The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-06-25
FUR CANGSTERS ADMIT RIGHT WING HIRES THEM
Cu2YentEUentS
By t. J. o'FLAHERrY.

By I. ]. O'FLAHERTY.
THE Rev. DIR. John Roach Straton,
pastor of Calvary Baptist Church
has supplied himself with spokes-
man realizing how useful that myth
cal person is to a politician in tight
corner. Straton finds his troubles
multiplying as rapidly as the loaves
and fishes under the miraculous hands
of the lowly Nazarene. The atavistic
clergyman got into trouble with his
deacons because of his bizarre re-
ligious rites to which he is becoming
addicted.
CTRATON looks like Southern Illi-
nois free lance methodist preacher.
He has that lean and hungry look
which worried Caesar and makes even
such a happy fellow as Al Smith
SILVER when he sees it on the drawn
visage of William Gibbs McAdoo.
Straton considers joy and laughter
sparks from the devils anvil and if
he had his way he would stifle the
happy gurgle of the child and burn
the smile from the adult face. Of
such would be his kingdom of heaven.
DELIGION, like wine gains in virtue
~ with age. Indeed that seems to be
second nature to most old fashioned
virtues. DR.. Straton was beginning
to get fed up with the tendency to
give religion sand paper bath and
fumigate it. He preferred to feast
his smellers on the real thing. He
looked back with a sort of melan-
choly satisfaction on the days Of his
youth when the pious could shake off
their sins at good primitive spirit
nal debauch. The business of religion
was getting too darned respectable
and scientific. "Back to Savageryl" be-
came Straton's war cry.
THIS is where he stepped in the
banana. Echoes Of the fight inside
his church We're heard when Straton
hired himself out to Hearst to inter
pref the Gray-Snyder murder trial to
Hearst's intellectual customers. The
Calvary Church directors thot this
was a rather un6ignified way for
clergyman to add to his salary, but
Straton stuck to his contract. Now,
however, it has leaked out that the
clergyman stepped off the reservation
he =; CD
their ears, climbing the bare walls,
rolling on the floor, frothing at the
mouth and imploring the ''holy spirit"
to walk right in. Adding to the COM
plications is the fact that a nurse
from local hospital played stellar
role in the services under the direc-
ton of Doc Straton.
IF Straton loses his job he should
open a gymnasium and cater to
those citizens who are too we'll cush-
Toned for their comfort in hot weather
Yes, this is the Reverend DR.. John
Roach Straton who is constantly on
the trail Of modern literature that
appeals to that part of the human
anatomy that located above the
chin.
COUPLING an Associated Press
story from indianapolis with the
attack made on the Communists by
Ellis Searles, editor of the United
Mine Workers Journal, circumstan-
tial evidence is not lacking to con-
vince the well-informed observer Of
the policies of John L. Lewis that
that individual has succeeded to his
own satisfaction in attaining the aim
he set out to accomplish in the coal
1g industry, namely, to reduce
mber of miners digging coal by
one half. Searles hearkened
the Herrin riots for ammuni-
gainst the Communists. He
the radicals for the riots and
.aths of the strikebreakers, tho
@,limy liar knows as we'll as any
body else that the action was spon-
taneous revolt Of the striking miners
against the scabs that were imported
into the country by the owners of a
strip mine.
THE A. P. story from indianapolis
is obviously inspired. In substance
IL is as follows: There are too many
men in the coal industry--Lewis'
diagnosis of the industrial patient.
Tho John L. beloved this point of
view at national and district conven-
tions of the union he could not well
take steps to expel the necessary
number Of men from the mines. But
accidentally" this solution is being
automatically applied thru the policy
Of the international union executive
Continued on Page Four