Chamber of Commerce Wars on Labor Laws
Chamber of Commerce Wars on Labor Laws Nat'l Labor Party Can Insure New Deal TORIES IN CONGRESS SEEK RETURN TO HOOVER ERA—UNITY IN RANKS OF LABOR ESSENTIAL FOR PASSAGE AND PROTECTION OF SOCIAL...
...They want "confidence" to put labor in its place, invest money, and make once more the profits of 1928...
...At the end of 1936 the physical volume of goods *»nuced went up to more than 120% of the 1923-1935 level...
...She "u ail set for an age of plenty...
...The two could not be reconciled...
...Rappaporte's trouble was that he was a Communist with a conscience...
...President's come-back after his defeat by the Supreme Court \ m Wt* inadequate...
...An interesting sidelight on this fight to the fact that the Labor Party spokesman at the convention, Supreme Court Justice Charles Poletti, is the son of a man who once worked in the Vermont marble quarries...
...for the past twelve years my name has appeared neither in the Party periodical* nor in its annals...
...Trade union Organization was proceeding triumphantly...
...This isn't because business and industry seriously object to the spending program (in fact, many favor it), but because they hope to impress the country with the contention that something besides government spending is necessary in order to restore prosperity...
...This member, one of the few liberals, who doesn't like the way things are going in the Chamber, states that the Chamber is in touch with over 150 organizations engaged in a so-called "redbaiting" campaigns...
...They will open that fight by declaring themselves against the spending program of the government...
...masses will have "confidence...
...However, Federal control of industry must g o much further before the...
...At same^ time, factory employment and payrolls stood" nearly SE^T ^0UI*S l°wor...
...Nevertheless, they are silent...
...WEAK COME-BACK AFTER DEFEAT The...
...WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE SET-UP...
...The chief of the G.P.U., Yagoda, now executed as a common criminal by Stalin, was the master of Russia for ten long years...
...Farmers ten miles away from the quarries never heard of it...
...But first, of coarse, • the United States Chamber of Commerce will endeavor to modify the labor law by peaceful political means...
...While I could not always agree with the methods of these revolutionaries, I felt the greatest respect for them as men...
...Yes, Stalin may well feel proud: he has demonstrated that Socialism without political liberty results in revolting slavery...
...If things have gone wrong, •ho is at fault...
...The revolution, born from the military debacle, retains the ineffacable traces of its birth: Stalin's state is a military and police state, born of war and preparing for war...
...In a pronunciamento issued last week, the Chamber stated that such changes as are proposed in the labor law aim to prevent employers, as well as labor, from interfering with the right of wage earners to self-organization...
...never during this .entire time—even with banks bursting T1*" money to lend—was there any adequate investment in ?~mng, in railway equipment, in public utilities...
...The recovery was, then, from the beginning, oneand inadequate...
...Stalin's terroristic policies are deliberately paralyzing the political and intellectual growth of Russia...
...What can the government do to set things right...
...it is not difficult to imagine to what horrifying methods such an individual resorted in his work...
...Here's an example...
...In the code authorities we should have had machinery mr making manifold adaptations to fit industrial prices and pro*>ctaoa te the changed conditions...
...Socialists have always claimed that liberty without bread is a poor joke...
...Secretary Wallace had developed his machinery ¦•¦d was able quickly to re-adapt it to the changed situation, "^"sequently the farmers have suffered far less from the recession '2...
...This is particularly significant at the moment, in view of the bitter struggle of the Proctor family, owners of the quarries, and important in the United States Chamber of Commerce, to prevent the granite and marble men from unionizing...
...When Dorothy Thompson and Hogh Johnson spew their wrath on the President, they overlook the fact that his prime measures were thrown out...
...E***-*8 goods...
...Such recovery as we had from the summer of 1933 to September * 1*87 was due chiefly to an expansion of the market for con...
...Chambers all over the country—all members of the United States Chamber—have been engaged in the strike-breaking business...
...But our man-made schemes for making and marketing have broken down, and the air is filled with the raucous cries of rival tinkerers...
...The United States Chamber of Commerce is laying the groundwork for an important convention in the huge auditorium of the Chamber in Washington, and it's in the cards that this convention of 1938 is going to represent the greatest effort ever made in America to modify democracy...
...Then we must have a Labor Party...
...In the twenty years of its existence, the absolute power of this police state has succeeded in completely demoralizing the individual, and in befuddling his mind...
...The purchasing power of agriculture has g** u> remarkably well...
...People are afraid of their own friends...
...This is significant, in view of the clear fact that millions upon millions of wage earners are saved from peonage by that law...
...They smear the President with editorials, with broadcasts, with cartoons...
...The President and Congress started bravely...
...No serious person, if he has preserved his ability for sound reasoning, can believe that the defendants were sincere in their confessions...
...also Sokolnikov, who was the former Soviet ambassador to France and a member of my group in Paris...
...By WILLIAM E. BONN PRODUCTION is down, the stock market is down, commodity prices are going down—and unemployment is up...
...As a matter of fact, the United States Chamber has long had a so-called "subversive activity" mailing list—a list of people to receive confidential reports concerning all activities which aim at correcting faults in the social and economic order...
...The "confessions" can be explained only by moral tortures inflicted upon the accused, by their fears for their relatives and friends, by their hopes of saving themselves and of being able to continue their revolutionary7 work, etc...
...R. Hearst, Fred T. Clark of the Crusaders, officials of Bethlehem and Republic Steel—the same old Liberty League crowd...
...Se trade unions are fighting hard to retain their new-won ptembers...
...Servility and the lowest flattery are in full flower...
...Roosevelt has no consistent economic policy...
...By BRYCE OLIVER WVED'8 News Commentator QY next week the United States will be reaching a critical moment in the forward march of democracy...
...So the Proctors finally had to give rh to some extent, but this is just an example that shows why some of the biggest employers hate the labor law so dearly...
...In the interests of Socialism, in the interests of the world's peace, in the interests of the nations of Russia, it is nrnnssSfy that Stalin's despotism, disgracing a sixth of our world, should disappear forever...
...I * shall point out the more important ones...
...Then we can have a New Deal that can march forward woith a solid and unbeatable army behind it...
...What is wrong with the industrial and commercial set-up...
...Redfield Proctor, head of the company, to a director of the United States Chamber .of Commerce...
...Why I Left the Communist Party Translated by ELI AS L. TARTAR {"•HARLES RAPPAPORTE'S resignation from the French Communist Party is interesting news foe democratic Socialists...
...By CHARLES RAPPAPORTE INSTEAD of an independent Communist Party, there exists in France, at 120 Rue Lafayette, an office that files and registers the orders it receives from Stafin and from his henchman, Di. mitrov...
...The Federal Government's attempts to divert a larger share of income to labor necessarily operate against Swollen prents...
...But on the other side, there is only 1929 reaction...
...That is'to say—the President put through a pretty good protram daring the first five months of his administration, but he •¦W not been able to put through an adequate program during the *st fi»e years of his administration...
...This slavery can only be explained through the fact that the state has become the master of all means of existence...
...What we have had, then, is an inconsistent and inadequate series of experiments with government control of capital, production, and wages...
...THE MOSCOW TRIALS JkilANY of the defendants in the recent Moscow trials were per*vl gonally known to t me for a good many years...
...Those on the mailing list include most of the members of the Liberty League, whose lawyers issued a statement' declaring the labor law unconstitutional quite' a time before the Supreme Court got around to declaring it constitutional...
...But, when he is facing his former comrades with the masses behind them, his attitude changes...
...Just a glance at the records of the various chambers will show that the tears they shed for the down-trodden employees are of the crocodile variety...
...The agricultural field has been pretty well^ care ¦ of...
...For a half-century he played a prominent part in the Russian and French Socialist movements...
...Then—beginning definitely in September—the re"dassion started—and it is still cutting into our previous gains...
...The Russian revolutionary is brave and stalwart when facing his czarist or capitalist enemy...
...Had those two measures not been knocked out by the Supreme Court, it is quite likely that we would not now be going down the chute of this recession...
...He also was the Paris correspondent of the Moscow "Izvestia...
...At the price of countless sacrifices, the Soviet government has, to a certain extent, managed to transform old agricultural Russia into an industrial country...
...The initial measures inaugurated to this great end were the NIRA, the AAA, and the Social Security Act...
...And, it must be added, in complete slavery, for it embraces the political, moral and economic life of the country...
...It's about time for our labor leaders to wake up...
...There is strong reason to suspect that in the heavy purchases of arms for industrial plants, the arming of so-called vigiltante committees and citizens' committees, and special guards and deputies, there is being established in the Urrtted States an army of Fascism...
...Stalin views democracy as only an export article for Western consumption...
...This scene took place in the Kremlin...
...The recent mass executions of the old communistic guard, of the higher officials, of army and industry leaders, have bled Soviet Russia white, a country never excessively rich in cultural forces...
...When business leaders fume about lack of "confidence," they mean that there is a dwindling prospect of robbing consumers...
...Reform legislation and the trade unions are supposed , to have caused this new depression...
...The worse things are—the better...
...It consists of the Chambers of Commerce of almost all important cities in the nation...
...And as for my activity in the Party, it was very insig1 nificant...
...1 -Sham the spring of 1937 our whole«.economic picture has ^thaagad, At that time we seemed to be rapidly emerging from tip depression...
...Out on the West Coast, they have purchased the arms for deputy sheriffs to break strikes by force...
...Stalin has added to this a new truth: bread (and not much of i t ) without liberty is bitter...
...So whfte the administration is enforcing a set of measures to protect tbe public and divert an adequate sU'WBS of weakh to the., workers, U. is, necessarily undermining capitalist "confidence" and cutting down the supply of private capital offered for in vestment...
...Such a union is merely the company, itself, telling itself what wages and hours it will force itself to give to the* employees...
...All of the chambers, making up the United States Chamber, are composed of the larger employers of labor, and all of them have been more or less active, on behalf of their members, with regard to the thousands of controversies, all over the country, concerning the National Labor Relations Board...
...The official press, the only one that exists, is monotonous and drab to the extreme...
...Prices were going up, inflation was expected, ff**8 •ere placed for' large reserve inventories...
...There are frequent cases of higher officials asking to be transferred to lower posts in order to avoid responsibility...
...When the Presi¦»?*' i* *ear a?0' took measures to ward off inflation, they re.mited in a definite tendency toward deflation—and so started the •ascending spiral...
...But Tn its initial stages it is ineffective in this respect...
...In fact, it may •s to some extent a handicap to recovery...
...When, in January 1928, the Fifteenth Party convention expelled Trotsky, Kamenev and Rakovsky, I personally advised my friend Kamenev (later executed in Soviet Russia) to go through .the necessary formalities, to carry out the ritual of "recantation": thus, I explained to Kamenev, he would be able to carry on his revolutionary work...
...Armed Vigilante Gangs Urged On Bosses as Answer to Unions STRIKE-BREAKING HAS BECOME FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS WITH INDUSTRIALISTS' ASSOCIATIONACTIVITIES PARALLEL EARLY WORK OF MUSSOLINI'S FASCISTI MARAUDING GANGS...
...ory workers...
...Uf HAT the Chamber is aiming at isn't hard te ™ see...
...THIS working class—especially trade union people—must make up their minds what to think of all this...
...Under the old regime the country was poor and ignorant...
...In fact, there isn't a single Chamber of Commerce that has endorsed the National Labor Relations Board or the law that makes the board click...
...He has lived in France 40 years, is a noted Socialist scholar and author of "The Philosophy of History" and a biography of Jean Jaures...
...The debacle has gone so far that the government of Stalin, which has caused all this, is now perturbed and attempts to stop the trend...
...The .*Jt of these has done much to keep wages up and hours down, w*t it has necessarily been limited to industries capable of rapid •wnixation...
...Hew we can get it, wttfc American labor divided into bitterly fighting halves, 1 dent know...
...George Seldes, in his latest book, "You Cant Do That," publishes a confidential report of one of the members of the United States Chamber...
...They are prepared to contend that the attitude of President Roosevelt must change, in order to restore confidence, and from that point they are prepared to go on to the second point...
...But now we are being told that if the President were •gone, if his legislation were wiped out, if the trade unions would quietly die—then all would be well...
...Whatever criticisms may be leveled at the Jirst two, NIRA and Hi °ne can deny their general effectiveness...
...f Conservatives are happy...
...At the same time, I met Karl Radek...
...Some governSff* Money went into these fields, but private investments hardly 5T~* to flow...
...That highly "democratic" organization recently was shown up as a company union organizer by the Regional Labor Board of New York...
...Already * at the time of the civil war, before Stalin's advent to power, Russia had lost almost all of its intelligentsia, the noblest and most cultured in Europe...
...One of the important*°chambers in the United States Chamber is the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce...
...In Italy, the same sort of an organization, plus the association of manufacturers, was up against higher wages and a strong cooperative movement when Benito Mussolini was forming his Black Shirts...
...He declares that one of the main purposes of the organization at present is "to stigmatize all persons and organizations which desire s better social order, attempt social amelioration, or demand economic reforms as Communists...
...Cheka spies and informers have become the masters of the situation in Soviet Russia...
...He has, more-ttrer> taken advice from a rapidly changing group of experts and bright boys...
...It is certain that the course of events would have been different if Labor were united...
...According to advance indications, the meeting of the United States Chamber, representing all the smaller chambers, will inaugurate the opening of an outright fight by employers against the law...
...1929 is forgotten...
...Spring wheat, spreading over a thousand fields, laughs at the uninviting market...
...One member of the Chamber admitted that the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce had helped organize upwards of three hundred of such company unions...
...LABOR PARTY CAM HALT CONSERVATIVES C O N S E R V A T I V E S in both parties are shouting for a return to ^ " Hooverian reaction...
...MB*»er element is confidence in the prospect Of" profits...
...I was associated with my friend Christian Rakovsky for forty long years...
...But his experiments have, in general, been based upon one sound idea: that the factories slowed down because the people could not buy the product...
...They have frittered away their power...
...Chamber of Commerce Wars on Labor Laws Nat'l Labor Party Can Insure New Deal TORIES IN CONGRESS SEEK RETURN TO HOOVER ERA—UNITY IN RANKS OF LABOR ESSENTIAL FOR PASSAGE AND PROTECTION OF SOCIAL LEGISLATION...
...speaking about a hundred different languages and dialects...
...He is ready to sacrifice everything, even his honor...
...President Roosevelt had been beaten on his Su: Irene Court plan, but the Wagner Labor Relations Act had been ¦jailiail constitutional...
...The Articles 125 and 130 of Stalin's notorious constitution guarantee freedom of speech, freedom of press, of assembly, etc., but Bukharin, the real author of this constitution, has been executed...
...The United States Chamber of Commerce isn't an official body, but, nevertheless, it is terribly influential politically...
...It is impossible to breathe in Soviet Russia...
...He was unable to tolerate the Moscow "trials" and mass executions, and his letter below explains his reactions to them...
...Officials occupying high posts live under constant terror: they - may be accused of sabotage at any moment...
...The Proctors had such power during the Vermont strike that most newspapers in Vermont dared not to print the story...
...Shedding crocodile tears for labor "forced" into bona fide unions, the United States Chamber now wants the law amended so that these company unions will be legal...
...It was also announced that a report to be submitted to the labor relations study group of the Chamber cites instances in which decisions by the labor board prevented employees from being represented by labor unions of their own choosing...
...The facts are sufficiently self-evident, and have long been understood by many Communists as well as by Communist sympathizers...
...Apparently, this program has succeeded fairly well so far, with the aid of the advertisingconscious press...
...He dropped his Communism...
...r--J...
...The terror has paralyzed all minds...
...On that list are the duPonts, officers of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Wm...
...jJS...
...In addition to the aforementioned data which might explain the defendants' conduct at the trials, one might quote the -peculiar psychology of the Russian revolutionaries...
...The most important drive next week will be on that front...
...COR sheer hypocritical brazenness, the position * of the employer group wins something like the Pulitzer prize...
...a^*e have heard much about high wages as a depressive injE2f" but hardly a whisper about the high cost of materials...
...In testimony before the Senate Civil Liberties Committee, a member of the Cleveland Chamber brought out that within that Chamber was a so-called "Secret Seven," a small group charged with the job of breaking strikes by direct, forceful action if necessary...
...Rappaporte was a founder of the French Communist Party, a leading figure in the Third International and a member of the executive of the French CP...
...It yr&s Yagoda who staged all former trials...
...The Supreme Court set them hack, and they never again quite rose to the job...
...That is, that the only way that Roosevelt can show a changed, more friendly attitude toward business, would be a willingness to accept amendment of the National Labor Relations Law...
...A NOTHER unit in the United States Chamber is the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce...
...The last measure is still on the books, and J* the^end it will prove a make-weight against depressions...
...What the present tragedy proves is that we need—end need desperately—a national Labor Party...
...jryiEANWHILE, at Albany, where the New York State Constitutional Convention is in session, the progressives of both old parties are fighting to clinch labor's recent gains by incorporating them in the basic laws of the Constitution...
...The absence of freedom—and Stalin considers freedom a manifestation of "putrid liberalism"—has destroyed all chances of spiritual growth, stifled all efforts toward artistic creativeness...
...CONSEQUENCES OF THE MOSCOW MURDERS •"THE consequences of the Moscow murders are terrible...
...The proof was complete in the case of the Atlas Bag and Burlap Co., where a so-called independent union had been set «ip and the employees forced, under an unspoken but effective threat of losing their jobs, to accept the terms made by the so-called union with the company...
...I must say in full conscience that I believe them utterly incapable of the monstrous crimes of which they were convicted...
...Is labor justified in continuing the support of the President and sis policies...
...Our people may be cra»y, but they are not crazy enough to choose that...
...First we must have a united labor J} movement...
...In such a situation, the union wouldn't have had a chance had it not been for the Labor Relations Law and the fact that the Proctors wanted to sell marble and granite to the government...
...Not a single Soviet citizen, when retiring to bed, can be certain that he will not meet the x m w og in jail...
...Independent writers prefer to write under the knout, or else do not publish what they write...
...at home he treats it with the deepest contempt...
...At best, one must see here an enigma to be explored and solved...
...At present, I deeply regret that I gave Kamenev advice which was as useless as it was immoral...
...In any event, he loses his fighting spirit, his boldness: he feels himself weak and demoralized...
...However, all the German, American, and French engineers in the world, no matter how high their salaries saay be, could net create tbe necessary new intellectual and moral conditions in a country with a population of 175,000,000...
...Nine years ago—when the unions were at their weakest, when big business had full confidence and full responsibility—we took the great plunge...
...The chief substitutes for NIRA were the Labor Relations Act and the Wages and Hours Bill...
...its representatives emigrated, perished in prisons, or died of starvation and poverty...
...With Kamenev and Zinoviev, Lenin's chief collaborators, I became acquainted at the beginning of the century...
...Their socalled confessions stand, first of all, in contradiction to a nvjmber of well established facts (fictitious trips, non-existent hotels, fantastic conversations with persons who later denied the alleged encounters, etc., etc...
...The Wages and Hours Bill is still being shuttled n,gwt m Congress...
...Like 99 per cent of the membership, I was one of the "grey cattle," with no right to reason why, and having only the clear duty to carry out in silence the executive's decisions...
...For the very sane reason that Noah's sons cloaked the nakedness of their father, ft must be admitted, however, that the communistic cloak is Toll of holes...
...Mussolini merely sold out to the Chamber of Commerce—turned over his whole movement to the manufacturers—and there was Fascism...
...I have known Piatakov and Krestinsky since 1922...
...From this resulted the general -*jjea qf influencing the stream of wealth so that a larger profa™oa would reach the consuming public...
...Buds bursting in orchards from Maine to California seem to advertise the fact that nature is not interested in prices...
...DEGENERATION OF THE BOLSHEVIST REVOLUTION > •T*HE causes are many, and I shall not enumerate them all...
Vol. 21 • April 1938 • No. 18
