2.
THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE Saturday, August 9, 1919 The Revolutionary Age to make war or peace independent of Congress There is much discussion of the causes of by simply so maneuvering foreign policy as to these race riots, one of the most disgraceful Combined with The New York Communist leave Congress no other course but to approve aspects of American civilization. Some ascribe The President in these matters is practically them to the insolence of the Negro; others to Dictator. Shortly before this country went to the decline of faith in God, still others to the war.
National Organ of the Left Wing Section war, Colonel George Harvey in the North American Review declared that we need not Socialist Party look to the Kaiser or the Czar for the example in the sense that it has generated ideals of The war is an important factor, not simply LOUIS FRAINA, Editor of an autocrat: there was a bigger autocrat in force, but in the sense that it has developed a JOHN REED, Associate Editor.
the White House citing Wilson course tomore militant spirit of resentment and indeEADMONN MACALPINE, Managing Editor ward Mexico and Germany as proof.
pendence in the Negro. During the war they The President is Dictator. The framers of were flattered; in the army and in the munition the American Constitution consciously ar plants they were necessary and were the equal Owned and Controlled by the Left Wing ranged things so as to baffle the will of the of the whites; they have been in the fight to Section of the Socialist Party masses in relation to the vital functions of realize democracy but now they discover that NATIONAL COUNCIL government: their was the real instinct of a they are condemned to the old conditions of ruling class. Certain functions of government discrimination and inferiority. The fighting ohn Ballam Ruthenberg were not assigned either to Congress or the spirit is still strong in them, and they rebel.
Max Cohen Benjamin Gitlow President; but with the development of comThe antagonisms between the Negroes and James Larkin Ferguson plexity in industry and government, these the whites has become merged in the economic Bertram Wolfe functions have been usurped by the Presiproblem or rather, the economic problem is dency. Imperialism completes the develop used to foment race hatred. The war has disI. Ferguson; National Secretary ment of centralizing all vital functions of gov turbed American economic conditions, causing ernment in an executive autocracy.
a very important migration of all labor, but Issued Weekly. Gitlow, Business Manager.
particularly of Negro labor. Competition for 50. a copy. Six morths, 50. One year, 00. Trade Union Congress jobs is multiplied, and a racial struggle deveBundle orders, 10 or over, 372 cents a copy.
lops instead of a class struggle against Capitalism.
43 West 29th Street, New York City. THE international Trades Union Congress now in session at Amsterdam, is a peculiar The new sense of independence in the Negro but instructive affair. The one struggle there, must be bent to the uses of the militant labor is a struggle of conservatism against conser movment. The Negro is justified in his revatism. while in the open spaces beyond, the sentment; even though the offended party, the proletariat is revolutionizing the old world and Negro does not incite the riots; in Washington the spirit of action fires the imagination. and Chicago whites started the trouble. But Confiscatory Much of the time of the Congress has been the Negro and the white worker, equallyconsumed in making the German delegation is suicidal, promotes the supremacy of their must be made to realize that this race struggle AMERICAN capital claims that the Mexican issue an avowal of guilt and repentance conGovernment is confiscating its property in oil cerning the war. The Germans made an exjoint oppressors. But the white workers, unwells.
planation; the Congress accepted it but did fortunately, misled and deceived, do not realize this. The of recently decided to allow Now comes another cry of confiscation. The not express its satisfaction: so each faction Congress of Sonora, Mexico, in the introducclaims a victory the Germans at having done simply to perfect the job trusts and conNegro workers into the unions but this was tion of a national agrarian policy, has decided their explanation accepted, the other at the trol the influx of Negro labor. But the other to nationalize certain lands and pay for them Congress not having expressed its satisfaction day the Federated Employees Association of in agrarian bonds. The Mexican land ownat the explanation. Surely, these are great the Pennsylvania Railroad resolved against the ers must submit to this law; but the American proletarian problems. This is waging the class employment of Negro workers on that system; and other foreign owners protest, and demand struggle!
and at least four distinct divisions of labor the protection of their governments by means Nothing creative is coming out of this Con affiliated with the Association are identified of intervention. In other words, they aim to gress. The old bureaucratic officials are there, with the of break the laws of Mexico and its national sov and they do not represent the new revolutionereignty by means of armed force.
The old unions have discriminated against ary upsurge in the unions; in fact the Conthe Negro, as they have discriminated against The cry of confiscation is subterfuge. Cap gress is trying to crush the revolutionary the unskilled and the Orientals. Most Negro italist accumulation is itself a process of conspirit.
labor is unskilled, which makes the Negro fiscation. confiscation of national resources, of But the trades unions are not the solid con problem economically a phase of the larger the wealth produced by the workers, of the servative force that they were. Vital currents problem of the unskilled generally. This proproperty of small producers. It is thievery. are developing currents of revolutionary ini blem is most important, and will become the This thievery in Mexico was enormous. Under tiative and action. The transformation in test of revolutionary Socialism.
the Diaz regime foreign particularly Ameri political and economic condition must neces The American proletariat is composed largecan capital thieved the natural resources of sarily transform the unions. It is a vital task ly of the Negro and the foreigner, both of the Mexican people. Robbery, fraud and mur of the Communist Party to faciliate this trans whom are mostly unskilled workers. In order der were the accompaniments of this process formation.
to break the of and develop a revoluof confiscation. Now the Mexican Government tionary union movement, it is necessary to proposes to discipline foreign capital, make it vaken and mobilize the unskilled. The Negro.
subservient to the law, and restore these reaccordingly, constitutes a vital problem of our sources to the Mexican people. The cry of revolutionary movement. The race problem is confiscation uttered by American capital is VIOLENT clashes, involving large numbers simply a phase of the general social problem, a hypocrisy and a deception.
of white and colored men, have occured which the Communist revolution alone can in a number of cities. The experience of Wa solve.
shington was repeated in a much more tragic The President Power form in Chicago, where scores of dead are the aftermath of the riots.
The of BOURGEOIS liberals are cracking their heads, Chicago represents an armed camp, with in the peace treaty controversy, over the power of the Presidency. They lament that President might well yearn to be in Petrograd and MosTerror supreme. The citizens of Chicago mystic realms of world reconstrucWilson, independent of Congress and without tion, President Wilson is again in the cow, where riotous disturbances are now the sanction of the Senate, made certain commud of reality. The general and acute dismittments at the Paris Conference and that he things of the past. And it is interesting to content at the high cost of living has comis using his bludgeon power to compel an acobserve that, at the moment the press is urging pelled the government to consider the problem.
the American government to restore order During the war people were partly reconceptance.
in Mexico and Soviet Russia, order is not ciled with the high cost of living by means It is a fact that the President has the power maintained in the United States.
of more regular employment, partly terrorized The Negro Pogrom