The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-01-10

Senator Bruce, democrat OF Maryland,
last Monday afternoon in the senate.
Harrison comes from the depth OF
the Southern political and economic
jungle. Bruce comes from the edge
of the feudal jungle. That partly ex-
plains the difference. And from their
sharp difference we obtain little pic
ture of the deepening class antagon-
ISM in that vast, unhappy, decaying
and yet living human mass which we
call the Solid South.
Bruce and Harrison are, both equal
ly political vultures. Specifically they
are of the same school of vultures-
both are members of the immortal
party of Jefferson" But the school of
political vultures which is called the
democratic party is dividing. The. vul-
ture who lives on the edge of the
clearing has learned to live on a diff
ferent kind Of meat-the meat which
is the political garbage of modern
capitalist society while the vulture
from the heart of the wilderness still
lives On raw JuuSlS meat.
Bruce of Maryland represents the
bourgeoisie of that northern fringe of
the South which has been reached by
the march of modern industry-the
big bourgeoisie which has been made
big. rich powerful, and has been orien-
tated toward the financial metropolis.
Bruce took his stand with the big
bourgeoisie OF the country as a whole
on the Mellon tax plan.
Harrison of Mississippi represents a
decaying, backward, ultra-ignorant
petty-bourgeoisie, and the decayed
remnants of feudal landlord class.
Mississippi has never ceased to be
a slave state"-it is a slave country,
not in the sense that all capitalist
countries are lands Of wage-slavery,
but in the sense of still retaining to
a large degree the old system of pro-
duction thru the bodily ownership Of
chattel-slaves by feudal masters, with
an elaborate system Of restrictions
against free" competition of workers
in the wage-labor market and the
free" production Of farm products.
Twenty-four years ago there were
1882 families Of agricultural serfs
working as "share-farmers" and "ten-
ant-farmers" in Mississippi. with
many other scores Of thousands Of
slave laborers without even the claim
to hold land as tenants; and since
that time the proportion of serfs has
increased.
Practically all of the laboring and
tenant farming class are completely
without political rights, and without
redress in courts of law. Less than
one-tenth Of the adult population Of
Mississippi exercises the right Of the
ballot. Thru system of agricultural
"credit" the entire class is practically
bound to the land as debtors" for
life, their children inheriting the
debts" and living on in slavery with
out hope of freedom. 1t is a notable
fact that in Mississippi we have a
large agricultural class which has
never even known the hope of owning
land. The greater portion Of these
are Negroes-more than half of the
population of the state are Negroes
and as such are disfranchised; and
those who are not Negroes are mostly
DISTINGUISHED as Ignorant" Virtually
no schools are provided. Lynch law
and the stake are the only law for
them, and the paranoiac preachers
God" is the only court of appeal.
There are no cities Of consequence
in Mississippi, no MANUFACTURES, no
minerals (and therefore no mines),
and until recently there was no sea-
port. Mississippi is one great cotton
plantation, varied here and there with
sugar-cane plantation.
The vast field of primitive agricul-
ture is broken only by few stunted
cities and towns, and by lumber camps
in which the timber cutting is done
largely by labor recruited thru "vag-
rancy" laws under which slave-hun-