The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-04-16


of Samuel Gompers. @ @Ee
William Green, successor to Gompers, attended
and spoke at a luncheon in the Roosevelt Hote
given by the Civic Federation in honor of Angus
Belmont and Samuel Gompers, deceased presiden
and vice-president of that organization. The sub
ject for discussion was, eliminate industrial
Waste-M Minimize Industrial Controversy"
/ Those who spoke, in addition to Green and judge
Alton B. Parker, who presided, were Secretary o.
Commerce Hoover, Gerard Swope, president of the
General Electric company, d. L. Cease of tn,
Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, and Marcus
Marks, former president of the Borough of Man
haitian.
Judge Parker struck the keynote of the meet
ing when he said that the United States is the only
country in the world where such conference coulC
be held because in the European countries there
is little in common between employers and EN-
Iployes."
What a commentary on the American labor
movement!
The president of the most reactionary organza
ton of bosses and bankers in America is able tt
boast that the American labor movement is still
under the influence of the capitalists and to prove
his statement produces nothing less than the presi
dent of the American Federation of Labor as Elk
hibit A.
President Green was in tune with the topic un
der discussion. He was for elimination of waste in
industry and he said he thought it would enable
the employers to raise the wages of the workers
This epoch-making utterance came at a time when
the most casual survey of capitalist industry shows
that the elimination of waste goes on apace and
that standardization, specialization and the intro
duction of improved mechnical devices allowed the
capitalists last year to increase production II per
cent with - ner cent less workers
But William Green, personiication of the slave
minded labor leader, not satisfied with ex
pressing his approval of the man-killing efficiency
Of the ruling class He had to get down on his bel
ly and grovel in the name of the workers who pay
him $4,000 per year to fight their battles He said
If trade unonism unAnieriean, unpatriotlc
antagonistic to the American form of government
to American Institutions, then employers of labor
might be justified in vigorously opposing the very
existence of such organization. But they do not
have this excuse, for American labor and Amer
lean labor organizations loyal America, ito
traditions and to the American principles of govern
ment
The labor organizations Of country recognize
the existing order and have steadily refused to
brace any imported philosophy no matter how may
be disguised how seductive and aIuring il may
appear.
What does this mean?
Simply that in return for concessions given to
certain selected section of the working class the
trade union officiadom will support any and every
attempt the part of the capitalist class to de
Estroy the revolutionary wing of the labor move
iment. 1t is an oath of allegiance to American i'm
tperialism, public announcement of perfdy with
out parallel except in nations where the struggle
for power is already in progress and where the
labor officialdom has completed the task of selling
the working class that Green has just begun
Imported philosophy"
Is it Imported philosophy to tell the working
class that fraternizing with the enemies of the
unions, endorsement of their schemes for squeezing
la little more blood from the workers, is black
treason?
Is it Imported philosophy" to tell the workers
that the road to freedom lies thru struggle that
the flag of the workers is red like the open wounds
of the murdered miners in Colorado and West
Virginia and not white like the luncheon cloths
the table of the fatbelied robbers in the Roose
welt Hotel?
Is it Imported philosophy" to tell the workers
that capitalism is the same the world and that
in America the workers must travel the same road
as their brothers in other lands?
To hell with this ku klux khan conception of a
100 per cent American labor movement whose
official spokesman is greeted and treated by the
most powerful capitalists in America while mem.
bers of his own union are strike in the coal
fields; when the owners of the mines have just
stated that they break the SACRED contract for
which million betrayals have been perpetrated.
Green and his capitalist friends have no diff
fculty in picking out their enemies. Against the
Communists and the Communist international
these takers and their robber friends unite, The
capitalists know that trade unionsm alone is
harmless and to prevent interference with their
mr. uf;IIt % b,,., IS