The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-10-10
A WORKERS REACTION AGAINST
ROMAN ROLLAND'S LETTER

Roman ROLAND deplores the fact
that no official of the United States
government gave audible expression
of the voice of humanity" How child
ish! Murders of that nature, Sacco
and Vanzetti, are being perpetrated
practically every day; if not in the
United States proper, it is in China;
if not in China, it is in the Philip
pines; if not in the Philippines, it is
in Nicaragua, And what American
official has ever protested against
these horrors, these crimes?
Then we learn that those who were
most overwhelmed were "the liberals,
the Christians, the saner and better
balanced elements of Europe"
So what were those elements who
protested openly, those workers, men
and women, who went out on strike,
who demonstrated in front of Amer
lean consulates, who begged not for
mercy and life Imprisonment, but
who demanded freedom, immediate
freedom, who defied the police and
the soldiery, who were in constant
danger of being dubbed, or shot, or
thrown into Jail, or being deported
who did not stay home to weep and
pray and hope and send letters, beau
tifully written letters, while the whole
of mankind that is strong, that is
young, that is militant, that is fear
less, demanded a general, a universal
loud and revolutionary protest to
save the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti
were these men and women not
"most overwhelmed" by the murder
of the two martyrs?
1t is because too many people stay
ed home and not enough workers
went out on strike; it is because there
was no general and universal strike;
it is because the liberals, the Chris
tians, the sane and well-balanced ele-
ments of Europe" and America again
betrayed the working class in gem
eral and Sacco and Vanzetti in par
ticular, and not because America did
not have a Voltaire, as Roman Roll
land writes, for thousand Voltaires
could not have done what thous-
and power-house workers, thousand
railroad workers, a thousand trans
portation workers could have effected
that Sacco and Vanzetti were
murdered.
In ending his letter Roman Rol-
land states that he loves America"
There are two Americas only: the
proletarian and all that is not pro-
letarian. And it is certainly not the
proletarian, particularly the militant,
the class-conscious proletarian Amer
lea that the author of the Enchanted
Soul" loves. So that the fellow who
was exiled from France during the
war because of his pacifist tenden-
cies, loves the non-proletarian Amer
ica-the most powerful imperialist,
the most reactionary country in the
world.
America, divorced of Thayer and
Fuller, Taft and Coolidge, is great?
People persist in holding this view,
upon remaining blind, upon not see
ing that it was not Thayer and Full
but that it was a great yet rotten
murderous system, the foundation of
modern society, known as capitalism,
that murdered the two men. And if
as Roman ROLAND says, ''that blow
in history is always sooner or later
given back" I hope that he himself
and all the others like him should live
to see that telling blow given back.
| hope that they should live long
enough that the truth may be re-
vealed to them. | hope that they
may yet see the day, although it may
hurt their eyes, accustomed as they
were to live in constant darkness,
when capitalism, the chief perpetra-
tor of all crime, the gigantic breeder
of all criminals, from the gangster
to the general, will crumble, will be
destroyed and in it's stead Commun-
ism will be established.
~ ~ n ~ n "