The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-02-13
Official Labor
lie a d er ship
Learns Nothing
contract and anti-injunction legisla-
ton illegal.


easier to secure the passage of such
legislation then than it is today. But
in the face of these historical facts
labor officialdom again stakes all on
the procedure proved which has re-
suited only in the capitalists and their
government being strengthened and
the labor movement weakened.
The entire series of acts and utter
ances with which labor officialdom
pretends to fight the "yellow dog"
contract and the injunction menace
are gigantic fraud upon the masses.
Beginning with Gompers, labor Off
cialdom has been carrying on essen
TALLY the same kind of fake fight.
But in this period of imperialism this
fakery has become an integral part of
the machinery of Wall Street govern
ment and the most deadly menace to
the labor movement and the whole
working class.
] The Shipstead bill makes no chal-
lenge to capitalism. On the contrary
it accepts the basic theory on which
| injunctions are based-whether they
arise out of the violation of yellow
dog" contracts or other phases of the
ton of property is the first task of
the courts. This is a correct theory
and we would be the last to dispute
it but the acceptance of it as basis
for anti-injunction legislation involves
also in this case the acceptance of
capitalism and all it's works.
Won't Prevent Injunctions.
The Shipstead bill, which has one
chance in thousand of being enact
ed into law, will not, even though it is
declared constitutional after passage,
prevent the use of injunctions against
strikes or the use of the "yellow dog"
contract to prevent organization of
unions.
All the Shipstead bill will do is to
create false hope among the masses
and tend, if not counter-acted by
militant tactics, to paralyse resis-
lance to injunctions and open strug-
gle against the "yellow dog" contract.
Will Support Bill.
We are not against the passage of
the Shipstead bill. We will do all we
can to aid its passage. If there were
Communists in congress they would
vote for it when their own bills were
defeated. But to create the slightest
hope among workers that this bill if
made law will stop the use of in
functions against workers and their
organizations is to create the illusion
that capitalist government, that die
tatorship camouflaged as democracy,
will abandon it's union smashing ac-
tivities and cease to be the instrument
of the capitalists in struggles between
them and the working class simply
because certain formula has had to
be placed on the statute books for
the reason that the relationship of
class forces at given moment -
made it advisable to appear to make
certain concessions to the working
class thru the medium of capitalist
agents in the labor movement.
The history of the class struggle
in the United States itself gives the
lie to these traitorous pretensions.
Danger of War.
Nothing is more dangerous in this
period when the war clouds hang low
and the barometer of Leninism points
to an imminent precipitation of i'm
perialist conflict, than illusions con-
corning the nature and role of CAPT
talist government. To believe that
Legislation to curb injunctions will be
nassed and enforced at time when
the working class in the United
States does not even have labor
rarty, at time when the labor move
mant is tied through its reactionary
officialdom to the parties of its enc
mics, is to be the perfect listener to
the tales of Munchausen.
1t is only by the organization of the
unorrarived millions of workers in
basic industry carried on in the face
of "yellow dog" contracts, and mass
violation of injunctions that these two
,voaoons of the CAPITALISTS can be
dulled and bent into shapeless use
lessness.
The organization of labor party
to broaden the struggle and carry it
into city, county, state and national
government will give far greater pow
err to the labor movement but this Is
exactly what labor officialdom, In
spite of the acute crisis in the labor
movement, refuses TO GO.
Drive Against Communists.
Their sharpest attack is directed,
not against the capitalists, but
rrainst the Communists and their
procram for organization of the UNI
organized mass violations of injunc-
tions and labor party.
This stratoov of labor officialdom
and their allies. the socialist party
4 bureaucracy, furnishes us with cor
4 rect estimate of the sincerity with
which such measures as the Shipstead
I'LL are brought forward. Even around
such inadequate measures struggle
could be organized, but this would de-
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