1928, the presidential election and the workers

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WORKER’S LIBRARY No. 4

1928
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
AND THE WORKERS

THE WORKERS LIBRARY

No t- THE TEN ee YEAR—The Rise and
Achievements of Soviet Russia (1917-1927)
By J, Loum ENGpARE 9» 4.).% 10 CENTS

No, 2-THE, COOLIDGE PROGRAM — Capitalist
Democracy and Prosperity Exposed

By JAY LOVERTONR ele ee) * 5 CENTS

No. 3—-QUESTIONS ‘AND ANSWERS TO AMERI-
CAN TRADE UNIONISTS—Stalin’s Interview
with the First American Trade Union Delegation to
Soviet Russta.

39 East 125th Street,

|

ivan
The Presidential Election

And The Workers

By
JAY LOVESTONE

WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS

New York, N. Y.

iT

SERENE GED UTD OAT ED EED aM bd toi dber eed Mo deetiosarabil lad,

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
First Edition—February 1, 1928
NEW YORK, N. Y.

Copyright 1928
WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS, INC.

CONTENTS

"THE PRESENT SIPUATION) Ua 7
THe Poirrica, PARTies AND Tupirk Roum!) 15
Isstes OF THE (1928 ELECTIONS 0000 0) 5
‘Dep CANDIDATES. 200 Oye ea aay Sy
‘Towarps A LABOR PARP Noe 43

CHAPTER 1,

THE PRESENT SITUATION

What shall the workers do,—especially the conscious, the
militant workers,—in preparation for the 1928 presidential
election? Shall they continue to follow the two parties of
the capitalist class, the Republican and Democratic parties?
Shall they organize a new party of their own? Shall they
work for the organization of a third party of small capitalists
led by individuals of the type of Borah and Norris? Should
the workers organize a class party of their own on a national
mass basis, a big labor party based primarily on the trade
unions? What about the Socialist Party? What does the
Workers Party stand for? What is the outlook for a united
labor ticket?

‘These are not abstract, academic questions. They are
pressing, burning questions tied up with the every-day strug-
gles of the workers, bound up with the most basic demands
and interests of the entire working class and the exploited
farmers.

The Economic Conditions

Not since 1921 has there been so much unemployment in
“prosperous” America. According to the most conservative
estimate of the reactionary Coolidge administration, at least
6 out of every 100 workers who were on a job last year
are now out of work. At least 12 out of every one hundred
workers employed in 1923, at this time, are now unemployed.
Wage cuts are increasing in frequency. As usual, the New
England textile mills are setting the pace in wape-sladhiny:
‘The non-union coal fields are not far behind and are prepar-
ing new wage reductions. There is talk of lower wages in the
steel industry- Rumblings of wage cuts are heard with
increasing regularity even in the building trades. ‘The West-
ern railway magnates are refusing to go through with the

7

8 THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

award of a paltry wage increase of 30c a day given some |

time ago to their locomotive enginemen and firemen.

Within the last year, the payroll total has fallen by |
about eight cents on the dollar. For every wage dollar that
the average worker received twelve months ago he now gets |

about ninety cents. Today the total wages are at least 11
per cent less than in 1923. The New York municipal lodg-
ing houses are “caring” for a record number this winter.
Chicago now boasts a longer breadline than it has had at any
time since 1913. In Omaha, the economic conditions are
so deplorable for great masses of workers that a working class
woman was ready to sell her body in advance for dissection
purposes in a local hospital in order to procure food for her
starving children.

Despite all the loud talk about farm prosperity, the farmers
are still in the hole. ‘Though the crop harvested in the last
fiscal year was the largest in the history of the country, except
for 1916 and 1920, yet there was a drop of nearly $600,
000,000 in the combined value of crops and animal products
within the last twelve months.

In short, the Coolidge prosperity bubble and bluff have
been pricked. The trend of trade and industry is unmis-
takably downward and the workers are beginning to feel it.

Within the last six months, the economic recession has grown |
more acute. ‘The reserves gathered by the workers in the |
better economic conditions which prevailed a year ago are |

fast disappearing.

In fact, so far as the great masses of unskilled and semi-
skilled proletarians in the United States are concerned, pros-
perity has never reached them to any appreciable extent.
Professor Irving Fisher of Yale University, one of the most
tried and true representatives of the biggest capitalist inter-
ests of the United States, recently declared that the American
masses are not at all prosperous. According to the findings

of Professor Fisher, at least 93 million of our people hardly |
make enough for their expenses. “I’hey have an average yearly |

THE PRESENT SITUATION 9

income of at most $500. ‘This income at best affords the 93
million people only enough to keep themselves upon the
“bottom level of health and decency.” Within this over-
whelming majority of the population of the United States
are found the great mass of workers, the exploited farmers
and large sections of the middle class.

The Immediate Political Situation

For years we have not had any big, major, sharp issue
dividing the country. We have had no questions such as the
problems which confronted America immediately after the
war. We have had no questions of any importance which
could split the population wide open into sharply defined,
hostile political camps, or which would bring sharp dissensions
within these political parties. Investigation indicates that in
1926 we had the lowest number of strikes and industrial
disputes since we became an industrial nation.

In 1922 and in 1924, we faced such decisive issues. “These
issues, for example the agricultural crisis, which was then
more acute than it is today, translated themselves into sharp
relations politically. “here were also sharp and acute differ-
ences between the workers and their exploiters—the employ-
ers. We need but recall the wave oi big. strikes in 1922.
None of us can forget the acute agricultural depression then
prevailing in the country. [he combination of these two
forces brought about the organization of the LaFollette move-
ment, a third party movement led by the petty bourgeoisie
and supported by great masses of workers. Since then we
have not had such big issues, but now there are signs of their
developing. Both at home and abroad, American capitalist
reaction continues in full swing.

‘The Seventieth Congress has opened in the shadow of the
most gigantic lobby of big interests this country has yet seen.
At the head of the splendidly organized capitalist groups now
dominating the millionaire and lobby-ridden Congress is the
huge power-trust. Vicious anti-labor legislation is being pre-
pared, particularly against the foreign-born workers.

In the Republican Party, Mr. Hoover, representing the

10 THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

most conscious capitalist interests, and whole-heartedly en-
dorsed by Standard Ojil interests, and Governor Fuller, who
murdered Sacco and Vanzetti, is leading the race forthe
nomination to fill the place now occupied by “King” Cool-

idge. In the Democratic Party, Governor Smith of New

York, who has worked overtime to ruin the Garment Work-
ers’ Union of this state, and who has concealed the most
sordid species of Tammany Hall corruption, is setting the
pace in the Democratic. race for the) Presidency. ‘Ihe’ so-
called progressives, the self-styled insurgent group led by
Borah and Norris, have deserted the farmers’ ship altogether.
Especially treacherous has been the conduct of the so-called
farmer-labor senator, Shipstead of Minnesota, who is now
practically registered as a Republican.

Energetic efforts are today being made by the imperialists
to extend and perpetuate their domination as a world power.
A special drive has been launched against Latin America.
Fake good-will messengers of the type of Lindbergh are now
being used to draw Mexico and other countries south of the
Rio Grande closer to the United States so that these weaker
people might yield more easily to the pressure of American
imperialism. President Coolidge and his Secretary of State,
Kellogg, accompanied by Charles E. Hughes, erstwhile Sec-
retary of State and for many years agent of the biggest oil
corporations, have been rushed to the Pan-American Confer-
ence at Havana, Cuba, on a warship, in order to lend proper
“‘tone” and “atmosphere” to the manipulations of the Yankee
imperialists. While the spokesmen of Wall Street are talking
about peace, their marines slaughter scores of Nicaraguans
fighting for national freedom.

The silent, “economical”? Coolidge is now yelling for bil-

lions for the navy. ‘The antagonisms with England are

growing sharper since the flat failure of the Geneva naval
disarmament conference. America is trying to isolate Britain
by a number of so-called peace manoeuvers with such impe-
rialist powers as France. ‘The bloody hands of Yankee
imperialism are extending everywhere. New thrusts are being

made by Wall Street into the Near East, the Middle East

THE PRESENT SITUATION 11

and Far East. The percentage of net Federal government
expense for past and future wars amounted to 82 cents out of
every dollar spent in 1927. Since 1913 the United States has
increased its expenditures for military and naval forces of
destruction by 124%. ‘This is almost twice as much as the
proportion of increase by Great Britain, more than eight times
the rate of the increase by Italy and about sixty times the
proportion of the increase of expenditures by France in this
period.

The Chinese militarists and imperialist lick-spittles,
together with the American Admiral Bristol, planned their
barbarous butchery of defenceless Chinese workers in Canton
and peasants in the provinces.

At the same time there is developing increasing resistance
to American imperialist aggrandisement. Already more than
a dozen gigantic combines, cartels, have been organized by
the European capitalists to beat back the American invasion of
the world market. Germany and Great Britain are raising
the tariff against some American goods. England is again
complaining of the burdensome war debts. “The developing
difficulties with the Dawes Plan are only embittering the
European bourgeoisie and increasing their unwillingness to
continue to pay tribute to Wall Street.

The Situation in the Labor Movement

The whole trade union movement is fighting with its
back to the wall. ‘The trade unions are in danger of de-
struction. The fight to save even the most conservative
unions is becoming more and more the major fight in the
labor movement. ‘The once powerful United Mine Workers
of America is now practically paralyzed—a victim of the
blackest treachery on the darkest pages of the history of our
labor movement. Lewis, Murray, and company, backed up
by Green and Woll, and the whole trade union official
bureaucracy are guilty of sapping the very life of what was
for many years the most effective fighting force in our entire
trade union movement. ‘Today these reactionary labor bureau-
crats are criminally holding back the rest of the workers from

T2 THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

coming to the aid of the battling miners and are even putting
obstacles in the way of effective miners’ relief by their
“do-nothing”’ policy in the face of terrorism and outrage
of an unparalleled sort at the hands of the government and
the compahy police and judges in Pennsylvania, Ohio and
Colorado.

A sweeping injunction mania is menacing the workers
throughout the country. Compared with Federal Judge
Schoonmaker’s injunction against the miners in Pennsylvania
and the injunction procured against the subway workers by
the New York Interborough Rapid ‘Transit Company, the old
Palmer and Daugherty injunctions of the mine and railroad
strikes in 1919 and 1922 were messages of “encouragement”
for the workers.

‘The program of the captalist class is clear. ‘They are out
to destroy, as effective forces in determining the standards
of living, even the most conservative, docile craft unions.
‘They no longer have any real need even for such unions. At
the same time the reactionary trade union leadership is doing
nothing to lead the workers to resistance. “This costly policy
is actually helping the employers to crush the most militant
fighters, as for example in the New York needle trades.
Green, Woll and company are planning an abject surrender
of all the rights won by the workers in many years of bitter
struggle.

In this treachery the official Socialist Party leadership is
playing an active and enthusiastic role. “These so-called
Socialists are helping, and now and then even setting the
pace, in the expulsion of militant left wingers and Commun-
ists from the unions. ‘They are sabotaging every effort to
develop a labor party movement or to organize a united
labor ticket for the coming Presidential elections.

But let no one think that there is no cause for optimism. —

‘There are growing signs of rising militancy. The heroic
spirit of the miners, after almost a year of struggle, shows
that there is plenty of resistance and fighting life in the
workers. ‘Ihe inspiring determination of the needle trades
workers and their left wing leaders indicates that the workers

THE PRESENT SITUATION 13

will fight to the last ditch to save their unions. ‘The increas-
ing sympathy for Soviet Russia in the ranks of the American
trade unionists, despite the campaign of calumny and terror-
ism waged by Green, Woll and company, is a most hopeful
sign. Last and of particular importance is that the smash-up
of the frenzied, high-finance schemes of the Brotherhood of
Locomotive Engineers Bank has thrown a cold blanket even
over the most ardent advocates of labor banking and their
class collaboration schemes.

CHAPTER II.
THE POLITICAL PARTIES AND THEIR ROLE

With this as a sea coit Melt let us examine the political
parties. What are they like? What are they for!

First of all, political parties are not accidental aggrega-
tions of ty ial, Political parties are organs and wea-
pons of class warfare. No matter how confused the mem-
bership or even some of the leaders of any political party
may now and then appear to be; no matter how politically
illiterate some of the followers of any political party may
be, yet a political party is an engine of class war. ‘he
United States has political parties, the character, form and
structure of which have been determined by the specifically
objective condtions in the country. ‘That is why we find
certain political manifestations in this country totally different
from some in European countries.

The Republican Party with its personnel, with its follow-
ing, with its leadership, would be divided in a country like
France, perhaps into three parties; in a country like Germany
or Czechoslovakia perhaps into four parties. In the United
States we have in one Republican Party, Mr. Coolidge, Mr.
Norris, Mr. Borah, Mr. LaFollette, Mr. Dawes and Messrs.
Vare and Smith. In this Republican Party the interests of
big capital, represented by Coolidge, are of course the ruling
interests, while the petty capitalist interests and farmers’ inter-
ests, represented by Borah, Norris and LaFollette, take a
back seat.

What are the specific American conditions making for such

conflicting relations within one such political party? The

two basic reasons for this condition are:

1. In America until comparatively recent years the class
lines were not sharp and the class divisions were in a state of
flux. That is why, to an extent, the political parties in
America are still more inclusive in the sense of not expressing
as sharply as some of the European political parties certain

14

THE POLITICAL PARTIES AND THEIR ROLE 15

class interests, nevertheless in the last resort, decisively ¢ ex-
pressing basic class interests.

The structure of the United States government is based
on ‘the two-party system. Comrade Lenin, in analyzing the
elections held in the United States in 1912, in examining the
development of the Roosevelt movement, said:

“This two-party system is one of the most powerful means of
hindering the establishment of an independent party of labor.”

One might correctly add that the two-party system has
served to hinder the organization and to interfere with the
continuation of all minority parties,—because sectional inter-
ests, in the period when class lines were not rigid, could find
expression on a local scale within the framework of the Re-
publican and Democratic parties.

Within the last 25 years there have been but two shocks to
the two-party system; the one in 1912 resulting in the Roose-
velt split in the Republican Party; the second in 1924 culmin-
ating in the LaFollette movement which polled the highest
vote any minority party has ever polled in the United States.
‘This was an attempt of the petty bourgeoisie inside and out-
side the Republican Party to assume leadership not only of
the workers but of the country as a whole.

Recent years have seen new developments and changes in
class relationships tending to undermine the basis for the
continuation of the two-party system. However, it still re-
mains an integral part of the government structure. ‘[his
system must be broken down and it can be broken down only
by an alliance between the workers and the exploited farmers.
‘To the extent that any movement or any force makes for the
break-down of the two-party system in the United States, it
is a progressive movement, a progressive force, though it may
temporarily place new dangers in the path a the workers.
‘The smashing of the two-party system as a basic feature of
capitalist reactionary government of the United States is a
primary task before the workers. But to realize this task
the workers and exploited farmers must organize their own
class party and not rely in the least on good men of the petty

16 . THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

bourgeoisie, on so-called progressive Republican irregulars and

insurgents coming from the ranks of the small capitalists, on)

petty bourgeois blocs or on third capitalist parties.
The Republican Party

‘The Republican Party is frankly the party of the biggest j
Less |

capitalist interests in the country. It doesn’t hide it.
and less does it seek to pretend that it represents all the poeple. |

Wall Street plainly endorses Coolidge and Coolidge openly |
“Wall Street and big busi- |
ness probably will find no one whom they like better than |
Coolidge,” said the World’s Work in October, 1927 (page |

welcomes Wall Street support.

$77):

the Republican Party.

Republican Party.

recession in industry.

the Norris-Borah insurgent bloc.

‘The Republican Party has had three main stages of devel-—
At one time it was a militant party for social |
progress. ‘[his was its first stage. In this stage the workers |
In this stage the |

opment.

played a substantial role in developing it.
historic mission of the Republican Party was the support of.
the development of capitalism against chattel slavery.

In the second period of the development of the Republican}

Party its mission was to help develop America industrially and)
financially, to establish in this country the most powerful 7
This |
was the party of such slogans as ““The Full Dinner Pail” and |
““Prosperity’’—the party of the conscious promotion of and |
open obedience to gigantic industrial and financial enterprise.

‘Today the Republican Party is in its third and last stage. }
It frankly appears as an agency of monopoly capital, only, 1

capitalism. ‘The party flourished in this period also.

From 1922 up to November, 1924, the petty bourgeoisie |
in the cities, and the farming masses, on a large scale, left |
After the defeat of the LaFollette ¥
movement in 1924, the petty bourgeoisie went back into the |
They stayed in the Republican Party and |
began to show signs of deserting it again only recently with |
the sharpening of the agricultural situation and the deepening |
The importance of this development |
becomes more clear when we examine the development of |

THE POLITICAL PARTIES AND THEIR ROLE 17

and its mission is to keep things as they are and to maintain
the present topmost layer of the bourgeoisie as the ruling class.
The real slogan and spirit of the Republican Party today is
“Don't Rock the Boat.” Anybody who does anything to dis-
turb conditions is rocking the boat and capitalist prosperity,
and is interfering with the present task of the Republican
Party which is to maintain things as they are with greater
energy than any other party.

But is the Republican Party a homogenous party? It is
not! In this party are the big business interests of the middle
Atlantic and Eastern States, certain farmers of the middle
West, and even some petty bourgeoisie in the far West. ‘The
leadership of the big bourgeoisie over the other sections of
the capitalist class within the Republican Party is today still
indisputable. Here and there somebody might try to chal-
lenge it. Obviously the contradictions of capitalist produc-
tion are reflecting themselves within the capitalist class and
therefore within the Republican Party. But the biggest bour-
geoisie still manage to continue their leadership over the
overwhelming majority of the petty bourgeoisie, the farming
and the working masses. Despite all the support the Demo-
cratic Party has been getting from the A. F. of L. bue
reaucracy, the Republican Party still has more workers voting
for it than the Democrats have.

The Democratic Party

The Democratic Party was born and flourished at a time
when it was the organ, the class weapon of those forces in
the country which fought against federalism, against the
establishment of a powerfully centralized government. At
that time the Democratic Party had a constructive function to.
perform in the development of the United States.

Came the Civil War. What was the position of the
Democratic Party nationally in the Civil War on the ques-
tion of slavery? Continuing despite changed social conditions
their old policy of states’ rights, they became the party which
primarily defended chattel slavery against the higher order
of capitalism. :

18 THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Since that time the Democratic Party, except for the time”
when it was stimulated and given a respite by the Populist |
Party and more recently by the Roosevelt division in them
Republican Party, has not held the Presidential office. In {
1920 only 127 out of the 531 electoral votes went to the ’
Democrats. In 1924 only 136 electoral votes were cast for |
the Democrats. "The Democratic Party offers a substantial |
American peculiarity of class expression. Fundamentally it f
expresses the same interests as the Republican Party in the
sense that it is a party which stands uncompromisingly for :
the capitalist system. One of the leaders of the Republican |
Party in an editorial in the World’s Work recently declared i
that man to man in business hours, everybody knows that the )
Republican Party and the Democratic Party have no basic :
differences. ‘This is the truth but we must be careful not to |
accept it superficially. “There are certain differences between
the Republican and Democratic parties but these differences
are decreasing rapidly. a
‘The Democratic Party is a coalition of various opposition
elements within the bourgeoisie; yet it has a certain manner

fl
J
y

of approach to the working class in this country, different |

from the Republican.
for the workers, particularly in local situations. : 3 |
lican Party has even dropped its slogan of the “Full Dinner |
Pails :
bullish stock markets and prosperity. It doesn’t try, even to |
the limited extent that the Democratic Party does, to appeal q
to the workers. Of course, the appeal of the Democratic)
Party to the workers is only a pose, but the Republicans have
long ago lost even this pose. 1

In the Democratic Party one finds the New York organ-|
ization, Tammany, increasing its influence and winning a-
strategic position. ‘Today Tammany is an organ of big busi-

ness and in the last resort is as loyal to big business as the |

United States Steel Corporation is. The solid South is the I
basis of the existence of the Democratic Party as a separate |
political entity from the Republicans. But as the industrial-

ization of the South proceeds apace, the solid South as a real :

It still poses now and then as being |
The Repub- ]

It now boasts of big dividends, high railroad rates, 7

THE POLITICAL PARTIES AND THEIR ROLE = 19

lusis for the existence of the Democratic Party is disappearing.
In the West the strength of the Democratic Party consists of
some remnants of old Populism and certain sectional small
capital, native Western capital, if we may so call it, struggling
against the domination of the big Eastern financiers and in-
dustrialists.

[In New England the Democratic Party doesn’t differ from
the Republican Party. “There we have such types of Demo-
crats as Senator Bayard of Delaware and the late Alton B.
Parker, who was a Democratic Presidential candidate at one
time. ‘The last gasp of liberalism, as a living force in the
Democratic Party, was reflected in the first Wilson adminis-
tration, the traditions of which are still supposedly maintained
in mangled form and exploited for intra-party reasons by
such elements as Governor Donahey and ex-Senator Pom-
erance of Ohio and Newton D. Baker.

When the first big fundamental issue arises in this coun-
try, the Democratic Party, because of its heterogeneous com-
position, because of its conflicting class elements, will either
evade the issue in order to avoid disruption of its organiza-
tion or it will be snowed under because it did not take a clear
position. ‘This will split the Democratic Party wide open or
will paralyze its influence considerably.

There are, however, certain forces still holding the Dem-
ocratic Party together. One should not sneer at the fact
that in this country the traditional habits of voting still count
and are powerful forces. In the smaller towns and in the
rural sections, the political tradition is so strong that Dem-
ocratic father begets Democratic son and Republican grand-
father begets Republican grandson. ‘This affords a certain
amount of strength to the Democratic Party. But even in
tradition the Democratic Party is splitting wide open. ‘The
Democrats in the South and West have as their traditional
heroes Jefferson and Jackson. If we go East in the Atlantic
Coast states facing Europe, the Democrats tend to worship
Wilson. Between the Jeffersonian Democracy of agrarian-

20 THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

ism and the Wilsonian Democracy of imperialism there is ar |
unbridgable gap. j

Secondly, the South has not yet completely gotten over iff
resentment of the rule of the carpet-baggers, of the military
dictatorship by the victorious Northern armies at the cons
clusion of the Civil War. Of course the question of patrons)
age of office is always a force which tends to make for the
ceinaed existence of the Democratic Party. ‘Then, the
very existence of the two-party system of government tendg
automatically to prolong the life of the Democratic Party as
the opposition, though not as a ruling party. 1

Resentment and ancestor-worship can never be the basis of
a political party. Since the Civil War there has been only y
one Democratic president who served eight years in succession.
That was Wilson and the question of Wilson’s election in
1926 was a question of victory by a fraction. If Mr. Hughes}
had gotten a few more votes in California, Wilson would}
never have been president a second time.

Some of the leading Republicans declare that there is}
no longer any basis of existence for the Democratic Party.
That is not altogether correct. ‘There is still some basis for |
its existence though this basis is disappearing. ‘The fact is
that the petty bourgeoisie and some of the agricultural masses
who have essentially a petty bourgeois ideology, and certain }
middle capitalists, as well as some of the big capitalists, still |
find in the Democratic Party a fighting weapon in the class |
struggle. This shows itself more clearly locally where class)
issues are not always as sharply fought out as they are nad
tionally. q

It is this factor which accounts for the Democratic Party,) 4
with its future behind it, still having in this country today 22)

out of the 48 governors, 47 out of the 96 senators and 194)

The Democratic Party today is a picture of contradictions _
and conflicts. “The tendency of the Southern Democrats now)

is to forget their hereditary habits. Some of them, the poore q
ones, are beginning to look upon themselves as discontented | ))

THE POLITICAL PARTIES AND THEIR ROLE 21

lurmers. Others, the richer ones, represnting the growing
industrial interests, are beginning to look upon themselves as
flourishing capitalists) “Chis manifestation can only lead to
the undoing of the Democratic Party and to a fundamental
realignment in American politics.

()n only one issue is there a tendency to agreement in the
rinks of the Democratic Party membership, on the question of
the World Court. ‘There is no agreement in the Democratic
Party on prohibition. Smith is dripping wet; McAdoo is
bone dry. ‘There is growing disagreement in their ranks on
the question of the tariff. All Democrats, however, agree
that the country needs good roads. Very probably, however,
the Democratic standard bearer in 1928 will learn that not
all good roads lead to the White House; and that not even
such agents of virtue as prohibition and the Catholic Church
will help in this respect.

The Socialist Party

Let us examine the Socialist Party immediately after the
Republican and Democratic because it is closest to the Repub-
licans and Democrats. |

‘The Socialist Party also is not a homogeneous party. We
do not speak here of the Socialist Party as an organization,
because, except in New York where the reactionary Jewish
Daily Forward has thousands of dollars to throw away and in
Milwaukee where there is still a Socialist Party administra-
tion and a so-called Socialist daily paper, ““The Leader,” does
there exist any Socialist Party organization. We speak here of
the Socialist Party following; of the semi and near socialistic
ideology which is still something of a force to be reckoned
p with i in this country.

Within the Socialist Party there are three main sections

out of the 445 congressmen. , overlapping each other, not distinct or basically separated from

each other. One current is to be found in the remnants of

the old Debs followers, the remnants of the old Socialists who

used to follow the Socialist Party as a party of protest.
Secondly, we have in the orbit of Socialist Party influence,

ae THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

that section of the foreign-born workers which is political

eign-born boa union Lajreaicnaes and the Jewish Daily Fort
i

fluence, certain loose sections of the petty bourgeoisie.
loose we mean politically unattached. In this class are in-]
cluded certain liberals. Some of the liberal Democrats of}
the type of Frank P. Walsh, former chairman of the Indus-]
trial Relations Commission, have in the past cast their ballots]
for Debs. In the state of Wisconsin, the Republican Party,
led by La Follette, and the Socialist Party, led by Bergery)
have repeatedly rade election alliances with each other. In
the past there was some opposition in the Socialist Party to}
such alliances. Now any opposition to such an alliance with}
the La Follette forces would probably cost a worker his mem-]
bership in the Socialist Party of Milwaukee. Officially the]
Socialist Party may not admit this policy, may even pretend to
oppose it, but in practice this is the case. The recent election
of Victor Berger as chairman of the Socialist Party is clear!
proof of the fact that it has lost its last fig leaf of militancy—
the tradition of Debs which once hid its vulgar opportunism]
and camouflaged its crass social reformism. |

The election of Victor Berger to the chairmanship of the | f
Socialist Party shows that the Socialist Party has gone com}
pletely to the right. ‘Today the Socialist Party is an integral }
part of the trade union bureaucracy, of the official reactionary }
leadership of the American Federation of Labor which inj
turn is an organic instrument of the imperialist clique dom-)
inating American economic and political life.

Let us turn the searchlight on some of the recent declara-
tions of the Socialist Party and its officials to see the real face
of this organization, which still pretends to speak for the}
workers. In a recent statement of the National Executill
Committee of the Socialist Party appearing in the New)
Leader of October 22, 1927, we find the following:

“The two parties of capitalism have no program and seek no

THE POLITICAL PARTIES AND THEIR ROLE = 23

program. They have no issues and they avoid real issues. They
drift with the system they represent and are only concerned with
public power and party plunder.

“In the maze of problems that confront the nation, we must inspire
the working masses with their potential power, the need of united
political action, of breaking old Party fetters, of moving as a great
army of enlightened voters to the ballot boxes to wrest power from
the despoilers. The time is ripe for a third party political revolution
and the Socialist Party must do its duty in the work of education,
organization and poe that inspiration that leads to steady con-
quests and final victory.”

This is pathetic confusion which one would be tempted to
pity if he were not to realize that this statement merely af-
fords further proof of the fact that the Socialist Party leader-
ship is consciously throwing sand into the eyes of the workers
in order to mislead them and to cripple their fighting capaci-
ty against the bourgeoisie.

Te tell the American workers that the Republican and
Democratic Parties, the two parties of capitalism, have no
program, is to feed them with criminal nonsense. “Phe two
parties of capitalism have a program. It is a clear-cut cap-
italist program, aimed clearly at the workers.

To speak of a maze of problems confronting the nation
when we should speak of the needs and problems of the work~-
ing class as a class, is outright treachery for a party which
pretends at least slight understanding and acceptance of the
teachings of Marx and Engels.

To speak of breaking “‘old Party fetters,” actually breaking
the old party dictatorship by forming, as it were, bread lines at
the ballot boxes, is to be as blind as a bat, as deaf as stone to

-the lessons of the great working class revolution in Russia and

of the lessons of the class war in the United States.

To speak of ‘‘a third party political revolution”
ridiculous. What kind of a third party? A petty bourgeois
party, led by Borah? Will Borah make a revolution? What
kind of a revolution will he make? Or is it to be a labor
party, to unite all of the workers politically? Why does the
Socialist Party go no further than to give lip-service to the

is plainly

24 THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

labor party?
ment with its tongue in its cheek?

Recently, the Socialist Party made much noise over the suc-

cessful election campaign it waged in Reading, Pennsylvania.
What does the Socialist Party victory in Reading promise for
the workers? In the “Labor Advocate,” official mouth-
piece of the Socialist Party of Reading, we find an editorial
which declares in part the attitude of the Socialists as follows:

“What is more, they (the Socialists) understand that their responsi-

bilities will be those of capitalist officials rather than of Socialist Party
members. . Working class residential streets will receive at least

as much consideration when improvements are contemplated as will the —

thoroughfares of the more aristocratic neighborhoods. . . .

“These are some of the things which the Socialists of Reading can
and will do.
talistic but plain commonsense activities and policies which will win
them the continued confidence of their fellow townsmen.”

The editorial herewith quoted speaks of fellow townsmen
instead of fellow workers.

streets as well as aristocratic streets. Obviously one cannot

but conclude that the Socialist Party will guarantee to treat

the capitalists as well as the workers. Why should the cap-
italists fear them? ‘That is why they don’t. |

James P. Maurer, one of the Councilmen elected by the
Socialists in Reading, in addressing a Socialist celebration
meeting in New York, declared:

“We are going to give the workers a typical working-class govern-
ment but if there is a strike in Reading while we are in power, the
capitalist employer will have his property and life protected as he
never had it before.”

‘This is an expression from the lips of one of the oldest ele-
ments of the Socialist Party. Certainly it is ot an expression
of a party which speaks omly for the working class. ‘This is
not working-class government. Maurer has had a chance to
see a real working-class government in Soviet Russia and he
knows that there capitalists employers are not protected.
‘The remnants of capitalist forces in Soviet Russia are not
being protected but are being wiped out. One cannot expect

Why does it always talk of the labor party move-_

W crs, would be pushed forward.

They are things which are neither Socialistic nor capi-.

It speaks of treating the workers’ —

‘| of opposition to reaction in the labor movement.

THE POLITICAL PARTIES AND THEIR ROLE 25

ihe Socialist administration in Reading to establish Socialism

H there, but one should at least expect from the victorious Social-
jist Party in Reading that no matter what the townspeople

who are not workers may think, no matter how much it might

}cost the big and small bouregeoisie, no matter how much the
} ordinary so-called sacred decorum of capitalist government is

disrupted, every step which would help the working class as a
class, which would strengthen the class interests of the work-
Such promises the Socialist
administration in Reading does not hold for the workers.

In reality the Socialist Party is day by day, in certain locali-
ties, more and more prepared to merge itself with a section of
the Democratic Party. In New York many “Socialists” have
been voting for Al Smith. ‘That is why we find on local

| scales citizens’ committees of the capitalists endorsing with in-
} creasing frequency certain Socialist candidates.
| we find camouflaged arrangements, secret agreements and un-
}derstandings entered into on a local scale by the Socialist

‘That is why

Party, even with the Republican Party.

Yet the Socialist Party as a political party, despite its reac-
tionary leadership, is still distinct from the two big parties of
capital and must be treated as such. ‘Today there is no room
in the Socialist Party for any worker who has any class con-

f sciousness or class pride in him. As a force of working class
} militancy, the Socialist Party is dead. As a force helping the

bourgeoisie mislead the workers, the Socialist Party still has

}some life and therefore, is still somewhat dangerous for the
} workers.

The Workers (Communist) Party

As a parliamentary force, the Workers (Communist) Party

| is today still very weak. “There are a number of reasons for
\this which we need not examine here.

But in the various
activities of the labor movement, the Workers Party is far

| stronger than it is in the parliamentary campaigns.

‘Today the Workers (Communist) Party is the only force
Je is the

26 THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

only force of conscious militant opposition to capitalist reac-
tion in the United States. When Mr. Green and Mr. Woll
fight the Communists, they do not fight wind-mills. “hey
would much rather have peace than war with us. We know
that the only peace they can have with us is the peace of sur-
render to us, which would mean their extermination as fac-
tors in the labor movement, the repudiation of their policies
from top to bottom. They know that the only peace they
would make with us would be our abject surrender to them.
Neither is possible. Therefore, the sharpness of the struggle.

In the trade union movement and in the ranks of the un-
organized, as well as organized, the Workers Party is a much
greater force than it is in the parliamentary activities. ‘The
following of the Workers Party is largely amongst the prole-
tarians of the basic industries who are to a great extent for-
eign-born and disfranchised.

The disgust with the deadly opportunist practices and mis-
conceptions of parliamentary activities, practiced for years by
the Socialist Party, has left an indelible impression on the mili-
tant workers, unduly cooling their ardor for participation in
parliamentary campaigns. This is an objective, though ob-
jectionable fact which the Workers Party is facing and over-
coming:

The Workers Party has only recently begun to develop a
proper evaluation of parliamentary action and campaigns.
Though large numbers of workers have advanced enough at
times to follow Communist leadership in the struggle for
basic economic issues, for certain fundamental rights such as
an increase in wages, improvement in working conditions, the
right to organize, save the unions, the violation of injunctions,
even these workers are not yet advanced enough to break, en
masse, their capitalist influence on a class basis by voting for
the Workers (Communist) Party candidates. Also, we must
not, overlook the terrorism against Communists by the govern-
ment, the employers, and their labor lieutenants. :

The program and the issues of the Workers Party will be
dealt with elsewhere.

“taf et

THE POLITICAL PARTIES AND THEIR ROLE: 27

Other Parties, Groups and Bloes

Locally there still exist certain other labor parties. For in-
stance, in Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota,
Washington and in sections of some states, we find labor
party organizations. But there is no national labor party of
a mass character today.

The insurgents and progressives should more properly be
called irregular Republicans. “The economic basis of this

group of Senators and Congressmen is to be found primarily

in the agricultural crisis. “This bloc is largely an expression
of agricultural discontent. “The whole bloc system in Amer-
ican politics is a reflection of the transition stage leading to-
wards the disintegration of the two party system. Because of
the growing acute economic recession, this movement is win-
ning the support of some of the petty bourgeoisie and workers
“1 the industrial centers. ‘Thus we find that the “Federation
News,” official organ of the Chicago Federation of Labor, in
speaking of Norris, one of the leaders of this bloc, said edi-
torially:

“Senator Norris merits the implicit confidence of the vast army of
toilers in this country. _ He is eminently entitled to the highest
place in the land. . . . Labor can elect any president. It has the
majority of voters. It can do so in strict compliance with the non-
partisan policy of the A. F. of L....

“Labor today evidently is not ready as yet to elect enough friends
and defeat sufficient enemies. More organization, more educational
work and more funds are needed. When that is accomplished, labor
will be able to elect such real champions of justice as Senator Norris.”

In fact the “insurgent” and “progressive” bloc tends to be-
come the haven of all protest. One Imperial Wizard of the
Ku Klux Klan has recently declared that after touring forty-
two states he can report truthfully that the progressive plat-
form is suitable to the voters.

Norris is the best symbol of this section of the petty bour-
geoisie, now that LaF'olette is dead. There is much signifi-
cance to be attached to the cautious, hesitant, wavering Senator
Borah joining the insurgents and participating in their Oc-

28 THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

tober 8, 1927 conference. The sharpening of the economic
recession, the deepening of the agricultural difficulties and the
logical sequel of this in the renunciation of the Presidency by
Coolidge have widened the chasm between the various sec-
tions of the capitalists represented in the Republican Party
enough to encourage even so wavering a petty bourgeois politi-
cian as Borah to jump further off the reservation.

Unless unforeseen developments occur, the “insurgents” and
“progressives” will not constitute themselves into a third party,
distinct from the Republicans and Democrats. ‘They will try
to make deals with the Republicans and Democrats. Herein
lie their maximum strength and their minimum weakness.
Already they have sold out to the reactionary Republican ma-
chine and enabled it to organize Coolidge control of the
Senate, to re-elect the officers. The so-called farmer-labor
Senator Shipstead set the pace in this surrender to the big
bourgeois Senators and can now be registered as a Republican.

The insurgent movement is progressive insofar as it is a
force disrupting the two-party system. It is however a seri-
ous menace to the workers and exploited farmers because it
becomes an obstacle to the development of an independent class
party of the workers—a Labor Party. Such petty bourgeois
politicians as Shipstead, Brookhart, Norris and Borah are not
friends or servants of the workers but are agents of the smaller
capitalists and must be fought as such.

Whatever other so-called political parties exist are not worth
the ink and paper which their mention would consume.

CHAPTER 111.
ISSUES OF THE 1928 ELECTIONS

The Capitalist View Point

From the capitalist viewpoint, there are many issues in the
1928 elections. ‘The capitalists have a mass production of
issues—all kinds of issues.

1. Prohibition

First of all there is prohibition. There is lots of talk about
this as an issue. Yet prohibition will be no real issue in the
1928 elections. Every capitalist politician knows that prohibi-
tion is more an issue within the two parties of capital than be-
tween the two parties of capital. There are as many differ-
ences on the question of prohibition within the Republican
Party as there are within the Democratic Party. The Re-
publican Senator Edge of New Jersey, a messenger boy of
the Standard Oil interests, is a sworn enemy of prohibition
but Coolidge is arid. Smith is shppery wet while McAdoo
is as dry as the desert. All of these may differ on the quality
of beer but this difference is not a difference between their
parties. McAdoo, the Democrat, and Coolidge, the Repub-
lican, represent sections of the bourgeoisie which believe in
prohibition as a force making for efficiency of the workers
while the Democratic Smith and the Republican Edge are
against prohibition because they don’t feel convinced that the
interests of the class they serve are enhanced by prohibition.

2. Taxation

Nor will the question of taxation, in a fundamental sense,
be an issue between the Republican and Democratic parties,
In the long run both parties follow a policy of lightening as
much as possible the burden of taxation for the big capitalists
and transfering it as much as possible, indirectly it is true, to
the backs of the workers.

29

30) THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

3. The World Court

Sooner of later the question of international relations and
the World Court and League of Nations will be a big issue
in the ranks of the bourgeoisie but that time has not yet ar-
rived. ‘The American capitalist-class viewpoint on this ques-
tion is not yet sufficiently clear and decisive, though, because
of the growing influence of finance capital, the tendency
making for America’s participation in some sort of world
court or fake League of Nations, is growing. At this moment,
however, the differences between the Democratic Party and
the Republican Party on this question are determined largely
by sectional class interests rather than by homogeneous, uni-
form class interests. The finance capitalists who still support
the Democratic Party are as much for American participa-
tion in a World Court or League of Nations as are many of
the big bankers who fill the cash boxes of the Republican
‘Party.

4. The Tariff

The tariff used to be the food of the stuffed donkey
in every election. It was once the big issue of the Democratic
Party. Not so today. There is a growing number of South-
ern Democratic industrialists who are as enthusiastic advocates
of high tariff as some of the wealthy Republican industrialists
of the New England tier of states. At the same time there
are strident voices of the bankers high in the Republican circles
calling for a lowering of the tariff. On this question as on
other questions, much depends on the line of business that the
Republican or Democrat 1s in.

5. Power of the Government

There is some talk about the question of centralized Fed-—

eral state power being a vital issue. “This may be an issue be-
cause of the increasing power of the government bureaucracy.
But it would not play a decisive role in the coming campaign
now that the country has been treated to the Coolidge renun-
ciation. Besides, both capitalist parties are agreed on using the
full federal power to crush strikes and smash unions.

ISSUES OF THE 1928 ELECTIONS 31

6. Corruption

_ There is the perennial question of corruption. ‘That’s al-
ways an issue between the two parties of capitalism. both are
corrupt and that is one case where both tell the truth when
they accuse each other. Here we have the case of the teapot
calling the kettle black. “They always tell something about
each other along the dirty line. ‘The Teapot Dome scandal
did not deliver for the Democrats as much as they had ex-
pected in 1924. ‘The Burns-Sinclair scandal won’t deliver
for the Democrats as much as they hope for in 1928. Nor
will the election purchases of Vare and Smith bring very much
help to the Democrats. “he masses of the country are on the
whole too backward politically to get excited over corruption.
Certainly corruption is not the boundary line between the Re-
publican and Democratic parties. Instead it is the common

bond.
7. Farm Relief

Farm relief will be a burning issue in the 1928 elections.
All kinds of efforts will be made, fraudulent of course, to tie
the farmers as a tail to the kite of the big bourgeoisie. Amer-
ican capitalism canot meet its farm crisis. ‘The farm crisis is
not a question of good crops or bad crops. Sometimes the
crops are so good that prices go down and the farmer goes
out—driven off the farm by bankruptcy. When the crops are
poor the farmer’s income shrinks still lower. The farm crisis
in this country is deeply rooted in fundamental differences be-
tween the method of production in agriculture which is still
individualist in character and the method of production in
highly developed large scale capitalist industry and manufac-
ture.

The Workers View Point
_ For the workers of this country there are five basic issues:

l. The Strikebreaking Government

The United States Government, the various State municipal
and other governmental departments, are plainly strike-break-

32 ‘THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

ing agents used by the exploiters, the employers, to smash the
workers. In the 1928 elections the truth must be told about
the government in its role not as an arbiter between classes or
above classes but as an outright agency of the employing class,
the capitalist class, to exploit and enslave the working class
and poor farmers.

2. Injunctions

Kecent months have seen the plagueing of the working class
by an epidemic of injunctions. ‘The courts are the most skilled
and effective strike-breaking agents of the employers. Injunc-
tions are the most dangerous and concentrated exprssion of
the defense of the capitalist class interests by the American
courts. |

The injunction handed down by Federal Judge Schoonmaker
in the Pennsylvania Circuit Court, if obeyed, sounds the death-
warant of the miners’ unions. ‘The decision of the United
States Supreme Court that the West Virginia coal operators
have a full right to restrain members of the United Mine
Workers or any other labor organization from unionizing the
miners, is a decision which lays the basis for the government’s
paralyzing any campaign to organize the unorganized. Any
worker who has any spark of militancy, of class conscious-
ness, must face this question of injunctions with a full deter-
mination to disregard them, to ignore such laws handed down
by the judges. “The Workers Party openly stands for the
breaking of all injunctions. .

Injunctions are being used to rob the workers of the gains
they have made through years of struggle, to destroy the or-
ganizations it has taken them decades to build. Injunctions
must be made a real issue by the workers in the 1928 elec-
tions.

3. The Right to Organize and Strike

Even the conservative craft unions are no longer wanted
and are less and less tolerated by the capitalists. The strike as

a weapon of the workers is being outlawed. The union, as

an organization of the workers, is being wiped out. The right

ISSUES OF THE 1928 ELECTIONS 33

of assembly, of freedom of speech, of organization, of strike;
all of these must be fought for vigorously in the 1928 elec-
tions if the workers desire to maintain even the faintest sem-
blance of freedom for themselvs.

4. Farm Relief

Every worker must fight for genuine farm relief. The
American Government has time and again given away billions
of dollars in land grants, in tax refunds, in tariff revenues, in
outright donations to the millionaires, to the railroad mag-
nates, to the coal kings, to the industrial barons, to the bank-
ing overlords. The workers, united with the farmers, must
force the government to take some steps at least to alleviate
the sharp crisis and acute suffering in which the great masses
in the rural areas find themselves.

5. Social Insurance

A strong campaign must be made by the workers for the
enactment of legislation providing, on a national scale, for
insurance of the unemployed, aged workers, and those subject
to accident in industry.

The government and the employers should pay for this in-
surance which is to be administered by the workers’ organi~
zations. |

6. American Imperialism and the Danger of War

Last but not least, the question of American imperialism is.
a major problem in the coming campaign. ‘The war danger
is acute. American imperialist aggrandisement is arousing
and mobilizing its competitors against it. American imperial-
ist brutality is stirring up the peoples of Latin-America to re~
sistance. The outrageous murders of liberty-loving Nicaragu-

ans by the Marines must be brought home to every American

worker. ‘Ihe capitalist class is guilty of this murder. Every
militant worker must do his all to develop effective forces of
opposition which will make impossible the recurrence of such
horrible crimes by the United States.

CHAPTER IV.
THE CANDIDATES

1. Republican Party

There are lots of candidates for president now that Mr.
Coolidge has “chosen” not to run. Primarily Mr. Coolidge,
though he very probably would have been elected if he had
run, has chosen not to run for three reasons:

{oy he economic recessions. 2—The sharpening agricul-
tural crisis and 3—the fear of still strong workers and petty
and even middle-bourgeois opposition to the dramatizing of
the extension of executive power and centralization of gov-
ernment which a third term for Coolidge would develop. Mr.
Coolidge might have challenged this prejudice and this op-
position to the third term but it would be a costly victory for
the big bourgeoisie. Abstractly it 1s still not impossible that
Coolidge will run although it is most improbable. _

We have the candidate, Mr. Hughes. Charles E. Hughes
is a very good candidate for big business. But he does not
make an appeal to the rank and file of the Republican Party.
And in a national election campaign especially, the Republican
Party values its rank and file. | ce

Then there is Mr. Lowden. Mr. Lowden is a millionaire
to whom everybody who rides a Pullman pays a tribute.
Lowden married well and got in soft when he married the
daughter of Pullman and inherited her father’s millions.
He was a little careless in spending too openly hundreds of
thousands of dollars in the 1920 Republican Party primaries.
That is why, despite all the noise he is making about being
a champion of the farmers, Lowden has less strength today
than he had in 1920. It is true Lowden has a number of
big wealthy farmers for him, but this does not give him the

ion.
ne, there is Dawes. Dawes has a good chance. He ts
a violent open-shopper, a swash-buckling labor-hater. Dawes

34

THE CANDIDATES 35

has a certain advantage in speaking some of the language
supposedly of the masses. He knows how to be a banker and
to swear at the same time. Such “lowly” qualities are high
virtues sometimes for the American bourgeoisie. We recall
Harding. Politically he was a nonentity, a zero, a minus
quantity; yet Harding was a fellow who knew how to smile
and behind that smile there could hide for a number of years
the whole ‘I’eapot Dome along with “the President’s daugh-
ter” and every form of sordid corruption. In capitalist poli-
tics a smile often counts a lot.

Dawes knows how to smoke his pipe upside down. He is
the fellow who arranged the McNary-Haugen Bill in which
the farmers voted for the banking interests by supporting the
McFadden Bill while the banking interests voted for the
farmers by having their Senators vote for the McNary-
Haugen Bill. Of course there was only one little thing
overlooked in this deal. The big bankers could call on their
President Coolidge to veto the McNary-Haugen Bill while
the defenders of the so-called farm relief measure could not
induce the president to veto the McFadden Bill after they
had been double crossed in his veto of the McNary-Haugen
Bill. ‘Through this manoeuvre Dawes has gained some strength,
for the moment, with some of the middle farmers. Dawes
is a serious candidate though he was put in the vice-presidential
ice-box. !

Mr. Mellon is the ablest Republican cabinet officer but his
big business connections are too obvious and too crude to
make him the Republican candidate for president. Mellon
cannot make any mass appeal at all.

Last and the most likely candidate of the Republican Party,
the best bet, is Hoover. Hoover is today the best symbol
of big capitalist efficiency, mass production, intensive exploita-
tion, scientific management. If there is a flood in Mississippi,
Hoover is the engineer who “saves” the Southern Democrats!
If somebody starves in famine-stricken Russia; even the poor
Russians, Hoover is there to “help” them! Some people call
him the Secretary of Commerce. Hoover should more prop-
erly be called Secretary of Commerce and super-secretary of

36 THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

every other department of the government. There is no
federal government bureau in which Hoover doesn’t have his
finger somehow or other.

In the South Hoover. will be sold and bring votes on the
basis of the Mississippi flood relief; in the West on the basis
of his being for the development of the continental waterway
project. In the East he respresents Big Business. Governor
Fuller of Massachusetts, who burned the lives of Sacco and
Vanzetti, has already endorsed Hoover and is openly spoken
of as his running mate for vice-president. Senator Edge of
New Jersey, a member of the royal family (brother-in-law
of President Walter C. Teagle) of the Standard Oil of
New Jersey, is an ardent advocate of Hoover. It was on
the basis of the Lever Act, framed by Hoover, that the
injunction was gotten out to break the miners’ strike in 1919.

Just as after the war, Harding with his smile was pushed
forward as a candidate of relief from the war strain, so
now, when American imperialism is being denounced for its
Shylock methods and mercenary policies and when American
imperialism is so anxious to boast of its efficiency, will a can-
didate like Hoover be pushed forward to meet the present
situation as a symbol of American idealism and humanitar-
ianism, as one who, to many liberals of the “New Republic
type, will appear as the savior even of the Russian Revolution
and to other fake liberals will appear as the only one, because
of his efficiency as a capitalist magnate, to save the country
from unemployment and other acute depressions as well as
incidentally to strengthen American imperialism.

The Democratic Candidates

First, there is Ritchie, Governor of Maryland. He stands
for States’ Rights. That’s his hobby. But he stands for
States’ Rights just enough to suit the big bourgeoisie of the
South. ,Maryland is one of those border states where northern
capital is eating its way in and getting control. Ritchie,
however, will not be very anxious to protect States’ Rights
should he be elected President and a national railway strike
is proclaimed during his administration. Under these circum-

THE CANDIDATES a7

stances Ritchie would gladly violate his own State’s rights and
send federal troops to smash the ranks of the railway strikers
in Maryland.

Walsh of Montana is presidential timber, though he is a
Catholic. Walsh is a sort of a Christopher Columbus in the
realm of corruption for the Democrats. He discovered the
Teapot Dome.

There is the multi-millionaire, Owen D. Young of the
General Electric Company. He is said to be the illegitimate
but real father of the Dawes Plan. Dawes is the official,
legal, but not actual father. Young has some chance but
not much.

Finally there is Al Smith. He will be popularized. Per-
haps his name will be changed to “Pal? Smith. In the last
instance, Smith represents the interests of the big bourgeoisie
just as Hoover does. He has a certain history, certain origin

and some Tammany Hall connections that may be obstacles

to him but they will be overcome. ‘These very obstacles may
even be made to serve the bourgeoisie well in that they may
be used to bring Smith closer to the masses and thus camou-
flage his real job more effectively.

Smith has a good smile. He knows how to take a drink.
He even knows how to give away a drink. He represents
the capitalist interests dominating the Democratic Party today
much more than he did in 1924. ‘The western capitalist
interests in the Democratic Party and those Southern capitalist
interests in the Democratic Party hitherto represented by
McAdoo are today weaker than they were four years ago.
The Eastern capitalist interests are today more powerful than
ever in the Democratic Party. Smith’s hold on the New
York State electoral vote is a big advantage for him in the
Democratic Party. On the whole, Smith is a petty bourgeois
glove in which there is hidden a big bourgeois iron fist.

But on the basis of present conditions there is little possi-
bility of Smith being elected. “The maximum possible number
of electoral votes he could get is 249. ‘The minimum he

needs is 266. Even if the solid South should stay solid for

38 THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

him and not break he could get there only 114 electoral
votes. If one is charitable to and optimistic for Smith and he
is given New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
Connecticut, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and even
Wisconsin, he will still have only a miximum of 249 or an
insufficient number of electoral votes to secure the Presidency.

ue Speech

CHAPTER V.
TOWARDS A LABOR PARTY

Now what is the task before the workers? Our working
class is politically weak. We have no independent mass party
of the workers. “The Workers (Communist) Party believes
that the basic task confronting the American workers and
exploited farmers in the 1928 elections, is their unification
and their organization into a Labor Party.

In words, now and then, the Socialist Party declares for
a labor party but it discards its declared purpose and confuses
even its words with talk of “‘third progressive party revolu-
tion.’ Very likely the Socialist Party would seriously con-
sider becoming part and parcel of the Norris-Borah group
if developments should assume such a course that the latter
would organize themselves into an independent third petty-
bourgeois political party. It is true the Socialist Party leader-
ship does not openly admit such a course today, but Messrs.
Berger and Hillquit and other close followers pursue a policy
inevitably leading to that. It is not unlikely that they would
enter such an amalgamation even though the American Fed-
eration of Labor bureaucracy still pursued the bankrupt policy
of non-partisan political action, and did not go even to the
extent of breaking with the Democratic and Republican Par-
ties as they did in 1924.

The Communists are aware of the fact that merely to
agitate for a labor party is not sufficient. “The Communists
never propose any platform or program unless it is based
soundly.on the objective conditions.

Basic Conditions for a Labor Party

What are the basic conditions for a labor party in the
United States? There are four. The slogan “For a Labor
Party” corresponds adequately with the stage of development,
with the degree of class-consciousness of the American labor
movement. ‘Thus it is an appeal to hundreds of thousands

59

40 THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

of workers. Much as we may be proud of our Communist
Party, much as we know that our Party is and will be the
Party to lead the workers to victory in decisive struggle, as
it is distinguishing itself at this time in everyday struggles,
yet we realize that in the present stage of lack of class-
consciousness, of low political development among the workers,
our Party does not make a sufficient mass appeal, particularly
in the election campaigns, in the parliamentary struggles. We
therefore recognize that in the present stage of development,
the basic task is to unite all the workers as workers into a
party of their own.

Second, recent years have seen a growth of a powerfully
centralized government in the United States. ‘There are
today, exclusive of the army and navy, well over half a
million of federal government employees. With the growth
of imperialism, with the development of large scale produc-
tion and the massing of hundreds and even thousands of
workers into one industrial plant and with the mobilization
of thousands of workers in gigantic class struggles, the gov-
ernment plays an increasing role of strike-breaking, of being
the defender of the interests of the exploiters against the
workers. [his tends to produce a condition in which the
struggles for the most basic conditions assume more and more
a political character, and the workers are more and more
forced to react against the government, to come into clash
with the government, to react politically. Herein is the basic
factor for the labor party. Look at the injunction menace.
See what’s happening in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Colorado.

Another basic force making for a labor party movement in
the United States is the development of a2 homogeneous work-
ing class. “Che narrowing gap between skilled and unskilled
during the war, the shutting off of immigration, and the
development of a native proletariat in the basic industries
through the expropriation of American-born farmers, all tend

to increase the homogeneity of the American working class

and thus further lay the basis for a class party of the
workers on a national, mass scale.

TOWARDS A LABOR PARTY 4]

@

Fourth, “The Labor Party” is an effective unifying slogan.
Workers who have voted the Republican ticket or the Demo-
cratic ticket or were once supporters of LaFollette or the
Socialist ticket, may not yet be ready to vote for the Com-
munist candidates en masse. ‘The labor party ticket affords
these workers a unifying basis. Building-trades workers on
strike in California, the garment-trades workers in struggle
in New York, the locked-out miners in Pennsylvania and
Ohio, the striking coal miners in Colorado, to all of these an

effective appeal can be made with the unifying slogan of
‘The Labor: Party.’’ :

The test of progressivism of any labor organization in the
coming elections will be where it stands on the question of
the labor party. If the Socialist Party should in 1928 stand
in the way of a labor party or perhaps even pose as the labor
party, it will be committing the worst and blackest crime it
has yet committed against the workers of this country.

Why a Labor Party in the United States?

The question might be asked: Why is it that the Workers
Party believes that in America the development of the work-
ing class politically, the development of a mass workers’
party must take the form of a labor party? Why is it that
in some countries, let us say Germany, France, Russia, and
Italy, the working class has advanced politically through the
social democratic type of party based on individual organiza-
tion rather than on the labor party type which is based
primarily on the trade unions and on the labor organizations
as such, with a collective membership rather than individual
membership? It is to be noticed that the labor party type has
been developed in the Anglo-Saxon countries and Belgium.

The answer to this basic question has been given very

clearly by John Pepper, in his noteworthy article entitled

“Why a Labor Party?” (Workers Monthly, January, 1926),
when he said: |

“The history of these countries and especially the history of the
working class will explain to us how the Labor Party type developed

42 THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

historically in certain countries and the Social-Democratic type in
others. In the countries with a Labor Party, at first the trade unions
(England) and later the political parties arose. Vice-versa, where
we have mass Social-Democratic parties, we see that at first the politi-
cal party and later the trade unions were formed, as in Russia, Austria,
Germany, etc.

‘That is, however, not yet the basic reason. When we analyze
further, we find that in countries where an imperialist devlopment or
at least an industrial monopolist development split the working class at
an early date, the trade unions were formed first, while the political
parties arose very much later. ‘The divided working class is not able
to form a political party because, firstly, the aristocratic section of
the working class is not interested in the political party. This aristo-
cratic section of the working class was able to defend its interests in
the trade unions; its political interests were ideologically, and in part
in reality not different from those of the bourgeoisie. ‘The other sec-
tion, the real proletariat, was, on the contrary, without the leadership
of the aristocracy of labor, which contains the educated elements of
the working class suitable for leadership. Deprived of these elements,
the real proletariat was able neither to organize trade unions, nor to
form political parties. ‘That is the real basic reason for the fact that
at first the trade unions appeared.

“The trade unions acted at first only as organizations of the aris-
tocracy of labor, and only later accepted unskilled workers. The
classic example of this is Great Britain. ‘There we see, after the first
revolutionary period of Chartism, after the beginning of imperialist
development, the split of the working class as pointed out by Marx,
Engles and Lenin. We see the split caused by the aristocracy of labor
—-we see the aristocratic trade union. ‘The mass of unskilled workers
were not organized at all. It was only the vindictive attacks of the
capitalist governments upon the privileges of the aristocracy of labor,
court decisions against the existence of the trade unions of the labor
aristocracy, which brought about a revolution. .. .

“This development, which we had in England in the ’nineties, only
began in America in rg9r3. ‘The war, the development of a giant,
bureaucratic centralized state power, the interference of the govern-
ment in the daily life of the workers and poor farmers, the use of
government troops and of injunctions against strikers, the giant labor
struggles in 1922 in which no less than one million workers were on
strike at the same time, the profound industrial crisis in 1921, together
with a catastrophic crisis of American agriculture, the trenchant frac-
tional groupings within the old capitalist parties, which as an expres-
sion of the intensified struggle, threatened them with a split—all these
factors drove the masses of the working class towards the formation
of a Labor Party... .”

TOWARDS A LABOR PARTY 43

Outlook for a Labor Party

‘The conditions for a labor party have been improved within
the last year. The bankruptcy of the non-partisan political
policy of the A..F. of I. bureaucracy, the avalanche of
sweeping injunctions in the miners’ strike, the wholesale and
ruthless use of the government machinery as a strike-breaking
machinery in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Colorado, the sharpen-
ing economic recession, the worsening argicultural conditions,
the growing dissensions within the Republican Party, the forces
of disintegration at work within the Democratic Party, the
increasing interference by the growing centralized govern-
ment in the everyday affairs of the lives of the workers, the
further extension of the use of machinery which is wiping
away skill lines, in addition to the factors making for a_
homogeneous American working class, are all forces for the

development of a labor party in 1928.

But there is no certainty that there will be a labor party
in 1928. ‘The corrupt trade union bureaucracy, dominating
the American Federation of Labor, whose apparatus is in
reality a window of Wall Street; the clique of labor bankers
infesting the trade union movement, the treacherous role
played by the Socialist Party, the still insufficient strength of
the Workers (Communist) Party, all these factors explain
the slow tempo for the development of a labor party move-
ment on a national, mass scale.

If there should not be a national labor party in 1928 then
it is the duty of the workers to build state and local labor
parties, to organize committees of progressive trade unionists
and exploited farmers for a labor party. Should there not
be a national labor party in 1928, then all workers should at
least strive for the launching of a national united front labor
ticket in 1928. Whatever differences the workers may have
amongst themselves regarding other questions, they should not
allow these differences to stand in the way of their uniting
as a class, politically at least, under the banner of “A United

Labor Ticket in 1928.”

44 THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

The Workers Party has no illusions as to what a labor
party can and will do for the workers. We know that
it is only the disciplined, highly class-conscious, trained, clear-
visioned Communist Party with its Leninist program, that
can and will lead the workers to victory. We look upon
the labor party only as the next big and important step in the
direction of the political development and emancipation of
the American workers. The Communists feel that even
though a labor party or a united labor ticket were to poll only
one million votes, so long as it were a genuine party of
the workers and poor farmers, completely independent from
the big bourgeois parties, it would be a gigantic forward step
and a tremendous victory for the American working class.
Very likely if such a party or ticket were launched it would
secure several million votes.

‘The task of the workers is, from now on, to do their all,
to pitch in every ounce of their strength and resources towards
the formation of a labor party or at least a united labor
ticket. ‘This is the most effective way in which the American
workers can fight in the coming elections, in the coming
months, in the next period, against the growing tyranny of the
centralized government apparatus, the biggest strike-breaking
agency in the world.

A labor party would be a powerful weapon in the hands
of the workers to fight against the vicious injunction system,
to mobilize the greatest mass for a war on “government by
injunctions.” * The fight to save the trade unions which are
now in the throes of a most acute crisis will be helped to a
very large extent by the organization of a labor party. ‘The
struggle against American imperialism, the fight against the
increasing war danger, the fight for the recognition of the
Soviet Union, the fight for the right to strike, freedom of
speech, press and assembly for the workers, for at least tem-
porary relief of the poverty-stricken farmers—all of these
measures will be advanced substantially through the organiza-
tion of a national mass labor party.

TTOWARDS A LABOR PARTY 45

Build and Back the Workers Party

Should the workers fail to organize a labor party or a
united labor ticket in 1928, then it is their duty to support the
only political party in the field which militantly and energet-
ically fights for even the smallest interests of the working
class—the Workers (Communist) Party. The Communists
frankly stand for the overthrow of capitalism, the establish-
ment of a proletarian dictatorship—a government of the work-
ing class, by the working class and for the working class—
and the development of a Communist society in the United
States.

The American Communists, organized in the Workers
(Communist) Party realize that they have a long and diffi-
cult road ahead of them. We are aware of the fact that
no demands, no interests of the workers, are too small for
us to fight for. “The Workers (Communist) Party has no
interests other than the interests of the working class. ‘The
saving of the standards of living of the workers, the fight
against wage cuts, the fight for decent working conditions,
against the speed-up and the spy system, for the saving of
the trade unions, for the amalgamation of the existing craft
unions into powerful militant industrial unions, the building of
a labor party, the winning of strikes, the organization of the
unorganized, the improvement of the conditions of the ex-
ploited farmers, the liberation of the oppressed peoples of the
Philippines, Central and Latin-America; the recognition of
the Soviet Union, the putting an end to all American impe-
rial aggrandisement, paralyzing all the war plans and ma-
noeuvres of Wall Street—these are the issues upon which the
American Communists appeal to the workers and exploited
farmers of this country for support. It is by fighting for these
issues that the American workers will learn how to fight for
even bigger and more fundamental interests, for the com-
plete overthrow of imperialism, of the bourgeois system of
exploitation and the substituting therefor of a proletarian, a
genuine working-class democracy and a socialist system.

46 THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

The American Communists know they have a difficult job
ahead of them. ‘The Workers (Communist) Party, as the
American section of the Communist International, knows that
the whole international capitalist system is sick to its bones
and marrow and in its very heart and soul. ‘Though for the
moment American capitalism may appear invincible, may ap-
pear too strong to be beaten, yet American capitalism is only
part of the whole international capitalist system. ‘The present
period of American imperialist vigor and ascendency will not
last long. Already we see growing difficulties for the Shylock
among the world imperialist powers. We see multiplying
contradictions weakening the system of capitalist exploitation
in the United States.

The American Communists are dedicated to the purpose
of inspiring and leading the working class towards every for-
ward step. ‘The bigger the forward step by the workers the
better; but no forward step is too small- Our paramount
objective is to work increasingly for establishing in the United
States a government of the working class, by the working
class, and for the working class—towards realizing the Com-
munist Society.

On this program the Workers (Communist) Party asks the
support of every honest worker, of every class-conscious prole-
tarian, of every workingman and workingwomen who has
even the slightest class pride and class interest at heart.

THe Enpb

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