The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-12-16
BY MAX BEDACHT.

THE other day, Mr. Arthur Garfield Hayes in
a statement for the Civil Liberties Union
declared his "incurable belief in civil liberties
Despite this belief, however, he had to admit
rather dejectedly that Sacco and Vanzett are
dead and that even the most intense faith in
civil liberties cannot bring them back to life.
But, continued Mr.. Hayes hopefully, Billings
and Mooney are still alive-and while they are,
we (the Civil Liberties Union, will go on de-
manding their freedom.
1 will say nothing here about the, to say the
least, popularity, that Mr.. Norman Thomas and
other prominent socialists as members of the
Civil Liberties Union demand today the release
of Mooney in the name of civil liberties, while
in 1916 the socialist party of California volun-
tarily and enthusiastically made itself tool of
the frame-up which brought Mooney and Bill
ings onto the steps of the seaffold.
Here I will deal with the "incurabe beliefs"
of the Civil Liberties Union.
Sacco and Vanzetti are dead Even the wor-
shippers at the shrine of civil liberties have to
admit that. But they do not admit that these
two victims of capitalist justice died because the
paralyzing influence of an incurable faith in the
imaginary deity of civil liberties prevented an
effective use of the only weapon that could have
saved them the weapon of the class force of
the American workers. Worship for the myth
of civil liberties alone could produce the deadly
hope that a formal and legalstic appeal against
the intended murders of Sacco and Vanzetti to
the determined murderers, could save the VIC
Tins Every leading capitalist government insti-
tuition of Massachusetts and the federal govern
ment were a party to the frame-up against
Sacco and Vanzetu There was no room for
legal appeal against the frame up-except an APP
peal to the trainers. Only the fist of the work
ing class could have supplied the necessary
power to enforce such an appeal, and, inciden-
tally, enforce the will of the masses that Sacco
and Vanzetti shall not die. But the worshippers
of civil liberties the philosophical anarchists and
the anarchaic philosophers, busily wept whis-
pered, advised and shouted to the working class:
DO not clench your fist; it might prejudice
(capitalisD justice. IncWable belief this is, in
deed, in "justice" and in civil liberties 1t is
the kind of belief that is only explainable by
dusty and cob-webbed brains or by sinister
designs.
Which is 1t, gentlemen of the Civil Liberties
Union?
Mooney and Billings are still living, says Mr.
Hayes, therefore the demand for their release
can be continued. We beg to doubt the cor
rectness of Mr. Hayes formulation We are
convinced that Mr.. Hayes did not set out to say
that the Civil Liberties Union is happy to be
still able to fight for MONEYS release, but
rather that it is happy to be still able because
of the continued life of Mooney to feed to the
American working class the poisonous virus of
faith in civil liberties and capitalist justice,
thereby preventing it from dealing with Amer
lean (capitalst) justice as it deserves
Are we justified in this assertion? Let us see
Tom Mooney is still alive; but he is not alive
because of any civil liberties or of any justice
but because in 1917, the collective fist of the
revolutionary workers of Petrograd came crash
ing through the windows of the American En-
bassy to back up the demand of the militant
workers of the world that Mooney shall not die.
Although the faithful worshippers of civil lib
critics in America paralyzed the intended action
OF the American workers in behalf of Mooney