The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-08-12


BIOGRAPHY OF A FORTUNE"
by Harvey 0'Connor. John Day
Co. $3.50.
Reviewed by HARRY CANNES.
IN Pittsburgh lives cadaverous
old man whose family controls
corporations of a total value Of S.
091 100000. His name is Andrew
Mellon. OF the SO men who rule
America, according to former am
bassador Gerard, Andrew Mellon is
listed second only to John d.
Rockefeller and precedes Morgan.
The life story of this skinny
sponge who can suck so much
wealth from the American workers
is told in MELONS Millions" by
Harvey O'Connor. q labor journal
ist and formerly head of the East
ern Bureau of the Federated Press.
Do you want to know what inn
perialism is? O'Connor has written
its meaning in the life Of this single
individual. Do you want an ex-
ample Of monopoly capitalism? Mel
monopoly in the United States, the
Aluminium Company of America,
with 40 subsidiaries in Canada,
Norway, Italy. Germany, Switzer-
land and India.
AN OCTOPUS
What is fusion Of finance and in
dustrial capital, creating a finance
oligarchy? The Mellon family, with
Andrew Mellon at its head. controls
the Mellon National Bank, the
the Union Trust Co. and % other
banks with resources Of over 81
O0o,000OO0, linked by a thousand
threads to the mightiest corpora
tons in Pennsylvania and through
out the country, with total assets
Of nearly 10000, 900.
Do you want an example, in the
living flesh, of what Lenin means
when he speaks of the fusion of the
finance oligarchy and the capital
ist state power?
Andrew Mellon was secretary OF
the treasury under three presidents.
dishing out 81 I'll 100000 in tax re-
funds to the biggest corporations,
not forgetting himself to the extent
Of 100000.
"The engine of state power"
says OConnOr, stood at the Mel
Ions command, not merely to
wiring petroleum concessions from
Sc m i-colonial governments, to
bless the acquisition of monopoly
privileges and to shift tax bur-
dens, but for the everyday pro-
tectich of the fanily's property.
A formidable army in the Pitts
burgh district alone-state troop
ers, city police, coal and iron po-
lice, deputy sheriffs, spies--was
hired to guarantee the MELONS
and fellow employers against the
success of movements aimed at
better wages and living conditions.
1t is this power the miners in
Pennsylvania now feel in their
strike for higher wages, and for
union recognition. O'Connor, how
ever, doesn't add that John l.. Lewis
and william Green are just as
much a tool of the MELONS and
Morgans as the capitalist state and
the spies and deputy sheriffs.
No war can be fought without
placing hundreds Of millions into
the Melons pockets. Every battle
ship and bombing plane that is
built sends dollars rolling into the
pockets OF the MELONS. Poison gas
turns into money for the MELONS.
O'Cont1or traces the story Of the
rise of the MELONS from the found
ing of the fortune up to the present
day.
ANDREW MELLON was born to
"A wealth The story of the growth
of the Mellon billions is the history
Of the rise of capitalism in the
United States, and peculiarly
enough traces the rise of capitalism
generally as described by Marx in
eCapital" and later by Lenin in
Imperialism"
Thomas Mellon, the father Of
Andy, was a money-lender and
tlsurer Like buzzard he fed on
the corpses Of financial failures. He
amassed his fortune on the mis-
fortunes of small mechanics and
home owners. Thomas, like Andy,
doomed and grew fat on crises.
At the end of the Civil War he was
already powerful financier. laying
the foundation for the Mellon bill
lions that the first imperialist war,
the Spanish American war, gave a
powerful impetus, and that the last
World War launched in its full
glory.
A FORMULA FOR PATRIOTS
Speaking of war, old Thomas
Mellon gave his sons some advice.
I'm time you will come to under
stand" he told his offspring, "and
believe that man may be a pa
triot without rlsking his own life or
sacrificing his health"
That should be great comfort to
the hundreds Of thousands of war
vets now starving.
Andrew Mellon coined millions
out OF the last World War From
his aluminium trust alone he made
s2o0o0,Ooo in 1876. Besides sup