The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-01-29
"SaUior $" Strike Snag

The efforts of friends of the ''peepul," who
have been rewarded for their expressions of
sympathy with positions Of power in Wash
ington, d. c., to postpone the Farmer-Labor
convention, called for May Both in st. Paul,
until after the conventions of the capitalist
parties, have not met with any great success
to date.
The conference of farmer-labor groups of
the western and southwestern states meeting
in Denver yesterday went on record emphat-
ically as opposing any delay. In Minneapolis
the labor forces have taken the same position
and it is probable that the whole campaign OF
vacillation and delay engineered by politicians
will fall fiat
The very strenuous attempts to postpone the
conference, originating in Washington with
some safely progressive senator's like LaFol-
lette, Shipstead and Johnson, raise the question
of lust how much longer the workers and farm
ers Of the United States are going to allow
gentlemen of this caliber to be the dictators
instead of the servants of the movements that
put them in office.
The delay urged is solely for the convenience
of elected officials and not of the workers ano
farmers who will have to raise the funds for
organization and publicity work and carry on
the hard routine work of election campaigns.
The proposal was to have made it easier fol
these officials to throw their lot in with the
workers and farmers without reservations Or
if some risk seemed to be attached to this pro
cedure-to decide to remain safely ensconced
where they are.
The men who cling to this safety-frst policy
are not the type that the workers and farmers
want to speak and fight for them. This does
not mean that in the present stage of develop
ment of the farmer-labor political movement
we may not have to accept such individuals
for candidates but it does mean that we accept
them for what they are and entertain no lllu-
sions concerning their essentially middle-class
theology and utilization.
LaFollettes, Johnsons, Shipsteads and other
middle-class politicians of this type may fur
nish candidates but they cannot and must not
be allowed to furnish programs and leader
ship.
To allow the control of the farmer-labor
movement to be in the hands of this element
means that it is ham-Strung before the start of
the race and never can be anything else than
feeble off-shoot of the capitalist parties.
This is not the sort of organization that the
workers and farmers of this nation want and
need. They must have and they will have a
mass political party expressing their needs as
class and with the control of the movement
in the hands of the economic organizations of
the workers and farmers.
This prospect does not please those middle
class meSsiahs whose political fortunes are
their first consideration and whose yearning
for responsibility forces them to denounce as
menaces to peaceful evolutionary progress"
the rural and industrial workers to whom,
however, they appeal for support when at
tackled by the spokesman of the big capitalists.
The LaFollettes, Shipsteads and Johnsons
are quite willing to do little something for
the workers and farmers if by so doing the
workers and farmers can be prevented from
doing something for themselves.
The May 30th convention is an attempt on
the part of the workers and farmers to do
something for themselves.
In this fact is found the explanation for the
hostility it has aroused among the middle-class
politicians and for the attempts to delay and
sabotage it by the exclusion of groups such as
the Federated Farmer-Labor Party which
wants and intends to have party of and for
workers and farmers and not party of and
for middle-class Office seekers.