The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-03-17
By BERTRAM d. WOLFE.

The tide of corruption rises higher
and higher in Washington, and re-
veals that the whole Washington gov
eminent adds to it's guilt before the
American masses as a strike-break-
ing machine, as an instrument of i'm
perialist aggression, and as docile
tool of Wall Street.
The last eight years have been a
period of unparalleled corruption
which eclipses even the regimes of
Grant and Mckinley.
Wall Street is willing to pay high
prices for big ''favors" that it ex-
poets from it's tools in Washington.
AS the business Of American govern
ment grows greater and the size of
the favors it is prepared to deliver
grows along with it, the high cost of
bribery and corruption goes up with
the price of other commodities. 1t
is not because the capitalist politi-
clans virtue is esteemed more dearly
to him personally as a "use-value,"
but because the "exchange-value" of
that particular commodity is rising
with the magnitude, of the labors he
is expected to perform.
Harding's First Act.
The character of the Harding
Coolidge administration was dis
closed Immediately upon Harding's
taking office. Within a month after
ba bod +aIroy, n aoo1o,o,,,U ao+L -
uphold and Defend" etc., he had
signed an executive order transfer
ring the nations oil reserves from the
navy department to the interior, in
volving at least DENLY and Fall and
himself in the guilty knowledge of
the oil scandal.
The investigation that was started
for the political purposes of the DEM
ocratic party and of the so-called
progressive bloc in the republican
party, was suddenly stopped when
it revealed only too clearly that the
president himself was over his ears
in the oily mud of the Teapot Dome
graft, and that key members of the
cabinet were involved. Another
motive for suppression of the facts
was the rising tide of the movement
for Labor Party, and yet another
the discovery that Standard Oil was
just as much involved as Sinclair
and Doheny, who, in spite of theii
size, are relatively small potatoes
when compared with the Standard
Closely following on the oil scandal
came the necessity for the Harding
administration to cover up the wal
CRAFTS, to save Newberry, and to de,
fend Daugherty. Then scandal fol
lowed scandal with such rapidly
that only the suspiciously sudder
death of Harding saved him from
open and public disgrace.
A new presidential election cam.
paign in on, and the lid is again be
ing lifted just a trifie from the poi
of Washington politics. Already the
unsavory stencil is so strong thai
many a politician Of the capitalist
parties is wishing that it had neve,
been raised, and official Washington
10 worrying as to how they can jam
the lid down again.
Now that the pot is being stirrec
again, it is perceived that viii Hays
president, thought-controller and cen.
sor Of the movie industry and former
chairman Of the republican national
committee and postmaster-general
bathed both arms in the mud; that
the former secretary of war, Weeks
was the recipient of 100000 worth OF
the Sinclair bonds; that Dupont, the
big financier of the munitions in
dustry and other chemical industries
already involved in the Dye Trust
scandal, received $4,000 of the Sin
clair bonds; that $4,000 went tc
IL