The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-08-09
Dan Tobin and Pete Du Pont

dent OF the international brOCneTnOOu Oh
Transfers tries to resign as treasurer of the
American Federation of Labor because the
Executive Council refused to endorse Al Smith.
The same day the multimillonaire Pierre s..
du Pont, head of the Powder Trust and chief
of General Motors, indicates that he also has
''resignation" in his pocket because he wants
to give his time to the campaign of Al Smith.
On the one side, Capital, in the real sense.
On the other side, Labor" in the Pickwickian
sense.
But wait, minutel This is a three-sided
picture On the self-same day the Peoples
Legislative Service the organization of COM
mon-people-savers built upon the grave of the
dead La Toilette, also endorses the Sidewalk
prince"
The position of Pierre du Pont is simple:
Being supremely interested in the greatest pos
sible exploitation of labor, in excluding trade
unionism from all of the big trustified indus
tries in which he is concerned, and in a
thorough-going aggressive imperialist policy
throughout the world by the United States
government, he thinks that of the two Wall
Street candidates Al Smith will give the best
results as strikebreaker and imperialist war
maker. He is consistent and what might be
called honest" after the fashion OF his class
The position of Dan Tobin is not SO simple,
ut can be understood after little reflection
e is called labor official, but in fact he
represents certain social type which has al
most the same relationship to the working class
49, l. eL has
If du Pont is parasite on labor, so is Tobin
Du Pont exploits tens of thousands of workers
IN his shops directly for the wealth he can ex-
tract from their toll Tobin makes lucrative
business of exploiting the credulity of
workers, not in the shops but in the trade
lnions. 1t is plain business with both of them,
for the same object money getting. Tobn
nows as we'll as du Pont does that Al Smith
an agent of the same Wall Street that made
him governor of New York and that Al as
resident would serve the capitalist class with
strikebreaking and with an imperialist war
policy. And Tobin, like du Pont, will prosper
ehereby-as long as it lasts. His profession
Of selling out the working class depends upon
suppressed and docile working class, and GER
tainly it depends upon government that will
ct ruthlessly in attacking any real manifesto
ton of fighting spirit in the unions and in de-
stroying the left wing which, when it triumphs,
will put Tobn out of business. And last but
not least, Tobin's best connections for collect
ing swag for his services are with the demo-
cratic politicians rather than the republican.
The La Folletites? These bankrupt takers
simply express their class-the petty capitalist
tratum of society which complains bitterly of
he ruthlessness of the big trusts, but which
lives only by its ambition to become themselves
big capitalists and in any test is likely to swing
over, whining but supporting the politics of
finance-capital
United States finance capital has its heyday
in this election: 1t owns both big capitalist
parties, owns the labor officialdom, through
(which it prevents the independent mass polit-
cal activity of the working class, owns the
'aker- politicians who pass as farm leaders"
md succeeds in corrupting the leaders of the
petty capitalist victims of monopoly.
Dan Tobin's fellow takers at the head of the
.rade unions are of course as venal as he. But
ONE of them have better bargains to make.
Tor instance, John l.. Lewis. His business is
The same as Tobin's: selling out the working
class. But his cutomers are in the other party
IF finance-capital. Is there any man who does
not know that Lewis sighs for the position of
ecretary of labor in a republican cabinet, now
hat he sees himself on the edge Of nowhere
n the Labor movement?
So they straddle between the political parties
If capitalism, but are violently opposed to the
arty of the working class.
The Workers (Communist) Party is the
arty of the working class
Vote Communist