FOR TRADE UNION DEMOCRACY
For Trade Union Democracy Heresy Hunt Now Being Planned Is Another Evidence of Growth of Defeatist Psychology THOSE who liavc observed recent publicity from high sources in the American...
...TROTSKY IS OUT Trotsky has shot his bolt...
...117.995.000 94 263.000 150.583.000 135.798.000 28,015.000 25.884.000 123,998.000 63.192.000 Railroads...
...n isn't good enough...
...It only seeks to awaken members of the trade unions to the perils which present trends appear to invite...
...And speaking of encouraging things I must mention a meeting of St...
...New York's Contrasts Hunger and Luxury Rub Elbows JN New York world metropolis, contrasts abound and sharpen as winter drags its protracted horrors of unemployment semi-starvation, homelessness and sickness across the calendar...
...For instance I have visited a college where the students of the liberal club and certain outstanding men on the faculty are free to talk over almost anything so long aa they do nothing about economic, racial and social conditions across the railroad track...
...While shivering sailors congregate in nickel "coffee pots" along the "beach" on South St, they see palatial Cunard, TJ...
...Add tail fact to the wild scramble of all sorts and kinds of mfgg folks to get into the marginal gambling mania on Wall St and observe how completely it proves that tat enemy we must fight is the waste and immorality rt«wit in the profit system, not primarily the distribstion of stocks...
...A union that is on the bargain counter may be worth the price paid—it may be worth just that much and no more...
...According to the big Rockefeller bank, these corporations grabbed 1928 profits totaling $4,064,049,000 compared with $3,540,231,000 in 1927...
...Leaders of two other unions signed contracts with these papers while the printers were on strike...
...We think so...
...Today it is "dead" social leadera aver...
...Cotton mills, leather, railway equipment, rubber, silk, sugar and building material manufacturers all reported lower profits In 1928...
...The 1928 and 1927 profits of the 900 corporations grouped by industries were...
...This view may be a logical, turning away from the claims of the workers on legislation because of the poor results reaped by the non-partisan policy, but it appears to be making a virtue of defeat and hiding it by an attitude which says, "Oh, well, we cannot get much from law-making bodies anyway...
...It is here that thinking and discussion must be rife if the labor movement is to recover the old idealiem and fighting spirit that make for progress...
...Eight per cent 5£™ which Mr.' Roosevelt recommends is too high...
...Their 1928 profits represent a gain of 21.6"- over 1927 and are 22.1% larger than those accumulated in 1926 The 185 milroads reported 192S profits of 51.19".134.000 cmpared with 51,085.917.000 in 1927 and $1,231.791.000 in 1926...
...Communist rule in Russia with •B its progress in bettering the lot of industrial worken and all its technological liberalism in educational sssthod so dear to Prof...
...Smith's ineffective Public Service jjffliliaion...
...But the 6,000,000 who do New York's work battle the subway crush every morning, Sghttag ant for seats but for a chance to aqueeas into ens* packed to the last inch...
...That is JJ*onroging...
...Tet out of that fight we are learning by their revelations just- what methods of chicanery, bad and violence the Communists would teach the workers to use in their crusade...
...The National Civic Federation has a mass of this stuff available...
...The same papers which report these facts add that to date the fight for the 7c fare has already cost the L R. T. more than $900,000 which an obliging commission and the courts will let us pay...
...He helped to defeat the most inspiring trade union struggle in this country...
...The 93 telephone and telegraph comanies raised their profits from $211,403,000 in 1926 to $2^8,485,000 in 1927 and $255,265,000 in 1928, while 95 other public utility companies reported their total up from $715,153,000 in 1926 to $775,177,000 in 1927 and $857,400,000 in 1928...
...It isn't likely that the MOUnt but sick exile in Turkey whom his enemies hue successfully pilloried at home as writing for pay tat the bourgeois press can in person or in spirit lead a movement that will overthrow his arch foe, Stalin...
...The members alone can save themselves, but the progressive men and women who believe in democracy must help them to beat back the psychology of defeatism...
...Easley and his professional dope vendors are still marketing their fears of Bolshevism...
...By its unsolved peasant problems and by its dictatorial ruthlessness...
...in their own town where a prominent trustee owns the works...
...Dewey is a Bolshevik...
...To do this is to create precisely the sort of servile state anti-Socialists have always prophesied sad which we have indignantly denied we should tolerate...
...It is taken as a matter of course but it is otherwise here...
...The January number of the Typographical Journal iff a leading editorial criticized this conduct...
...Little of the University of Michigan and many leas conspicuous leaders have discovered...
...The old labor idealism and fighting spirit of organized workers which built the trade unions cannot accompany this other propaganda...
...Roosevelt on learning at last JPat we Socialists have long been saying about the 2*c Service Commission and the Federal Courts...
...Let us summarize some recent historv.S Mr...
...If high officials can use it to impeach the integrity of some members while those members are denied the same forum, democracy is mocked and injustice is done...
...To conspfrste the oontrast—they go to the neighborhood /aaorlea when* they see the fortunate few disporting ftininsaliea on gay, sunlit beaches far from work, send seat 4ha> subway rush...
...We Socialists have at times made our own tere of mistakes but at least we have had sense teugh not to exalt them into virtues...
...Our good friend J. L. Stark who represents the railroad brotherhoods in that region la the executive secretary and Carl D. Thompson of the Public Ownership League has been called hi as adviser...
...At the New Orleans convention of the A. of L. President Green had to answer" Edgerton's charge that organized worker- are "a meance to American institutions...
...It is this flood of profits which creates the chief problems for bankers attempting to stabilize the economic system...
...With this vague sense of defeatism goes an attitude of try* ing to satisfy upper class opinion, even the opinion of the antiunion magnates who are conspicuous fn the Civic Federation...
...TIMELY TOPICS By Norman Thomas 4 STONE who believes that little stockholders are *^ good but big ones bad, or that absentee ownership frf.ir induatriea managed for profit is good it only t£, owership is distributed widely enough, is invited t» eSMider the case of Col...
...It has no use for cliques and "nuclei" that conspire with the view of acting the part of "saviour" of the organized workers...
...Hughes' appearing st all in a case which Involved the meaning of his official acts as governor...
...Doubtless Bjnj was some coercion of employes and more misrepisjantsri— by Stewart...
...Hats awry, tempers disjointed, feet trodden on, the huge army of workers and clerks is disgorged from the subway exits for another day of work...
...This has even received a semi-official recognition in a recent number of the A. F. of L. Weekly News Sen-ice...
...Meanwhile it is yet to be seen whether Stalin's adaptation of Trotsky's harsh program toward the more ambitious or more prosperous peasants will work at eg...
...A Heresy-'Hunl In the Making This is a sorry beginning, but Mr...
...AMERICA'S BURLESQUE VERSION At least the fight in Russia be twee* Communists is *«t realities...
...A greater labor movement is possible and those who are aware of the possibilities must themselves give devoted service to their organizations, revivify and inspire the mass with the will to advance, to expand, and to invade and conquer othar trades and industries...
...If the fWTsl forces arc just and moderate in victory and ¦•k to root out such abuses of corruption and cruelty P somewhat stained the official record...
...Below are the local unions, and district and central labor bodies and if is the men and women in these latter bodies who constitute the bases of the whole trade union movement...
...Corporations engaged in manufacture and trade show the greatest gain in aggregate profits compared with the previous year...
...Stewart hid his share from all knowledge of Ik company until the facts were forced out by government inquiry...
...Diffusion of owning, like diffusion of marginal gambling, may only spread the sickness ¦Ma must cure if we and our children are to find plenty, peace and freedom...
...Such apartments with tbanr "master rooms," their half dozen gold and marble lavatories, their tiny holes for butlers and maids, rent from $5,000 to as much aa you want to pay...
...THANKS TO MR...
...Dewey does not have that service to defend himself...
...Over and over again trade unionism is offered as a better agency for production results than the company unions in the hope that the employing class will be won to this view...
...It makes no difference how much service one has given to the trade unions, both in their struggles for better conditions and against Communist intrigues to control them...
...All Discussion Opposed What some influential representatives of the trade unions assume is that any critical attitude of members and friends is Bolshevik-inspired...
...The commission is appointed and its report is immediately forecasted...
...In the opinion of Mr...
...1 ,193,134.000 1,085.917,000 27,189,000 49,145.000 255,265,000 233,43%,000 41,384,000 47,626,000 80,301,000 77,957,000 857,400,000 775,177,000 101,758.000 91,387,000 All industries 4 ,064,049,000 3,540,231,000 These results include only 900 out of the country's 450.000 corporations...
...In former years New York In winter was the center of a brilliant social iff • led by the Vanderbfita and the Goulds...
...What lias come over many of the labor chieftains is a sense of defeatism...
...That label is reserved for others who criticized the two contracts signed at Albany...
...Woll as president has access to it...
...and your dog to our shop...
...But it worked very easily...
...One sure thing is that there is too much intelligent interest and too much obvious need tor us even to consider giving up the **» Business Doing Nicely National City Reports 14% Profit Increase jgXCESSIVE profits which helped to provoke th-> present stock gambling orgy are brought together in a review of the net earnings of 900 corporations by the National City Bank...
...Indeed the best men of the republic and JJBronUy the organized agrarians and workers are *teriy against this everlasting appeal to arms...
...Here in the peasant problem is a stumbling Block that may trip up not merely the Stalin dictatorSnip—which would be good—but to some degree the great Russian social experiment itself which would be a eelamity to mankind...
...For all dogs we have every supply *J»t their needs might develop...
...All they knew was that under •jggjrert the Standard of Indiana cut big melons...
...He and his fellow buccaneers of JL continental Trading Co...
...This press service is not democratic...
...Will he obtain it from the man who helped to break the steel strike and to show that the "roots" of dissatisfaction are "red...
...When any group of organized workers forfeit its claims for complete recognition at the hands of lawmaking bodies the future cannot be hopeful for it...
...It is also encouraging that propaganda 2* airplanes is so useful a weapon in instructing •jPwera*misled by ambitious rebel jrenerals...
...The New Leader has no desire to dictate or to coerce...
...These figures of the surplus values taken by the great masters of America's economic resources make a stark contrast with the meager incomes of the masses who are producing these fortunes...
...It is a striking fact that this anti-state attitude is a near approach to the view of the philosophical anarchist who also emphasizes "self-help" and opposes "state guardianship...
...Let us consider the printers' strike on a number of Albany papers...
...The rather cheap Menckenesque cynicism of a few years ago is passing or has passed and that la to the good...
...t» «*lm0*t twice WQat the state Port Authority pays "¦"¦money...
...Is this the sort of an ally that trade unions want ? The honest members of the unions know the answer...
...W'oll has used many columns of the International Labor Nnvs Senice to denounce Professor Dewey, an honored member of the Teachers' Union, but Mr...
...It declares that the printers would not be "sold for a mess of pottage-' and added: "It appears as though the publishers are trying to buy unions a little at a time...
...W'oll impeaches the loyalty of many men and women in the movement, that isn't attacking the whole trade union movement, but when he and others are criticized that is attacking the whole trade union movement...
...After eight hours of it the subway terror again One or two hours later the worker is at home, as> haosted by the terrific strain...
...Some dogs are brought to us so often we actually consider them as regmaar customers...
...in the Middle West I bring back impressions confirming those -formed in shorter trips along the Atlantic seaboard, far more interest in politics and political parties Jisn usually follows an election yet no sign of any effectiv- mass movement...
...The average faculty is as liberal as it dares be and that is probably more liberal than Matthew Woll would let Brookwood be...
...You can fight the game fish in the Gulf stream by saving $1,500 to $3,400 a year rent, you are advised, tf you will move into 75 Central Park West's "modsraeslypriced" apartments...
...Not only has Stalin, according to the Trotsky story, trampled •nan those rights we would call civil liberties...
...Stewart of the Standard OB Co...
...We certainly sympathize with the printers and we believe that the bitter criticism of the Typographical Journal was justified under the circumstances...
...The private monopoly will still have JTT^P hand in bargaining...
...This meant a gain of 9.9% over 1927 but a decline of 3.1% compared with 1926...
...Let us send you after the barracuda,'* •dveraiaM "75 Central Park West," an apartment bouse...
...Disgustedly two or three pool their resources—25 cents—go to the nearest drug store and buy a pint of denatured alcohol...
...It will be a fight worth watching...
...This survey emphasizes the fact that the American industrial system is ripe for nationalization and a Socialist democracy...
...Labor men who honestly believed they might accomplish something for the workers by going into the N. C. F. were in turn being secretly fought by Easley...
...On the Bowery the migratory workers hunch along the dreary, pawn-shop lined street, looking into lunchrooms with longing eyes...
...The nationals and internationals are autonomous bodies with extensive powers in their own field...
...W'oll and other men high in the councils of the A. F. of L. critici>m from below is akin to treason...
...MID-WESTERN IMPRESSIONS From a crowded three week trip for L.LD...
...put through a deal which jetted them $3,000,000 to the cost of their own comMsjea...
...j*<M°n't say it during his campaign...
...REVOLT AND PROGRESS IX MEXICO disappointing as are the troubles in llexico it is ¦SSes comfort to observe that they are more of a revolt JfaaWtious generals than a revolt of any section of te people...
...those who object to the "trial'' of Brookwood are nearBolsheviks : The Sew Leader is Bolshevik: all critics are either Bolsheviks or under the influence of Bolsheviks...
...Tet that opposition also is not impsaastely likely to shake Stalin's power...
...Mrxico tey continue its forward ma/ch with new strength...
...the critic gets his Bolsheviklabel just the same...
...Lawrence -under state 2**" then selling the power by contract is better 2S*° nave distribution to private companies con5°*" onJy by Gov...
...It is too powerful to be thus punished...
...It Is very sobering to observe how among young intellectuals in the colleges and among the workers themselves, both organised and unorganized, it is accepted as almost a foregone conclusion that no great constructive leadership in any social tasks can possibly be expected of the men In control of meet of our A. F. of L. unions...
...A majority of the 39 industries listed in the bank's compilation shared in the gain over 1927...
...The Russian cities are on bread rations...
...yet he like Doheny and sjfrx-i.tr were acquitted by District of Columbia juries sad in the fight with Rockefeller although he was badly besrm on a court based on the number of shares he got from 31,357 stockholders a* against 15,204 who Halt proxies to the Rockefeller Ccfmmittee...
...Hurry, rusk, snap into It—this is the refrain of a worker's life in the hustling nsetropetas...
...materials and household . 79.271.000 77.600,000 141,414,000 104.639,000 51,325,000 22,853,000 210,403,000 157,530,000 26,162.000 30.528,000 56,744,000 37.069.000 'Meat and other foods...
...he has tiao turned his vast power, in the state and over indantry to building up an anti-Trotsky machine...
...If they got the same proportion in 1928 last year's corporate profit total must have been close to $11,000,000,000...
...Will the Typographical Union receive a Bolshevik label because of this bitter criticism...
...This is not so...
...Progressive labor men and women who subscribe to democracy in principle and action have their duty here and these bodies should be fertile in ideas and programs that will eventually emerge to inspire the whole trade union movement of the United States...
...22,063,000 J 17,662,009 36.209,000 27.296,000 3SO.412.0O0 317.412,000 73,034,000 68,187,000 Bldg...
...When Mr...
...As the chief of this body he is involved in issues that have come to the front in workers' education...
...And Democratic or Retrustees—even Hughes and Smith whom jy»»elt suggests—are thoroughly imbued with the P"t of view of big business...
...Our colleges are fairly open to ideas and if as a capable young Chinese student said in introducing me "American students are very tame" they do afford an interesting and hopeful field for work...
...In 1926 they got about 37% of the total corporate profits reported to the commissioner of internal revenue...
...There are however forbidden areas as Pres...
...The data show who are rejoicing over the much advertised "prosperity" of which we have heard so much in recent years...
...Ralph Easley of the National Civic Federation secretly cooperated with Gary of the steel trust, providing the steel masters with material to give the steel strike and the Interchurch World Movement which helped the strikers Bolshevik labels...
...Who says that regulation doesn't work— [or the companies...
...Striking dressmakers, picketing 30-story manufacturing lofts along Seventh avenue in the bitter cold of early morning hours, can read of the advertisements of their handiwork, gowns selling from $100 to $500 two blocks away in the fashionable shopping district of Fifth avenue...
...It ill becomes any labor man to resort to a weapon which the enemies of the unions have used for many years...
...Roosevelt has conceded a large part aasS SociaJist cause...
...It means digging into the whole field of propaganda within labor unions and in the public schools," reads the dispatch...
...Events will force him or some f-^Ul""r °f his to concede it all...
...Only public ownership of production and *y¦mission lines and ultimately of the whole power J"*Poly will do...
...The 527 companies in this group reported net earnings totaling $1,758,250,000 compared with $1,445,702,000 in 1927 and $1,440,085,000 in 1926...
...What a pity these ^tecaeaions come piece meaJ and ajway late...
...Just across Cooper Square they can see Georgian coffee pots priced at $484, in the Wanamaker show windows...
...Then there is one uniform answer that is made to critics of present trends and policies in tlie trade unions...
...For a few weeks under a tropical sun each will spend $1,000 or more, enough to give a score of jobless seamen comfortable rooms and food until spring comes...
...The owners of small dogs and large, of pedigreed puppies and home dogs come to us for good food, clothing and equipment," reads their ad...
...ROOSEVELT FALLS SHORT J* congratulate Gov...
...Labor Press Closed to Dewey This one-sided view is also carried into the field of publicity...
...Tell British or American workers that the comBnaist dictatorship means that their votes, their jobs sad their homes would depend on obedience to a dictatorship which would exileVa chief hero of the proletarian revolution and see how many of them will prefer even the capitalist state''' It becomes the duty of ebriaHsts to insist in building the cooperative comsMowealth...
...daily which revealed that the commission would engage in a heresy hunt, not an investigation...
...The January number of the Typographical Journal points to an anti-union publisher who objects to unionizing printing plants because this means "'.-ovietizing comjxjsing rooms...
...This represents a gain of 14.8% in the annual tribute collected by these agencies of the owning class...
...It warns against the "defeatist attitude" and urges a "hea.ds-up" spirit...
...Brookwood is Bolshevik...
...To that comment I now add that even the leader of the bar may find that looking up a $50,000 fee conveniently blinds one to ethical niceties...
...They forget their chill...
...He deliberately misled the Senate Committee by his testimony...
...Dewey is today sadly overshadowed...
...Hon dangerous to the dictator may be the more amorphous right wing opposition of Kalinin, Rykoff and tscosky representing as they do great masses of peasants and workers...
...HUGHES New Yorkers who once elected Charles Evan Hughes governor of their state win be pleased to learn that out of their fares they must psy him S50.000 and his firm $25,000 for arguing against their interests in behalf of the L R. T. in the 7c fare esse...
...It is a melancholy •"elation...
...Small cheer to dwellers in "cold water" tenements of the east side, six stories "walkup", no baths, outside toilets, no central beating, series of mams without windows, sunlight and air...
...His plan for J*er*Ung power on the St...
...jae smaller stockholders cared nothing for even liaitilirf morals, nothing for the fact that they were ISehsd on the Continental Oil deal until publicity brought restitution...
...They are all given a Bolshevik label...
...No New York dally would publish my comment on the grass impropriety of MT...
...of Indiana...
...Matthew W'oll took the leadership in attacking Professor Dewey and Broukwood Labor College as being tainted with Communism and, by implication, many other trade unionists who opposed the Woll view were also condemned...
...As it is mixed with water, a vapor arises—"smoke...
...One may trace its early origin to the defeat of the steel strike, the open* shop drive for a number of years, the insuperable difficulties in carrying out the resolution of three years ago to organize the automobile industry, tnterunion conflicts like that in the printers' strike at Albany and meager legislative results at the state capitals and in Washington...
...ReHaMe correspondents tell us that his faction has followed up this work by a new process of "purging the sati.of rotors" which means that his unlucky suspects loss votes, Jobs and passably even such poor quarters ss they possess in Moscow's terribly overcrowded apartments...
...John E. Edgerton...
...Well rely on self-help from now on...
...Industrial profits 1928 1927 Agricultural implements...
...That attitude outlaws all discussion...
...Now we submit that this attitude of mind is destructive of any promise of trade union expansion and growth...
...But as yet new leadership Is not visibly emerging...
...7,901 of TJ19 employe stockholders voted for him...
...Look at Hughes and the T...
...Legislation for the workers is called "state guardianship" and "state tyranny" and "paternalism...
...We would welcome you...
...Large gains included 'electrical equipment 152%, copper mining 125%, petroleum 96%, auto accessories 84% and aviation 77...
...Mothers in shawls, apologetic, hesitant, ask for bread for their little ones in some dreary East Side tenement Little do they know that at Abercombie at Fitch's, elegantly gowned women pass in and out every day with their lap dogs...
...In recent years the A. F. of L. has emphasized what is called "self-help" as opposed to help through legislation won by the 'power of labor itself...
...Louis Socialists convened on short notice on s Saturday night...
...Curiously enough, the most striking instance of injury to the trade unions came from a source that A. F. of L. officials ignore...
...The steel strike in 1919 was denounced as "Bolshevism" by its enemies and the A. F. of L. had to spend much time in meeting this backfire...
...On the other hand it should be recognized that the American Federaion of Labor is a federation with limited powers...
...A few more bottles, and they are In the Bellevue D. T. ward...
...Is it not unfair to place him in a position where he will have enormous influence in passing on his own views...
...W'oll being one who signed...
...Criticism from above is proper...
...Chester M. Wright sent a dispatch to a Fort Wayne (Ind...
...To imitate that fight in the feeble [waiminiBt party of America is fantastic and mean•H*ss...
...considerable realism and more open mindedness in facing our times, but little tendency to aggressive action even locally...
...Yoil's own record was then scrutinized, his views and actions being subjected to thorough criticism...
...The result is a quietist attitude while the chambers of commerce in anti-union cities also nibble away at the trade unions, The Tactics of Despair Politically, this defeatism is also apparent...
...Still another phase of the fate of criticism is evident by the appointment of Mr...
...It will show up the roots of the propaganda of what is called 'leftism' and those roots probably will be red...
...president of the National Association of Manufacturers, continues to attack trade unions a- Bolshevist...
...The state discusses great state farms—more intelligent tea the arbitrary equality it intermittently attempts of enforce in the villages, but not likely to work in £ lurry...
...The most outstanding bit of life ot which I saw evidence is in Louisville, Kentucky, where the demand of the local transit company for a ten cent fare, following similar demands by the telephone company,- have aroused the citizens to form a Taxpayers League to fight to assert the public Interest In public' utilities...
...Of the nature of that power and the reasonableness et our democratic suspicions of all dictatorships Trotsky's vivid narrative gives fresh proof...
...Too many of these progressives have themselves assumed that the unpromising trends cannot be checked...
...Woll to head a commission to investigate not only workers' education but the educational system of the United States...
...S. Lines, Ward and United Fruit steamers, freighted with brokers, business men and their companions, bound for balmy Bermuda, Havana, the Caribbean and Florida coast resorts...
...This criticism and "constant exchange of views is continuous in every trade union movement abroad...
...For Trade Union Democracy Heresy Hunt Now Being Planned Is Another Evidence of Growth of Defeatist Psychology THOSE who liavc observed recent publicity from high sources in the American Federation ot Labor will be impressed* "with the contrast between democracy of discussion in the labor movement abroad and fears of any discussion here...
...Everybody" is gone, to Palm Bench, the Riviera, the Bshsmas, Quebec A few weeks la New York, for a round of the opera, bails and the higher-priced theatres are enough now...
Vol. 8 • March 1929 • No. 9
