The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-08-21
Mathew WOll and That
"Shipload of Gold"

Mathew VOL will be noted in history for
his attainments as the theoretician of strike
breaking from within the labor movement.
Not that Matty is himself more adroit or
brazen strikebreaker than Major George
Berry, or John Lewis, or Bill Green-no,
that would be saying too much, But Matty
Vol is the theoretican; he is the souteneur
with a philosophy of his trade. Where
Lewis program is carried out on the streets
of mining town by firing machine-gun
bullets into the hearts of striking mine
workers, Vol is the busybody of the pen
and ink. He hands down to posterity the
philosophy of such actions in imperishable
newspaper statements.
A second phase of Mr. VOLS attainment
in the art of class struggle against the work.
ing class is his marvellous capacity for dis
covering gold. Whenever mass of workers,
goaded to desperation by being sold out to
scab-herding employers by VOL and his
associates, their unions smashed, their mem
bers shot down on the streets or framed up
and sent to prison by the open actions of
Junior" officials of the Vol gang-whenever
a mass of workers under such conditions
swats Mr.. Vol in the eye, tells him to go to
hell, and builds up a new union where the
Vol gang destroyed the old,-then Mr.. VOL
sees, not stars, but gold! Money appar-
emily has come from Russia in large quanti-
ties to finance this work" says Mr.. Vol,
picking himself up and brushing off his $3.50
suit
Let us glance at the latest statement of
this little Knight of the Garter of American
capitalism, about money from Russia" In
the first place. there is no such country as
Russia" There is the Union of Socialist
Soviet Republics, a conquest of the greatest
Strike of all history, revolutionary con-
quest of the working class, the Socialist
Fatherland of all workers of the whole earth.
In the second place, there would be nothing
more in the nature of the international solid
arity of the working class, if the Russian
workers were to send money to the workers
in strikes or other struggles against the en-
ployers in capitalist countries. In the case
cof the British general strike and coal strike,
the trade unions of the Soviet Republics did
send millions of dollars to help their British
fellow workers True, this is not possible
except in the most extreme cases, because
the workers of the Soviet Union have the
great necessity to put every possible kopeck
into the construction of socialist industry
within the, country they have conquered.
While Mr. Woll lies when he says money from
the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics is
used in the struggles in which the needle
trades workers, the miners and the textile
workers have rubbed his and Sigman's and
Batty's and Bnns' and McMahon's and
Lewis noses in the dirt,-nevertheless there
would be no objection in principle if the free
working class of the Union of Socialist Soviet
Republics were to send to the workers in any
other country financial help to win their
struggles. But it didn't happen.
The trouble with Mr.. VOLTS mind is too
ready way of attributing all actions to mo-
tives connected with the receipt Of nnoney-a
subjective judgment. Mr. Woll does not
understand why workers fight for their