The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-03-05
Continued from page ~

and equally established governments.
Most of them did not know that they
were paying tribute. They prospered
under Roman rule. There were years
on years of peace. There were thou
sands on thousands of paved roads
established to circle the world and
bring each village commerce. The
conquered slaves Of Gaul and Africa
and Britain were hardly conscious
that these same roads carried from
them, each individually, tax that
freed the Roman citizen from labor,
and enabled him to live in luxury that
knew no toll.
"The Roman empire fell, largely
because luxury was followed by the
usual decadenee and emascuIation of
strength that surfeit of luxury
brings. For more than a thousand
years afterward the western world
lived comparatively free, each man in
it paying taxes only for his own bene-
fit-only to the government that gave
him law and order. And then, sud-
denly, all Europe ensaved itself once
more.
This time it was conquered, not
only by war, but thru need for gold.
Every government in Europe mort
gagged the labor of its citizens for
scores of years in order to obtain
gold in exchange. 1t sold the labor of
children yet unborn. And one nation,
which had the gold to lend, conquer
ed the world just as surely as the
Roman citizens conquered il. II Sc
cured hundreds of millions of will
ing slaves who must yield up, each
one every year, certain tribute.
"That nation is, of course, the Unit
ed States"
No Question of Ethics.
Mr.. Dakin hastens a few lines later
to exclaim:
DO not imagine that there is any
question of right or wrong in this dis
cussion. Such a question belongs in
a study of ethics, and concerns nei-
Their the historian nor the economist"
And then he goes on to explain the
contemplated future path of Ameri-
can finance-capital in seizing possess
sion of all the industries of all the ma
tons of Europe with one exception.
1t is lyrical version of the Dawes
plan, stripped of the little He'll and
Maria's caution and showing, at the
towering pinnacle of the oligarchy it
seeks to build, not an aggregation of
several victorious" nations, but the
single corpulent figure of American
finance capital
But Dakin's dream-lyric depends
for its logic upon his claim that thru
the vast Wall Street plan attached
to the name of Dawes, European CAPT.
talist production can be restored, with
only the difference that the bonded
slaves" of all Europe Except Rus
sia) will pass under the rule of Ameri-
can finance-capital. And another
thing: He thinks with something like
the fair happiness and peaceful pros
perity of the Roman conquered"
hSNSaiS FidHS OF bOSSCSs
And still another thing We are in
terested in this avid reader of "The
Decline and Fall of the Roman EN-
pire" only to the extent that his voice
from the textile section of Wall Street
tells something of the bosses plans in
regard to labor. Any claim to scienti-
fic forecast by this man is voided by
his naive assumption that the COM
ing second world war is not going to
occur and that capitalism can recon-
Gle its contradictions, to say moth
ing of his childish belief that there
is no limit to capitalism's market for
its surplus. But his science" of an
cient Roman analogy shows thru its
crevices the Wall Street outlook on
the labor question. II is the outlook
which seeks to accomplish in America
the corruption of labor with the SUI
per profits Of Imperialism. In 1920,
in a preface TO an edition Of his book
imperialism" Lenin described the
process:
1T is easy to perceive that from
such a large additional profit (for it
is received in addition to the profit
which the capitalists extract from the
workers Of their own countries), la
Dor leaders and the upper strata OF
the workers aristocracy can be
bribed. So the capitalists of the pro-
gressive' countries bride them by
thousand different means, direct and
indirect, open and secret
Now to return from Comrade Lenin
to Mr.. Dakin. Mr.. Dakin's capitalist
imperialist heaven in which he says
Our invested capital will bring us,
individually, more tribue than the
armies of Ceaser and Crassus and
Pompey could ever have brought TO
the seven hills" is to have many de.
lectable means for bribing an upper