The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 10, 1928, Page 6

THE DAILY WOR Published Na by ROBERT WM. F. MINOR Editor DUNNE Assistant Editor SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By Mail (in New York only): $8 a year $4.50 six mgs. $2.50 three mos. By Mail (outside of New York): $6 a year $3.50 six mos. $2.00 three mos. Address and mail out checks to The Daily Worker, 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. Bill Haywood “Comes Home” Forty-one years ago four leaders of the fa- mous strike in the McCormick Harvester and leaders in the eight-hour move- re hanged in Chicago. The four courageous men who died on the gallows of the capitalist state of Illinois, and the one, Louis Lingg, who took his own life in the death cell to cheat the gallows, are re- membered by the working class of the entire world as heroes. They were pioneers in the giant movement which is today marching to- ward the victory that will transform the en- tire human civilization. When Parsons, Engel, Spies, Lingg and Fischer were murdered, a boy in a western mining camp was among the tens of thou- sands of the working class to whom the savy- age crime of the ruling class “spoke louder than the voices that were strangled” at Chi- cago. William D. Haywood, youthful wage- slave of the mines, became conscious of his class and was started on the road toward leadership in the struggle. Bill Haywood himself became a fiery leader who carried forward the fight in which Parsons and Lingg and their com- rades of 1887 died. And when Haywood a score of years later faced the capitalist courts that wanted him strangled on the gallows, the “Haywood case” in turn aroused more tens of thousands of workers to con- sciousness of their class and the meaning of its struggle. When Bill Haywood died, one-sixth of the surface of the world had already been won for the revolution of which the martyrs | of Chicago dreamed. He died in the Union of Socialist Soviet Republic Half of his ashes was buried in the Kremlin wall among the remains of those who died fighting in the Revolution. The other half was brought to America, by his wish, to be buried beside the grave of the martyrs of 1887. This is a fitting chapter of American and world history. The Haymarket martyrs symbolize in the minds of the workers that early stage of the world-wide fight in which they blazed an American trail. Haywood symbolizes the transition of that struggle to a higher, more mature stage—the stage of world-wide organization, the stage of scientific, iron-disciplined heroism, and the stage of the first victories. The Haymarket martyrs were known as anarchists. As Joseph Dietzgen, friend of Marx, pointed out, their anarchism was the expression of the division and confusion then existing where cowardly opportunism in the | socialist movement was pitted against the courageous proletarian revolutionary spirit which, in protest, at times took cover in the confused petty bottrgeois philosophy of an- other class. Haywood died a Communist, a member of the big, pulsing world-movement organized | into the battering-ram of revolution, the | Communist International. This is the con- tinuation of the heroic traditions that Lingg, Parsons, Spies, Engel and Fischer died for. Bill Haywood, dead, “comes home” as a handful of ashes in an urn. But the putting of this urn in the ground by the side of the dead bones of the Haymarket martyrs means much for the living traditions which he and they have given us. Hoover, President of the World. Hoover was elected president—but presi- dent of what? One would think, from the utterances of the capitalist newspapers of European coun- tries, that the fat office-boy of the biggest New York bankers was elected president of the entire world. French, German, British, Italian capitalist papers are commenting with fear and trem- bling before this new Caesar—some with ob- sequious congratulations, some with uncon- cealed dread, but all with that attitude which a slave takes when a master appears with a whip—which is called “respect.” Says the London Daily Mail: “The British people will tender their re- spectful congratulations to Mr. Hoover, the new president of the United States. They see in him a man who is familiar with our life in these islands, since for some considerable time he lived in our midst in Hampstead. He has traveled or practiced his profession in many parts of our empire, including Burma and Australia.” The Paris Temps fears the whip but hopes the new lord of the world will be a good master. It says: “It is a natural deduction that the presi- dency of Hoover will be a logical continua- tion of that of Coolidge and that the doc- trines of Coolidge on war debts, disarmament, organization of peace and interference in the affi of the states of Latin Ai will tomorrow as they did yesterday. ‘e must await the acts of Hoover to form pa. of his foreign policy. But we do not expect notable changes, Most important is that in the grave hours through which the world is passing the occupant of the White House will be a man of good will.” But the Journal des Debats expects the big American boss to be a hard master to an enslaved world, to judge from its wor “It would be a dangerous error on our part to expect any favorable change. . . . “Coolidge was reproached with having chased gaiety and smiles out of the White House. It scarcely Hoover, even witH’ his great qualities, who will bring them back.” On the other hand the Paris Matin fawns before Hoover with the hope of kindness: “Hoover is the man who brought American business to the degree of prosperity it en- He is the man who in seven years per cent the exports of the of invaded Belgium and France and we wish him all the success he deserves.” The German capitalist press for the most part falls over itself with hope for kind- nesses from the new warden of the world- penitentiary. The Lokalanzeiger makes no bones of it—Hoover is, in the mind of this paper, to “force through” a policy “through- | out the world.” This Berlin paper says: “Hooyer’s victory means that the White House will continue policies that have proved most advantageous to Germany. The newly elected president is famous as an economist, and Germany, with its Dawes problem, hopes that he will be able to force through a sound economic policy throughout the world. In view of the reparations problem we are glad to see a man at the head of America who will place economic realities aboye political am- bitions.” The Nachtausgabe says: “Hoover's election means the continuation of the present American policy. America will stick with determination to the carrying out of its naval armament plans and will not con- fuse the European debt problem with the reparations question. Hoover's foreign policy will be stronger than Coolidge’s because he knows European conditions better from his activities on this side of the ocean.” But the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, representing heavy industrial interests, goes in for equally heavy sentiment: “His brain power makes Mr. Hoover a great statesman. Let us hope that his heart will im- part human warmth to this greatness, for without it nothing truly great was ever ac- complished in this world.” All comment that has been cabled over from the European press in general shows a consciousness of the fact that a new spurt of aggressiveness of American imperialism is foreshadowed by the election of Hoover. South America and the Far East are sadly consigned to the American imperialists as their meat. Mexico is as good as doomed to colonial existence in the backyards of Wall Street, in the view of those whose language dares to hint anything about it. But the comments quoted here are solely from organs of capitalism. Necessarily, these capitalist papers cannot have any true con- ception of the revolutionary forces which will keep Hoover from being “president of the world.” They are slavish in their attitude to the big, fat Hoover—symbolically fat—the symbol of the present tendency toward con- centration of the world power in the Ameri- ean oligarchy. This is true, even though the British and other ruling classes are them- | selves looking to the coming world war as a chance to dispute the power of the Wall Street giant. And to the revolutionary forces, these capitalist powers are of course the bit- terest enemies. But revolution—inevitable, inexorable world revolution—stands between Hoover and his “world throne.” World war stands between Hoover and his “world throne,” and out of the world war—world revolution of both “home” proletarians and colonial subjects. That Hoover knows this, that he is an ex- pert in fighting the forces of revolution on behalf of reaction—is a fundamental reason why Wall Street put Hoover over. Hoover is an expert in Central Europe, where by trickery and violence he engineered the over- throw of the workers Soviet government* of Hungary; he is an expert on China, and an expert on Soviet Russia—also from the point of view of counter-revolution. Herbert Hoover is the symbol of world en- slavement. The struggle against American Imperialism is a world struggle into which the masses of the United States, of Latin America, of Asia and Europe must be drawn and will be drawn. The Workers (Communist) Party of Amer- ida is the opposite pole to the Wall Street oligarchy headed by Hoover. It alone leads the fight against the coming imperialist world war. It alone tells the workers that to work for the defeat of the Wall Street | government in the coming imperialist war is the way to bring the greatest benefit to the toiling masses of this country. It alone tells | the workers to fight to the last drop of their ‘blood in defense of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. Join your class party. KER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOV. 10, 1928 ‘a \ | THE WORKERS OF SOVIET RUSSIA TO THE ii a WORKERS OF CAPITALIST AMERICA By JOHN PEPPER HAT are the outstanding facts 0 the elections? The two big capitalist parties con- |ducted a lively fight for the con- trol of the huge state machinery of jthe United States. | there was no “third” capitalist party in the field. The working class was |represented by only one party, the Workers (Communist) Party df America. The socialist labor party is a fossilized sect, which long since |eliminated itself from the pulsing life of the class struggie, The so- cialist party of America, which still claims to be a working class party, |has been transformed completely |into a party of small businessmen |and “progressive” intellectuals. Communist Party and the socialist party were characterized by the fact that the Communist Party claimed the inheritance of the. 1920, Debs vote, which was a working class ex- pression of revolt and _ protest | against imperialist war, whereas the socialist party put forward its claim to the petty-bourgeois’ LaFollette vote of 1924. | A Victory of Finance Capital. The elections demonstrated the complete brankruptcy of the farmer- labor movement, The farmer-labor parties of the northwest lost all their significance for the working class and became petty-bourgeois tools inethe hands of the capitalists. The “official” organized expressions of labor, the American Federation hoods, were divided, partly support- ing Hocver, partly Al Smith, but they were one in manifesting their eagerness to uphold the present cap- | italist system of society. The outcome of the elections is a republican landslide. Hoover car- jed not less than 40 states and re- | ceived 444 electcral votes, as against |& states with 87 electoral votes for Smith. The huge, hitherto unsur- passed number of 22,000,000 people voted fer Hoover. The 16-17 million |votes for Smith represent about |twice as large a vote as any demo- leratie candidate ever received and \equal the largest vote “any success- ful republican candidate ever got before. The capitalist press hails |the registration of 43,000,000 voters and the actual participation of from 88 to 39 million voters in the elec- tion as the greatest triumph of American “democrac: | shows that the mobilization of these |vast millions of voters, whelming victory for imperialist reaction. The Reasons of Republican Victory. What are the basic reasons for the tremendous Republican |we want to enumerate at least the most significant ones: 1, A considerable improvement | in the economic situation of the country during the last few months, which strengthened the | illusion of the masses about “re- publican prosperity.” 2. The ability of the repuby | lican party to mobilize the forces of the Protestant Church, the Ku | Klux Klan and the American | Legion. 3, The superior organization and finances of the republican. as compared with the democratic party. 4, The tremendous pressure ex- ercised by the manufacturers and other employers on the workers in favor of the republican party.» 5. Besides these general rea- sons, there was a sectional rea- son: the,effects of the industrial- ization of the south, which made it possible for the republicans to, break into the solid south, ith Unlike 1924, | The class relations between the | of Labor and the railroad brother- | the over- | majority of whom are | workers and pocr farmers, is a big | victory? | Without giving a detailed analysis, | erto the undisputed domain of the | democrats. The republican party is the party of the trusts, the political organ- lization par excellence of finance capital. It was created as a party of the bourgeoisie. It is the tradi- |tional champion of high protective tariff. The democratic party was historically the political organiza- tion of the big plantation-owners of the south and fought industrial high tariff in the interests of the agra- rian elements. The republican party has been able to maintain its power by a bloc of the eastern bourgeoisie and the western fgrmers. The dem- \ocratie party has always been a ‘coalition of the southern plantation- jowners and the city petty-bour- | geoisie of the east, with the support. of large sections of the working class under the treacherous leader- ship of the American Federation of Labor. Strategy of the Capitalist Parties. In the present elections the main issue of the republican party was “prosperity.” Its chief promise to the masses was extermination of poverty within the next few years. The whole strategy of the repub- lican party was to appeal to all the conservative instincts of the farm- ers, petty-bourgeoisie and labor aris- tocracy—who are afraid of losing their so-called American high stand- erd of living, who are afraid of any change, who don’t want to touch high tariff or prohibition of immi- | gration—and to keep them under the lead@rship of the big bourgeoisie. The democratic party’s main stock in trade was the promise of the re- vision of prohibition of, liquor. It tried to play with the slogans of farm relief. Its speculations aimed lat splitting the discontented farm- |ers of the northwest from the re- publican party, the winning of the so-called “progressive” LaFollette vote, the rallying to its banner of the petty-bourgeois and working class masses of the big cities. At the same time the democratic party tried to maintain its grip on, the | solid south. And, to make the in- |ner contradictions of the democratic | strategy complete, the democratic leadership worked overtime to try to convince big business that it was jar least as “safe and sound” for | capitalism as the republican party. | The results of the elections show ‘that the speculations of the demo- \cratie party failed utterly. Despite Reality | the support of the most influential | bourgeois population, leaders of the so-called “progres- \ Herbert Hoover, chubby \ and faithful service as a tool of Amer sives,” such as Senators Norris, Blaine and LaFollette, Jr., it was unable to take the farmers away from Hoover. A section of the big bourgeoisie, under the leadership of Raskob and DuPont, took charge of the democratic campaign, but that was not enough to convince Wall Street that its interests would not be in safer hands with Hoover, Al Smith announced a complete lreversal of the democratic policy on tariff, and came out for high pro- tective tariff. He declared himself against the revision of the prohibi- tion of immigration. But this change of policy came too late, re- mained uticonvincing and was. in- capable of taking away from Hoover the firm support of the bulk of fi- nance capital. @Smith promised “light wines and ter” to the masses of the working class and was able to swing the largest portion of the working class votes, but substantial sections of the labor aristocracy went for Hoover, whom they con- sidered a better champion of high tariff, prohibition of immigration and “prosperity.” Al Smith tried to appear as lib- eral and progressive as possible, using all the cbsolete phrases of Rooseveit and LaFollette, but he did not dare go as far as they did, be- cause he did not want to lose his economic basis, the support of the big manufacturers and bankers. The |strategy cf the democrats was to win the industrial states of the cast and north, but that very policy an- tagonized essential sections of the solid south. Small Towns—Big Cities. An analysis of the votes—which cannot be complete and thoroughgo- ing as‘yet—shows that Hoover car- ried the northwestern farming states, although Smith received the bulk of the LaFollette votes there. Hoover had the support of essential sections of the big businessmen, manufacturers and bankers in the big cities, and at the same time re- ceived the overwhelming majority of the votes of the petty bourgeoisie of the small towns and the rural districts of the east and north. Smith was able to pile up the votes of the bulk of the petty bourgeoisie and the working class of the big cities. It was not an accident that Smith carried New York City by a majority of almost half a million, but that Hoover carried up-state New York with its rural and petty- Smith was |able to carry Massachusetts, because os thr ele complacent, ‘iat lass Analysis of Elections he carried Boston, New Bedford and the textile mill towns on the basis of the deep discontent growing out of the textile depression. Analysis shows that in fourteen big indus- trial cities Smith got 3,420,000 votes and Hoover only 3,375,000 votes. New Class Relations in the Solid South. One of the most remarkable fea- tures of the election is the breaking- up of the solid south. For the first time since the civil war the repub- lican party carried Florida, Virginia, Texas and North Carolina, and also received a large vote in the other southern states. The solid south had hitherto been under the reign of a virtual one-party system. The plan- tation owners’ fear of the Negro tmasses had kept the democratic party, as the undisputed political ruler of the south, in power for the past two generations. It is a very saperficial, shallow interpretation to explain the breaking-up of the soiid south by the outburst of re- ligious prejudices, by the mobiliza- tion of the Protestant Church, the Ku Kiux Klan and the American Legion, or by the liquor question alone. One has to dig deeper to find the class meaning of the break- ing-up of the solid south. The penetration of the South by capitalism, the rapid industralization of the Southern States is chiefly re- sponsible for the new political situa- tion there. Before the introduction of manufacturing the Solid South stood as a unit against the capital- istic republican party, which repre- sented protective tariff and the lib- eration of the Negro slaves, against the interests of the plantation own- ers. Steel, textile and mining—based on»cheap labor and water power— have today become one of the main features of the life of the South. Capitalism brought with it new po- litical relations. Three main currents in the class forces turned against the democratic party in the South. The first one was the newly cre- ated modern industrial bourgeoisie of the South. These capitalist ele- ments feel a political affinity with the republican party as the chief po- litical organization of industrial capi- tal. The second class force which turned against the democrats in the South was the mass discontent of the, petty bourgeoisie, which suffers under the new capitalist conditions and which turned the impetus of its discontent against the hitherto rul- ing party of the South and went over to the republicans. It is the irony of | political life that these petty-bour- geois elements in the south—who form the most backward section of the countr yand are under the com- plete domination of the medieval forces of the Methodist Church and the Ku Klux Klan and the American Legion, and who still think in feudal, religious terms—made the democra-| tic party responsible for the new evils of the newly created capitalist conditions in the South and turned their support to the republican party, which is the stronghold of trustified capitalism. F The third factor is the following: Al Smith, the candidate of the demo- ratic party, who rose from the ‘sidewalks of New York,” the rep- resentative of the “new” bourgeoisi- fied Tammany Hall, and his cam- paign manager Raskob, multi-mil. lionaire chairman of the finance committee of General Motors, ap- peared in the eyes of the backward petty-bourgeois masses of the small Southern towns as the represent tives of all the evils of big city life, ie ts ncasuent a t| class Sa ed a stores, and chain stores. Capitalisie and petty-bourgeois anti-capitalism alike turned against Al Smith in the South. The first because it con- sidered Hoover a more clear-cut rep- resentative of trustified capital; the second, because it considered Al | Smith the destroyer of the old agrar- ian, anti-industrial traditions of the | democratic party. However, one section of the Solid | South remained true to the democra- |tic party. Al Smith was able to | carry six states of the South, mostly |those states which have a majority | of or a very large Negro population, |such as Alabama with 39 per cent. Louisiana with 39 per cent, Georgia with 41 per cent, South Carolina with 51 per cent, and Mississippi with 52 per cent Negro population. |The fear of the Negro masses, who | constitute the majority of the whole | population or at least the bulk of | the toiling population in these states is still.so strong that it kept the | white masters in the camp of the democratic party. Hoover and the republican party did everything to appear in the South as a “lily-white” organization. Still the recollections of the emancipation of the slaves are so strong, the oppression of the Negro masses is of such vital im- portance to the white master clags that they are still upholding the democratic party as the safest cham- pion of white domination. “The Conservative Landslide.” To sum up the whole analysis: The class interpretation of the elec- tions reveals a big victory for trusti- fied capital, a big victory for capital- ist reaction. The democratic party is a party of capitalism, and it did everything to appear as a party which is “safe and sane” for capi- talism, and still it was defeated, be- cause finance capital and its repub- lican party was able to hold its grip on the overwhelming majority of the voting population. The New York World is right in stating that the victory of Hoover was “a conserva- tive landslide,” that it was the re- sult of “a deep-seated aversion to change.” It was a vote for the pres- ent “republican prosperity.” The socialist party did not chal- lenge the existence of capitalism. It only promise@ some reforms, and though it suffered heavy losses, it was able to maintain itself as a party of small businessmen and in- tellectuals, and was even able to rally the support of those working class elements who still harbor the illusion that the socialist party has something to do with socialism. Working Class Party. The Communist Party of America was the only foree which represented the interests of the working class and put forward the program of overthrowing capitalism. The Com- munjst Party raised the five basic issues of the present situation: the struggle against imperialist war, the abolition of wage slavery, the fight - |against the oppression of the Ne- groes, the fake capitalist democracy, and the defense of the Soviet Union. The Communist Party gained in the election struggle. It was on the bal- lot in 34 states as compared to 14 states in 1924. It was able to spread the propaganda of Communism in hitherto untouched sections of the country. It was able for the first time in its history to attract the attention of the Negroes by its plat- form of racial equality and national self-determination. It penetrated for |the first time the Solid South. It | wages an uncompromising struggle ~ against capitalism and its Socialist and A. F. of L. servants. Three basic facts stand out in an analysis of the situation: 1.—The bulk of the American working class is still in the camp of the capitalist parties. 2.—The Communist Party is, in a growing degree, the political ex- pression of the widespread dis- content of increasing masses. 3.—A temporary triumph of imperialist reaction. Increasing Reaction—Increasing Resistanes. The real class meaning of the elec- tion of Hoovey, of the republican Jandslide, is given in an editorial in the republican New York Herald- Tribune: “The moral for the nation looks — afar. Amferica stands at the thres- hold of a new era. Already rich in the promise of welfare for all its citizens at home, the country turns overseas to the markets of the world for its future growth. It must so turn or fail, and upon the co-operation of its Federal goy- ernment depends in large measure the success of this new develop- ment. “It would have been a tragic blunder if at this critical moment the country had been confused by the appeals of Governor Smith and .turned aside from its great future to wrangle bitterly over minor is- sues and partisan problems.” (Our emphasis.) ( Hoover’s election marks a new era in the imperialist policy of the United States. Increased reaction at home increased aggressiveness on the world market—this is the out- come of the elections. A sharpening of imperialist relations, a growing war danger, and a sharpening of — inner class relations, growing reac- tion against the working class—this ig the perspective of the near fu- ture, h ‘ The tremendous eee aN talist reaction already con! in its womb an increasing pa ik against itself. A big responsibil: rests on the Communist Party in this situation. To utilize the possibilities for work, to the growing discontent, wh inevitably pi ee the bi sharpening of the ¢lass b { (