The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-02-25
The Super-POwer Fraud

SuperpOwer, the amalgamatiOn OF electric power
plants into huge SYSTEM the most recent effort
of American capitalism to further strengthen its
control of industry by centralizing ownership of
this all-important natural resource, has been
stamped with the approval of Americas labor
fakerdom from the late President Gompers his sue
cessor William Green down to Harrington, presi-
dent of the Illinois district of coal miners Noonan,
president of the Brotherhood of Electrical Work
ers is also among the loudest ballyhooers for this
new and powerful weapon of the bosses.
Steam and water-power operated plants are to
be linked together and with "cheap" power the mil
lenium is to be ushered in.
No more effective disclosure of the incurable cap
italist character of American labor ofcialdom has
been made to date than this unqualified endorse
ment of a scheme that must long before it is COM
plete, throw out of employment hundreds of thou
sands of workers.
Harrington has gone so far as to make super
power the central issue of his platform and in the
capitalist press of Illinois his praises are being
sung.
It should be remembered in this connection that
among the Illinois coal miners particularly unem-
plOyment is rampant harrington holds before
their eyes, after years of studied betrayal of their
interests, the glittering vision of power plants
built at the pit mouth consuming coal which happy
miners, secure in the knowledge of permanent en-
ployment dig in the depths below while chanting
praises to Harrington their benefactor.
No crueler fraud has ever been foisted upon
workers The mere fact that the great capitalists
in favor of this development is sufficient
to assure any thinking worker that it will do away
with labor now employed. All advances in indus
trial technique are for this purpose.
Elimination of coal haulage, the electrifcation
of railroads, the increasing development of water
power electric plants and the wider radius of trans
mission resulting from improved methods, all dis
place labor Cheaper production floods the mar
kets with goods for which there are no buyers
the most obvious and inconsistent of all of capital
isms contradictions.
We cannot keep silent while workers fooled
into making of themselves by boosting
schemes that will make more profits for the cap
itasts, increase their power over the working class
and add to the misery of the masses.
There is something fascinating about the tech
nique of the production and transmission of electric
pOwer-sOmething little understood by those out
side of the industry 1t is the cheapest kind of power
yet discovered when generated by water. Once the
installation is made the largest power plants oper
ate with force of three four men for each shift
depreciation is extremely low-all generating ap-
paratus today is made foolproof and few repairs
are required. Oiling and control are automatic
Electric power is efficient and therefore labor saw
ing.
Let the miners ask themselves how general re-
how steam-operated electric plants, part of
superpOwer system, are going to compete with
water power except by cutting the wages of the
coal miners to the starvation level.
Let the miners ask themseles how a general re-
duction of labor costs squares with the promise of
more employment under super-power made by their
officials. The answer to these two questions is com
plete proof Of the mOnstrous fallacy of the idea
that the progress of capitalist development means
progress Of the working class except by creating
the necessity for and the organization Of social
revolution,
The miners and all workers make progress only
as they organize and exert their power in their
own interests and let the capitalists take care of
themselves as best they can.