The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 2, 1933, Page 4

cage Four Dail Yorker Party USA Published by the Comprodaily PobUshing Co., tee daily exeept Sunday, Telephone ALgonquin 4-7956, Address and mail checks to the Daily Worker, 50 F. 13th St., 18th St., New York City, N. ¥. New Yerk, N. ¥. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: One year, $6; six months, $3.50; S months, §f; 2 meath, Tee tan and Bronx, New York City. Forsiga and 6 months, $5; 3 mo s By mail everywhere: excepting Boro: 395 New York Landlords Adopt Mass Blacklist DAILY WORKER calls attention to a new development of the |SOME EXPERIENCES IN A capitalists’ offensive—the organization of a blacklist system by land- | lords—which shows the brutal character of the attack upon the im- | | poverished masses in th their heads. The New York Evening Post for twenty-one families in the Bronx men, said “Meanwhile, a representati sion. is a customary weapon. crisis and the capitalist offensive. ve of the @ group of landlords in the neighborhood “rent strikes” and made up a blacklist of 3000 names. not be rented apartments by any of the landlords in the group.” | for the right to have a roof over Jan. 30, in describing the eviction of | d out with the aid of fifty police- | | landlords told reporters that... | ave banded together against | ‘These persons will dustry is an old method of oppres- steel and coal company towns But the blacklisting of workers in huge metro- politan centers like New York for the purpose of denying them housing, even if able to pay for it, because of their militancy in the mass strugele against evictions and high rents, is a new sinister weapon forged in the It is a sign both of th ening up of the drive against workers and working class organizat and of the g character of the resistance of the working class. It is clear that the purpose of this black s to drive out of their | own neighborhoods the most militant and con Ss workers—to disrupt | the organizations of the unemployed, to scatter their forces, to terrorize others into subr ion to evictions and the ctions of landlor This black is further proot that wealthy parasites will stop at | nothing to maintain their privileged position of living on the backs of | the masses. It is not possible to tolerate the use of methods—used with the | backing of the courts and police. The Unemployed Councils and the unions of the League should makc this a fighting issue. h methods make them mass base of the fight against evictions and high rents is far from being publicly announce the use of of mass anger that would broad enough. Against such diabolical schemes as this, a it is necessary to proceed in the most determined manner. every landlord who is one of those “banded together”, It is nec to sm: this scheme. rade Union Unity When landlords are able to ithout being met by a storm plain that the in to cover, it pplied in the dead of winter, The name of should be secured— and published so that workers may know who these particularly contempt-. yible parasites are. Then mass The names and addresses of the apartment house they own should be secured and published. Cemonstrations and rent strikes should be organized where ever possible to affect these callous gentlemen in their pocketbooks. Most of all it is necessary to win and organize new masses of workers and proceed to smash this blacklist scheme. in the world must not go unanswered. | Such.a challenge to 1,150,000 unemployed workers in the richest city | The Daily Worker in the South By SYD BENSOD r the growing mass struggles in the South the Daily Worker is serving as a powerful force in arousing and organizing the mas- ses. The “Daily” is showing itself as)a great weapon in winning the workers of the cities in struggle in the shops Uef..In the countryside the arouses the masses for against the landlords Worker brings to the masses Negro and white toilers the me: sage of united revolutionary strug- gle ‘for better conditions, for Ne- gro liberation and for a workers’ and farmers’ government. For this reason the ‘Daily’ is becoming more and more popular. Despite the poverty of the mas- ses, the “Daily” is sought for. Each “Daily” passes thru many hands, it is read and passed on. The role of the “Daily” in fighting against the boss and landlord press, as well as the press of the Negro reform- ists can be brought out in the re- cent great struggle in the Black Belt. “POWERFUL SLEDGEHAMMER” On December 19 the boss press was screaming “race riot”, trying to inflame the white masses against the Negro croppers in Alabama in their fight for the right to live. ‘The Negro bourgeois press took up the cry. Both screamed slanders against the Communist Party. On December 21 the Daily Worker tame out with the story. This won- derful issue of the “Daily” acted as 2a powerful sledgehammer against the lies of the boss press. It exposed their lies and brought to the masses the true nature of the struggle. ‘The “Daily” reacted swiftly and correctly to the brave fight of the etoppers, pointing out that it was mot @ “race riot”, that the white poor farmers were supporting the ‘Negro farmers. The “Duily” called ‘upon the masses of city workers, the white workers, to give support to the struggle. The masses of the whole country re- with 2 flood of protests caused the landlords to call their armed murder gangs, and made the boss’ press admit that it ‘was by no means a “race riot”, but that it was a struggle of the poor Negro and white farmers against the ment. and for unemployed re- “Daily” struggle The Daily of i landlords and their govern- bringing out to the masses the «treacherous role of the Negro reformist press, the Negro preach- and Tuskegee Institute, the delivered hammer blows, James was turned over to the by & Negro doctor of Tus- tal. On the day before way which struck deep among the Masses. The cartoon showed a Ne- gro doctor, pushing a stretcher with Cliff James on it out of Tuskegee Institute into the arms of a group of deputies with guns and ropes MUS r OUR PAPER. ‘This cartoon reached the South the sanie day that the news of the th of Cliff James was published in the capitalist press. Ita effect war tremendous, It enraged the masses against the Negro agents of the landlords and bosses. It helped isolate the Negro fakers from the masses of workers and farmers. The Daily Worker acted as a big stick for the working masses in the whole great struggle. It brought to the masses the correct line of the Party, it brought out the truth, it smashed the lies of the bosses and landlords, stripped the Negro fakers, and exposed the press of the bos At the same time it acted as teacher and organizer of the masses, deepened the strug- gle, won the masses to support the struggie, and further broadened the unity of Negro and white. 'This was the role of the Daily Worker. We must build a bigger and big- ger circulation for the “Daily” in | the South. The working masses | in the South, Negro and white, despite their terribly impoverished condition, must hear the call of their fighting paper to keep it from suspending and must respond quickly and generously in the pres- ent financial drive. LENIN’S “STATE AND REVOLUTION” IN NEW EDITION | Fetal great “classic, State and Revolution, has just been pub- lished in a new and accurate trans- lation by International Publishers. This is a basic work of Marxism- Leninism. Written by Lenin while forced to remain in hiding during | the Russian Revolution of 1917, it | | restored Marxism to its own and cleared it of all the rubbish with which the revisionists of the Sec- ond International had attempted | to hide its real revolutionary con- In it Lenin showed the real essence of the writings of Marx and Engels especially on the question of the nature of the state and the dictatorship of the _ proletariat which “socialists” like Kautsky had distorted in line with their own op~ portunism The sorely needed new transla- tion of this basic work is published in the Little Lenin Library and sells at 30 cents. It may be obtained at all workers’ book stores or direct from International Publishers, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York. What Does It Mean to You? THAT does the Daily Worker mean to you? How is it helping to lead you in your struggles? What are your experiences in raising funds in the financial drive? | Workers, write to the “Daily” about ‘these ques- tions. Wednes paper carried, on, page ,1 a letter from a worker correspondent in Chester, Pa., teil how indispensable. the Daily Worker is in the struggles of ihe Chester unemployed. The “Daily” would like to get more Such “letters, giving concrete facts and experiences, Let heax from you} DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, ‘EveryFactory Our Fortress ’ Establish Intimate, Per- manent Contacts With the Workers. “The successful accomplishment of this task (winning the major- ity of the working class) requires that every Communist Party shall establish, extend and strengthen permanent and intimate contacts with the majority of the work- ers, wherever workers may be found.”—From the 12th Plenum Resolution, E. C. C. L. RAILROAD CENTER By G. R. UT of this conference we can notice two important points that are being particularly stressed by all the comrades who are doing work in the basie industries. at think these two points have not re- ceived much attention from the Party, and I think that is one of the reasons why we haven’t made | as much progress as we could have made in the basic industries. The first point is the question of real personal contact with the workers in the shop. In a railroad center we have been putting out « bulletin for about a year and a half. The work- ers like that bulletin, they grab it up; you will find them discussing it for hours. When they see some- one is distributing something they go out of their way to get it. But when you come to these workers, | they want to know who you are. They know cach cther, they want to know who you are and unless they know you, or unless they know someone who knows you, you won't get their confidence very easily. ‘s $f Ceci é will give another example. In one plant we. concentrated for quite a while. We sold the Daily Worker for two weeks, at one time reaching @ sale of 17. The com- pany got wise, and a number of workers who bought the paper were fired. We have never made any real personal contact with these workers. They didn’t really know us and we didn’t really know them. I want to use one or two jn- stances where, due to the fact that we had been able to develop per- sonal contact, we made the real beginnings of actually getting into the shop. There is a point where the railroad men come to work. When I first joined the Party I was sent to sell Daily Workers at that point. Three years later when I began to do-work on the railroad we still didn’t have any connec- tions with these workers. My unit Was assigned to/get connections with them. About three blocks away from where these yards are there is a Negro colony. We figured if we would gét into that territory we would find a large section of those workers living there. The comrades went out for six months with the Daily Worker and the Liberator. Little by little we won the confidence of a few of these workers. It took six months, not a week or two. And then they built up a club around these work- ers. Today this club has grown. | Most of these workers are Negro workers. Some are still working there. I know most of them. T can go into any of the houses, talk to their families, and now when we have to go to do work with these workers we can do it. For we have the basis for establishing a real or- ganization. (To Be Continued.) FEB. “LABOR DEFENDER” RIPS ROMANTIC MASK OFF “DIXIE-LAND” By H. KAMMAN. IN the February issue, just off the press, the Labor Defender, rips off the romantic mask of chivalry and ho’spitality which for years admirers of the Southern states in America have built up as a “show-window” front to conceal the oppression and lynchings of workers by the Southern white rul- ing class. The leading article, “Dixie— Where a Nation Is Chained to the Soil,” by James S. Allen, makes one realize that nothing less than war now rages between the workers and exploiters of the South. Illustrating this article is a pic- ture of a group of white-gowned Klansmen surrounding a blazing cross, the epic symbol of bigotry and barbarity. It is well chal- lenged by another picture on the same page of a Negro ex-service- man calling on a crowd of Negro and white workers for a militant fight against starvation and perse- cution, A joint, statement by the Interna- tional Labor Defense and the League of Struggle for Negro Rights tells how the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, soft-pedaled the crimes of the white ruling class against the Negro masses by actually over~ looking 26 lynchings. Cit awit HILE ¢entering its attack with pictures and words on the South, the February issue of the Labor Defender has its eyes also focused on the international battle front of the working class. “We Need Your Help,” describes the wave of terror against workers in Japan. “Face to Face With Tom Moo- ney,” by Paul M. Callicotte, whose evidence helped send Mooney to prison for life, is one of the most humanly interesting stories on the Mooney case: Other articles include, “We Cry to You from Florida's Dungeons,” “When T Was on the Chain Gang,” “Scottsboro—Our Next ‘Tasks,” by Wm. lL. Patterson, “Douglas Day~- February 13th,” by Richard 3B. Moore, “A Call to Stop the Depor- tation Terror,” from Edith Berk- man, and “The Monteyedeo Con- hor Against’ War.” A Labor Defender Conference to be held February 5, at 10 a. m. in Manhattan Lyceum, 46 1. 4th Mh, | | PAVING THE WAY! red $06 ~ THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1933 =By Burch | Get Behind the Drive to Support the Daily. ‘A Job Only McAdoo Could Do’ An Analysis of His Revealing Book, “Crowded Years” By BILL DUNNE ‘HE War Cabinet of the Wilson war regime is being re-consti- tuted by the Roosevelt administra- tion to meet the new imperialist world war situation. The personal- ities may not correspond, name for name, but one thing is certain— William Gibbs McAdoo will be a member—officially or unofficially. In the present situation with its wage cuts for railway workers—and all others—with the advent of the Roosevelt administration a matter of a few weeks, and the remarkable intensity of the press campaign against the Soviet Union, the heaviness of the imperialist war atmosphere, the reminiscences of William Gibbs McAdoo have some- thing more than passing import- ance. PURPOSE OF BOOK William G. McAdoo, the proudest scion of the Woodrow Wilson dynasty, is once more claiming his place in the sun. His book, “Crowd- ed Years,” published before the election, is a defense of the Wil- son war administration—and of his own career. It was doubtless also intended to aid in patching up some of the internal differences with Tammany Hall and thereby to smooth the Roosevelt path to the White House. | tee success formula of William Gibbs McAdoo for ambitious young men who want particularly the rich pickings that expanding American capitalism afforded to all not burdened by too many scruples, is quite simple. First of all, go into the legal profession; do a railway company a favor; be- come its attorney; learn the art of using other people's money for profit making enterprises; afinch oneself to one of the big political parties of capitalism. By faithfully following this for- mula Mr. McAdoo became at one time, during the war, probably the most powerful single individual in the world, and acquired a respect- able financial standing. His des- cription of his first success (in the late 80's) 1s interesting indeed and should be useful as the text for a Y.M.C.A. or Rotary Club pep talk: “There was @ lot of talk at that time about a projected rail- road from Chattanooga, through Rome to Carrollton (in Georgia), where it would connect with the Central of Georgia, and thus furnish a through line from Chattanooga to Savannah. The president of the proposed road, whose name was Williamson, wanted Hamilton County, in which Chattanooga is situated, to vote a bonus of one hundred thousand dollars in bonds in aid of the project. I thought the new road would be a great help to Chattanooga, and I set out to do what T could to make it a reality. I was not employed to do this; T went at it simpty as a citizen, but I was very enthusi- astic about it, and very pushing.” “The bonus was voted and the road was built, but it was not completed in time to get the bonus which expired on a cer- tain date, One day Mr. William- son came to my small, bare office and, without any preliminaries, said he wanted me to be the at- torney for the railroad in Ten- nessee.”” i “To be appointed the attorney of a railroad company, at so early an age, was considered a decided recognition of one’s ability. It was certainly a great help, and the prominence that it created turned out profitably in bringing other clients to me. All the rail- roads in the region sent me passes over their lines, as 2 mark™ of courtesy; and that, too, was helpful. All of a sudden I found myself looked upon as a promis- ing figure at the local bar.” ‘The building of the Hudson 'Tun- nels is another interesting story. McAdoo admits that he knew so Hittle about the Hudson Tunnel project that he had never heard of the numerous efforts made to complete it before he took up the Propoval as a money making pro- position. His law practice in New York wag not doing very well at the time. By getting Elbert Gary and J. P. Pierpont Morgan, Oak- man of the Guaranty Trust Com- pany, Anthony Brady of the Brook- ton Bapld ‘Tsansit, and other pow- erful financiers to go on the board of directors, McAdoo was able~ to get the necessary money, He says: “At the first meeting of the board of directors I was elected president of the company. My sal- ary was fifteen thousand dollars per year, which was more than I earned at my law practice at the time.” Space forbids a detailed des- cription here of McAdoo’s rela- tions with the Wilson administra- tion but his realistic and un- ashamed approach to all questions of “practical politics,” made him available for the simultaneous hold ing of the positions of Secretary of the Treasury, U.S. Director of Rail- roads, director of the U. S. Farm Loan Bank, director of the U. S. Soldiers Insurance Company, man- ager of the Liberty Loan drives, controller of European War Loans and manager of the U. S. Finance Corporation. eo « 6 PEAKING of one of John Stuart Mill's essays on popular govern- ment, McAdoo remarks, relative to the ‘course of certain legislation during the Wilson administration: “I fear the eminent philosopher was too optimistic. The competitive strife of plutocratic interests is not sufficiently violent to destroy their prestige or influence; they have no intention of committing mutual suicide. Their battles are those of professional boxers who split the purse, in some fashion, between the winner and loser.” “Their various and conflicting objectives do not cancel one an- other, as Mills thought, for at the bottom, they rest on exploitation of the public. That is the essence of pluto-democracy, and it does not make any difference who the ex- ploiters may be—whether they are financiers or stock manipulators or shipowners or landgrabbers or tariff barons. The common bond between them is greed, often subtle, plausible and insidious, but greed nevertheless. They get all they can, regardless of public welfare and without regard to the actual value of their services or their commo- dities... It may be accepted as a general principle, or — political axiom, that whenever a beneficial measure is opposed by powerful fi- nancial interests, the real reason for the opposition is never given.” (My emphasis.—B. D.) The ever hopeful liberal middle | Class leaders could do worse than | chew over some of these remarks which come from the experience of one of the outstanding political manipulators of the World War period. The proof of the pudding is in the eating and the high- minded ex post facto reflections of McAdoo do not prevent him from referring to the nojsome. A. Mit- chell Palmer of deportations ill- fame (1919-20) as “an able man, clever and resourceful, and devoted heart and soul to the Wilson cause.” Elsewhere he refers to Palmer as “that honest Quaker.” Well, Hoover is also a Quaker. wcareo’s revelations regarding the war Go not bring out any- thing not definitely known or that revolutionists are not morally cer- tain about, but they give important confirmation to the fact that profit making was the dominant note, that “making the world safe for democracy” was an idea put out only to get the acquiescence of the human cannon fodder. “These profits,” says the writer, “did ro’ reach all the American people. They went inte the bank accounts of a comparatively small proportion of our citizens. A few thousand people made fortunes into the millions. For some of the remainder there were higher wages; for the greater num- ber there was little benefit. For pre! everybody the higher cost of living increased the hoot greimes of making both ends meet. War does not bring “prosperity” for the masses as the imperialist spokesmen are once more beginn- ing to claim. , le a cADOO dees not make a very geod job of defending Amer- ican entry into the World War. “The British,” he says, “had an efficient and astute secret service for American operations, headquarters in New York. The ‘Trench and Germans were also well represented. Most of the work of the foreign agencies was devoted to verbal propaganda and the dis- semination of lies.” “British publicity in America was characterized by an artistic unity and singleness of purpose. The main idea was to create an im- pression that the Germans were ms... The British agents managed to make a large part of the American people believe that | German soldiers had cut off the hands of Belgian children, etc.” The Germans did organize “a camouflaged news bureau,” says McAdoo, but “they were not a step ahead of the allies. The English and French governments control- led the cables. Nearly everything in the newspapers which. came from Europe during the war was censored and colored in the Allied interests.” These remarks are worth re- membering in connection with the offensive against the Soviet Union and the Chinese Revolu- tion—in which not only national but CLASS INTERESTS are in- volved, with the imperialist coun- tries controlling the cables! The “Wilsonian idealism” that was the moral justification for America’s entry into the war is shown to be nothing more than the vulgar Yankee desire to do busi- ness at all costs. “There is no doubt,” says McAdoo, “that we would have sold munitions and tood direct to the Germans if they had been able to take their pur- | It was a cash-and- | chases home. carry system.” His explanation of the broader reasons for the declaration of war | are important: “To have stayed out after the insults that had been slapped in our faces for more than two years would have made the word Ameri- can a synonym for coward in every quarter of the world.” No one likes to be called a coward, espe- cially the Wall Street government | with {its billions of dollars of in- vestments in a score of countries —and when the bankers are not re- quired to do the fighting! But the main reason: “After Europe had settled its gigantic row-with Germany, in all probability, on the top of the heap --the United States would have become the universal target of contempt. Our rights would have been trampled on everywhere and the Monroe Doctrine would have gone the way of Belgium’s historic scrap of paper.” (“Our rights— says this spokesman of U. S. im- perialism.) Imperialist prestige, as well as dollars, was involved. Once this became clear there was no further hesitation. lOW were the Liberty Loan drives put over? McAdoo’s book answers the question from the official imperialist viewpoint: “You may be sure that men and wimen who send their sons to a battlefield will not hesitate about sending their dollars after them if the need for money is properly presented. ... We capitalized the profound inipulse called patriot~ ism,’ But nothing which McAdoo writes is so important (and his book is a cross section of American ruling class political life in an important historical period, written from the standpoint of a conscious leader of capitalism) as his description of the breakdown of the railway transportation system in the rich- est country in the world. It af- fords a measuring stick by which to judge the innumerable criticisms and denunciations of the Soviet Union, its transport ana@ industrial difficulties arising out of their rapid expansion, the huge probletns that have to be met for the simps but not too well understood reawn of its rapid advance. “Little” things like chaos on American railroads, long before America went into the war, are easily forgotten by the capitalist | One does not recall that | press, Walter Duranty, for instance, in his detailed deveription of the r/- way difgiculties in the Sovict Union, has ever felt moved to make the comparison that would be under- stood at once by the Ame¢rican masses. eT ER (ERE are the facts as presented by the man who was Director- General of Hallroads during and aoe mm The Place of the LW.O. the Revolutionary Movement HE American workers face the frequent losses of their. wages (which is their only form of in- come) in case of sickness or other causes, Without any hope for social help. Yet in such cases they need help. The workers’ try to meet this need with mutual-kelp. That is why a large section of the American workers belong to mutual aid soci- eties, to fraternal orders Yhe In- ternational Workers Order is the only workers’ mutual benefit so- ciety in America which is organized by class conscious workers and ad- ministered with a view of serving not only its members, but of serving the interests of the whole working class. Teaching and exercising the prin- ciple of mutual help correctly stim- ulates the development of class- consciousness among the workers; it does this first, because it shows the workers that they have their economic insecurity in common, and, second, because it shows that mutual efforis can solve problems that individual efforts could never solve, The first is a suggestion of common problems, of class prob- lems; the second is a suggestion that. common problems may be solved by common action, class BOSSES KNOW THIS The American capitalists recog- nize this very well. That is why they have organized so many mu- tual benefit societies and fraternal orders. These capitalist fraternal organizations seemingly serve the purpose of mutual help; but in reality they primarily serve the purpose of keeping the workers un- der the influence of capitalist ide+ ology and leadership. That is why the numerous fraternal orders un- der capitalist leadership are based on other principles than the princi- ple of mutual help. Mutual help is a uniting principle. But the frater- nal movement of the capitalists is built on dividing principles; it is based on religions, on patriotism to different nationalities, on sets of meaningless mystic and secret prin- ciples, etc. Thus, instead of uniting them for purposes of mutual aid the workers are being divided into Knights of one religion or Knayes of another; into loyal sons of one country or patriotic children of an- other; into subjects of a high im- perial potentate here or followers of a high exalted ruler there. There are rituals, secrets, uniforms, all things that have nothing whatever to do with effective mutual aid; yet, all this seemingly meaningless nonsense subtly serves the purpose of maintaining capitalist illusions in the membership, of preventing the principle of mutual help from creating an understanding of the need of proletarian unity; all serve the purpose of preventing the work- ers from understanding that com- mon needs of the workers require common action of the workers, re- quire class action. Parallel with this political purpose and hardly less important for the capitalists, is the chance to exploit the need of the masses as a chance to fill their own pockets, as shown re- cently in the “charitable lottery” swindle unearthed in several prom- inent bourgeois fraternal orders. The capitalists spend a good deal of time and energy on the fraternal movement. Is it not also worth time and energy on the part of the revo- lutionary movement to work in this field, to counteract this capitalist activity and influence? Is it not also worth while for the revolu- tionary workers to take the absence of social insurance, and the need for mutual insurance as the start- ing point of a broad workers’ mass movement? MUST BUILD PROLETARIAN FRATERNAL MOVEMENT A broad mass movement built on the issue of mutual benefits (in- surance) must perform three tasks: 1—It must help the workers to solve an immediate and serious problem by providing a measure of fraternal insurance at the lowest possible cost, 2—It must organize the, workers to fight for social insurance as the only effective solution of the prob- Jem which mutual insurance can only solve inadequately. 3—It must teach the workers, in the course of the struggle for sp- cial insurance, that in the * analysis, all their many. probit which grow out of the fact that they are workers, that they have only wages to live off, and that the chance to earn wages is beyond their control, is in reality a fundae mental political problem—the probe lem of establishing a Working Class Rule 1 the place of the ex- isting capitalist class rule. eke if these paragraphs our concern is not the first task, although ° ie is a very important one. After all, the ‘masses will: judge a mutizal benefit society by the servicesit renders to its members in the form of mutual help. We must not be surprised at this seemingly selfish approach. Objectively it is not. so selfish. The problems of the work- ing class present themselves to the individual worker as his own indi- vidual and concrete problems. To recognize one’s own problems, is the first. beginning of one’s efforts to solve them; therefore it is the first incentive to class struggle activi- ties. Only in the course of such class struggle activities, that is in the course of efforts to solve his own problems, does the worker learn to recognize in his own prob- lems the problems of his class, This recognition is the beginning. of class-consciousness. Since it is our main task to win the workers for and in the strug- gle for the solution of their imme- diate problems, and since we can make them. class-conscious only in the course of this struggle, we must welcome in the ranks of our pro- letarian mutual benefit organiza- tion, especially those masses that will join only for the immediate benefit attached to their member- ship. We want these workers in our proletarian mutual benefit so- ciety, although they are not yet class-conscious. We want them be- cause when they join they put themselves under our leadership. and through our leadership we hope to make them class-conscious. In this article, our main concern is how our proletarian fraternal or- ganization, the International Work- ers Order, can make the workers class-conscious. We will therefore deal here only with the third task, above mentioned, the problem of making the workers class-conscious. PROBLEM IMPORTANT i This problem is of the greatest importance. It is the major prob- Jem of Communist leadership in all non-Party mass organizations. ‘There is a tendency on the part of many comrades to transfer all the conditions of membership in and all the tasks of the Commi Party, as well as the tasks of in- ~ diviual Communists, to every mili- | tant mass organization and its members. But that is pure secta- rianism. It liquidates the eked immediate purposes of the diffe organizations; it obscures under screen of general revoluti A propaganda phrases the concre! ; sues and problems of struggle con which these organizations were built; it reduces all of these organ- izations to uniformity; it makes out of all of them more or léss dis- tinct but, nevertheless, bad copies of the Communist Party. Conse- quently the membership of these organizations becomes limited only to revolutionists. Instead of serving backward workers to develop them, this policy leads to repel and ex= fel them from these organizations. REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVITIES: MUST BE CONCRETE Very seldom we make serious ef= forts of combining our revolution- ary activities in such orgahiaza- tions with their avowed purpose. For instance, the éfforts to revo- lutionize the members of our mu- tual benefit society, of the’ I.W.O, must have something definite to'do with the solution of the problem which brings the workers into the ranks of the I.W.O. (TO BE CONTINUED) after this period: “Aroun} the close of 1917 the servig: of many of the railroads, especially those in the North and East, was actually on the verge of collapse. A breakdown was averted by the federal governme:!t’s action in assuming control of all the rail- roads as a war measure.” The increase in traffic had the following effect—not in a country emerging from the ruin of inva- sion with a working class deci- mated by war and famine, as was the case in the Soviet Union, but in a country with a fully trained personnel, with plenty of eycyy- | thing with which to build: “The erormous orders for sup- plies which were given to American concerns by the Allies began to strain the capacity of the railroads in 1916. ‘Traffic increasen enorm~- ously . . . it leaped dizzily to 366 billions (of ton-miles) in 1916, an increase of 32 per cent... which would fill 115,000 freight cars were ready for shipment ... the cars were not to be had.” “Much of the rovtdhouse and shop equipment was out of date «+. for years (the reads) had been under-maintained in the matter of equipment, yards and track facilities.” For decades the railroads had been plundered systematically by the railway capitalists. They broke down under the demands placed upon them by rapid expansion. Yet no one carried on a campaign in the capitalist press to prove that matters were hopeless, as is now the press attitude toward the Soviet Union. The railroads needed what the Soviet Union needs mostly today--new trackage, rolling stock and equipment, ‘They got it because it was in the interests of capitalism to see that they got it, Today the class interests of im- perialism are against rapid im- provement in Soviet trarsporta- tion and all sorts of obstacles are jut in the way—lack of credits, sabotage, ete. The boasted efficiency of Ameri+ can capitalism certainly is no guarantee against a breakdown of its transportation system, es 2 8 H posleks also it is useful, especially for railroad workers, to read McAdoo's description of how an- other problem was settled—that of the eight-hour day on the ratl- ways—during this period. He says: “After the case had been .. . for several months without. a. decision, the railroad labor organizations gave notice of their intention to call a strike unless the eight-hour day was established at once with- out waiting for a judicial ratthg on its constitutionality. The peg yielded to these demands the morning of March 19, Yon Some few hours later, fated the same day, the Supreme Court up- held the constitutionality of © Adamson Law. The question of the impenc railway wage-cut can be decid favor of the workers in the way—organized mass strength and. determination. There are many other imy t events ‘of the war period wi Tai ace could remind us of = less danger of reviving a for railway workers whee pana are getting short as a result of | H continual attack on their il . ° . Shy, standards. Lr. is too bad that McAdoo's Seok costs $5. Read witir the under< 1% standing that only the Conmntees Pariy and its Matxisi-Leni | teaching can give, it ts one of the most valuable documenis e: for giving the factuai basis of exposure of capitalism uid re tionary, workers, . “CROWDED YEARS, by liam Gibbs McAdoo. ess ! Mifftin Co, 4 i