The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 3, 1928, Page 6

PES Page Six Peete 2% THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1928 Daily SQ Worker Central Organ of the Workers (Communist) Party Published by National Daily Worker Publishing Ass’n., Inc., Daily, Except Sunday, at 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. Telephone, Stuyvesant 1696-7-8. Cable Address “Daitvork” ROBERT MINOR...... WM. F. DUNNE... Editor «++. Assistant Editor The Lame Duck Session Opens The second final of the seventieth congr opens today. The two houses will formally assemble, listen to the intonation of prayers by their chaplins and then, as is customary, adjourn out of respect to those members who have died during the recess. Not those who have passed out polit- ically, but physically, though there will be considerable mourning for and by the former. and session This session is known as the lame duck session, as the members defeated a month ago still hold office until the inauguration of Hoover on March 4th. Although politically dead, many of the members of both houses will continue to function as they did before. This session will concern itself first with the “unfinished business” of voting appro- priations with which to carry on the various departments of the government. But ihe first order is by no means the most important of the session. Most important as affecting the new and aggressive tyrn of American imperialism is the administration cruiser bill which passed the lower house of congress at the last session and now comes before the senate. All indi- cations are that this move to strengthen the predatory power of dollar despotism will be passed. This is considered essential as a pre- liminary to putting into effect at the first session of the Hoover congress a year from now the ambitious naval program espoused by Coolidge in his armistice day speech and amplified in detail by Secretary Wilbur in his report on the construction program of the navy department. Next in order is the question of ratifica- tion by the senate of the Kellogg treaty, which requires a two-thirds vote. That im- perialist swindle which had as its purpose an attempt to place the United States in the position of undisputed leader of world. re- action and to counteract the demand of the Soviet Union for immediate and complete disarmament, also has a favorable chance of ratification. Senator Borah, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee who has here- tofore opposed the Mellon-Coolidge-Kellogg policies in the arena of world diplomacy, is now completely won over tothe Kellogg pact. Senators Nye, Brookhart and Howell, leaders of the so-called farm bloc, who lined up in the camp of Hoover, will also abandon their- former line of opposition and vote “regular,” with the old guard. In fact these “farm bloc leaders” are highly flattered that they have attained recognition in the official family. Brookhart, the most flamboyant of all assail- ants of the old guard, elected as a progres- sive against the late Albert B. Cummins, who in his time came into the senate as an Iowa defender of the farmer and died a special pleader for imperialism, is following in the footsteps of Cummins. Hiram Johnson of California, who is alternately a “revolter” and a regular will support the full imperialist program in ex- change for support of his Boulder Dam power project, which involves the expendi- ture of millions of dollars by the government in behalf of the interests of the railroads and the industrialists, who want cheap power, and the California real estate sharks who want to euhance their property values. Even the “irreconcilable” Senator McNary has been brought into the fold and, as a loyal supporter of Hoover, will present a new farm relief bill without the equalization fee, the only section of the old McNary-Haugen bill that was considered of benefit to the farmers. All in all the lame duck session will be one of complete servility to the program of Wall Street in foreign and domestic matters. Just as Borah, during the campaign, forgot all the harsh words he had said about Hoover be- fore the secretary of commerce became the presidential nominee, so the other “progres- sive’ and farm bloc leaders have bowed in worshipful awe before the moloch of im- perialism. The new wave has engulfed them. Briefly the short session beginning today recognizes its mission as the forerunner of the Seventy-first session of congress, which will carry into effect the full program de- manded by the new offensive of American imperialism under Hoover. It is hardly necessary to remark that noth- ing whatsoever will be done that will bene- fit the exploited workers and farmers of the United States. Not even so much as a ges- ture will be made toward any form of social legislation in behalf of the masses. More openly and brazenly than ever will the legis- lative branch of the government appear a part of the general machinery of oppression not only against the masses of this country but of all colonial and semi-colonial countries than groan under the iron heel of yankee tyranny. ERIE I | the SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By Mail (in New York only): $4.50 six mos, $2.50 three mos. By Mail (outside of New York): $3.50 six mos. $2.00 three mos. s to The Daily Worker, e, New York, N. Y. $8 a year $6 a year Address and mail 26-28 Union | The “Hero” of Vera Cruz Frank F. Fletcher, retired admiral and former commander-in-chief of the Atlantic fleet who died Wednesday, had as_his sole “achievement” the seizure and occupation of Vera Cruz in 1914, during Woodrow Wilson’s first term as president of the United States. This piece of imperialist banditry is de- scribed by the capitalist press as a “famous naval exploit,” the implication being that it required some sagacity as a naval commander to occupy a defenseless town as a reprisal against Huerta, the then president of Mexico, who had aroused the ire of Standard Oil by serving as a lackey to the British oil trust, rivals of the Rockefeller trust. The seizure of Vera Cruz was one of the many acts of imperialist: despotism _per- petrated by Wilson against Latin America, and one of the earlier “incidents” in the world struggle for oil. It was a part of the war against Mexico that was conducted in the interest of the oil combine without even the formality of a declaration of war by con- gress. The fact that the constitution of the count- try provides for a joint declaration by both houses of congress before a war can be prosecuted did not bother Wilson any more than it concerns Coolidge in his Nicaraguan war, The constitution is a class instrument and when the observance of its provisions interfere with the game of plunder it is ignored with impunity by presidents, ad- mirals and other agents of imperialism. The late Admiral Fletcher is of the same calibre as Wilson’s marine commander, Smed- ley Butler, who invaded Haiti, overthrew the duly constituted government, set up a puppet government subservient to Wall Street and established the military occupation of that country. Though the capitalist press may mourn emise of such “departed heroes” as Fletcher, we extend our condolences only to the unfortunate victims of imperialist rapacity who suffer at the hands of Fletcher and the other gun-men of dollar despotism. However, we do not stop at expressions of | sympathy for the victims of Wall Street’s wars, but we do everything in our power to incite the people of the colonial and semi- colonial countries to resist with all their might every attempt of the imperialist forces to subjugate them. The Impermissibility of Changing Signed Articles The following letter by Comrade Wolfe correctly protests against an inexcusable blunder that was made when the title of his article, “Cannon, the ‘Militant’,” was changed to read “Three Generals Without An Army.” The letter is as follows: Robert Minor, Editor, DAILY WORKER, 26 Union Square, New York City. Dear Comrade Minor: I wish to call the attention of your readers to a technical error in my article of Novem- ber 27th, which I entitled “Cannon the ‘Militant’,” but which for some, to me un- explainable, reason some one in your office entitled “Three Generals Without an Army.” In that article I stated, “The main speeches of Trotsky and ‘noviey, made at the Soviet Union Party Congress on the eve of their expulsion were translated into English and published in all our daily papers.” The speeches I referred to were not made at the Party Congress but at the Plenum of the Central Committee immediately before the Congress, at which Plenum Zinoviey and Trotsky were expelled. The speeches that I had translated first into English and then into the languages of all our Party press were the closing speeches of Zinoviey and Trotsky on their actions and the question of their expul- sion. While I am at it, I want to protest at the liberty that was taken with the title of my article. To say, “Three Generals Without an Army” is to underestimate the serious danger presented to us by the attempt of the new Trotsky combination to split our Party and to poison the working class of America against the CPSU, the Soviet Union, and the Commu- nist International. The Party cannot fight this menace by closing our eyes to its exis- tence. Finally, a word on journalistic “liberties.” The staff of the Daily Worker must of course- write headlines for news stories, but the title of an article is as much a part of the work of one who wrote it as any other part of the article. In fact, it is the most important sen- tence in the entire article, because it is often the only one that is read. Please publish this letter. | Fraternally yours, BERT WOLFE. Comes to Learn “IT have come to learn, not to instruct.”— | Hoover in letter to a Latin American of Costa Rica. As the burglar said: “I have ‘t come to teach you nothin’ mister; . «2 only come to | learn the easiest way to crack your safe!” “PROSPERITY” i Neanen he Bhs Ssh Nice LaMar pede hin Ne By Fred Ellis By GEORGE PERSHING. { | (This is the first of a series of | | articles on United States imperial- ism by George Pershing, a former soldier stationed in Hawaii, who is now on a speaking tour of the country under the auspices of the All-America Anti- Imperialist | League. In another article, Persh- ing will describe the life of work- ers who are lured into the army as* tools of Wull Street.—Editor. | | The United States first became |interested in the Hawaiian Islands) |when “big business” and the Wall) | Street profiteers learned that there | {was a profit in the raising and| |down the governments of the weak- Big Business Brings Wage Slavery; No Prop- erty, No Vote; Manlapit, a Fighter would support the said provisional;to be found at least six inches of government.” |refuse upon the floor, The women Such is the manner in which we|have no opportunity to clean house | acquired Hawaii and such acts are | because they, too, are in the fields the manner in which the iron heel|from daylight to dark. However, of American imperialism tramples|the women are paid oniy about 59 per cent as much as men. The Filipinos who migrate to Hawaii to work on the plantations are forced to undergo a series of formalities before they are hired by er nations. No Property, No Vote. For nearly a year after the im-| perialists’ government wrested con-| Imperialism Enslaves Hawaii pronounce them unsanitary. This was done and a sheriff was sent to levict them. Of course there was no place to go but to the planta- tion owners. | In the meantime a spy was found in the strikers’ eamp who was in |the pay of the plantation owners. The strikers promptly locked the |spy up in a hastily constructed jail-house. Shortly afterwards a_ sheriff derutized territorial militiamen and |went to the camp to get the spy. ; The strikers refused to. turn the spy over to the sheriff and the camp ;was fired up, several being killed. Immediately afterwards, Pablo manufacturing of sugar, The Haw- \aiian Islands have the best sugar-| ‘cane soil in the world. They raise) |tons of sugar to the acre. trol from the queen it had no con-| stitution. Its new officers walked | |the streets armed with Winchesters | and murder became a common oc- the sugar-cane barons in Manila.|Manlapit was arrested on a charge Firstly they are required to be mar-|0f tampering with a witness, and ried. This practice started in the|framed up by a jury hired by the latter part of 1921 and is the result| Plantation owners. The strike was The Revolution in Hawaii in 1893 was brought about by a group of business men aided by the Amer- ican minister to Hawaii. Mr. Stevens, the minister, assisted the overthrow of the native Hawaiian government and himself immediate- ly recognized the new “govern- ment,” which was only a rubber stamp of American imperialism. Yields To Force. The business men, thirteen in) number, stood up in front of a gov-| ernment building, guarded by 150| marines and within 75 yards of an) American battleship and read a pa-| per declaring that they were the| government. . The American minis-| ter, Mr. Stevens, immediately recog- nized these thirteen men as the new government of Hawaii. The native) government was forced to surrender | Queen Liliuokalani declared: “I yield to the superior force of | the United States of America,| whose minister plenipotentiary, | John L. Stevens, has caused the | United States troops to be landed at | Honolulu and declared that he currence, And .hen it did form a constitution there was drafted in it a clause which prohibited a person voting for a senator unless he was worth $3,000 in personal property or $1,500 in real estate, or uniess he had an income of $600 per year. Wages among the Philippine sugar-cane workers are as follows: Hokana Gang (unskilled laborers) $1.05 a day. Skilled Laborers (truck drivers, etc.) $1.50 a day. Hours of Work. 5:30 till 8 o’clock a. m. 10 minutes for quick breakfast. 8:10 till 11:30 a. m. 30 minutes for lunch, 12 till 4:30 p. m. 39 minutes for supper, 5 p. m, till dark. This makes the average working measly wage! Filthy Housing. Sanitary conditions among the workers are unbelievable. From two to twenty persons are forced to live in close, cramped shacks with dirt floors. There is usually Marry a Job. The men apply in Manila for jobs, and if they are unmarried a certificate of marriage is issued them and a wife is provided. In such a manner the sugar barons mate and breed their workers to produce children that can also be employed on the plantations. 1n 1923 Pablo Manlapit began or- ganizing the plantation workers into a union, Through a_ paper, “Ang Bantay” (The Pusy Bee), Manlapit organized and called a general strike of the plantation workers, to build camps for the workers who were immediately evicted by the | plantation owners when the strike to the armed forces of the Amer-|4@Y about 14 hours under the hot) was calird. ican government. In her abdication, SU" of a tropical country for a} Militia Murder Strikers. Many besides myself nave visited tucse strikers’ camps | thea more sanitary than the shacks that the laborers were given on the plantations, However, to break the | Strike, ‘health He used his own money} and found) of the plantation owners’ efforts to| broken. Imperialism had won! breed fresh laborers for the planta-| Back to work, 14 hours a day, went tions in Hawaii. | the thousands of laborers, beaten |down by the arm of “justice.” True Class Spirit. The following are extracts taken |from the final statements of Pablo |Manlapit at his mock trial which sentenced him to jail and broke the strike of the sugar-cane workers: “I have suffered with my people in their misery, and in the end I | will rejoice with them in i tory, which is inevitable. though my voice is still, my me sage goes out on the wings of m spirit to every laborer in_ eve plantation camp in Hawaii.” And again the future of the work- ers is clearly expressed by Manla. pit: “I am satisfied to accept what- ever fate is in store for me with the knowledge that my people are al last aroused and united in their struggle for economic freedom. It is not the judgment of t court |that concerns me, for this court is | powerless to undo my work. I am the barons of sugar hired alsecure in the verdict of my’ people officer to visit the camps and and in the judgment of the future.” (Continued) | | The Kuomintang, have duped! | the Chinese peasants. The’ promise | te lower rents was never carried | out. The gentry and the old official | |class connected with them are still | | in the saddle and as before are) Millions Starve; Serfdom Rife, But Sovietism Spreads | grinding the faces of the peasantry, |the workers’ and peasants’ move-Juver, are demanding: “All power to | Despairing of the Kuomintang aid, | the peasants thereupon began to set- | tle accounts evith their own exploit- }ers in the villages. The peasant |movement which had arisen as a | Subsidiary movement of the Kuo- méntang, was turned into a class | mo ement of the peasantry, direct- ed against the landowners, the gen-| | try and the usurers, As the strug- gle continued the demands of the peasantry grew, and in the spring) of 1927 the peasant unions Kwangtung, Hunan and Hupeh— the most revolutionary provinces, having finished with their gentry, | seized the land which they divided ment. By the middle of 1927 the Kuomintang had completely betray- ed the national revolution and defin- itely lined up with the reaction, Peasantry Become Revolutionary. After numerous rising ‘and bloody battles the country-revolutionary movement of the Chinese bourgeoisie and landowners was temporarily able to strangle the working class in the towns. But it is hopelessly ng incapable of coping with the revolu- in} tionary villages. No sooner have the Kuomintang troops suppressed a peasant rising in one locality, than | a new rebellion occurred in another. |The disbanded peasant unions are among themselves. The Chinese pro- restored with incredible speed, and letariat and its Party, the Commu-| the struggle commences now. There nist Party of China, actively aided | are 400,000,000 peasants in China. and led the peasants in their strug-| No army in the world can subdue gle. The phantom of the agrarian re- volution and the growing forces of the proletariat and the peasantry, alarmed the bourgeoisie which still |such a mass of humanity when it steadfastly stands its own guard, and knows what it wants. The class consciousness of th. Chinese peasan- try is growing as every year goes held the Kuomintang under its in-| Its revolutionary experience is fluence. The Chinese bourgeoisie jjkewise growing. The Kuomintang forgot about their struggle against |cstablished the power of militarists, militarism and imperialism, and join-||andowners and gentry. It. has ing hands with the landowners, they | struck a bargain with the imperial- |are doing all in their power to crush | is The Chinese peasantry, how- |the Soviets,” they are demanding |the land. In those localities where the peasant partisan detachments have seized power, peasant unions were established, the land owners ond gentry were executed and the land distributed among the village toilers. No sooner ousted from one district than we hear that the So- viet power has been set up by an- other. The fight continues: In. _ creasingly greater masses of the peasantry are being drawn into the movement, while the hired army of the militarists:13 becoming less re- liable as time goes by. For the |Chinese soldier is precisely the hungry peasant and no other. His political stupidity and the wages he receives from his officer prevent him from seeing the true reasons for the heroic struggle of the pea. jsantry. But this exhausted and ruined country is finding it an in- creasingly difficult matter to sup- port these tremendous armies. The officers are making money out of the civil war, while the soldiers are paid a miserable pittance invariably six months late. The undaunted munist Party and the active mem- Reaction Fails to Halt Chinese Peasant Movement Jing the Chinese soldiers to realize the true significance of the present events in China. The results are already making themselves felt. Rebellions are breaking out among the troops. Whole military detach- ments are increasingly going over |to the peasant insurgents. | |. The Chinese hangmen have never |been so active as at the present |time. But their bloody measures jare only fanning the flame of the | peasant movement which has be come widespread throughout China, having been caught up by the |greater part of the country. | The working class, however, | weakened by the time being by the | White Terror and economic ruin, is | gathering its forces anew, is reform- |ing its disorganized ranks, for dur- jing the last year reaction struck |down many of its finest leaders. ‘Misleaders in | the American Labor Unions By WILLIAM Z. FOSTER The notorious Bannon has been head of the Newspaper and Mail De- |liverers’ Union in New York for 24 years. He is at the same time cir- culation manager for the three | Hearst New York papers and seven magazines. He uses the union, which is not affiliated to the A. F. of L., |to.get Hearst’s publications circu- |lated at the lowest rate possible, for which Hearst pays him $20,000 per year salary. He gathers graft from the newsdealers and collects a. salary from the union. He owns a non-union news company in Newark which employs 65 workers. His pro- |fit on the circulation of one paper alone is estimated at $350.00 per day. Naturally the workers’ inter- Jests a lost sight of by Bannon. | He boasts that his union has had only one strike in 24 years. Bannon is a power in sporting, | dope-selling and bootlegging circles | in New York. He has held the watch |for Jack Dempsey in his fights. When meetings of his union are held, once every half dozen years, he ter- rorizes the workers with flocks of is gunmen cronies. These beat into submission anyone who triés to rake the union function in the interests of the membership. Xecently Bannon made a pleasure trip to Europe. He sailed .on the Berengaria, occupying the suite that the Prince of Wales had used. He took his private secretary with him. When he returned he was given a banquet in the grand ballroom of the Hotel Astor. Over 2,000 were present at $6.00 per plate, includ- ing many big newspaper men, capi- talists, politicians, and underworld characters. Telegrams of felicita- tion, were received from scores of business men, And such a creature of the bosses is called a “labor leader.” Often these plain agents of the newspapers stand at the head of the printing trades unions. In Omaha, for example, the dominant local figure in the Typographical Union is T. W. McCullough, an edi- tor of the Omaha Bee. This ultra- reactionary has also been long a big factor in the national A. F. of L. machine. The Metal Miners. The bribery of the trade union leaders and the consequent. many- sided betrayal of the workers’ inter- , takes place in every industry. Just a couple of more instances will illustrate the general condition. For many years the Butte Union of the Western Federation of Min- ers, later the J. U. of M. M. and S. W., was the main prop of the Moyer administration. The Butte union was notoriously company-controlled, by methods whieh we shall see in a later chapter. Desperate efforts of the rank and file to cleanse it cul- | minated in a spectacular union revolt end split in 1914, which practically |killed the whole organization, na- tionally as well as locally. An “open shop” situation resulted in Butte. The companies forced abominable conditions on the miners. the futile Efforts of workers to reorganize proved until June,“1917, when the ible Speculator mine disaster snuffed out 164 lives and plunged Butte. into a bitter strike. The strike was conducted by an independent union, but the strikers were willing to join Moyer’s organi- n in a body. Moyer insisted, wever, that they first give up their strike and then affiliate as individ- ua This proposal demoralized the orkers and contributed greatly to breaking the strike. The leaders of the other crafts, who were also in- volved, were no less hostile and treacherous. Said Wm. F. Dunne at the Portland, 1922, A. F. of L. con- vention: “In Butte we have had our share of trouble with bi fearing and boss-loving international officers. We witnessed, during the first great strike of 1917. . .the spectacle of international presidents, vice-presi- dents, and organizers coming into a district when the wage-earners were engaged in a life and death struggle with the copper trust and going to the sixth floor of the Hennessey Bldg., the head offices of the Ant |dnda Copper Co., for consultation with the corporation heads before | they even reported to the strike committees of their umions. . . | with one single exception, Taylor of the Machinists’ Union, every in- ternational officer (and there were a dozen in Butte at the time) got his orders from the offices of the copper trust and became part of the machinery for breaking the strike.” Rhys Williams Makes Correction on “Real | A typographical error in the ar- | ticle “The Real Situation in Rus- | sia,” which oceurs in the original When the strikers’ risings in the | printing as it appeared in The Na- towns are linked up with the pea- |sant war in the villages, when the | Peasant in. uniform directs his wea- pon against his landowner-officer, then the regime of the bourgeoisie and landowners. will be overthrown in China. It is impossible to pre- dict when this will be brought about. But the events developing the Chinese Reaction. perative duty of the international proletariat and peasantry to help agitational activities of the Com- | the'r fellow-workers and brothers in | ‘China to come out of this bitter hers in the peasant unions are help. | struggle victorious and tyiumphant. ! today are complicating matters for | It is the im- | \ i Situation in Russia” . tion, and in the article as reprinted, in the Daily Worker Nov. 12, is pointed out by the author in the following letter to'The Nation: “Sir: In my article on The Real Situation in Russia there was one slight error—printers’ or typists’ —in the account of the exiling of Feodorov. The suggestion that he might go to America came not from the G. P. U. but from the N. T. U., Scientific Technical Ad- ministration, a body that plays an increasingly important role in the industrialization of Soviet Russia, ALBERT RHYS WILLIAMS,