The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 15, 1931, Page 4

Published by Page Fo the Comprodaily 13th Strest, New York City, Address and mail all checks to the Daily W Publishing Co., Inc. N. ¥. Telephone A datly except Sunday, at 59 East st 15th Street, New York, N. Y. “DALWORK.” Dail Yorker’ Porty US.A. “y mali everywhere: One ye: of Manhattan and Bronx, New York City. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: ar, $6; six momths, $3; two months, $1; excepting Boroughs Foreign: one year, $8; six months, $4.50, Control Ong. “N ATION AL” GOVERNMENT THE FRAME-UP SYSTEM IN BRITAIN By WILLIAM RUST. Labor Gove end and Ramsay econd Inter- ul socialism tion of capital d of ajNational” the Tory Baldwin a government formed the budget middle lori of the peat 1e1, ject of balan workers and lower of the Labor Government with e@ Labor Party into the Opposi- roup, he rema. under “National demons! ion of the of m and the rot of the have aed depression of ent ,714,= to nt openly Suc! cism, ment has not only been nee the Budget, it repre- 2 the development to- , it is a much more ship of the bour- the financial by dictat reduction of the Cabinet from twenty-one to ten, the decision to sweep aside normal Parliamentary procedure in order to carry through the Economy Plan at lightning speed, and the very fact that the government formed during a Parliamentary recess and hout a General Election are immediate fea- the remoulding of the capitalist state wa: and nation of the resolution of the Centi mittee of the Communist Party of Great Britain : ‘The whole dominant tendency of British capitalism is now in the direction of Fascism, the discarding of the old forms of parliamentary y, Wi is characteristic of a late stage of capitalist development marked by capi-' talist decay and advancing class struggle... . sent advance to Fascism is marked by the complete collaboration of the double forces 1e cooperation of the exist ing parties alongside outer violence.” (Decem- ber, 1930.) These developments arise directly out of the deepening of the economic crisis and the grow- ing resistance of the British working class to the capitalist offensive. British imperialism is in desperate ts. The economic crisis has now lasted for more than a decade and even before the onset of the world economic crisis industrial production was below the pre-war level. Late in the field so far as nationalization is con- cerned, its industries held back by the dead weight of huge debt burdens, British imperialism has. fallen rapidly behind in the struggle with giant rivals. Now these long years of decline are eating into the vitals of finance, the position of London as a world’s money market is men- aced and a financial crisis of the first magni- tude is developing. In the past the growing ex- cess of imports, of exports, was met by the favorable balance accruing from the so-called invisible exports but now this one time balance of 350 million pounds or more has dwindled to practically nothing. The new feature of the ctisis is the crisis of the city.* Clearly the decisive factor is not the balanc- ing of the Budget. This in itself will not re- store confidence in the London money market. The notorious Economy Committee set up by the late Labor Government even went so far as to declare that, “Even a general world revival of trade may still find us wrestling with our spe- cial difficulties.” The real problem, as capitalis economis are never tired of pointing out, lies in the restoration of industry by an increase in competitive power in the world’s market through a reduction in wages and costs. Sir Josiah Stamp, the director of the Bank of England, who played a leading part in the formation of the “National” Government, recently declared that: “Balancing the Budget is, of course, the first but not the only element in restoring confidence in sterling. There are important economic and industrial factors which we have to secure.” (The “Times,” August 26th.) And the “Economist” in the course of a spe- cial leading article on the tasks of the “Na- tional” Government mainly concentrate on argu- ing for wage reductions explains Stamp’s “Fac- tors” by declaring If these hard facts were laid clearly before the people of the country we are confident that the response would be a very general willing- ness to contribute by a broad readjustment of wages, salaries, costs and prices to a national effort to regain our lost ground in the world’s markets.” (August 29th.) It is thus clear that the present plans for balancing the Budget are only the beginning of the new attack on the masses in Britain and that the “National” Government intends to carry through huge wage-cuts and to reduce vices to the veriest minimum. More- ions of the bourgeoisie are toying with the idea of currency inflation while the volume of opinion in favor of tariffs is growing every day. The General Council of the Trade Union Congress has already declared for a revenue tariff; Henderson, the new leader of the Labor Party made the significant declaration that he would prefer tariffs to the Government’s Econ- omy Plan and Baldwin, the Conservative leader, promised his.supporters “a straight fight on tar- iffs” after the Budget has been balanced. The introduction of a tariff cannot be long delayed. It is now one of the main planks in the policy of the bourgeoisie. An unprecedented sharpening of the class e is taking place in Great Britain. Great class battles are loomingsup for it is doubly n that the British working class will fight to the bitter end and turn more and more to the revolutionary leadership of the Communist Party and the Minority Movement. The growing militancy of the working class was the decisive factor that finally compelled the bourgeoisie to kick out its second Labor Government after more than two years of faith- British economic e and it is charged with ing through the now nt aspects of bourgeois policy, namely, | al de ion of the once boasted social s and the imposition of the enormous cuts | Despite the difficulties of organiz- action during a period of economic strike movement has been grow- During 1930 the number of strike days total 4,399,000 and that huge figure had already been exceeded by the end of the first half of this year. The membership of the mili- tant unemployed or ization had quickly dou- bled from 20,000 to 40,000. The prestige of the Labor Government was hopele: waning as was demonstrated at the by-elections where Labor majorities of thousands came tumbling down to a few hundreds. T this situation the bourgeoisie and their labor lieutenants were faced with the tactical problem of what kind of government could be entrusted with carrying out of this unprece- dented offensive against the workers, and the introduction of new lines of bourgeois policy. For many months opinion had veered towards the idea of a National Government, a coalition of all t r s, and an animated discussion was carried on in the bourgeois political jour- nals. 4 of this year these discussions had reached such a stage that the “Times” was able to declare “Mr. Baldwin was clearly wrong in saying that the question of a National Government was @ question of strategy: it is a question of prac- ticability—a question whether all parties can comprehensiv and conscientiously make such sacrifices of f er convictions as a national policy requires. The answer depends wholly at the moment upon the Government of the day.” (August 7th.) ‘ Today a “National Government exists—but in name only. The largest party has constituted itself as His Majest; Opposition, and there is at least a temporary reversion to that two party system which so admirably served the interests of the British bourgeoisie in the past. Of the Labor leaders, MacDonald remains as Premier, Snowden is still at the Treasury, Thomas has not moved from the Dominion Office and San- key remains Lord Chancellor but the Labor M-P.s, practically en bloc, have moved to the other side of the House of Commons under the leadership of Henderson and with the full ap- proval of the General Council of the Trades Union Congre: It is, however, an Opposition that did every- thing to facilitate the formation of the “Na- tional” Government. It gave a Cabinet's sup- port to the bank: plan and obediently re- signed when requested without even calling Par- lament together. Objectively, a division of labor has taken place. The chief leaders of the Labor Party grace the Government with their presence in order to give it a “National” dressing while the Labor Party as a whole supported by the T. U. C. goes intd opposition in order to win back the confidence of the workers and to shunt their re- sistance on to “safe” parliamentary lines while the “National” Government goes quickly for- ward with the cuts. Under the circumstances there could be no better way of helping the capitalists. But it would be a gross error to see only the maneuver and to ignore class forces which led to it and now threatens to sweep past the limits set by the bourgeoisie. It would be sheer stupidity to ignore the disintegration in the Social-Fascist leadership, the conflicting interests that have driven them hither and thither, and the division in ‘the Labor Cabinet, the sharp contradictions within the ranks of the bourgeoisie. Under the existing circumstances the forma- tion of a new Government under MacDonald was the best road for the bourgeoisie to take but this by no means signifies that it leads to a way out of its difficulties. True enough the Labor Party has regained popularity overnight and the hatred of the masses is deflected from the present leadership to the former leading group, MacDonald and Company. Even so the experience of two years of labor rule is not wiped out by one stroke and workers do not for- get that this MacDonald was yesterday the acclaimed leader of those who now lead the “op- position,” and that the chief leader of the “Op- position,” Henderson, was an advocate of “dole” cuts. Are they not all tarred with the same brush, is what many workers are asking. The desire of Henderson and Company to avoid an open personal clash with MacDonald and Company is shown by their refusal to expel them from the Labor Party and by the appeal for an avoidance of a discussion on personali- ties. But the rank and file are deaf to Hender- son’s appeals. The local Labor. Party at Hamp- stead has already expelled MacDonald and his constituency organization has demanded his resignation. Snowden has announced his com- ing resignation in order to avoid the ignominy of being repudiated in his constituency of Coline. Most significant, however, is the fall of J. H. Thomas, the only trade union leader adhering to the government. The removal of Thomas from the Political General Secretaryship of the National Union Railwaymen is an outstanding event in the historyof the British Labor Move- ment. It is the fall of the dominating reac- tionary figure in the trade unions. The treatment of the Government labor lead- ers by the rank and file despite the protection they received from the official leaders of the Labor Party is a real, working class blow at the authority of the “National” Government and the first indication that His Majesty's Opposition will not be able to sidetrack successfully the mass movement now surging up. Throughout Britain there is a heightened political activity and fierce determination to defeat the Economy Plan. Mass meetings and demonstrations are outstanding both in size and enthusiasm. Hun- dreds of trade union branches and local labor parties are passing resolutions strongly con- demning the Government, In their efforts to head the movement the leaders of the Labor Party and trade unions are resorting to strong talk about the unjustifiability of the plan. But although they go so far as to condemn the cuts which they themselves agreed upon when in office they carefully re- frain from any calls for action avoiding even the mention of mass demonstrations. All at- temtion is centered upon alternative schemes for balancing the Budget and on a General Elec- tions. Even so, despite their caution the labor lead- ers have embarked on’ a desperate gamble. They are cautiously fanning a fire in order to be able to put it out but they may be devoured by the flames. The General Council of the Trades Union *The immediate crisis of the pound sterling was, of course, largely engineered in order to create a panic feeling favorable to putting over the Economy Plan. But this was only done be- cause of the very real difficulties which the pound is bound to face later on, Congress has come right to the forefront in this situation and is in fact acting as the center of the Labor Party. The Trades Union Congress which opens at Bristol on September 7th, will be of vital importance. The T. U. C.’s proposals previously rejected by the Labor Cabinet now hold the field although the proposed revenue tariff has not yet been officially taken up by the Labor Party. The General Council pro- poses a tax on fixed interest-bearing securities, suspension of the sinking fund, mobilization of international investments, a revenue tariff and conversion loan. Most of the proposals will prob- ably be taken up by the “National” Government but not as alternatives to the Economy Plan. A conversion loan is favotably discussed in the “Times” and it is admitted by the Cabinet that next year’s budget will include proposals for new taxation. The suspension of the sinking fund is inevitable. The mobilization of the in- ternational investments has already begun and tariffs is the official policy of the Conservatives although it is too controversial an issue for the “Natiomal” Government to carry through. The General Council is concentrating all at- teation on how to balance the Budget in order to avoid the question of how to fight against the Economy Plan which the National Govern- ment is putting through at lightning speed. The alernative economy plans and the advice to wait until the next general election and then return a majority of Labor M.P.s is the sum total of the official Labor policy. In this situation the Communist Party is con- centrating on building up the united front of the workers behind the simple fighting slogans of: Not one penny off the “Dole.” Not one worker off Benefit! Not one penny off wages! . Not one penny off Teachers’ Salaries! Not one penny extra taxation on the People’s Food! Down with the “National” Government! Clearly this is the line of working class re- sistance. Those are the slogans that concen- trate the struggle on the real issues of working class resistance instead of the false scent of how to balance the Budget. The test of any trade union or labor leader who says he is in opposi- tion to the “National” Government is will he pledge himself to fight on this basis and having given the pledge actively help in the factories, or at the labor exchanges and on the streets, not in the sham opposition at Westminster. ¥ The Communist Party is not for one moment renouncing its basic revolutionary propaganda for the revolutionary way out of the crisis of | capitalism. Workers’ Dictatorship, the popular agitation for the repudiation of the War Debt and the placing of all burdens of the crisis on the shoulders of the capitalists and the cam- paign for the Workers’ Charter as the line of working class advance. But at the present mo- ment this is propaganda, not the slogans of action. The Communist Party and Minority Movement are endeavoring to express the fighting opposi- tion by every means in their power. By mass meetings and demonstrations resolutions in the trade union branches, local labor parties and co- operative societies, the lid is being lifted off the seething cauldron of discontent. Above all the drive is being made in the factories, mills and mines; at the labor exchanges the unemployed organization is being strengthened and broad- ened. The Party has not issued the slogan of strike action but urges the necessity of careful preparation. The fight against the Economy Plan and for the defense of the unemployed is bound up with the defense of wages and only strike action can prevent wage cuts. The wages fight is now on and will become ten times sharp- er in the near future. Cotton operatives, ship- yard workers, miners, dockers, furniture work- ers, etc., are all facing wage cuts and the prep- aration of strike action is a direct urgent quostion. The Party has avoided premature calls for the formation of committees of action because only as the mass agitation develops will it be pos- sible to elect united front committees, Charter committees and strike committees. Such pre- mature organizational steps could lead to isola- tion, especially as one of the outstanding tasks at the present moment is the work within the reformist unions and the winning of the dis- ‘contented membership for revolutionary mass struggle. Already there are many indications of the fighting mood of the masses. In Glasgow ten thousand workers ma¢ched through the streets in @ great demonstration in which the Commu- nist Party played a leading part, from 8. Wales, London, Dundee, Manchester and other great, H Haron KENTUCKY — Parerson COTTSBORG penaaomy te cate At By BURCK The Farmers’ Hunger March in St. Louis County, Minnesota By RUDOLPH HARJU ps the past few months special attention has been given by the Party in district 9 to the work among the poor farmers. Organiza- tion work with a limited. degree of success has been carried on among the poor farmers in the various sections of the Party. Many farmers’ local committees have been organized in Nor- thern Wisconsin, Upper Michigan and Northern Minnesota. However, the Mesaba Range Section has been the point of concentration and as a result of the organization work a delegate meet- ing of farmers from St. Louis county was held @n August 7, where it was decided to organize @ Hunger March to Duluth’to the county seat te present to the county Board of Commis- sioners demands for tax exemptions and other relief for poor farmers. It is no accident that it is the St. Louis coun- ty farmers that are organizing a Hunger March. The deepening of the capitalist crisis is being felt much more intensely by the St. Louis coun- ty than by many farmers in many other sec- tions of the Northwest. The St. Louis county farmers (also in many other counties of nor- thern Minnesota) are semi-proletarian in the true sense of the word. They have never been able to make their living out of the income of the farm. So long as there were timber, so long as the iron mines were running on a more or less stable schedule and so long as work on the state and county highways was in progress, the farmers were able to get along from day to day without much difficulty. But the post-war capitalism and more recently the capitalist crisis has profoundly changed the conditions. Most of the timber has been exhausted, the roads have been built and the iron mining industry is at a stand still. Thus all the outside income for the St. Louis county farmers have been com- Pletely cut off. Also the formerly meager income that the farmers have had from their farms, have been diminished to almost nothing with declining prices of farm products. The system of robbery and exploitation has effected the poor farmers of this section of the stage both ways, going and coming. The unemployment has aggravated the situation of the declining prices and therefore it has driven the St. Louis county farmers into a predicament that they must either organize themselves for struggle or starve in the midst of plenty. In addition to the falling of prices of farm products and the unemployment situation that has made the lot of the farmers from bad to worse, there is the constantly increasing burden of farm mortgages, inter and climbing taxes that is driving the farm masses of St. Louis county against the wall. The farmers have been’ aware of this condition for years, but they have tried to escape it with ventures, ineffective pro- ducers and marketing co-operatives. ‘There is hardly a hamlet or community of any impor- tance in the entire county where there isn’t some sort of co-operative venture. Of course, during the post-war period of capitalism the farmers really thought they were getting sub- stantial benefits from such activity. The fact of the matter is, however, that it las only pro- longed the coming of the acute condition that the vast mass of farmers are in today, The preaching of this illusion of farmers saving themselves from ruin thru whatever kind of ¢o-operation has tended to detach the farm- ers’ attention from the real problems, Nothing has been said about mortgages, interests and the rising taxes. This, of course, has been deliber- ately done by the petit-bourgeoisie. Now, how- ever, after the farmer has reached the end of centers splendid mass meetings and demonstra- tions are being held and resolutions from these meetings and trade union branches are pouring into the “Daily Worker.” The working class is aroused and the Communist Party has now very favorable opportunities to entrench _ itself amongst the masses and to lead forward the growing movement against the “National” Goy- ernment, But this is a careful and serious task involving a painstaking exposure of the role of the Social Fascist leaders who have regained considerable popularity and are cunningly en- deavoring to confuse and break up the mass movement. a aad t rege the rope, he is compelled by a sheer force of circumstance to think about these matters. The poor farmer is today face to face with the ever increasing mortgage problem, interest burden and the continually rising tax question. He can no longer escape these facts. Foreclosures, sheriff sales and evictions are staring him in the face. Already actual starvation exists in many parts of the county. Misery is rampant and suffering is increasing among the poorest strata of farm- ers at a rapid tempo. It is therefore no ac- cident that farmers in such circumstances will begin to respond to a program of struggle as expounded in the agrarian program of our Party. A Hunger March Of St. Louis county farmers has been organized to take place September 21. Much preparatory work has been done by the farmers’ St. Louis County Committee. Many meetings have been held and many more will be held until the Hunger March, Monday, Septem- ber 21, Also thousands of leaflets will be. dis- tributed explaining the program of struggle and the importance of the Hunger March, It is ex- pected that several thousand farmers will par- ticipate in the Hunger March as a result of the preparatory work that is being done. The Dis- trict Buro and particularly the Mesaba Range Section Committee have been in the forefront of this movement from the very beginning. With- out the Party guidance the work that has al- ready been done would have been impossible. ‘While much energy is being expended to make the Farmer Hunger March a success, it is by no means considered to be an end in itself. The comrades and the farmers are generally aware of the fact that the Hunger March can only be a beginning of the work in the countryside. Un- less we are able to build an organization of farmers (local Committees of Action) as a re- sult of the Hunger March our efforts will have been wasted. And for, this reason preparations are already being made for an intense campaign of organization among the farmers as a follow- up for the Hunger March. But in the mean- time every bit of energy is devoted to the pre- parations for the September 21 Hunger Marclr to Duluth. District, Section and Unit Literature Agents See that you are supplied at once with the following literature for current campaigns: Work or Wages, by Grace M. Burnham Social Insurance, by Grace M. Burnham History of May Day, by Alexander Trach- tenberg Race Hatred on Trial ' Graft and Gangsters, by Harry Gannec Lynching Negro Children in Southern Courts, by Joseph North Little Brothers of the Big Labor Fakers by William Z. Foster The Frame Up System, by Vern Smith Tom Mooney Betrayed by Labor Leaders Youth In Industry, by Grace Hutchins No Jobs Today, by Phil Bard Life In the U. S. Army, by Walter Trumbull i For the UNEMPLOYMENT CAMPAIGN Fight Against Hunger Out of a Job, by Earl Browder 20,000,000 Unemployed 50,000,000 Unemployed Also Work or Wages and Social Insurance Cs Sige 10 10 10 10 10 05, 05, 10 10 10 05 10 05, 05 10 05, For the ELECTION CAMPAIGN Why Every Worker Shuld Join the Com- munist Party The Heritage of Gene Debs, by Alexander Trachtenberg 10, American Working Women and the Class Struggle 05 Revolutionary Struggle Against War vs. Pacifism, by Alex Bittelman 05 Also your local Election Platforms, “Out of a Job”, “Fight Against Hunger”, “Graft and Gangsters”, “Race Hatred on Trial”, “Lynching Negro Children In Southern Courts”, “Work or Wages”, “Social In- * = es _ FROM EDITOR | TO READER Some of our readers who have formed Daily Worker Clubs have struck a knot or two. And some knots have been, so to speak, thrust upon them, In some places where there has been Red Builders Clubs, the question has arisen: What shall the Red Builders do? We must admit that in some places that has been settled by “letting nature take its course,” that is, the unemployed who were the main “membership” of the Red Builders club, simply migrated, skeedaddled, vamoosed; even before the Daily Worker club was thought of. In fact one of the heartbreaks of Daily Worker agents has been in part, the job of trying to keep the Red Butllders clubs alive. Quite naturally, too. Unemployed workers want work, first of all, and selling Daily Workers is, although it may help them a bit and they do a good job with every paper sold, no solution of their requirements. And naturally if a job or the rumor of a job is heard from afar, off they go to see if they can get it. Thus Red Builders clubs cave in one after an- other, as the supporting timber simply walks off, or grabs a freight for points south in search of the elusive job. In some (but not all) cases, what is left—if anything—is not the material that is interested in building the Daily Worker or any kind of club that is an auxilliary to class struggle. There are some very active comrades, however, who take things seriously, who are out all day building up, maintaining and extending their Daily Worker carrier route, who keep exact ac- count of papers received, delivered and paid for, who are in every sense of the term, on the job. These Red Builders really build something and make a modest income from their routes. But, it is perhaps not strange to say, these best of Red Builders rarely find time to hang around the Red Builders club office as some do for endless hours. We figure that any Red Builders or Red Builder clubs who are really interested in build- ing the Daily Worker, will and by right ought to be a part of the Daily Worker Clubs, which are differently and more broadly based in that they are not formed of unemployed workers only, have many other aims besides selling our paper, and are interested mainly in spreading the influence of the Daily Worker because of what it fights for. Those comrades who have been real Red Builders should, therefore, merge themselves and their organization in the broader and better based Daily Worker Clubs. They ought to be the leaders of what we might call the “sales department” of the Daily Worker Club, the members of which can help them greatly, and be helped by them, in getting papers to the spots where they are not only in demand, but most needed. A workers’ correspondence group, which should be a part of every Daily Worker Club, can, with the help of tue “sales department” of the club, cooperate effectively in getting letters from fac- tories into the paper and having the paper sold at the factory gates to workers who will be aroused by seeing something in the Daily about their own shop. The membership of the Club can turn in a contfhual stream of addresses for any comrade who can ‘ake care of a carrier route to develop into subscribers, TheArmy of Women Workers Grows By GRACE HUTCHINS If a parade of 11,000,000 women workers should march from daylight to dark, 10 abreast, with each line only 2 seconds behind another, the lines would take 50 days to pass a given point. And there are’ now, acording to the Census of 1930, about 11,000,000 women workers in the United States. While the percentage of men workers has gone steadily down in the last 30 years, (from 80 per cent in 1905 to 76 per cent in 1930 of all men over 10 years old) the percentage of women workers has been going steadily up. From 5,300, 000 women workers in 1900, representing 18.8 per cent of all women over 10 years old, the numbers have doubled to 10,800,000, represent- ing 22.1 per cent of all women in 1930, Two out of every nine workers are women. Two out of every nine women in the population work for a living. And 23,000,000 other women work as housewives without wages. : Of these 1,000,000 working women, the largest number, 3,100,000 or 29 per cent are in domestic and personal service; 2,400,000 or 22 per cent are in manufacturing and mechanical industries; 1,700,000 or about 16 per cent are in professional service, mainly teaching; and 1,700,000 or 16 per cent are in trade. “Women Come Cheaper.” Why has the percentage of men workers gone down, while the percentage of women workers goes up? The Census Bureau does not inter- pret its figures, but the working class can inter- pret them. “Women come cheaper,” and the boss class fires men only to hire women at lower wages. Hundreds of examples could be given of this favorite device of employers. Now comes the Census to prove in cold figures what workers have seen happening in every industry—women have been replacing men. During the imperialist war, 1914-18, it took 5% pages of close, small type in a government report, merely to list in paragraph form the pro- cesses in which women were actually substitutes for men. Their job ranged from blast furnaces and steel works to logging camps and saw mills, But women workers have been more backward than men in organizing to sec-re better condi- ditions. At most a bare 200,000—only 2 per cent— of these working women are yet organized. American Federation of Labor unions have been notoriously hostile to the organization of women workers. Left wing unions have made a good beginning toward organizing the unorganized, but it is still only a beginning. One of the most important demands in the 1931 Election Platform of the Communist Party is “Equal Pay for Equal Work for Male and Female Workers. The Communist Party is by no means against women working in industry, But it calls on the workers to fight the harmful effects of industrial work on women and to struggle for the adequate protection of working women, Only a Communist society can lift the double burden of housekeeping and factory work froma tha roman of #8 working BR he i