The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-03-15

meeting shareholders of the General Electric Company
Ltd of Great Britain recently held in the city of London
casts flash of light upon the coming imperialist
war The business before the meeting voting of the is
suance of 100000 shares of bonus stock at special
low price limited to British subjects exclusively and
the barring of American couponppers from the right to
obtain any the ISSUE appears that American
iasts about 100000 out of 100000 shares of the
company and Sir Hugo Hrst managing director is putting
through the plan to restrict the flow of shares to America
The British General Electric Company is not the
corporation as the American company the 1t
is controlled by British capitalists who have put special
safeguards preserve their control but who much
alarmed by heavy buying of the stock of the British
pany by United States capitalists.
Of course it part of the worldwide struggle between
the two biggest national groupings of fnancecapitaists
those of the British Empire and those of the rival Wall
Street Empire This incident may pass and its chief i'm
portance may lie in its picturesque sharp illustration of the
direct clash But the quarrel going in all parts of
the world Canada, in Egypt in Mexico, in South America
in China India Australia and in all other places where the
British Empire holds has held the upper hand in imperial
list exploitation The decaying but still extremely powerful
British Empire fighting tooth and nail against the
slaughts of the United States imperalsts.
1t will come to
The big navy bill all of the present feversh pre-
paraons the United States have to do with this Hoover
put into office openly for the purpose of conducting this
struggle With all instruments, lncludlng war.
What is the United States government? An organiza-
managing the collective affairs of the American cap
itaist monster board of directors might say
and at the time huge military navalpoice machine
for enforcing the will of the American capitalist class thru
the world the tortured exploitation of workers at home
and colonial peoples and diplomacy and warfare to strug
gle against the rival imperialisms
And what is the British government 1t is precisely
the instrument devoted to the interests of the British
finance-capitaists instead of the American
The two "boards of directors" he governmens) con-
the struggle for while the plane of diplomacy In
this connection the probable appointments of Herbert Hoover
to the principal ambassadorshps nterestng-each
bassador merely hghpowered executive for the big trust
and banking magnates of Wall Street. Hoover is their
general executive.
When the diplomatic specialists of the other ag
gregaon of big trusts finally reach the end of their
in the strugge-then the ultimate saesmen the adj
mrals and the generals, will be called out.
What of the many thousands of workers shaving in the
factories of this giant corporation the General Electric Com
pany? These unnamed thousands of and of
class flesh of flesh and bone of bone slave
through the long years without beyond the means of
restoring their strength each day sufficiently the follow
ing days slavery This British General Electric like the
lean open shop heoe of the notorious for
the fact that squeezes the life out of with extraord
rapdy Not only steel bars changed into electric
machinery-also young and young changed
into broken old and old before their years And
of not with the corporation alone
the whole of the monsrous open-shop speedup trusted
industry of each country is nation full of
slaves tong to make the heads of these trusts still
rich and while they needed at this alone they
peace talk During this stage of the game the capital
list class squabbes around directors tables and in
offices about such national questions and patriotic ques-
lions this whether the British boodsuckers the
American boodsucker shall suck the best blood from our
bodies
Then the next stage of handling these national
and patriotic questions of stocks and bonds-and the
bugles call to out and work for the masters on
the battefeds instead of in the workshops-to work with
bayones and machine instead of with hammers and
athes to tear the flesh of eowworkers instead of cut
ting steel.
What possibly be the interest of the working class
in this affair." When squabbles of the monares of the
two rival mperast groupings show badly just what
the national and patriotic basis of the coming call to
mperalst war-then every must be made of such
squabbes to show the working class Of country that
the defeat of their imperias bourgeose the greatest
interest and the highest objective of the working class
each country The workers interest sacred duty to his
class is to turn the coming imperiaist of American
and British workers tearing each other to pieces into civil
of the working of each country for the overthrow
of the dictatorship Of its town. capitalists and the estab