The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-07-14
LABORATORY
AND SHOP
Notes on Science and Technology

LtotdACA lDDc AZ eA0 70 90 week.
/ The engineering codes have pro-
posed wages Of fifty cents an hour
for highly-trained men. Capital
ism has no special favors for the
scientist or technician And as the
situation gets more desperate, the
same punishment that befell scient-
lists in Germany will be meted out
here.
Under a fascist dictatorship in
America, all the present tendencies
in science and technology would
continue-at an accelerated speed.
There would be mass unemployment
Of scientific workers. There would
be murders and imprisonment Of
those scientists who dared to tell
the truth. Those finding work
would be serfs Of the war machine.
Science would become completely {
subordinated to the goals of un-
reason and death-and Profits.
CHEMISTS have nothing to gain
from the continuance Of cap
italism. A few big shots, hypocrites,
lickspittIes, and just plain or fancy
liars, have got fat jobs. But what
Of the numbers of brilliant young
scientists who can not get positions
Of any sort? What of the CON-
tinuous shrinkage in scientific bud-
gets? What of becoming an intel
lectual wet-nurse to a major or an
ensign? What of devoting ones
life and talent TO killing more and
more people in less and less time?
AS capitalism decays the position
of the scientist will grow progges-
sively worse. The general crisis Of
capitalism has undermined the ma
terial basis of further scientific
progress. Every accentuation of the
capitalistic crisis means CORES
spondingly deepened crisis in scien-
tific work.
There is but, one road that
scientists can take if they wish to
escape the fate of their German as
sociates. That way Is to link their
struggle with the great struggle Of
the revolutionary working class for
a socialist society. Alone, the tech
nicians and scientists can do
nothing. They must not let false
prophets delude them into believ-
ing that they stand above the class
struggle, that they must strive for
an orIrtOrranv NJ broi1r a~d fanh
nique. Behind all such false
schemes is the hidden or open de-
Tense of capitalism. And the ex-
perience of engineers and scientists
has taught them only too well that
capitalism and scientific progress
have become incompatible.
Subsidies TO Bugs
FARMERS, besides being haraSSed
by the A. A. A. and the bank
ers, are now fighting one Of the
worst droughts in the history of the
country. The drought has deprived
the farmers crops Of necessary
water, and it has encouraged and
multiplied insect pests and plant
diseases.
Grasshoppers, for example, thrive
on the drought The return Of this
pest to western farming regions has
dated from the drought year of
1880. Dry soil, especially when win-
tiers are mild, preserves their eggs,
and dry soil in the spring is con-
ducive to their Matching. This
years unprecedented drought has
been unusually kind to the grass
hoppers. Swarms of them are eat
ing their way from the Dakotas TO
Mexico, and from there to the
Pacific Coast.
The deadly chinch bug has also
profited from the drought. Dry soil
makes easy the migration of this in
sect through the grain belt. Up to
now the chinch bug has been doing
more than his bit to support the
scarcity program of Roosevelt,
Wallace and the A. A. A.
Fungus plant diseases such as
wheat scab and the black stem rust
Of grains are also hourishing. The
dry air is unusually favorably for the
transportation of their spores, and
the dew on plant leaves iupplies
the moisture needed for termination
and development of the creeping
fingers of these parasites.
AS a footnote to the spread of
these insect and plant plaques it
should be pointed out that the last
Congress cut the appropriations Of
all governmental technical and ex-
perimental bureaus. The farmer in
his fight against his insect enemies
is denied the advantages of scien-
tiflc knowledge. If he won't destroy
his crops, the capitalists see to it
that the bugs carry out the crop-
reduction plans of the A. A. A.