The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 11, 1930, Page 4

Page Four DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1930 —=s Hack Journalist in /THE STORY OF JOHN REED— AN AMERICAN BOLSHEVIK Pulpwood Publication Lies About John Reed Satevpost Seribe Make: s Some Easy Cash; Says Mister Sisson Gave Him Lowdowns - By SENDER GARLIN. ANDWICHED in between “Ro- mance” by Clarence Budington Kelland, and “Women Have No Sense of Humor” by Nunnally Johnson, in a recent issue of the Saturday Evening Post, is an ar- ticle entitled, “A Soviet Saint—the Story of John Reed,” by Julian Street. Silent for ten years on the life and activities of this young Ameri- ean Bolshevik, Cyrus Curtis’ pub- lication, subsidized in the millions by the ¢g advertisements of powerful open-shop corporations, now hires a third-rate bourgeois JULIAN STREET “play Reed hack down.” The article, which is served up as a “personal record” of John Reed, is actually a melange of truths, half-truths, falsehoods, in- accuracies, vague rumors and con- jectures, most of them gotten second and third hand, and sea- soned generously with personal bile. journalist to Reed, in the hands of this man | Street, is ptesented as a trifling; dilettante, a perverse youth. “Law- | lessness fascinated him. He was for the underdog even when it was a mad dog.” Reed’s burning zeal in the revolutionary movement this Philistine treats as something path- ological. “Radicalism was running like a poison through his system, and was not to be thrown off.” ee ee O is this Julian L. Street? What are his qualifications for evaluating John Reed, American revolutionist? Street has written almost a score | of books, most of which can be found on the bargain counters of the Liggett drug stores. They in- elude such stirring volumes as “Ship-Bored,” alleged to be a book of wit and humor; “The Most In- teresting American” (Roosevelt); “Welcome to Our City,” with illus- trations by James Montgomery Flagg; and “Merely a aMtter of Matrimony: A Short Story of Love and Society.” On the latter vol- ume it became necessary for the Saturday Evening Post author to seek the collaboration of another | writer, Mr. Frank Finney. Mr. Julian Street’s latest achieve- ment is, “Where Paris Dines— With Information About Restau- rants of All Kinds, Costly and Cheap, Dignified and Gay, Known | and Little Known, and How to En- joy Them, by Julian Street, to- gether with a discussion of French wines and a table of vintages.” Mr. Street’s 10,000-word article, for which he was paid as much as a coal miner gets in ten years, is written with a purpose, it is pointed out. “A mist of tradition has al- ready formed around Reed, and as times goes on it becomes increas- ingly difficult for those who did not know him to penetrate the mist and gaina picture of the man.” * WR much of my information concerning Reed’s performances in Russia, I am indebted to Edgar Sisson, who was there at the time as a special representative of Presi- dent Wilson, and who is now writ- ing a book on the Bolshevik Revolu- tion.” Isn’t Mr. Street rather indiscreet fn handing out this bit of informa- tion? For this is the very same Sisson of the forged “Sisson Docu- ments” of 1919, which aimed to |popularize the impotent lie that | the leaders of the Bolshevik Revo- | lution were “in the pay” of the imperial German government. | And by a curious coincidence, it was John Reed, who in a pamphlet | published that year exposed Sis- son’s documents—the first of the long series of anti-Soviet forgeries, | the most recent example of which | ments And it is to this man Sisson, whom | Reed had exposed with his flaming | pen, that Mr. Street goes “for in- | | formation concerning Reed’s per- formances in Russia.” ey 8 | Wesco in this article is the John | Reed, who, at the height of his carrer as one of the highest- paid and most sought-for journal- | ists in America, repudiated his | class and threw himself into the | | struggles of the workers? The} | Streets, seeking to hide their own | corruption, find it necessary to dis- { credit such men as Reed. Where ig the John Reed who threw himself heart and soul into | the struggle of the Paterson silk | weavers in 1913; the Reed who “was off like a shot” to Russia the moment the news flashed over the cables that the Romanoiis were no more? Where is the magnificent revolutionary journalist of ‘“The/| Ten Days That Shook the World,” | | about which Lenin wrote: “With | the greatest interest and with | never slackening attention I read) | this book. Unreservedly do I rec-| ommend it to the workers of the | world. Here is a book which I should like to see published in mil- lions of copies and translated in all languages.” |This book, significantly enough, | | Stret simply fails even to mention. | Where, in this stupid, lying ar- ticle is the Reed who was one of the founders of the American Com- | munist movement; who offered up his life to the Bolshevik Revolu- tion? Who, laid low by typhus, the disease of the war-front, lies buried by the Kremlin wall in Mos- cow? Street’s cowardly article is a link in the ceaseless imperialist propa- ganda campaign against the Soviet Union. His method is well illu- strated in the following bit of dem- agogy: “From sources friendly to the Bolsheviks I learned that Reed was | received with honors (after his re- turn to Soviet Russia from America where he came to stand trial for \‘sedition’—S. G.). From sources} | unfriendly I gather that the mas- ters of the Soviets, disappointed at his failure to kindle the revolution in his homeland, treated him with | indifference, if not with contempt.” Then, with unconscious irony, | Street continues: “The+truth mat- | | ters little now.” (Emphasis mine— |S. G.) “If they treated him ill, it} | was not the first time that they | | had turned on a faithful servant | of the cause; if, on the other hand, | it is true that they placed him high in their councils, we are shown once more of what the oviSet Gov- ernment is made.” ah ee R. STREET, the author of “Qur Next War,” sponsored by the American Legion and published in 1915 by the American Defense Society, concludes on a frenzied pa- triotic note—a note that would de- light the hearts of Hamilton Fish, Mr. Carl Bachman (coal operator from West Virginia) and their col- leagues on the malodorous Fish Committee. “To glorify. Reed’s service to the Soviets,” Street goes on record as declaring, “is to glorify his disloy- alty to the land which gave him his education and hisopportunities, the land which—let grumblers say what they will—offers its citizens advantages. greater than man has ever known before.” Maybe. Just ask any one of the 8,000,- 000 workers now walking e paved streets of this glorious land, jobless and hungry! Per- haps he'll agree. LABOR A big fellow walked into the La- bor Sports Union office. He re- sembled a Dempsey, Schmelling, and a Sharkey put together. “I am thru with professional sports and I want to join the Labor Sports Union”. He filled out an application card which read: “Vincent Babin, age 22, occupation—auto worker”. While he was filling out the card somebody noticed his huge hand and fist and asked if he had ever taken up box- ing. He replied: “I was a sparing partner of Max Schmelling at Endicott, N’ Y., when he trained for the Sharkey fight but I was fired. They told me I was too rough with Schmelling.” We refer our readers to the daily papers of N. Y. of this date and facts and pictures will _ prove out that Comrade Babin gave _ Schmelling some real proletarian punches and was fired from camp 9 he was too rough with the SPORTS world’s champion! ber! Now, Comrade Babin is thru with professional sports and pledges his support to workers’ sports. The coming National Convention of the L. S. U. will launch a national campaign to bring workers sports to the workers of the factories and trade unions. The feature in sports in all trade union halls will be box- ing. This will train the workers to defend themselves and will build strong, powerful Workers’ Defense Corps recruits who will defend the workers from the attacks of the bos- ses and their government. All trade unions are asked to co-operate with the LSU in organizing trade union sport clubs and are asked to send delegates to the National Conven- tion which will be held in Cleveland on November 7-8-9. Address Labor Penida West 15th St’, New York ity. Ach, mein lie- By JOSEPH PASS. IS name is becoming a legend in| ‘American life today. Wherever | men gather—in the mining districts | | of Colorado, the mills of New Jer-| |sey in Mexico or Moscow, or at some gathering of intellectuals in New York—there is always a story | about John Reed. Men never sigh| or grow sentimental at the mention} of his name. There is always] laughter and courage. To the work- Jers he is a revolutionary hero, a| man who fought courageously on} the red side of the barricades. To| | the tired intellectuals he is a sym-| | bol of their own lost youth, of a |time when they too admired and| ) {are the discredited “Whalen docu-/|dreamt courageous deeds and im-| {% petuous acts, before the period of middle age disillusionment set in. 2 ee In the three distinct fields, of labor, literature and the theatre, John Reed was a pioneer of the new age. But we remember him today primarily because he was one of the first American Bolsheviks. When on November 8, 1917, Le- nin at the head of the Presidium, first appeared before the All-Rus- sian Congress of Soviets uttering the simple and beautiful words, “we shall now proceed to construct the Socialist order ” Reed threw himself with a force and deter- mination into the revolutionary movement in America and Russia which leaves no doubt in our minds | as to the great sense of reality | in the man. Rete « Out of Oregon came a young boy to Harvard College. But his was a flame that Harvard failed to dim. He laughed at their ways and he was in love with life. There was a poet in the making, but a poet who was restless and discontented. No ivory tower for him! As one of the editors of the “Har- vard Monthly” there is the first ex- pression of his revolutionary ten- dencies. A sonnet written in 1907, —in his 19th year—curiously enough to the Russian people he titles the poem “Tschaikowsky,” the first line wake! Ye people of the North, arise!” and closes: “O new Prometheus, spread your stolen fire And break the chains of dark- ness and of wrong.” And again in a story written dur- ing the same period, we find the main spring of his life, revolution: “The crowd began to sing the revolutionary song, timidly at first, but with a growing confi- dence until the strange melody rang forth in all its desert wild- ness—the song that Egypt had been trying to crush for many a moon. And mingled with it came a curious tramping sound, the noise of a city marching .. .” This was the emotional writing of a boy still in his teens. 2 88 Coming out of college in 1910 he literally threw himself into the life of New York. Let others think of careers. Not for him the careful planning of a “useful” life. He was| out to probe the depths of America for himself. I doubt if at that period of his life Jack had anything at all resembling what we should call a philosophy of life. He lived and that was sufficient for the, moment. Reckless, adventurous, care-free, spontaneous. But the development of his life tells another story. As he grew and saw life on the picket line, in the trenches, at A. F. of L. conventions, and the November days in Russia there came forth THE MARCH O By HARRY ALAN POTAMKIN. The Black Bear sat on his throne wih a gold crown on his head and he thought he was everything and everybody. He sat straight up, with his chest puffed out and he sang through his nose: “Who's big- ger and better than I am, I’d like to know? I can stretch from the frozen north to the torrid south, from iceberg to equator, from east to west, mountain to sea, earth to heaven—that’s me! The Lion runs when he sees me, the Giraffe hides his head in the clouds, and the Os- trich hides his head in the sand, and the Crocodile hides at the bot- tom of the lake, and the Vulture flies to the seventh heaven—they’re afraid of me. But I make them serve me. I’m the king of the beasts!” from this playboy, a revolutionist, an accomplished Bolshevik. % ee ae After college, his work as a spe- cial writer for the popular maga- zines soon attracted attention. It “| : } i re } Re John Reed. | was inevitably so. The great spirit of adventure that was in him drew the placid people on the front porch in their rocking chairs. And the | gift of telling the things he saw | and heard was his. Soon we find the | bourgeois press bidding and paying high for the work of John Reed. | In Mexico, he got to Villa, the first American correspondent to reach this general who was for years a pain to U. S. imperialism. | Villa took one look at Jack... and a new brigadier-general appeared— in this ragged army. General Reed dipping into his pockets for pea- nuts. He lived and fought with this | army, and when his articles ap- | Peared in the “Metropolitan Maga- | zine” the sensation they created can only be compared to the Stephen Crane war stories in the nineties. The European war and the story repeated itself. In the trenches with the soldiers of a half dozen coun- tries. Fifty or sixty times under | arrest. Riding the rods to freedom. | Again sensational war stories. This was Reed the adventurous journal- ist. But at the same time another Reed was coming forth. In 1913, he saw the great strike in the silk mills of Paterson N. J. Life at a low ebb for tens of thousands of workers. The struggle for a small increase in wages, a few minutes a day less work. One bat- tle in the war of the machine age for the mastery of the machines and life itself. In 1914, out of (attracts war. Armies arrayed on both sides. Rows upon rows of tents with evicted miners and food pouring in from the rear, from workers in other sections of the country. Reinforcements in other ways than food too. Even in those days Reed did not remain “neutral.” In his writing for the bourgeois press during this early period of his creative life his sympathies were far from “neutral.” so His association with the “Masses” group dates from about 1913, almost | the very beginning of that publica- tion. I venture the opinion that} Reed’s great contribution to that! group came after the “Masses” was | suppressed and the “Liberator” ap- | peared. It was from the “Masses” | that he received his first lessons in| revolutionary knowledge. To the} “Liberator” he contributed his | knowledge of Bolshevism and the | Revolution. Nevertheless his great} energy moved the “Masses” group | even at the very beginning, with) his stories, articles and personal | contact. | * oe LS | So we find him at the age of 28 a popular war correspondent, writ- ing with a vigor and passion never} | before equaled in the history of | American journalism, receiving | great sums of money for his w Writing poetry for little magazines. | Organizing theatre groups. Staging | pageants for unions. Going to jail) in labor wars. On the editorial staff | of the “Masses.” And living, living. | Even at this time certain legends | were gathering around his name. His bravery, his audacity, his viva- ciousness attracted, as it always large groups of people. | (When only 26, an article about him appeared in a magazine, titled, “Le- gendary John Reed.”) But at the same time it was quite evident that John Reed could not remain the popular journalist in the} capitalist press and be a revolu- tionist. As one of his frineds on the “Masses” said, that at some point of his career Jack would have to choose. And that point came. And he chose. America enters the war. To be a revolutionist is now a serious of- fense. America has seen the last of its pioneer days. Revolution now) means action, responsibility. No longer fashionable to be a rebel. Long Island ladies in candle lit tooms have no more exhibits A. So John Reed’s play days are over. He denounces the war and re- mains with the “Masses” group, loyal to the interests of the work- ers of America and loyal to that inner sense in himself, the rebel. Word has just come from Rus- sia that the czar is overthrown. There are rumors here that this is not the end, that a bourgeois republic is not what the Russian worker and peasant is building. Great exiled Russians are moving. Out of one corner of the earth Lenin, out of another Trotsky. From Siberian mines, hundreds of politicals. Men who have dreamed and worked for years for a pro- letarian state are meeting. The Bolshevik Party is aware of the moment. And in New York, John Reed has taken ship, bound for Europe and Petrograd. rs In Russia Miliukov is no more. Kerensky is in power trying to stem a revolutionary tide. The hun- gry army is slowly deserting. In the great cities, bread lines and anger. The peasants calling for land. The Bolsheviks have put them- selves at the head of the great army Mexico into Colorado, a miner's The little Red Bear said in a little, low voice: “That’s what you think, but just wait until I grow up.” The Black Bear burst into a huge laugh: “Ho-Ho-Ho. Listen to the little blemish. You threaten me, do you, you pinch of pepper? If I wanted to, I could step on you and make an ink-spot of you in less than ten switches of a lion’s tail.” “Oh, you think so, do you?” teased the little Red Bear. “Just you try it. Just you try it.” The Black Bear thrust out his | gigantic leg, meaning to squash the little Red teaser with his mighty | Black foot. But the little Red Bear | was as elastic as a rubber ball, and |he bounced out of the reach of the Black Bear’s foot and giggled. “You can’t put an end to me, old hoaster,” the Red Bear taunted. “T’ll get you yet!” thundered the crowned bear. “No one is going to stand in my way.” “In your way?” snapped back the little bear. “What have you been doing all these years? What of the way you have treated all the other animals? You cut off the Lion’s beautiful tail, and pulled the horn out of Rhino’s nose, and plucked needle after needle out of the Porcupine, and you starved the Eel to death, and the little Baboon by the Nght of the moon saw you steal the Three Bears’ porridge. Oh, yes, you’re kind to some folks, to the bloated Pi the Hog and the Sow. You think you’re king, but the Hog and the Sow tell you where to get off when you go riding, and they tell you where to get on, but you'll never know, because you're too stupid to care. But one of these days you'll find yourself in the pud- of soldiers, workers and peasants F THE RED BEAR A Story for the Working-Class Youth) dle with the Pigs, and they'll be too lean for pork and you'll be too frightened to wonder what it’s all about.” “That’s a big speech from a little worm,” barked the Black Bear. He was mad. “But the worm will turn,” the little Red Bear sent the words back quick as lightning to the Black Bear’s thunder. The Black Bear was wild with anger. He stepped on a Grasshop- per and called the Heywood Bruin, his jester, the funny honey-bear. Bruin came in fat and soft. “Make me laugh, you sloth!” hissed the Black Bear. The clown saw that his master was enraged, and he guessed that the Red Bear had taunted the Black Bear again. He strummed on a guitar and chanted: “Animals, animals, big and little, Tumble them, crumble them, crisp and brittle.” The Black Bear guffaw21 and handed the Heywood Bruin a honey- comb which the funny bear licked greedily, getting himself all sticky. The clown licked his master’s boots and sang: “Bend them—rend them! Break them—shake them! Trumble them—crumble them!” The Black Bear bellowed: “Call in the Weasel and the Skunk, the Rat and the Snake, the Leech and the Slimy Worm, the Beaver and Grover the Crocodile, the Vulture and the Stool Pigeon!” The Heywood Bruin fetched the henchmen of the Black Bear, all those who served him for bribes. They all entered, touching their demanding “All power to the So- | viets. Land to the Peasants. Fac- tories to the Workers. Peace and | Bread.” The Bolsheviks with a sense |of reality never before equaled in | human history are hammering their | program into the consciousness of the Russian people. A great mass | movement is taking place and Reed | watches this spectacle, this living | pageant staged so often in his im- | agination, now a concrete fact. September, October pass and now the great days of November 1917. He is no longer here as a reporter for the capitalist press. Those days are in the dim past. He is now liv- ing ten days shaking a world. He is now the accredited representative of the American workers’ press and has entered to all revolutionary fronts and councils. Reed receives his initiation into Bolshevik ways. | He soon returns to America to tell| of the revolution and organize its defense. Now his great period of revolu- tionary writing and organizing com-| mences. Month after month the “Liberator” carries his stories of | the uprising in Russia and explain- | ing its functions and technique. He covers the I.W.W. trial in Chicago. He interviews Debs in Terre Haute. } He plants the seed of the future| Communist Party in America. His meetings with left wing labor lead- | ers will be told by some future his- torian. Now they cannot be told. | Sometimes his movements become) obscure. He is trailed everywhere by monarchist spies, Department of Justice operatives. He is arrested and indicted during the last three years of his life more often than any other man in America. He is restless, but finds time to write his last and most important book, “Ten Days That Shook the World,” a great epic of reality. In Russia again, propagandizing the Red soldiers fighting the whites. His leaflets are distributed by the million. His writing is simple, beautiful one syllable words under- stood by all. He helps edit English papers for the English trenches. His words stir the German soldier. Back to America, he helps organize the first Communist Party here. He edits the “Communist” and other Bolshevist papers. Goes to the most forbidden places to speak. His courage has at last found a prac- tical outlet. To Russia once more as a delegate to the first meeting of the Third International. All over Russia starving, dirty, hungry, do- ing work for the movement, work- ing eighteen and twenty hours a day, geting thin beyond recognition, sleeping with the poorest in box cars, in barns, in sewer pipes, fac- ing a white guard firing squad, in jail in Finland for weeks. ee 8 On October 17 1920, the Ameri- can press carried this dispatch: Moscow—John Reed died here of typhus today. Fourteen soldiers of the Red Army watch beside the young man out\of the West. In the chamber where he lies it is quiet. But in the capital of Soviet Russia the work from which his hand fell when he died goes forward in a manner that would please him. Join the Young Pioneers of America. Tear out the blank below and send it in to Young Pioneers, 48-50 East 13th Street, New York City. Name Age Address _. jaim of furthering revolutionary cul- Working John Reed Club, Form By A. B, MAGIL Nine years after John Reed died in a cold room in Moscow, his life burnt up in the service of the first Workers’ and Peasants’ Republic, |the John Reed Club, an organiza- |tion of revolutionary wirters and artists, was founded in the country |of John Reed’s birth, United States, and in the city where he had spent | so much of his early life, New York.| The mighty socialist upbuilding of the Soviet Union and the vrowth of the revolutionary movement in this country stimulated and crystal- ized the tendencies that in October, | 1929, gave birth to the John Reed | Club. The club set for itself the; tural activities among the Amer- ican working class and of aiding the revolutionary movement in what- ever way might be necesary. In the year since its inception it has fulfilled this twofold task. It has shown itself worthy to bear the name of that heroic revolutionist whose ashes lie under the Kremlin| Wall. Se -. In February and March, 1930, at the instigation of that saintly man, the Pope of Rome, a vast hue and cry went up concerning | religious “persecution” in the So- viet Union. Behind the yelp of the clericat watch dogs was their master’s voice—intenartional fin- ance-capital itching for an oppor- tunity to lay hands on the first Workers’ Republic and crush it together with the revolutionary movement in the capitalist coun- tries. The Club issued an appeal to writers, artists, educators and scien- tists throughout the country, urg- ing them to protest against the holy crusade, More than eighty joined this protest, including Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos, Lloyd Dell, Waldo Frank, Jim Tully, Professor Franz Boas and Board-| man Robinson. In cooperation with | the F.S.U,, the club also arranged | a big protest meeting in Central Opera House which adopted a mili- tant resolution demanding hands off the Soviet Union. The club has also undertaken to join with the LL.D. in its struggles against the wave of legal terror that was sweeping worker after) worker into jail for the crime of | fighting for his class. In response | to an appeal by the club, about 30 American writers, artists, educators and scientists, including H’ L. Men- ken, Sherwood Anderson, and many of the writers mentioned above, join- ed in a protest against these per- secutions, The club also sponsored the or-| ganization of an Emergency Com-| mittee for Southern Political Pris-| {oners with Theodore Dreiser as| chairman and John Dos Passos (who is a member of the club), as treas- urer. This committee is collecting defense contributions and carrying | on a publicity campaign. March found the members of the Joh Reed Club out on Union Square; they were in the May Day and other | Working class demonstrations as) participants, nos as spectators in the class struggle. On the cultural field the John | Reed Club has made many im- | portant contributions. It has or- ganized art exhibits and sympo- siums at workers’ clubs; it held a successful Red Art Night; and cooperated with the W.LR. in or- ganizing and directing art and music schools for workers’ chil- dren. Three of its members, Emjo Basshe, Edith Segal and Paut Keller, have directed pa- Revolutionary Writers and Artists Join in | Gropper, “You have called us, master,” they all said in one false voice. “I have called you!” answered the Black Bear, swelling up. “We await your command!” “Get the Red Bear!” The Henchmen crossed their eyes and nodded. “Preacher Polecat, Reverend Skunk, big words serve us well. Big words and promises. You must go at once and blind the stpuid bears with the word of heaven.‘ The Skunk kissed the Black Bear’s boots and left. “And you, Beaver, you know how to move backwards and to be con- tetn with tears. Keep the workers changing mud into palaces, and keep them from seeing Lehind their backs. do nothing more.” The Beaver kissed the Black Bear’s boots and left. “And you, Weasel, are to get rid of the rebel chickens in the barn- yard. The Stool Pigeon will tell you who they are.” “And you, Grover the Crocodile, watch in the waters. And you, Vul- While they weep they can], geants at mass meetings and dem- “TEN NAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD” ture, watch in the air, and you, Slimy Worm, worm yourself into the meetings in the woods, and you, Snake, hide in the grass, and you, Leech, suck the blood out of those who grumble, and you, Rat, put your nose into everything.” The henchmen kissed the Blac! Bear’s boots and left. * * . . (Another .incident in the lif of the Red Bear and the other animals will appear next week.) foreheads to the plush carpet as they approached their master, the Black Bear. eo Vote Communist! Class Fight ed in 1929, Active on Many Fronts; Center of Proletarian Culture onstrations. The vivid caricatures and posters made by the artists of the club were a striking fea- ture of the May Day demonstra- tion in New York. One of the features of the Independent Ex- hibition held at the Grand Central Palace last March was a huge canvas, “An American Land- scape,” painted cooperatively by members of the John Reed Club, satirizing the brutal police attack on the Katovis protest demonstra- tion at City Hall. The John Reed Club is also spon- soring a number of pamphlets, to be part of the series of Interna- toinal Pamphlets now being issued. The first of these, the story of the life and death of Steve Katovis, the courageous Greek worker who was. murdered by a Tammany cop last January, has been written by Joseph North and A. B’ Magil and will appear shortly. The second a biography of John Reed hy Jo- seph Pass, is now being written. The future activities of the club will undoubtedly receive a great impetus as a result of the Second | World Congress of the International Bureau of Revolutionary Literature | which will be held at Kharkov, U.S. S.R., shortly before the celebration | of the thirteenth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. A delegation from the John Reed Club is sailing shortly, including Michael Gold, ed- itor of the New Masses; William staff cartoonist of the Freiheit and internationally famous revolutionary artist, and Harry Alan Potamkin, movie critic of the New Masses, and A. B, Magil. Greater tasks await the John Reed Club, more intensive participation in the struggles of the workers. John Reed was a soldier of the Revolution. Working in his spirit, waging war against the capitalist system and capitalist culture, broad- ening its activities and strengthen- ing its ties with the toiling mases, the John Reed Club will march for- ward with them to the conquest of power for the workers, Vote Communist! TheOld and New By P. M. CHAFFEE. In Russia church bells are melt- ed down, poured into moulds — cast into ploughs soon to furrow the black, wheat, ground of the Steppes. In an old church were the tat- tered garments of an epileptic saint were once the prime relics, men are singing and dumping grain. Like a golden flood the grain rolls in to cover the niches and altars forever. It has covered the aureole of holy Peter and is already well up into the second tier of saints. Part of the bronze of iconized saint Nicholas, patron saint of the fishers, is now a shaft-bear- ing on a great ship whose prow bites clean, and swift as an ar- row, through the menacing waves of the Baltic. . Another part is a whistle on a great steel comet that roars and lunges across the vast brooding Russian plains,—waking “an old peasant woman who starts to cross herself and then laughs at her weakness. “Lie still, old grandmother, lie still,” rings out a young voice, “Russia is alive with the future; She is a mother, pregnant with great children!”