The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-05-26
Poisoning the
Masses
By LYMAN BARuFKIN

POWER ETHICS, by Jack Levin, 174 PIP, AtreA
A. Knopf, 50.
IF the contention, constantly made by the COM
hnunists, that capitalism posons the minds Of
the masses from the cradle to the grave, needed
any proof, it is offered in abundance In Levtn's
book on power.
Based on the 26-volume record of the Federal
Trade Commission, which has been at work for
over three years investigating the propaganda
activities of the combined utility trusts the eon-
dernnation against their nefarious schemes comes
out Of the mouths of their own agents and
directors. In their testimony before the conn
mission they admitted:
That all electric light companies throughout
the country combined in the National Flee
trio Light Association; gas supplying companies.
in the American Gas Association; street railway
companies, in the American Street Railway AS
ISOLATION and that all these central bodies are In
turn combined in the National Utility Associa-
ton.
The National Utility Association operates vast
publicity bureau which covers every village, town.
city and state in the country. To educate the
public and mold opinion" this bureau and it's
subsidiaries openly bride or employ under vari-
Gus guises and pretexts, school teachers and
principals professors, heads of colleges and uni
versities and influential members in all civic,
political, economic social, industrial and finan-
cial organizations in this country
The regular propaganda consists partly Of
paid full-page advertisements in newspapers and
magazines for which the trusts have the privi-
lege of writing articles The articles are signed
by famous educators, scientists, industrialists
politicians and financiers. Besides thousands Of
news stories are prepared and editorials written
for the capitalist press and for the corrupt labor
press.
"Out of 300 newspapers the Carolnas there
is only one that is unfrendly to the utility COM
mittee' testified Samuel E. Boney the trusts
publicity director for that region. And George
F. Oxley, general publicity director for the Ma
tional Electric Light Association, admitted:
There are more newspapers in the country using
the material (prepared by the power trust pub
lcity bureau than there are newspapers that
are not"
In addition, the publicity bureaus of the trusts
prepare sermons for preachers, and tens of thou
sands of speeches which are delivered by the
various prominent men and women in their en-
ploy. These later reprinted in the capital
list and A. F. of L. press.
The trusts also write textbooks for schools
from the sixth grade up to the universities, and
they censor textbooks written by others, through
bribing authors and publishers
Ali this is supplemented by the printing and
distributing Of books and pamphlets. To give
an idea of this activity, Levin says:
-Four private utility publications on municipal
ownership and Muscle Shoals were distributed
in quantities of 6,116,125 each. The entire list
of publications in this instance total over 49,
100000 pieces of literature"
The total cost of all this, which Levin fails to
give (the National Electric Light Association
alone spends about $1,5oO0Oo year,, is charged
to operating expenses" and the masses pay the
cost in their monthly electric bills.
Citing this damning record against the utility
trust Levin draws the most naive conclusions,
typical of bourgeois writer. Another bad fea-
ture of the book is that its price is So. BY COM
parison with the Labor Fact Book, which Inter-
national Publishers have made available for IS
cents, book like Power Ethics should cost con-
sderably less than 81.
Nevertheless, workers libraries should add this
book to their stock of reading matter For work.
ers can Um the material to good advantage in
showing the masses how capitalism posons their
minds from early childhood. Such an exposure
should arouse workers not only to fight the ex-
tortionate electric rates of the power corpora
tons, but to organize to overthrow the whole
system that makes possible the existence OF
private power octopus