G

OVERNOR SMITH of New York recently had occasion to welcome Charles Evans Hughes, the reactionary ex-Governor Miller and even Owen D. Young of the General Electric as members of the Socialist Party. The governor's housing and water power projects had been denounced as "Socialistic" by the Republican and reactionary newspapers of the Empire State. And thereupon, with a show of humor, "Al" had revealed that the leading Republicans themselves were committed to public control of water power.

In Great Britain steps that would be regarded as "Socialistic" here, are adopted by the Tory Government and advocated by the fast-disappearing Liberals, in a desperate effort to patch things up and prevent the return to power of the Labor Party.

"Private enterprise" is becoming a meaningless word in the Imperial Isle. Last summer it was a government subsidy to the coalowners. Now, Baldwin's group go farther and even lend money to two private firms, to open up new coalfields in Kent. "Private enterprise" is leaning more and more on the State, which is thus helping in the exploitation of the workers. The miners demand, of course, that there be a real nationalization and democratization of the industry-to prevent the sins that have blackened the record of British coal through the years.

The use of state credit in salvaging "private enterprise" has raised a number of questions, which are being answered by the Labor Party. If the grants were carried on along scientific lines, with care exercised to see that the workers were cared for justly, and with a view to making "private enterprise" dependent on the State, the Labor Party apparently would not be opposed to such steps. Through wide use of public credit, there would come a growth of public power. At least, so runs the argument. Thereby would the community come more and more into its own.

Another and definite answer has been given in the move of the Labor forces, through Mr. Maxton, to na

Labor startled Britain the last month by capturing
Darlington-for years a Tory stronghold. The London
Daily Herald thus "kids" the Liberal press on that
party's poor showing.

tionalize the Bank of England. This powerful institution, chartered by the State, but controlled by a little, capitalistic clique, would become fully public property by this act. The directors would be appointed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, corresponding to our Secretary of the Treasury. And in the appointments, the various economic groups in the country would be given representation.

Most startling of all, perhaps, was the news-already reported here-of Lloyd George's public committment to nationalization of the land. At first, the tricky little Welshman came out for immediate nationalization, to take place on a set date. He denounced any policy of "graduality", as he called it-any nationalization of the land by slow processes. After nationalization, the land was to be turned over to the farmers on lease. But when the Liberal Land'Conference met last month, Lloyd George was compelled to bend beneath the torrent of criticisms from his wealthy supporters. Little was finally left of his nationalization scheme, except the name. After whittling and whittling, the nationalization was to go through only farm by farm-and then, only when the owner would sell and local state authority would buy.

Nevertheless, it is a sign of the trend in Britain that Lloyd George saw the need of trimming his sails toward the Labor wind. Nationalization will become an increasingly prominent program for British industries. The question Labor is interested in is: Will it be accompanied by Workers Control?

Upon the answer to that question depends the whole value of the new turn of the tide in British economic affairs. The organized workers know full well that "State Socialism" is merely 'State Capitalism"-and that it may become even more bureaucratic than the present intolerable mess. Any reaching out of the State for a wider grip on industry must be accompanied by a definite arrangement for the organized workers to be in control of the machinery of management.

W

E can't deny it, friends. Vera, Countess Cathcart, has gone and done a good thing. She's Imade the world safe for dictionaries.

Here, our faithful old cross worders were getting covered with dust. Cobwebs were coming over them, since cross-wording had lost its pep. That book that was to educate us through puzzles had gone back to King Tut.

Then, along came Vera-and the whole tide turned. It all can be blamed on that blasted word she introduced among us. A few weeks ago, there wasn't one man in a million here in America, and not one woman in two million who knew what "moral turpitude" was or wasn't, or that such an animal as that even existed.

Vera a Great Educational Force

But when that there Vera went and got on the front pages of the papers, and crowded Susan Lenglen and Helen Wills and Tiger Flowers and the Stillmans clean off, with that there "moral turpitude", out came the

dictionaries.

We all got to asking each other what it meant. "What's this here moral turpitude?" I asked Sandy Hook. "If it's moral, it must be connected with the Anti-Saloon League or the Church Federation or the Ku Klux Klan," he answered, "they're always trying to make their neighbors moral. Maybe they've started on turpitude by this time." "But turpitude can't be moral," I replied, "it's immoral." "Well," he came back, "what's moral for a Countess can be immoral for a Polish immigrant woman or somebody like that. So it must be moral turpitude for Vera and immoral turpitude for a workingwoman."

Now, anyone what knows Sandy knows he was kind of mad-like when he said anything like that. But any way, I got to figuring it out, and I guess there may be something to it, you understand, something to it. "Moral turpitude" is when the rich do it, and “immoral turpi

tude" is when the poor do it. And “immoral turpitude” can't be found, you understand, in law book or die tionary.

So I got to reckoning out that the main net outcome of Vera's brave stand for the right to "turp" was a victory for the dictionaries. There's at least one man in a hundred knows something about it today, and one woman in fifty has got it at her finger-tips. Not that I got anything against Vera. She's proved to be a great edu cational force, in more ways than one, I'm thinking.

But I still say and now that I got Sandy's idea, I'm more stubborn about it than he is, like all men what grabs other men's ideas-I still say that what's "moral turpitude" for the rich is "immoral turpitude" for the poor. And what's more, you can't deny it.

You talk about these bandits, for instance and example. Everybody's down on crime. Commissions is busy, running around in circles, everybody's excited, there's loads of paper used up telling about the highwaymen what has hit our cities.

Not only strong-arm men. There's also "white collar bandits". A newspaper in the Big City-a real reactionary kind of paper-starts right out to "expose" these white collar bandits. It called them that itself. As if all bandits didn't wear white collars; they always do. But these, you understand, were gentlemen bandits. “Gee!" said I to myself, this must be great. One thief exposing the others." So I subscribe to the paper in advance, to get the whole news of how I'm being robbed.

66

Well, I read and read, every day, paper after paper. And I found I wasn't the subject of conversation at all. It was about fake stock-salesmen that took in weakminded rich people and got them to buy stocks what didn't exist. Pretty tough, I'm telling you, pretty tough" But what about us, I thought, what don't buy stocks, what aint got enough to buy that there kind of socks. any more than any other kind? Are we being robbed.

too?

Well, I read these papers some more. And they said, in warning: "Don't fall a victim to these white collar bandits. Before buying stock, consult your banker." Gee, I may be ignorant, but seems to me there went the cat out of the bag. "Consult your banker! He's the pure guy. He'll protect his little brother and see he puts his wad in the right place, all right."

Now, what's the difference, I am thinking, between selling stock when there isn't any stock or selling stock that you make the workers and others think is got some "kick" and "power" to it, and there's no kick and power? You know what I mean. Prof. Ripley just showed it up; that all this talk about getting industrial democracy" through wide stock selling is bunk. That's all; bunk. And even little Calvin saw the idea, and said he'd look into it. And he's been looking into it ever since, asking his old friend Andy Mellon how to think out some better scheme. There's just as much fraud in one as in the other, take it from me.

So what's moral turpitude for the little stock-sellers, is moral for the big stock sellers and the banker is no bandit, though he follows bandit's methods. Or some thing like that.

Both cream and scum come to the top, you know, and it's damn hard to tell in this here case which is which. A silk hat looks the same on the heads of banker, bandit or bootlegger, they have been telling me.

So that's that. And if you figure on buying any stock, just figure on being stung. You'll be like the little lambs that walked into the pit the other day in Wall Street, and found that they had lost everything-everything, I'm saying-in that little downfall of stock values.

And that talk about Wall Street, reminds me: lf a bandit there's so little difference between a banker and -if we're agreed on that-what difference can there be between Wall Street gambling and running a little crap game around the corner? Darn if I can see any difference-though they tell me there's a fine book called PROFITS which spends a lot of time trying to prove that they're two far-apart enterprises. And that there book also says Big Business must make profits to cover its

Banker, Bandit or Bootlegger?

risks. And blamed if I can see the difference between plain, down-right gambling and that sort of a way of doing things. A risk is a gamble. One man, being a better risker or gambler, wins in the business game. And that's what they call the Profit System.

UXTRA!!!

Great "Labor Age" Conspiracy Unearthed

H

USH! Tell it in whispers. We are discovered. Things that we did not known about selves are given to the world.

our

The NEW YORK COMMERCIAL did it-with Fred Marvin's little pen. Fred is a broken-down newspaper man, looking for a meal ticket, and finding that he could get it by scaring the Babbit-readers of the COMMERCIAL into cold sweats of fear. He discovers a new conspiracy every morning.

Lately, he found that the Managing Editor of LABOR ACE had gone on a Western speaking trip. "Ha! A conspiracy!" hissed Freddy. Then he unfolded to his gaping readers the dreadful news that Louis Budenz was a secret emissary of Senator Norris, sent forth to unearth "evidence" against the Interests. Said evidence to be turned over to Senator Walsh, for another attack on the Coolidge Administration and its backers. We are delighted at the compliment. Look for the next big "expose" in Washington. LABOR AGE is responsible for it, says the imaginative Freddy. Look for the victory of the "Progressives" in both parties at the coming Congressional elections. We are to blame for it, cries the COMMERCIAL. To which we can only add: "What boobs our Babbitt brethren be!"

Maybe I'm not so smart; but it looks like another case of "moral" for the Profit System of Gambling, and "turpitude" for the crap shooter. Now, you can call me any names you want, but I'm again' any such System. Because I ask: If those risks are so big, that they require and demand and must have such big profits, why don't the community, workers or "the good old U. S. A." take over the risks and the profits that go with them. Yes, sir; I'm all for that.

Of course, the worker don't take any risks at all. So, he don't get no profits. Now, you take when there's a let-down in industry, as they are telling us, the workers just keep on working. The bosses give up their dividends and their fine houses, because they bear the risk. And the worker, he don't have any unemployment, because the bosses is seeing to it that he don't have to worry about risks. Did you ever hear of any thing like that under this here Profit System? Like fun, you did, brother.

Those there risks, they are "moral" for the bosses, and "turpitude" for the workers. So take it or leave it. I've said my say.

"Last month I was employed by the Standard Oil Company at Bayonne, N. J. They have a company union. The rules provide that first of all you must try to adjust your grievances with your foreman. I did but didn't get anywhere.

"Then I went to the delegate who was supposed to represent the workers. It was his duty under the rules to present my grievance to the superintendent. After stalling around for a while he told me I didn't have any grievance. Within a few hours I was fired. Then the foreman with whom I had the controversy was fired and the delegate who was supposed to take care of my grievance was given the foreman's job.

"The delegate knew where his bread was buttered."

The reader is probably aware that the "New Day" of company unionism has arrived among the oil refineries over in Jersey. The events which led up to it are worth a brief review.

In 1915 a 10-day strike for a 15 per cent wage increase evoked armed guards with rifles, a considerable number of hours of violence, and a promise that the strike leaders would receive "no-discrimination" treatment when they returned. After the strike the company characteristically blamed the whole trouble on "outside agitators", but proceeded to grant a 10 per cent increase in wages.

In 1916 came another demand for a 20 to 30 per cent wage increase and more decent treatment by company foremen. The demands were refused and a bloody and bitter strike followed. The strong arm guards and hired

gunmen did their worst.

Several shootings occurred. The company won again. The workers were driven back to the refineries, this time without any semblance of a gain in conditions.

It will be remembered that following the prolonged strike of miners in Colorado in 1913, which witnessed the Ludlow massacre of innocent women and children by Rockefeller gunmen, a "representation plan" was introduced in the mines of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. When it was found that this plan worked in the interests of the company, and that it was a paying financial investment, the Rockefeller interests decided to introduce it among their oil workers. In 1918 the three refineries of the Standard of New Jersey at Bayonne, Jersey City, and Elizabeth were brought under the plan. Later it was adopted with slight modifications in other refineries of the Standard of New Jersey at Baltimore, Parkersburg, West Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina, as well as in the plants of several subsidiary companies, and in the production and marketing divisions of the company. They have remained under it ever since. The notes which follow deal with the plan as it functions in the New Jersey refineries.

Plan Useless to Secure Wage Increases

In 1924 when the workers, through their "representatives" elected under the provisions of the plan, presented a request for a 10 per cent increase, the plan creaked. and groaned but did not quite go under. The news "broke" when the company refused to grant the requested increase, by no means the first time it had turned "thumbs down" on a wage advance. At the time there was some talk of a strike but it blew over quickly. The workers, though defeated and detoured up blind alleys at every step of the way, had been well "psychologized" by the plan and its promises. They had no will, and no union, with which to take effective measures to improve conditions. They were helpless, caught in the meshes of the "plan" they had accepted. The best the "representa