The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 14, 1933, Page 1

| Editorials Commemorating the Fiftieth Anniversary of Marx’s Death) ee YEARS ago today Karl Marx, the greatest thinker of all time, | died in-London. Only half a century separates us from that.date. But during that half century tens of millions of workers and oppressed of all lands have seized with their hands and hold high the flaming tevo- lutionary banner of Marxism. Frederick Engels was the great companion-in arms of Marx. (These | two developed over a period of forty years the revojutionary theory and__ practice of the proletarian struggle. They were fighting men of action in all the struggles of their day. They carried on a. relentless struggle against the “learned” lackeys of the capitalist class, they blasted .with withering fire the attempts of the petty-bourgeois “socialists” to smuggle into the werking-¢lass movement_theories that would weaken its struggle in face of the ‘enemy. ' Not merely did. they lare bare the workings of capitalist society, byt they showed the toiling masses how’ to forge mighty weapons that ‘would shatter the power of the capitalist class and lay the basis for the build- ing of a classless societ Thus they builded the foundations. of ‘the international Communist Party—they were the founders of the First In- ternational. It was Lenin, who in-his- uncompromising struggle for the’ working 1285 cause against all distorters of the theory. and practice of Marxism, the revolutionary doctrine of Marx to a new level.—‘Leninism is ism of the period of imperialism and the proletarian revolu- lin. With Lenin at its head, the Bolshevist (Communist) Party for the proletariat for which Marx and Engels laid the .scientific foundation.’ In sth of the inhabitable globe, formerly ruled by the czars, there oundations of a. so ruggl e fae Ma’ the f that the s now being ¢ c Year Plan, which will build a classless society, is rouch. It is under the leadership of the best ex-, sm, Comrade Stalin, that this is being achieved. yed the counter-revolutionary Trotskyist It is under the ¢ Communist Int ting for the victory’ of socialism all over the. world. Engels, Lenin, Stalin—that personify the stages st to this stage of the era of the general crisis of m and the revolutionary upsurge that is sweeping throughout the * * = versary of the death of Marx, we see the capitalist rulers of the United States, the greatest imperialist power, try- ing desperately to salvage their shattered financial structure—whose downfall during the past month was brought about on ‘exactly the lines predicted in his monumental work “Capital”, analyzing” the parasitic capi system It is Ma that shows the werking class how to fight against the quences of the attempt of the capitalist class to place th of its crisis upon the toiling masses and*that the only final solution for the working class is the revolu- out. ism that effectively annihilates as those put forth by It is the invi. such reactiona the “technocrats werful weapon that slashes like a sword through the at- distorters of revolutionary theory and practice to weaken the revolutionary struggle. apon that defends itself against the traitors of the and their American representatives, the leaders y. In the period of so-called capitalist prosperity these misleaders of the working class abandoned even lip service’ to the class. struggle and worshipped at the shrine of “organized capitalism”. E ) all their theories are refuted they, along with the Musteites, nd Lovestone renegades from Commuhism, try to divest revolutionary character, into a doctrine acceptable to the counter-revolution and palm it off on workers. in- an effort to disinte- grace the iriereasing mass struggles against ‘capitalism, But all these efforts must fail. There is only one Marxism. . That is the Marxism of the Communist International; the weapon. that “arms the toiling masses for the implacable struggle for the annihilation of capitalism and the world-victory of the proletariat. Bare A. Colossal Fraud. y Ee President, talking to millions of people. over. #-naticpal .hookeup, has given what we may call the official proclamation on, the Cateye and cure of the present bank crisis. An examination of his ‘arguments reveals that the studied appearance of complete candor, the heart-to-heart manner of his speech conceal a deliberate and Colossal deception of the American people. Bel hind manufactured clouds. of optimism, the. central, fasts ‘stand clear, It'is impossib'e at the present moment to convert paper currency into real. money—gold. All the buoyant, headlines about. the. reopening of the banks are wholly belied by the undisputed fact that the maximum drawals in savings banks is limited to $25, that the’ moratorium: in ts essentials is still in force. Roosevelt's theory of the bank crisis’ is as follows: ‘The people, stir- red by false rumors, have fallen a prey to unreasoning fear.’ Therefore they rushed to withdraw their deposits. Why could not the batiks’ get enough currency to meet the demand? This is Roosevelt's’ answer: “The reason for this was that on the spur of the moment it was impossible to sell perfectly sound assets of a bank and convert thén into cash” except at panic prices far below their real value.” Roosevelt says, “that every good bank has an abundance of..good assets.” It ig upon this fundamental issue, the character of the bank- ing assets of this country, that Roosevelt is deceiving the “American peovle. If one thing is certain, it is that the great majority. of the in- vestments of American banks are not saleable at the present time. at any- where near the prices which were paid for them before th stock crash of 1929. The essence of the bank. crisis is that the investments of the banks are not liquid. Roosevelt. speaks of the investments which have ‘been made. by the banks. What is the character of these investments? Mainly, they are investments in mortgages, government bonds, industrial bonds, and com~- mercial loans. Marx in the second volume’of Capital revealed the true character of such investments. “Bonds and Mortgages,” said Marx, “are in ro sense real wealth. They are mere claims on the annual produet of the nation.” Common Stocks, which represent ownership..of actual capital, too, are claims on. the surplus value which labor produces as it is exploited by capital. It is therefore clear that the value of bank investments is wholly devendent uvon the capacity of the canitalist class to extract, surplus value fron wage labor. And here we. come to the heart of the question. It is precisely because production has broken down, and because the amount of surplus value which the capitalist class can profitably: extract from the. workers, is no longer adequate to support. the enormous, claims represented by both investments in bords, mortgages, etc., that the cap- italist class now finds it necessary to resort to inflation. “Periodically,” said Marx, “the capitalist class finds it necessary to manufacture money withont going through’ the necessity: of any, intervening: production.” “It is this stage which America has now reached. Thus, inflation is notra temporary: dislocation due to. the incompetence of indivdual” Lerner but an inevitable result, of the capitalist mode of production. It is an att to artificially restore a purchasing power which can never be in this ‘period, in: the period of the end of capitalist stabilization. . The catastrophic decline in production since the Stock Bichange crash ,has froozen the bank assets. And the breaking: out of the te ee celal crisis has caused an even further decline in production. financial and economic crises react upon one another, intensifying both. Roosevelt's cure for the bankng crisis 1s doomed to failure because it is-based-on.a fundamental contradiction. . The capitalist.class attempts to raise prices and liquify its frozen assets by pumping new currency Ente circulation. Under the recent Bank Act the value of the currency based on the assets of the banks, ‘hos, he vale of te money depen ible weapon of Ma and utopian capitalist “fads” ¥ | Institution Has Fired ; Dail Central Organyot (Section of the Communist heats Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office New York, N. Y., under the Vol. xX; No. 62 <a>: Act’ of March 8, 1879. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 1933 at Worker | Ominunist Party U.S.A CITY EDITION Price 3 Cents Wife and Baby of Negro Sent to Death in Harlem Hospital Worker WOMAN FAINTED WITH PAIN AS DOCTORS LOAFED Good. Negro .Doctors;! Kept. Tammany Hacks) BULLETIN, NEW YORK.—A mass funeral and demonstration’ protesting the deaths of Mrs. Cummings, Negro house wife and her new ho-n cb" has been arranged in Harlem by The People’s Committee ‘Against Discrimination in Harlem Hospital for Thursday. A camtpsign against, ‘child, misery in’ Harlem is opening led by the- Unemployed. Councils, Workers In- ternational Relief and Young Pion- eers. ona he By DAN DAVIS NEW YORK.~Harlem: Hos- pital has sacrificed'two more lives on the altar of Tammany Hall. Eliatha Cummings, 24- year old wife of an untemploy- ed. Negro’ worker, of 318. West’ 140th St., ‘and her néw°born*child died of blood poisoning in Harlem Hos- pital Sunday morning after the hos vital had refused immediate atten- tion tothe prégnant mother when Lys was giving birth last Wednes- ay. Doctor Lolls At Ease “Tell her to sit on 2 bench in the waiting room,”.was the answer of 2 group of nurses and a doctor, the Jat- ter reclining on a table, to the re quest of the woman’s husband, Sam Cummings, last Wednesday at 6:30 a. m., for some one to take care of his wife who was in the act of giving birth, Cummings then demanded that “Somebody take ‘care of this wo- man now,” and the doctor, still laying on the teble finally sent him into the office. Nobody was there. “Get Out?” munist society. Karl Marx, 1818-1883 On March 14, 1883 (50 years ago today) Karl Marx, the scientific founder of the Communist movement, died. Marx was the greatest liv- ing thinker and revolutionist. Combined with the new contribution of Lenin, forming the system of Marxism-Leninism, we have the present day theory and practice of the movement of the oppressed teilers of the world which aims to abolish capitalism and establish a classless Com- NATION-WIDE PROTEST ON SLASH less spe NEW YORK.—Workers! with Joe Friedan as speaker. ing. The thousands of people * who have deposits in the other | banks will not be able to get a@ penny of their deposits. Billions Will Be Lost Only so-called solvent banks are epened throughout the country. The weaker banks will remain closed and will be liquidated on the basis of | their “good assets.” That is to say the denositors wil] be paid a s part of any money they may provided there is anything in such | banks that can be sold. If not they + | lose everything. It is estimated that not Jess than six billion dollars in deposits will be | wiped out during the first reorgani- zation. This does not take account of the amount that will be lost by} all depositors, even those who get the ‘full money amount of their de- posits, because of the depreciation of currency. Cannot Transf Secretary of the 1 made the announ nm estab- lished” customers of ba will not be permitted to even transfer their MOST BANKS REMAIN CLOSED; BANKS RESTRICT PAYMENT; $6,000,000,000 IN DEPOSITS WIPED OUT Savings Banks Only Allow Withd raw al of $ tion Currency W] hich Hits the Poor Masses of Small Depositors Dollar in Old Currency Values Come to these meetings and organize yourselves to fight back from the banks, to make them cash your pay checks—in rea] mor Tonight, at 8 p.m., at 1610 Boston Road, a mass meeting arranged jointly by the Unemployed Counelf, - Bronx Workers Center and Communist Party, Lower Bronx Section. Tomorrow night, two mass meetings: ranged by Communist Party and Unemployed Council. Tomorrow, also, the Communist Patty, downtown section, calls mass meetings at 8 p.m. at Rutgers Square, with Joe Porper, Dave Samberg and M. Abramowitz speakers, and at the same time at Seventh St. and Ave..A. Twenty minutes later, after the worker, enraged: by the ¢rintinal at- titude of the hospital, had shouted for attention, another nurse appear- ed and told shim to get out. Cum- mings dashed out to see how his wife, left on the bench, was getting on. He found ‘her doubled up with her head hanging limp between her legs. ‘He came «back and: ignoring threats. and shouts’ against him to “get out!”, finally forced the doctor and: nurses».to*do something. They placed Mrs. Cummings, clothes ard all, on the same table the doctor re- luctantly left, and took her up toa ward. An hour later the baby, was IN VETS’ DISABIL |Legion Leaders Silent But Ex-Servicemen’s League Calls Rank and File to Struggle BULLETIN NEW YORK.—Thke National Committee of the Workers’ Ex-Service- men’s League has issued an appeal to veterans throughout the country to organize immediate protest meetings in front of veterans’ bureaus and city halls’ against the cuts in dir payments. The apnea] also calls on veterans to send protest res.“wag 3 and wires to individual senators and-to. President Roosevelt. A total of 776,000 World War veterans alone will be affected by the Proposed cuts. — ee 4 transformed into lambs now that the Y PAYMENTS | WASHINGTON, March 13.—With floods of protest telegrams and let- ters . pouring in from all _ parts of the country, the Senate today be- gan debate on’ the bill proposed by Roosevelt .to give him dictatorial powers in cutting $500,000,000 from veterans’ benefits arid the wages of the 1,000,000 government, employees. Outstanding in the barrage of Wall Street publicity that is filling “the capitalist press in an effort to sell this robber bill to the public is the silence of the national leaders of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. These lions, who on various occasions in the past roared against the cuts, have suddenly been born—dead. Friday, Cummings was told his wife'-haq blood poison and ‘that. it. would be necessary for him to come back that night’for a blood trans- fussion. His blood: was tested but the transfusion -was made. the next morning. He was told to “get five more ‘people for transfusions.” His brother came the-next day but was told no further transfusion would be necessary until “néxt week.” Sunday morning,. with a nurse standing at.a distance and watching him, Cummings visited his wife. She stared ‘blankly ahead of her. He call- (CONTINUED ON PAGE FIVE) Frederick: Engels’ Speech Over the Grave of .Marx, Delivered at Highgate Cemetery, London, Match: i, 1853, “THE recibir OF ia at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. ‘He‘had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and »when we came-back we found him in an armchair, peace- fully gone to sleep—but forever. _. ‘An immeasurable’ loss has been.sustained ‘both: by the ‘militant. proletariat: of* Europe and’ Amerida, and by his- torical science,:in the death of this man. . The gap that has “been'left by the death of this mighty: spirit will soon enough make itself felt. : Just as Darwin’ discovered the: Hayy of evolution in or- -ganic nature, ‘so Marx discqvered the:law of evolution in human: history;- he discovered the. simple fact, - hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first. of all eat and’ drink, have shelter and clothing, before it. can pursue politics, science, religion, art, etc.; and that therefore the production’ of the immediate material , means of igh and consequently the degree of economic de- on the assets, and the rescuing of the assets depends on the money. velopment attain ya given people’ or during a given ‘The inherent contradictions of the capitalist way. out, of the crjals “epoch, form the foundation upon which the forms of gov- ASG SE naa Ae ane Sethe wee | eFDMERE, the legal conceptions, the art, and even the re slashes wages, increases unemployment, etc., bringing down .the living ue idess of the people concerned have been evolved, and standards of the masses to coolie levels. ‘Thus, capitalist class is the /light of which these things must therefore be ex- ie ot the Nery cours. of the riparas;tt siempts “po solve it-at the bea instead of vice'versa as had hitherto been the case. ; t that -is‘not’ all.’ Marx also discovered ‘the spetial scope nent won tedl ss rreny babe upon peribd in the which | jaw of motion governing the present-day capitalist method tory of this country. .It means such, misery and despeyation as ‘even the years of the Present crisis, have not yet Known. The ‘eritire policy of Roosevelt's speech, as ‘it ts the‘ entire ‘policy’ of the capitalist class is to conceal’ from the’ people. that ‘the. financial crisis js caused by fhe narne factors Which have caused, the world wide “economic erisis of capi 1 of préduction and’the ea ay society that this method’of production’ has’ created. ‘The’ discovery of surplus value ‘suddenly threw light on the problem in trying to solve which all 'previous'investigators, both bourgeois economists ~aniitsochallet critica: had: ‘been groping in:the:dark- cuts are actually being put through. Only the Veterans National Liai+ son’ Committee and the Workers Ex- Servicemen's League “are rallying the | tank and file vets for a determined struggle against this attack on their living standards: Thousands of vét- erans, including 26 members of’ the military police stationed at West Point, have signed a resolution cir- culated by the Liaison Committee demanting ‘no ‘cuts and immediate payment of thé bonus. Veterans thfoughout the country, whether you are members of an or- ganization’ or not, organize commit- tees of action futtds to other banks, but must stand |or fall with the banks they have ‘been dealing wwith—the result being that most of them will fail. The banks thit have opened are tem in tHe 12 federal reserve bank ci- ties , licensed by Woodin, and those state banks which were given per- mission to reopen by state banking heads. At the end of 1932 only 305 state banks were members of the fe~ deral reserve system; there are some 12,000 state banks and trust compar nies not members of the federal rey serve. There: are developing struggles of small depesito's to demand 100 e-rts | “SOLVENT” ESTIMATE $25 in Depreciated Inflas_ Launch F ight for Paying 100 Cents on to get your. money: not depreciated, inflated currencs! one at 801 Prospect Ave., and one at 1157 Southern Boulevard, ' aA The Bronx meetings are indoors, the others outdoors, NEW YORK, March 13.—Fifty-nine out of the 146 banks in New York City opened today, but depositors are not able to withdraw all of their money which has been tied up sinee: the collapse of the financial structure of the country last week. The Savings banks will only permit depositors to draw out the sum of $25 a weeks and that in the depreciated currency put out by the gov ernment, that has no real gold. backs, back- Keep “Daily” Fighting for MarxTeaching ‘ODAY we are issuing, at maine, st the req request of hundreds of readers, a special Marx Anniversary edition. This edition was scheduled to appear Saturday, but on Thursday we announced that because of the Daily Worker’s serious financial situation, we were not able to issue it. So many workers wrote in, however, point- ing out how necessary a Marx Anniversary edition was and promising to intensify their activities in the financial drive, that_we decided to make the utmost efforts to get it out. ‘We were able to print these two extra pages only because we succeeded in getting a number of loans on the promise “ that they would be repaid within the next few days. This is a promise which we made in YOUR names, readers and sap- ‘porters of the “Daily”, And only you can make it good. . * * 'O honor the memory of Karl Marx today means to help keep aliye the. chief. American organ of the great inter- national Communist moyement which he founded, the paper that leads the fight for the principles that he feught for. Hits life and work are a call to action to save the Daily Worker— our leader, our teacher, our most powerful weapon in the struggle. A serious threat faces you and every American workér—~"~ the threat of losing the “Daily”. Your help must come quickly. Rush all Tag Day funds at once. Collect in every shop, in every organization, at every meeting. Arrange house parties ‘om’ the dollar of their deposits in old currency values. Reosevelt in Message Urges Beer, Not Bread | WASHINGTON, March 13.—Having come to the rescue of the bankers and taken \ steps to rob the veterans and government employes, President Roosevelt today, continued to dodge the question of the 17,000,000 starving unemployed by sending a special mes- sage to Congress on beer. Roosevelt urged immediate modifi- cation of the Volstead Act to legalize and affairs. Pour your dollars and pennies into the office of the Daily Worker, 50 E. 13th St., New York City. . . . RECEIVED SUNDAY AND YESTERDAY... TOTAL TO DATE...... « -$339.25 $17,949.82 ‘CUTS FOR MILLION GOV’T WORKERS Roosevelt, bill for slashing $500,000, 000 from veterans’ benefits and the wages of government employes isene acted into law. Of these 1,000,000 employes, the largest group, numbering about 380,~ the manufacture and sale of beer. 000, are now earning only $1,000 = year or Jess. All government em- ployes have for months been - ing at wage-cuts as a result of the compulsory one-month furloughs without pay introduced by Hoover. WASHINGTON, March 13.—About 1,000,000 government employes, in- cluding members of the armed forces, will have their wages cut up to 15 per cent if the Wall. Street- = Was Before All Else A Revolutionist” ~The. grave of Karl Marx in Highgate Cemetary, London, England. Two such discoveries. would be enough for one life-time. Happy the man to whom itis granted to make even one such discovery. ‘But in every single field which Marx investi- gated—and he investigated very many fields, none of them superficially—in, every field, even in that uf mathematics, he made independent discoveries. This was the-man of. science. “half the man. Science was namic, revolutionary | force. But this ‘was not even for Marx a ‘historically dy- However great the joy with which he welcomed a new di8covery in some theoretical science whose practical application perhaps it was as yet quite impossible . to envisage, he experienced a quite other kind of-joy when the discovery involved immediate revolu- ~tionary-changes’in:industry-and’in» the: general course-of history. For example, he followed closely the discoveries made in the field of electricity and recently those of Marcel Deprez. For Marx was before all else a revolutionary.. His real mission in life was to contribute in one way or another to the overthrow of capitalist society and of the forms of government which it had brought into being, to contribute to the liberation of the present-day proletariat, which he was the first to make conscious of its own position and_its needs, of the conditions under which it could win its free- dom. Fighting» was his element. And he fought with a passion, a tenacity and a success such as few could rival. His work on the first Rheinische Zeitung (1842), the Paris Vorwartz (1884), the. Brussels Deutsche Zeitung (1847), the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (1848-9), the New York Trt- bune (1852-61), and in addition to these a host of militant pamphlets, work in revolutionary clubs in Paris; Brussels and London, and finally, crowning all, the formation'of the international Workingmen’s Association—this. was indeed an achievement of which Marx might well have ‘been Proud, even if he had done nothing e]se. _ And ‘consequently Marx was the best hated ‘and mest calumniated man of his times. Governments, both abso lutist and republican, deported him from their territories, The bourgeoisie, whether conservative or extreme democrat, vied with one another in heaping slanders upon him, AW this he brushed aside as though it were cobwebs, ign them, answering, only when necessity compelled him. ‘now he has died—beloved, revered and mourned by millions of revolutionary fellow-workers—from the mines of Sibeyig. to California, in all parts of Europe and America—and' I make bold to say that though he may have many opponents he has hardly one personal enemy. ” His:name-and:his-work will endure through the oneal, ,