The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-12-04

Frank Harrington, who sold out the
Illinois coal miners for $4,000 per
year job with the powerful Peabody
Coal company. Even the reaction in
the union couldn't stomach this
treason, and it threw harrington out
before he had chance to hand in
his resignation. But this brazen be-
trayal rests easily upon the social
list editorial mind.
The theory Of the New Leader,
expressed thru an article by Nc
Alister Coleman in it's issue of
Saturday, Nov. 81, is that the rad
icals, thru their criticism, forced
the big, honest, kind-hearted Far
rington into path of error that
landed him finally in the lap Of the
bosses. OF course, Coleman's tears,
that find vent thru a socialist pub
LEGATION, originate from an entirely
wrong conception of the forces at
work in the class conflict, therefore
resulting in wrong conclusions. 1t is
of interest to quote rather extensive
ly from the New Leader-McAlister
Coleman effort as follows:
Harrington, like all labor leaders,
moved in two worlds. He would
leave the wretchedness of a southern
Illinois coal camp with all the
squalor with which his youth had
been familiar, step into Pullman
and that same night be sitting in the
lobby of big city hotel waiting
to confer with the operators.
I'm both the coal camp and the
lobby he would hear cynical talk of
the folly of idealism, of the neces-
sity for a man getting his Always
the object of bitter and frequently
headless attack by the radicals of
his district he came more and more
to feel the futility of making any
real fight for the underdog.
Little by little he was psychol-
ogized into the go-getter attitude
that is the attitude of the country
as whole today. Everywhere he
turned, he saw corruption in public
places, with men climbing ruthless
ly over their fellows backs to the
applause of the multitude, the work
ers included. In comparison with the
shrewd, cunning men with whom he
dealt, the radicals appeared a par
ticularly bootless lot with no pro-
gram save abuse of the powers that
be and no evidence of being able to
manage affairs if by any miracle
they should get into power"
Then the coal barons came along
with their $4,000 per year check,
Harrington grabbed at it in a mo-
ment of weakness, and so it isl
concludes the New Leader-McAlister
Coleman combination. Very simple
to the infantile socialist mind.
This viewpoint is also significant,
appearing in a socialist publication,
since it doesn't look at the world
thru Farrington's eyes--he would
probably laugh sneeringly at this
interpretation-but rather expresses
an actual socialist attitude of lack
OF faith in the working class, ques-
tioning its desire to struggle and
its constructive genius when freed
from capitalism's chains. The two
world" idea is also an old one, usual
ly offered by socialist parlia-
mentarians Of the get something
now" school, politicians who usually
get theirs" much after the fashion
that Harrington got his" This
grows out of the failure to recognize
that we live in but one worId-the
capitalist world-of which poverty
and luxury, toll and ease, are In
evitable expressions, branches Of
the same tree that draws its nourish-
ment thru roots embedded deep in
the rich soil Of private profit.
Harrington was always a devout
believer in this capitalist system.
The writer OF the socialist New
Leader claims not. An effort is made
to strengthen the case for Earring
ton by claiming:
AT one time or another he threw
his influence on behalf of Alex
Howat when the latter was vucking
the Kansas industrial court, he gave
aid and comfort to the courageous
group of Oklahoma socialists who
were publishing the Oklahoma
Leader. he supported the miners
naturalization campaign and while
he was by no means In sympathy
with many OF the editorial express
sions OF his own paper"
| What sycophantic mush!
At no time was Harrington even
touched by the socialist sentiment
/ that qWant tho ,.fnaro, unton kaeoro