The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 25, 1929, Page 6

Page Six Published by SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Worker Pub ig . By Mail (in New York only): £ $8.00 ay $4.50 six months y Ms $6.00 a ew York): ar 0: six months $2.00 three months Addres: The Di hecks to Union ¥. ROBERT MINOR .... WM. F. DUNNE .... Editor Ass. Editor Watch Hoover and Prepare to Fight! The apparatus of the Hoover Administration is now he- ing constructed. Hoover is in Florida. His closest hangers-on are drift- ing in for conference on the make-up of the cabinet in that mid-winter playground of the “royalty” and the “nobles” of the American billionaire ruling cl: We recall that Harding went to Florida during the twi- light period between his election and his inauguration, and that the human scum which later became his Teapot Dome cabinet was partly present there with him while the scheme for government was worked out. The workers should begin giving attention earlier, this tame, and with the greater understanding made possible by greater experience. For instance, Hoover will surely make definite after this session in Florida whether the Morgan bank has in- structed him to make Dwight W. Morrow, the Morgan part- ner, the new secretary of state, or whether to leave him as the “field man” for United States imperialism in Mexico. On the other hand, the possibility seems to exist that the Hoover administration may utilize William E. Borah as a “Liberal’’ secretary of state who some think would be a better shield behind which to launch the new offensive of American imperialist conquest in regard to Latin-America, Asia and the world-market in general. It will also be shown whether Mr. Insull’s flunkey, Roy O. West, is to continue to be secretary of the interior so | that the public utility interests can have the more direct control of the stealing of natural resources, or whether it is considered necessary to work with a go-between not so openly known as a member of the gang. The despicable grafter, Andrew W. Mellon, whose hand- ling of Harry Sinclair’s bribe-money is so eagerly covered up by the capitalist newspapers in a mist of lies, will in all probability be named to continue as secretary of the treasury. His present membership in the cabinet has been made a holy symbol of the modern direct administration of government by the heads of the big trusts and financial monopolies. Secretaries of war and navy will be chosen on the basis of the new colossal preparations for the coming imperialist war. The secretary of agriculture will be chosen as a shrewd manipulator under whose hand the process of expropriation of the working farmers of the country can proceed to the satisfaction and at the direction of the biggest banks. Heads of the departments of commerce and post office will be selected according to the needs of “commerce”—+that is of big capital—in general, and in the case of the post- master general the selection will take into consideration the special task of hounding the newspapers of the working -class out of existence. In the case of the attorney-general to be selected by Hoover, of course it will be a big corporation attorney. The job of the new attorney-general will not include any prose- eution of trusts for violation of the anti-trust law—even to suggest such a thing would be to make a joke. The job will, however, very surely include as one of its major tasks a series of: wholesale and merciless prosecutions against labor organizations, with heavy penitentiary sentences for all active figures in the strikes to come. The policy will be the sharpest, most brutal attempts at suppression of every genuine workingclass organization. The Workers (Commu- nist) Party will, of course, be the center of the target, for the fact is known to all that practically not one single real struggle has been conducted by the workers in the present | period except that the Workers (Communist) Party has been inspirer and the most consistent and vital factor in its leader- | ship. And the Hoover cabinet as a whole? It will be the most carefully selected board of directors of the big trusts and banks in their present form of finance- capital. The Hoover cabinet, operating in 1929, will be the general staff for the most colossal offensive ever seen, on the part of the biggest and most aggressive and ruthless im- perialism of all history. In the interior of the United States the offensive will be against the working class with an un- precedented severity in the effort to drive the workers down to a lower plane of slavery so as to increase the capacity of the American capitalist oligarchy to compete with its British and other rivals in “peace,” and to “consolidate the rear” for the inferno of imperialist war that is being prepared. The cabinet will be consciously selected, of course, for a still more international field of action than any preceding cabinet. Hoover’s whole orientation is toward the consoli- dation and extension of Wall Street hegemony over the en- tire world. . But there is the other side of the picture. The new Hoover cabinet will not function in an empty world of space. If it has sharp teeth—well, there is tocth- breaking meat to chew. The arrogant assumption of these im- perialists that all of Latin-America and the better part of Asia can be beaten down to colonial slavery by the big guns they are building, is destined to disappointment. “Morrow- izing” and “Hooverizing” of Latin American republics can proceed for a while, but the upheaval of anti-imperialist re- sistance that will follow wi!l shake the foundations of this Yankee imperialism. The stars and stripes will one day be driven out of Latin-America by military force. Will the Hoover open-shop cabinet have smooth sailing inside of the United States? On the contrary, ahead of it lie. class struggles of a character and magnitude that will, to say the least, bring deep transformations in the working class and its organized movement in the near future. Even while American capitalism still expands to an unprecedented power, the very expansion itself brings immediate partial _ crises, later a general crisis, and absolutely surely imperialist war. The American working class, and especially the real oletarian masses, will continue to grow more active during months to come. The Hoover strike-breaking cabinet will have its hands ‘The workers: must learn from the stark lessons shown ‘construction of the topmost machinery of our “demo- capitalist government (i. e., government directly by est leaders of the enemy class). All working-class s should be turned to the most energetic building up of own ¢lass front. The new unions that have come into in the coal mining, textile and needle trades are a | By Fred Ellis |, | ! (Note: The following is the concluding section of the article by Comrade Roy, the previous in- | stalments of which were printed | in recent issues of the Daily | | Worker.—EDITOR.) * By MANABENDRA NATH ROY. Why were the social democratic leaders opposed to submit the ques- tion to referendum? For the same reason of their fear for the sharpen-| ing of class struggle into an open| revolutionary civil war. To endorse | the construction of the battleships} violating the expressed will of the! masses, to refuse to submit the ques- | tion to referendum while making a dramatic gesture in opposition to it, to mislead, deceive and betray the) |masses by all means—all these are} in the logic of the policy of coali-| tions | In the last referendum forced by! |the Communist Party ‘on the ques- | tion of the expropriation of the es- | tates of the ex-princes, over fourteen | | million yotes were cast in favor of| expropriation. In view of the fact} that in the general election over 13) million votes had been cast for the| social democratic and Communist! candidates, it could be reasonably | expected that the referendum on the question of battleships would secure 18 million votes—the required two- thirds of the entire electorate. This calculation could be made on | the certainty that considerable petty | |bourgeois pacifists would also vote | | for the referendum. The social dem-} ocratic leader opposed the referen-| | dum as impractical; but they were ‘against it really because of the al-) most certainty of its success. The casting of the required number of votes against the construction of battleships will again expose the in- stability of the bourgeois state. In that. case, not only the social demo- |cratic ministers, but the entire gov- |ernment must resign or the consti- | ‘tution of parliamentary demoéracy | should be scrapped. In either even-| |tuality the political situation would) |be acute. A new general election under such an atmosphere of class | struggle would return more social \democratie and Communist candi- | | dates, thus rendering the formation. of a parliamentary government still |more impossible. Bourgeois democ- |racy would stand naked in its real nature—capitalist dictatorship—as | in the revolutionary year of 1923. | Fear C. P. More Than Bourgeoisie. The only thing for the working class to do in that situation would |be to pay the bourgeoisie in their | own coin—to replace unmasked par- liamentary democracy by the dicta- |torship of the proletariat. situation were allowed to develop in such a revolutionary direction, if the sharpening of the class struggle were accelerated by bold tactics, then the Communist Party, as the most active and resolute vanguard of the proletariat, would win the confidence of the masses, and in the decisive moment lead them in the open at- tack upon the capitalist state, in spite of the social democratic lead- ers. To avoid such a development of the situation was the burden of social democratic policy at that juncture. Some of them, in moments of care- lessness, indeed, said they were op- posed to the construction of battle- tee | ( erman Social Democrat Crisis Betray Masses in Cruiser Program, in Ruhr) Strikes and With Coalition Cabinet ships, but they did not want to play | the social democratic leaders had} into the hands of the Communists. | asked their followers not to press the | And in order not to play into the|demand for the resignation of the) hands of the Communists, that is,| social democratic ministers, for by| in order. not to act according to the'the control of the state apparatus | logic of class struggle, they support- ;much economic and _ social , gains} ed every demand of the bourgeoisie. | could be made for the working class. | Reichstag Comedy. |The Ruhr lock-out and its subse- The debate in the Reichstag on} quent development proved that as! the notin deieeeatieanotion about | Members of a coalition government | the prohibition of the construction| the social democratic leaders do not| of battleships, was a comedy. The| ®¢duire the least power to defend) social democratic party recommend- jor promote the interests of the| ed the prohibition of the construction | Working class. On the contrary, they of battleships; but its representatives| ace ne the administrators of "the on the coalition government endorsed | ¥°UTSeols state at the orders of the} the construction! If the social demo-| bourgecisie, to protect and advance) cratic motion were anything but a|¢@Pitalist intcrests, | demagogic trick to deceive the! Socialists Took Orders. | masses, the social democratic min-| The lock-out continued for five} isters should have logically resigned) weeks. The coalition government} from the government, or been ex-/was in a ridiculous position. For| pelled from the party. practical purposes, it did not exist. | Just when the social democratic) The representatives of the bour-| leaders were staging the parliamen-| geoisie on the government dictated, | If the, tary comedy to whitewash their) and the social democrats acted on! shameless betrayal of the working threatened to resign, if the money required for the construction of the projected battleships were not sanc- tioned all at once. On the evening) of the debate in the Reichstag, Hin- denburg called the social democratic) chancellor, Herman Mueller, to in-| form him that he “would not toler- ate the Reichstag to interfere in his} first effort to re-build the German navy.” State Above Class. The Reichstag rejected the social democratic motion; and the social democratic finance minister, Hilferd- ing, readily footed the bills of Gen- eral Groener. That is how coalition) works. The social democratic min- isters voted formally for the motion) of their party; but remained in the coalition government after the mo- tion was rejected. The country above party—state above class,— this is the essence of the theory and practice of coalition. Hardly had the social democratic party and its policy of coalition re- covered from the shock of the cruis- er controversy than they were en- tangled in a new crisis more deep- seated than the former. The iron and steel magnates of the Ruhr re- fused to abide by the finding of the social democratie minister of labor regarding wages, and locked out 200,000 workers, Ruhr Betrayal. Their action was an open challenge to the authority of the state. Th function of the state is to defen the interest of the ruling class. If it attempts to function otherwise, the ruling class would not tolerate its interference. This was made clear by the Ruhr steel barons. It became evident that as members of a coali- tion government the social democrats could not even defend the most im- mediate economic interests of the working class. Even that is closely connected with the question of power. During the cruiser controversy, promise of a tremendous increase in the fighting strength of the working class. The struggle inside the old unions against the agents of the bosses will continue and sharpen. Our class must not let itself lie helpless in the power of the trade-union bureaucrats and socialist party crooks, agents of capitalism, while the struggle against capitalism becomes sharper. And already it is proven in action that no effective class struggle can be made without building and strengthen- ing the organ of leadership of our class, the Workers (Com- munist) Party. “ Watch Hoover—and prepare to fight! ae | their orders. It was not a coalition,| the capitalist state. The last ar- class, the advocates of neomilitarism | but a purely bourgeois government, |T@ngement is made with this pur- added a touch of piquancy to the|The bankruptcy of the theory of | P°S® | situation. The minister of defense,| coalition could no longer be con-| , 2 |openly supported by Hindenburg, |cealed. A government under parlia-|‘i@l democratic party now see | challenged the social democratic mo-| mentary democracy can never be| through the game. More than 50 per |tion with an insolent offensive. He| anything but an instrument of capi-|Cent of the locked-out workers are talist dictation. Representatives of ia working class party can enter it only to serve the interests of the bourgeoisie and betray the workers. Finally, the peoples’ party, repre- senting the Ruhr magnates, threat- ened to break up the coalition, un- less the social democrats would liqui- date the resistance of the workers. The social democrats were in a des- perate condition. Not only their pol- icy of coalition, but the very political existence of théir party was at stake. The debacle of their theory and prac- tice of coalition would liberate the masses from their influence. The rank and file of the social demo- cratic party would go over to the Communist Party en masse. Bulwark Against Communism. To save the coalition government was, therefore, the main concern of the social democratic leaders. When the Ruhr conflict had brought the coalition on the verge of a break-up, Stresemann, speaking in the Reich- stag, said that coalition was the bul- wark against Communism. In other words, in the period of sharpening class struggle, coalition of the social democrats with the bourgeoisie is a useful weapon against the working class striving towards Socialism. In the critical moment the most authori- tative spokesman of the German bourgeoisie reminded the social democratic leaders of this quintes- sence of their theory of coalition. Severing Acceptable. After a conference with the social democratic chancellor, Herman Muel- ler, the’ employers declared their ‘Feadiness to accept the arbitr: of the social democratic minister of the interior, Severing.. Obviously, they made this declaration upon Severing’s having undertaken to ar- bitrate on. their terms. Severing’s is alone sufficient to inspire the con- fidence of the capitalists. At that time, Severing, as the Prussian minister of the interior, co- operated with counter-revolutionary militarists in suppressing the work- ers, He was so ruthless against the workers that the monarchist leader Kapp desired to have him as a:mem- bee achans counter-revolutionary cab- ine! i In the revolutionary year of 1923, Severing also played a role which made him a favorite of the bour- geoisie. When the record of Sever- ing is known, it can be understood record in ‘the Ruhr struggle of 1921 | | minister after they had initiated the} struggle by refusing to abide by the| finding of another. The latest decision of theirs is) not a surrender, as the social demo-| cratic coalitionists would have the workers believe. On the contrary, it is a complete victory on their part. They have obliged the social demo-| cratic ministers to enforce upon the workers their (employers’) condi- tions. It is a public secret now that! the g.neral line of Severing arbitra- | tion will be the acceptance by the) employers of the wage award of the/ social democratic minister of labor| in return for the prolongation of working hours and worsening of la- bor conditions. Bourgeoisie Need Coalition Now. As the coalition is also useful for the bourgeoisie (Communism is no less a menace for them than the so- cial democrats), they do not want to make the position altogether impos- sible for the social democratic min- isters. These must be helped to save their faces before the workers and maintain their influence upon the masses. Otherwise, they would cease to be worthy of being ministers of But even the members of the so- under Communist leadership. It is} certain that they would not accept |the arbitration of Severing without |the greatest possible resistance. | {Even the social democratic trade} unions in the beginning flatly re-| |fused to bind themselves beforehand | | to accept the finding of their leader. | | Through the machinery of trade| |union bureaucracy the opposition |was formally overcome; but the| | spirit of the masses is not changed | by a resolution of the bureaucracy. Crisis in Socialist Party. | The crisis in the social democratic jparty, the difficulty of the task undertaken by the social democratic ministers, are recognized even by |the bourgeoisie. Commenting upon \the arbitration arrangement, the bourgeois liberal, George Bernhard, writes: “It is not at all easy for Severing to intervene personally in the Ruhr affair. He will lose his popularity among the workers, and perhaps, in consequence of that, have difficulties inside his own par- ty. Nevertheless he has decided to travel the difficult road, for he knows that in the interests of the state it is necessary.” ere cannot be any more dam- aging criticism of the theory and practice of coalition than this com- plimentary remark of a bourgeois journalist. As a minister of the bourgeois state, the social democrat must act against the interest of the working class. Events of the last six months of coalition government have been slowly but steadily driv- ‘ing this fact home among the mass- Fes that still follow the social demo- cratic party. The result is a crisis of social democracy whih becomes deeper and sharper every day, by every act of treachery of the lead- ers. C. P. Will Lead Final Battles. The exposure of the real meaning of the policy of coalition will free the masses from the illusion of par- liamentary democracy. With this il- lusion will also go the social demo- cratic cant of gradual and peaceful advance towards Socialism. The cor- rectness of, the Marxian theory of state, revolution and dictatorship will be vindicated before the masses, who will then fight the last battles for Socialism under their only leader, the Communist Party. ‘ The history of all hitherto ex- inting moclety in the history of how the employers accepted the ar- bitration of qne social democra * munist sala. class straggles—Karl Marx (Com- Copyright, 1929, by International Publishers Co., Inc. BILL HAYWOOD'’S BOOK All rights reserved. Republica- tion forbidden except by permission. ‘Injured Underground; Help from Fellow Work- ers; Edward Boyce of the W. F. of M.; Coeur D’Alenes and Cripple Creek In previous issues Haywood has told of his boyhood among the Mormons at Salt Lake City; his life as a boy worker in mines and in city; of the Wild West of which he was a part; mining in Nevada; his life as a cowboy; with his wife and baby fighting hardships; they lose a homestead; dark days; Coxey’s Army and the A. R. U, strike; over the desert to Idaho; mining at Silver City. Now go on reading. EDITOR. * . PART XVIII. By WILLIAM D. HAYWOOD. N June 19, 1896, I was working with two others, cutting out for a station in the Blaine tunnel where they were going to sink a shaft. I was up on a staging, and got down to ask one of the car-men if I could ride his car out. With his assent I started. A big rock on the front end of the car struck the first chute I came to, tipping it up so that my right hand got caught between the car and the bottom of the chute, get- ting badly mangled. My candle had been put out by the jolt, and I was left in total darkness. I groped my way back to where Big Barney Quig- ley was working in a cross-cut. I called to him and he came out and walked with me to the doctor’s office. We were about three thousand feet in the tunnel then. There was no “first aid,’ nor ban- dages, it was just a question of getting there some- how and keeping the bleeding hand from knocking - against the wall as we went out. I remember that even at this late season of the year we walked through open cuts where the snow was. more than six feet deep. When we got to the doctor, he said that part of my hand would have to be amputated. I told him that I did not want to go through life doubly crippled. I was already handicapped by the loss of an eye. If there was any chance of saving the hand I wanted him to try to do it. He said: : “We'll try,” and dressed the hand. I refused to take an anaesthetic, in spite of the pain, because I was afraid that he would take off the fingers while I was unconscious. After some days the hand showed that it was beginning to mend. It had to be dressed every day and I carried it in a sling a long time. mt My wife and little girl had then just come to Silver City. While I was looking for a house to live in we were stopping at the Idaho Hotel. As I was unable to work because of my broken hand, the miners took up a collection and presented me with a purse of money that tided us over this emergency very well. I bought a two-room house from a miner named Schilling who was leaving camp, paying part down and the rest in installments. We moved into our new home. In the early part of the following August, Edward Boyce, presi- dent of the Western Federation of Miners, came to Silver City for the purpose of organizing the miners. Two meetings were held in the county court house, one on the eighth and one on the tenth of August. I attended both, though I did not know then that I would ever be able to go back to work in the mines, as I was still carrying my arm in the sling. But I was greatly interested in what Boyce had to say, Here was a man who had been through the Coeur d’Alenes strike of 1892. He was tall, slender, had a fine head with thin hair. His features were good, but his teeth were prominent. This was due to salivation, con- tracted while working with quickeilver in a quartz mill, This is a vo- cational disease met with quite often among mill men. With more than a thousand other miners he had been arrested by the federal soldiers when they were sent to the Cour d’Alenes at the request of Governor Shoup. A bull-pen was built in which the pris- oners were confined for more than six months. This was a rough timber structure two stories high. There was no sanitation provided, and the excrement of the men above dripped through ‘the cracks in the plank floor on the men below, @They became vermin-infested and diseased, and some of them died, * * The Helena-Frisco mill had been blown up. -A story afterward appeared in Collier's Weekly, implicating George A. Pettibone. Petti- bone was the head of the assembly of the Knights of Labor at Gem. He was already well known among the miners. The story related in a graphic manner how some boxes of powder had been put into the water flume some hundreds of feet up the mountainside. The boxes slid down the flume at a tremendous velocity and exploded when they struck the mill; it was a long gun. The unreliability of the story was shown in the attempt to implicate Pettibone by asserting that he had been so badly injured that he lost one of his arms. I knew Petti- bone in after years; neither one of his arms or hands had ever been hurt, though his feelings were badly embittered by the conditions of the mining camps of the Coeur d’Alenes before the strike of ’92, He could never forget the maggots in the meat, nor the swarthy weasel- faced stool-pigeon called Serengo, in the employ of the Mine Owners’ Association organized by John Hays Hammond. Boyce related how the Western Federation of Miners had been conceived while he and thirteen others were in the Ada county prison at Boise, Idaho. Jim Hawley, their attorney, who had been a miner, suggested to them that all of the miners of the West should come to- gether in one organization. This thought met the approval of the pris- oners, as the miners’ unions then in existence were scattered assem- blies of the Knights of Labor. Boyce explained how, when they were released, a convention was called on May 13, 1893, in Butte, Montana, and the Western Federation of Miners was organized, He described the first big strike that occurred after the formation of the W.F.M. This was in Cripple Creek, Colorado, in 1894. Every man in the district had gone on strike to prevent a reduction of wages and to establish the eight-hour day. Some of the mine owners of this district, then reputed to be millionaires, had formed themselves into an organization called the Mine Owners’ Association. They knew that they could not depend upon Governor Waite, who had been a miner and was elected on the Populist ticket, but they knew that they could rely on the county commissioners and the sheriff of what was then El Paso county. These officers, at the instigation of the Mine Owners’ Association, hired and equipped a small army of deputies, thirteen hundred or more men, who were provided with two hundred saddle horses, gatling guns, and other up-to-date instruments of war. Previous to this the governor had sent the militia to the district, but. upon investigation found that there was no occasion for the pres- ence of the soldiers, and withdrew them. The sheriff mobilized his deputies and started to Cripple Creek. Two hundred of them got as far as Wilbur. The miners learned of their presence and sent a de- tachment of men against them. There was some shooting and or two were killed on each side. Governor Waite now made a personal investigation. He addressed the miners in their hall at Altman, He called out the militia at once and sent them to Cripple Creek with instructions to place themselves between the miners and the hired thugs, The miners were barricaded upon the crest of Bull Hill, where they had a strong fort and pro- posed to fight to the finish in protection of, their wives and families and their rights as workingmen. The commanding officer, General Brooks, notified the assembled deputies that if they did not disperse he would fire upon them, They left the camp the next day for Colorado Springs. They were so in- censed at their failure at Cripple Creek that they tarred and feathered Tarney, the adjutant general of the state, who was in charge of the soldiers at Cripple Creek. * * *. In the next instalment Haywood writes more of the first Cripple Creek strike as told by Boyce, then president of the W. F. M.; Boyce organizes the Silver City miners and Haywood takes his first union office; inviting stray recalcitrants to join or beat it; notifying the #8 \