THE CHATTER BOX
THE CHATTER BOX Dignity I count no sense as dull as dignity, And nothing emptier than that which fills Our conscious hours with rote and fact and fee, And locks our dreams and uses up, in...
...Tabloid Drug Squads COME of us may have thought that journalism in this country hao already reached its lowest degradation in tabloid cultivation of morbid curiosity in the dirty vandals of the parasite rich and an occasional murder...
...commission on current taxes for 1927...
...Baal, Moloch and all the rest of you...
...dance against their wills, Against their tenets of stolidity...
...Another odd, rare, News-Juicy crime for our profit...
...Roar witij your blood-brass laughter...
...In giving out a story on the fight which Is being waged in the local Shoe Workers Protective Union''between the Communist faction on one side and the group which is loyal to the Union on the other tide a fight which has practically broken our ranks—refers to me* as a so-called radical organiser who, tor the sake of $66.00 a week joined the Capitalist reaction, and helped the courts unash the workers in the Brooklyn shoe industry...
...If this proves correct it means that he has received a i.p from his American liosses that he cannot be used any longer and that another dummy will have to replace hitn...
...Nay, never—may the cur that claims To mutilate our verse, And wield the pen that mars and maims...
...DISHONORABLE MENTION The .war which we are now conducting against General Sandino sad his Nicaraguan followers deist »ss dishonorable mention...
...That is why we suggest a piano stool, a vase nr a beavy musical contraption...
...It is, of course, not the elections but the natural resources of Nicaragua, lumber, oil, and ore, which are the cause if our taking action which is contrary not only to every American principle of iemocracy, but to the provisions of the Constitution itself.' which our 100 per :ent patriots are so fond of prating .bout...
...Imagine how the hordes of school children, stenographers, shipping clerks and white collar gcnuy will pour into, our coffers their pennies and nickels...
...It bears honorable scars for its long service to the working class...
...Those labor organisations affiliated with the association have elected delegates, and a number of other have renewed their affiliation and named representatives...
...and see etoees-eth met -"^assam...
...The land purchases are typical of 'the sort at business transacted by the old council and which has accumulated heavy burdens for the city...
...And yet while beauty limns on every side, A world walks, deaf and dazed and dignified...
...It is the Labor Party of the United States...
...He also takes more out of the city's funds than is paid to the treasurer of the United States, who receives $18,000 per year, and more than the Governor of Pennsylvania, who is also able to live on $18,000 wages...
...I am not surprised to receive such inpleasant • compliments from the Comnunist sheet...
...DRY AGENTS PLUNK There is good news for some of us in the announcement from Washington that 1.500 dry agents, working for the government, failed ta their civil service examination and are likely to be discharged from the service...
...This is an index to the interest felt in the forthcoming city campaign...
...Grant our wish then...
...they are blind Indeed who cannot see The sun-drunk mountain...
...On the other hand it tnust be admitted that there is a demand for this stuff, a big demand, or these publications would not indulge in it...
...Moreover, even after I decided to take the position I made it clear that I stood ready to quit it at any time a more competent man would substitute for me...
...The whole address reads like that of a school boy who knows nothing of what has happened or, if he knows, like Podsnap, he sweeps it aside as of no importance...
...The last rneutumt-d, dear Dicty of Blood Sacrifice, would be the greatest Scoop of them all...
...We have...
...e • I can now see every one of those go-getting- publicity vendors, venal merchants, sitting in their offices, mentally kneeling and entreating Baal, or Moloch, or some other bloody god to inspire another rr.orou of a wife and her cheap paramour to do away with another poor fool of a husband, in some sensational manner...
...Therefore I expected such treatnent, for It is not possible for one to ilsagree with the Communists and not be ir&nded as traitor...
...They shall not chain our thought...
...Nowhere In the Constitution can 'ou find anything which permits the use if the military forces of the United itates on any such expedition as the Nicaragua one/ CAE.VLN Of HAVANA Ironic enough to see pictures of Calvin Coolidge, Charles Evans Hughes, and Secretary of State Nervous Nelly Kellogg going of on a junket to -Cuba to attend a Pan-American Conference...
...The conservative reformer and the old line politician fear the power of the press...
...Asm the pear Is the grist that he gilassih...
...Nowhere among these republics have great military establishments ever l>een maintained for the purpose of overawing or subjugating other nations...
...I would like to be a whole lot more urbane and smart sleeky about this matter, to relieve the tension under which I write this disjointed essay...
...And if the soul, indeed, has sinned...
...The pathetic lady of the moment winked and hummed...
...Amen...
...There is every evidence .that if they shoot a few more of the voters, the elections will be peace ful indeed...
...Let the method show some education progress, oh Baal, so that our work will have had some effect...
...I dreamed as the years went by, that these old horrors would pass away, perishing slowly in their own unbearable rot...
...If postal laws and profanity statutes were not in the way, I might unloosen here upon the miserable heads of the stockholders, managers and editors of Jackal tabloids and yellow dailies, all the verbal filth the East Side Ghetto has taught to an shnnmis of Its school la literary sewerage...
...Be crippled with our curse...
...Knocks nightly at our door...
...great god of human butchery and degradation, when a whole laid buzzes and giggles, and weeps and growls over a fool husband killed in bed with a saxophone...
...Delegates were presnt at a convention in Chicago of fruit, vegetable, lairy and produce exchanges of large cities from Joston and New York in the East to Seattle and .os Angeles in the West...
...My sincerity In the attitude towards the disruptive Communist tactics hi the Shoe Workers Protective Union is not questioned by all my fellow-workers who know me too well to even suspect that It was my salary that influenced me to fight against the Communistic dictatorship In our Union...
...W E V D Flashes Picked Up Oat of the Air From the Programs of Station WE VD, the Eugene V. Debs Memorial Station BOTH SNYDER DOES The centre of public attention tha last week was the execution of Both Snyder...
...Our most sacred trust has been and is the establishment and exjansion of the spirit of democracy...
...There was no grief on any of the faces about the news-stand, excepting perhaps a sour grimace at the thought of a lost bet...
...One day, in a conference held in the .Italian Chamber ot Labor, hi the presence of its secretary, Arturo Olovannltti I invited Oirolamo Valenti, an organiser of the defunct American Shoe Workers Protective Union, to take my place...
...When a more courageous moment found me inside of the saloons and sex dens...
...Your scissors in the sea...
...In all the stretch of history one will not find anything to compare with the filthy and morbid garbage which these sheets serve to their readers and they never served a more morbid mess than they did in reporting at the end of the Snyder-Gray case...
...Like those engaged in the illicit traffic in opiates, the publishers of these journals stimulate the appetite for their drugs and :hen cash in on the salesPerhaps all this is a phase of the intellectual deay of capitalist society...
...Many times tt has been announced that the Msrlnee have put an end to Sandlno's uprising- But although the Marines have engaged in what has been called the largest battle participated In by our troops since the World War, and there have been cisnsltiss on both sides, it now appears that n»ru<tri<i fe stronger than ever, and that he is receiving heavy support from Central American sources naturally sympathetic to his' cause...
...Snyder...
...strive for their sake alone, to readjust the political and-economic scheme of things so that their fall from human grace would never again be possible...
...There was little humane sorrow on any of the faces around the amphitheatre, when a man squirmed in his last throes and expired...
...The year 1927 was profitable for him...
...Now, now...
...is strife...
...And they are dead who keep immunity Against the touch of song, and lose the thrills Of sight and quick, when autumn paints a tree, Or when a weary sun-god trips and spills His gourd of wine upon the sober hills...
...The conservative trade unionists will have more difficulty than ever in choosing "friends" in piemy parties...
...Peace at home!—what peaee wants the rich man's ntO...
...You will have great pleasure and we will increase our circulation...
...Please, Great God of Murder, inspire them • to "use something else...
...Whether they succeed is another matter...
...When will they tell the rascal knaves whate'er he sold and bought, Our bodies though they sell for slaves...
...The Romans during their lowest days sat in the Coliseum and wagered that death would overtake this gladiator or the otljer by sword or beast...
...It will be remembered that William C. Hoverter...
...The battered derelict lay sprawled out before me in malodorous mess...
...The newspaper is admirably adapted to he work of drugging and the tabloids are the advance guards of the drugging squads...
...A pun or a risque Joke might make things easier all around...
...This conference urns supposed to deal with our relationships with the rest of the Americas South of the Rio Grande, but it urns understood in advance that the dsUgates from the smaller republics were not to bring up ahything which might embarrass our brass-hat imperialists...
...One sheet smuggled a camera into the death chamber and obtained, a picture of the woman as the death current was surging through her...
...When the republics of the Western Hemisphere gained their independence they were compelled to fight for it...
...Peculiar conditions in this country made the American movement suffer longer than in any previous period...
...It's a kindly law that permits treasurers of third class cities to enjoy such a juicy plum...
...Such predictions have been made in France...
...Everywhere you went in ton you heard men and women rolling on their tongues the details of the gruesome business of putting to an end the life of a woman who for the sake of an insurance policy deliberately planned the murder of her husband Heywood Broun would seem to believe that the reading of the newspaper accounts of the execution would be so revolting to so many people that it would strengthen the movement to abolish capital punishment I can find no reasons tor supporting this opinion...
...Yourselves your traitors may behead, But we'll behead no more...
...Paul Farm Laborites Plan Vigorous Election Campaign (By a New Leader Correspondent) St...
...My craftsmanship pays me more than the salary for organiser of the union, and, anyhow, I was not anxious to get the organiser's position...
...This puts some light on Company Unions and Group Insurance...
...While every day in almost every editorial office df the land, owners and editors sit mentally kneeling and praying to the gods of human sacrifice for another murder, a strange, an exotic, a particularly brutal murder...
...Henceforth shall none in all our land A censor dare to be...
...Both Maurer and Snyder, the Socialist members, answered the objections of the Democrats...
...In the general field of politics the two-party system of capitalist politics has reverted back to' the old routine...
...This shocking exhibit occupied the first page in full with descriptions to satisfy fhe appetite of the most primitive minds...
...Reading Socialists Reject Land Taken at Exorbitant Cost (By a New Leader Correspondent) DEADLNO, Pa.—One Important action taken by the City Council since the Socialists assumed office has been to repeal certain ordinances authorising the purchase of six parcels of land at prices which totaled $25,000 higher than the estimates made by appraisers last year...
...It has the vitality of youth and it will be heard...
...I know that I shall carry to my dying day in mental camera the news-maddened morons who stood in line at the corner store stand the morning after the execution of Judd Gray and Mrs...
...Our blundering in the Tacna-Arica boundary dispute is ignored...
...A piano stool, perhaps, an Etruscan vase, or a saxophone...
...Sales mean profits, and In a country like ours, where its Chief Executive issues official statements to encourage Wall Street gamblers in stocks and bonds—what else can really matter...
...Editor, The New Leader:— *Wdfcw in the last issue of the New Leader about old age pensions, company anions and, "Group Insurance", my case...
...19,157.16...
...a young miner and courageous fighter, has proved the integrity of his character by refusing the bribes of his political opponents and conducting lone-handed his struggle for his country's independence against the menace of American imperialism...
...This reminds us of the poem of the Walrus and the Carpenter, from "Through the Looking-aiaas'\ where Lewis Carroll says: "If seven maids with seven mops Swept tt for half a year, "Do you suppose,' the Walrus said, That they could get tt clear?' 1 doubt It,' said the carpenter...
...Tears, years ago I used to walk through the Bowery shouting out within my heart against the piggishness of human life...
...Snyder would or would not be electrocuted...
...This announcement may be set in contrast with the fees which the Democratic incumbent pocketed for last year...
...New Leader Mail Bag Replies ta Cents—n fasti Editor, The New Leader:— The Dally Worker, organ of the Communist Party, in the issue of December 39th last...
...The tabloids were particularly revolting...
...I paused only to turn quickly away...
...It was the organisation that induced me to assume responsibility after all the professional organisers which the Communist Party tried to impose upon us had failed on the job...
...day devenreth day...
...Morality, the family, culture, religion and the whole code of virtues, they have alleged, will go into the stew were Socialism to succeed their blessed "order...
...The uatin-American press is hitterly criticising the American war in Nicaragua and our dummy "President" of Nicaragua appears to be sliping from power, 'i he New York Times correspondent declares inat "President" Diaz is likely to resign soon...
...The sums listed in the city records are as follows: Regular salary, $500...
...Killed, murdered by a oozy, woozy saxophone...
...It is also true that tliese sheets have cultivated the demand so that today the morbid and filthy phases of life have become a drug for millions...
...I shuddered at his ghastly meaning...
...Bankrupt fanners will face the same difficulty- One who can see hope m these hopeless parties is an optimist indeedIn the absence of a Labor Party supported by the organized working class, the Socialist Patty serves as the only substitute...
...It is even posible that with the elimination, of middlemen the lasters of other essentials would eventually fall eir to the charges now made by middlemen alliough the farmers would temporarily gain...
...I worked for one company for 22 years, rhe Works were sold and I was discharged...
...They will say and do little enough to save our people from its bestial grip...
...human beings are touching lower depths of bestiality than those reached by Che Bowery twenty years ago...
...Nicaragua lies bleeding before the delegates and it is not mentioned- Haiti and San Domingo under th«j heels of our imperial administrators receive iiv> mention...
...This marked recovery is the answer to pessimists in our own ranks and our enemies outside...
...The radio, rural elivery and the flivver enable him to better oranize than he could in the last century, but farmrs are still distributed over large areas while those rho Irve in cities are massed together and can get Dgether much easier...
...Divine Providence has made us a neighborhood of republics...
...Now that a sash-weight has been already used, such means may not attract as many pennies as they did a year ago...
...imperialist officials has no place in the speech...
...Be it remembered that these are organs of capitalism, organs that have always been fearful of the vice, the crime and abysmal instincts which they allege a Socialist society will release...
...I acknowledge the old managers were sorry for me, but the financial experts kicked me out...
...The soul ye cannot slay: ( Come, point your pikes against the wind, Bid cannon clear the way!— Nay, throw your ink-pots on the sand...
...But before this cold monster of camera and octuple printing press that is damnation-bent on churning marder, rapine, and perverted Justs* into pieces of copper, one stands aghast and impotent...
...The customers were fuming and afraid that the rapidly dwindling supply would not last by the time their turns were reached...
...The drug fiend scurried by...
...Socialist Vitality ^THILE the brokers of capitalist party organizations are broadcasting the virtues of Hoover, Lowden, Smith, Reed and others, our readers must be impressed with the increasing Socialist revival reported from all parts of the country...
...It is evidence that there is no defense of American aggression against our Latin-American neighbors...
...Imagine what it will mean in our worship for you...
...It can no more be destroyed than a man can escape his own shadow...
...the Socialist candidate for treasurer, was defeated by a small margin by Charles H. Kershner but that when It appeared that the Socialist candidate was elected he announced that he would not accept the fees of the office which amount to about $20,000 annually...
...Raising the questions of vital concern to them would be a service to the masses in this country for the present drift of American policy in the end means a war of conquest and the sacrifice of lives in this country for the enrichment of our bankers and investors...
...Automatically I lost the insurance...
...Kershner gets as much as the entire city council Is paid...
...While apitalism must lie attacked on a number of fronts he whole system must be kept in mind if the toilers re to finally obtain the mastery of their lives that 5 essential to an industrial democracy and this leans Socialism as the end...
...The difficulty with the farmer is that his life nd occupation do not make him as good a coopertor as those who live in cities...
...To this state of indecency we Americans have fallen...
...The highest law is consideration, cooperation, friendship and charity...
...For whoso'er with guilty hands Would thought's free range control, Attempts to bind in impious hands That Holy Ghost, the soul...
...Ferdinand Freshgrath (1810-76...
...In the light between the .wo...
...GEORGE E. BERN A. N. Y. C. St...
...factions I don't side with the Comnunlsts...
...Need it be surprising that La Critica of Buenos Aires, commenting on this speech, cynically remarks, "The comedy has begun and it now only remains for Argentina or Mexico to bring up the question of Nicaragua...
...The Socialist proposal to repeal this legislation was fought by the two Democratic Councilmen who bad- voted for the purchases last year...
...A few radical voices have been or will be heard...
...Time sad again, Angus to Calderon Sandino...
...Ruth and her pitiful paramour, received columns and iisIsiim ef newspaper space, there died in England Thomas Hardy, the last of the Victorians, and one of the first writers ef the world...
...The reaction of middlemen is natural, as natural s the workman who does not like to see a machine isplace him...
...Have hurled their and axe to hell, And cried, "It is enough: The Ghost of Murder haunts our bed...
...Only the medical relief continued (of which, I am glad to say, I had no need...
...At any rate, here is an upper range of capitalist iociety for the future historian to lay before his eaders...
...Coolidge at Havana "^HILE American armed forces are in Nicaragua waging war on its soil and killing its citizens, President Coolidge appears in Havana with a soothing speech...
...With generous contributions and devoted service Socialises might well make the campaign this year the greatest in the history of the American movement...
...Middlemen and Farmers ANNOUNCEMENT of the organization of a "gigantic federation" of middlemen to fight coperative movements of farmers is a curious phase 1 agricultural development...
...We need another murder—for your joy...
...When will the people dare to say To high-placed hangmen here, No more shall they have leave to slay And put our scribes in fear...
...We hope that the I.atin-Americans will have the courage to speak their minds...
...Paul, Minn.—The Labor-Progressive forces of St...
...A ruling rlass that is supreme in the social order, that has 10 job but to Tnaintain things as they are, may turn 0 the task of drugging the population as the Roman rasters once provided circuses to keep underlings ontented...
...And if you were socially conscious, you might even...
...Today the confusion inside the movement has been eliminated by time and discussion...
...What the delegates received were pious generalities...
...GENNAKO QUTNTTUANO...
...And before the vast millions of children and babe-like adults, who lap up the black milk of this Journalistic beast, I for one stand hopeless and broken in heart and brain...
...the sort of an event that sells their execrable sheets...
...War In the world sjsread a thi—si . leagues away...
...Farmers want to save the profits that go to hese gentlemen and they try to do so by coopertive marketing of their products...
...ANOTHER DEATH While the deaths at two sbstsss people...
...Transportation, exchange of professors, patents and other items having no special bearing on our bullying will have our pietistic blessing but forget our marines sent on missions for American banks and investors...
...Hardy's nerds, saeh as Teas of the DXberrilles", and his issgwtfleent epic poems like "The Dynasts", have stirred the imaginations of ssffH—s ef men and women...
...Tears sprang to my grieved eyes...
...But the farmer is just as sensible 1 trying to throw off those who are riding on his ack...
...We pray that the instrument used, will have some relation to the higher arts...
...For years I have been a trade unionist and a radical, and I will remain so in spite of what the .trade union disruptiontsts may think of me...
...But I find that life now takes on an even deeper degradation...
...Sandino, despite the fact that be has bean called a bandit by our State Department -and the hired men of the press, is no mere so than any other patriot who fights for his country's independence...
...Even the Monroe Doctrine as interpreted by our...
...They will be but whispers in a storm...
...Moreover, it is notice to the delegates that the matters not mentioned by Coolidge will not be discussed or acted upon with the consent of the American delegates- They will oppose discussion and action on the issues of chief interest to Latin-Americans and this attitude shows that instead of "equality" of standing of each nation at the conference, the United States is the big boss declaring what can and what cannot be brought up...
...Now thai I am no longer an organiser my views against Communist factionalIsm In the Unions are more pronounced than ever, when, according to the Communist logic and insinuating inferences, I should stand for disruption...
...From the conversations that were audible among the waiting buyers, one learned that money bets had been made the night before, that Mrs...
...A. de Witt...
...And yet it somehow ssssssi that he was net of this age and generation, and his death at this time strikes as mere as an anachronism than aa imminent tragedy...
...We Socialists may .W4fll laugh at the drug quads who now and then turn from their task to harge us with want of the "virtues" which they laim for their dirty trade and the social order which t serves...
...Perhaps, here in New York, at least, the actual scenes of old are gone...
...Germany, Belgium and every other country in the last fifty years when the movement received a setback...
...The total fees obtained by Kershner for the year was $21,547.62, most of them being commissions...
...commission on delinquent taxes I for 1926...
...It will take some hard work and considerable funds but it is within the range of possibility...
...As often as made the prediction has been answered by subsequent advances and today the Socialist movement of the world is more powerful than it ever was...
...And shed a bitter tear...
...I will also remain an opponent of any political parties' dictatorship in the tfde union...
...On the contrary, most people seem to gloat over these details, md the only sentiment I have heard expressed is that Ruth was not tortured ong enough...
...The sovereignity of small nations is respected...
...But this is one phase of our modern American mal-existence that I cannot treat with much levity...
...We think it is...
...One could weep great tears of pity, and heave deep sighs of compassion...
...Sashweights are a bit plebeian...
...The hope of the farmer is in cooperation but if e succeeded in eliminating all middlemen thisj would ot solve all his problems although it would help, fe would still be at the mercy of those who control redit, the railroads, farm machinery and other esentials of agricultural production...
...It occurs to me, Is a case in point...
...1,890.46...
...Many of the district clubs have held meetings, reorganized, selected delegates and have given instructions on platform and candidates...
...Yes, and many of them are discussing whether they will have to fight to recover it...
...Of course, one'of the big grievances of the farmrs is'the number of middlemen who occupy'strateic positions in marketing' agricultural products, 'hese^-nriddlemen are so placed in the distributive irocess that each is able to levy a toll on farm prodcts before they reach the family that consumes hem...
...Imagine bow minutely we wisLtell of every scene where the murdererlovers met, and drank and debauched together...
...THE CHATTER BOX Dignity I count no sense as dull as dignity, And nothing emptier than that which fills Our conscious hours with rote and fact and fee, And locks our dreams and uses up, in tills...
...Knocked down and bleeding from many wounds, it rises again...
...The news-dealer was bemoaning the fact that he had not ordered a few hundred more copies of each of the Journals...
...Paul are engaged in the keenest activity, preparatory to the primary campaign for the nomination ot candidates for the city election May 1. Announcement was made by the officers of the local Farmer-Labor-Progressive association some weeks ago that labor, progressive and district organizations were requested to select delegates for the conventions which will elect officers of the association and Indorse candidates to be supported In the primary and general election...
...Capitalist agent, etc...
...a> Press Censorship Old tales of bygone ages tell t That hangmen, rude and rough...
...Even my gutter-hardened senses were sickened to nausea at the sight of such wretchedness...
...They have no future worth mentioning t the bar of history...
...How often in the movement here and abroad has it been said that the Socialist movement is about to disappear...
...The coalition will fight armer cooj)eratioii and oppose federal legislation n support of it...
...The administration's reason for leaping marines in Nicaragua is that they are there to see to it that the ""r"'"f elections are peaceful...
...Just Imagine a whole nation licking it* chops in blooddelight over the whole story, with pictures of bed rooms, the bludgeoned corpse, the atlk-siicatl:ud legs of the murderess and everything...
...I saw with my own sight such scenes of human debauchery, as no pen of Dante or French decadent ever could etch...
...We know of no more hypocritcal presidential address in our history...
...The level to which the American public has been crushed down by the tabloid and profit-mad journals of our day is lower to my mind than that reached by Rome, durjng the days of Caligula and Nero.* What has happened, for instance, since the Daddy Browning-Peaches episode, and the horrible Judd Gary-Ruth Snyder Case in particular, makes me wish that I were back again in the days of the Sullivans, the brothels, and the cocaine hells under the L. There was a color of humanity in that sort of corrosive slime...
...Panama, Nicaragua, Haiti and San Domingo, take comfort (rom this assurance when your citizens visit your cemeteries to place flowers on the graves of those who died while resisting American armed power...
...The speech of Coolidge to the delegates of vassal nations at" Havana is striking in its evasion of every important question of interest to 1-atin-Americans...
...I have beard little or no protest from the pulpit or political rostrum...
...Low as it was, capitalist journalism managed to drag its readers still lower in reporting the last hours of those two unfortunates put to death in Sing Sing last week...
...One could dream of lifting the unfortunates out of their horrible life into a world where love, and care and understanding might make them into pleasanter and more useful beings...
Vol. 7 • January 1928 • No. 5
