CHICAGO NORTH SHORE RAILWAY CHARGED WITH FRAUD IN SUIT BY STOCKHOLDERS
Perkins, Robert H.
Chicago North Shore Railway Charged With Fraud in Suit by Stockholders ¦y ROBtnr M. PiMUNS , CHICAGO. CHICAGO has had more than iu share of ti action and utility scandals. Its InsuUs and...
...But the stockholders' charges, as a matter of contrast, have received very little publicity...
...Lest any odor of "bourgeois cosmopolitanism" be detected by sensitive noses in these antics, it was a simple enough matter for the M0.SCOW dialecticians to conic up with another appropriate distinguishing label: "proletarian inteiniitionalism...
...THE STOCKHOLDERS' SUIT, however, is only part of a story that, fraud or no fraud, is scandalous...
...As a Russian, he requires a special classification...
...There, acts which to the casual observer might appear to be prime examples of "bourgeois nationalism" are viewed with an astonishingly indulgent eye by the powers that be...
...2. Control of the reorganized North , Shore's board of directois...
...A management—particularly a railroad or utility management—which does not serve the interests of the community,g*^^",by loSes its rea.son for existence, iTv^ ^liL^'^* out and let someone take/^2>U "^^^ ' or not this will happet^" Shore case remains to b...
...Today, in the conditions of a socialist society," it seems, "the supeiioiity of Soviet science, art and culture is a logical corollary of the superiority of the economic and .social system of the Soviet state, the most advanced in the world...
...For '¦xamplo, rewriting the history of science and technology from the invention of the wheel lo the B-29 so as to transfer every i redit to a Russian lomcs under the head of "life-giving Soviet patriotism...
...Last spring, Bulgarian Vice-Premier Traicho Kostov (recently executed for espionage, trea.son and miscellaneous other crimes) balked at the generous terms offered by the Soviet Union in negotiations for a trade treaty...
...NORTH SHORE has had a long and stormy history...
...it is po.sitively essential in Older to nourish the faith of the Soviet people in their country and Government, which is the inspirutionul beacon-light of advanced humanity throughout the world...
...He is therefore officially denominated a "bourgeois cosmopolitan...
...Thu.s, we have (1) "bourgeois cosmopolitanism" (which is very bad), (2) "boui geois nationalism" (also bad), (3) "proletarian intei^nulionnlism" (which is good), and (4) "Soviet patriotism" (also good...
...As the Neit) Times put it, in an editorial dramatically entitled "Bourgeois Cosmopolitanism Exposed": "Cosmopolltaniim is the reverts side of . . . bourgeois nationalism...
...Proletarian internationalism," write* the Soviet pundit A. Laontyev, "implies the international solidarity of the working people in their great emancipatory struggle for the overthrow of bourgeois rule for Socialiim...
...The Noith Shore management, then, finds Itself in conflict with nearly the whole community it is supposed to serve, including its own stockhol4(>rs...
...and sometimes, as in Samuel Insull's case, the infamy of Chicago's scheming power barons has permeated the entire nation...
...The bus lines were held until North Shore was reorganized...
...They include Samuel Insull, Jr...
...and Charles Glorc, investment banker with bus-line interests...
...The distinguishing trait of "bourgeois cosmopolitanism," close reading of the Soviet press reveals, is a deplorable tendency to "kowtow to the West"— meaning, in effect, to concede that nonSoviet civilization has anything whatever of value to offer Soviet society...
...This was corroborated by the defendants themselves...
...North Shore's management has petitioned the Illinois Commerce Commission to give it permission to abandon its Shore Line route, on the grounds that the road is too poor to operate that route—a move that would eliminate several hundred jobs and is opposed not only by the Brotherhoods but by commuters, businessmen and community groups...
...Since North Shore serves commuters in an important industrial and residential area, these strikes have been widely publicized by the press...
...The stockholders originally went tg^^ho board of directors of North Shoic to seek direct remedial action, but were turned down...
...Unlike "bourgeois nationalism," this not only is not reprehensible...
...The suit they have now brought against their own company, in which they claim financial injuiy...
...And sure enough, an Insull is again involved—this time the magnate's son...
...Lest any reader imagine that we are talking of things past, lo and behold...
...Shore Line sul>sequently realized approximately the same amount, $600,000, in salvage from the bus companies, and thus cancelled out the cost of their purchase...
...This was actually done, • North Shore paying $1,245,000 to Shore Line—the dummy concern, since dissolved—for the Wisconsin bus properties...
...However, they are first carefully identified as "Soviet patriotism" (commonly referred to in the Russian press as "life-giving Soviet patriotism")—a very different animal, indeed...
...Transplanted across the border to the Soviet Union, howevei', "bourgeois nationalism" undergoes a nK)st axtraordinary transformation...
...R. A. L. Bogan, executive vice-president of the Greyhound Lines...
...North Shore has loeen involved in seveial bitter controversies with the Railroad Brotherhoods...
...From this ingeniously camouflaged act of trea.son, it was but a step to open confederacy with the champion of all "bourgeois nationalists," Marshal Tito, and thence to the gallows...
...In addition...
...Four New Beauties From the Soviet Hit Parade By LOUIS JAY HERMAN SOVIET MASTERS of Marxian dialectics, long used to tailoring their theories to fit the current party line, have probably never been so tried as they are today by the need to fashion a suitable ideological garment to cover the naked limbs of Stalinist Realpolififc...
...another scandal has just emerged...
...This latest affair involves the Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee Rail, way, an electric line running north of Chicago...
...Thus, to Soviet ideologists has fallen the thankless assignment of explaining, not only to Russians but to the world, why patriotisrp and . xenophobia are desirable for the Soviet citizen, while anti-patriotism and subservience to Moscow are best for the Pole, the Bulgar and the Czech...
...And what is "proletarian internationalism...
...Yet, they have proved equal to this as to so many other formidable tasks...
...Or, as Stalin vary nicely summed it up as long ago as 1927: "An iniernationalist is one who is prepared unreservedly, unhatitalingly and unconditionally to deiand the U.8.S.H...
...r Louis Jay Herman contributes frequently to The I\eie Leader...
...Bernard J. Fallon, chairman of the board of North Shore...
...It was in bankruptcy for a number of years, along with other interurban and local transit properties, because of the speculating propensities of utility "empire builders...
...Its InsuUs and Yerkeses have all too frequently rocked this midwest metropolis to its prairie foundations...
...The stockholder are trying to rescue for North Shore 11,245,000 of its money misapplied by traction magnates in a deal involving purchase of several Wisconsin bus companies...
...According to the plaintiffs, the plan to defraud called for: 1. The purchase of certain bus lines in Wisconsin and elsewhere...
...This, Soviet publicists promptly made clear, was as arrant a case of "bourgeois nationalism" as they had ever seen...
...It is reflected in the appeals for a 'world stale,' a 'world government' and 'world citiienship...
...states that: "This action is founded on allegations of fraudulent conspiracy joined in by several members of the company's board of directors," and upon "wrongful and fraudulent concert and conspiracy" to effect transactions for the purpose of enriching themselves at the expense of the Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad...
...HERE IS HOW the system works...
...The latter charge that the real objective of the management is to substitute bus facilities foithe Shore Line loute...
...Only liars and ignoramuses can deny this...
...Henry P. Bruner, Wisconsin utility tycoon, sold to Shore Line Transit Corporation—a dummy company^U the outstanding stock of the Wisconsin bus companies for around $600,000...
...The conclusion to be drawn from this is obvious...
...To complicate their task further, tlie keepers of the MarxistLeninist-Stalinist flame must also insist out of the other corner of their mouths that the Soviet Union is the center of a progressive, humane world philo.sophy and the sworn upholder of the freedom and sovereign indepencicnee of small nations...
...Strikes have broken out, and settlements reached, usually, only after a prolonged fight...
...To reconcile the irreconcilable, they have simply dipped into the overflowing reservoir of Marxist jargon for four choice new bits of verbal camouflage, each buttressed with a little ^ialectical pseudo-logic and calculated to evoke automatic approval or disapproval, as ilie case might be...
...Instead of recognizing, as a Marxist, that the interests of the Soviet Union were synonymous with tho.se of Bulgaiia, Kostov had succumbed to decadent bourgeois ideas of national patriotism and defended the interests of his own country against tho.se of the .Soviet Union...
...It was during that period that the plot to defraud North Shore was hatched, according to the stockholders' suit...
...Another "bourgeois cosmopolitan" was run to ground after he had espoused the "monstrous" and unMarxist idea of "an abstract world science which allegedly knows n(f national and stale boundaries...
...Science, too, "knows no boundaiies" when it is a question of apin^ Russian .science...
...A recent flagrant example was E. Kuznetsov, a circus critic, who was dressed down in the weekly Soi;iet Art for having "unrestrainedly praised" foreign circuses and thereby "facilitated the infiltration of the Soviet circus by typical Western European clowns and masks...
...The names of the defendants in the North Shore suit read like a Who's Who of the Chicago transportation industry...
...3. Creation of a suburban-interurban transportation system running into Chicago from the north and south, through sale of the Wisconsin bus properties to North Shore—at a profit...
...E. Roy Fitzgerald, transportation "wonder boy" and president of National City Lines, holding company of a vast bus network...
...A stockholders' suit charging fraud in the operation of North Shore has been filed in the Chicago Federal District Court, with fcH-me/ Wisconsin Governor Philip F. LaFolIette acting as an attorney for the plaintiffs...
...Proletarian internationalism is indiisolubly bound up with support for the camp of Socialism and democracy, with the struggle against the camp of imperialism and reaction...
...Its aim ii lo undarmint the itrangth of the people in their struggle for national independency and freedom, to crush their resistance to imperialist enslavement----Consequently, propaganda of bourgeois cosmopolitanism, as the official ideology of the AngloAmerican imperialists, occupies a prominent place in imperialist tactics...
...and it was only too natural that biologists in every "people's democracy" should scramble on the bandwagon as soon as the Soviet Union abolished Mendelian genetics and substituted "Lysenkoism...
...Westward in the satellite states, on the other hand, nothing is more fittmg than that ciicus peiformers should do their clowning according to foreign models—provided only the models are Russian...
...Were he a Pole or a Yugoslav, of course, he would qualify automatically as a "bourgeois nationalist...
...LET US ASSUME, nevertheless, that a liar or an ignoramus raises his head somewhere in the Soviet Union and denies this self-evident truth...
...Samuel, Jr...
Vol. 33 • March 1950 • No. 10
