THE CHATTER BOX
THE CHATTER BOX The World Tomorrow Once we were pliant; living; tools were used That through us you might reach a higher goalTill suddenly the power you abused. Swinging to us, revealed in...
...But I shall do so only in the hope that this hypocritical Prohibition act be taken ant of tbe national book of laws...
...We did not expect it to present a favorable view and would have been surprised if it did...
...BRISBANE RETORTS A MIRACLE iwhwad b^Arttnm Brisbane* Uje^men retained by Hearst to axpomal sorcery, glorify Bafabtttry, and amuse thorn who find it painful to think: J. Ptoteiiil Morgan takes Jadgo United States Stoat beard at dawstan...
...Tbe old habits acquired during- the days of struggle toward recognition on their real own cjiung to them...
...But there were growing things upon the island...
...Probably they wanted to know Just how much Bockefruer, Ford and Mm gar...
...Inquiries regarding the movement come from all parts of the country...
...On each man's labor the survival of the group depended...
...Aad whisky has a magic that twsfans tbe spirit ft* the bedlam, by playing a mad music af its own...
...It is not a matter of discussion of ideas...
...of the ¦¦basarWM 8-4...
...It shows that in industries like Bethlehem Steel and General Motors a smaller force of workers are producing a greater volume of values than the larger force of former years...
...The records of the trial reveal that criminal bands of Mussolini are organized in this country...
...It Is a hundredfold more brutal and tragic when sober...
...No nation has ever been more dominated by the owners of big capital and finance...
...Here the sense of solidarity, with a few notable'exceptions, is feeble it hardly enfers at aft...
...which baa fasten ¦ 11 tote the central of the L W. W. The Rubs fellers, to te ililsBy states, own no mines within 2M mfim of the seaee where the strike to being staged...
...And taking to hootch offers a fine sympathetic alibi for having been driven to its extremity by a stupid and unappredative world...
...The United Mine Workers has been one of the strongest organizations in the A. F. of L. and its decline to a third rate power would fee a bioW to the whole trade union movement of the country...
...i The call of the National Executive Committee is timely...
...They may not be listed and/tagged at so many dollars each as in the days of Tweed but they serve the policy of "honest graft" just the same...
...Intimate contact and inter-union sympathy) which' grow out of more compact organization of workers into a less number of unions are absent...
...There was not only formal support of the miners...
...But something more than" unemployment is revealed in the Times editorial...
...CELEBRATING CHRISTMAS Between new and the next ttsae I task to yea a large ¦¦¦km at eatisens will andewbtedty have gene te preaaatere graves threagh drinking Christmas beeteh and sthai ¦ he celebrating the eta at seaee en earth and good wfll to men...
...Bootlegging being what it is, no one will feel offended • • * " and so on elaborating on tbe booze end -of the function...
...Each union is not much disturbed unless an especially bid situation facesiit...
...Nearly 8.000,000 more cars were loaded in 1926 than in 1920 yet the number of workers has declined 250,000 in this period...
...The Civic Federation is one of a number of opiate departments of the present social order and this report tS another one of its drugs...
...Even many in the movement of more progressive views and who realize the present drift say little...
...They must silently acquiesce in Fascist dictation or be financially ruined...
...They have no more right to immunity than the bandits who rob and kill in American cities...
...It means that certain values and service once paid for are now reaped by owners without paying for them...
...It is up to Congress to investigate this hideous thing...
...So thoroughly were the union men of England interested that the miners struggle involved the trade Onions of the country, in a general strike...
...Their economic and financial relations with Italy depend upon formal acceptance and support of the Slave State of Italy...
...And anyway, he continues in eaatsnation, most talent and genius of a spiritual sort are dsosaod to material failure te a world gnat worships through commerce and enshrines oil, steel and chewing gum as the universal gods...
...It can no longer be denied that widespread unemployment is creeping over the country...
...Mealy mouthed evangelists scour the pot of hell and offer up its offal for example...
...That gentlemansubscribes to the view that any social program that does not measure up to the standard of the fourteenth century is not "well advised...
...We are confident that the data gathered in this study have been "cautiously compiled...
...We are also certain that those who presented the report were "well advised...
...One reason for this is that our unions are divided into more unions than in any other country and this division tends to concentrate interest on the special | problems each union faces...
...Moat of them are such nice smart people...
...A Fascist jury would have accepted the testimony of the perjurers...
...No less than 250,000 workers have been cast aside in transportation while those still at work handle 8,000,000 more cars than the whole working force once did...
...The great bulk, be it observed, are idle not because they want to be, but because they are forced to be...
...Failure to use scientific management, failure to match production against the real requirements of the consumer, excess plant capacity, cross hauling, the Idiotic methods In milk distribution, too many retail stores, city congestion, locking up of new inventions— all combine to force the taking of two steps where one would suffice...
...The plight of the miners would in any other modern country mobilize all the best thought and planning of the whole movement to avert disaster...
...I wffl drink to the right of man to do with his Ufa as Is pleases within the light of non-interference with fas life, liberty, and happiness pursuit of his neighbor, te the untrammelled tolerance of all persons by aH other*, and to a whole tot less sham and pose on the part af smart, fine souls who ought to know better than JUf* boose their young lives to death, and Just don't want to know...
...So In this faint hope that all stupidity will eventually drink itself to deafh under an unhampered wet regime, I oppose the present prohibition...
...The report is the view of American corporations...
...Stupidity is sad enough when it totters about in an alcoholic Black Bottom...
...Professors of brain ailments offer diagnosis...
...Those newfangled medicine men have an explanation...
...The Madness of Capitalism I By Smart Chase I TULEO VERNE once wrote a story •» which be called the Mysterious Island...
...They fear that nothing can be done because old ways are too deeply rooted to be changed now- This we believe to be a mistaken view...
...All in all they don't impress me with their braggart boosing...
...The multiplicity of organizations promotes a psychology of separatism with consequent indifference to or half-hearted support of one great army of workers who face a tragic struggle for survival...
...And so from them comes forth the catchword of flaming youth embattled against the Puritan graybeards...
...than SSZS a share, the «• per seat...
...But seriously writing, I am Just plumb locoed by the sight ot so many of our writers, critics, poets and artists who go ta for systematic alcoholism...
...THERE is a letter before me from a fairly wellknown writer inviting me to join him and his friends at a studio party to celebrate the passing of the old year, "and If you will you may contribute the spiritual part of the program...
...Mussolini has openly decided "to subsidize his murder lands abroad...
...In the Twin cities of Minnesota the distress has swamped charitable agencies Industry in...
...What is typical of this struggle is that the other unions as a whole do not appear to be much disturlicd...
...And m the brain of the engineer who led the party there was science...
...Morgan's father created the Judge" "oary, Jaasee A. FanwE aad ether able rltl...
...Such a situation now exists and it should summon all the idealism of those who understand to arouse the trade ^uniops to the perils ahead...
...They and modern living ugly and boresome, full ttf law contradictions, hypocrisies, lies, swinish lusts and ignoble aims...
...For next to a umtato' sufferer of tbe World's injustice and bis nmrtyrdom under alcohol...
...The editor's ridiculous accusations against the progressive Senator bad i comeback which proved once more, if rroof were needed, that Hearst to one of -he most unscrupulous of our public liars, rhe pity is that his papers are so hugely read by the workers, who still seem to think, despite a mass of evidence to the xmtrary, that the wealthy publisher to interested in defending tbe rights of the poor and oppressed...
...Coolidge "prosperity" is vanishing in opium smoke while the two-party brokers are arranging for another "'roundUp" of the voters...
...Civilisation plays a raucous discord against their finely strung senses...
...We expect both from any organization that sixmsors Ralph Easley...
...Please put me down on the Prohibition Question as one of tboee tolerant cusses who believes that any Dumb Dan or Dora has the sanctified and unassailable right to hootch him or herself to ultimate delirium, at reasonable prices, however...
...To lie'more precise, we assert that the Civic Federation since its origin in the inspiration of the lamented Marcus A. Hanna has been an insurance society to protect the material interests of big capital and finance...
...But something more is required...
...Genius was undeniably theirs...
...That this does not prevail is ominous for the future...
...The data which it assembles show the increased exploitation of the workers through inventions, more thorough organization and perfection of "scientific management...
...After all...
...Work For The New Year direct special attention to the call by the National Executive Committee which appears on another jiage...
...THE HORRID RADICALS nam the -National rlepuhtto," organ af the Republican Party, edited by George B. Lock wood...
...If society could be irgsatosf as the engineer organised his to waikori en tbe island, the present M aafOlens af workers ta America eeali, aa we shah sea, probably doable the standard of Irrtng, utterly abolish poverty, stem aweRtag, Bgttneas and (rinse, wbfle aatag teas raw coal and boa aad huuber than we de at "Tbe Challenge of Waste...
...This means to underwrite violence, perjury and murder...
...Tbe Qraeo-CariQc Defense Commutes, hided by Bobarl Moras Lovett, did much to arouse public interest hi the case, end lllTstrsildedrj prevented a repetition of any Becco-Vanaettl affair...
...It is bringing to the front one of its periodical absurdities—want in the midst of abundance...
...A Tammanv Decision a* ^ DECISION by Magistrate Corrigan, acquitting pne of the election thieves runs true to form...
...On an important matter like investigating the super-power gang there is no party division...
...None of these touches clearly on the tragedy—the cruel comedy of intelligent creative souls who wear a cheap concoction of gin and vermouth as a badge, and adulterated Scotch as a defiant motto against the legions of the Boob...
...It marks the beginning of Socialist activities for the New*Vear, activities that will continue throughout the year and will not end till the election in November Our readers must be impressed with the spontaneous awakening of interest in the Socialist movement for several weeks...
...So gin builds for them an Aladdin city of sparkling spires and bejewelcd turrets, a realm of romance in which these creative dreamers can spend a tolerable moment of experience...
...with dejvoted and ! continuous service by members and sympathizers...
...We may contrast this situation with the situation in tbe British unions when the miners in recent years faced similar hardships...
...The contrast is a striking one...
...Help them and then turn to our local tasks, a big convention in April, and an inspiring campaign...
...one had built a house on the shore by bringing stones from the top of the hill—when there were plenty of stones nearer at band...
...What is necessary is to carry Tammany's dirty deeds to Albany when the Assembly convenes and then advertise its prize exhibit, "Al" Smith, throughout the nation...
...They smell malodorously, and their suppressed selves coining out under the liberating Jerk of the ginbottle, when fully revealed, makes me wish at most times that the suppression bad been so complete In the bogi luring that no force on earth or heaven were tremendous enough ever to bring it back to human sight and knowledge...
...Unions Facing Peril ^HE tragic experience which the bituminous miners are facing and the reaction to their suffering by other trade unions offer an interesting study of the American labor movement...
...Some of them actually succumbed to civilization and got Jobs in tbe brothels of American Newspaperdom, or to tbe cabaret places of commercial publicity and ad writing...
...The whole trade union movement was aroused and for months labor support of the miners was conspicuous news all over the world...
...MeOen's baaattfal n soaps ay" biases...
...We do not wonder that Coolidge does not "choose to run" the concern for another four years...
...I dislike drunkards anyway...
...Under present arrangements it is a sweating machine which enriches owners and condemns millions to periodical misery...
...which It baa always faced...
...All of Which adds to my confusion...
...I am absolutely against governmental interference In that sort of suicide...
...To meet tbe demands of the Mysterious Island, every member of the shipwrecked crew put his shoulder to the wheel...
...It was a desperate struggle but, atop by stop, they forced back cold, hunger and desolation, and In the end transformed their island Into a pleasant home which yielded food, shelter, clothing, comforts...
...Congress must act...
...MVost of the other unions do not see this or, if they do, they do not appear to care...
...and that is the fetich for boozing among the self-established intellectuals of our day...
...It is the extension of organized terror and criminal activities of Fascist Italy into the United States Congress cannot ignore it...
...They are notified that they are to he compensated for any losses they may sustain by their criminal activities outside of Italy...
...They sH had the spark in them...
...one had given all his energy in making mud pies...
...BENJAMIN MUSSER...
...vWith the weak states" strengthened the rest is comparatively easy...
...Swinging to us, revealed in each a soul...
...The parties of capitalism are in part resjKmsible...
...The Piugresdves in Congress received unexpected Christmas presents in tbe shape of some tat committee assignments handed out ay tbe old guard...
...New members are being admitted...
...This gives some idea of the exploitation of the working class and this gouging is heaped upon other gougings in the preceding decades of American industry...
...That wfll atones ill ii.holf.ln Mr...
...The madhouse anteas am so unbearable...
...Patterbeaded Baptists from tbe dry provinces screech a hateful harangue...
...These two Xsattan aureate wta w™wttim)ll'tltomimw«l>mm1mp have bad tbe support of moat Hew Tsat al Clarence Darrow, Arthur Osrflan Hays, and T—si Hhurr...
...And that's that...
...But suppose that one of the castaways had spent his days in sleeping on the beach...
...Moreover, Italian hankers, commercial and business men and the Italian press have become extensions of Fascist sovereignty in this country...
...And well I might take up for them here a campaign of justifying their* attitude...
...while the hut, hi his baste to clear a field, had carelessly burned off all the timber on the island...
...If there is any difference at all it is a minor difference within the parties, not any marked difference lietween the two parties...
...Four madmen...
...No other system of production in history ever sweated so much unpaid labor out of the toilers as the capitalist system of production...
...Now I Just know what tbe gentle observer will say...
...They are helpless...
...JRECO and Carillo, accused of the murder of a Fascist, have been acquitted by a'jury The trial brought out the fact that Italian Fascism extends to the United States, that it seeks to use American courts for its purposes, that it employs false witnesses and perjury to destroy its opponents, and that it will send innocent men to their death if this will extend its ix>wer...
...But in a to pay-scurvy mase of living like this here world even a flimsy opinion like mine can somehow scoot off Into tbe credulous heavens and hook itself onto an orbit of authority...
...A abort life and a merry one...
...It declares in favor of a "well-advised movement" in the matter <jf old-age security, a "reasoned discussion of relief" and "sanity attested by facts emliodied in cautiously compiled figures...
...BUTLEB'S XMA8 CABD Up at Colombia Crdverstty, Deetor Nicholas af array Better sends eat a strange Christmas card, inf erasing his surprised friends that aa a matter of tact Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton searched ander the same banner and had the same paresis fat view...
...I detest the Anti-Saloon lobbyist, and the hangdog visage of the professional Dry...
...Htmthe mr^tnjs^ft^ absent...
...Our system is so productive that With intelligent organization ,and management it can guarantee the wants of all with a few hours of useful labor performed by every able-bodied person...
...Inactive Socialists have renewed their activities...
...It is general throughout the country...
...Yet I am loath to chime in with their philosophy of long drinking and fast living, for all of my knowledge of what is wrong with this bunco game of modern existence...
...What is evident in this survey is three important factors...
...WASHINGTON DOINGS Speaking of Congressmen, they have apparently been too busy to do much accept wish one another and then- constituents Merry Christmas...
...2 The Mud pie maker represents the * ' man-power which goes Into the production of harmful or useless things —patent medicines, opium, superluxurtes, war preparations, adulterated goods, Jerry building, the bulk of advertising, quackery of all kinds...
...There should be a Congressional investigation of the activities of Mussolini's bands in this country...
...And so let me close with wishing you "all a aaffff New Year, a New Year with mora promise for tabor— the farmer, the white collar slave, and the «majttesn millions of the poor and oppressed all over the sertft* Congress Must Investigate...
...This attitude is dangerous to all the unions and to the future of economic organization itself...
...Then unemployment with its consequent widespread misery can no longer lie concealed...
...The stone house builder represents the excess man-power required to produce and distribute necessities and comforts because the technical arts— the best way of doing the Job—are not made use of...
...These hands that, steel on steel, built up your pride, Shall seize their own creative work...
...Federation's report on old age pensions...
...aad nhiagss a half a union worth of steak that Carnegie called "not even water...
...tt Is evident that there Is sewer name wdghty hat eritteham aaade by these ea barb places af the saetbadi tsmliyifi te salvage the wreak and attentat te save the seen fat at...
...Of course, there is formal support by the other unions of the miners, especially by the more advanced unions like those in the needle trades, but this support does not assume the character of a-crusade...
...Tnb hearts of school children In New York would have been uplifted bad their iwners attended a meeting held at tbe New York County Medical Society Bunding, where prominent physicians said hat school hours In this town were much Coo long, and urged radical changes in be enure school program...
...In tbe complexity of modern civilization and tbe machine age, we tend to lose sight of those stark realities upon which our social life to founded, and falling which we could but shut to the level of the brute...
...Long ago, when they first started poetizing and scribbling their great epics ifcd novels, a cold world coldly advised them that the may to art aad its perfection led through brambles of dflgappoinjapent and over rocks and hills of arduous practice...
...There they learned how to substitute pose for industry, and cheaRJack Juice 'for inspiration...
...Tan amy send year rlotbm or eentrumtteaa to the efeee of the New leader...
...This all sounds bourgeois and conservative and Puritanical and all that, doesn't it...
...they landed with their bare hands...
...Hew aenrssalias art the methods of the radicals to battoated by the connection with the miners' strike ks Citers is...
...With their bare hands they set to work...
...They still play-act at starved genius, and swig the sap of rye and sour mash...
...It to pretty sate to predict that the hiMdsys was see aaaaereas gang fights in Chicago and New York, the hijacking af bootleggers ea the pabhe read, and the from Mr...
...The Greco-Carillo case shows what this country faces...
...we know that there is little hope of cleaning polluted elections by Tammany judges...
...Simply because I cannot for tbe life of ma convince myself that so many of these intellectuals suffer one tenth the agony that they profess to drown in gin sod julep...
...To change "tote ear" to a soShEy aatobMahod stock worth mere then American basteem eaa do...
...to the miners to ain't too Base yet...
...la lumber, coal, oil, natural gas, soils, minerals, the North American continent has been gutted by methods so Improvident, so careless, that for every ton reclaimed, a ton or more has gone to waste...
...Resentful against a heartless and blind audience, they gradually migrated toward each other front all parts of the land until they met in the cellars sad coatee houses of Greenwich Village...
...Me eae has been akie to explain to tbe sattefactten of the pabhe why snob aa etobarate prograai shooM be asasaasd at this than, when we are aimtl to be at aeaee witb afl tbe worse, always ex - cepting, af coarse, Nlcaragna, Haiti, and saeb other little wars as oar bathe eesains year...
...as you or I or any other sane man would have done...
...iwhdhL of the insasi asset that Certainly the tragedy does net tend te heighten niillaii hi these behind the bare naval kalWai plan which la now areweeed...
...8o what is folly and msdnees for four men on a desert island, turns out to be normal business-as-usual to our great Industrial society, considered as a whole...
...Thus Verne has shown us, in a small way, tbe problem which all society faces to a big way...
...Well, there's a deuce of a lot more reason and truth tat these chance remarks of mine about the subject than there ever Will be in tbe whiskey guzzling act of our heartbroken Intelligentsia...
...But if you don't want to trust our offering, you are at liberty to bring your own...
...Yes, mad indeed when thus seen in miniature...
...Speaking af litem, if yea Baton to ear appeal and send warm shoes and clothes te them who em actaatty ssdtortng to INnmsytvania and Colorado, tins mi they cheese to straggle far lot—trial fret da as, year Chi lot ami shesdd be that meeh happier ta the Ibssghl that yea are doing aaawdhhsf far year brother...
...7 East Flflaimlh street, or adttee tar Strikers' Rattof, ltd fifth aiiasi, New Verb CM*, where aerating- yea gtoe wak he graesfaay reliihiililng thn Earth An Egyptian parohment of UN B. C ' * saM to have eatsMtoherl tbe fact thai ; Bgyptians bad measured the earth'at thai I fane...
...Facing Want and No Work POLITICIANS, high officials at Washington and editors are scared at a spectre that is slowly taking shape throughout the country...
...If any labor men accept it, this does not change its character no more than the working man who voted for Coolidge proves that Coolidge represents the working class...
...A striking editorial in the New York Times of Tuesday presents some data which are of sufficient importance that we are reprinting it in part on another page...
...I really believe that they hate productive work of say kind, especially in that proclaimed sphere of their own, "art for art's own pure sake...
...Anv suggestion to tax that crowd for the welfare of the veterans of industry is certain to receive a veto...
...this unbeautiful world to make me cry out with Oliver Twist for "more" of life in It...
...and seated Where you were throned, we'll watch you leaden-eyed Pass in that shuffling march of the defeated...
...Most of them are unwilling accomplices of Mussolini...
...It is not confined to one or two localities...
...What does this development in big industries mean...
...It should l>e answerer...
...We agree...
...Lobbies tar tbe power interests and other special privileges are rejoicing over the sickness of Senator (Walsh of Montana, which threatens to bold up the inquiry that the fighting litJe Senator proposes making into tbe activities of the big electric companies and their subsidiaries...
...We will take care of the spirits...
...As I make these remarks I am quite conscious of the smirks from our economic interpreters, and the guffaws from tbe deep thinking group of our world...
...We wouldn't either...
...Now one thing I will never get through my dumb noodle...
...They assume that their own position in their respective industries is secure and that the tendencies that threaten one powerful union can never concern them...
...The next thing should be to indict and punish the perjurers," declares the Brooklyn Eagle...
...most of them have fine mind* and such clear vision on what's what in Ufa...
...A "Well Advised" Report ^fE have no confidence whatever in the National Civic...
...It isn't "well advised" and "cautiously compiled figures" are necessary to put •he suggestion into the discard...
...Consider transportation alone...
...This weald eertafariy astonish oath of these eminent men, eoaeldering that Jeff arson bated meat of Hssntttoa's Ideas, a hatred which was heartily retarmd by the first Secretary of the Treasary...
...general is affected and guarded admissions are being made by the gentlemen who preside over our destinies at Washington...
...And solely because the more dumbbells who pass out of the ugly picture of the present system through the whiskey route, the less encumbrance Socialism will have to carry when it arrives to set the world's house in order...
...This case should not end with the acquittal of Greco and Carillo...
...Ill have a snatch or two of some old wine aad a finger of bootleg rye myself perhaps, this New Year's night...
...Their parties in Congress are o!x?dient poodles...
...j The sleeper on the* beach repre' * scnts the man-power which on any given wcrklng day is doing nothing— by virtue of unemployment, preventable accidents and diseases, strikes and lockouts—the idle rich, the Weary Willies...
...Senator Morris has been sick, too, but not sick enough to prevent bis taking a mighty blow at the vulnerable Jaw of WOBam Bsndolph Hearst...
...Writing the following may be a mean way of refusing an otherwise jovial and well-intentioned invitation, but I am Just what I am, a hard-boiled declarative sentence on any subject that touches my pet hates and loves...
...It dales from the elections last November...
...The perjury employed against Greco and Carillo would have sent them to their death in Italy...
...Their mad acts Illustrate the four great channels of industrial waste...
...Taut 8-4 ATT AIM...
...So now you see that I will not be at that New Year's party whereto my writer friend has so he-mania hly invited me...
...But in our great society these are precisely the things which untold millions of us are constancy doing...
...af Oreeo and OarfOa by a anas Jurj after arven boors and a bait of daweeraUon...
...The field clearer represents the waste of natural resources...
...They are a part of the Tarnmany machine...
...Education is al# ways possible, especially when a grave situation faces the whole movement...
...It was about four men abandoned en a desolate spot of toad In tbe Pacific Ocean, trunks Robinson Crusoe, they bad access to no wrecked vessel from which supplies could be secured...
...1) greater production, (2) a declining working force, (3) a decreasing payroll...
...It declares that there are few of the aged over 65 who are destitute and that the number dependent upon relatives or charity range between 20 to 25 per cent...
...there were animals, minerals—the age long background af human life...
...New locals and branches are being organized...
...For I too can see very little in...
Vol. 5 • December 1927 • No. 2
