Page THE MILITANT Saturday, December 14, 1929 «Hoover Brings You Peace and Plenty. Third, year.
Italists.
Why We Publish The Militant The nursemaid to American capitalism, has delivered his message to Congress and sounded a militant note for the class that put him into office.
Hoover message was delivered in the face of three outstanding facts: First, the Bharpening of the competition between the United States and England for their respective shares of the world market, a struggle which is leading headlong towards war, however thinly the flight is concealed by disarmament negotiations.
Second, the resounding crash on the stock market which made hundreds of thousands, if not millions, dubious about the table of perpetual prosperity in the United States, and caused a panic in political and economic circles of the bourgeoisie.
Hoover reputation for being an efficiency man. one can so well regulate the balance wheels of national economy that all classes are able to live in an idyllic state of peace and well being.
What Price Kellogg Pact?
The first thing that Hoover message does is to disabuse the minds of those credulous souls who put two cents worth of faith in the Kellogg Pact cure all. Since its promulgation, there is no more peace on earth than there was before it. Hoover does not place any brighter prospects before us. He brushes aside all the Sunday School sermons of Kellogg and his flock on the new era of peace that was to ensue after that historic meeting in Paris.
He does not even tip his hat politely to the conversations with MacDonald that were to Inaugurate an epoch of pacific relations between the Anglo Saxon powers. His message opens up no vistas of peace, but plenty for a coming war.
In other words, he proposes for the next year appropriations (fiscal year of 1931) not only a larger budget in general than that of the previous year (an increase of more than 4, 000, 000. and not only a maintenance of expenditures for national defense (read: imperialist aggression. but a substantial increase for past and future wars. Out of every dollar spent by the government for the coming year, 72 cents will go to cover past and future wars. National defense appropriations are increased from the trifling sum of 692, 399, 804 to the sum of 719, 089, 388. It must further be borne in mind that the appropriations requested by the president are always lower than what is actually expendd; sums are always added later on by upplemental appropriations. Naval Progress It is no wonder that this increase, following the Kellogg Pact, the MacDonald conversations, and the proposal for the London Naval Conference next month, have aroused caustic comment in Europe. The French Imperialist press positively sneers.
The British press, with that tone of In.
Jured indignation in which a poorer shopkeeper criticizes the extranvagances of a richer neighbor, makes bold enough to point out that the United States is going too far for the British to keep up the pace. The British Navy, for instance, in 1913, had 2, 200, 000 tons, representing about 32 of the world total tonnage. Today it has about 1, 379, 000 tons, representing about 25 per cent of the total world tonnage. The United States navy, on the contrary, had 844, 000 tons in 1913, making about 12 percent of the total, Today It has 1, 261, 000 tons representing 24. percent of the whole That is, the United States has increased its war fleet to about the same extent as it has been decreased by Great Britain.
The United States is spending, for defense purposes, about 75 percent of the total. 1, 1000, 000, 00) spent by all countries on the European continent, except the Sovlet Union; and the population of Europe is some 300, 000, 000, almost three times that of the United States. Furthermore: England expenditures on military and associated purposes this year will run to some 580, 000, 000, that is, less than 50 percent of America proposed expenditure It is no wonder that the bold hussy of American chauvinism, Liberty, remarks cynically: little examination into history reveals that what Mr Hoover would like the British to give up is the power and glory of their empire Just that and no more!
As for Urlah Heep Hoover solicitoug.
ness over American imperialist troops in Nicaragua, Haiti, China and elsewhere, and his pledges to withdraw them as soon as possible not even an idiot can be deceived by them in view of the action he took days after his speech in the Haitian situation.
Hoover will withdraw the bayonet from the throat of Wall Street colonies on the very day when some enormous natural catastrophe sinks them all to the bowels of garded, in the polite terms of the capitalist press, as experimental. it still remains true that 600, 000 by no means COVers the mass of unemployed workers in the country which is constantly on the inBy Max Shachtman about What miraculous measures does crease.
Hoover propose to cope with unemploy Other industries, besides public works, the earth. His figures speak louder than ment? What are his pearls of wisdom? offer very dark prospects. The steel in his oaths: Apropriations requested for Listen, and then wonder at the ease with dustry is wobbly and has been declining the administration of territories and cle which windbags acquire a reputation for for months. Ingot production is about 70 pendencies rise from 872, 785 to 1, 918. wisdom and efficiency: The cure for such percent of capacity: scrap is having a very 693, an increase of more than 100 percent. storms is action; the cure for unemploy dull period; Fabricated steel plate orders tighter and not a looser stranglehold on ment is to find jobs. That is Hoover for October were 39 percent of capacity America subject peoples is Hoover pro literal contribution to the problem made as compared with 67. percent for last year.
gram. Imperialist aggression and not re at the business men conference in Wash The mining industry is notoriously rotten, treat is Hoover program. War, and not ington. New York Times, 12 1929. Even particularly from the viewpoint of the minpeace.
the most ignorant worker will now know ers whose wages are scarcer than they ve For the Workers at Home that the cure for his being without a job been in years. Copper is hard hit, and it The proposed budget offers nothing is to. get a job.
is no geasonal depression, either. Probetter to the working class at home, which Build! But How?
duction 18 being cut down radically; one faces a bad period presaged by the stock How? Through the magic formula: company has announced a 25 percent cut market collapse, the growing unemploy Public works, public construction, public in output; a cut in price is soon exécter, ment and a severe wage cutting campaign building. But the government itself does to start out with as much as cents. The all along the line not plan any additional public building building trades have been weak for months.
Compare the planned appropriation of and works. The new budget calls for an and a steady decline is obvious. survey 733, 213, 283 for wars. past and future appropriation of 246, 012, 061 on public of the auto industry; conducted by Busiwith the magnanimous appropriation for works, about a quarter of a million dollars ness Week, calls the three major problems public health: 20, 804, 072, a decrease of more than last year appropriation. That of the industry; a curtailment of promore than a million dollars since last is, there will be a continuation of employ duction to relieve the flooded market, need year Or for education: 14, 491, 938. Com ment, perhaps, but no increase for better relations with dealers, and pare the appropriation for conserving na But there is Secretary of Commerce continued expansion of foreign salse. The tional resources so that they may be bet Lamont announcement to the business end of this year and the beginning of the ter exploited to the profit of Hoover men conference of plans to set into monext will see lower auto production than class: 47, 798, 767, with the appropriation tion a volume of well over 2, 250, 000, 000 the record lows of recent months.
for aids to labor (whatever that means) for public works, with more than 600, 000 Hoover Offers No Solution of 6, 510, 170! Or the latter figure with men employed. But where will the capital This does not yet point to crisis, but that for alds to industry and trade (how come from? From those industries where it indicates a growing depression, And to get more profit for the capitalist class) it is now unprofitable, or less profitable Hoover offers no way out for the work 14, 922, 044 Or the refunds on taxes, cus than public works. withdrawal from ers for the simple reason that he cannot toms, etc. which Hoover presents to the those industries means lessened employment solve the multiplying contradictions or capstarving coupon clippers amounting to there. But capital will not be so easily italism, American capitalism included. 162, 528, 500, ten millions more than last attracted by the prospect of the long turn Hoover tries to folly his hearers into These figures bespeak the class over offered by public construction in the believing that the wage standards will be character of Hoover government as well United States. It will languish for the maintained. But to make this contention 18 or better than a mountain of abstract argu swifter returns and more magnificent to fly in the face of facts. Commodity prices mentation.
one contained in foreign investments.
That is where the trend of unemployed are becoming generally lower. Lamont What does Hoover propose for the amewarned the business men conference that lioration of the position of the American capital will be, as the well informed Dr.
workers?
the general level of commodity prices was Just so much tripe! With an Max Winkler has recently pointed out in between to points lower than last year.
admirable coolness he sees nothing basi his statement estimating steady increases Dun general index of consumer comcally wrong.
in foreign investments as well as in formodities shows an average of 188. 969 for The consequences of the stock market eign corporate purchases by American capDecember 1, 1929 as compared with 193. 543 crash are to be overcome with ease. GrowEven assuming the fantastic figfor a year ago. Bradstreet index showing ing unemployment is nothing to worry ures of Lamont (which are universally re the decrease in money form, points out that the average for December 1, 1929 was 12. 2367 as compared with 13. 1479 on December 1, 1928. The decrease in the cost of commodities, a process hastened by the rationalization of Industry, is inevitably accompanied by a decrease in wages. What The Militant ds little more than a year to sweeten, but to say honestly what is the American workers have as a prospect old, and although it began as a semi monthwhat.
to look forward to is an intense wage ly, it is now in its third 198ue as a weekly. The policy of Communism can only cutting campaign in every important indusThe delays occasioned by technical difficult gain by presenting the truth in all its try Hoover or no Hoover.
ies have been largely overcome and there clarity. Falsehood can serve to save falso But this will only bring about a further is every assurance that we will now appear authority but not to educate the masses. narrowing of the diminishing home market, regularly every week as a revolutionary It is truth that the workers need as an in which will do anything but help to increase organ of the class struggle.
strument of revolutionary action.
the output of American industry. The There are many papers published in Your weekly calls itself Verite (Truth. soothsayer of American capitalism has a this country which lay claim to the title This word has been abused a good deal, solution for this problem also. He proof labor and revolutionary. Why in that like so many others. Nevertheless, it is a poses the increase of American exports.
case is there a need for another paper? fine and honest name. Truth is always re In stimulating our exports we should be Do not the others suffice? No. It is be volutionary. To present the truth about mainly interested in development work cause we feel the imperative need of The their situation to the oppressed as to open abroad. for we gain in prosperity by a Militant that we have decided to bend all the road of the revolution to them. To tell prosperous world, not by displacing efforts to maintain it and develop its the truth about the leaders is to fatally others. Displace others. Perish the strength. The reasons for our existence as undermine the bases of their power. To tell thought! But it is only by displacing a special paper cannot be better stated the truth about the reformist bureaucracy others that capital and manufactured pro.
than the way in which they were put in is to ruin them in the minds of the workducts exports can be stimulated, and it a recent letter sent to our French brother ers. To tell the truth about the Centrists is is to make sure that the others can be organ, La Verite, by comrade Trotsky. to help the workers assure a correct leader displaced that Hoover is spending so Rallying Point ship in the Communist International. much money upon military, naval and There is the task of your weekly. All aerial defense. Rejecting the spirit of a literary coterie with its shabby interests and ambithe forms and manifestations of the labor The Struggle For Markets tions, Verite must rally around it all the movement must be loyally clarified. The Where will we export? To whom?
live and genuinely revolutionary elements attentive reader will have to be persuaded Is there some Atlantis, some hidden contiof the Communist Opposition. It is as nethat in order to know the truth about the nent or land on the face of the earth that cessary for the vanguard of the workers movements of the proletariat in France and is not already being disputed by the varas daily bread.
the world, he must look for it in Verite. ious imperialist buccaneers? An increase The relations of the workers press And in this way he will accept your of American exports can be accompanied point of view because it will present itwith its readers furnish the clearest verifonly by cutting into the share of other big self to him in the light of facts and figures.
cation of its political line. The reformists powers. American can overcome its own lle deliberately to the reader in the inte Only this current which, together with the depression and possible crisis only by rests of preserving the bourgeois regime.
workers and at their head, honestly seeks feeding on the waning reserves of the EuThe Centrists cover their hesitation, their the right orientation, will win to itself con ropean nations. But none of the European scientious and deyoted partisans who will lack of assurance, their capitulations and countries 19 as yet so exhausted and feeble their adventures with their deceit. They know neither disenchantment nor discours that it will lie unresistingly while the agement.
have no confidence in themselves, that is why American ogre continues to gobble up its With the aid of its fellow fighters in they lack confidence in their readers. They markets, Its sources of trade and imperialbelieve that the workers can be won only the ranks, this is the course that The Mili 1st life. Hoover was a good chap when he tant will pursue. It is for the reasons so with their eyes blindfolded. It is this spirit fed Europe after the war; he is not so succinctly put by comrade Trotsky that The that now imbues the press of the Communist good when he feeds on it.
International, It has no confidence in the Militant will continue to appear.
This rounds out the picture. The mounworkers. It takes them under its care like ting resistance of Europe to America atHttle children. It tells them fantastic tempts to escape the consequences of its stories. When they ask embarrassing quesNEW YORK internal difficulties at the Old Word extions it shakes its finger at them. That is pense, involves an ever more aggressive why apathy is established in the ranks of JAMBOREE policy on the part of both. contestants.
Hoover is not the most stupid representa the Party and the void enlarges around for the benefit of the tive of Wall Street (after all there have it.
WEEKLY MILITANT been Coolidges and Hardings in office. The mass of workers is not composed He is no seventh son of a seventh son, of sucklings. It is made up of men having SATURDAY, December 14, 1929, at but he can look into the very near future hard experiences. It does not tolerate at the and see the gathering clouds. He is orbureaucratic rule whose severity generally MILITANT HALL, 25 Third Ave.
ganizing his master machinery to meet the equals its foolishness. The worker does not situation Entertainment ask for orders, but for help in his political Program: His Congressional message indicates that he knows what he is about.
orientation. For that, we must above all Auspices: New York branch, The American workers don know tell him what is what, Not to distort, nor to Communst League They must learn. The bitter battles that select tendenciously, not to gloss over, not surely coming will heln to teanh the