The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-12-25
Raw Materials and Colonial Oppression

rected against Great Britain, especially be-
cause of its monopoly over rubber.
In connection with the past visit of Mac
Donald "a visit quickly forgotten" not
mentioned any more by the capitalist press)
and the approaching naval disarmament" con-
ference, it must not be forgotten, that pre-
cisely the armed control of the colonies as a
source of raw material will lead to the quick
explosion of the disarmament" myth One
of the recent Sunday issues of the New York
Herald Tribune (the most outspoken supporter
of Wall Street and the Hoover regime} car
ried an article by certain Captain L. M.
Overstreet of the United States Navy. The
article has telling headline, namely: ARMED
Merchant Fleet Called Essential to Protect
the Trade Routes of the U. S. in Time of
War" The captain points out that, because
of the growing dependence of the U. S. on for
eign trade, America needs more cruisers to
protectthe trade routes, and the one time self
sustaining America has become gin fact from
a trade route point of view an island in the
middle of the world" The captain especially
emphasized the dependence of American i'm
perialism on raw materials and therefore the
need for large navy to protect the
routes and (of course, he does not state openly
the need of large navy to capture the sources
of raw materials-the colonies.
In the following quotations dealing with the
dependence of America on the worlds supply
of raw material we hear clearly the voice of
American imperialism, "What would our great
steel industry do if we were unable to obtain
manganese from Brazil or Russia, american
imperialism points her threatening finger to
the Soviet Union), vanadium from Peruvia
and chromium from Rhodesia OF Asia Minor;
nickel from Canada; tin from Bolivia (no won
der U. S. and G. B. fight over Bolivia.-S.D.),
and the Malay states, tungsten from China?
Our automobile industry would collapse with
out rubber from the East Indies and with
out manganese for STEEL What about our
other industries without shellac, linseed jute,
sisal, silk, paper and many other foreign pro-
ducts2 2" Quite list, isn't it? And we have
here quite a desperate note, ''If we will not
do something about it we may collapse" and
the Something" means war!
Hoover-War President.
1t is worth while recalling here the state
ment contained in the Comintern's open letter
to our last Party convention: "The aggres-
siveness of the U. S. in the struggle for mar
kets and the most important sources of raw
material throughout the world is growing
swiftly. The election of Hoover as president
means that American imperialism is resolutely
embarking a course which leads to colonial
wars of occupation and to am extremely rapid
accentuation of the struggle between the u.
S. and its chief imperialist rival &C. b." And
precisely from the above analysis we can
readily and clearly understand "that American
Imperialism is striving for monopolist posi-
ton in world politics and is becoming more
involved in the universal crisis of capitalism
and comes more and more into the Orb. sc
the growing instability of world capitalism"
And the following analysis of the c. I. made
in the thesis adopted at the Tenth Plenum APP
plies fully to the U. S. "The furious struggle
for markets, for sources of raw material for
the export of capital and spheres of invest
ment is inevitably leading to war among the
great imperialist powers for the expansion of
economic territory, at each others expense, to
war for the redistribution of the world"
American imperalsm's growing aggressive
ness in the struggle for raw materials, its des-
perate struggle to free itself from foreign
domination in the field of raw materials, is
coupled with the growing brutal exploitation
of her colonies, protectorates and semi-colonies
in Latin America. Her colonies must become
a source for her badly needed raw materials.