The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-01-24
The Economic Crisis, the London
Naval Conference and the Sharp
ening Class Struggle
By Fred Ellis

and their families on the bread line. This mass
unemployment in turn becomes weapon with
which to beat down the wages and standard
OF living of those workers still employed and
to set new and lower economic and social
level for the entire working class.
The mechanics of this process are about as
follows; we cite concrete instance:
The American Locomotive Company con-
trolls 81 other corporations like the American
Car and Foundry, the Ames Spring Company,
the Heat Products Exchange Company, etc.
Control is secured by the purchase of 81 per
cent of the stock of the smaller company and
the reorganization of it's board of directors
(The deal may be carried out by the American
Locomotive Company itself or by an inside
clique of officials.) Once control is secured,
80 per cent of the profits of the smaller cor
porations are paid to the A. l.. c. before the
stockholders of the smaller company receive
a single cent of dividends.
1t is quite clear that under these circum-
stances the pressure upon the subordinate Of
ficials of the daughter company for in
creased profits is tremendous. This pressure
is transferred to the shoulders of the workers
in its factories in the form of speed-up and
wage-cuts The workers are driven at top
speed by the organizational momentum of the
capitalist process.
One particular subsidiary of the American
Locomotive Company last year did $7,00O,0OO
worth Of business. The directors of the A. L.
G. have ordered the head of this company to
do S15,000,000 worth of business in 1890
when business conditions are much worse.
What will happen?
The directors of this subsidiary company,
and its engineers, will endeavor to underbid
all other companies in their field. Contracts
will be taken at figures at which dividends
can be had only if the workers wages are cut
still further and they submit to be driven to
the point of exhaustion. New abor-displacing
machines will be installed, new technical pro-
cesses will be developed. Unemployment will
increase even though this particular company
does twice the amount of business it did last
year.
1t is in this manner that the piling of mer-
ger on merger and the extension Of bank con-
troll to all fields of industry (the house of
Morgan controls the American Locomotive
Company process intensified by the pres
ent crisis, places additional burdens upon the
working class. 1t is plain that the whole
Hoover plan, in which mergers anil heads of
mergers play so large a part, is organized for
this purpose.
classification and the War Danger.
"it'lout cHsdPeI production enforced Dy
gigantic mergers with the government power
at their disposal American imperialism cannot
carry on effective struggle for bigger
share of the world markets and sources of
cheap raw materials. The wave of re-trusti-
fication is therefore an integral part of the
program for world conquest and further un
deniable sign of the growing war danger.
This danger is not mitigated by the fact
that from time to time the imperialist powers
come to agreement as whole on this or that