The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-09-15
By H. NJ. WICKS.


COMMENTING upon the report that
DR.. Eusebio Morales, form er
foreign minister Of Panama, sug-
gested at Geneva that the league OF
nations intervene in the dispute be-
tween that nation and the United
States over the question of sovereignty
Of the Canal Zone, Secretary Of state
Kellogg declared emphatically that
''the league Of nations has nothing
whatever to do with American con-
troll over the Panama Canal zone, now
or in the future"
This a mere repetition of ythe at
titude OF American Imperialism since
the infamous Roosevelt steal of
1904, when the United States
launched the canal project. From
that day to this the Canal Zone has
been under the blight of American
despotism. The government of Pana-
ma has. become the creature of Wall
Street and the political minions at
Washington have Iuthlessly used the
armed forces Of this country to hold
in subsection the inhabitants of the
zone. The state department, reply
ing to the alleged statement of
Morales, condemns to perpetual sla-
very those unfortunate enough to
exist within the Canal Zone This
sentiment is also affirmed by Senator
Claude A. Swanson, ranking demo-
cratic member of the foreign rela-
tions committee, W h ose political
career cannot be distinguished from
the Coolidge gang and who introduced
the world court resolution in the SEN
tate. That resolution and the bitter
struggle that ensued upon the floor
of the senate exposed in dramatic re-
lief the common political line followed
by the majority supporters Of both
the two old parties in behalf of their
masters, the Wall Street bankers.
Swanson went even further than the
state department and revealed the
strategic position of the Canal for
military purposes:
Zone reason why the United
States must have a navy on a
parity with Great Britain is so that
the United States can discharge it's
international obligations in connec-
ton with the use and neutrality of
the Canal. The United States does
not feel that, in consideration of
this international obligation, it
should have a navy inferior to
Great Britain, which would prac-
tically put control of the canal I'M
der the British navy. The United
States will not tolerate any inter-
ference in this matter of the Pana-
ma Canal from any source whatso-
ever"
Swanson, one of the luninaries of
the Wall Street republican-democrat
coalition in the senate, avoids stating
the real motive for demanding the
maintenance of big navy. Certainly
it does not require navy on parity
with England to guard the canal, for
the simple reason that British would
not dare concentrate her full naval
power in struggle for the control
Of this territory. It's navy is used to
defend every outpost of it's far-flung
empire. The United State needs it's
navy for precisely the same reason
that British imperialism needs its big
navy--to inflict the blight of its pre-
datory parasitic imperialism upon the
colonial and semi-colonial countries.
Swanson, by bringing up the ques-
ton Of naval parity with Britain,
publicly announces that the dominant
wing of the democrat party is in full
and complete accord with the repub-
lican administration policy of the
Coolidge-Mellon regime as exempli-
fled by Hugh Gibson at the Geneva
naval conference that revealed in
dramatic form the antagonisms be-