The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-10-09
Just As in 1917

TIE gan-powder atmosphere of mobilization
lowered Enthusiastically the speech that Roose-
velt Saturday st the lnveiling Of the memorial
to Samuel Gompers.
There is more than lust sentimental attachment TO
account for the sudden interest of the President of the
United States in the memorial to dead labor 1euten-
ant of the capitalist class
Roosevelt is eager to perpeuate the honor of the
dead Gompers because of the type of Gompers
badly needed today by the ruling class employers to
cripple the coal and steel strikes raging
against the intensified wage slavery Of the hated Roose
welt N. r. A. Codes
Roosevelt above ALL is eager to spread the teachings
of Gompers because the Roosevelt government needs
like Gompers to bind the American working class
to the Wall Street imperialst machine, which is
now preparing feverishly than ever for WAR!
What is it that Roosevelt found so admirable in
Gompers, the who built up the most reactionary
trade union bureaucracy in the world?
1t Gompers' service TO the Wall Street impe-
rialist Morgan bankers during the last World War
slaughter that endeared Gompers to Roosevelt!
Roosevelt is especially thrilled by what he calls:
"the splendid cooperation which Gompers gave at
all times to the subject of the relationship of
labor to the government at the outbreak of the World
War
What was the nature of this splendid cooperation
for which the Wall Street agent Roosevelt eulogizes
the dead Gompers2
It consisted in the fact that Gompers was mem
Der of the Council of National Defense, side by side
with the military machinery of the Army and Navy,
side by side with the hard-eyed agents of the Morgan
Rockefeller Mellon Wall Street clique who there
to that the investments their financial masters
were adequately protected
Gompers splendid cooperation" in 1917 consisted
in the fact that he issued vile, hysterca appeals to
the American workers to submit meekly to the capt.
talist wage slavery at home and to being led to the
imperiaist slaughter on the battlefeds of Europe.
FROM his eulogy of Gompers Roosevelt then passes on
Tn Inc of toe And Tl1af
does III draw? He declares that the kind of service that
Gompers gave is "juSt necessary today in 1917"
And then Roosevelt the smiling darling of the lib
erals bares the ruling class violence that awaits those
to stand in the way of the oppressive nacn
cry of Wall Street
Gust as in 1917, seeking TO pull in harness;
Just in 1917, horses that kick the traces will
have to be put in a corral in those years few
happily very few horses had to be lassooed. and
today conditions very similar" he says.
Behind these illusions to the last war there is sin
lister meaning. There the promise of lynch hysters
murder, and the machine guns of State and Federal
troops
The workers of this country will remember what
happened to those horses who refused yoked TO
the chariot of peralist who refused to obey the
whip of the Wall Street war drivers.
Is 1t to the falling of Eugene Victor Debs that the
smiling Roosevelt refers with such satisfaction?
Is it to the insane hunt against the leaders Of
the Communist Party and all revolutionary workers
Is 1t to the savage Palmer raids to the murder OF
the worker Salsedo TO the shooting down of the Cen
trslia victims the shooting down Of strikers, that
Roosevelt refers when he talks lightly Of lassoong"
the disobedent horses and putting them IN corral"7
GAYS Roosevebs
THE situation u the today ryhts h no time
to seek special privilege insdicus voices seek
tnstil methods PRINCIPLES foreign 10 the American
form of democratic government We are putting
unseIfish patriotism first. f"
These words of Roosevelt smell of powder. They are
an onlinous echo of the 1917 betrayal and promise
of what is to come again.
In the massing of State troops sheriffs, deputies
against the steel and coal strikers today Pennsylva
ma, the workers the democracy" that Roose-
welt gives TO those horses who to be ground for
the profit of the capitalist bosses
Roosevelts call to the A. F. of L. officialdom Is a
signal TO them to be ready to do again the work that
Gompers did in 1917 1t is signal of approaching war
OF increasing Government violence against the working
class.
Er,ee