The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-06-17
What The Daily Worker Is
What 1t Must Become

manner which cannot be confused with
the abuse INDUCED in by the open
shop journals.
Many of the class collaboration ma
neuvers INDUCED in by the bureau
Gratis are not understood as such by
the rank and file and we cannot there
fore speak of them in our official or
gan as if the union officials were chal-
longing a rank and file wholly con-
scious of the dangers inherent in the
B. and o. plan and the Watson-Parker
bill, to use two outstanding examples,
to the labor movement.
TINE truth of the matter is-and l
4 have verified this by dozen of con-
versations with Communists and left
wingers closely in touch with workers
in the railroad industry-that the rank
and file of the railroad unions either
have accepted such schemes or remain
neutral towards them with the belief
that the unions have nothing to lose
by trying out these methods. In other
words, the conditions of the workers
in the railroad industry have been so
bad since the 1922 defeat that they
grasp at any proposal which promises
relief.
The officials have sensed this atti-
tude of the rank and file and have
taken advantage of It to put over
class collaboration plans which. unless
repudiated by the workers, ultimately
will tie them hand and foot.
MO blanket denunciation of these
~ schemes simply on the basis that
they are forms of class collaboration
will inspire any confidence in the
DAILY WORKER.
Unless we are able to connect such
schemes with the daily problems with
which workers are familiar they will
look upon them as just another Com
munist complaint made for the sake of
complaining.
THE connection of union officials
L with employers, their continual eff
forts to seek a solution of the prob
lens of the labor movement by giving
it the character of a purely business
enterprise, their amending claims of
| "Americanism" and responsibility,
their belief always finding expression
in practice, that there needs only to
be an application of American princi-
pies" by enlightened employers" for
America to become a paradise for
workers, leading them into loyalty to
the two-party system of American cap
italism with the hope of finding enough
friends of labor" to give the trade
unions "a square deal,' all of these
dangerous tendencies of labor official
dom can be exposed so that our class
will understand them only by an accu-
mutation of evidence gathered out of
the records OF the labor movement day
by day.
THE difficulty for us is that the
l. DAILY WORKER and the whole
party has acted more or less on the
belief that heated utterances and high
power language could substitute eff
fectively for such commonplace things
as the elementary facts with which
] men and women who work eight to
welve hours a day at manual labor
re familiar and interested in.
Unless it can be proved to workers
| by concrete instances that the b. and
o. plan and the Watson-Parker bill
are lowering their wages. increasing
their hours Of labor, weakening their
control over their jobs and making the
organization OF the unorganized much
more difficult or impossible. we will
! find Il impossible to convince any
large number OF them that class col
alteration is a bad thing, that the
union officials are tools OF the Bosses"
that the labor bureaucrats are agents
Of American Imperialism, even that
Imperialism itself is a menace TO the
working class.
THE job Of the DAILY WORKER is
TO prove all Of these things, so
plain to every member of our party,
in so simple and understandable a
manner by the daily facts of life, that
every intelligent worker will accept
the DAILY WORKER as his express
sion.
The editorial staff cannot do this
alone. II must have the cooperation
OF every member Of our party.
To be Continued.
/
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