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AVE you been long enough in

the labor movement to re-
member the argument that was
supposed to floor the socialists
beyond. any possible come-back?
It was peddled : ‘

by all the intel-
lectual (and
non-intellectual)
apologists for
capitalism.

The _ alleged
economists, the
pedantic college
professors, the
bishops and
lesser clergy,
the literary §
geniuses who dabbled in politics
and posed as editors and, of
course, the politicians—all of
them used it as a kind of sledge-
hammer blow to knock the props
from under the upstart and de-
spised workers. “Socialism,” they
said, “means dividing-up.”

It was a double-bitted argu-
ment, like a Methodist axe.
Either, if the divide-up of the
wealth took place, the slick guys
would have all the wealth in their
possession again in a few weeks,
or the “socialists” would gibe at
dividing-up what they themselves
owned. :

In this latter contingency, the
story of the bishop and the Eng-
lish farm laborer was supposed
to be a brilliant exposure of the
claims of the socialists. Said the
bishop, “You're a socialist, are

T WAS a tense, dramatic hour

- in this convention of the B.C.
“Federation of Labor, around
which the commercial PERSE has
whipped up an inspired anti-Red
hysteria, like a foul wind blowing
off a specially prepared garbage
dump.

Twenty or
more hard-rock
miners’ dele-
gates with their
leader Harvey
Murphy sat’
apart in th
back of the con
vention hall,;
silenced by

the suspension
ukase of CCL-
high priest Aaron Mosher and
“Doctor” Pat Conroy ...a move
to enable a “white” bloc of as-
sorted social democrats and
eareerists to win the power of
leadership they could never hope
to win otherwise. «

A square-built little man steps
forward to the mike. A soft voice
‘begins to speak ... not a speech
ain the accepted pense, but a saga
of bitter struggle in the birth and
growth of a mighty union, It was
drama, deep, grand and glorious,
echoing the voices of countless
thousands of men and women,

who for over half a century have |

struggled against the most ruth-
less, bloody, profit-crazed monop-
olists this age has produced. This

.

you? If you had two houses would
you give me one?” “Sure,” replied
the countryman. “And if you had
two horses, would you give me
one?” “Certainly,” was the an-
swer. “And if you had two pigs,
would you give me one?” But the
countryman woke up from his
socialist dream at that and re-
torted, “Ah! but that’s different,
You know I got two pigs.” It’s
hard to know which of the two
was more ignorant of what social-
ism is.

At the beginning of the cen-
tury this argument was dinned in
our ears but the spread of know-
ledge among the workers has put
it out of court and we don’t hear
it so often now.

But the dividing-up goes on
still. We had a good sample of
this dividing-up presented for our
consideration in the Lumber-
worker of Aug. 25th last. It was
a real-divide-up, not a phoney one
like the bishop’s divide-up.

In this case, Harvey R. Make-
a-Million did the dividing-up
with his workers on the basis
of ‘two for me and one for you.’

For every dollar the workers
got Harvey took two. The figures
are for 1947, the latest year for
which figures are published.

Wages paid out that year amount-
ed to $7,399,727.. Make-a-Million’s
profits were $14,632,140, just short
the price of a couple of pork
chops of being ‘two for him and
one for you’ if you work for =

big-little man was John Clark, in-
ternational president of the Mine, _
Mill and Smelter Workers, worthy
successor to the deathless West-
ern Federation of Miners.

HILE John Clark spoke a

hush fell upon the conven-
tion. Like an eerie transfiguration
the convention hall and its dele-
gates faded into the background,

and in its place came the hard-

rock poverty-stricken towns of
the Couer d’Alene; of Nevada
and Montana; of the vast empires
of the Anaconda, of Trail, and
the Ontario Nickle Range. One
saw the hard-rock miners and
their wives—with hungry, fright-
ened children clinging to their
skirts, counting their dead from
the guns of corporation police,
legionaires and vigilantes—whose
paymasters had ruled there was
to be no union. One saw the hire-
lings of the mining barons beat-
ing up and maiming union men
and dynamiting their union halls,
One saw miners’ meetings in little

secret groups, in cellars, in the —
bush, in many strange places, in-~

spired anew by the sacrifices of
their dead buddies, to build a
strong powerful union of digni-
fied free men and women.

In John Crark’s hour upon the
stage we saw the mangled bodies
of miners’ children, starvéd and
frightened and killed to further
the profit-mad lust of. the mining

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MacMillan Export. He took $3,112
from the sweat of each employee!

Nor is this a unique instance.
According to the CIO Steel Work-
ers’ Union, the real wages of the
steel workers went down since
the last round of wage increases,
by 13 dollars a week. At the same
time the profits of the steel cor-
porations jumped to the almost
unbelievable figure of half-a-bil-
lion dollars in 1947.

The CIO Electrical Workers’
Union also published figures that
prove that the purchasing power
of their workers has dropped by
13-dollars a week since January
1945, while the profits of the elec-
trical monopolies in 1947 reached
the record-breaking total of $95,-
000,000 after paying all taxes!

These are not imaginary social-
ist ‘divide-ups’ but real, undeni;
able divide-ups. It wasn’t pigs
that were divided-up, nor hay
either.

That was in 1947, 1948 is here
and the same dividing-up process
is at work. A few days ago, Stand-
ard Oil of N.J., announced at a
stockholders’ meeting that earn-
ings for the first half of 1948 will
approximate $210,000,000. A buzz
of excitement greeted the good
news but it is reported that the
chairman sobered those present
by reminding them that dollars
don’t | buy as much as_ they
used to.

Now, maybe the bishop will tell
us another one!

HTT

As We See lt

my a

corporations. Behind John Clark
on that stage too, there stood the
spirits Of many valiant Ginger
Goodwins—who paid the last
supreme sacrifice to the end that
their fellow men should have an
honored place in the House of
Labor and in the lands their toil

has so generously enriched—and ~

enriches.

Twenty or more hard-rock min-
ers’ delegates with their leader
Harvey Murphy sat apart in the
back of the convention hall,
silenced by the decrees of CCL-
high priest Aaron Mosher and
“Doctor” Conroy, just as effec-
tively. as countless numbers of
their miner buddies had been
silenced by the guns and violence
of the mining barons,

“My boys,” John Clark called
them, as he challenged the red-

baiters, in the ranks of the min- -

ing corporations—and the social
democrats, to place their record
of loyalty to the nation alongside
that. of the Union which had
survived the Couer d’Alene bull-
pens, the blacklist and the Pin-
kertons, and stood for “all that
was best in our two countries.”

The drama of this hour ~passes. ~

The convention returns to the
task of hammering out a pro-
gram. The “white” bloc, which
cannot speak and never knew the
language of John Clark ‘of the
IUMM&S, scurries around tabu-
lating votes. They know the value
of votes. There are twenty or
more miners’ votes they don’t
have t0 worry about—now. ~

“Nothing like this,’ said John
Clark, just as his boys have said
it in a hundred mining towns on
this continent, “will divert our
purpose to make our full contri-
‘bution to the trade union move-
ment.”

For one hour the real pulsing
heart of Labor was bared in this
convention, and men who could
hear it won new inspiration.

ee ee a

$ $$ -controlled guillotine

RENCE governments these days don't last any longer
than the proverbial snowball. The second Schuman gov-
ernment lasted approximately 72 hours!

These short-lived in-again-out-again characteristics of -

French governmental instability stem directly from the Mar-

shall Plan dictums of choosing a government acceptable to
Wall. Street—in order to qualify for “dollar aid.” Or to put
it more succintly, you cannot have a genuine form of demo-
cratic government and Yankee dollars at one and the same
time! Hence the Communists, which constitute the single
largest party in France, supported by a superior majority
of the French people, are barred by the Marshall Planners
from participation in government!

In the atomic diplomacy of Wall Street; democracy does
not mean “government of the people by the people,” but
government of the people by the grace of Wall Street and
its -handpicked bourgeois and social democratic lackies. That
is why successive French governments go down as. fre-
quently and as fast as prices go up.

In the war plans of U.S. imperialism there are certain
fundamental rules which must be observed. by the “benefi-
ciaries” of Yankee dollars under the Marshall Plan. One
is that no matter if the people, be it in France, Italy, Japan
or elsewhere, should vote preponderently communist, the~
Communists must not be permitted to participate in govern-
ment. “Project X” of the Marshall Plan is designed to
finance as much violent interference as possible against the
election of Communists—but should the people, in spite of
this interference, still vote Communist, then their represen-
tatives must be kept out_of office!

The second factor, and not less important for Wall
Street, is that the “beneficiaries” themselves must apportion
their governmental budget on the approximate division of
20-percent expenditure for abnormal peace-time affairs and
80-percent for war. The demands of Yankee imperialism on
the first Schuman government in respect to its “defence \
budget” as part of U.S. policy of the remilitarization of the
Ruhr and Western Germany, toppled the Schuman govern-
ment. Then the “radical socialist” Andre Marie (which
in French doesn’t either mean radical or socialist) took
over—with even less success.

The French people want democracy—genuine democracy,
and peace, much as all of us ordinary people do. ‘Twice in
1 generation their country and people have been despoiled
by German aggression. American imperialism is now trans-
forming Western Germany into its own military outpost for
its own criminal war adventures against the peace of the

world. Under the Marshall Plan France is being blackmail- —

ed into acceptance of this policy which leads directly to
~war—or dispensing with Yankee dollars and securing stable
government, by having its duly’ elected Communist repre-_
sentatives—and not the stooges of Wall Street, in office.

‘Isn’t it a shame? On aahor hee Horace was so busy clipping
coupons and lecturing his club on the menace of POLL AD that
ite: couldn’t take the day off.”

Looking issckwcnd

(From the files of The People’s Advocate, September 9, 1938)

Unity in the trade union movement of Canada is the demand —

of the standard Railway Unions’ conference committee in a resolu-

tion forwarded to the 54th Trades: and Labor Congress of Canada

opening in Niagara next Monday.
“Resolved that the Trades arid’ Labor Congress of Canada im

“mnaintaining the position as head of the international labor movemen?
in Canada, give definite leadership to the people against the
attempts of political henchmen in various provinces to destroy thé
attained standards of our unions, by the Congress uniting its
representation all bodies of honest and sincere workers, and so fit and
make ready the labor movement in Canada to resist the growing’
fascist aggression against labor’s Wight. ;;<47 ;

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 10, 1948—PAGE 8

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