The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 15, 1932, Page 4

Doss Vy vasanad, ary Dusen, PDA, Idua 1d, Lovd Published by the Comprodaily Publishing Co., Inc., daily excxept Sun 13th St., New York City, N. ¥. Telephone ALgonquin 4 Cabl Address and mail checks to the Daily Worker, 50 E. 13th . Cal St., New York, N. ¥. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $8; two months, $1; excepting Yporough of Manhattan and Bronx, New York. City. Foreign: one year, $85 six months, $4.50. Shielding Treasury Raids YY MUTUAL agreement between President Hoover and the leading Democrats in congress the proposed quiz of the affairs of the Recon- struction Finance Corporation has been postponed until atfer the presi- dential elections in November. Both the ruling parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, are so implicated in the pillaging of the tes treasury to aid the big capitalists, while denying relief to ed, hungry masses, that they dare not air it during this came Tt is doubtful if the real facts of this scandalous raid will ever to light. s known, however, to show that for high-pressure looting of e short history of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation by itself, and shows the increasing degeneration of the whole this corporation its ex-chairman Charles G. Dawes, former vice-president of the U. S., obtained $80,000,000 to bolster up the shaky ture of his Chicago banking concerns. This was just $30,000,000 nore that then was set aside for the whole farming population of the country. ‘oads were beneficiaries of this corporation at the same mo- f railroad workers were being savagely slashed; the New Central receiving $17,999,000 the first week; the Illinois Central ed $11,000,000; the Milwaukee road got $8,000,000; other oads ob- ned loans totalling $213,882,724. The “corporation” did not stop loans when it had exhausted the half billion dollars; it continued handing out money from the treasury until it had granted loans amounting to $642,- 789,313 to banks alone. The total to banks, railroads, industries, was more than one billion dollars in three months’ time. And out of this enormous sum not one cent went to aid the un- d; not one cent went to aid any impoverished farmer. Instead, in to pay for these treasury raids taxes on necessaries of life are aris- ing, there ‘s a one cent tax on gasoline, postage has increased to three ce for an ordinary letter, wage cuts in the federal service are con- tinuing It is typical of the whoie record of Green, president of the A. F. of L. that, at a time when every effort was being made by the politicians to cover up their pillaging to aid the rich, this misleader of ‘workes should come forth in an atempt to whitewash the whole Reconstruction Finance Cor- por n swindle, Said Green at the Atlantic City session of the A. F. of L. executive council: “The masses of the people might have benefitted in- directly from the work of the corporation with the banks. The demand for immediate unemployment relief and for unemploy- ment and social insurance at the expense of the government and employ- ers it-met by savage attacks aaginst the mass movements of the unem- ployed. The sol ’ bonus demands are turned down flat. The high officials of the gove ike Hoover and the American Federation of Labor officials like Gr and Woll tell us that unemployment relief would be a “blow at the self-respect of the workers.” It is all right for the capitalists through their republican and democratic office holders to carry out a conspiracy to pillage the treasury so they can continue to pay enormous dividends and draw colossal salaries for railroad presidents, bank officials, etc., but when workers demand jobs or bread—that is de- grading. Against such hypocrisy, against such thievery, the workers and farm- ers must form their united front to stop the billion dollar subsidies to trusts and banks and force appropriations for unemployment insurance. In connection with the mighty mass struggles against imperialist war, in connection with the August First demonstrations, huge numbers of workers and farmers can and will be aroused to fight against a govern- ment that gives billions to the rich while starving the poor. A Fascist Hero 'ALVATORE ARENA, one of the gangsters in the Duce Fascist Alliance who was killed on July 4th on Staten Island, is a fascist hero. Mus- solini’s ambassador, Giacomo de Martino, journeyed from Washington to personally attend the funeral. He was accompanied by Mussolini’s counsul general in New York, Dr. Emanuele Grazzi. Protected by a horde of police a spectacular fascist ritual was staged, after which the dead fascist was taken to an ocean liner to be transported to Italy where another fascist funeral is to be staged. This fascist who was one of the leaders of the alliance named after Mussolini, who was prominent in the fascist-led organization known as the Bons of Italy, and who was sheltered by the police power of this coun- try, had a long underworld and gangster record as a notorious criminal. Not the least of his exploits was participation in the hold-up of the Hosh)lega Bank money-car—$150,000 hold-up near Montreal, Canada, in April 1924. It was, of course, eminently fitting that the blood-streaked Mussolini and his flunkeys in this country should glorify Salvatore Arens). Not only does the exposure of the record of Arena throw an illumi- tiatiny; light upon the character and activities of the Italian fascist gangs In this country. It also brings out clearly the despicable role played by the United States government, which encourages the activity of these fas- cists—a government that refuses to recognize the workers’ and peasants’ government of the Soviet Union, but which welcomed the agents of the murder regime in Italy. The same government that shields these fascist crimnials is, through the medium of Doak’s department of labor, carrying on the most vicious deportation drive against foreign-born anti-fascist workers. The same government that attacks foreign-born workers who fight against the cap- italist hunger and war drive, protects bands of organized criminals. If, on ogcassion, Doak’s blood-hounds pick up some petty gangster it is only in pursuit of the policy of the American capitalist class of pro- tecting the big racketeers and aiding them eliminate competition from the smaller fry. This case is another illustration of how fascism is being fostered by the ruling power of this country, of how increasingly violent attacks are being prepared and carried out aaginst the working class. The rank and file Italian workers in the United States should not allow this exposure to go by without the most resolute protest. On the broadest basis a mass fight enlisting the rank and file workers in such organizations as the Sons of Italy in united front, activities against the Mussolini henchmen should be taken up. Above all this fight must be combined with the all-important struggle against the suppression of workers’ rights and against all forms of capitalist terror. Letters from Our Readers Fe til Field for HOBOREN spent Hard ‘Workers ‘n | Hoboken, N. J. Election Campaign Dear Editor:— A family was dispossessed in this city on July 5 at 132 Park Ave. The We are now canvassing upstate New York for signatures to put our Party on the ballot. Everywhere we have gone, in the Catskills, in the Adirondacks, along the Hudson, in father of this family has been out of work for the past year or so and owed |16 months rent. There are six child- |ren in the family, all of school age. |The furniture was thrown into the jyard by the city marshel. Harry Barck, the overseer of the city poor, refused their place for help, Where is the Unemployed Council of Hobokoen? —A new reader of the Daily Worker. of New York State that we covered. From what I read, I gather the same farming territories, city slums, vaca- tion resorts—we have found unem- ployment, hunger, bankruptcy, hatred and contempt for the boss govern- ment. One socialist in Hudson who has voted the socialist ticket for several decades said that he was goin to vote a straight Communist ticket for the first time. We found many sym- pathizers in out-of-the-way farms and towns who read our literature. But we also found many that never neard of us or heard nothing but "slander. All this we found in the small pass | thing is true of the entire country. We must have more forces to utilize this radicalization of the American masses, Are we working as fast and as hard as we should? Are we cor- recting our mistakes? Only imme- diate results can answer. + A Young Workes, THE PIRATE SHIP For a Popular-Mass Daily Worker (ephe Daily Worker must be made , a Communist mass paper through a radical change in and through a radical change in and improvement of its content, (Reso- lution of the C. C. Plenum.) Since the Plenum of the Central Com- mittee, the spokesman of our Party, the Daily Worker, has changed. An improvement in the content of the Daily Worker from the standpoint of a popular revolutjon- try paper is gradually being no- ticed. Those of us who have a little ex- perience in shop work will agree that the Daily Worker has a tre- mendous inflifence among the workers. Why then is it that the circulation of the Daily Worker does not correspond with this in- fluence? e A few facts will answer the ques- tion, showing that the Daily Worker can increase its circulation and be- come popular when we present in details the living conditions of the workers. Increasing the Circulation. The Daily Worker was not, known among the workers around the em- ployment agencies in Sixth Ave. A comrade was assigned to sell the paper and was requested to write articles about the conditions in the agencies. The workers reading the article on how the Gyp Agencies mislead a worker with a fake job, in an organized manner demanded thereturn of the money. At pres- ent about 100 copies of the Daily | are being sold every day; at the same time meetings and discussions are being held about the Union and the Daily Worker. An article appeared on a wage- cut in a certain factory; 22 copies were sold. One hundred anq thirty-eight copies were sold in one place on account of the little cartoon of the Sharkey-Schmeling fight, June 23. Some workers complain that the editorials and the fourth page (which has been improved recently) cannot be understood without a dictionary, that it is not written in plain enough American lan- guage, enabling the average Amer- ican worker to understand the po- litical events which concern him in his own language, in the way he speaks, without too much philoso- phy and too heavy “theoretical” expressions. What a Worker Thinks of the Daily. A worker from a plumbing shop was asked: What is wrong with the Daily Worker? The answer was: “Too dry, too many hard- ships and misery; after work I want to read something that would enable me to understand why I have so many hardships and mis- ery in my life.” How did you like the interview by Ludwig with Stalin? “Very good, splendid.” All these facts are not new, but they are very important. More and more popular articles by the workers from the shops, trade unions and mass organiza- tions which reflect the life and struggles of the workers, will make the Daily Worker a real mass paper. This can be achieved only then, when our paper gets closer to the masses. How can we achieve this task? “The struggle against American imperialism, its war preparations and intervention plans must be thecenter of the every-day work of the Party among the masses; in the factories, trade unions, in strikes, among the unemployed, w-sasaaciaaaaaatiiasiaalaaiLL UU QQRAAAAAAAAAAARAAARA ALMA MAMMA Party, Unions and Mass Organizations Musts tionaries within the trade unions Come Closer to Daily Negroes, youth and women.” (From the C. C. Resolution.) The Daily Worker must follow precisely the same thing, if it is to become a Communist mass paper. The Daily and the Unions, The Trade Union Unity League does not consider the Daily Worker as the paper for building up the revolutionary trade unions. In fact we hardly find a single article of the life and activities of our revolutionary trade unions. Leading comrades from trade unions and mass organizations com- plain that the Daily Worker does not print the articles and notices sent in by them. Consequently the Daily Worker becomes a paper for @ narrow circle of leading func- Hoover’s Wage Cutting Policy (This article, prepared by La- bor Kesearch Association, is a factual review of the wage-cut- ting program now so widespread in the United States and support- ed by the Republican and Demo- cratic Parties. It is well to re- member, while reading this ar- ticle, that Negro and foreign born workers are even more affected by this program than white na- tive born workers. Plank 2 in the Communist Party Platform is “Against Hoover's wage-cutting Policy,” and Plank 1 is for “Un- employment and Social Insurance at the expense of the state and employers.”) crise Sigg HEN President Hoover, on June 30, 1932, signed the bill cutting Salaries of Federal employees by 8 1-3 per cent, he proved again that his policy is one of wage-cutting and that he believes in throwing the burden of the economic crisis on the workers. On November 21, 1929, he and the nation’s leading industrialists, with American Fed- eration of Labor and Railroad Brotherhood officials, entered into a “gentlemen's agreement” that there should be no wage-cutting “during the present situation.” This agree- ment was openly broken in Sep- tember, 1931, without a word of pro- test from the White House, when United States Steel Corp. and Beth- lehem Steel Corp., followed quickly by other companies, announced a ten per cent cut affecting all their, employees. Hoover Takes Lead President Hoover himself has now broken the agreement by requiring Federal employees to take one month’s forced “vacation” without pay. He is personally credited with | pushing through this particular measure, which was adopted, ac- cording to newspaper reports, “at the insistence of the President.” This economy bill was amended especially to include the lower paid. employees earning only $1,000 a year or $83.33 a months, although as first proposed it provided exemption for immediately raised in the daily press, Just what was meant by Hoover's statement given to the newspapers after the conference on November 21, 1929? He said: “The President is authorized to announce that the employers will not initiate any movement for wage reduction and it is their strong recommendation that this attitude should be pursued by the country as a whole.” Former Secretary of Labor, James J. Davis, who had been present at the conference, immediately ex- plained for his chief, through the press, that “the gentlemen’s under- standing” was only for a fixed per- iod, but he “could not recall how Jong that period was to be,” al- though nothing had been stated after the conference about any def- inite time limit on the agreement, Wage Cutting Became General During the year immediately fol- Jowing the White House conference, an average reduction of ten per cent for 54 manufacturing industries, with a 20 per cent drop in wages of automobile workers, was reported by the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statis- tics. By the end of 1931, wage cuts had become practically universal, the reductions ranging from ten per cent to 55 per cent and more, ‘The sharpest cut recorded as taken by any union was the reduction of | 40 per cent to 55 per cent accepted by the American Federation of Full- Fashioned Hosiery Workers, affil- iated with the United Textile Work- ers and the American Federation of Labor. Three out of four of all concerns in the leading fields of American business cut wage rates during 1930 and 1931, according to a specia? study of the National Industrial Conference Board, and the reduc- tions averaged 13.9 per cent. The survey covers 1,718 concerns, em- Ploying 3,258,666 persons in 1929. ‘This report may be taken as a con- Servative statement of the cuts in wage rates, and it does not include any statement of the reduction in the workers’ total earnings. Seek Further Cuts 7 cal payrolls of 89 manufactir- * 4 industries dropped from an in- “ex of 104.8 in May, 1929, to 44.7 all those earning less than $2,500 @ year. The reduction, as now put through, affects about 600,000 gov- ernment workers, whcost average wage is $1,441 a year. Moreoy~w, under this new law, the workey ‘ases his 15 days’ annual vacaty.a with pay, as formerly provided, and thus suffers a further regction. Not only has President Hoover uttered no word that wou'd call a halt in the general slashing of wages, but he let it be known in in April, 1932, according to the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In other words, these industries are now paying less than half the total amounts paid to wage earners be- fore the crisis; and the trend con- tinues downward. The employers and their econ- omic advisers, such as the Standard September, 1931, that he “has no intention of decrying or objecting Statistics Corporation, contend that wages must be further “deflated,” to the cuts that have been an- | and interrupted propaganda for nounced.” So clearly did the ac- | more cuts enamates from sources tion of the U. S. Steel Corp, in its | close to the White House. The ten per cent wage cut, break, the | Democratic bosses are equally fa- promises made at the White House | vorable to wage cutting although conference that the question was ' not so open in their advocacy, and mass organizations. Urgent Tasks. All these questions cannot be solved by simply giving orders or passing goog resolutions, Definite work must be done. First, the Party down to the units must assume the full responsibility for the Daily Worker, seeing to it that able comrades are elected for the Daily Worker Committees un- der the direct supervison of the District, Section and Unit Buros. ‘We must extend the Daily Worker Committees in the localities with non-Party workers. Second, the trade unions and mass organizations are to be drawn nearer by involving them into di- rect participation. Actives and Press Committees are to be estab- lished in all these organizations and they must be closely connected with the Daily Worker. Regular meetings and discussions on the content of the Daily Worker are to be held. Build Worker Correspondents, The most important question is to build the Worker Correspondents. A net of groups of worker corre- spondents can be built up within a short time, providing the Party, trade unions and mass organiza- tions will be brought nearer to the Daily Worker and the Daily Worker ; Will begin to reflect all their strug- gles. A large Press Commission, com- posed of all these actives and | worker correspondents for exam- ining and improving daily the con- tent from the standpoint of shop conditions, trade unions, mass -or- ganizations and neighborhoods. will improve the Daily Worker. ? ‘Through such method we will be able to bring the Daily Worker to the shop workers and the workers to the Daily Worker. Then the Daily Worker will become a mass and popular paper of and by the workers, International Notes ALLEGED COMMUNIST SENTENCED IN WARSAW WARSAW, Poland.—A number of individuals, many of whom_ were | former officials and employees of the Polish Supreme Court, were tried in Warsaw on charges of having con- ducted Communist activity and being members of the illegal Communist Party. The trial lasted over a week. Ter- rible details were revealed of the brutal treatment accorded to the accused while in prison. One of them was sentenced to six years of hard labor; two were con- demned to four years and two more to three years. Others were acquitted. H eer et PEASANTS REVOLTED AGAINST FORCED AUCTION BERLIN.—The whole peasant pop- ulation of Goebriéhen, near Pforz- heim, and the countryside mobilized to protest against the attempt to auction the chattel of a peasant un- able to pay his debts. A large police force tried to clear the crowd away but the indignation of the working population was so high that the police had to be with- drawn. Seven arrests were made, ; however. In the evening the police entered the village again, opening fire on the Population to break its resistance. Five were wounded as a result of this, The workers fought back the police. Installment Six Position In 1917 When in 1917 Lenin on his ar- rival in Russia published his theses, I thought that by these theses he was sacrificing to the Russian peas- antry the small but heroic band of Politically educated workers and all the genuine revolutionaries of the intelligentsia. The single active force in Russia would, I thought, be thrown like a handful of salt into the vapid bog of the village life, and would dissovle without leaving any trace, would be sucked down without effecting any change in the mind, lift or history of wie Russian people. The professional intelligentsia, in general, the scien- tists and technicians, were, from my point of view, revolutionaries by nature, and this socialist intelli- gentsia, together with the workers, were for me the most precious force stored up in Russia and any other force capable of taking power, and organizing the village, I did not see in 1917. But only on con- dition of complete inner unity could this force, numerically in- significant and split by contradic- tions, fulfill its role. Before them stood a tremendous task—to bring order into the anarchy of the vil- Jage, to discipline the mind of the peasant, teach him to work ration- ally, to reorganize his economy, and by ail these means to make the country progress. All this could only be achieved by subject- ing the instincts of the village to the reason of the town. The pri- mary task of the revolution I con- sidered to be the creation of the conditions which would lead to the development of the cultural forces of the country. To this end I of- fered to construct in Capri a school for workers, and in the years of reaction, from 1907 to 1913, tried as much as I could to raise the spirits of. the workers by every pos- sible method. With this end in view immediately after the Febru- ary revolution there was organized the “Free Association for the De- velopment and Spread of Positive Science,” an institution which aimed on the one hand, at organ- izing in Russia scientific research institutions, and on the other, at a broad and continuous populariza- tion of scientific and technical knowledge among the workers. At the head of the Association were the eminent scientists and mem- bers of the Academy of Sciences, V. A. Steklov, L. A, Tchugayev, Acadefician Fersman, S. P. Ko- stytchev, A. A. Petrovsky, and a number of others. The means were being got together with great en- ergy; S. P. Kostytchev had already begun to look for a place for the Institute of Zoological and Botan- ical Research. In order to make myself quite clear I will add that all my . life, the depressing effect of the pre- valency of the illiteracy of the vil- lage on the town, the indivjdual- ism of the peasants, and their al- most ‘complete lack of the social emotions had weighed heavily on my spirits. The dictatorship of the politically enlightened workers, in close conaection with the scientific and technical intelligentsia, was in my opinion, the only possible solution to a difficult situation which the war had made espe- cially complicated by rendering the village still more anarchical. I dif- fered from. the Communists on the question of the value of the role of the intelligentsia in the Russian Revolution, which had been pre- pared by this same intelligentsia to which belonged all the Bolshe- viks who had educated hundreds of workers in the spirit of social heroism and genuine intellectuali- ty. The Russian intelligentsia—the scientific and professional intelli- gentsia, I thought, had always been, was still, and would long be the only beast of burden to drag along the heavy load of Russian history. In spite of all shocks and impulses and stimulation which it Tra experienced, the mind of the masses of the people had remained a force still in need of leadership from without. “Let the Reader Know My Mistake” So I thought thirteen years ago —and was mistaken. This page of my reminiscences should be torn out, But “what has been written by the pen cannot be cut down by the axe”; and “we learn by our mistakes” as V. Ilyitch often re- peated. Let the reader know my mistake. It will have done some good if ‘4 serves as a warning to those who are inclined to draw hasty conclusions. Of course after @ series of cases of the most dis-, spicable sabotaging by a number of specialists, I had no alternative but to change my attitude to the sci- entific and technical professionals. Such changes cost something—es- pecially in old age. The duty of true-hearted leaders of the people 4s superhumanly difficult. A leader who is not in one degree or other a tyrant, is impossible, More peo- ple, probably, were killed under Lenin than under Thomas Munzer; but without this, resistance to the revolution of which Lenin was the leader would have been more wide- ly and more powerfully organized, In addition to this we must take into account the fact that with the development of civilization the val- ue of human life manifestly depre- Days with Lenin BY MAXIM GORKY clates, a fact which is clearly prove ed by the growth of contemporary, Europe of the technique of annihf- lating people, ¥and the taste for doing so, I challenge anyone to say franke ly, how far he approves of, and how far is he revolted by, the hypo= crisy of the moralists who talk about the bloodthirstiness of the Russian Revolution when they not only showed no pity for the people who were exterminated during the four years of the infameus Pan- European War, but by all possible means fanned the flame of this abominable war to “the victorious end”, Today the “civilized” nations are ruined, exhausted, decaying, and vulgar petty bourgeois philis- inism which is common to all races reigns triumphant, there is no es- cape from its halter and people are being strangled to death. Much has been said and written about Lenin’s cruelty. I have no intention, of course, of doing any= thing so ridiculously tactless as to defend him against lies and cale umny. I know that lying and slan- dering is a legitimate method in petty bourgeois politics, a usual way of attacking an enemy. It would be impossible to find a single great man in the world today who has not had some mud thrown at him, This is known to everybody. Besides this, there is a tendency in all ‘people not only to reduce an outstanding man to the level of their own comprehension, but to roll him beneath their feet in the viscid noisome mud which they, have created and call “every day life.” An Incident. ‘The following incident is for m@ repulsively memorable. In 1919 there was a congress in Petersburg of “the village poor”, From the vil- lages in the north of Russia came several thousands of peasants, some hundreds of whom were housed in the Winter Palace of the Romanovs. When the congress was over, and these people had gone away, it appeared that not only alk the baths of the palace, but also a great number of priceless Sevres, Saxon and oriental vases had been befouled by them for lavatory use. This had not been done because of ~ any need, the lavatories of the pal- ace were in good order and the water system working. No, this vandalism was an expression of the desire to sully and debase things of beauty. Two revolutions and a war have supplied me with hundreds of cases of this lurking, vindictive tendency in people, to smash, de= form, ridicule and defame the beautiful, It must not be thought that the conduct of the Village Poor was emphasized by me be- cause of my sceptical attitude to the peasants. This is not the case. This malicious desire to deface things of exceptional beauty is fundamentally the same as the odi- ous tendency to vilify an excepe tional man. Anything exceptional prevents people from living as they want to live. People long, if they have any longings, not for any fundamental change in their so- cial habits, but to acquire addie tional habits. The gist of the walle, ing and complaining of the mae Jority is, “Do not interfere with the way of living to which we are ac« customed!” Vladimir Lenin was @ man who knew better than anys one else how to prevent people from leading the life to which they were accustomed. The hatred, of the world bourgeoisie for him is nakedly and repellently manifest, the livid plague spot of it shows unmistakably, Disgusting in itself, this hatred yet tells us how greag and terrible in the eyes of the world bourgeoisie is Vladimir Les nin, the inspirer and leader of the proletarians of the whole world. His physical body no longer exists, but his voice sounds ever louder | and more triumphantly in the ears \ of the workers of the’ earth, and § already there is no corner of it where this voice does not rouse the will of the people to revolu- tion, to the new life, to the creae tion of a world of equal people. With ever growing confidence, strength and success do those who were the pupils of Lenin and are now the inheritors of his power, carry on the great. work, Lenin’s Youthfui Eagerness. It was the clearly expressed wilt to live in him, his active hatred of life's abominations, which attract- ed me to him. I loved the youthful eagerness which he put into everys thing he did. His movements were light and agile, and his rare but powerful gestures were jn full hare mony with his speech, sparing as | it was in words, in thought / abounding; and on his slightly ~~ Mongolian face glowed and spar- kled the keen eyes of a tireless fighter against the lies and sore Tows of life—now glowing and burning, now screwed up, now blinking, now ironically smiling, now lashing with anger. The gleam of his eyes made his words more glowing. Sometimes it seemed as if the indomitable energy of his soul © flew out in sparks through his eyes, and his words, shot through and through with it, hung shining in the air, 1s words always gave one the impression of the physica Pressure of an irresistible truth, iy