The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 31, 1928, Page 6

EW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1928 Published by Ass’n., I Union z Btayvesant 169 a _ ROBERT WM. F. DUNNE 26-28 ‘Telephone, ork” at MINOR Editor t Editor SUBSCRIPTION RATES By Mail (in New York only): .50 six mos. $2.50 three mos. le of New York): $2.00 three mos. to The Daily Worker, 26-28 Union For President For President WILLIAM Z. FOSTER [AIX Wm. Z. Foster For the Workers! VOTE COMMUNIST! | WORKERS (COMMUNIST) PARTY For the Party of the Class Struggle! eS For V.-President For Vice-President BENJAMIN GITLOW Ben Gitlow Against the Capitalists! Some Negro Leaders Surrender American Negroes are reaping the result of leadership by men whose station in life makes them dependents of the white ruling class. This is strikingly exhibited in the public appeal signed by a long list of “prominent Negro leaders” in connection with the elec- tion campaign. This appeal purports to be an appeal “for a public repudiation of this campaign of racial hatred” which, it is pointed out, both the democratic and repub- lican parties are conducting in connection with the presidential election. But this is not the essential character of the “appeal.” The language of the document contains such shameful, humiliating surren- der of the Negroes’ rights of manhood and womanhood, that this other quality, the quality of surrender, overshadows any weak little note of protest there is in it. After condemning the action of the two big capitalist parties in regard to “the em- phasis of racial contempt and hatred” (with which condemnation, as far as it goes, we heartily agree) the signers of the “appeal” then get down on their knees to say: “Do not misunderstand us. We are not asking equality where there is no equality. We are not demanding or even discussing pure- ly social intermingling. We have not the slightest desire for intermarriage between the races. We frankly recognize that the after- math of slavery must involve long years of poverty, crime and contempt; for all that the past has brought and the present gives we have paid in good temper, quiet work and un- faltering faith.” There are other passages not so bad, not so abject; but the tone is one of submission at the present time, with only a whimper of timid and polite hope for the “gradual dis- appearance of inequalities between racial groups” (our emphasis). The tremendous question of social equal- ity—which is in reality a question of million- fold classes—is dismissed by these “leaders” as though the matter to them has become nothing more than the wearing of a dress shirt by some colored intellectual at some rich white parasite’s dinner party. The ques- tion of the laws of some thirty-odd states which put the Negro on the level of lower animals by forbidding marriages of persons of different race is tossed aside by these “leaders” with the shallow, cynical, meaning- less words: “We have not the slightest desire for intermarriage between the races.” * * What is the matter with these leaders of an abused race of men and women engaged in fighting against slavery? * We think what’s the matter with them is that they have lost their social vision; they have become soft with living as “‘intellec- tuals” on the crumbs from the table of the white bourgeoisie. They have lost touch with the million-fold masses of black men and women who are sweating in slavery at the hardest industrial labor and on southern plantations. We say categorically that the great masses of the Negro people—working people—cannot and will not give up the struggle for full emancipation here and now. These blind “leaders” are still creeping on their knees before the republican and demo- eratic parties (or the little “socialist” pdrty) of capita Have these “intellectuals” lost their his- torical sense? Are they, like Garvey, descending to the level of those other Negro “leaders” who, in the decades before the American Civil War, licked the boots of the American Colonization Society, agreeing to | | | le deportation of the Negro to far-away | i ica because they did not know and “gor not understand that “Impending ” of social upheaval and class struggle was about to overthrow the then g order and abolish chattel slavery? trouble with these genteel men and “leaders” is that they believe in the it system of capitalist society which in- the oppression of the Negro masses special and inferior labor caste for cheap itation. They have lost their historical * * as these leaders retreat—and the more 4 t—the great masses of toiling e are gaining in understanding events of the present. The Ne- e ing to un- * cial upheaval of today is far bigger and more deep-going than that struggle between classes nearly three-quarters of a century ago in which the Negro was at least partly freed of chattel slavery. The greater class struggles of the immediate future (and of the present, beginning with 1917 in Russia) which include the struggles between the working class and the capitalist class in capi- talist countries and already convulse a large part of Asia—call the Negro masses to the fight for freedom. The toiling, sweating, enslaved masses of Negro men and women have already begun to find their own leaders among their.own working class ranks—black men and women who see the “impending crisis” of the pres- ent day and who know how to engage in that class struggle which will make a new world of freedom and equality for men and women of all races, through the overthrow of the parasite class by the enslaved who them- selves will make the new world. That is why the Negro workers in every case where they can be reached in the pres- ent political campaign by the Workers (Communist) Party are flocking to its “Program of Class Struggle.” Al Smith’s speech on Latin America Mon- day night was a thinly disguised piece of imperialist impudence hypocritically couched in biblical language. This product of Tam- many Hall and candidate of the House of Morgan declared: “Believing ax I do in the great brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God; I am satis- fied that the American people will always be ready and willing to assume their fair share of responsibility for the administration of the world.” This banality was uttered by way of in- troducing the question of imperialist policy toward Latin America. The democratic can- didate asserted that through application of the Monroe doctrine “we hope to regain the confidence of our neighbors in Latin Amer- ica.” A former president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, also a democrat and agent of the House of Morgan, showed the peo- ples of Haiti and Santo Domingo just how the democrats interpret the Monroe doctrine by using armed mercenaries to overthrow duly constituted governments and place in their stead puppet governments that would supinely serve the interests of Wall Street. The Mellon-Coolidge-Kellogg-Hoover gov- ernment has extended and intensified the banditry inaugurated by Wilson, to include Nicaragua and other nations. Smith approves the same sort of fright- fulness and insults the victims and potenti¢! victims of imperialist vandalism by calling campaigns of wholesale murder examples of “the brotherhood of man.” Just as Tor- quomeda, the dungeon builder of the Roman Catholic inquisition in Spain solemnly de- clared that he burned people at the stake be- cause he loved them and only desired to save their souls, so Smith, who embraces the same superstition, u: the arguments of the in- isition in dealing with Latin America. The difference is tht Torquomeda acted as agent of the feudal barons, while Smith speaks in behalf of modern imperialism. There is but one demand, and one only, that can be made to ensure the confidence of Latin Americans and that is the uncondi- tional evacuation of those countries. With- draw all armed forces and permit the peo- ples of those countries to conduct their own affairs. But none of the capitalist parties, demo- cratic, republigan or “socialist,” will ever do such a thingies that would be equiva- lent to abandoning their imperialist designs. Only the Workers (Communist) Party fights effectively against imperialism. We wage a fight in this country against the im- perialist government by endeavoring to mob- ilize the masses for a revolutionary struggle against the Wall Street government at Wash- ington and at the same time we make com- mon cause with the Latin Americans and other oppressed peoples and try to incite them to rise as one power against the mur- derous Yankee imperialism and to drive its armies from that part of the world. A vote for a republican or democrat or so- cialist is a vote for imperialism. A vote for Communism is a vote against imperialism, THAYER: “TOO LATE NOW YOU ANARCHISTIC BASTARDS!” By Fred Ellis Communists Make By A. J. SMOLAN, Gothenburg. | The Riksdag elections in Sweden) are now practically oyer. They have, | \it is true, brought an essential |strengthening of the right, but at the same time the Communists, so} | fiercely opposed by all other parties, | |have more than doubled their num-| Big Gains Vote Increases 116 Percent; Workers Militancy | Grows social democrats succeeded in gain-, gregate of Communist electors will |ber of votes. The advance both of|ing 105 seats and in overthrowing|have increased between 1924 and | the left and of the right was effected |the government of the right. They 1998 by about 67,000, or by well lat the expense of the social demo-| |erats and the petty-bourgeois “free-| jand the latter two mandates. Ihe} | keenest disappointment must cer- | high-sounding slogans, with the full} |intention of gaining the absolute) | majority in the chamber and there- | with also the governmental author: lity, instead of which they have suf. fered a considerable set-back, which | they feel all the more seriously in| |view of the fact that they will now | be excluded from participation in jthe government for the next four years. 6 Mandates. | According to calculations made to |date, it appears that the Commu-| nists have polled 122,726 votes, rep-| resenting an increase of 66,012 or) 116.4 per cent. In consequence, the) | Party will have six mandates in the | place of four in the old Riksdag. When the Stockholm results are fin ally known, the Party will probably be found to have netted two more} mandates in addition to these six |The social democrats, with their 788,- | 128 votes, show an increase of 17.2 per cent; the resulting 82 mandates will, however, represent a loss of 14. The liberal party polled 55,409 votes, or 2250 less than in 1924; | they will continue to be represented |by three members in the Riksdag. For the freeminded party 294,162 votes were recorded, which was 32.6 per cent more than four years ago; | nevertheless they will have only 27 seats in the new Riksdag, as against 29 in the old. The conservatives (Hégern) polled 605,330 votes or an increase of 49 per cent; they will have 67 seats, which is eight more | than at the last elections. The Farm- ‘ers’ union, the organization of well- | | Lo-do farmers, secured 259,090 votes, \representing an increase of, 68,694 | votes, or 37 per cent more than in | 1924. The union will be répresented jin the Riksdag by 27 members, or four more than hitherto. The Swedish Riksdag is divided into two chambers. The upper chamber corresponds more or less to the former Prussian “Herren- haus,” since its 150 membérs are} jeleeted by the provincial diets and} municipal assemblies. Those who are elected to this distinguished body must be at least 35 years old and possess a fortune of 50,000 crowns jor a yearly income of 5000 crowns. | Before the war, the social democrats |moved the abolition of this body, | which they were wont to call the |“old men’s house,” but now 52 so- \cialists are themselves members of | | the upper chamber and join with the | | bourgeois parties in resisting the} | Communist demand for its abolition. | The second chamber consists of | the broken, lifeless figure. At the | corner | 280 deputies, elected for a period of four years. All electors must have entered upon their twenty-third year in the twelvemonth preceding the ‘elections; thus most of those who |vote in Sweden are quite twenty- |four years old. This “reform” was put through after the war by the | bourgeois and social democratic par- ties, and all attempts on the part of the Communists to extend the franchise, to the earlier twenties have hitherto met with a united re- sistance on the part of these fac. tions. i Social Democrats Do Nothing. The last election was held! in the | gutumn get 1924, At that ti ‘) jerease these totals by some 100,000 had promised to reduce military ex-| penditure by 50 per cent and to in.) ‘Smith’s Threat to Latin America ™4ed” party, the former losing 14 | troduce a general unemployment in-| surance. It was to these promises | ‘ment of the country, but although} they were in power for almost two| fulfillment of the promises thay had! ade. Though in 1924 they had| maintained that they would spend at | most 88 million crowns for national | defence. purposes, their military | budget figured at 138 millions, added | to which their most influential leader | helped the right in 1927 to gain a further 105 millions for the incredse | of the fleet. To what degree they allowed themselves to be influenced by the bourgeois parties appears from the fact that they did not even venture to suggest to the Riksdag the realization of the unemployment insurance project, although they had ready drawn up the relative bill. Thus Sweden is one of the few coun- ‘ies paying no unemployment bene- it at all, although there has been a chronic state of unemployment since 1920 with an army of unem- ployed of about 120,000. In 1924, 1,765,000 out of 3,300,000 persons entitled to vote (or barely more than the half) took part in the elections. Of these, 752,000 were social democrats and 63,000 Commu- nists. At>this year’s election there was a participation of 2,100,000 vot- ers, about 900,000 of whom voted for the social democrats and 110,000 for the Communists. The results from Stockholm may be expected to in- for the social democrats and 20,000 jof the over 100 per cent. Gain Seats. The social democrats, who in the old Riksdag had 105 seats, will have 2 m \that they mainly owed their success.|/t9 content themselves in the new tainly be felt by the social demo-| For the third time inf the history of house with 92 or at the most 93 erats, who went into the fight with Sweden they undertook the govern- | seats. The Communists, who had hitherto four seats, will have seven, or at most eight. This proves the ‘years they did nothing towards the “justice” of the electoral system so zealously defended by the social democrats. It is a proportional sys- tem, but without general lists like in Germany, so that the big parties are greatly favored at the expense of the small. This also appears from the fact that in the old Riksdag there was a social democrat deputy to every 7000 votes, a freeminded deputy to every 13,000 and a Communist deputy to every 17,000 or more. Thus, if the seats had been justly distributed, the Communists would even in the old Riksdag have occu- pied no fewer than 12, and the so- cial democrats 97, instead of 105 seats. The electioneering campaign, which began in the spring, showed an extraordinary accentuationt of class differences im what was hither- to often termed» “idyllic” Sweden, with an especially virulent increase of the policy of calumny against the Communist Party and the Soviet Union. In this respect the social democrats vied with the extreme right, and it is hard to say which of the two deserves the palm. The petty-bourgeois government of the freeminded party took part in the election struggle by arresting, with the help of a White-Russian “agent provocateur”, one of the employees Soviet-Russian telegraph for the Communists, so that the ag- agency “Tass,” on the charge of JUST A “NEWS ITEM” ABOUT TWO WORKERS By HELEN BARRETT. \ Two men were killed “on Fifth] Ave. last week. The evening. pa-| pers had a headline about it, and hidden on an inside page was the story that Harry Linden, 30 years old, and John Johnston, 26 years old, had fallen 18 stories when a rope broke on the scaffold from which they were sandblasting a 5th Ave. building. I turned the corner into Fifth Ave. just as those bodies reached the ground. One was a huddled mass on the sidewalk; the other lay stretched in the roadway, and a bus and a taxi swerved excitedly around a policeman nonchalantly telephoned police headquarters, “Two fellas fell off a scaffold. Sure} they’re dead; 18 stories.” | Near the top of the lofty building the scaffold still swayed at its| deathly angle, as it hung by. three ropes. And below the two victims struck horror and pity and rage to the heart of those who saw them. They had lost the full .proportions which had broken under one falling body. A few people still looked up at the swaying scaffold—and then went on their_way., They had no picture of those maimed and broken workers, sacrificed to the careless- ness and greed of a boss. The pa- pers said “nearly every bone in their bodies had been broken.” Smashed to earth they seemed to cry out, “This is what they do to workers. This is how they kill us in return for our labor.” The newspapers told of the hys- ‘terical women and excited men in the Fifth Ave, throng. They did not mention the tragic picture of the workmen; that would be gruesome. Nor did they tell of the families to whom this terrible news had to be broken. Two men were killed on Fifth Ave. But they were workers, and the fate of workers is soon forgot- ten. GREET SOVIET YOUTH MOSCOW, Oct. 30.—The Young Communist League of the Soviet Union yesterday celebrated its tenth of fmen and were crushed flat to the pavement. You saw blue overalls, blue shirts, a hand extended, and near it a pool of blood and a bat- tered head. When I passed in the afternoon, anniversary. Congratulations’ were ireceived from the Communist Party (and Soviet organizations. The Young |Communist International writes: “The Communist youth of the Soviet Union are a guiding star to the the| they were mending the sidewalk young workers of Senos world.” in Sweden espionage, an event which was ex- |ploited for several weeks in the most infamous way by bourgeois and so- cial democrats alike. The police in- | vestigation showed the complete baselessness of the charge, as was |proved by the fact that the prisoner was released after three days and the charge dismissed. Instead of proclaiming the truth and withdraw- ing their accusations, however both the boutgeois and the social demo- crats continue their attacks on Rus- sia. One of the reactionary news- papers of the capital published an idiotic article on an “intended trial mobilization” of the Communists, which, incredibly stupid as it was, was reprinted word by word by the central organ of the social demo- cratic party. Develop Towards Left. | All this, however, did not suffice to impede the advantage of the Com. munists, which shows a welcome development towards the left on the part of the Swedish working class. Nevertheless, the fanatical anti-Bol- shevist campaign was not without results, It roused an incredibly large proportion of the “indifferent” and increased the participation in the elections by 20 per cent, Hundreds of thousands of these new voters |were driven by their fear of Bol- |shevism to vote for the right, re- \garding this as the best means of banishing the spectre of Commu- nism, as were even many who had |hitherto given their support to the |social democrats. This outcome also \lies at the door of the social demo- cratic leaders themselves, The success of the Communists is all the more to be appreciated if we consider that they had to fight under far more unfavorable condi- tions than had their opponents. Thus the Communist Party with its 16,000 members has only two daily papers, one of them in the capital and the other in northern Sweden, so that at Gothenburg, the second city _ of Sweden, with a typically industrial population, the Party is restricted to an insignificant bi-weekly publica- tion, while its oponents have at Go- thenburg, alone five big dailies at their disposal. In the whole country, which is almost as large as Ger- many, the bourgeois parties run 350 dailies, besides innumerable weekly and bi-weekly publications, while the social democracy, subsidized by the trade unions, run 30, partly im- portant, dailies. Thanks to the col- lective affiliation of the trade unions, this party also receives annually several hundred thousand crowns for propaganda purposes, while the Com- munists are obliged to raise the bulk of their funds by voluntary collec- tions, though it is not intended to deny that in this instance it received more than usual from the local trade unions whose sympathy it enjoys. The increase, in the number of Communist votes, amounting in all to more than 100 per cent, is un- equally divided. It is greatest in the typically industrial areas of central, north, and west Sweden, where in some cases it figures at 300 per cent, while the social democrats have in those parts gained but little, even losing a few hundred votes in one particular district. The social demo- crats have gained most in purely petty-bourgeois regions and among the working class of Gothenburg, which is still greatly influenced by the church. The next result of this unexpected outcome of the elections will presum- ably be the replacement of the petty- bourgeois government, which has for the last two years maintained office only be a constant vacillation be- tween the right and the social demo- crats, by a pronounced government of the right, which will naturally help to clear the general situation. DoesCampaign Offer Hope to Toiling Masses By JOHN J. WATT. | (President, National Miners’ Union) On the sixth day of November, the | workers will march to the polls to |east their votes for one candidate or |the other, hoping that by that act |they may help bring about better conditions for themselves and their families. They are hoping almost against hope, because of ‘the bitter experiences they have had in this “prosperious” nation during the last few years, where especially in the mining districts, starvation, prose- cution have been their lot. All of the administration of republican and democratic politicians, who now are asking to be returned to office to continue the “prosperity” that does not exist so far as the working class is concerned. The Political Parties, and Their Candidates. Whom Do They Represent? I find the rank and file workers jin the mining strike areas have a | much clearer understanding of what faces them politically than do the workers of other sections who have not faced the injunctions, evictions, clubbings, jailings and starvation. The republican party with its man Hoover, is very repugnant to them. “Prosperity” is a mythical issue to them,—it does not exist so far as they are concerned, and with such support behind the republican party as Wall Street, Big Boodle, Non- ; Union Bosses and Labor Traitors, the workers see no hope for them in that party. They view as an “Un- holy Alliance” the trinity of John L. Lewis, Andy Mellon and John D. Rockefeller, lined up behind Hoover. Haven’t they suffered enough under Lewis, Mellon, and John D. Rocke- feller in Colorado, Ohio and Pennsyl- vania. Workers Have Their Number. Do these not all stand for Com- pany Unions, and huge monopolies of capital, for no interference with. Big Business? Sure they do, and the workers have their number. Millions of workers in America at the present time are unemployed; union after union is now being ismashed under the republican ad- | ministration aided on the industrial |field by its trusted labor lieutenants of the Lewis type. When the work- ers endeavor to break away from the old unions that have been sold out and can no longer serve them be- cause of the traitors who rule them, we see this same treacherous leader- ship backed up by the political ad- ministration, with the use of police and thugs, attempting to prevent the workers from organizing unions that will serve them. No clearer demon- stration as to the alignment of the labor leadership and the open-shon politicians is needed than that which was exposed in Pittsburgh on Sep- tember 9, 1928 when the militants within the miners union (many of whom had been thrown out of the old U. M. W. A.) met to form a real fighting union. The reactionary of- ficialdom, police and gunmen, tried to prevent them from doing so. This was indeed a complete exposure and an open confession that John L. Lewis and Andy Mellon’s Pittsburgh police were out for one and the same cause iMMustrially, as they now are out for the one and the same cause politically. Coupling all this with the injunctions served, with the elr b- bings from the cossacks and mine police, arrests, evictions, barracks and starvation, is it any wonder that the workers in the strike areas are “off” the present administra- tion? Brown Derby Tammany Al. On the other hand many workers are deceived by the campaign put on by the democratic party, by their fake 18th amendment plank, their “sidewalks of New York” candidate. They are deceived by a desire to get rid of republican rule at any cost. Yes, the workers are being deceived and many no doubt will cast a vote for Al Smith, the other Gold Dust Twin of Wall Street. ‘What does the democratic party hold out for to the workers? Noth- ing. Its candidates are supplied with funds from the same sources as the republican party, Wall Street. The truth is that their reports for dona- tions to the campaign (republican contributions show the same) almost without exception enumerate dona- tions from $5,000 to $50,000 which come from big business. Further- more, the gigantic monopolies and corporations are equally backing both parties and some of the largest scab coal operators in America are lined up behind the campaign of Al Smith and the democratic party. Can that kind of an alliance offer Pond hope to the toilers of America? Isn’t it a fact that in the demo- cratic state of Ohio, under a demo- cratic governor, the militia was used against our mine workers, that our women folks were lodged in jail, that our workers were clubbed and ar- rested? Is it not true that injunc- tions were issued against the unions while the democrats were in power? You haven’t forgotten the famous Anderson injunction that was an excuse for Lewis to call off the strike of the miners in 1919. ( There is nothing in the democratic party, there has been nothing in the past democratic rule that has proven their friendship to labor. They are out to help big business. They say don’t™gelieve in the “excessive” use of injunctions, but who, dear work- er, will define what the word “ex- cessive” means, if not the same judges who now are preventing you from singing even the “sacred” church yarns. : E (To Be Continued.) if % eh TR ye 2 Bien 4 this has been brought about under *