The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-02-01
Renegades Use Smoked
Glasses in an Effort. to
Abolish Class Struggle
By ]. LOUIS ENGDAHL.

II HERE are former radicals and
L renegade socialists who find an
excuse for their desertion Of the
class struggle in the declaration
that the dividing lines Of the so
cial conflict are being swept away"
This quotation is part Of the
heading of Evans Clark's review of
this tendency in the New York
Times. Clark helps the cause Of
retrogression along a little him
self, thru injecting his own ideas
in this direction, and then tells
what he finds inside Of books writ
ten by the liberal, Jett Lauck, the
ex-socialist, William English Wal
ling, as well as a symposium edited
by the socialists, Harry W. Laid
Ter and Norman Thomas, under the
title of New Tactics in the So
cial Conflict
Clark's statement Of the SNUG
comfort with which "the new liber-
alism" seeks to surround itself
finds voice in these two sentences;
ain the pre-war days the radical
and labor groups were massed on
the one side in a frontal attack on
capital
Except for a little band of Com
munists, who now keep up ragged
show of opposition on the left, the
battle lines have been obscured, if
not lost altogether, in this general
breaking Of ranks"
Anyone at all familiar with facts,
and not wishing to distort them,
can easily take issue with both of
these statements. The class strug-
gle lines are clearer than ever to-
day. Capital is faced with a more
determined frontal attack" by la
Dor today than at any time i'll all
its history in this country.
One of the big differences is that
in the pre-war days, words were
sufficient, especially lots of them,
while today deeds are demanded in
bne CLASS stIuS5lS'
1t is only necessary, for instance,
to consider the present convention
of the United Mine Workers Of
America at Indianapolis. The class
lines have. never been drawn more
clearly in any gathering OF Ameri-
can labor.
In the pre-war days even Tom
l.. Lewis, international president,
who sold out TO the West Virginia
coal barons, could parade as a
radical" because it was merely a
matter of words to pass resolu-
ton denouncing the National Civic
Federation. Lewis bore bitter en-
nifty toward John Mitchell, one of
the chief supporters, along with
Sam Gompers, of this class burning
organization, and SO he raised the
issue himself in the miners con-
vention, not waiting for the pre-
war socialists to do it. In those
days bitter industrial war was car
ried on, to be sure, in every section
Of the land, in the coal mines of
Colorado; in the copper mines Of
Michigan; in the steel mills Of the
Pittsburgh district. But these
struggles were for hours, wages
and conditions, in which the spec
ire Of Communism" was never
seen, because the Russian Bolshe-
vik revolution had not yet taken
place. But "Passaic" ranks we'll
with Ludlow" with Calumet"
with Cabin Crack" and Home
stead" with the additional asset
that in the New Jersey textile CEN
ter the strikers also stood firm UNI
der the repeated attack, instigated
by the employers, that workers
were bent on wrecking the capital
list government and Selling power,
and the "Passaic" was but a pre-
hminary rehearsal To be sure,
"Passaic" typifies the struggle for
wages and hours today, but it also
typifies the feaA of the great en-
ployer Of his own determination at
the hands of the workers on some
tomorrow.
Socialist delegates, in the pre-
war days, in the miners conven-
tons, were listened to good-na-
turcdly, whether it was Duncan
Macdonald, Adolph Germer, Alex
Howat, Jim Lord or Frank J.
Hayes. Many of the measures they
espoused were adopted and then
A merriam Ia ccisfS