The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 20, 1929, Page 6

WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, AU 4 by the Comprodatly Publishing Co. Inc,. Daily, except Re einaay st 28 Union Square, New York City, N.Y. Telephone § “DAIWORK.* vesant 1696-7-8. Cable: SUBSCRIPTION RAT. By Maiti (in New York only): $4.50 six months $2.50 three months By Mail (outside of New York): $6.00 a year $3.50 six months $2.00 three months Adéress and mai) all checks to the Daily Worker, 26-28 Union Squa: New York, N. ¥. $2.00 a year ry An Unnecessary Promise. ies ig ius promise to the imperialists of the butcher, Chiang Kai-shek, that the Kuomintang bandit government of China would never take such measures against their spheres of influence and concessions as are being taken against the Soviet Union was utterly unnecessary. Besides it was a very stupid and ill-advised promise, because out of his own mouth Chiang Kai-shek reaffirms his flunkeyism to imperialism. But then the Kuomintang leaders were not chosen because of their intelligence or because they can ever hope to become diplomats. They were selected for the job they are entrusted with today because they are butchers. A government that is so debased that it will carry on for years a systematic slaughter against its own population at the behest of a group of imperialist powers can be entrusted with any infamy, from forging crude documents to support their lies about Soviet propaganda on the Chinese Eastern Railway to organizing the Kuomintang bandit squads and the Russian czarist white guard emigrees for the present warfare against the workers’ and peasants’ government. It is gratifying to every class-conscious worker to read the indictment of the Kuomintang government of imperialist hirelings by the All-China Labor Federation, published else- where in this issue. Speaking for all the class labor unions in China, the labor federation accuses the Kuomintang of forging documents to try to justify its subservience to im- perialism and calls upon the Chinese masses to defend the workers on the Chinese Eastern Railway. At the same time the capitalist press reports that serious outbreaks have oc- curred in Canton and that a deep-going revolutionary move- ment is developing in other ports. 2 In this, the most critical situation the workers of the whole world has faced for years, we must wage a determined fight against the imperialist war-mongers and in defense of the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union and the Chi- nese masses. The agents of imperialism at the head of the Kuomin- tang have opened warfare against the Soviet Union, the re- ply of the class-conscious workers in China is a rallying call for the destruction of the Kuomintang. Labor Fakers Legalize Injunctions HE executive council of the American Federation of Labor, meeting at Atlantic City, the playground of the millionaires, has devised a new conspiracy against the work- ing class in the form of an injunction bill that will be pre- sented at the next session of congress. This injunction bill that will carry with its every act of enforcement the approval of the officialdom of the American Federation of Labor, is described as follows: “Injunctions would be granted under the new bill only after trial has established that unlawful acts have been committed and will be continued; that substantial and irreparable injury to property will follow; that there is no other adequate remedy at law; that the public officers, with the duty to protect property ‘are unable or unwilling to furnish adequate protection.” Even the most trivial familiarity with capitalist courts ‘will convince any worker that all the above specified acts and consequences can be proved a dozen times a day in as many courts by the simple expedient of employing perjured wit- nesses. Judges, who are lawyers elevated to the bench be- cause of their proved services to the capitalist class, can be relied upon to issue injunctions as before. The officials of the executive council of the A. F. of L. are not proposing the injunction bill because they want to aid the working class, but because they are agents of the capitalist class. It is a dirty attempt to reestablish the in- junction as an instrument against labor, for the simple reason that in recent years there have been so many wholesale viola- tions of injunctions in labor disputes that most of them are reduced to mere scraps of paper. The Atlantic City proposal is calculated to deceive the masses and try to induce them to respect, instead of holding in contempt, the injunctions issued against them. In spite of all injunction bills of any kind the militant workers will continue, as heretofore, in advocating and or- ganizing violations of every injunction issued until the in- junctions become an empty jest before the mass power of the workers. Orlander Sees Red. HE Atlantic Coast Conference of the Marine Workers League which resulted in the formation of a new militant industrial union of marine workers has put the offi- cials of the reactionary A. F. of L. seamen’s organization on the defensive, Victor Olander, a veteran in the*game of betraying the seamen, who now occupies the position of secretary-treasurer of the International Seamen’s Union, quoted in the capitalist press as “exposing” the fact that the conference held in New York Saturday and Sunday was “in sympathy with” the Red International of Labor Unions. Mr. Orlander would expose that which is perfectly obvious. We are quite certain he will not be able to scare the seamen just because he and his gang fear the organization of marine workers into revolutionary union. No marine worker who has had an opportunity to see the effects of the betrayal of the organization of company unionism and scabbery known as the International Seamen's Union, will become alarmed just because Olander sees red as he realizes that the building of a real union that will function in the interests of the workers means the beginning of the end of his job as a labor agent of capitalism, a 4 which fe launch the campaign to ALIST WAR INTO A CIVIL WARW” By J acob Burek BY I. AMTER The Trade Union Unity Congress | will be of supreme importance to the workers of the heavy industries. It is in these industries that the wor ers feel most the need of organiza- | tion, for these industries are highly trustified and centralized and direct- |ly under the control of Wall Street bankers, x Only a short time ago, coal oper- ators of Cleveland announced the formation of a $2,000,000,009 coal trust, which will embrace coal prop- erties of Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky. This trust will eliminate the small unproductive mines, in- troduce machinery of the latest types, and thus throw more tens of thousands of miners out of a job. _ Large aggregations of miners will labor for this trust—which unaues- tionably will be followed by the formation of further trusts in the | coal industry. | The U. S. Steel Corporation, lead- er in the steel industry, is being met | by the competition of the Bethlehem concerns. But the merger of a Youngstown and a Warren steel con- | cern, and the announcement that this merger will result in a consolidation | with further concerns of Cleveland |and other Ohio and Indiana steel ‘companies, implicates the trend in | the steel industry. This means the |rule of J, P. Morgan extended still |further in a basic industry. The auto industry which has two prime movers—Ford and General Motors—is forcing the other smaller companies either to merge with one or the other of the above, or to form of existence. This means the further. control of Ford or Wall Street. The rubber industry, today in the hands of few capitalists, is eliminat- ing the small companies, for together with the auto industry, the rubber industry has become one of the basic industries. The chemica lindustry, one of the vital industries of war, | is concentrating into fewer concerns, | the power and utility concerns, the food industry—all basic for the pro- | motion of economic life and for war —are being consolidated and put un- | der the control of Wall Street bank- ers, i And finally the metal industry, es- sential for the building up of indus- | try and for the production of muni- tions of war, although still spread over a large number of shops and concerns, is concentrating more and more, What do these developments en- |tail? They entail above all the in- vestment of. hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars of capital, | which only the banks of Wall Street furnish, through , stock selling. It involves transactions which reach on all industries, a correction of these industries and wi@ely ramified man- ipualtions of finance capital. Ohio, a state of heavy industry— Cleveland the eenter of this state of heavy—or war—industry was correctly chosen as the center from Trade Union Unity Steel Corporation and the smaller | mergers of their own, or to go out | ‘Will Be of Special Importance to Workers in the Heavy Industries organize 30,000,000 unorganized | power. It m | workers in the vital industries—the | with fewer w: | correct place to hold the trade union | ers each year in the industries \unity congress. Cleveland is the|on the land are being turned |heart ®f the heavy industry of the| the streets not to enjoy a vaca |country. * |but to starve for want of a Wall Street—or financial capital | These millions of unemployed wo —controls the economic and political | ers enable the employers to cut and life of the country. The concentra-| Slash the wages of the workers, to tion of control in the hands of 17| lengthen their hours, to speed them Wall Strect banks, reaching out into | up. The workers the production, transportation and | employment m even consuming branches of econ- | about organ s higher production ob. omic life, indicates the power that | and wile of the s are | finance capital has attained in this, unable to protect themse |the foremost capitalist country of | 2gainst collo us |the world. No longer do the workers | cannot fight unorganized. | work for their bosses! their bosses | are bankers far away from the scene | of production—men and women of the capitalist class who never see anything of and are not interested in the productive process, for their interest is confined to the profits that they derive. New Orleans where a single stock- Not so the 30,000,000 slaves who | holder in the street railway company are toiling away their lives, subject |is able to obtain an injunction to the most intense exploitation. | against the strike activities of the Production per capita is continually carmen. Witness Gastonia, where increasing. New machinery, “labor |the whole force of the government saving” devices, instead of saving | is behind the textile manufacturers, |laker power for the benefit of the | in the form of injunctions, police | workers, is exploiting them more | deputies—and finally the govern- and more. New machinery involves | mental electric chair for the work- bigger investment but less labor! ers, ehind these giants stands the te—the local, ecunty, | state and federal government—sup- porting the employer in every way with injunctions, police, militia, sher- iffs, federal troops, jails, peniten- | tiary and the electric chair. Witne Spanning the U. S. in 13 hours, Tex Ranktn te shown above after his cross-country flight, one of those stunt flights Wall Street is carrying on to boost its aviation forces and thus trap youth into becoming cannon-foddei in the coming imperialist wary Congress | | textile and needle industry, through + | ion. | What is to be done in this situa- tion? he American Federation of | LF r accepts this situation, putting | up a feeble, hypocritical protest, yet | appealing to the very government | handmen to protect the worker. The A. F. of L. officials back up govern- | mental activities against the work- | ers, even going to the extent of pro- |p g a bill to outlaw strikes. The A of L. officials join with the government in subjecting the work- ers of Latin America to the rule of | Wall Street. The socialist party says amen to the attacks of the employcrs on the workers, turning its eyes to heaven in the hope that it may share in the exploitation, ieve the workers who are} turning to the left, and lead them | back to the A. F. of L. It viciously | the Communists and the left wing. The Trotskyites and the Love- ‘tor beginning from different jengles, are attacking the plans of |the Red International of Labor Un- | ions and the Trade Union Unity Congress—both of them denying the leftward trend of the masses and | avoiding militant action in the pres- ent situation, The A. F. of L. does nothing to | erganize these hosts of workers. Its affiliated organizations cannot and will not organize them, for its craft jform cf organization cannot meet | jthe demands of trustified industry. Tt continues the opposition of women | workers, it will do nothing for the young workers, it discriminates against the colored workers—the categories of workers that are fill- ing the industries. Hence the task of the Trade Un- | ion Unity Congress. Already the ; Trade Union Educational League has established its roots in the mining, the National Miners Union, the Na- | tional Textile Workers Union and \the Needle Workers Industrial Un- The movement now is into the heavy industries. What is needed to meet trustified capitalism with its state protection is clear policy, industrial organiza- tion and militant leadership, The ex- ploited millions in these industries look to Cleveland for the drive for organization. It will be a drive be- hind which is the dynamic force of \all miiltants — Communists, left wingers, progressives, who have a clear vision of what the workers will face, and know that the deter- mination of the workers must be or- ganized—organized into revolution- ary unions, These revolutionary industrial un- ions must be linked up with like or- ganizations over the world, to fight for the interests of the workers in- ternationally. They find their in- ternational center in the Red Inter- national of Labor Unions, ‘ War stares the workers in the face; the government is preparing the war to protect the interests of the capitalists. It is preparing for ie war ae wer | by | 4 § AW iT HENRI BARBUSSE Translated by Brian Rhys MY ¢ EL - PUBLISHED BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY, INCORPORATED DEDICATION DEO IGNOTO He ET tre reader will only find what has actually happened. Invention plays no part in these stories; their substance, and even their form, J have taken from scenes that I have witnessed myself, or else gathered from trustworthy source. I have done little or no “romancing,” to use a current expres- sion. Sometimes, I have given the crude facts quite plainly; in other cases, I have discreetly covered over details in a thin veil of fiction, I have scarcely ever changed men’s names into actors’ names. My hope is that these casual jottings, picked up here and there in our appalling present-day civilization, may accustom a few readers to the strangeness of truth, and open the eyes of a public opinion lulled by childish legends to the true picture of our XXth Century— a century that may be described as the Age of Gold, of Steel, or of the Jazz Band, but above all, as the Age of Blood! Further, I trust that they will kindle some spark of angry hatred against those who are answerable (their truly proper names, if one may so speak, are familiar enough); and above all, against the régime which deliberately grinds men underfoot and gives rise to so many horrors in the sight of heaven. ot we te T will be said that these are exceptional doings. That is a serious statement to make. I envy those who go so far as to repeat it readily and clear themselves by a mere phrase before the court of their conscience, i The statement cannot be justified; it ¥s a scandalous travesty of the truth. But even if it were true, such exceptions should only be the more vehemently denounced. For whether they are few and far be- tween or whether they are representative, these woes and crimes are imposed, not by Destiny, but by Man. They are episodes in the world- wide struggle between the tortured and the torturers. They reveal only too clearly the glaring structural defects in the social fabrie reared by the torturers, point out only too plainly what steps we must take before we can sce the last of them. It is for us to consign to the past this perpetually recurrent cycle of man-made calamities, ‘ And until that day, let there be no craven excuses. Let me repeat what I have just written in this connection in Traitors to Jesus: “Whole-* heartedly we loathe the concessions of those who trade in optimism. ‘All is not suffering, they say; ‘Life has its pleasant side too; it gives us grand things and fine moments. Life, then, cannot be too badly devised! To this, the reply must be, ‘Can we avoid some part of the suffering that exists?. If Life brings sufferings that are avoidable, | then it is not well devised.” Kien e 7 XCEPTIONAL facts, indeed! Why, it is the very opposite that we must proclaim. For if we want to give these few examples their full weight and significance, we must multiply each one, in some cases not tenfold, but a thousandfold. There is far more cruelty and plun-* dering in this great world of ours than mediocre public intelligence can reckon, Far more murderers, too, though we only point out the most honored and renowned, The barbarity which falls from high places is both present and active, everywhere. But the facts have a trick of vanishing, because they are forgotten or have never come to light; most crimes are stifled in the memory. Only now and then, circumstances combine to set before us the living picture of some * “exceptional fact.” We cannot know everything, is our despairing ery, | and our minds are maddeningly alive to the things we shall never know. | The ancients dedicated their works and deeds To the Unknown | -God—Deo Ignoto. I do not believe in God, but I believe alas! in the | Unknown. This book I dedicate to the unknown afflicted, to that great | multitude unknown in life and death, to the infinite affinity of the | uknown, to those martyrs whose memory, is utterly blotted out, who lie * in destruction and oblivion underground, to that multitudinous host that eyes may see but have not seen. i This I do under the aegis of Justice, of that active and scientific law which embraces all here below. For soon or late, man’s destiny upon earth must find its own adjustments, and at last we shall hear the sound as yet unheard, of marching feet that we sent on their way. ! Be A Pee ae Paces | PART I THE WAR SONG OF A SOLDIER “No I never had any luck,” the poor soldier explained to the pretty " girl. One look at him told you as much. Long dealings with misfortune had made him shrink in upon himself, had thrust his eyes back in their sockets, clipped all his movements, like wings. His eyes—little points, dead black, dabbed in anyhow by a clumsy painter high up in the dismal oval of a swarthy face—his eyes gave the only touch of light in that dulled portrait. It was hard to say which had faded the most; the cloth of his great-coat, or the skin on his face. A sorry soldier! One would have said that a child’s hands had built him, out of colorless and ill-assembled discs, and pyramids, and cubes. t “Some people are born to fail!” Those were the last words he had ever heard from his mother; they were all she could find to give him, as she lay on her deathbed, one eye already closed. Nothing ever came to anything, when he put his hand to it, Day' in, season out, he messed his work. He had lost the little that his parents had not lost before him. All his plans went awry, like the general plan of his body; they were crooked constructions, and soon toppled down. Remote he lived and shy, in a hard shell of silence. * ‘Women never noticed him; only one or two were charitable enough to laugh at his expense. As for men—they always looked through him at something else. It was as if the sun was going down upon him. | ae he 'HIS stranger to human happiness had gone, of course, to the war,— gone, likewise ingloriously. Not like the others, with the jovial }” alcoholic crowd; he had left his village alone, one night, just to fill ' up a gap, untrumpeted, undrummed, unreal as if he lived in the pages ' of some poor story. i In the slow column he marched unobserved, of all soldiers, the most obscure. Once, indeed, he had bravely rescued some comrades from death, but the exploit passed unnoticed like all that he did. Still, | he had escaped hostile bullets and court martial, too. And now he was back on leave from the land of human sacrifice, } for six good days, anyhow. . It happened, during this little interval of time, that the face of things changed, and all through the choice of the gentle-hearted Clara. ' Oh! a mere turn in the wheels of chance, partly to be explained by a disappointment that had come to her, partly by the emptiness of a countryside stripped bare of young men, partly too—why not?—by sun- shine, and youth. And so, down the green paths, she walked like some vision held in leash, chin pointed modestly down, by the side of this tall and dingy-hued soldier, 5 ‘ { (To Be Continued.) mercer) workers, carrying on a struggle to break up their organizations, to hold them tight to the war machine. The Trade Union Unity Congress, speak- ing in the name of the 30,000,000 unorganized workers of the basic in- dustries and the left wing of the ex- isting unions—men, women, young workers, white and colored, will answer as follows: In Cleveland, the heart of the heavy industry, we declare:, We will organize the 30,000,000 ae jae fighting industrial un- Congress in Cleveland, We will build up a new militant leadership out of the rank and file! We will fight against all traitors of the working class—the A. F. of L,, the S. P., the Muste group, the Trotskyites and the Lovestonites! We will link up with the revolu- tionary workers affiliated to the Red International of Labor Unions! We will fight against imperialist war! ¥ Ne will stand by the Soviet Un- ion Forward to the Trade Union Unity I} |