FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1939 SOCIALIST APPEAI. LABOR WITH WHITE SKIN CAN NOT EMANCIPATE ITSELF WIIEK LAROK WITH BLACK SKIN BRANDED. KARL MARX.
THE NEGRO QUESTION For the Goose, Not the Gander HOOK COMMITTEE FORUM GOES The IN FOR SOME DIGNIFIED AND WAR DEAL DEMOCRATIC WAR MONGERING ALL FAIR AND SQUARE IN SPORTS EXCEPT FOR NEGROES other.
From Joseph Zack By JOHNSON, By DWIGHT MACDONALD particularly striking example of the state of justice in the By TONY CHAPMAN Fresh Wind This week am turning over this department to the National What Do the Negroes Themselves United States is provided by contrasting the fate of the con Assembling not inconsider Dr. Harry Gideonse, pres. Industrial Conference Board, statistical and research agency Think About the War?
spiracy indictments against Minneapolis WPA workers, and able number of dignitaries, the ident of Brooklyn College, in financed by big business. In 1929 the Board published a volume he conspiracy indictments against 52 coal mine owners in To this question a Marxist replies automatically. Which Committee for cultural Free toned that We are experienc entitled Picture of World Economic Conditions at the BeginHarlan, Kentucky.
dom, formerly the League ing an Indian Summer of liber: ning of 1929. This was a most cheerful and optimistic work: the class of Negro are you inquiring about? Do you mean Negro In the Kentucky situation, the federal government had is Against Totalitarianism, held alism. Not many esoteric par booming twenties were at their highest period of prosperity, war workers and farmers or the Negro petty bourgeoisie the lawsued the indictments after an 11 weeks trial had shown that the first public meeting of its agraphs later. Dr. Gideonse had been outlawed by the Kellogg Pact, and all was for the yers, the doctors, the small businessmen, the stage performha coal bosses were guilty of perpetrating a reign of terror year old career at Town Hall, hopefully exclaimed that best in the best of all possible worlds. The speed and extent of ers? In the party pamphlet. Why Negroes Should Oppose the in which organizers were shadowed, beaten and fired upon; Friday evening. October 14.
War (J. Johnson, 32 pages, 5c. there is a section on the union meetings were dispersed, union sympathizers beaten Apprehensive lest his guests progressive America. This ex matic proof of the superiority of Marxist to bourgeois economie Negro petty bourgeoisie and the war. There it is pointed out that and imprisoned and the son of a union organizer slain. But compromise the Committee a ponent of cultural freedom in theory. And an excellent index as to just how catastrophically because he has a standard of living higher than that of the Harlan County is an old story in the United States. Harlu little beyond the possibility of dexed his cosmic views re world capitalism has gone to pieces in the last decade is to be average Negro workers, farmer, or unemployed, the Negro petty County is an outstanding example of the bosses idea of indus apology, Sidney Hook, chair minding the audience that Any. found in the opening pages of this 1929 survey. So without further bourgeois act essentially as agents of American imperialism. To trial democracy.
quote one passage from the pamphlet. 22. Indictments against Bosses Are Dropped mainstay there is no existence, pancenteresteleurial three con tan commenter online column to the nation me redustrian Conference And so, for the sake of the crumbs and bones that they get Did the federal government press the indictments against warned the audience at the America can learn more from Board.
from the big table, they are quite prepared to sacrifice the in the coal bosses? IT DID NOT. On October 2nd, this year the opening of the meeting that the thoroughly native philoso. Universal Will to Maintain Peace terests of the majority of the Negroes. They are the most dan federal government moved for a dismissal of conspiracy Each speaker does not neces phy of John Dewey. Justiee gerous people. It is they who deceive the Negroes every time charges against the fifty two coal companies and operators sarily speak for the Committee Brandels or of Henry David The year 1928, begins the first chapter, has witnessed They, despite their black skin, are no more than agents of the named. And did the federal judge chime in with this move? for Cultural Freedom. Each Thoreau than from the deter many noteworthy developments in the field of International relawhite imperialists. They are not saying much now, but when the HE DID. The propriety and wisdom of the government acspeaker speaks for himself. minist theories of Karl Marx. tions and in economic and political conditions in individual countime comes, they are going to shout for democracy as loudly as tion (in moving for the dismissal of the indictments) seems Big Hearted Walter Krivitsky, former tries. These developments have on the whole been favorable to a American ruling class. Meetings will be held at which so meritorious have no other action to take, said Federal these Negro traitors will speak and agitate and do their best to Mr. Hook, who refused to stalinist chief in the Red Army. continuation of the progress which has been made in recent Judge Ford.
take responsibility for the pro in a fifteen minute speech, toid seated maladies caused by the unprecedented economic and po bluff the Negro pepole to take part in a war and be deceived and But in Minneapolis federal indictments for conspiracy are nouncements of his guests. the maltreated just as they were in the last war for democracy.
being placed against poor people, against jobless workers. hypocritically attacked the So de audience that Stalin is a tonical upheaval of ten years ago. The formation of the League of talitarian a real revelation.
The bait that they will dangle will be promises of a better cialist Appeal as a totalitarian It was these jobless workers who were sinned against by the Nations: the creation of the World Court: the establishment of world. etc. etc.
But of the menacing en the Dawes Plan; the Disarmament Conference in Washington: government, who were shot at and gassed and wounded and midget in view of the fact that Now this is undoubtedly true. And we have evidence of it slain and thrown in jail at outrageous bail and treated like its editors refused said Mr. freedom in the democratic Locarno treaties: and finally, the signing of the Multilateral upon cultural the admission of Germany to the League; the conclusion of the already. But the Negro petty bourgeoisie, unlike the white petty felons.
Hook, to print a notice of the nations no one had much to say. Treaty for the Renunciation of War by the United States, bourgeoisie, is cut off very sharply from participation in the Indictments against Workers Are Pressed meeting because they didn general life of American capitalist society. American race preju Yet, has the federal government moved for a dismissal of like what the speakers were go College, did deplore the signs Paris on August 27, 1928 all indicate that the nations of the George Hartman. of Teachers France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, anti ten other nations in dice, designed to keep the Negro state of subjection and to the indictments against the Minneapolis workers? IT HAS maintain a division between the Negro and the white workers. NOT. It is pressing them ever more harshly.
Mr. Hook, although antiously of cultural restrictions in Eng world are replacing the old system of checks and balances, Endifferentiates very little between the poor Negro and the middle Justice is of two kinds in these so called democratic United warning the audience against Land and France, but declared tentes and defensive and offensive alliances by a new conception class Negro. Both suffer almost equally from racial discrimina States. There is the kind of justice the employers receive.
the speakers, was nevertheless nevertheless that Britain stin of international relations based on mutual understanding and tion. Thus the Negro petty bourgeois press reflects the senti And there is the kind of justice the workers get.
sufficiently ample hearted to preserves freedom, as one can universal will to maintain peace.
ments of the large masses Negroes, even though, when things It is this sort of democracy that the war mongers are sponsor a meeting for them. see from the free debates om Enter the Practical Business Man come to a showdown, it declares for the program and policy of preparing to ask us to defend. Ugh. In their efforts to maintain harmonious relations among the American imperialism. Nowhere can this be seen more clearly (From the Northwest Organizer, October 12, 1939)
have been unjustified, for which the British workers enthan in the writings of the Negro press on the war and the among his celebrated guests Joy now that totalitarian war is nations, the governments have been materially assisted by priv present international situation.
were war mongering College on the order of the day, Mr. ate individuals. The work of diplomats and statesmen, of mis presidents and social demo Hartman explained away with tary experts and professional politicians is being supplemented The Negro Press on the War crats, and pro war labor bur the phrase that The spirit of by that practical business men, leaders of industry and finThe Pittsburgh Courler is one of the best of the Negro weekly eaucrats.
Hyde Park still lives.
ance, economists and statisticians. At no other time in the hissheets. It fights some valiant battles for the Negro cause. It was Although cultural freedom, Not one person attending the tory of the world has the cooperation of public officers and prly one of the few Negro papers to wage a campaign on behalf of such as it under capitalism, meeting could have learned ate enterprise been so intimate and so forceful as during the last Negro entry into and support of the CIO. one of the three greatis being rapidly extinguished from any of the speakers that few years. Often in the past, the conflict of commercial interests est steps forward of the Negro in American history during the everywhere under the heels of the United States is being has been the cause of, or the excuse for, war largely because the last hundred years. The Courier has taken the lead in the strug.
totalitarian war, the majority drawn into the world war, with representatives of Industry and trade had no opportunity to sit gle for the entry of Negro players into major league baseball. It has battled for the right of Negroes to entry into the American BOSTON When Boston Col Abolitionism, Montgomery was Germany. Fascist Italy and nomic freedom. Indeed, not one the prosperity of his business is bound up with the general prosSpootad to the socialist Appeal. ment in this once classic elty of selves to attacks upon Nazi tural, political, social and eco: The growing influence of private business on state policies is. army on the same conditions as the whites and for equal facilities in training as air pilots. The Socialist Workers Party, the lege locked horns with Florida taken from the line up.
Stalin Russia.
Fourth International, are opposed to Imperialist war. But the this Saturday in an important That the color of skin is Will Schlamm, social demo mention the inroads against perity of his country, and this principle he applies to internation Socialist Workers Party fully supports the rights of Negroes to intersectional gridiron contest, enough to upset the beauties of crat, reported the news that cultural freedom already al relations: the prosperity of his country can not be maintained participate in American life with the fullest equality, including Lou Montgomery, star Boston sport is another of the lessons cultural freedom does not ex threatened in this country as trying to eliminate one of the causes of warunreasonable and at the expense of other nations. The leaders of industry are entry into the army. If any Negro is ass enough to wish to go to back, watched the game from to be assimilated in a study of ist in Nazi Germany result of President Roosevelt fight for American democracy of his own free will, it is his the stands Mainstay of his contemporary American dem Frances Winwar, declared decree proclaiming a state of illegitimate competition for world markets.
privilege The paper has a great reputation among the team. Montgomery was yanked ocracy.
that under Mussolini only sec limited national emergency. Peace on Earth.
Negroes. It sells for ten cents which the poorer Negroes cannot from the line up days in adond rate authors are able to their silence on this point was The signing of the Multilateral Treaty for the Renunciation pay. It maintains a large start and is essentially the paper of the Vance.
flourish.
painfully evident.
of War on August 27, 1928, by representatives of fifteen nations Negro petty bourgeoisie. The Pittsburgh Courier has on its staff Reason for his absence from has been hailed throughout the world as a most significant conMr. George Schuyler, one of the most brilliant journalists in the same is that Lou Montgom DEFENSE SHATTERS tribution towards the advancement of peace. As finally Ebony Eel, is a Negro. Gil adopted and signed, the Treaty is a plain declaration on the word a revolutionary paper.
part of the signatory powers that they condemn recourse to war The Pittsburgh Courier has naturally been commenting on Dobie, Boston coach, according for the solution of international controversies, and resource it as the war. What it says, and still more what it does not says or to the sports columnist of the IN MPLS. TRIAL an instrument of national policy in their relations with one anBoston Evening American, the utmost importance for the revolutionary movement.
On March 29, the Courier published a cartoon on the war en: sop to the ethnological prejuwithdrew Montgomery as (Continued from Page The right of all states to wage a defensive war is not denied titled Ringside Seat. The cartoon showed two boxers, one labeled dices of the Southern team. PA workers all over the coun by the Treaty, nor does the Treaty define what constitutes a de Democracies and the other Dictatorships. The referee was fensive war. Each nation is. the sole judge of what constitutes military looking gentleman labeled Imperialismo sulla the sisted the ethnological presu. You have a right to strike and the right of self defense and the necessity and extent of the Pacific Islanders, and Malays. The chief editorial of that issue ingene Negro Backans onyx 480 to be careful, however. There in an edition of your public. the possible suppression of the example, to fight for Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Poland, RumanIn reference to the issue of same. The Treaty does not restrict the right of France, for expressed the following sentiments. The democracies and the dictatorships are preparing to equality. Had the ethnological and hotheads around, not to 1939. you are quite free in the course in favor affirm the principle of racial are always a few screwballs tion Trotskyite. of October Communist Party. am of in, or Jugoslavia, her allies.
fighting to The Treaty enunciates a great moral principle. It would do BATTLE in the near future The referee is IMPERIALISM, who stands ready to award team risen to the point where spies. You understand if any. Ben Gitlow and myself for ap if it would come to power, will be, but there seems to be no doubt that it is a step in the prejudices of the Southern mention the provocateurs and epithets you use of condemning the limit any movement that be useless to speculate what the practical value of the Treaty The stake is the right to EXPLOIT the darker peoples of they refused to take the field, one gets tough with you, you pearing before the Dies Com would suppress everyone else right direction. For this reason, the signing of the Anti War Boston College would have won have got to take it. mittee You raise the issue don have to tell you that the treaty stands out as the most notable achievement of 1928.
the world. The Kellogg Treaty is also responsible for the negotia The audience consists of the vast MAJORITY of those who ery, deliberately engineered by Pemble declared that he and sion of the Communist Party available democracy in this tions for the conclusion of treaties of mutual friendship between happen to be NON WHITES.
the chauvinist Southern ers. the other WPA They have NO FAVOIRITE, because it makes NO DIF would have had its desirable ef protesting in the workers were resulting from the activities of country for no other purpose Russia and her other neighbors, particularly with Poland.
the best tradition the Dies Committee, condemn than to suppress it completely On the basis of a detailed analysis of the whole field of FERENCE to them which party WINS the fight.
They are ONLY interested in the bout taking place as fect among the Boston rooters. of the American working class ing those who appear before the and entirely for their own ben Germany economic life, the Agent General for Reparation SOON AS POSSIBLE.
Instead, under the increasing against the savage attack on Dies Committee as alding in efit, the same as the Bund Payments concludes that Fundamentally, confidence has been Now this on the surface is a most bloodthirsty attitude. But pressure of anti Negro sents their living standards. We that suppression.
were only exercising our con May ask you whether you the same as they have done in cern on a relatively high level of economic activity, the editorial had its very good reason for wishing this destrucstitutional right to strike and yourself would refuse appear those countries where they have Among the so called Succession States, which came into tion: picket, he explained, adding there if subpeonaed and run the acquired power. would prefer existence as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, Czechoslovakia The AUDIENCE knows that the destruction of white civilszation means the EMANCIPATION of colored people, and that that the issue of free speech risk of going to fall for con however, that they be sup has shown the greatest economic power and political stability.
and other civil liberties was al tempt? May also ask you pressed by public ostracism The Practical Business Man Again explains why they eagerly await the opening gong.
so involved in the protest. whether you, when appearing. rather than by any administraIt is only fair to The editorial is anxious for the destruction of both camps bethat the National Industrial Conference Pemble stated that workers would lie in favor of the Com tive measures, for it is obvious Board arrived at the conclusions quoted above in the most im (Continued from Page 1)
cause it knows that there is no essential difference as far as colored people are concerned between democratic imperial cation of the war situation such as nursing were not asked lie, what good would tha in certain essential projects, munist Party, and if you did that the public and the workers peccably scientific manner. For each of these fantastic (as of do to in particular will cor to the 1939) misjudgements, there ism and It the soundest statistical foundaThe democracies which now CONTROL the dark world bread is likely to be best buted free exit and entry to their bies Committee could prove tion adopted by the American to the volume: In the preparation of its publications, the Na have never extended DEMOCRACY to the dark world.
out of your own printed articles Labor Party, namely that they tional Industrial Conference Board avails itself of the experience THEIR meaning of democracy is for WHITE PEOPLE only, until the United States takes ac1. Sune direktorships FRANKLY DECLARE that if they win and Russia intentions become ANNOUNCEMENTS unions and other organizations manitarian, anti labor and the bership ande at recognized authorities viens poc compose its meme THEY will do as the democracies HAVE DONE in the past.
clearer.
trols. Would you undertake to ship. The democracies as frankly declare that IF they win they The Japanese have conse SEE SPLENDID FRENCH deny that the Stalin borbrutal betrayers of the la publications of the Board thus finally represent the result of scimovement.
entific investigation and broad business experience.
will CONTINUE to do as they HAVE BEEN doing.
quently announced their inten FILM, End of a Day. The. Russian Secret Service. In You know as well as do that a solid, responsible scholarly institution which goes haywire only In other words, the National Industrial Conference Board is An Indication of Revolutionary Instincts tion of going ahead next month atre party, Oct. 23 thru 27. fact, controls the activities of even the most reactionary dem along lines approved of by the best business and statistical.
Here is an astonishingly clear characterization of the real plans. Just how much success with their puppet government Tickets: Downtown Labor the Communist Party here. ocrat in this country is far brains of the country. Its fantasies are not its own individual nature of the great forces which are now tearing civilization they are likely to have can be Center, 51 st. or Na when, in fact, the Dies Commit more democratic than Stalin day dreams but the hallucinations of the ruling class as a whole aparte Note particularly that sentence which states that even gauged by their experiences of tional Office (Caldwell. 65c. tee could quote your own print mercenaries, who parade their alleged radicalism as a mere This clear vision into the fundamental nature of modern the past two years with the BLACK WITCH RIDES AGAIN! ed words to that effect.
cats meow. goblins row.
You will probably say that trap to the workers. The democsociety, this rage at its pretences, this desire for emancipation up in different parts of China.
INCIDENT ONLY DAYS LEFT ANTE. HALLOWE EN AN you would make speeches racy in this country with all its at whatever cost, are what we mean by the revolutionary in. They are, moreover, likely to Dies Committee at faults and essentially capital TICS at the Downtown Labor the same time as you affirm istic character does not depend of the man who went to a And then there is the story Stinch of the Negroes. And this is why the Fourth International be given even less time now to Special Pre Publication Offer states that the place of the Negro is in the vanguard and not at make their new creation look Oct. 21 at 8:30 Enter the facts, in which case, let me on Mr. Dies or any other indt. socialist meeting to boo the the tail of the revolutionary movement.
assure you that the speeches viduals. It is inherent in the speakers and was just in like something more than a tainment (Honest. The Courler editorial naturally makes a great error in badly stuffed corpse you would make would appear system but the system of one time to see the meeting thinking that the blacks can stand aside in the coming war. Meanwhile Russia Inten. BOOKS BOUGHT in lots or in nowhere except in your own lit. party domination of govern. broken up by the cops. But Colored people were compelled to fight in the last war. The tions with respect to China re.
BOOK ON single volumes. Estimates the paper, whereas the facts ment ownership by the bureau m an anti socialisti he Africans are being compelled to fight in this one, and if the main studiedly obscure. If it given on request. Wrlte or you would affirm would be cracy of all economic and poprotested. don give a workers of America, black and white, do not stop Roosevelt by is true that hostilities have been visit Labor Bookshop. 116 flashed across all the newspa litical institutions has been re.
damn what kind of socialist University Place, working class action, then the American Negroes will be com or are about to be resumed on pers of the country, in a man vealed as the instrumentality to you are, roared the copper pelled to fight when American capitalism goes in.
the Mongolian frontier and if ner that you would not like. expropriate not only the capas he gave the man skuli but over which you, the same italists, but to expropriate also it is true that Russian planes. World in Flames another caress with his The Petty Bourgeoisie Cannot Lead PRICE for vol 00 as myself, would have absolute the workers of all their rights.
nightstick. in Russian)
The Courier makes a still greater error when it thinks that participated in last week raid ly no control. When was first The workers cannot be exproSpeaker. POST PUBLICATION emancipation for Negroes can come from the mutual destruction on Japanese coupled Hankow, ALBERT GOLDMAN interviewed by the counsel of priated of property which they PRICE 00)
of the groups of white imperialists, with the people of color just Stalin may be planning to imat the Dies Committee two months do not own, but when they are stepping in to gather up the spolls. The root of this monumental plement this European diplo: St. Paul SWP Headquarters ago, said to him that if sub expropriated of their rights. es over all things, economic This special offer until error lies in the neglect of that most important fact which the matic blitzkrieg with Far East147 West 5th St. peonaed could of course not then a country becomes a huge and political, shall and will reOCT. 15 ONLY editorial noted that even among the white people democracyern moves sooner than the JapOCTOBER 25th P. refuse to appear and when ap concentration camp. regiment main intransigent opponents of is only for he few. That is the key to the emancipation of Ne anese, at least, had expected.
pearing would not lie in favor ed by a bureaucracy, organized the kind of slavery totalitarian Send check or o. to: The political battle is of the Communist Part into a totalitarian party. Under part their splinter groes and the oppressed colonial peorecognize that in essentials unity among both these groups who But can the Negro petty bourgeoisie give trustworthy revolu you do otherwise?
such a set up, one or more in springs stand for. Therefore, far RUSSIAN OPPOSITION capitalist democracy is a fraud for all the working people, white tionary leadership? Can we trust it to correct itself and give the It is not my fault if the mere dividuals can engineer a des be it from me henceforth to BULLETIN and black, and offers them nothing but continual crises, fascist Negroes political leadership and organization necessary to trans statement of known facts about potism over all. This kind of sympathize with any of them, 116 University Place New York, dictatorships, and ultimately imperialist war. That is the un late powerful revolutionary urge into concrete action against that party discredits them in slavery for which you too stand. even if they get paid back in shakable basis of the Fourth International.
the war? Not at all. The outstanding characteristic of the betty the extreme. As to what the explains better than anything their own coin.
But what we must note is this. If the Negro petty bourgeois bourgeoisie is instability, and in succeeding articles we shall see Dies Committee does or intends your stand on this question and Very truly yours Help Us Distribute expresses himself in these drastic terms about imperialist war, how the Negro petty bourgeoisie, while reflecting the tremento do with my testimony, or the nonsense of your polemic.
JOSEPH ZACK we can have some conception of what are the real sentiments of dous revolutionary drive of the Negroes, is in reality one of the how the newspapers report any I, and others, however, who The Socialist Appealthe great masses of Negroes in every country who feel upon their most dangerous forces misleading the Negroes in the present testimony, this of course is be see in Socialism a system which (See editorial page for crisis.
backs the unmitigated blows of capitalism.
yond my control.
Igives more rights to The Anti War Paper mass answer. Behind the Lines TROTSKY STALIN Wo