A PAGE OF EXCLUSIVE FEATURES
A PAGE OF EXCLUSIVE FEATURES A STRIKER'S BOOK OF ETIQUETTE in view of the multitudinous injunctions threatened * or already issued against the workers, it has been suggested that it would be a...
...This has reference to the seventeenth century and to a peculiar feudal type of society to he found In New York and nowhere else...
...A Compound of Pilfering, Plagiarizing and Sheer Inability to Copy Correctly Offered by Mr...
...There is not the slightest evidence that he has consulted the records of that body...
...These absurd judgments are so thickly strewn throughout the book that one can only mention a few...
...This beneficient corporation is constantly telling us that we are one of its great big family...
...Answer: Throwing garbage at police...
...vl, pp...
...80-81...
...The very black and engaging granddaughter of our cat Isabel has more rebellion in her few inches of fur than is to be found in the majority of the alleged college revolutionists...
...With all these forces as a gift to the slave power it is certalan that the war would have lasted longer than it did and more blood and treasure would have been spent than was actually spent...
...There is no attempt to present the economics of the Constitution itself while he credits that document with providing for a Supreme Court of nine members...
...But domsstt* cated cattle like horses, oxen aad mine mules...
...Tep, almost, Insert L in place at ] R and right you R. Adam Coaldigger...
...Then on the some page he writes of "the spot where Jamestown, Va., stands today...
...There Is not an offense that may be charged against an author that Bimba does not commit...
...On pages 50—51 he gets his head to a noose twice by falling to follow my citations closely...
...j Asking for the five-day week and the six-hour day...
...On page 50 Bimba lifts a quotation of mine from W. J. Ghent to "The' Forum" of August, 1901, but credits it to McLaughlin's book, "The Confederation and the Constitution...
...Some of these writers even anticipated Marx and Engels but this book Ignores them their writings and the part which some of them played to the early labor movement...
...What's more he swears up and down that liberty can not be inherited but must be earned by every new generation with work, sweat, tears and if necessary by blood...
...vli, and find Lincoln's message...
...But don't save money...
...He says that Labor should organize its own party and get behind it with its money and its press instead of wasting its kale on balls, lawyers and court costs and its press in whining about what they are always doing to poor Labor...
...The naivete of Red Riding Hood in accepting the wolf as her grandmother should be touched on but not emphasized...
...He is striding up and down the office like *a laughing hyena with tooth ache...
...Every thus you say "injunction" he sees red and then goes and evolves all kinds of crasy schemes on how put a stop to ths injunction weevil...
...From the one extreme of conservatives viewing Lincoln as a perfect sain, our Bolsheviks have developed a mythical Lincoln who was a compound of hypocrite, coward and pro-slavery politician...
...Lincoln issued fills proclamation only when it was certain that the border states would not Join the South and with the knowledge that these states served as a buffer to the southern sympathisers in Indiana and Ohio...
...There's nothing strange in that" . "No nothing...
...Skidmore, Brothers, Brownson, Kellogg and Masquerter...
...He concludes this chapter on the Constitution by declaring that after Its adoption the workers were confronted with "a powerful well-organized ruling class" from that time on...
...What, Sentry, ho...
...The Myers' quotation refers to New York "feudal lords" and "tenants" and "produce of the manor" and "feudal tenures...
...These phases Include, among other things, "the role of the state" and failure to "expose" conservative leadership in the labor movement...
...The reader will appreciate the humorous side of this when It is remembered that some of these American Lenlns have Insisted that my book is worthless and here Is one of them pilfering much of it and passing it off as his own...
...Assume that at the opening of the war Lincoln had Issued his proclamation...
...All that T.lr""*" does is to call the at ten tion of Congress to the fact that Eu ropean workers were crowding American consulates to an effort to go to America and Lincoln adds that the shortage of labor due to the number of men to the armies makes it necessary for Congress to give the matter consideration...
...This Is to assume that the workers had exercised some Influence over "state power" when as a matter of fact the es had been disfranchised throughout the colonial period...
...Aver nit...
...For soon you'll haws the five-month year and the two-day week—aad them , won't be any injunctions to stop them, either...
...There is, you see, to be a Cdngressional investigation of the power trusts...
...One of the most astonishing misquota' tlon of references Is found on page 57 ' where Bimba considers the constitutloni a! convention of 1787...
...Didn't know it myself until I looked it up in Webster's...
...personalities against our individual pocket-book...
...Fraternally yours" Students of our Alma Matdr have distinguished themselves by throwing garbage and elderly eggs at police who tried to break up a football rally at Columbia University., Ten years from now these selfsame students, turned bond salesmen and sublimated ambulance chasers, will be denouncing the rowdyism of strikers, and defending law and order by writing indignant letters to the New York Times about the growing aggressiveness of trade unions...
...Other bedtime stories that could be used in similar fashion are "Curly Locks and the Three Bears," "The Prince and the Pauper," (although in this case care must be taken to point out that the pauper in question was a foreigner, as there are no poor people in America under the reign of Coolidge prosperity), and "Snow-White and Rose-Red...
...Communist View of Lincoln There are other absurd conclusions of this sort throughout the book, as, for example, the statement on page 64 that a result of the land policy of the government before the Civil war "absentee landlordism became the rule...
...When we heard that they had called on their co-eds, we hustled around and got a Chinaman on our team as a counter-attraction, and we rise to state that Columbia won that debate by a 3-0 decision...
...Rarely has there been compressed within the covers of a single volume so much ignorance, plagiarizing, misquotation and even appropriation of the work of other writers as In this volume...
...And we feel that in questioning their bill we are indulging in a rather vulgar internecine strife...
...If readers do not check them they will find themselves led into one absurdity after another...
...The contents of the first half of the book, moreover, Is made up almost entirely of •quotations from my history and a few others...
...Bimba Is a Comi munlst and his book is intended as a ! Communist presentation and taterpretaI tion of the American working class...
...His intention is I to give his readers an idea of the eco| nomic views of the members of the body I who framed the Federal Constitution...
...Bur after all, we won't be too rough on ourselves...
...Among the quotations on this page is another from McMaster, vol...
...agj But really, injunctions are hemming so fisqisauV plentiful, and numerous that a fellow may ha excused if he gets a little mixed hi times...
...4 * * * • It was a moment of optimism indeed that the League for Industrial Democracy issued its latest pamphlet, called "The Rebel in the American College...
...You fellows make me laugh...
...The first one I repeated seven years ago in the last edition of my book but in seven years since then Bimba has not learned that the old theory that the discovery of America was solely the result of a search for new trade routes is no longer tenable...
...For even the greediest employer • will oil up his machines and protect them wlth^tor- ¦ ers against dust, rust and rot while they're idle, s A...
...But where one expects light there Is darkI ness and the only time he emerges from it is in the modern period of the past twenty years when tlie ghost of American Communism is presented as the most important phase of American labor history...
...We feel just too lucky for words that after we had paid the original bill they let us off without further penalties...
...Even the two quotatons offered by Bimba shrow the conflict...
...Why can't working people hibernate when cold sets in and sate get scarce, like many . dumb animals do...
...you dumb bells...
...Ignoring the divisions in the upper ruling groups, especially the North and South and the courting of the agrarian democracy of the West by both down to the Civil War...
...Bimba obtained this mind-reading from Myers who makes a similar observation...
...Save my life I can't see why buddy should get so excited about a little thing Uke that...
...Can you beat it...
...Bimba * By James Oneal 1tjavid STARR JORDAN has written a book on the "Higher Foolishness" la winch he outlines what he calls "sciosophy" which in turn Is denned as "systematized ignorance...
...Such was the governing class of the colonies", writes Bimba...
...Leaves Traces of His Pilfering But in thus pilfering my work, Bimba gets his head in a noose now and then through his careless thieving...
...Solon DeLeon and Alexander Trachtenberg read the manuscript, helped to prepare it for publication, and thels "advice on many questions was of great help" to him...
...Before proceeding furher a word here regarding my own book, "The Workers In American History...
...1. As a general rule It may be said that one cannot engage to the profession of pilfering the work of others without leaving some evidence of it, but It is doubtful whether any other man has ever left such large bear tracks to the snow...
...The McMaster quotation refers to fox hunts, cockfights, barbecues and slaves and even to " travelers from a colder climate", which shows he is discussing life in the warmer climate of the south and not the life of feudal New York...
...The fact Is that the sale of the first slaves In Arriginla was probably accompanied with mixed views of aversion, anxiety, curiosity, fear and a hope that Negroes | would prove adapted to the tobacco culi ture of the colony...
...One immediately thinks of "sciosophy" after reading another book (A History of the American Working Class by Anothony Bimba, New York: International Publishers...
...Absolutely nothing new is offered and much of importance presented by myself and others Is completely ignored...
...Upon arising in the morning, the striker shall first take out his copy of the injunction and read and reread it carefully, observing particularly those sections in regard to roads on which he is not to walk and places of worship he may,not attend...
...Bimba never heard of them...
...In the South there were quite a number of people who favored the North in preserving the union but not on the Issue of abolishing slavery...
...New Light" On the State Now a reading of the book shows that he* not only has not considered a single "neglected" phase...
...Throughout large sections of southern Indiana and Ohio were people who had migrated from the South and who favored slavery...
...Low-down and snooping characters such as Senators Walsh and Wheeler and La Follette threaten to ask embarassing questions about the mysterious ways of these god-fearing men with their holding companies and mergers and the like, and so we are financing the defence in the case, as we shall presently discover from our electric light bills...
...i Let us be frank...
...Bimba Is still dealing with the colonial period and on p. 15 he considers the immigrants and immigrant traffic...
...What Lippincott quotes from Lincoln Is correct, but this quotation offers not the slightest evidence that i,j~*«iti recommended the policy Bimba says he recommended...
...Can you beat it...
...NOW that you know all about averment you will catch what Judge Schoonmaker of Pennsylvania was driving at when he said: ^ "The averment of the existence of a general conspiracy and intent on the part of the defendants to interfere with the production of coal in all non-union mines in the Central Competitive field...
...It is not wise to dwell too much, however, on the color of the young woman's costume...
...One of them...
...Repeats Myer's Blunder But ths liberty in shifting scenes and stage properties also extends to reading the minds of the planters in Virginia who purchased the first Negroes brought Into that colony In 1619...
...This is not the fault of the authorities...
...He says that the fellow who thinks bo can enjoy the liberty earned by the Founding Fathers should be forced to live on the bams that hung hi George Washington's smoke house...
...3- * * * Now we are back again from the company office, with the results that we predicted...
...Myers himself offers no evidence and Bimba copied Myers without any attempt to check him...
...He does not even understand the old phases considered by others...
...On page 139 he considers Lincoln's policy regarding Immigration to this country during the war and he credits Llpplncott's economic history for his authority on this matter...
...no sound...
...But it Is essential to consider the Communist view of Lincoln...
...Bimba ascribes to Lincoln a policy which is not jdstlfled by reading the Llpplncott quotation and Lincoln's message itself 8uch conduct to a. writer can only be characterised as deliberate falsehood But the Bolshevik view of Lincoln must be maintained and Bimba knows that honesty to dealing even with the dead Is a "bourgeois prejudice...
...Under no conceivable circumstances would we say anything to cause you to violate the munilicent contracts which you have signed with the company, in which you promise not to join any naughty labor union in return for the three dollars you will receive for working ten hours and longer...
...Well then you're beaten...
...The land policy did serve speculators and fortunes were reaped through graft and bribery, but to assert that "absentee landlordism became the rule" is to substitute assertion for fact...
...I happen to be more the victim of this treatment than any other writer...
...It is the fault of Bimba himself who frequently shows that he does not understand his quotations from other writers...
...As between Bimba and Lincoln one has little difficulty In choosing...
...Wild cattle...
...Lincoln could have acted early to the war as Bimba says he should have done, but had he done so be would have been a fool...
...A PAGE OF EXCLUSIVE FEATURES A STRIKER'S BOOK OF ETIQUETTE in view of the multitudinous injunctions threatened * or already issued against the workers, it has been suggested that it would be a service to the labor movement to print a set of rules for the etiquette of strikers...
...As for his consideralon of the "role of the state", he nowhere goes farther than to say here and there that the state was the organ of this or that economic Interest...
...Turning to this volume we learn that McMaster is discussing immigration of 1830, not the colonial period 1 Moreover, the Indentured servitude connected with the colonial immigration had almost become extinct by the year 1830 and the so-called "free Immigration" had become the dominant type...
...If non-union miners on their way to take the strikers' jobs should happen to pass by during the reading, the strikers will, of course, address them somewhat along the following line: "Dear Sirs and Brothers: We greet you as free and independent American citizens, who are exercising your inalienable right to stab our organization in the back...
...The fact that women are going to debate for Cornell is treated as news by the old-line papers...
...etc., and that book plainly carries the information that the author Is considering the views of men to the New York convention, not the Federal Convention...
...And that reminds me, wouldn't it be nice if working people were Just Uke other machines Instead at ' human beings...
...By exercise of some subtlety, the striker may convey to such non-union adherants as are in the neighborhood the implication that the wolf is a symbol of company unionism...
...If "Joy" was the general feeling, why la It that thirty years i after this first sale there were only 300 | Negro slaves in all Virginia...
...Now there Is no historical evidence to justify this view and' no reliable economic historian accepts it...
...i Say do any of you injunctionallties know what aa averment is...
...Any one having the slightest acquaintance with McMaster's work knows that when the sixth volume Is quoted for the colonial period Bimba has committed another absurd blunder...
...No sight...
...They cultivate "systematized Ignorance...
...Putting on the silk shirt, the $3.50 necktie and the Brooks Broth ers overcoat, the costume of the American worker, accredited to him by the old line newsappers, the striker then steps into his limousine, and with a copy 'of the Supreme Court decisions in the Hitchman case, Bedford Cut Stone and Cornado, he is driven within five miles of the struck factory or mine, as the case may be...
...On page 51 he lifts two paragraphs from my book and credits them to McMaster's "History, Vol...
...The averment of the special and particular conspiracy to keep from the interstate market coal' produced at all non-union mines in the Pittsburgh district...
...Then the first paragraph of the next chapter on page 61 declares that the upper ruling groups "had separated the working masse* from the state power very cleverly and effectively...
...Why did Bimba write the book...
...The latter ilip might be pardoned but we are dealj ing with a cult, that has found perfecI tion in all fields of knowledge and the | cultists are legitimate game for us...
...Detroit, alons, it to said, has 180,000 of them, I Worse sign yet, alarming multiplication of "for rent" j signs, coupled with prophesies of still greater proa- I perity...
...Hows your injunction, hat pardon, i imstltittwsl this morning...
...And learning to write slick ads in so-called schools of journalism...
...Isn't the Interborough Rapid Transit Co., a public service operation and if serving aa Injunction on three million gar^ast not public service then what the hell la?~-llaf*-j • * • But that's the trouble with buddy...
...We, the common people, are to be "educated" by the power gang to the effect that we havenit sense enough to manage the country's natural resources...
...His authority is McMaster's little book, "Acquisition...
...Explanation: If everyone , saved all be made, everybody would be out of work, i I...
...If there is one thing conspicuous of that land policy it Is that the public domain was of such vast extent that even the graft and plunder of the period did not make absentee land magnates the conspicuour feature of that period...
...Nothing except the Bolshevik slant given to everything to it...
...Marching in snake dances around football stadiums...
...Therefore, Bimba has nothing but contempt for "the bourgeois historians and the trade union and Socialist leaders" who have some admiration for Lincoln, (p...
...I7z Another thing...
...coupled with the allegation of the intent thereby to keep non-union coal out of the interstate market in order that the coal output of unionized mines should have a monopoly in the interstate coal markets...
...tion of the blood and hiccoughing, for Instance, ¦• JJ Among other things Hough says, "Each picket stuff be a citizen of the United States and shall be able to speak the English language" and orders that said order be printed in the English, Italian, and Feast* languages...
...But one blunder of this kind Is not enough for one chapter...
...Then the border states of Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware wavered between North andrsouth and would have joined the South if Lincoln had acted at the opening of the war...
...And all about a little Item in e New York paper saying that the Inter bo rough Rapid Transit Co., est that city has served notice that on November llth, in honor of Armistice Day, it will ask for an in June tion restraining William, president of the American Federation of Labor, and sach of his 3,000,000 (three million) associates of that body from attempting to organize the 14,000 employes of said Interboxough Rapid Transit Co...
...Among' other things he says that every union man with an inch of guts in him from President Green down should tell these injunction judges to go to the place where interference with interstate commerce will not prevent the thermometer from going to 2000 degrees Fahrenheit...
...He assures his readers that they will be rewarded If they will consult the references which he quotes...
...The title given by Bimba to his book and what I have quoted from the preface above shows that he assumes to give this complete history...
...One who is so ignorant of the life and men in this formative period of the United States certainly must be classified with those mentioned by Professor Jordan...
...After the bright young man in the company office has explained the bill to us, we know as usual we shall be sunk spurlos and retire to chalk up another victory for our corporate...
...They did favor a war to preserve the union...
...This act would have driven three border states Into support of the rebellion, wiped out the support of Lincoln by -the southern unionists, and possibly carried the lower sections of Indiana and Ohio into the southern camp, to say nothing of increasing the antagonism to the war in the North that was evident to the first two years of the struggle...
...Funny quirks these injunction judges...
...In the past ten or fifteen years some remarkable and Informing studies related more or less to American economic, social and labor history have appeared, especially monographs published by Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Illinois universities...
...Lincoln waited till January, 1863, before he issued his proclamation of emancipation, nearly two years after the war began...
...Word reaches us from Washington of a great boom in the propaganda industry of the nation's capital...
...What of the invaluable essays that have been published by the American Historical Association to its annual reports and special volumes...
...His book appears at an opportune moment...
...Here and there as on pages 18, 19, 59, 60 and elsewhere, he lifts passages from my book, changes a word here and there, and runs these excerpts ss his own...
...And yet they say we are the crown of creation...
...Well, some people are born crazy and some get that way and for no reason at all...
...There is one set of laws which has the hearty approval of ' McAlister Coleman...
...Bimba follows this quotation with anither from McMaster on the habits of 'these landlords...
...How passed the night through thy long waking?** "Cold, cheerless, dark,—as may befit The hour before the dawn is breaking...
...Here goes for a start...
...Run happily to your tasks, assured of our best wishes, and the fact that God and the Supreme Court will furnish you full protection...
...By ths way, wouldn't it create some hilarity at" some Federal Judge issued an injunction to prevent ' employers from closing plants and throwing their I employes on the street...
...Birrfba follows the Bolshevik myth...
...Hough of Ohio, Just issued one filling a nine page pamphlet covering every human action except flays performed automatically such as breathing, ciuioa...
...The first page of the book carries two errors...
...Already, weeks before the opening of Congress, typewriters are clicking away in offices hired by the National Electric Light Association and allied power lobbyists, local newspaper men who had been running around in frayed shirts have secured fat jobs, and generally the preparations for a huge "educational campaign" • are well under foot...
...That's the worst yet," etc, and so on...
...Bughouse Bubbles "1 Work getting scarcer...
...Here it is permissible to alight from the old car and read aloud the story of lied Hiding Hood and the Wolf...
...r^ Relieving Guard Came the Relief...
...We turn to Llpplncott's book at the page cited by Bimba and there Is no reference there to Lincoln recommending this policy...
...He believes Itnecessary to reveal "those phases of the subject which have been neglected by the historians of our labor movement...
...He adds that "to 1864 Congress accepted Lincoln's proposal...
...Hundreds of thousands of dollars are -to be spent telling us that we really do own the big electric light companies, because some of us'have bought sjeck in said companies, and that as Baer once said, their management should be left in the hands of god-fearing men who got the job by special appointment from divine providence...
...Falsehood on Lincoln Policies But on another matter In relation to Lincoln a more serious charge may be made against Bimba...
...Bimba concludes that "there can be no doubt" that if Lincoln had Issued it at the beginning of the war and invited the slaves to join the northern armies, "the war would not have lasted so long or cost so much in human blood and life...
...The more you sees the 'Sooner you'll be broke...
...Bimba has no knowledge of them whatever...
...Now for the evidence...
...No mention of any of this material Is to be found in the book...
...Except for a book by Simons mine was a pioneer work...
...Such Was TheGovemingClass" Considering the colonial period in the ' second chpater (p...
...A star...
...Cities filling with unemployed...
...We had the advantage, at Cornell, of rules and regulations, which made it impossible for the lady to have the last word...
...Dont you see they're trying to make avers out of you...
...Well, averment is derived from the Latin word "aver" meaning cattle...
...The substance of Bimba's view is that Lincoln recommended to his message to Congress of December 8, 1863, the adoption of a policy that revived to -some extent the indentured servitude of the colonial period...
...The Vesult is merely a rehash of what others have written of the period down to the Civil War together with some laughable blunders...
...These are evidently contracts made in the best of faith on both sides, and the very idea of applying to them the rude epithet of yellow dog shocks us beyond words...
...Poor buddy...
...Can't make it out yet...
...Bret Hortt, on an incident in the Antrum u-ar taaa...
...It is necessary to warn the readers of the book...
...Where is he...
...Here and there are refer(Continued on Page Six) THE INJUNCTION WEEVIL ood morning...
...Moreover, one who has the slightest acquaintance with the members of the Federal Convention knows that Kent was not a delegate to that body...
...I • • • Somebody please straight jacket that buddy of r«j|ns, the guy who writes to the left of me and sometimes invades the front page...
...2.75...
...It is an attempt to portray some of the more important aspects of American workers in our history, not a complete history of American labor...
...Bimba quotes from My. ?rs regarding the landed aristocracy In Colonial New York...
...Jamestown was destroyed I 250 years ago and even the "spot" can | hardly be recognized today...
...Then what of the rich and suggestive contributions that have appeared to the same period to such publications as the American Historical Review and the Political Science Quarterly...
...What Is to be said of a "History of the American Working Class" that completely Ignores the labor and social theories and the authors of these theories to be found In the writings of Manning, ByUsby...
...We have a few more questions...
...One does not even have to go back to the sources to show the absurdity...
...That famous line, "They went forth to battle but they always fell," might have been written about New York telephone subscribers...
...Then page after page he quotes from authorities which I quote and instead of saying "quoted by Oneal...
...No, nothing save The plover from the marshes calling, And in yon western sky, about - ' An hour ago, a star was falling...
...And worst of all, he claims that since the Supreme Court has declared the digging and shipping of coal aa interstate or federal concern we should start a lip roaring propaganda for ths nationalisation of ths mines...
...Yes, and such Is "history" ss written by Bimba...
...Ain't it the limit...
...Throughout the North considerable sections of the population were opposed to a war to abolish slavery...
...He says he would rather be in jail and sing the Star Spangled Banner through the bars than be a Jntt bird on the outside...
...Its title shows that I have never considered it a history of the American working people...
...Bimba writes, '"And with what Joy did the land owners of Virginia hall the Dutch ship" which brought these slaves...
...He Is blissfully Ignorant of the fact "that such writers as Fox, Becker, Beard, Schlesinger and others have made some remarkable contributions to an understanding of the state as it has evolved in this country...
...He quotes one speech alleged to have been delivered In the convention and this proves to be a speech by Chancellor Kent In the constitutional convention of New York in 1821...
...122...
...he cites direct from these authorities, thus giving the Impression i that the citations are the result of his labors and not mine...
...Just as I thought...
...Turning to volume wo of McMaster's work we observe that he latter is not discussing the life of -he feudal magnates of New York to the t 1• seventeenth century but of Virginia planters in the eighteenth century...
...Scanning The New Book So THIS Is History...
...but, above the thicket, Somehow it seemed to me that God Somewhere bad just relieved a picket...
...Way, way back in 1909, when we were straining our youthful tonsils on the Columbia debating team, we met in oratorical contest the first-woman inter-collegiate debater, who at that time captained the Cornell 'team...
...But historical periods and changes In customs, Institutions and policies have no aignlI flcance for our "historian...
...13) we encounter an ! ibsurd blunder...
...Now truth and scholarship should know no prejudice, especially when It deals with the past, and I would welcome any new light thrown upon our past even if It came from a Communist source...
...The small farm owner and tenant are fruits of this policy...
...That document does not fix the number and its membership as first constituted was six, not nine...
...As for his references...
...Off and on, ever since, we have been debating with women, but in none of these contests have we again emerged the victor...
...What is there new to this book...
...We have to stop now, because we are in a little argument with another one of our companies, namely the New York Telephone Company...
...All morning he's been tearing bis hair, gritting bis teeth and uttering imprecations like "Well, 111 be damned...
...Moreover, one gets no adequate conception whatever, of the working class to the South...
...He tells us in the preface...
...Then we turn to Richardson's reliable "Messages and Papers of the Presidents," Vol...
Vol. 4 • November 1927 • No. 23
