China. Do we deny the sources of | y pe I U' ret ame pathin me f th ig ik | from within. |conflict between . Japanese and|in all our efforts. our members are in the trade unions, the officer a sealed envelope. The e ganization in order to defeat the strike. : wb | American imperialism? We do not| 3. The conyention sent-a request |as against only 32 per ent when we ATLANTA, Sept. 7.—The over-|cop decided not to express any sur- by tional inating convention of | The coal miners of the entire country | deny any of this. What we do deny|to the Comintern that the B.C. C.I.|took over the Party leadership. Hewes che in Georgia, North| Prise until he got into a nearby a ee evional nom! ve | must rally to this convention. To pay dues |is that it is our work to hide the |decision to reorganize the Party on| 4. We began the campaign to or- | flowing of rivers in Georgia, North) 14.) Fancy his embarrassment the Workers (Communist) Party last May | 1 \onyer to John L. Lewis’ national and |role of American imperialism in this the basis of shop nuclei should not|ganize the unorganized. When we Carolina, and South Carolina today| “nen he found a fifty dollar bill and x said in its platform: prt ie) PSP : ld b ly to [connection as an active co-operator | be applied to America, raised it concretely on the Passaic |was causing great destruction to|the word “Thanks.” That cop is nf : Q district Organizations Nded OWES cloak IRS | with Japan in crushing China. The| 4. Our efforts to secure a re-|question, the organization of the un-| highways and crops. Hundreds of| now a regular customer. ww), “District after district was lost for the supply the sinews of war against the mine | hasic line of the policy of the Party | pudiation of Trotskyism as soon as | organized textile workers and fa- siidure: salto et tavniand uma ees gies United Mine Workers under the leadership of workers, must be founded not on the difyer- |it raised its head, were defeated. It|mous Passaic strike, the opposition paveed inundated 4H; North Curotina, & the Lewis machine. In 1919 the miners’ strike A 4 » {ences among the imperialist pow- | was not until instructions came from | resisted it and branded it as dual ; Fi tied 70 per cent of production; the present All support the new National Miners ers, but on the concrete role of the the Party representative, in Moscow | unionism. (December, 1925, C. E..C.|The Cape Fear River rose 13 feet i he foiike only 0 per cent. Lewis and the opera- Union! | so-called home government, the ‘at the Fifth Congress that Trotsky- | Plenum.) ‘\mbove its banks at Fayettesville. ¥ a .