The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 24, 1932, Page 4

Page Four DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, MONDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1932 aily Central SUBSCRIPTION BATES: By mail hee: Owe year, $6; six months, 33; twe months, #feugh of Maahatian aud Bronx, New York City. Persign: 38_per year: 75 cents ner month. Stop Wall Street’s Wars in South America MPERIALIST war has leaped from the Far East across the Pacific to the Western Hemisphere. Its flames devour the peoples of four countries and will embrace an entire conti- nent if the American working class is not quickly aroused to action. ‘Two wars are going on in South America: Between Bo- livia and Paraguay and between Colombia and Peru. Both wars are fomented and supported by American and British mperialism through their puppet govenments. The wars in South America are part of the series of im- perialist was now going on in the Far East—the war of Japan upon the Chi people, the invasion of Manchuria, lism upon the Indian masses; m upon the peoples of Africa erica are part of © bring into their par- olonial nations as opulations reser- preliminary en- non fodder These wars are dvected—and here there is no conflict. between and British imperialism—against the working the South American countries who, f unemployment, pov and hunger are and its capitalist-landlord-militarist evolution and the overthrow of im- in the interests of imperialism, is governments. 1 perialism and its governments, fomented By the formation of so-called “neutral” groups of countries sup- porting the aims of one or the other imperialist powers the basis is being laid in South America for a war involving every country on the South American continent; and, since the Panama Canal and the whole Carib- bean area is the military center of the struggle between American and y Mexico and Central America also. The im- ound and drive the subject peoples to wars ter x without war” confirmation of the he Executive Committee of the critical war situa- analysis of th of the Communist tion in the Far East [Ez us look for a moment at some of the economic interests underlying the conflicts in South America between Yankee end Briti tialism which, as part of the struggle for ‘world hegemony the additional scourge of war to peoples already suffering unspeakable miseries a result of the c italist crisis Bolivia and Paraguay are at war. That is to say ments of these countries have mobilized the toiling that the govern- pulation to slaugh- ter one another for the American and British overlords. Paraguay is in the sphere of British influence, It is economically dominated by Great Britain and Argentina—Britain’s principal base in South America. Para- guay’s government debi is held largely by British banks and Argentine capital dominates the commercial, agricultural and pastoral enterprises. Including the Chaco district, in which there are id to be large oil deposits, and for the possession of which’ the Bol n-Paraguayan war nominally is being waged, Paraguay has a total area of only 196,000 square miles. Its importanve in the present imperialist conflict is strategic rather than economic. Bolivia, on the other hand, is dominated by American capital with investments totalling $135,000,000 as against $13,000,000 of British capital. Of vital importance to American imperialism is that in addition to the rubber industry—in the rest of the world practically a British-Dutch monopoly—Bolivia has the only large tin mines outside of Great Britain and British spheres of influence like the Dutch East Indies. American companies have monopolized Bolivian tin properties. If there are large oil reserves in the disputed Chaco area the imme- diate object of American imperialism in driving the Bolivian masses to war for this fever-ridden jungle is to prevent their being. added to British imperialism’s oil reserves in the Western hemisphere, with a direct out- let to the Atlantic through British-controlled territory. war between Colombia and Peru is an extension of the bitter struggle of American and British imperialism for domination of Peru. Colombia is a principality of American imperialists. America investments in Co- lambia, mainly in oil, amount to $260,000,000 as against British invest- ments of $38,000,000. American interests own the platinum mines of Colombia—the only important deposits of platinum outside of the Soviet Union and which now produce 25 per cent of the world’s supply. (Platinum is indispensable for certain chemical. processes—notably in the manufacture of high ex- plosives—and is used in magnetoes for airplane motors.) It is a war metal of the highest importance, In Peru, however, American and British investments are almost equal. American capital has a total investment of $151,000,000, Great Britain a total of $141,000,000. In addition, in 1925 Italian capital had invested $40,000,000, Germany $22,000,000, and France $10,000,000. le for the control of the vast mineral re- nment Peru is therefore a mar ided one as evidenced by the complicated m: vers resulting in civil war that have taken place in the last three years. ‘The Peruvian masses are overwhelmingly native Indian stock. Only 600,000 of the population of 0,000 are whites. The workers and ex- ploited agrarian popt risen a number of times against the government in recent yea both«British, American and other im- perialist interests have united in the bloody suppression of these mass uprisings. Peru possesses 92 per cent of the world’s supply of Vanadium—a metal far superior to tungsten for hardening and toughening steel. It is now used extensively in autom in the manufacture of high speed machine tools—and in armorplate. American interests have a monopoly of Peru’s vanadium mines and deposits. American interests own the im- mense and rich copper mines and deposits. British interests on the other hand operate 1,167 miles of the total of 2,100 miles of railway in the country. The United States and Great Britain take about one-third each of Peru’s exports. ‘HE Colombian-Peruvian war in the light of s shown to be a War between Ai ‘an and British imperialist interests in which the question of the sovereignty of the small town of Leticia is merely an ex- cuse, not the reason, for armed conflict, The mobilization of the workers and exploited agrarian masses for war in the interest of the imperialist. masters is accompanied by the most intense efforts to replace the revolutionary desires of the masses by the most virulent form of national chauvinism. The war and war preparations are accompanied by a ruthless cam- paign of persecution and suppression directed against the Communist Parties, militant unions and all sections of the population which cry halt to the imperialists and their lackey governments. Mass arrests and imprisonme: tortures and executions of workers, soldiers and peasants are the order of the day. Forced contributions for the war funds are being exacted from the poverty-stricken working class as in the Liberty Loan drives in the United States during the World War. American armament firms are busy in the manufacture and ship- ment of munitions to South America. The imperialist alignments for the attack on the Soviet Union are in process of formation in South America through the medium of war. ‘The governments of semi-feudal landowne ve capitalists and gen- erals are being lined up on the side of American or British imperialism for a new ‘world war, The stru » for hegemony of South America and the Carribbean area between British and American imperialism is already bringing death and disaster to the toiling population of four countries. The war in Bra- zil has ceased only for a moment. . * . ORKERS of the United States: Stop the manufacture and shipment of arms and munitions for the imperialist butchers of our South American brothers. Mass behind the Com to end the assault can workers and peas: gle of the South Ar own with the impe nunist Party and the Anti-Imperialist League { Wall Street imperialism against the South Ameri- ats, oport in every way the revolutionary strug- n masses against imperialism. + wars in South America! Organize and fight against the imperialist wars which lead fast and straight to a world war against the Soviet Union, the colonial peoples, the working class of the United States and the whole world Support the Commumist Party in its fight against imperialist wart Vote Communist! ‘ Book Reveals Chain Gang Horrors in the South/ “Georgia Nigger” Exposes Enslavement of the Roosevert “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! TAKE. YOUR. PICK!” Bu Burek Debs’ Fight Against the Reformist $.P. Leaders “Tendency to Become a Party of Politicians, Not Workers,” Debs Said of S. P. By ALEXANDER TRACHTENBERG IV. At. the time of the Left-Wing split | from the S. P., Debs was in prison. Only partial information could | reach him regarding the political | controversy in the party which pre- | ceded this split. While Debs was | bound by many ties to the Socialist Party, he did not fully agree with its leadership. During the 1919 convention the remaining Left Wing elements succeeded under pressure of the split in forcing a resolution which would insure Debs the nomi- nation for the presidency at the 1920 convention, where the question of candidates was to be dealt with. The leaders did not wish to have Debs, who was then in prison, nom- inated as a candidate. They feared that the size of the vote might be affected ang did not want to flaunt before the country a presidential candidate who was in prison. When he was finally nominated in 1920 and a committee consisting of Steadman, Oneal and others was sent to visit him in prison to notify him officially of the nomination, he surprised the committee with a devastating criticism of the party. coming “a party of politicians in- stead of a party of workers,” should have definitely broken with the politicians and joined with the revolutionary workers -who~ left; or, 4 were ‘leaving the S. P. in large numbers. Although in prison, Debs should have put himself at the head of the militant elements who were deserting the reformist party and were being organized . under the leadership of the Communist International, instead of allowing the importunities of his friends to convince him to reserve final judg- ment until he was released. Debs knew enough about the patty, to realize that it,;noJonger was” party he had visioned in 1908: a “class-conscious, revolutionary, So- cialist party which is pledged ta abolish the capitalist system, class rule and wage slavery, a party which does not compromise or fuse, but, preserving inviolate the prin- ciples which quickened it into life and now give it vitality and force, moves forward with dauntless de- termination to the goal of economic freedom.” DEBS FAILS TO DRAW | PROPER CONCLUSIONS Debs made the mistake which many others have made. At the beginning of the Third Interna- tional some revolutionary le>ders emphasized “unity at all cost” more than the unity of principle. “About the time we get in shape Regarding the platform adopted at the convention which nominated him, he said: “I wish I might say that it had my unqualified ap- proval,” modifying it by saying that platforms are not so impor- tant, as “we can breathe the | to do something,” Debs wrote then, breath of revolution into any | “we have to spli¢ up and waste our platform,” He emphasized, how- | energy in factional strife. We ever, that “Socialist platforms are | not made to catch votes” and that | “we are in politics not to get votes preach unity everlastingly, but we ourselves keep splitting apart.” but to develop power to emancipate the working class.” (Emphasis mine.—A. T.) It was also signifi- cant that on that occasion he ex- pressed regret “that the convention dig not see its way clear to affiliate with the Third International with- out qualifications.” Debs, there- fore, allied himself with the third of the delegates of the 1920 Con- vention which favored the accept- ance of the twenty-one points of admission to the Communist In- ternational and was opposed to Hillquit’s fake proposal for affilia- tion with reservations. To the S. P. leaders who were present he’ addressed himself point blank with the following rebuke: “There is a tendency in the party to become a party of politicians, instead of a party of the workers.” (Emphasis mine.—A, T.) MOVED from the outside world by his incarceration, Debs, per- haps, could not see sufficiently that this was no longer a tendency, but a fact. The process of degenera- tion, beginning with the struggle against the Left Wing, was fast being completed and Debs, having Debs failed to understand that what was then taking place was the separation of the wheat from the chaff, the freeing of the revo- from the very politicians which he himself saw win the party leader- ship. The “factional strife” which he deprecated was nothing but the hammering out of a clear-cut pol- icy based on revolutionary Marx- ism which the party had polluted with all sorts of reformist nos- trums. The*class struggle was car- ried from the shops right into the party and the division which fol- lowed was based on class lines. pee history proved that to the hilt. Unlike Lenin on an international scale, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in Germany, and Ruth- enberg in this country, who not only criticized the reformist leaders but fought them and organized against them, Debs remained only the critic. When he was released from prison he allowed the same leaders whom he held responsible for ruining the party, to use him as a shield to cover their alliances with the trade-union bureaucracy Workers Fight Move of French S. P. to Expel Amsterdam Delegates disciplinary action taken by the Central Committee of the French Socialist Party against those of its branches and members who answered the appeal of Henri Bar- busse and Romain Rolland to take part in the preparation of the In- ternational Anti-War Congress in Amsterdam is meeting with strong resistance from the rank and file of the Socidlist Party. “A nimiber-of branches have adopted protest reso- lutions, and recently a meeting of 700 members of the Socialist Party took place in Paris and listened to speeches on the issue. A resolution was adopted by 700 against 40 yotes on expressing complete approval of the action of those members and officials of the Socialist Party who co-operated in the International Anti-War, Congress, , protesting * against thé. measuregof the Central x, mitteé .and~ the” one- si reporting of the Official party organ “Le Populaire,” and ‘calling for space in the “Populaire” for the articles of the pro-congress. ele- ments, and for the immediate holding of a national congress in order to discuss the whole question and affillate the party to the per- manent anti-war committee. Up to the. present “Populaire” has not even mentioned this most important meeting and resolution. leaders have completed the trans- formation of the Socialist Party into a party of social fascism, so that now it fits snugly into the capitalist state machine. In 1905 Debs ‘wrote on the place of the class struggle in the program of the labor movement, to say noth- ing, of a Socialist Party: “We in- sist that there is a ‘class struggle; that the working, class must rec~ ognize it; that they must organize economically and politically ‘upon the basis of that struggle; and that when they do so organize they will then have the, power to tree themselves and put an end tothat struggle forever.” 28 [AVING already lost every other vestige of Socialism or sem- blance to a working-class party, the S. P. has deleted from its mem- bership application blank the clause dealing with adherence to the prin- ciple of the class struggle. The class-conscious workers know that the S. P. has not thereby removed itself from participation in .the class struggle. It is simply fight- ing on the other side, the side’ of the bosses. To enable it to parade as & party, it needs members. Since the workers are learning more and more of its true character, the S. P. now offers itself as a political haven to all and sundry liberals, tradesunion bureaucrats, small and big business men and deserters from the class struggle of all hues, including renegades from Contmu- Debs saw this degeneration com- ing. It was, therefore, his historic mistake not to break with the und capitalist politicians, Begin- xocognized that the 5. P. was be- J ning under his “chairmanship,” the oe morbund organization and join the party of the proletarian class strupele—the Comamunlet, Partie Negroes; Boss Press Suppresses Facts GEORGIA NIGGER, by John L, ¢ Spivak. Brewer, Warren & Put- nam, New York. 241 pages. 28) oe pages of photographs, Price, | 50. By VERN SMITH T LAST a book that tears the hypocritical mask off southern white ruling class civilization ahd exposes the entire system of chain gang torture and legalized slavery under which thousands of Negroes in the Black Belt are living. “Geor- gia Nigger,” written as fiction, but based on fact, turns a merciless spotlight on conditions that equal the worst barbarisms in history, conditions that are an integral part of the same lynch-terror that is trying to burn the Scottsboro boys in the electric chair. Ordinarily this book would have been viciously. attacked by the capi- talist press, which carefully sup- presses the facts about the American Congo. But there are the photo- graphs, the official documents, the letters ffrom prisoners that are in- cluded in the kK, and these are unanswerable proof that in the United States today workers and farmers, especially Negroes, are being forced into peonage under conditions that are worse than those of the chattel slaves before the Civil War. The American gov- ernment, which has led the attack on the Soviet Union with its | “forced labor” lies, conceals the ex- istence of the most vicious system of forced labor within its own terri- | tory. This system exists with the full knowledge and support of capi- | talist politicians of both major parties, of the capitalist press and church. It is American “democ- racy” in full bloom. hay agi @ “(EORGIA NIGGER” is no mere sensational thriller; it is fact of the most terrible kind. Torture after torture, men chained in little cages reeking “ith vile odors and wearing fantastic iron spikes on their ankles, men working under the lash’ on county roads, linked to- gether, flogged to within an inch of their lives for merely looking their protest at the treatment, men kidnapped in the public streets of town, railroaded to never-ending slavery on plantations, shot for try- ing to escape, beaten to death or shot for refusing to work when sick, men stretched on the rack, men wrapped around a pick handle and tied and left to roast in the sun, stuffed in sweat boxes until they go uhconscidus—all these things ~are told iii swiftly moving narrative, as the story of one Negro boy, David Jackson, a character in fiction. PHOTOGRAPHS OF TORTURES But then, there is photograph after photograph of just these same- tortures. There is a photograph of @ Negro boy tied around a pick handle. There is a picture of a Negro stretched on the Georgia rack: tied to one post, bent halt over and his handcuffed hands stretched toward another post with a rope tight as a fiddle string, so that you can practically see his shoulders coming out of joint. There is a pic- ture of the cage on wheels with its stinking pan below, and pictures of vermin-eaten, chain-wearing, gro- tesquely tortured Negro humanity packed behind its bars, waiting the call to labor on the “good roads” that are the pride of the South. There is a picture of the blood- hounds tearing at the leash, ready to hunt down all who flee from plantation slavery or road camp. — ‘And mind you, this isn’t done in the sloppy medieval way, with the work of the professional torturer buried in oblivion. This is done in 1932, in the age of bookkeeping, and the record of rack and stocks and lash is kept in a growing pile of. dust-coveged documents at At- lanta: “Official Punishment Re- port” they read, and are made out py the deputies in charge of the ‘tortures. By date and name it is set down that “Convict So and So,” for “disobeying guard” was “put in a barrel,” or had spikes riveted around his ankles, or got double shackles put on him, or was given a couple of hours “restricted move- ment” (the euphemism for racking or putting in stocks, where, in a crouching position, a man is sus- pended by wrists and ankles, . 8 8 ND finally, as you look over these photographed records, see these actual camera pictures of the tor- mented slaves, you come to realize that this book is not fiction. David is only a typical enslaved Negro of the South, and everything that hap- pens to Dave actuallyehappened to Negro slaves in ‘the South—is hap- pening every day. Only recently the press carried the testimony of witnesses in one of the infrequent trials of guards for killing a pris- oner in the sweatbox at a prison camp in Florida, neighboring state “THE AMERICAN STANDARD OF LIVING”—Home of a Negro share-cropper in southern Georgia. T' clapboard hovels, little better than slaves of the white plan- these tation epee (Copyright by John eer.’), iS é THEIR ONLY TIME OF REST—A group of pr by being allowed to knock off work on Sunday afterno time they are permitted to relax fzom the week ers “rewarded” n—the only work, These Negroes are in a chain gang in Muscogee County, Ga., forced to do back-break= ing toil from sunup to sundown and subjected-to the mosi brutal tor= tures. (Copyright by John L. Spivak, author of “Georgia Nigger”.) to Georgia. It was casually men- tioned in newspaper accounts that the rest of the South is about the same, “Tennesss2, Alabama, Ar- kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia add to sweatbox and rack, flogging.” Maillefert was a white boy, so his death brought his mur- derers to court; one was freed and the other convicted, not of murder, but manslaughter, with the possi- bility of acquittal at a second trial. If the victim had been a Negro, no investigation would have followed his killing. MURDER AND SLAVERY FOR PROFIT “Georgia Nigger” is a ghastly account of the conditions under which Negroes work, but it is also something of an interpretation of those conditions, With unobtrusive skill the author has given the class background and meaning of this orgy of torture. It is not mutila- tion and murder through perver- ston—it is murder and slavery for profit. The white landlords own the plantations and control the state. Instead of paying wages to the vast mass of Negro. proletarians and t nants, they use the courts to pr vide them with slaves. The book tells of a Saturday evening in town, with the planter there ordering his servile sheriff to pick him out some good healthy field hands. When darkness falls, the slave catchers: go to work, “arresting” whatever Negro looks good to them. The next morning the Negro faces one of two alternatives: months in jail waitnig trial, and then months on the ‘chain gang, or signing up to work for a plantation owner, who pays off the Negro’s nominai fine: from $5 to $25. Once on the plantation, if he takes that. course, he sinks deeper and deeper into debt according to the books his master keeps. The law provides that if he tries to leave his job while in debt, he can be arrested for swindling his mas- ter and brought back. The plant- ation is a prison, with armed guards, with its own laws, with the white planter flogging to death or simply shooting out of hand any who displease him, and with no one to say he shall not kill his slaves; doesn’t he own the courts too? I showed this book to a Negro member of the Daily Worker staff, who is very well informed as to the conditiofis and struggles of the Negroes in the South, Here are his notes on it, the things that struck him most forcibly: se i ‘XPOSES conditions more ter- rible than chattel slavery... similarity between slave plantations and peon plantations,...big planta- tion house of the owner, with Negro domestic servants who receive a shade better treatment than the enslaved Negroes in the fields, and constitute the handkerchief heads, spies and armed guards of the bosses. Armed guards also drawn from the poor white class as in slavery days. Slave barracks re- placed by peon shacks quite as miserable and in fact worse. BUY NEGROES FOR $5 TO $25 “This system more ruthless far than chattel slavery... then the slave owners had to pay substan- tial sums, sometimes running into the thousands, for the slaves. Now, Negroes can be bought for $5 or $25 at most, by paying the fines im- posed by an obliging court, after qr obliging sherif’ hes rounded them up on various charges upon the request of the planters seeking hands...have no compunction in murdering $5 and $25 Negroes.. they can easily “be replaced, and brutal discipline is thus main- tained, “Role of religion and preachers, and their control by the bosses. . | “Spivak’s material and other available material give unanswer- able proof of the actual existence in the American Congo 1932.” of slaver in the y “GEORGIA NIGGER” is an witness story of conditions, an excellent piece of “exposure liter- ature.” It gives no program for changing the conditions: it does not tell of any simmering revolt. The author traveled among the camps and plantations with ered- entials from the Prison Comtis- sion of Georgia, and probably would not have found the average rebel- lious Negro confiding in him. There is no explanation of Camp Hill ‘The sprecding Croppers Union ganization is not mentioned, prob- ably because it more in Ala*ama than in Georgia so far, EXPOSED WHALEN FORGER! Spivak gives no program for re- volt: in fact, he has a theorv that he does best: by revorting well, and stopping there. He has reported well on other occasions; he hap- pens to be the man who blazoned forth in. the capitalist press his discovery of the printing shop on the East Side in New York where the notorious Whalen forgeries were manufactured. But we, as Communists, can not stop there. We can use this mat- erial, and to it we can add our program of organization and strug- gle, of building the united front of Negro and white toilers for “full equality for the Negro and self- determination in the Black Belt.” In the Black Belt is the part of Georgia on which the book is based. We cannot, of course, accept Spivak’s constant use of the word “Nigger,” but no one who reads this book can get the impression that Spivak uses it in unfriendly fashion to the Negroes. Here again he is reporting, and the word is picked up and used in a tone of casual defiance—like “Wobbly” in the militant days of the I.W.W, Spivak has his definite, self-im- posed limitations, but within those limits, what a piece of work he has done! As clean-cut as an etching, and the acid still drips from the steel! Letters from Our Readers Philadelphia, Pa, Comrades: ‘When cars and trucks were first put on the streets and roads of mil- lions of horses were sent to the fertilizer plants. When the workers built machinery to replace their labor the bosses sent the workers to the flop houses, breadlines, jails, and the army and navy. Now the bosses are planning to use them as cannon fodder in a war against the Soviet Union, where the workers drove the bosses out, and where now the machinery is a blessing to the workers instead of a curse. The machines now idle can do more than the work of the millions of unemployed so that even if all the machines started to work again there would still be millions of unemployed. Therefore ‘there is only one way out for the workers, and that is, under the leadership of the Communist Party, to chase the bosses out as they did in the Soviet Union.—T. M, ee Faitor’s Note: White this com- rade is correct in saying that capitalism has created millions of unemployed workers who can never be employed again so long as capitalism survives, he exag- gerates when he says that no one of the 15,000,000 unemployed would get his job back if capital- ism should ever get back to its pre-crisis era. Recent official figures show that should the country return t% the preduction levels of 1929, about 47 per cent of the workers who are now unemploygd would be given jobs, That means about 8,000,000 work- ers would still he left to starve, which is a damning cnough ine dictment of capitalism, ‘housands of human beings live in L, Spivak, author of “Georgia Nig- ey é 4 4