The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 5, 1928, Page 6

SEBO E EA Published by National Daily Worker Publishing day, at 26-28 Telephone, ROBERT MINOR Editor WM. F. DUNNE.. | . Assistant Editor British Imperialism Challenges “Good Will” Monopoly The imperialists of England are preparing to send a fleet of airplanes to Latin América in an attempt to counteract the imperialist tour of Hoover. In order that there may be no mistaking their motive as not identical with that of Hoover they also characterize their proposed tour of the southern republics a “good will” tour. Just as they challenge the attempt of the yankee imperialists to a monopoly of Latin American trade so they refuse to concede a monopoly of hypocritical language with which to conceal their pre- datory designs. It is certain however, that the British tories, in adopting the slogan under which yankee tyranny conceals its murderous in- tent, will not enshrine themselves in the hearts of the Latin American victims of these powers, any more than will the insolent tour of Hoover. The “good will” hoax has been repeated too many times. It was the stock in trade of Coolidge and Hughes at the Havana confer- ence of the Pan-American union where the government of Cuba, a puppet of Wall Street, refused to permit the real representatives of the Latin-American peoples to attend and voice their opinions of American imperialism. The term was used to designate Lindbergh’s imperialist flight to Caribbean countries while the Havana conference was in session. It was used again when all Latin America was arrogantly slapped in the face by the fake Nicaraguan election held under military terror on the pretext that the inhabitants of the country were “unfit” to select their own president. The masses of the workers and peasants of Latin America are coming to realize that yankee “good will” means slavery for them in order that the Wall Street plunderers may rob them of the rich stores of raw material and reauce all Latin America to a hinterland of American imperialism. It is of the very essence of imperialist policy in the colonies and semi-colonies that investment of capital is not directed toward enabling them to build up industries in their own countries, but serves only to stifle nor- mal development and permit the growth only of such industries as will aid the exploiting country obtain raw material. Only the ex- tracting industries—mining, oil, etc.,—and sufficient transportation industries to get the products to seaports are permitted to flourish. For supplies of finished products the victims of imperialism are kept in a con- dition of dependence upon the exploiting country. A part of the world wide struggle between American and British imperialism revolves around Latin America. The competing “good will” tours are a part of this imperialist con- flict, that is rapidly approaching the stage where it will burst forth into the flames of another world war for the purpose of bring- ing about a redistribution of the world be- tween the imperialist powers. Hoover’s tour is a continuation of the Coolidge policy in Nicaragua, which is directed toward con- quest of all Latin America, in order that dollar despotism may subdue that part of the world preliminary to the outbreak of the next war. It is called in military parlance “consolidating the rear.” Only the most relentless struggle against American imperialism by the workers and farmers of the United States and a close anti- imperialist alliance with the peoples of Latin America can avail against the war threat. Only the revolutionary program of Com- munism, which insists that the first task of the working class is to fight against:its own imperialist ruling class, can defeat the war- mongers. In the United States the leader- ship of this struggle is in the hands of the Workers (Communist) Party, in England the leadership is in the hands of the Communist Party of Great Britain, sections of the Com- munist International, the general staff of the world revolution. And in the colonial and semi-colonial countries it is only the Com- munist Parties that follow a policy that can effectivgly resist the designs of the im- perialists by scourging them from their soil. Not through the mouthing of deceptive phrases about ‘good will” but only on the basis of the revolutionary action of the pro- letariat and its allies, the peasantry, can we speak of identity of interest between the peoples of the world. Two Varieties of Prisoners The Atlantic federal ‘prison parole board in recommending release of Thomas W. Miller, former alien property custodian, who vas sentenced for graft in connection with the administration of his office, gives as its POs vcenvesseeaneentad: ! | SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By Mail (in New York only): $4.50 six mos. $2.50 three mos. By Mail (outside of New York): $6 ayear $3.50 six mos. $2.00 three mos. Address and mail all checks to The Daily Worker 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. $8 a year reason for its action the theory that Miller has suffered conviction and the “disgrace at- tendant upon it,” which is sufficient. This is the identical argument that was used when the lady grafter and former secre- tary of state of New York, Mrs. Florence Knapp, received the trivial sentence of thirty days in jail after stealing enormous amounts of money that she distributed among the members of her family. The release on such grounds of capitalist politicians, who neglected to cover up their graft, reveals the class distinctions that pene- trate even to the cell blocks of prisons. It is based upon the conception that those who have once served as political tools of capi- talism are made of different material than workers who are thrown into jail for violation of the capitalist class code; the theory that the mere conviction anld attendant disgrace are to “a sensitive mind” adequate punish- ment. That was the motive in the case of Mrs. Knapp. It is the reason that is urged by the parole board in the case of grafter Miller. A politician, male or female, who steals millions is honored by the ruling class and held to be of finer material than ordinary mortals. On the other hand a poor, unem- ployed worker who is driven by poverty to steal a loaf of bread in order that his family may be able to exist for a day longer is re- garded as totally devoid of human feelings, and should he ask to be released before his prison sentence expires on the claim that his sensibilities have been shocked he would be taken to the insane ward. If poverty or the fear of poverty drives a working class woman or girl to the streets she receives no consid- eration from capitalist courts or parole boards, though she may be just as sensitive as Mrs. Knapp. Such glaring examples of class distinction in courts and prisons serve one useful pur- pose; they serve to unmask further the role of capitalist law and order as a class instru- ment and to bring the government and all ‘ts institutions into contempt by the exploited masses. God and Capitalism In the rush attendant upon publishing a daily newspaper it sometimes happens that errors creep into its columns. But when a fundamental political error gets into the columns of the Communist press it indicates something more than an excusable accident. Such an error appeared on the third page of Tuesday’s Daily Worker, under a picture of Cardinal Hayes dedicating a church. The caption said in part: 5 “Above we see Cardinal Hayes, one of the American ambassadors of the holy roman em- pire, officiating at dedication exercises of St. Stephen’s Hungarian Church, an institution whose chief function is to keep the minds of the Hungarian workers so sodden that they will continue to identify god with capitalism and allow themselves to be sat on by the para- sitie ruling class.” This caption clearly implies that god of today is something separate and apart from capitalism; that god may be all right if only he were not identified with capitalism in the minds of workers. Such a conception is com- pletely foreign from and opposed to dialectic materialism which scientifically demon- strates that, in all class societies, religion and all its trappings are but a reflex of the mode of wealth production and distribution. As Marx said: “The religious world is but the reflex of the real world. In a pastoral society god is a “good shepherd” who leads his children “by the side of still waters.” To the American Indians, who obtained their existence by hunting, god was a “great spirit,” whose existence was a guarantee of a “happy hunting ground.” To the seafaring Norsemen he guided them on burning pyres out upon the waves to the banquet halls of Valhalla, where there was eternal feasting with the beautiful Valkyres. Under Con- stantine, emperor of Rome, god was a petulant monarch who ruled with an iron hand. In the middle ages, god established his church after the manner of the feudal # system and fought valiantly against the rising bourgeoisie. Today the god of capi- talism promises his ‘subjects that the more miserable and slavish they are here upon earth the happier they will be after they are dead. He promises them a paradise “over on the golden shore,” where they will walk on golden streets, wear golden crowns and play golden harps in the heavenly orchestra. Since gold is the universal equivalent, the one commodity that expresses the circulation of all other commodities, and hence the one thing the masses haven’t got, they are promised an abundance of it when they are dead. As Paul LaFargue said, god “promises them pay checks’ on the bank of heaven for the work they have done on earth.” Today the concept of god is not merely identified with capitalism; it is one of the weapons used by the capitalist class to hold t —s3 By Fred Ellis q | | By BERTRAM D. WOLFE. On the first page of the Daily Worker of December 4 is a picture {of an American flag captured in battle by the heroic fighters of the Nicaraguan Army of Liberation, which has been holding out for well | over a year now against the Amer- |ican military occupation expedition. On page four of the same issue of Nearing which declares: | “Latin America is impotent be- | fore the onrush of United States imperiali: They have no 36,167- ton battleships and no 16-inch | guns: Hoover, circling Latin America on the Maryland, is like a sheep-dog rounding up the flock on the way to the slaughter house. | One dog can handle a hundred | sheep.” It is a fortunate thing for the toiling masses of the United States |make up the Nicaraguan revolution- |ary army and the forces of str |gle against imperialism generally in | Latin America do not share the pes- |simistic views of Scott Nearing. To accept such views is to capitulate | before the difficulties of big strug- gles, to cease to struggle, to wait passively for American imperialism to “collapse,” to give statistical argu- ments proving the impossibility of revolutionary struggles, to surrender with feeble denunciations but with- out a struggle. The Weaknesses of Imperialism’s Strength. To view so mechanically the strength of American imperialism is |to fail to see the class struggle |within the United States, the class | differences within the very army of jimperialism, the alliance between the struggles for liberation in Latin | America and the struggle of the re- |volutionary workers of the United |States against the capitalist-imperi-" ‘alist system, the growing contradic- tions facing the ever-more aggres- sive imperialism of the Unitea States, the growing resistance that is generated by growing oppression |—it is to fail to understand the | whole nature of proletarian and na- tional colonial revolution and the |unitary connection between them. |It sees guns and dollars, tons of explosives and barrels of oils, but not class forces. Tho it may de- nounce imperialism, yet if this dead- ly doctrine of passivity pessimism |and impotence were to take hold of the American workers and the toil- ing masses of Latin America, it would immeasurably strengthen the power of imperialism to rule and ex- ploit and enslave at its own sweet will, It sees the power of American imperialism but it does not see the sees the might of the little handful of financial oligarchs that is loosely the Daily is an article by Scott? | topheavy character of that power, it| of Scott Nearing The Heroism of Sandino and Pessimism |vegulations and frontier land regu- |lations, ete.). But the revolution- jary determination of the workers jand peasants is unbroken. Under the leadership of the Communist |Farty, which is growing with as- known as Wall Street, it sees that|Our struggle for a Soviet govern-/tounding rapidity in numbers and they run the government of the Uni-|ment in the United States receives | understanding, they are be ted States, dispose of its army and and requires the aid of the revolu-|to organize their forces for strug- navy and state department, control | tionary struggle of our brothers and | gies which will make those of the its press and schools and churches and movies, send dollars and gun- boats to China, dollars and battle- | ships, military advisers, financial ad- “good;will” warships to Latin Amer- ica, smash unions, reduce wages, control courts, police, national guard: and armies in the United States— but it does not see how small is the} number of money kings and how vast the number of their “subjects,” | how small is the number of the op- pressors and how great the number of the oppressed. It does not see Jand Latin America that the men who|that “the great only appear great! |because we are on our knees.” And | certainly it does not issue the,clarion eall to “arise.” It sees the weakness of the work- ers of America and their Latin- American comrades in arms because |we are divided, used against each | other, not all conscious of our in- | terests and strength. But it does not |see the enormous strength of the workers of the United States and the toiling masses of Latin Americr once they are aroused, united, con- |scious of their interests and con- |scious of their power. Whatever Nearing may have in- |tended, and of course I do not ques- tion his subjective intentions, his ar- ptiele has the effect of discouraging | resistance, discouraging revolution- jary struggle against imperialism and imperialist war, deluding the workers as te the strength of their enemy, encouraging passivity. It is |the reaction of an individua! who feels impotent by himself rather | than the voice of a revolutionary {movement that knows the stvength that is in its numbers, Certainly such viewpoints have nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism, |no place in an organ of revolution- ary struggle like the Daily Worker, and cannot go unanswered in its | columns. The sentences quoted from Near. ing’s article are not a mere “slip of the pen.” He has expressed such views before. Last summer he upheld’ the affirmative of a debate which read: “Resolved that Latin America cannot achieve its inde- jpendence until there is a Soviet | government in the United States.” The very wording of the topic shows a failure to grasp the funda- mental relationship between the struggle against American imper- ialism in. Latin America and the | struggle against the same imperial- ist government in the United States. ers and armies of occupation and) comrades in Latin America (and throughout the world). Their strug- |gle requires and receives aid from ours. They are two phases of one struggle. Neither can “wa‘t until the other is completed.” Neither should wait. For either to wait ‘ould weaken both phases of the |struggle, weaken our forces and strengthen those of our enemy. Neariag’s Arguments Examined. Let us examine for a moment some of Nearing’s “arguments.” 1. “Latin America is impotent.” Latin America is not impotent. Even today, divided as it is into twenty-one republics, betrayed by timid petty-bourgeois leadership of some of its anti-imperialist forces, betrayed by puppet governments that have sold out to American im- perialism or are its creatures—even today if* already shows a growing consciousness and” a yori strength and a capacity for stub born resistance and heroic struggle that may well amaze those who rea- son as Nearing’s article does. Look how many years it took to conquer tiny Haiti and Santo Domingo (each a half of a little island), In spite of the armies of occupation and the brutal policy ef blood and fire and rapine, revolt flares up there again and again. Look at the Nicaraguan forces, betrayed by their faint-hearted and corrupt liberal leaders (Moncada, etc.) yet carry- ing on for a year and a half against the American “Devil Dogs” with all the latest implements of “civilized warfare.” The revolutionary army is still holding out in the mountains of Nicaragua. Remember the “brave and gal- lant” expedition “punish a handful of outlaws” un- der Villa. With machine guns and airplanes and tons of explosives and arwhole army division, Pershing marched grandly in pursuit of Villa. One moment his vanguard was just |catching up with Villa and the next jmoment Villa had attacked and routed his rearguard. And in the end Pershing marched out of Mex- ico again, discomfited, with Villa master of the field. So it was with the occupation of Vera Cruz under the Wilson regime. They Have Only Begun to Fight. Look how long Mexico has re- sisted many of the demands of American imperialism. Now _ its government has sold out (Lamont De La Huerta Treaty, Non-Retroac- tivity of article 27, annulment of oil the masses in subjection to its rule. The Communist concept. It is pure christiafr so- of Pershing to| worker who accepts the illusion of a master in the skies can be more easily subjected to the master class here upon earth. The at- tempt to make it appear that god is separate from capitalism, or that the masses should é i | worship a non-capitalist god, is an anti- | the people! cialism, one of the most poisonous doctrines that ever cast its blight upon the working class movement and such viewpoints have: no place in a Communist publication. Religion, in all its forms, is the opium of ¢ |period of 1910 to the present seem like child’s play. | ’ | The revolutionary forces of Latin America are not exhausted and) broken, ‘ They are only beg:nning to grow. The very strength, the very ‘aggressiveness, the very encroach- |ments and advances of American imperialism in Latin America, arouse the masses, unite them on a continental scale, strengthen the jforces of resistance and struggle. The march of the dollar has created the Anti-Imperialist League and makes it increasingly a mass force ‘in every country. The aggression of American imperialism and the supine cowardice, treachery ard cor- ruption. of phrase-mongering petty bourgeois governments, the tyranny of autocracies set up and controlled by Wall Street, the growing differ- entiation of classes, have resulted in the enormous growth of worker and peasant forces under leadership of the most advanced sections of those classes. Increasingly the working class assumes ieadership over all revolutionary forces. Communist Parties, sure signs of the maturing of the working class and the rev- olutionary forces, are growing up i» countries wHere there were none before. In. countries where there were little propaganda sects they are becoming mass parties. The Communist Party of the United States, too, is becoming increasingly critical of its former neglect of this importait phase of the struggle, in- creasingly conscious of its tasks and is in process of transition from a mere propaganda organization to the leader of masses in struggle on many fields. Heroism Has Latin America. The heroie struggle of the Nicara- guan Army of Liberation has in- spired the masses throughout Latin America, set the continent aflame with the spirit of revolt, with the demand for a unified struggle, with impatience at the treachery and cowardice of the Latin American governments, with determination on the part of the workers and pea- sants to take affairs into their own hands. The population of Latin America is almost equal to that of the United States. Its area ditto. With the exception of Brazil, all speak the same language, have a common his- torical tradition. Most of them have a roughly similar class struc- ture and all have a common enemy. The population of the United States (something which Nearing forgets) is made up of exploiters and exploited. The exploited are many, tie exploiters few. The ene- mies and oppressors of the Ameri- can workers and working farmers are the same as the enem:es and op- pressors of the Latin American masses, Both must carry on their i +3 Sandino’s Aroused ‘Misleaders in ' the American Labor Unions By WILLIAM Z. FOSTER The direct corruption of the trade union leadership reaches its apex in the building trades. In this industry, as in no other, the officialdom is contaminated with graft of all kinds. Here the bribery of the workers’ leaders is carried on most flagrantly by the employers; here the official- dom is most closely affiliated to the capitalist politicians, the bootlegging rings, and various underworld ele- ments. The building trades are the |eancer spot of the American labor movement. The exceptional corruption of the building trades leaders develops be- cause the peculiar conditions of their industry offer them more advan- tageous opportunities for graft than usual, The unions are strong, being |made up mostly of skilled workers. |The demand for labor power has |been great for years in the expand- ing industry. The industry is still largely in a competitive state. It is seasonal in character, the work must tors are always in a tremendous hur- ry to finish it. All these factors combine to facilitate graft in the building trades, to 2nable the leaders to. “stick up” the employers and workers’ leaders to form monopolis- tic combinations together. The em- ployers agree to employ only union workers, and the unions contract to work only for and to use material produced only by the members of the |given contractors’ association. These jare the so-called “air-tight” agree- jments. They stifle competition and |give the contractors a death grip on the local building situation, for which they have to pay a price to the unions leaders. In all cities where the unions are strong, this kind of combination will be found to ist. It is a prolific breeder of \ graft. Throughout the country, in every |big industrial center, rank corrup- |tion prevails in the building trades. It is difficult to put one’s finger on jany city and say it is worse than | the others. Basically the same sys- tem of corruption prevails every- where. Its extent depends upon the | strength of the unions, the intensity lof the building boom, and various local factors. But Chicago stands out as a noxious example of such corruption, this being primarily due to the rapid growth of the city. For ‘a third of a century the Chicago | building trades have been the symbol of all that is venal and reactionary }in the labor movement. Perhaps tie situation can be best pictured by portraying a few of the outstanding building trades leaders and their ex- | ploits. ’ }common struggle on a continental and world scale. 2. “They (the Latin Americans) lhave no 36,167-ton battleships and i .” To this we must answer: First, while battleships can over- awe and 16-inch guns control a | coast line, they can never make pos- |sible the permanent military occu- pation of a whole continent against gverilla forces that know mountain and jungle and have the support of the enti ire population. Military oc- cupation is only a temporary ex- | pedient and on a limited scale. Second, the armies and battleship crews are recruited from ‘workers and poor farmers in the main and ‘therefore are not eternally dependa- |ble instruments of imperialist ag- gression, Therefore, instead of tell- ing the Latin American masses their struggle is hopeless, we must mul- | tiply a thousandfold our feeble work | among the soldiers and sailors. This | will be aided by the revolutionary \struggles of the Latin American | masses (cf. the desertion of mar- lines in Nicaragua, the mutiny of | American forces in Archangel) and | will aid them in turn. 3. “One dog can handle a hundred |sheep.” This may be true. Besides |I .will not quarrel with you as ta whether Hoover is to be likened to la dog. But Comrade Nearing, if | you think that the Latin American | masses are sheep, then you don’t know our Latin-American allies. Our Heroic Allies. We have confidence in them, in their bravery, in their determination to struggle in their capacity for struggle. We must strengthen their confidence in us, We must raise the fighting power of our Party and our class. We must multiply enor- |mously our anti-imperialist activi- ties, our struggle against imperial- list war and pacifist illusions, against passivity and pessimism, against chauvinism and provincial- ism. We must multiply enormous- ly our anti-imperialist work in the unions and among the working masses, Our work in the armed forces, Our activities on every front of the class struggle. We must make statistics and knowledge a weapon of struggle, not a substitute for struggle, not a paralyser of struggle. We must draw tight the bonds that unite us with our broth- ers in arms in Latin America, We must support them in every strug- gle. We must urge them to strug- gle and we must fight side by side with them, Together with them we will defeat American imperialism and build a Union of Soviet Repub- lies on the American continent which will be a part of the Union of Soviet Republics of the world. DISCHARGE UNION FARMERS. LONDON, (By Mail).—Big land- owners have discharged over 400 farm hands for being members of the National Union of Agricultural a Workers, Sic be done on the spot, and the contrac- ‘ | | i 5 es { i i 1