Open forum, vol. 1, no. 4 (December, 1924)

" THE OPEN FORUM

Radicalism is the morning costume of common sense. _

vou ds

EDUCATION

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, DECEMBER 27, 1924

FOR PEACE

A Real Peace Talk for Christmastide

or any other Season

By ANNIE RILEY HALE

The simplest, most effective way to abolish war as

an institution is to speak and teach the plain truth

about war as an institution. War as at present or-

dered and conducted, could not command popular

support for a moment, but for.the elaborate myths

with which the war mongers have ingeniously con-

trived to invest it. Take away the beautiful lies

from the war technique, strip it of its various camou-

flages, patriotics, national honor, national defense

and what not; make it stand forth in all its hideous

' nakedness for what it really is, and there will be

found `none so poor to do it reverence" or lend it

support. It will cease automatically.

The best practical aid which the United States

can render the movement for world peace, therefore,

is to advocate the creation of an international agency ~

for conducting an educational propaganda along the

line of popular disillusionment concerning war

myths. Let such an educational campaign begin

with the children, in the homes and in the schools.

Teach young boys that dying on the battle-field is

not "dying for their country"; that slaughtering the

youth of other lands is not `"`protecting the country."

What the country needs protection from above every-

thing else, is that false, vicious idea. A nation so

ignorant, stupid, and bestial as to imagine its welfare

could ever be subserved by killing off the flower of

its manhood-sealing the sacrifice in the most cruel

and brutalizing of all pastimes,-inflicting incalcul-

able hardship and sorrow on its own and other coun-

tries, doesn't need martyrs. It needs teachers. It

doesn't need men to die for it; it needs both men and

women to live for it, and try to bring it to a saner

point of view.

Everybody knows of course about the cruelty,

waste, and horror of modern warfare; but everybody

doesn't know about the bunkum in the militarist pro-

paganda, which keeps the war spirit alive. The old

tribal and feudal tradition of "loyalty to the clan,"

which was the animating principle in past wars, still

persists in the minds of many people of limited

vision and unthinking acceptance of anything bear-

ing the impress of "authority." They do not rea-

lize that times have changed, and that modern so-

cial and industrial conditions render those ancient

fealties null and void.

The first sound in the new anti-war message for

the young generation should be a clear notion of

the historic back-ground of war. In primitive times,

'- when it was the fashion of the tribes to fall on

each other without warning and carry off the women

and booty, then it was every man's duty to take up

'an axe or a club and "defend his own fireside.' In

~ modern times the policemen and the firemen defend

the "firesides,' and the police and fire patrol are

' likely to be ag efficient under one civilized govern-

ment as another. Moreover, there was a community

of interests among those primitive peoples which

does not obtain any where today under modern in-

dustrial conditions. The rise of machine industry

and the consequent enthronement of capitalism have

drawn a sharper economic division between the own-

ing and borrowing classes, employers and wage

earners, than any political or racial divisions exist-

ing between nations; and there is a more hostile

frontier between organized capital and organized

labor in all the countries of today, than any estab-

lished by political States or geographical boundaries.

Teach the young generation to differentiate be-

tween governments and peoples; that the obliga-

tion subsisting between the two must be mutual,

reciprocal; and that no government which is not

administered impartially for the benefits of all the

people has any just claim on the unqualified support

of all the people. The primary object in all civilized

government. was to give protection to the weak

against their natural oppressors-their physical or

financial superiors. The net result of civilized gov-

ernment-as the experiment has worked out in every

civilized country, is to put an additional whip in the

hands of the strong with which to scourge the weak.

The state, in other words, has become the instru-

ment of the ruling class-which is the capitalist class

-by which it bends the mass of the people to its

purposes, even to forcing them to sacrifice their

lives in defense of capitalist interests. Thus the

state, instead of being the protector of the humble

citizen has become his executioner.

The circumstances under which the United States

entered the World War and the method of its prose-

cution, furnish ample evidence of this. While the

man power of the country was impressed into mili-

tary service 100 per cent, the great manufacturing

and shipping interests for whose benefit the war

was fought-were taxed only 30 per cent of their

excess profits. For surely, whatever honest differ-

ences of opinion might obtain about the necessity

or expediency of entering the war, there could hard-

ly be two opinions about the justice of paying for

it out of the profits which the war itself created.

But instead it was financed by an unlimited bond

issue which mortgaged the future and depreciated

the currency to the point of inflated prices, entail-

ing additional burdens on the common people. These

undeniable facts, with the further facts of the inso-

lent trampling of the constitutional rights of the

citizen, and the flagrant violation of constitutional

law by the government officials of the war administra-

tion, forever negative the idea that this is "a gov-

ernment of, by, and for the people;" and justify

the belief that it is a government of, by, and for

predatory wealth. For war in the last analysis is not

caused by peoples, nor by rulers even; but by con-

flicting interests, which in the great majority of

cases are economic interests. The great Italian so-

ciologist, Achilles Loria, who made an exhaustive

study of 386 wars, reported 358 of them plainly

due to economic causes, and the remaining twenty-

eight though on their face religious in character,

were also influenced by ecanomic considerations.

Most of these economic conflicts and trade rival-

ries which make for war, come about among the

backward races in the outlying districts of the earth,

whose natural resources have tempted the exploit-

ing greed of swollen capital in search of new fields

of conquest. Defenders of the capitalist system-

and the wars which it inevitably breeds, usually try

to offset this economic interpretation of war by rais-

ing the cry of "Socialism" or "Sovietism," and. ex-

ultantly point to Russia as a horrible example of

its practical application.

But one does not need to be an advocate of com-

munism or of Marxian Socialism to see and con-

demn the injustice of forcing some men to give

their lives in defense of other men's pocketbook

greed. In a word, one may agree with the socialist

indictment of capitalism without subscribing to the

socialist substitute remedy. There are other ways

of choking the capitalist rat. Put the economic in-

terpretation of war squarely before the rising gen-

eration; make them see that instead of being heroic

defenders of their country, they are merely pawns

on the capitalist chess-board, and they will be

ashamed of the moral cowardice which now prompts

them to recklessly throw away their lives in order

to stand well with a foolish world.

No. 4

Above everything else, iet us emphasize the essen-

tial cowardice in war. It is decreed and staged by

physical cowards, who know their persons are safe

while they perpetrate the infamy of shoving other

men's bodies between themselves and danger; and

it is fought by moral cowards, those weak and vain

enough to fancy they are doing something fine, -vhen

in reality they are doing something extremely fool-

ish-not to say criminal. Vicarious fighters of every

kind-women of all ages, and all men incapable of

bearing arms, whether from age, or physical delibil-

ity, or religious infirmity, who force young men

before the cannon to die either for their pecuniary

interests or their foolish opinions-are guilty of

the most cowardly form of murder; and the time

has come to "call a spade a spade" in this miserable

war game. Women and the war-inciting clergy are

the chief offenders in this regard, and should come

in for a double share of censure. Indeed, it may well

be doubted whether war could persist as an insti-

tution were it not for the enthusiastic support of

these two reputed mainstays of Christianity. They

are certainly the finest recruiting officers in the

world.

Now if the humane and intelligent thought of

the world really desires to abolish war, it can

never be done by merely talking about the wicked-

ness, waste, and cruelty of war; for as Bertrand

Russell so truly observes: "people don't mind being

wicked and cruel if they can get enough other peo-

ple to keep them in countenance in it, but they do

mind being though stupid and gulliable." The first

step in the new anti-war teaching therefore, is to

change the war phraseology. Dont permit the mili-

tarists and "war patriots" to get by with such state-

ments as, "Oh, of course we hate war, everybody -

does! Nobody really wants war-but, etc., etc."

Force these canting phrases into the open with a

few plain truths. It is tolerably axiomatic, that

`if nobody wanted war, we should not have war.

As a matter of fact, there is a small powerful group

of men in every civilized country who not only

want war, but actually must have it to defend their

plunderous holdings in foreign lands; and these,

by reason of their economic supremacy have enough

political power to induce the state to order war

whenever their economic needs indicate war.

Now instead of trying to dissuade these gentle-

men from their murderous courses by preaching the

horrors and inhumanity of war, let us instruct

the youth of the land who will be called on to fight

these wars, in a proper reading of their true char-

acter; that they are of no national significance at

all, but only private enterprises; that they should

be fought by the men who profit by them, or by their

hired mercenaries, if they must be fought at all.

Freed from the hypnotism of such catch-words as

"national defense,' "loyalty to the flag,' etc., the

common citizen will have the courage to refuse to

sacrifice himself or others in the heartless skin-

game of war; and the war beneficiaries, thrown upon

the necessity of fighting their own wars, will no

doubt devise some less expensive method of settling

their differences.

A thorough airing of the biological theory that

war is one manifestation of sex-pathology, would

probably go far toward damping feminine enthusi-

asm for militarism, or at least check the outward

expression of it; since women are oftener the vic-

tims of sex-pathology than men-though very loathe

to admit it. Women-who, contrary to the popular

notion, are now the greatest war boosters-would

also desert its standard when war ceased to be re-

spectable and fashionable, and to that end the new

gospel of anti-war propoganda should be especially

directed. Do away with the present cant of talk-

ing about the "horror" and the "glory" of war in

one breath; speak only of its stupidity, of its hideous-

ness, and above all of its dishonesty and cowardice,

and bring into this indictment every person who

lends it countenance or slpport on any pretext

whatsoever. Teach that supporting war "after we go

in' by those who oppose it on principles, is more

cowardly than consistently favoring it throughout.

Only one constitutional reform is needed to make

this program of popular enlightenment effective in

putting an end to so-called international wars. Take

away from rulers and parliaments the power to de-

clare war, and submit it to a popular referendum.

This, after a thorough campaign of education along

the lines above indicated, will effectually dispose of

the question for all time.

BRISBUNK |

el

The favorite sermon subject of the ajpostles of

Brisbunk, is the successful man. Ame'rica is their

favorite field of observation becauses the success-

ful man here is so numerous, 80,,obvious, and so

set off in the high lights of dramyatic contrast. The

heroes of other-days, were mainly political, from the

days of Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson to the

epoch of Abraham Lincoln, "the rail-splitter'" who

became President, and James A. Garfield, who was

pictured forth as proceeding by the canal tow-path

to the White House. There has been something of

a reversion to this sort of thing in the manner in

which Calvin Coolidge has been played up recently

as the simple-minded farmer of the Vermont hills.

Commonly the heroes of the Brisbanes, and the

rest of the toadying fraternity of writers and speak-

ers who play up the successful man now, are the big

men of business, the Rockefellers, Carnegies, Mor-

gans, Schwabs, Fords, and Huntingtons, and their

like. These are the men of power today and as we

have made not more than four or five new presidents

since the twentieth century began whereas we are

making millionaires by the score every year, and by

the hundreds in exceptionally good years, it is clear-

ly to the interests of those who live by preaching

success to put the business lord and monarch in

the first place. And the first place he has in the

daily papers, the current magazines, the platform

preachments of popular speakers, and particularly

in the paragraphic comment of the highly paid spe-

cial. writers who are forever praising the achieve-

ments and benefactions of our commercially success-

ful men. Efficiency is the doctrine of the day, and

it is mainly efficiency at the point of making money

which the preachers of the doctrine stress on the

platform and in the press. Of course this efficiency

in money making has to be justified by an exhibit

of the benefits which proceed from it to the com-

mon people. The Rockefeller services to scientific

medical research and other educational foundations,

the gifts of the Carnegies and Morgans to public li-

braries and St. John cathedrals, the extraordinary

wages paid by a Henry Ford and his regard in

general for better working-class conditions, and the

manner in which our own California Huntington

gathers around him the rarest findings of the world

of horticulture and. floriculture and makes equally

rare collections of books from the ends of hte earth,

all these items of social benefit are played up to the

utmost in the columns and on the platforms where

Brisbunk prevails.

The thing is not new. It was evidently old even

in Jesus' day for he satirized it sharply when he said,

"those who lord it over you are called your bene-

factors." Plunder the public on a big scale and

whatever crumbs from your overloaded tables you

see fit to throw back to them the more they will

crawl at your feet and lick your shoes. And the

apostles of Brisbunk will lead the pack in doing it.

"Your editor" and "your paper,' writes the young

Vanderbilt, on his editorial page, with sickening

reiteration, as he carries his penny-pursed readers

with him in his millionaire meanderings from Cali-

fornia to Florida and from Florida to California

again, Which is after all no sillier than saying

"our President,' and "our government" concerning

an office and an officialism whose primary function

in relation to the mass of the people is that of

pulling the wool over their eyes while their earnings

are picked from their pockets. Your successful poli-

tician and your successful government is the man

and the machine that can get the largest amount

of pork out of the people with the smallest amount

of squeal. And at that game we Americans are

experts indeed, thanks to the abundance of Brisbunk

that floods the land.

In reality no country illustrates better than our

own what a shallow and mischievous thing all this

so-called success is. Here is the demonstration be-

yond denial of the dependence of all individual suc-

cess upon social factors and natural bounty. It was

oil that made the Rockefellers, as it was steel that

made Carnegie and Schwab and their fellow-buc-

caneers of the steel trust. It was the coming of

new means of transportation which made the mil-

lionaires of the railways and Henry Ford and the

whole raft of those who have enriched themselves

through the motor vehicle revolution. Always it

has been the spoilation of the natural resources

which belong of right to all the people by which

the big profiteers have climbed into the saddle of

economic power. And the presence and labor of the

people has been added to that which nature has

supplied.

4

yLEST WE FORGET

Southern California, prior to May, 1923, was sorely

in need of such a group of militants as the American

Civil Liberties Union. The inherent moral and civil

rights of man were, and for that matter still are,

grievously violated in the city of Los Angeles.

These violations of the rights of free speech, free

press and- free assemblage have been lessened to a

degree by the good work done by this little band.

But there is yet much to be done. Every day, new

instances occur to prove this. Every day, men and

women are being arrested for becoming bold enough

to voice their thoughts. Every day,,men and women

are given jail sentences from the courts for belong-

ing to an economic organization, disliked by the

employers of labor.

The records of this office are incomplete owing

to raids by the police and patriotic organizations.

And the jail records are incomplete because hun-

dreds of members of the I. W. W. who were arrested

and held for from one to ten days, were never offi-

cially "booked."

But we have recorded since November, 1922, thir-

teen hundred and fifty-seven men, women and chil-

dren arrested for their labor activity. Of all these

arrests, only seventy-two were convicted; and of

the convictions, only twenty-three have done time,

the rest were reversed on appeal or dismissed after

conviction. Jn no case was a single overt or violent

act alleged, much less proven.

`Six little children were beaten and_ seriously

scalded with hot grease and coffee in a raid on the

I.W.W. hall in San Pedro by a mob of sadists. Sev-

eral women were manhandled and clubbed on the

same night. Six men were taken by force from

San Pedro; whipped and coated with tar and feath-

ers.

One of our fellow-workers was arrested eighteen

times in the course of a few months and, as a re-

sult of the beatings received and the inhumanities

practiced on him, is now confined in the State In-

sane Hospital at Norwalk.

A young woman was convicted of selling I.W.W.

papers and is now serving her gentence, sick and

weakened, amid abominable surroundings in the City

Jail.

Hleven men have been deported out of the coun-

try because they were members of the I.W.W.

So, consider this, friends of civil liberties. Today,

as you read this, ninety-one men, from various

parts of California, are serving from one to four-

teen years in San Quentin and Folsom prisons, be-

cause they were actively engaged in organizing the

workers into one big union. Coughing out their

lives in the jute mills, convicted of having an idea

and the courage of their convictions. As you read

this, several men and one woman are lying in the

filthy local jails, convicted of a misdemeanor; other

scores have been waiting trial for months. And

every day adds to our number in jail. Another man

is living in a disordered dream in the Insane ASy-

lum. Children are crippled and disfigured for life.

The health and nervous systems of hundreds are

shattered as a result of their intermittent incarcera-

tion under a fiendish system.

All these casualties are resultant from an at-

tempt on the part of the authorities to deprive us

of our civil rights.

Think this over and then re-read the Constitu-

tion of the United States and the Declaration of

Independence.

J. L. BRONSON, Secretary,

Los Angeles Branch of the General Defense Com-

mittee.

--_-_: 4

"No matter whose lips that speak they must be

free and ungagged. Let us believe that the whole

truth can never do harm to the whole of virtue; and

remember that in order to get the whole truth you

must allow every man, right or wrong, freely to ut-

ter his conscience, and to protect him in so doing.

Entire, unshackled freedom for every man's life, no

matter what his doctrine-the safety of free discus-

sion no matter how wide its range. The community.

which dares not protect its humblest and most hated

member in the free utterance of his opinions, no

matter how false or hateful, is only a gang of slaves."

-Wendell Phillips.

SEE? ieee

"The world is just as clean as its dirtiest inhab-

itant, just as free as its least free inhabitant, just as

well off as its worst off inhabitant."-Freemont Older,

The Call.

THE VIOLENCE

OF THE RESPECTABLE

A WILSONIAN AFTER THOUGHT

CHICAGO, Dec. 10-If robbed of their foreign

commerce, if deprived of their foreign mails and

cables, the people of the United States would not

starve.

This is what Secretary Wilbur told a congressiona]

committee yesterday in replying to a pacifist sug.

gestion as regards the abolition of the navy.

But, added the Secretary, to destroy the navy and

the commerce which the navy protects, would be to

destroy prosperity, then "unemployment and want

and suffering would surely follow."

Why did the United States go to war with Ger.

many? To protect America's commerce and com.

mercial rights at sea, to stop the destruction of

American merchant ships, to keep open the lanes of

American commerce across the Atlantic. That was

the real reason. "Making the world safe for democ.

racy' was only an after thought.

Here, then, at last is a public man in public office

who dares to tell the truth about the business side

of this great national question!-By George Wheeler

Hinman in The Hearst Press.

wt

MERCED ROUNDUP DRIVES

FIFTY FROM TOWN

MERCED, Dec. 14.-An ever-growing crowd yester-

day afternoon followed six county and city officers

through the main streets here, The officers were fol-

lowing a small and ragged army of hoboes and itiner.

ants, who were herded to the fire house, where Judge

Harold Bone held an informal court. An order was

issued at noon to clean the city of every vestige of

the order of `Weary Willies." A round-up of the

railroad yards, cheap boarding houses and other

places where the undesirables were apt to be habitues

was staged and nearly fifty marched before the jus-

tice. All were searched and then, with the exception

of three men, including a negro, all were given fifteen

minutes to get out of town. The three detained are

being held on suspicion of being active members of

the I. W. W.-The San Francisco Hxraminer.

-_---_ kh

NO LEOPOLD-LOEB MERCY

FOR THEM

COLUMBIA, Ss. C.-On a cold winter morning, Dec.

6, at daybreak, two more workers went to thei

deaths in the South Carolina electric chair. They

were Mortimer N. King and Frank Harrell, young

cottonmill workers and confessed slayers of Maj,

Samuel H. McLeary.

Desperate and hungry, without funds and in dire

need, the two young mill workers held up McLeary

at the point of a pistol. The major resisted the two

men and was killed in the encounter. An appeal was

made to South Carolina's "praying governor" for

mercy, but it was refused. Both were ex-service mel.

Both had been forced to work in the cotton mills

since early childhood. Both were uneducated and

without friends or money.

They died realizing that Clarence Darrow had

spoken truly when he said, "No murderer need die

if he has the money to hire a good lawyer.'-Feder

ated Press,

He

What is Law where the

Flag is Concerned !

The Women's Independent Republican League of

Paterson, N. J., adopted a resolution to knock off

every hat that's not lifted when the flag goes by.

While they were at it, they should have resolved to

unwrap every grafter who rolls himself up in the

flag -F. Landis, L. A. Examiner, Dec. 16.

-------___--_

There is nothing more dangerous or more commo?

than to clothe one's intolerance with a regard fot

the moral welfare of the community. That is the

way, in fact, in which intolerance has always worked.

It makes the persecutor appear a social benefactor,

instead of being a racial and social scourge, which

he really is-The Llano Colonist.

lo

cc

ar

to

th

in

de

ha

in

iti

ign

und

not

nal

ug:

ind

i)

ant

rer:

of

of

VAS

.0cent-

`ice

ide

ler

ers

fol.

lige

vas

of

the

ner

18

us:

en

are

of

ad

er

on

for

ed.

or;

ee

FROM VARIED VIEWPOINTS

*K

THE. ELECTION

AND FREE SPEECH

Greater freedom of speech for labor and radical

elements in the United States, as ``a reaction to the

oppression of the past five years," will be one of the

results of the conservative landslide in the recent

elections, according to a report just issued by the

American Civil Liberties Union on `The Hlections

and Free Speech." The report shows that local police

interference. with meetings and strikers' rights con-

tinues in many parts of the United States, and that

the persecution of members of the Industrial Workers

of the World "goes on steadily in California'; but

that in other respects the situation has been more

favorable to the exercise of civil rights.

"Intolerance is now so securely intrenched in

power," the Union's report declares, "that it need not

resort to force to gain its end. The number of prose-

cutions and deportations has decreased, and there are

now 106 state political prisoners as compared with

121 last May. The number of cases of mob violence

and lynching has greatly fallen off, and the Ku Klux

Klan, dominant as it is in large sections of the coun-

try, has also decreased its lawless acts of terrorism!"

According to the Union there is now only one

federal political prisoner held in the United States.

He is a military prisoner, Antoni Karachun, a Rus-

sian alien convicted for deserting from the American

forces in Siberia in 1919; The Union is working for

his release on the grounds that it was unlawful for

the War Department to `take a Russian national to

Siberia to fight against his own people." The Union

is also working for the restoration of citizenship to

all ex-political prisoners, the removal of conditions

attached to some of the commutations and the term-

ination of a number of paroles.

There are now 106 state political prisoners in the

United States, the report states, convicted under

state criminal syndicalism laws "passed during the

anti-radical hysteria from 1917 to 1919." All of the

106 men are members of the Industrial Workers of

the World, not a single communist, anarchist or

socialist being in prison now on political or indus-

trial charges. All but 12 of the 106 state political

prisoners are held in California, where prosecutions

are still active, the report shows.

The validity of state criminal syndicalist laws

throughout the country will be tested shortly before

the United States Supreme Court, when the cases of

several communists convicted in state courts will

come up on appeal. In the case of Benjamin Gitlow,

a communist convicted in New York, the federal

Supreme Court will have to decide whether or not

the states have the right "to penalize for the mere

expression of opinion." In the case of Charlotte

Anita Whitney of California, the Supreme Court will

have to decide whether `mere membership in an

organization" can be penalized. If the Supreme

Court fails to destroy the validity of the state crim-

- inal syndicalism laws, the Civil Liberties Union plans

to carry on a campaign in the legislatures of thirty-

four states for the repeal of these laws. The Union's

report shows that no state except California is active-

ly applying-a criminal syndicalist law at present.

The decrease in anti-radical persecutions is attri-

' buted by the Union's report in part to the recent

clean-up in the Department of Justice, resulting in

the resignation of Attorney General Daugherty and

the retirement of William J. Burns, Under the new

Attorney General Harlan F. Stone, the department

has stopped anti-radical propaganda and incitement

to prosecutions, the report declares.

Efforts to have Congress establish a civil form of

sovernment in the Virgin Islands to replace Navy

Department rule are being made by the Union. It is

also fighting for a repeal of the censorship powers

lodged in the Post Office Department, and taking

court action against the interference with speakers

and meetings by local police. The Union also plans

to conduct a series of speaking tours in the heart of

the Ku Klux Klan territory, aimed against the Klan's

intolerance and- lawlessness. A Committee on Aca-

demic Freedom, just organized by the Union, will

handle cases arising in schools and colleges involving

interference with students' liberal and radical activ-

ities,

K

"K

A FRIEND OF FREEDOM

Albert DeSilver, until recently associate director

of the American Civil Liberties Union, and the man-

aging trustee of the National Bail Fund, was killed

instantly on Dec. 7th when he fell off the platform

of an express train passing through Rye, N. Y. His

wife and little son were on the train at the time

of the accident. Mr. DeSilver left them to go to

the smoker. He started to cross the platform of

the speeding express when it passed the freight

depot a* Rye, where the tracks curve. The door

of the vestibule was open and as the train lurched

on the curve, Mr. DeSilver was hurled out against

the depot platform. Death was. instantaneous.

Mr. DeSilver was thirty-five years old, a resident

of Brooklyn, with a law office in New York. He

was a graduate of Yale, 1910, and, of Columbia Uni-

versity Law School, 1913.

Roger N. Baldwin, director of the Civil Liberties

Union, made the following statement on Mr. DeSil-

ver's death:

"Rew men give as lavishly of their time, energy

and money to public service as did Albert DeSil-

ver. Although he was freed from the necessity of

earning a living, he worked harder than most men.

He gave to the cause of civil liberty year after

year a joyful devotion which no other man has

given. His contributions to the struggle for civil

rights have not been generally known, for they

have been made in the hard routine of office work,

legal research and in generous acts of financial as-

sistance known to very few people. He himself was

bondsman in many cases where bail could not be

obtained from other sources. He gave his help with-

out question wherever the issue of a man's right

to express' his opinions was raised. He made no

distinctions between those whom he helped.

"He was not a radical, but he was profoundly

moved by the cause of tolerance for radicals. Free

speech was the one positive social principle to

which he gave uncompromising allegiance. He sel-

dom ever raised or discussed theoretical questions.

His was a practical service, freely given wherever he

saw the need. He made friends just as simply and

easily among the working-class spokesmen whom he

helped defend as he did among the lawyers and

public men with whom he was constantly working.

His service is unique in the history of this particu-

lar case and it is irreplaceable."

8+

HOW FARES THE NEGRO?

What connection is there between these items, the

one taken from an Hastern paper, concerning the

National Association for the Advancement of Colored

People, the other from the pen of Dr. Sydney Strong

of Seattle. The Philadelphia Tribune says:

"The National Association for the Advancement of

Colored People is the watch dog of the race. It

stands as an ever-present enemy against those forces

which seek to destroy American ideals. It has

brought the race problem, with all of its attendant

horrors before the world in an intelligent and force-

ful manner. It champions the cause of unfortunates

who are unable to combat the sinister influences

which oppress them. It protests day and night

against segregation and its allied evils. Because it

is engaged in a heroic struggle against wrong, it is

not popular with white people and to our shame, it

is not supported by colored people."

And Dr. Strong writes in UNITY, of Chicago:.

"For a score of years or more Americans have

had the unenviable reputation of lynching from 80

to 100 people, men and women, annually. For the

last two or three years the number of lynchings

has dropped very rapidly. so that during the ten

months of 1924 fewer than 8 or 10 have been

lynched. For some cause or other the people have

found their way to more self-restraint."

Doubtless the migratory movement of the negro

from the South has had an economic reaction there

which has had a good deal to do with this "self-

restraint." Also the negro has begun to organize

and to agitate in self-defense. In defending himself

he is doing the white man the best turn he can

do him, unless he can learn the greater wisdom

of a common defense against their common exploi-

tation,

K

*K

GOMPERS GOES

The passing of Samuel Gompers, for forty years

head of the American Federation of Labor, has,

as a matter of course, elicited widespread and very

varied comment. Much of this comment, both fa-

vorable and unfavorable, is of very little conse-

quence, betraying only the personal animus or the

social theorizing of the writer. Neither is the

public ado about his funeral of any weight in esti-

mating what value Gompers' career has had, or what

effect his death will have upon the fortunes of or

ganized labor in the United States. The funeral

fuss, indeed, and the sources from which much of

the laudation of Gompers has come, remind one

irresistibly of the cynical remark made by some

keen wit who said that when the Senatorial Com-

mittee went down to Oyster Bay to attend Roose-

velt's obsequies, it was not so much to pay re-

spect to the memory of Roosevelt as "to make sure

that the Colonel was in his coffin." Most of the

praise given Gompers since he passed out has come

from men whose compliments are more damning

than any criticisms they could speak.

Gompers' going will probably have less of imme-

diate effect upon the course of the American Fed-

eration of Labor than the noise it has made would

lead one to expect. There was a vast deal of

noise about Warren G. Harding's death, but it was

really of little consequence. The capitalist machine

blew its whistles loudly, but the wheels kept on

going just the same. So will the wheels of the

American Federation of Labor move in their ac-

customed grooves, responding to the impetus of

American imperialism hardly less than Wall Street

itself. The great man fetich is still with us, but it

was.never more of a fetich than in the instances so

prominent in recent years of the passing of the mas-

ter-puppets of American public life. The politicians,

whether in or out of the offices of State, are signs in-

deed of the directions in which the currents of

world affairs move, but they are only straws on

the surface of the stream.

----_0x00A7_ -______

ENGLAND IN EGYPT

Whatever the exact technicalities involved, Eng-

land is using against Egypt the same old weapons

that the strong have been using against the weak

from the beginning of time. These are the weapons

of force and violence. When England acted, she

thought of nothing but the fact that she had the

military power to do anything she wanted to with

Hgypt, and chose to use this power not merely to

exact satisfaction for her murdered general, but also

to secure economic and political advantages greatly

desired. She pondered not justice, least of all mercy

and forgiveness, but set her armies and fleets in

motion and took revenge. Whatever the provocation,

whatever the legal justification, this method still re-

mains the war method and not the peace method.

So long as this sort of procedure is tolerated, it is

simply silly to talk about an ordered world. We

may have a dozen Leagues, a hundred World Courts

"-but so long as the sword can flash at the issue of a

twenty-four hour ultimatum, our world is still the

world of Sennacharib and Cesar-John Haynes

Holmes in Unity.

i -______

BEAD WORK AND BOLSHEVISM

BROOKLYN, Dec. 15.-Bead-working to counteract

Bolshevism was advocated by Miss Emma F. Con-

tessa, a worker for the Daughters of the American

Revolution at Ellis Island, who spoke of her work at

a meeting of Women of '76 Chapter, N. S. D. A.' R.,

at the Pouch Mansion. An immigrant is changed

instantly, she said, from a hopeless, disgruntled in-

dividual into a hopeful and reasonable one when pro-

vided with materials for doing handicraft through

the BD. A. Ry

"Please do not believe all the dreadful things about

Ellis Island you hear. They are not true," she plead-

ed. :

--_3-____

No man is much better than his opinion of vther

people.

oat aE EE erry ESTER OT ESN MNF

oe STARS troy ETT ne NS

RSE ee |

THE OPEN FORUM

Published every Saturday at 506 Tajo Building,

Los Angeles, California, by The Southern California

Branch of The American Civil Liberties Union.

Phone: TUcker 6836.

MANAGING EDITORS

Robert Whitaker Clinton J. Taft

LITERARY EDITOR

Esther Yarnell

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Upton Sinclair Kate Crane Gartz J H. Ryekman

Doremus Scudder

Ethelwyn Mills

Fanny Bixby Spencer

Leo Gallagher

Subscription Rates-One Dollar a Year, Five Cents

per Copy. In bundles of ten or more to one address,

Two Cents Each.

Advertising Rates on Request.

Application for second-class rates pending.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1924

AFTER CHRISTMAS

They brought Him gold and frankincense and

myrrh,

The wise and mighty of the days of old.

But where were they as the stern years un-

rolled,

When scribes and Pharisees were all astir?

Even His mother, to speak truth of her,

Doubted and feared, and would have fain con-

trolled

Her first-born, too compassionately bold;

Even His mother! Ah, how love can err!

And grant your love who sing His praise today,

Who lay your tinselled trifles at His feet,

And offer verbal incense, cloying sweet,

4 And then like kings and Magi melt away,

Aye! grant your love, how fares it'in the

test?- -

Dare you confess the Christ of the op-

pressed?

ROBERT WHITAKER.

The Season's Greetings from our new home at

3211 Marathon Street, Los Angeles, California

: Robert and Claire Whitaker

TO THE POINT

By L. O'Dell

In `history this will go down as the age in which

King Publicity ruled, and Reason was a beggar.

Call it what you will, but, unless it will give us an

emotional drunk, we are much given to side-stepping

the unpleasant. And we greatly dislike those who

tell us disagreeable truths.

But if you want to get in real bad tell the mass it

is mentally lazy, for its one great pride is that it

works hard.

* * *

Why not write something clear-cut and intelligent!

Very well. The one great question of the present

day is as to whether it is most beneficial for part of

the people, or all of the people, to own all or part

of the means of production. And the world is so

filled with ignorance, bigotry, deceit, egotism, and

love of power, as to make it very difficult to decide

this by other than "cut-and-try" methods.

Incidently, that the growth of social ownership de-

pends upon the growth of political intelligence es-

sential to the election of capable public officials, is

obvious-at first. But the ever-increasing problem

of how the capitalists are going to dispose of their

profits is apt to eventually force matters, regardless.

* * *

As far as the artificial stimulant of the European

loans is concerned, it is well to remember that no

country can long continue to do business with an-

other at a net profit, without first acquiring its

money, then a lien on its property, then its property.

If ~ e net profit is taken by employing the labor of

the country to construct factories, railroads, etc., it

amounts to the same thing, for property is but the

product of labor.

COMING EVENTS

kek ee x

NOTE:-No charge is made for these announce-

ments of meetings, but our space limits require that

notices shall be very brief. Meetings mentioned here

must be of some interest to our constituency, and

preference will be given to those not able to advertise

in the capitalist press. Notices must be in our office

not later than Monday night.

aE eae

Los Angeles Open Forum, Music-Art Hall, 233

South Broadway, Sunday evening at 7-30 o'clock.

i

Church of the New Social Order meets every Sun-

day morning, 10:45 o'clock, Cleveland Hall, Walker

Auditorium, 730 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles,

Calif. Speaker for December, Robert Whitaker. Dec.

28. "A Song of the Centuries."

Oe

Free Workers Forum meetings Monday nights,

8:15 o'clock, at Folk Schule, 420 N. Soto St. (one

block North of Brooklyn Avenue). December 22-

Mr. Vernon Taylor speaks on, "Organizing to Con-

serve Human Time." December 29-"Psycho-Analysis,

Birth Control and the Sex Question," by T. H. Bell.

a

The Seattle Fellowship announces Sunday Lunch-

eons for December, held at Meves Cafeteria. Lunch-

eon, One o'clock Sharp; Discussion 1:30 sharp. Ad-

journment 2:46.

Sunday, December 28th, 1 p. m.-Topic, "The Co-

operative Commonwealth Coming? Worth Get-

ting? How to Get It." Speakers announced

later.

SE ane

OPEN FORUM every Saturday evening at 8:00 P.M.

I.W.W. HALL, 224 S. Spring Street, Room 218. In-

teresting Speakers-Interesting Subjects.

-___4--_____.

CHRISTMAS CANDY

Mothers and their little children working excess-

ively long hours in the sugar beet fields of Colorado,

Nebraska, Montana and Wyoming are producing

record profits for the wealthy owners of Great

Western Sugar Co. The gains of these millionaries

for the year ending Feb. 28, 1925, will run over

$13,000,000, equivalent to 80% on the common stock,

according to the estimates of The Wall Street Jour-

nal based on the year's production and prices.

These profits mean that each of the 8,200,000 hun-

dred pound bags of sugar produced during the year

and sold for $7.20 will carry a profit of approximately

$1.50 which shows what the Republican tariff does

for one corporation.

The company's profits for the last eight years total

$56,722,196 after deduction of all losses, interest, de-

preciation and taxes. This has meant over 250% to

the common stockholders. It is shown year by year

as follows:

G. W. Sugar Co. Net Income Per Share

1918 $12,335,278 75%

1919 6,121,775 34

1920 11,480,973 70

1921 4,264,171 rail

1922 *8,363,418 *56

1923 6,879,113 40

1924 12,004,304 73

1925 13,000,000 80

*deficit

In the same period the stockholders will have re-

ceived dividends totaling $212 a share, equivalent to

271% on the average par value of the common stock.

In order to conceal the magnitude of these profits the

par value has been reduced to $25 by the distribution

of four shares for each one originally held by the

owners,

The children's bureau, U. S. Department of Labor,

tells of the conditions underlying these profits. Con-

tract labor, including mothers and little children,

does the work. The bureau says: "Both women and

children are employed at the work and the possibil-

ity of turning even young children into wage earn-

ers is one of the inducements for taking the contract

which is especially strong in the case of the head of

a large family."

One-fourth of the children workers were found to

be under 10 years of age while only from one-sixth

to one-fifth were over 14. '

The work of these children consist first of strad-

dling the best rows and crawling on hands and knees

from plant to plant thinning at high speed. Later

the children cut off the tops, using a sharp knife

which in the case of the younger children causes

frequent accidents. Hours were found by the gov-

ernment running up to 15 per day.

Living conditions were wretched, with families liy-

ing in shanties not even waterproof. Overcrowding

was prevalent. In fact the beet sugar industry was

found to contain all the conditions which accompany

capitalist exploitation in intensified form-and all

for the benefit of sugar millionaries protected by a

high sugar tariff-Federated Press.

Los Angeles

OPEN FORUM

MUSIC ART HALL

233 South Broadway

SUNDAY NIGHTS, 7-30 O0x00B0CLOCK

PROGRAM FOR, DECEMBER, 1924

Dec. 28.-"Making a New World by Co-Operative

Production," by Albert F. Coyle of Cleveland, 0O.,

editor of the `Brotherhood of Locomotive Engi-

neers Journal' and Executive Secretary of the All

American Co-operative Commission. A great even-

ing is assured with this wide-awake young man as

the speaker. He was the opponent of Theodore BK.

Burton in the recent Congressional race in Ohio, -

His work in behalf of co-operation has been bril-

liant and effective. The musical program will be

furnished by Max Amsterdam, one of the first vio-

linists of the Philharmonic Orchestra, and David

Klatskin, pianist.

a

THE WORKING MAN

I received and read the two first issues of your

paper which [I subscribed to some weeks ago, and

I thought the logic it contained very good. I am a

business man in a little California town; therefore

I am not eligible to membership in your organiza-

tion; but if I was I would not hesitate in indorsing

your policy. As much as I approve of your logic,

however, I think you have a very difficult task before

you in converting the working man to your way of

thinking. After I had finished reading the two first

issues of your paper, I took them out to a hobo camp

here and. gave them to the men. They glanced over

them for a minute, turned up their noses, built a

fire with the papers and proceeded to amuse them-

selves with the comic supplement of the San Fran-

cisco Hxaminer. When I saw that act, on the part of

a working man who needs education, the words of a

socialist writer came back tome: "The working man

has a proletariat's pocket-book and a bourgeoise's

mind.'-John Baxter, Menlo Park, Cal., in The Jn-

dustrial Worker.

4

From E. M. Forster's "A Passage to India'':

The first person Adela noticed was the humblest of

all who were present The man who pulled the

punkah. Almost naked, and splendidly formed, he

sat on a raised platform near the back .. . He

had the strength and beauty that sometimes comes

to flower in Indians of low birth. When that strange

race nears the dust and is condemned as _ untouch-

able, then nature remembers the physical perfection

that she accomplished elsewhere, and throws out a

god-not many, but one here and there, to prove

to society how little its categories impress her.

: :

When Woodrow Wilson, then President of the

United States, wrote to the Chicago packers and ap

pealed to them on behalf of a more restrained policy |

with respect to their profit taking I could not resist

the impulse to parody his message into: "Nice wolfie, `

nice wolfie, don't bite sheepie." There is still room

for the moral appeal, but it is to be admitted that

a lot of it, as it is actually set forth, is about as

convincing as would be an argument with a wolf

about the foolishness of eating mutton. While the

profit takers have the run of society they will take

their mutton as liberally as they can get it.-R. W.

FREE VIOLIN LESSONS

To Talented Children of Parents who

are unable to pay

MAX AMSTERDAM

Prominent Violin Teacher and Soloist

2406 Temple St. - - - - - - DRexel 9068

Reasonable Rates to Beginners

Find herewith $.......... as payment for... ......

{ Yearly

{4 Six Month

| Three Month

subscriptions to THE OPEN FORUM.

NAMe@ ie ceo ee ee

a

A GATORS s eschin wipe du Wide MO oink Weed OR

Dale aces; sop aan aan eee

Linotyping and press work done in Union |

Shops. The make-up is our own.