THE CHATTER BOX
THE CHATTER BOX An Open Letter to the President of the U. S. JJEAR Mr. Coolidge: It is only natural for a human being to get tired. Especially after he has been doing double quick time on a...
...Even the Supreme Court Is not supreme against gentlemen...
...When we sighted Mew York I food with a lot of other nsswmsri sUrng at the Liberty Statue X noticed here was tense emoOon among the rowd...
...Give 'em lead", is the sweet answer from behind the gate of private ownership to all argument from the picket line...
...Well, we^ see no hope of this ever being changed till the masses who provide the victims for this sort of thing take over the powers of government...
...There is the story from Zurich now running in The New Leader giving some important details...
...And ths doctor would see whether we were sound of limb sad mind...
...To those we give the full measure of consideration...
...Special rates can be worked out for the lesser fry, like the floaters of Tammany who steal elections...
...She said: "What about hat beautiful furniture I brought ss a towry from Oermany when we got marled, dear...
...Abundant proof of our assertion may be found in the writings of Communists themselves who defend this policy...
...These methods are followed in many other cities throughout the country but Tammany has almost achieved perfection- In Reading the Socialist city treasurer-elect has discovered "honest graft" to the amount of $20,000 per year related to the office of treasurer...
...Evidence has accumulated to indicate that from the 'office of governor to township constable the Republican outfit is Uttered with grafters, petty crooks and highjackers...
...I had about made, up my mind to just lay off a while and play hookey from propaganda and such, when the day's news brings in a story of how the minute-men of Colorado pumped their lead into the soft bodies of men and women strikers at the struck mines there, and called it merry day of duty well done...
...Your earnest feilow-ci tinea, **"«-•* i_ ' 9* ^* WsssBa :«ni Colorado Repeats History J^EAD the history of the strikes of miners in Colorado and Idaho, ten yi-ars later in Colorado, then in 1913 in the same state, the miners' strikes in West Virginia and upper Michigan in the same period, and all of thorn repeat the history oi the present, strike of iiiiners in" ColoradoThere is the usual story of Tpri .ate gunmen, brutal company officials who remin 1 us of the overseers of former slave plantations in the South, senility of puhlic officials to the mine owners, wretched conditions in the mining* camps, desperation ofytniners, eventually a clash l>etween miners ana private guards, and then martial law declared by a supine governor...
...President, I know you to be a kind man at heart...
...That is safe and nice, and quite in order...
...You have expressed definitely your desire to retire from public life at the end of the present term...
...But against real gentlemen, what f. a Supreme Court verdict among pals ? And as to this miners' affair in Colorado, that's a local matter...
...Tyrants and sycophants have been and are...
...They are not patriotic...
...That statue means ¦mnsthlng...
...just carnally, I said to my lttle wife and my big daughter: let's so back and sse what the old pises h ike...
...with five ;enu and a doughnut...
...The other time his covered wagon asjerience was "round Union Square ths night before Sacco and VansettL . . . well...
...The evidence is mountain high of this policy, but some people are blind and cannot see a mountain when it towers in front of them...
...It did not take very long to bring these wretches to ths bar of justice and the horrible punishment meted out by our law...
...Is it purely a local matter...
...Four dead, four dying, and a score bleeding from wounds...
...If 1 could Have such a prescience it should he no bar To this my plain, sworn, downright detestation A Of every despotism ia every nation...
...forgotten the "spiritual values" fostered by the Republican Party...
...So I rgued and argued...
...X am a passive resistor...
...No Burns agents, no exceptions, no writs of error, no nothing...
...We had intended to run this letter in full wfth an answer but recent events in Russia make this unnecessary...
...But Tammany rules, "honest i"aft" must take its toll of plunder, and the useful dspkwes of the citv must pay for the "honest" lootlg- - Reading and New York City present a comparison and a contrast for workingmen and women on rfcrw and how not to vote...
...A gallon of kerosene from a company general store against a $200,000,000 oil reserve belonging to the government...
...As usual, wilt you do and say nothing...
...The moment a person or an official is found to have defrauded the people out of -their due, the thief is...
...t They Let ste la I got no further...
...Cadavers The blackened air has settled in this room . And all the tables starts* row on row Have turned to barges In the quickening gloom While underneath the scarlet rivers flow To send each craft into the Evermore Far from the hidden realms of sullen bats And monstrous vultures shrieking* ss they soar Beneath the endless arch of waiting Pate...
...For instance, Jonas, m$ 100% neighbor hailing from the Wesjn Hills in Britain (not very long ago) wao speaks shorn ma hie American, confessed to me that be has travOed hi a covered wagon twice...
...Incidentally, McCray was so possessed w)Jth patriotism that he sobbed every time he saw the flag...
...Craft Insurance ""ftEALLY this crime wave which has involved so many Republicans has \ become so serious that the Grand Old Party is compelled to organize to take care of its criminals...
...If it were in my own power to make the deal, I'd swsp you one miner's life against all the oil on earth aad in the stars...
...The journey wss uneventful Althea and her mother were mostly sealex, and I tried to get my own back >n the Cunard Company by eating isr hree...
...Just as kilting Sacco and Vanzetti was a trifling local matter...
...These include Trotsky, organizer of the Red Army, Zinoviev, for years President of the Third International, Rakovsky, former Ambassador to France...
...I also know how tired you are of your job, because you have never been allowed to say and do your real thoughts and deeds...
...X Began to breathe with renewed hope, aad ......to my utter amassment—I passed and was snowed to return to the country of way birth...
...Oh, piffle, what's the use of entering Into a debate with bullets and gangsters on a matter of right and wrong...
...This is the Thanksgiving season and announcement is made in Indianapolis that the most pressing case is that of the Republican State Chairman for whoom a pool of $50,000 will be raised within six weeks with the...
...2£ Reading and New York —rpff) items of the week's news offer an interestCTrig contrast.' . New York City is ruled by the Tew Tammany" and Reading, Pa., has elected a jScialist and I-abor administration...
...The pool is insurance and we see no reason why the idea cannot be expanded on a national scale with graded rates the same as for fire and life insurance...
...I hadn't thought of the coal-scuttle, had only thought of golden and sunny nd prosperous-and free America...
...One high BrpnhHcast h serosa* ft life term for murder and he has "squealed" on Us pals for having doubk-ctnssed him...
...They own no vast oil companies...
...President, is God the only one left to whom to turn for justice...
...Hadn't Governor Fuller sbeaa what that funny word meant...
...We went to ths Qolden Oate Park for a day...
...Will any of the murderers be brought to trial ? Will you not ask for an arrest in ths matter...
...us to go down to the smoking salo-etThe Immigration* man was ready to ss* jut passports...
...Stalin and his crowd may eventually meet the same fate and those who succeed them may go the same way...
...Then Coolidge might refer to the matter in his next message to Congress just to show that he has not...
...For Christ's white sake do this one thing now...
...We don't just shoot them down like dogs even when the Supreme Court says they are thieves...
...But I declare to Your Excellency and to all the rulers of the earth that had a picket army of bankers, and bondholders and coupon clippers marched down upon a mine to ask other bankers and coupon clippers behind the fence to come out and strike against a reduced dividend none of them would be shot down In cold blood...
...There are dissenting Communists now in Russian prisons...
...Karneneff, former Ambassador to Italy, Radek, Smilga, MuralofT, Bakaeff and Yevdokimoff...
...Step Into this Colorado field of butchery with your official word and act, see that the murderers of workingmen are brought to trial and speedily punished...
...Presently my a tighter sided with me...
...I already, at that that, lad bad one little elopement, purely Platonic, to my csadlt...
...elopements are rare in Sagin d. Processes of the law are a weary nd expensive business there...
...These hings had happened before...
...We treat gentlemen with the due process of law...
...I did not knew that esse were also trembling at ths "chughug" of the motor launch that brought he government doctor aad tmsaigratton rfndals on board...
...the government...
...This noble emotion prompted him to an effort to have the late Eugene V. Debs driven out of...
...A <ansfer of governing power from mine owners to i Srkers would be a welcome change...
...Trotsky and his associates are almost certain to be imprisoned...
...It is a new development in capitalist jxilitics and should appeal to the political brokers who take care of theJ'hitprests of capital and finance at the state capitols and M[Washington...
...They cannot keep quiet and eventually they will keep company with Socialists and others whom they have sent to prison...
...What's their forty dollar a week wage alongside of Doheny's five million dollar income per annum ? Could any of those grime-faced ditch diggers offer a juryman a "car aa long as a block" If he were on trial for stealing a gallon of kerosene...
...Then the wagon that carried him away was emblasorted with ' gold 'lettering and contained1 a nurse to wbfts...
...Coolidge, some of your fellow citizens have gone galley west at the behest of some of your "law and order" pals, all in the name of Property...
...When .lathes sided with me.....that Is <e name of my daughter—I celled bar at in ¦ craxy moment when X sad amt to read Greek sod the name >anded nice...
...This is "honest jraft...
...They are only dumb, docile beasts who get damn well paid for the fool work they do...
...The Company guards and the law excuse this murder saying, "Property must be protected...
...Letters from Russian Prisons", published in 1925 which carries personal stories not only of Socialists in prison but even of Communists who were jailed for differing with the party leaders...
...Fall, Mr...
...and of Thought's foei by far most rude...
...For in Karoos culture mssn» I the ability to uank far yourself 1*4 intellectuals are radicals In Xnrope...
...A miner's life is property of some sort according to a musty old document called the "Bill of Rights" upon which a certain ancient democracy was founded on this continent...
...My grandfather went to that stum] land in a covered wagon, I am tost ;t |s smastng bow many hundred-percent Americans have saeestBSi that Mssled at one time or another in a covered wagon...
...Indiana...
...I for one know how crowded His docket is with cases still untried for centuries...
...111 come tp that in a minute or SO...
...And I am stung again into life and a mad tug at the draw-bar...
...They will not be permitted to leave Russia...
...Then there is the book...
...Sinclair and the rest will swear to you that Russia is too barbarous a country for our civilized recognition, on that account alone if no other...
...You have a son whom you love dearly, and the miners have sons and daughters whom they are fighting for, for they too love their children dearly...
...Therefore, there is need of concentrating on a few of the...
...I went sad got s little x>ok-knowledgc instead and than I beran to be homesick far America ones nore...
...A. Fenner Brockway, Secretary of the Independent Labor Party of England, profoundly sympathetic with Russia, recently declined an invitation to visit Russia because of this policy and he gives a list of Socialists imprisoned in Russia...
...Woodrow Wilson did it once, timidly—true, but with telling effect...
...She is over lghteen...
...She" bad golden hair and blue eyes...
...He could follow precedent if he wanted to and keep this large annual sum but Socialists do not believe in "honest graft...
...set up against a wall and given the leadworks of a rifle chamber...
...Shall we have to sefl that ronse coal scuttle...
...Now there are millions of dollars that go for fees to official henchmen and superfluous office holders...
...take care of all offenders...
...My big daughter pouted...
...I do know and you do know that a group of very rich men coldly and surely held up our government at the point of double-barrelled bribery and low corruption, and it has taken five miserable years of trade, barter and double-dealing for our agencies of law to even make the semblance of a settlement in the interest of justice...
...The millions wasted in "honest graft" are probably sufficient to give the police and firemen more wages and grant them pensions without requiring these workers to contribute a single cent to the pension fund...
...There was a suae mage and a cloud of dust...
...At mat moment ths Purser I oh...
...For God's great sake and the welfare of the American nation, let humble me request that you do one Immortal act of justice in this national befuddlement...
...Absentee ownership, the company union, private mercenaries and a medieval policy of the company officials go on from year to year and when slaves rebel the region is placed under military law...
...Hence she frowned...
...Tammany has not yet reached this stage baf^e- corporation organized for this purpose and setting stock to Tammany investors would probably pay dividends...
...The two books of Trotsky on dictatorship are sufficient for anybody desiring the truth...
...My lttle wife frowned...
...H. a The Autocrat For me, T deem an absolute autocrat Not a barbarian, but much worse than that...
...v "^*Jr**h' A FOOL LOOKS By Frencls Blake It The Fool Arrives I WAS bom in beautiful cantons...
...fHow much money was poured into this first ijpool to take care of the Republican victims of the grrirne wave is not known but this year another SnrJ u h*ina nrwanbted for the same charitable duxpose...
...said to myself...
...At the present moment the police and firemen of New York City are up in arms against a recommendation of the Pension Reorganization Committee to the Board of Estimate...
...I sat up, on deck, after a while, and looked "round with a dssrd look...
...The revolution is devouring its own children and this is the logical result of terror and dictatorship continued into the peace period...
...Supposng we invited her to sit spare tor a '-hangr...
...Once, when be tried to sit on a radiator at Broadway and Porty¦econd...
...A manager has been appointed for the pool and an agreement reached with Clyde Walb, the retiring Republican chairman, provides that a majority of the board of directors of the Walb Company shall be in the hands of the pool...
...They have me that a soil warm, at Boston...
...But the recent expulsions from the Russian Communist Party also dovetail with the policy of terror and imprisonment...
...These miners threatened private property, the officials say, and so they were killed and crippled, without any due course of law...
...They believe in public power being used -for the welfare of the masses, not for the enrichment of corporations and office holders...
...pear Mr...
...What are you going to do about it...
...Please do this before another shot Is fired, before blood runs again in brutal, uneven warfare...
...And surely aa we see it now, when a group of oil magnates deliberately walked into the offices of this great government and stole the naval oil reserves, neither the army nor the navy has arisen In outraged patriotism and pumped lead into their corrupt carcasses for the proven crime...
...Cadavers are dancing' in wanton mirth And silence has come on ths barren earth...
...To this day I have never got cer ths leniency nag courtesy of the Am rican officials whs ictuelly allow a born Yankee to cone jack home without shutting him to SB ron cage for a lew weeks, to dlilsfsst him of the after effect) of Buqpssa culture...
...neediest cases*", as the New York Times would say...
...So what does it really matter if a few dozen or so of those insignificant earth-borers are plugged with Company lead for trying to get funny on the picket line...
...In fact, that's just how cheap those laborers are anyway...
...Christ, something there must be in a miner's life in Colorado cheapening his own existence so, that he just rushes head on into certain death at the rifle's spit...
...Let's See the Old Flees" So one day...
...Tammany might well follow the example also, as one can never tell when it will also have some "neediest cases" to look after...
...I.ater Stalin and his crowd may share the same prison with Trotsky, Zinoviev, etc...
...The Supreme Court is so only in matters that relate to injunctions against trifling things like workingmen on strike, o. When some fool agitator says rough things agnins...
...What's chipping hunks of black stuff down in the earth's belly compared to director-board meetings of a captain of industry like Sinclair...
...Contributions are being solicited from Republican leaders, capitalists and bankers who have been generously treated by Indiana Republican administrations...
...Gone are their souls and ths clay is left bare To martyr the flesh in grim mockery An monument again Life's grim despair That stalks with a lost Humanity...
...I dreamed that palumet and the massacre of the tent babes twelve years ago had spelled the end of the "rough stuff" for even the case-hardened hearts of the Big Boys...
...It was Just at s hrUUng period In Americaa history, leeeo and Vansettl had been put In he burning chair ths night before...
...The offense of these men is holding opinions differing with the policy of the ruling group...
...There are gotta a number of •arm chairs hi the States...
...Now they face the same terror if they continue to express disagreement with Stalin and his associates...
...They would'nt ever get up enough guts to put over a big job like one of our big boys...
...I have seen through what manner of hell they go through daily, these men and women of the mines, in order to give comfort and betterment for their babeg...
...Of course, gentlemen are those who have property and must be protected...
...The next case is now so snarled up with plot and counter plots, with low comedy and high melodrama that ths culprits will probably be let off with tion for having detained them so long on a trumpedup charge...
...Russia is a cruel and inhuman country that way...
...the gams was won...
...I got away with it...
...JrThe idea has its origin in Indiana where in 1923 *tominent Republicans endeavored to organize a 461 of $350,000 tb provide for Govrenor McCray iiio received a prison sentence for using the mails o defraud...
...America was a dangerous country, reputed to xmtain many beautiful golden haired ind blue-eyed Martina's...
...I was born In beautiful California and iecoroualy brought up (dragged up), to he age of twelve at a typical Americaa >ublic school...
...But my story a of my first limssssssii of Manhst*»r •*pJeaas dont mterrupt me, dont sifts...
...Of course, X lad told her an my escapades before Mr wedding day...
...Doheny, Mr...
...The number involved in the crime wave is sq large that enough shekels cannot be raised in die state to...
...Miners are not gentlemen...
...Issue graft policy insurance which will protect every grafter who is caught and provide for the wants of his dependents...
...The wages are low and the recommendation is in accord with the policy of "honest graft...
...Well, Mr...
...Barnard anew sad H. 0. Wrtkv as you wen know...
...This report recommends that police and firemen lie retired at the age of sixty and that they l>e required to pay 4 per cent of their wages into the pension fund...
...They have no little bags full of juicy bonds to offer to Cabinet ministers...
...I do know that some drug-maddened, poverty reared bandits attempted to steal some post office public mail, that in the attempt they killed a government employee...
...Tammany Represents a philosophy of "honest graft", a sysierri of sinecures, advance information regarding improvements enabling its leaders to make sure nvestments, raking tn a variety of fees by^jte oflce holders in addition to their salaries and creatng soft l>erths for henchmen...
...Then my worthy doctor ather decided I had better be licked into shape by ¦uropean Schools and universities...
...Walb is to get a salary of $6,000 a year from the business and agree to let politics alone...
...That's what the case really comes down to...
...It is perfectly legal but it is also private plunder for the office holder...
...Now this Socialist official has announced that this $20,000 per year which his predecessors have pocketed in the form of fees will be turned into the city treasury...
...The Russian Revolution Devours Its Own Children FEW weeks before election The New Leader received a letter from a Denver reader inquiring on what authority we asserted that there are thousands of Socialists in Russian prisons, Socialists who had given a life time of service against Czarism and had also fought in the Soviet armies against invaders...
...I have spoken to some of your Vermont old time neighbors recently, and from what they tell me, 11 owe you a sincere apology for having ever reflected in this column on your sense of the humane...
...The secret police will follow them and report every move they make...
...Also, I would have to solsesnty affirm faith In the Supreme Being, a sincere detestation of all Bolshevik or Socialist doctrines, a violent sUstike of 'morah turpitude" . . . sad a number of other details I have fur gotten ¦ "Moral Turpitude" I could susnsesrj disavow...
...We arc different here...
...The bullets that snuffed out the lives of the miners yesterday entered into the huts and crushed the hopes and dreams of children, noncombalant and wholly dependent children...
...And for my own part Sinclair and his gang can go free...
...Pet Instance...
...for a while...
...Two months ago Trotsky in answer to a question by an American delegation defended this policy...
...You have been so hemmed in by the currents of a thousand and one external insistences, that you have simply gone through your last she years of sovereignty in hopeless bewilderment...
...What is to become of other "neediest cases" we do not know, but this idea of pool organization to take care of victims of the political crime wave and stabilize the essential industry of graft should appeal to the leaders in Illinois and Pennsylvania...
...before the besets of industrial strife are let loose and hell reigns...
...Stop this slaughter, for I know the temper of these poor hillmen, and I know Use brutality of company guards...
...And so a spell of weariness obsesses my will to be on and doing In this Socialist cause every now and again...
...understanding that he is to retire to obscurity...
...One ease has been settled with a "Not Guilty" verdict in nasty defiance of even the verdict of the Supreme Court of the land...
...We were caught n the Japanese tea-garden...
...And I will war at least in words (and, should My chance so happen, deeds) with all who war With Thought...
...have been killed by the mine guards and nearly thirty have been wounded...
...God, I thought that day was done...
...I coked wistfully at the Liberty statue, men the devil got into me POrhSgS t to the peppy American climate that nakes people do these insane tbssav : turned to a serious compatriot at my ight: "Dont you think the old lady ha* *ood there a good long while...
...How the deuce was he to be sure that f wasat after an>ther elopement ' experience...
...Especially after he has been doing double quick time on a fruitless job...
...But, aa I was saying, hough bom in California, in San Francisco, one of the loveliest si ties In the world, I was sent to Europe I was to ret "culture...
...As this is written four miner...
...Poor tittle Martina was spanked...
...e sold all we had and got into a tag oat...
...3ut she didn't ten me the real cause of ier frowning...
...There need be no issue between the two major parties on this matter and we submit it to them as our contribution towards making the nation safe for graft and chicane...
...As usual, the governor blames the strikers and this completes a bloody chapter written almost every ten years in these western mining states...
...The expelled men agree with the policy of terror applied to Socialists and other working class dissenters...
...And life is so short that none of us who are poor and oppressed can live long enough for a hearing on earth...
...I know not who may conquer...
...Did not the Company endanger that hand and limb "property" when it refused to give its owner a living wage, forcing him out on Strike...
Vol. 4 • November 1927 • No. 23
