The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 23, 1928, Page 6

Militants Tried in Washington aan TH Published by National Daily Worker Publishing Ase’n., Inc., Daily, Except Sunday, at 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. Telephone, Stuyvesant 1696-7-8. Cable Address “Daitvork” ROBERT MINOR Editor WM. F. DUNNE Assistant Editor Hoover’s Plan For “Permanent Capitalism” uf course Herbert, Hoover’s project for a #3,000,000,000 fund to “‘stabilize prosperity is not a proposal to do anything for the work- ing class, but just the reverse. That is why the convention of bureaucrats of the American Federation of Labor at New Orleans received the proposal so cordially. The American Federation of Labor must al- ways be the first servant to kiss the feet of any imperialist proposing a vast scheme for further suppression of the working class. In the nature of things the president-elect who is put in office through the power and at the expense of finance-capital is there to increase to the very highest possible degree the amount of surplus profit extracted from the working class by the great industrial combines and banks, and to extend a colonial empire for the super-exploitation of colonial slaves -f American finance-capital through- out tf} orld The Troject of Hoover is one of the im- portant developments of the past few weeks that, along with Coolidge’s Armistice Day speech and Hoover’s own “empire tour” through Latin-America, are tangible signs of the sharp advance in United States Im- perialism. Hoover, undertaking the role of “super-engineer” of American capitalism, was put into office on a program of world conquest. The Wall Street empire of which he dreams cannot but look beyond the two American continents, to the continents of Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa. But the latest Hoover plan undertakes to guard against*the forces which will over- throw capitalism, imperialism and all of the hideous, bloody structure of world-slavery of which this super-Caesar dreams. Hoover is not a fool, but he is a capitalist “wise man,” and his plan for “permanent capitalism” will fall into the most gigantic wreck ever to be known to history. Hoover sets himself to overcome the laws of capitalist development, decay and decline. He sets himself as the leader of capitalism who will destroy the law according to which capitalist society in- evitably—by the forces of its own expansion in “prosperity”—hurls the world’s economic processes into panic, crisis, stagnation, un- employment, vast movements of the prole- tariat and of the colonial people, and— revolution. By “holding back” construction currently undertaken, the present army of unemployed, between three and four million —is augmented, and for the workers the re- sult will be that they can starve slowly and by smaller regiments rather than all at once in one grand crash. Daily Sgie Worker Central Organ of the Workers (Communist) Party a SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By Mail (in New York only) $4.50 six mos. By Mail (outside of New York) $3.50 six mos. $2.00 three mos. Address and mail all checks to Daily Worker, 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. $8 a year $2.50 three mos. $6 a year The “Picture the approach of an economic crisis with unemployment threatening on every hand,” said Governor Brewster of Maine, in presenting Hoover's plan, “The release of $3,000,000,000 in construction contracts by public and quasi-public authorities would remedy or ameliorate the situation in the twinkling of an eye. Federal indexes are al- ready becoming available that remove the problem from the domain of speculation or opinion and place the need upon a basis of simple facts. “No centralization of authority is pro- posed, but merely the creation of a condition by concerted action that shall make possible a remedy that will appeal persuasively to all. Follow the flow of those $3,000,000,000 to the contractor, to the laborer, to the material men, to the factory, to the factory employes, to the merchants, to the farmer. It goes like the house that Jack Built and unemployment is at an end.” But Hoover and his spokesman’ will be sweeping back the waves of a sea that will drown them despite the $3,000,000,000 broom. * * * It must be remembered that the “‘stabiliza- tion of prosperity” project is only a small part of the Hoover program. Warships and the invasion of the Latin-American countries, the lust for conquest of all Asia, the bull- dozing of Europe, the malignant enmity to- ward the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics —imperialist world-war—constitute the rest of the Hoover program. But what will the $3,000,000,000 fund pro- ject mean in the very narrowest sense in which Mr. Bill Green speaks when he says: “The proposal approved by President-elect Hoover is an unqualified endorsement of La- bor’s program.”? Or Johnny Frey, when he says: “Its substance was not only a complete en- dorsement of our trade union-basis for wages but in addition was an endorsement of one of the policies of this federation for relieving un- employment through the utilization of a re- serve accumulation in times of plenty.” These utterances of the A. F. of L. fat- boys are the veriest criminal rot, though of course the worst capitalist plan is truly an endorsement of A. F. of L. policies. If the project goes through it will mean the more direct, the more controlled use of government funds for the purpose of policing the working class during periods of economic depression and wide movements of unrest. To ham- string the trade union organizations, to split up, demoralize and defeat the working class at a moment of crisis, will be the aim. It would lower the standards of the working class—for the project is of the capitalist class, and its administration would be by a government which exists only to suppress, defeat and exploit the masses at the highest degree possible for the benefit of the parasite capitalist class. 4 This is the fourth installment of the stenographic record of the trial in Washington, D. C. of 29 workers for participating in the demonstration for the release of John Porter and against imperial- ist war. * * * By Mr. Given: Q. Did you parade around the building, is what the Court warts to know. A. I want to show why I was here. I did not come out of the sky just for nothing. Q. The Court wants to know whether you did or did not parade. A. I want to show why I was there. MR. GIV Your Honor, I think you have already permitted great latitude to this witness. And T am sure that the Court fairly un- derstands what their purpose was. THE COURT: Brother, I have been very kind to you. You were parading contrary to our regula- tions, and if there is anything you want to say on that line, all right. MILLER: I maintain that his ob- jection raised here to keep me from expressing my views is another proof of the fact that the capitalist courts are not interested that the worker should know the truth about Russia, should know the truth about war preparations, should know the truth about the condition of the workers. MR. GIVEN: Do you want to an- swer the question whether you par- aded around the building or not? MILLER: I have answered in my own way. MR. GIVEN: Your Honor, I sug- gest that if the witness will not ansfver the question that you invite him from the stand. You have cer- tainly given him great latitude in his efforts to propagandize. THE COURT: I have been very MILLER: You have the power,|is not the kind of parade that the | and you can make me speak as you want to, and so I will confine my- self to these questions under pro- test. By Mr. Given: Q. If you have anything that you wish to say, all right, and if not, we will hear the next witness. A. I paraded, if you call it that, in front of the Army, Navy and State Building in order to present the petition. * Q. Did you go all the way around the building? A. Pardon me, but— Q. (Interposing.) How’ many {times did you go around the Build- ing, A. I was in front of the building at the time they arrested me. Q. Were you on West Executive Avenue parading? A. I was on West Executive Ave- nue many times while in Washing- ton. Q. On this last Saturday when you were parading were you parad- ing with these people on West Ex- ecutive Avenue, with these banners, on last Saturday? A. I do not there parading. MR. GIVEN: All right, your Honor, he is avoiding an answer to | the question for the purpose of mak- ling a speech at this time, and I think your Honor has already ac- corded him very great latitude in | his desire to make a speech. I think |the Court understands very well | why he is here. THE COURT: If you cannot con- |fine yourself to the charge made jagainst you here, I will have to hear the next witness. * i Not Like Jingo Parades. | MILLER: All right. 1 maintain |that this was not a parade. We did |not have a band of music. Usually in parades there is a band of music. call my _ presence tiberal with you, my brother, so far.|We were there as a delegation rep- You will have to answer the ques-|resenting the seven organizations. tom. If you call this a parade I say itcountry as a human hell. ° |boy scouts and the army have—and I am sure they do not get permits for their parades; they just organ- ize them, and they call up the po- lice, and they usually send them down a squadron of police to keep the traffic clear for them. We did rot have a band of music, and BOSS AND STRAW-BOSS’ ° DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, FRIDAY, NOVEMBEK 3, 19ZS Renegade By A. B. MAGIL, The New York Volkszeitung has been having its hands full of late oncile the mass of con- and hypocrisies “that Its editor, the Ludwig Lore, who was (Com- munist) Party at the fourth na- tional convention of the Party in August, 1925, for his virulent re- formism and opportunism, has been doing some stunts. In the field of international politics his opportunist task is com- paratively eas: Since no action by Lore himself is involved, he can sling “revolutionary” phrases with impunity, tho, of course, he never loses an opportunity to slander the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the German Communist |Party and (with discretion since it jis fashionable for even liberals nowadays to purr sweet words about “the Russian experiment”) the Soviet Union itself. And it is ‘not remarkable that this thorough- going reformist and renegade should be one of the most voluble American champions of Trotsky and Trotsky- ism. tradictions constitute its policy. renegade, expelled from the Workers But in the American scene Lore’s job is not quite so easy. He is for \the policies of the American Pedera- \tion of Labor and against them; he “for” the Communists ‘and the left wing and against them; for ly weighs the merits of each side and hands down the law. A pleas- ant and highly flattering role. But like all such “impartial,” “detached” Jobservers, when the test comes, this |super-revolutionist is always against |revolution and for betrayal. This sort of intellectual charlat- antry seems to have landed “Com- rade” Lore with one foot at least jueither did we go therc with the ex-| (if not with both) in the socialist pectation of bringing down many workers that belong to us. There was only a handful of the thousands of workers that we represent. I say it is not fair to call it a par- ade. I say the fact that you call it a parade is just trying to inject | a technical charge against us in this | case so as to try to railroad us to| jail; and I maintain that I for one will not pay any fine. If you wish | to send me to jail for any time you have the power, and you have the|change w police to put me there. MR. GIVEN: All right, your Honor. I suggest that he has had enough’ time in which to make any answer to the charge he might de- sire, but he is not attempting to do that. (To Be Continued.) Abyssinia Human Hell With 2,000,000 Slaves LONDON, Nov. 22.-In Abys- sinia today, where French capital- jists have a substantial control, there are 2,000,000 slaves, despite the continual statements of Ras Tafari, | its king, that he will abolish slavery. During the last*two years he has only liberated 1,109 slaves. Ras Tafari gives as his. excuse that the native chieftains and priests object to the abolition of the system, but those better acquainted with conditions which prevail in a country exploited by foreign cap- italists claim that these chiefs and priests must get substantial returns for the slaves they sell to mill and | mine owners. * | Visiters to Abyssinia describe that (resistance ingly apparent during the last few remarkable balancing s |the yellow socialist party and |“against” it, and so on. Aloof from |the fray, viewing its petty turmoil | |with an “impartial” eye, Ludwig Lore, super-“revolutionist,” careful- Lore, Editor of “Volkszeitung,” Going Fast Towards Soc ialist Party on Oct. 28 he praises the election|and cannot in appearance or policy| campaign of the socialist party as having been in welcome contradis- tinction to the campaigns of the} “other working class parties.” He) of the S.P.’s “earnest ef-| to deal with the campaign issues without shooting its ‘brother } parties’ in the back.” The fact that this g&ntleman, who | still pretends to be a follower of Marx and Lenin, invariably speaks | of the socialist party as a working-| class party, is sufficient revelation| of the depths to which the lofty | Olympian has sunk. Probably no) party in the Second International | has gone further to the right, has} become more openly a_petty-bour-| geois organization than the American | socialist party. In this the S. P. has the advantage over most of its) brother parties of the yellow inter-| national, since it no longer has even But Lore has a purpose. It is not) /a small proletarian following to com- |pel it to maintain some pseudo-so- | Clalistic window dressing. But Lore chooses to ignore all this. In an editorial on Nov. 8 he| |deplores the “division among the working-class parties” (including in this category the socialist and so- \cialist labor parties), and suggests a “united front” during the elections. | | (Of course there exists no such di- |vision as Lore professes to deplore | since there is only one workingclass party, the Workers (Communist) |Party, which is divided from all parties of the bourgeoiste, whether | they appear openly as such or under | various “socialist” guises.) | Lore’s friendliness to the socialist | party is further evidenced in his | official regrets over the defeat of | Victor Berger, the wealthy S. P. | bureaucrat and publisher of the Mil- {Petey swamp, a fact which has be- | waukee Leader, the yellow “social- come incr | ist” sheet which accepts scab adver- weeks. In an editorial |tisements, apes the Hearst papers! be distinguished #ram anyother cep-|,. 45 Had out the facie He merely itatist newspaper. An editorial note in the Volkszeitung of Nov. 8 states: “The re-election of Victor Ber- ger, which we announced yester- day after we had received a report from the national campaign bu- reau of the socialist party, has unfortunately not been confirmed. With his defeat the socialist party loses its only congressman and the American workingclass its only spokesman in the national house of representatives.” American workers will be sur- prised to learn that they had a spokesman in the house of represen- tatives. Lore knows the true character of the socialist party; despite his re- formism, he is not quite so naive. for nothing that this professed “Communist” lets pass no opportu- nity to throw mud at the Workers (Communist) Party. And it is not) for nothing that he speaks with such sympathetic understanding of the socialist party. Lore is isolated and it isn’t pleasant for a man of his stripe to be isolated. And since the Communists will have none of him, he finds the feeble fires of the socialist party very comforting to his soul. Despite his political sophis- |tication, it is easy—and quite con- venient—for him to grow ideologic- ally towards the socialist party. And so Lore, who at first pretended to be sympathetic to the left wing in the cloakmakers’ union, is now sup- | porting the president of the scab | international, Benjamin Schlesinger, | the tool of the yellow Forward and friend of Tammany Hall. Inciden- tally, the Volkszeitung took special | Pains to “clear” Schlesinger of the \charges made in the Daily Worker and the Freiheit of Oct. 27 that this Makes “Progress” | socialist party elector had received $50,000 from Col. Herbert Lehman, Tammany candidate for lieutenant- governor, to carry on his campaign against the rank and file. When poftce and right wing thugs attack a meeting of the Retail Gro- cery, Dairy and Fruit Clerks Union | (Oct. 30), Lore doesn’t trouble him- |has one of his flunkies rewrite the capitalist press. itakist press outdid itself in the re- porting of this story. Such idiocies, such wholesale fabrications more brazen than is usual even for the prostitute sheets. But Lore, the detached, “impartial” observer, re- hashed most of them. is contemptuous even of those in whose name he professes to speak, The results of the elections show “the utter stupidity of the American voters” (editorial of Nov. 9). The triumph of Hoover is the triumph of Wall Street “over the stupid masses” (the same). These are the terms of cynical | this “workingclass leader” reacts to the present victory of American im- perialist reaction. Perhaps it was only one of those coincidences that on the same day (Oct. 28) that Lore praised the elec- tion campaign of the socialist party a tricky and treacherous article on Tom, Mooney appeared in the Eng- lish department of the Volkszeitung’s magazine section, written by the Rev. Norman Thomas. (Incidentally, this article was also printed by In- dustrial Solidarity, organ of the I. W. W.!) and on Nov. 4 Lore pub- lished in the same English depart- ment an ecstatic blurb for the Bri- tish Labor Party and an article by Oscar Ameringer, the “socialist” who helped shield Frank Farring- ton, former president of District 12, United Mine Workers, while the lat- ter was acting as a stoolpigeon for the Peaboody Coal Company at a salary of $25,000 a year. Did I say one foot in the S. P. swamp? Bismarck’s Law Against the Socialists (Continued) practice this internal first characterized by the fact that the creation of a for- eign organ of the Party for the pur- pose of illegal circulation in Ger- many became the most-contested crucial problem of internal party discussion. All the Right elements opposed publication and with them at first went the better part of the leaders, not excluding Bebel. Even under the emergency law, they did not de- sire to overstep the limits of legal- ity. the part of the members that this In Party leaders was broken. Even ‘prior to this, however, in Brussels, Karl Hirsch, a comrade exiled from Berlin, had upon his own account founded a_ periodical called “Die Laferne,” in which he criticized the poor behavior of the Party. He was followed by another exiled socialist, one Johann Most in London, who founded the “Freiheit,” sequently passed completely into the channels of petty-bo&rgeois anarchism. At the time of the great- est chaos in the Party, however, these independent publications of in- dividual comrades soo had their circle of readers in Germany. Finally, in the autumn of 1879, é ) ’ the foundation of such a! 50 Years Ago “Iron Chancellor” Made Assault on Young German Labor Movement the leaders of the Party yielded to the general pressure, and the offi- cial “Sozialdemokrat” came into being: at Zurich. During the entire existence of the Socialist Law, this publication continued to appear. | When its personnel was exiled from It was only under pressure on| Switzerland, they proceeded to Lon-| Formally, the publication had} | don. of the petty bourgeois|later to renounce its character of, ‘an official organ of the Party, {which for all practical purposes however it continued to be.. The foundation of the “Sozialdemokrat,” of course, did not yet represent the realization of what the revolution- ary workers of the Party desired in the place of the weak policy of the Party up to that time. It was only in 1880, when the Party Congres at ‘legal party congress of the social _democrats under the Socialist Law, had effected a certain movement _toward the Left and when Bebel and Eduard Bernstein had in the, December of that year made their | penitent way to London, where _Marx and Engels were indignantly ‘watching and criticizing the first a publication which, it is true, sub-| W¥den in Switzerland, the first il-| | degeneration of German social dem- ocracy, that the attitude of the “Sozialdemokrat” also showed a change for the better. | Underground Organization. | The creation of a foreign organ, which was forbidden in Germany, was of necessity followed by the construction of an illegal apparatus for its distribution. The “Rote Feldpost,” as this organization was called, became the basis for the re- sumption of all organizational “wires” which had been severed un- der the destructive effect of the law, and thus also the basis of the reconstruction of the Party organ- ization. Added to this there were the collections arranged by the Par- ty in aid of the exiled victims of the “small state of siege,” which also constituted a form of recon- struction of the prohibited organ- izations. Untiringly and with an (inexhaustible ingenuity, the prole- tarian masses of Party members de- veloped the methods of their poli- tical and organizational work, thus rendering abortive all the efforts of Bismarck and his lackeys, the pub- . j lic prosecutors, police functionaries, ete. Before the decree of the emergen- ey law the Party relied chiefly on certain economically backward re- gions of misery, such as Chemnitz and: the villages of the Erzgebirge. The bulk of the weavers in these parts, hit by the progress of the steam loom, and forced to eke out their existences by all sorts of ac- cessory employment at home, such as the carving of toys, were easily accessible to the teachings of so- cialism. But these classes repre- sented an uncertain basis for the Party. At the very first elections after the promulgation of the So- cialist Law it was apparent that the Party had made a step forward and had* conquered an additional foot- ing in the great industrial cities, which were economically destined to become the nuclei of the proletarian movement. (To Be Continued.) SANTIAGO, Cuba, Nov. 22 (UP). —Evan Pile was executed on the garrote in city jail today for the murder of Bautista Luis, a Haitian. Pile went to the death chamber | professing his innocence. He was cool as he aided the executioner in adjusting the death machine, He was pronounced dead ten minutes after the executioner pressed a lever which brake his neek, Unfortunately for| Lore and the Volkszeitung, the cap-| are | So lofty has Lore become that he| aristocratic hopelessness in which! Misleaders in the American Labor Unions BY WILLIAM Z. FOSTER. Craft autonomy and craft organi- zation demoralize the workers in their struggles. This system, under the stimulation of reactionary of- ficials, has led to practices that bring the blush of shame to the | cheek of every good union man. Not only haves the organizations, driven on by treacherous leaders, practiced union scabbery repeatedly against striking brother unions and | worked side by side with profes- sional scabs, but they have often | done actual, direct strikebreaking | themselves. Thus, in the C. B. & Q. engineers’ strike there were fire- men doing the work of engineers; in the big switchmen’s strike of 1900 on the G. N. union engineers and firemen helped the companies teach the scabs how to do the work of | the switchmen; in the historic I. C. strike the engineers and trainmen |often made running repairs on en- |gines and trains so far as they could, thus relieving the pressure on the company’s scab mechanical force, ete. A disastrous product of railroad craft unionism was the long juris- dictional struggle between the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen and the Switchmen’s Union. This has led to open scabbery time and again. As far back as 1891 on the C. & N. W. we find the R. T. filling the places of the striking S. U. The same policy has been followed for 30 years, shameless scabbery tak- ing place .during many strikes, in- cluding, among others, the D. & R. G. in 1901, the Pennsy in 1901, the M. K. T. in 1902, the G. N. and N. P. in 1909, the Wabash in 1916, etc. Usually the B. of R. T. simply stepped into S. U, strikes, signed agreements with the companies, and furnished scabs to break the strikes. So flagrant has been the conduct of the B. of R. T. that the Chicago Fed- eration of Labor and other central bodies upon such’ occasions have openly condemned it for strikebreak- ing. No one has profited from this devastating jurisdictional fight ex- cept the companies. It has kept the railroad unions in turmoil for a gen- eration. The reactionaries at the head of the B. of R. T. are chiefly to blame, but Heberling, Cashen, and Connors of the S. U. are not guiltless. They have bitterly re- sisted all efforts to amalgamate their organization with the B. of R. T. They are typical Gompersites. Misleaders Active. For 40 years the conservative rail- road union leaders, playing the game of the companies, have stubbornly fought against every attempt to |unite the railroad workers in one |solid body. They have striven to preserve the system whereby a few strategically placed, well-organized workers can trade with the com- panies at the expense of the weaker unions and of the great masses of unorganized. Naturally the com- panies also have been entirely in fa- vor of this policy. For more than a generation the prime issue that has divided reactionaries from progres- |Sives on the railroads is that of jeraft unionism versus industrial unionism. Craft unionism is the |sign manual of the railroad labor |faker, even as it is of the labor faker in many other industries, No matter in what form the rail- road industrial union idea has de- | veloped, whether through dual unions |or by proposals to amalgamate the evaft unions, it has been strenuously | resisted by the reactionary leaders, who are always supported by the companies. The old Knights of La- bor tended to combine all railroad- ers together. The incipient craft unions openly scabbed upon it. They jdid the same when Debs launched |the American Railway Union and carried on the great Pullman strike | of 1894. Incidentally Gompers took a hand to wreck this vital strike, by formally refusing to give it the ac- tive support of the A. F. of L. Smaller dual unions, such as the | United Brotherhood of Railway Em- ployes (for example the M. ba 8 strike) were eliminated by a ruth- less policy of open scabbery wher- ever they got a foothold in the in- dustry. On the other hand, the movement to amalgamate the 16 railroad ‘unions, which has been especially strong since the 1922 strike, meets with the united opposi- tion of the railroad union bureau- cracy, “grand chiefs” and all. It was a great mistake, however, of early industrial unionists not to \have fought along the lines of amal- gamating the existing unions instead of for the formation of dual unions, as the latter policy has given the reactionaries a much better opor- tunity to defeat them. Anti-Chain Store Law Is Declared Illegal by U. S. Supreme Court WASHINGTON, D. C., Nov. 22, —The movement toward trusvitica- tion of the means of distribrsicn, such as is now growing fast in this country, was accelerated by a de- cision of the U. S. supreme court, which has declared unconstitutional the Pennsylvania state law of 1927, which required that all owners or part owners of drug stores be regis- tered pharmacists. The suit was brought to the supreme court by the Louis K. Liggett Co., one of the chief drag chain-store corporations in the country. | IMPERIALIST TOUR. BRUSSELS, Belgium, Nov, 22 (U.P)—Crown Prince Leopold and Princess Astrid left. for Marseilles today enroute to the Dutch East dasdins. | |