From America: The Panama Canal and the right of free access (1977)

From the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the hottest pieces for conversation in America these days is the Carter Administration’s treaty with Panama, scheduled for a pomp-and-ceremonial signing on Wednesday, Sept. 7, in Washington, with a glittering crowd of little Latin-American dictators and other dignitaries in attendance. Ownership of the Panama Canal is to be transferred to the Panamanian Government, effective as of 1999, albeit with continuing US rights in the area of military defense. As of this writing, opinion polls indicate that a sizeable majority of the US population opposes the deal and that, in the end, the US Senate will refuse to ratify. The Government is mounting an all-out propaganda blitz to win over popular sentiment and save the Treaty.

In a nutshell, the positions are: Pro: in the final analysis, it is free access and not ownership that is important. Panamanians in particular, and Latin Americans, in general, are said to feel that 75 years of US ownership of a waterway in their area is enough. Good public relations between US and the latinos demand the transfer. Con: “We” (the us Government) built the Canal and paid for it. It makes no sense to give it away to a tinhorn dictatorship. Surely American military muscle can easily handle the hostile guerrilla action by anti-Yanqui latinos, but to surrender it to Panama would be to invite trouble from the Communist world — particularly Soviet Russia — which might seize control.

There is much meat here for socialists to chew on. But first it may be helpful to have a look at some bare facts concerning the history of the Canal, facts which are easily verified in the history books. To begin with, the “sovereign” nation of Panama came into being just 75 years ago as the fruit of a conspiracy involving a French capitalist consortium, the Government of President Theodore Roosevelt, and Panamanian revolutionists who sought independence from Columbia of which the Isthmus of Panama was a part.

The French capitalist group had recently abandoned its attempt at building a canal across the Isthmus after sinking some $260 million. A major, insurmountable, obstacle for them was malaria-bearing mosquitoes that devastated the work force. Roosevelt's government now commenced negotiations with the Columbian Government to pick up the rights from the French after agreeing to pay some $40 million for their franchise and unfinished work. But the Columbian Parliament stalled, attempting to raise their ante, and the US Congress hemmed and hawed. Then, enter the conspirators, and a Gilbert & Sullivan-type production ensued.

The group of Panamanian rebel-nationalists was set in motion on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus and the flag of independence was raised. At the same time, three US warships showed up at Colon and Marines were landed to “restore order”. The entire Columbian military force on the Pacific side was bought off, privates receiving $50 a head and officers more, and the revolution was over — bloodless save for the accidental killing of a Chinaman. The news reached Washington at 11.30 in the morning of Nov. 6, 1903, and the Republic of Panama was recognised before one o’ clock of the same day.

There is much more, of course, to this fascinating tale of intrigue in high circles but the foregoing are, at least, among the more salient facts. American capitalism licked the malaria problem by draining the swamps that provided the breeding ground for the mosquitoes. In other words, rather than waste time swatting the critters or spraying them with the 1903 equivalent of Flit, the US got down to bed-rock — the source — and corrected it, a tactic we can hardly expect capitalism to pursue in its perpetual confrontation with problems such as poverty-in-the-midst-of-porential- abundance; war; discrimination, etc.

Now, what should we make of all this noise about the Canal, today? Does it really matter either to Panamanian or American workers which nation possesses the deed of ownership? President Carter tells us, soberly, that it is not ownership but free access that is really important. Aside from our feeling that this move is an attempt by US capitalism to get further out of the more overt type of colonialism, we can only wish that the majority would apply such reasoning to all of wealth-producing property. The reason that the Treaty is of no import either to American or Panamanian workers is that ownership and free access, under capitalism, is generally confined to the capitalist class, even in cases of government-owned and government-operated industry.

But in the face of this truth there is something strange, even weird, about capitalism. Whether or not the Panama Canal will actually become the property of the Panamanian capitalist class depends on how successful the political leaders are in selling a bill of goods to American and Panamanian workers in order to provide the necessary pressures on the politicians to pass and to ratify the legislation.

Socialists maintain, then, that there are three rather than two positions on the Panama Canal Treaty: (1) Agreement; (2) opposition; (3) a simple working-class declaration: It is not our property so don’t bother us. But think carefully about that point made by President Carter on ownership vs. free access. And apply it to the world situation. The answer is inescapable: World Socialism will mean the end of ownership in the sense of class ownership. And common ownership can only spell free access to all that is in and on the earth, even the Panama Canal, by all mankind.

Harry Morrison, 

WSP, Boston. 

Rise of American Civilisation, Beard 

A New American History, Woodward

The Real Roosevelt.(1907)

From the January 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Seen Through American Eyes.

There is not a more pliant tool of the robber classes on earth to-day than Roosevelt. He has made a great splurge about the trusts, probably with their knowledge and consent. The trusts know that it is necessary to do something to fool the people again, and so the various fake laws have been enacted, not one of which will in any manner interfere with the robbing process. None of these laws will be of any benefit to labor or enable the toiler to get a job without begging for it. They are enacted for the sole purpose of fooling the people into the belief that Roosevelt is the friend of the workers.

Every outrage perpetrated upon the toilers since Roosevelt has been President, has had his hearty approval and the perpetrators have been rewarded by Roosevelt with office and emoluments. He looked on while 500 American citizens were dragged from their homes at night and deported from their State without the least shadow of law or authority, and their families left to starve. He has appointed to office some of the vilest criminals of the country, and made a man member of his Cabinet who confessed that he had violated the interstate law every day for ten years, he is the sworn enemy of union labor, having destroyed every vestige of unionism in the government service and has made the government printing office an open shop.

In the pretended “reform” laws passed by the late session of Congress at Roosevelt’s suggestion, every provision of the law will be for the benefit of the trusts, and will in no way help the people to ward off robbery and oppression. In the meat inspection law, the government pays enough every year to build the finest kind of sanitary packing houses to kill and pack all the meat of the country. This is a gracious gift of the people’s money of three millions per year to the Beef Trust, and yet some people actually believe that the law was enacted for the people.

The same is true with the rate bill. Every provision is for the further enrichment of the railways, and not a single provision that will in any way curb the greed of the Railway Trust or make charges reasonable. The clause giving the federal courts the right of review absolutely abrogates any benefit that otherwise might have accrued to the people. No shipper, unless he be a millionaire, could afford to institute proceedings to regulate rates, and then it would take a lifetime to carry the case through the various courts. The railways got all they wanted in the law, the right to review for their tools whose seats were bought for them upon the federal bench. Every man appointed to the federal bench in the past twenty years has been so appointed at the dictates of the corporations. These men are there to serve their masters, and the people need look for no relief from them.

A good specimen of these corporation tools is given in ex-Senator Quarles of Washington. This villain was repudiated by the overwhelming condemnation of the people of his own State, and, immediately after he is appointed by Roosevelt to the Circuit Court of the same State, there to have in his hands the lives, liberty and property of the same men and women who had set upon him the seal of their condemnation. And this is “Teddy, the Trust Buster.”

What a h—l of a defender the people have in the White House.

About the choicest claim, however, of Mr. Lewis, is that Roosevelt was boosted into the White House “against black-flag money.” For whom was the half-million of insurance money stolen from the widows and orphans of the great life insurance companies ? Every dollar of it spent for Roovevelt’s election. If he was not elected by “black-flag” money, then no President ever was.

The Interstate Commerce law formerly had imprisonment as one of the penalties of its violation. When evidence began to be produced of the flagrant violation of this law by the railways, at the head of whom was Paul Morton, a member of the Cabinet, Steve Elkins introduced a bill repealing the imprisonment clause. The bill passed both houses of Congress and ROOSEVELT SIGNED IT. Rebating is the most dastardly of crimes. It is the crime by which Rockefeller has made his millions, from the sweat and blood of the people, and Roosevelt deliberately conspired to repeal the only penalty fort this crime which the robbers care a fig for.

—Deadwood Lantern

America’s “Radical” Presidents (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

A glance at U.S. political history of this century discloses an amazing fact. From Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, to Richard Nixon, a Republican, there have been a number of Presidents from both major parties who have either been labelled communist, socialist or radical leftist by their opponents or have legislated — or advocated legislation — widely thought of as socialistic. Roosevelt the First denounced the "malefactors of great wealth” and was known as a Trust Buster. Woodrow Wilson’s administration introduced the tax on income for the first time and that was definitely branded as socialist by his wealthy Republican opponents. Roosevelt the Second legislated social security, government relief projects and a number of other agencies that were tagged socialist by his enemies. He was widely denounced as a sort of communist. Harry Truman brought in Medicare which was certainly — according to the American Medical Association — the opening wedge to socialized medicine. Elsenhower was denounced by the Birch Society and by the ardent followers of Senator Joe McCarthy as a communist dupe Kennedy and Johnson both continued to talk in the manner of their predecessors with Lyndon going so far as to join in a chorus of We Shall Overcome when he signed the Civil Rights Bill. And now Richard M. Nixon, that one-time battler of Communists has topped them all by going for government economic controls on the home front and practicing blood-brother summitry with the leaders of his erstwhile enemies In Peking and in Moscow.

Amazing? It certainly is when one considers the fact that American capitalism has seemingly thrived on all of its radical presidents and all of its “socialist” legislation. America has become, in this century, the bastion of world capitalism.

And now comes Senator George McGovern and his running mate Mr Shriver. multi-millionaire and member of the Kennedy family by marriage, with more “socialist” proposals, according to those who are frightened by them, and one cannot but wonder: why the alarm? Since what is popularly believed to be socialism has worked to make America the top plutocracy of all time would it not seem practical to have more of it? Or is the widespread fear of Mr. McGovern’s radical ideas merely a reflection of a widespread admiration for Mr. Nixon’s own “socialist” efforts? If we have to have socialism, the worriers might be thinking, let’s continue with Dick’s brand rather than have George do it.

The fact is, of course, that the terms “socialism” and “communism" have come to mean something quite alien to their true meaning. What is socialism? What is communism? They are different terms for the same system of society, a social order without buying and selling, minus wage labor, a world without nations, a system based upon free right of access, by all mankind, to all that is produced.

What has that to do with the creation of government agencies to handle problems of the poor, both working and unemployed? Obviously nothing. Such agencies are but continued recognition of the only real inalienable right of the workers under capitalism, the right to continue in poverty and insecurity. Is It not apparent after seven decades of so-called socialistic legislation and so-called socialist and communist-type political leaders, from Republicans and Democrats alike, that capitalism in any form can only continue to really enrich the capitalists and do nothing to improve the conditions of life for the vast majority? Any attempt to make capitalism work in the interests of the vast majority is fruitless.

Rear View: We Come in Peace, Shoot to Kill (2021)

The Rear View Column from the April 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

We Come in Peace, Shoot to Kill

‘Despite the damage coronavirus lockdowns did to the world’s economy, 2020 marked a record high in global military spending, according to a new report. As always, the US was in the lead, accounting for 40.3 percent of the world’s military expenditures at $738 billion. The report, released by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), says total military expenditures added up to $1.83 trillion in 2020, a 3.9 percent increase from 2019 (news.antiwar.com, 25 February). This news comes as no surprise to socialists: we have said for over a century that war is endemic to capitalism. We recall that the Obama–Biden Administration promised to do away with nuclear arms once and for all, but instead committed $1 trillion to building the nuclear stockpile and modernising nuclear production facilities. Commenting on an earlier admininistration, the late Carl Sagan, a visionary and humanitarian scientist, observed: ‘For me, the most ironic token of [the first human moon landing] is the plaque signed by President Richard M. Nixon that Apollo 11 took to the moon. It reads, ‘We came in peace for all Mankind.’ As the United States was dropping seven and a half megatons of conventional explosives on small nations in Southeast Asia, we congratulated ourselves on our humanity. We would harm no one on a lifeless rock’.

What about life on Earth?

Another (probably) lifeless rock has been invaded by a swarm of robots. Of multiple attempted Mars landings by robotic, unmanned spacecraft, ten have to date been classsed as succesful. Did any science fiction writer envisage a race to Mars? There is, indeed, kudos to all the thousands of workers across the world – these mulitiple landings are collectively an achievement on a par with the launching of Sputnik 1 just forty years after the fall of the Czars. Returning to the present, we are informed: ‘Internet sleuths claim to have decoded a hidden message displayed on the parachute that helped Nasa’s Perseverance Rover land safely on Mars…. They claim that the phrase “Dare mighty things” – used as a motto by Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory – was encoded on the parachute using a pattern representing letters as binary computer code’ (theguardian.com, 23 February). The phrase is used in an 1899 speech by Theodore Roosevelt, in which he said: ‘Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.’ Oscar Wilde described us ‘poor spirits’ more accurately and succiently when he said : ‘To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all’.

War without end?

‘Humanity is waging a “senseless and suicidal” war on nature that is causing human suffering and enormous economic losses while accelerating the destruction of life on Earth, the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, has said. Guterres’s starkest warning to date came at the launch of a UN report setting out the triple emergency the world is in: the climate crisis, the devastation of wildlife and nature, and the pollution that causes many millions of early deaths every year’ (theguardian.com, 18 February). Such news would not have surprised the astronomer and Marxist Antonie Pannekoek. Writing in 1909 he observed: ‘Natural resources are exploited as if reserves were infinite and inexhaustible. The harmful consequences of deforestation for agriculture and the destruction of useful animals and plants expose the finite character of available reserves and the failure of this type of economy. Roosevelt recognises this failure when he wants to call an international conference to review the state of still available natural resources and to take measures to stop them being wasted. Of course the plan itself is humbug. The state could do much to stop the pitiless extermination of rare species. But the capitalist state is in the end a poor representative of the good of humanity. It must halt in face of the essential interests of capital’.

Don’t Panic

Commenting on billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX’s Starship project which may someday send humans to Mars, Shannon Stirone, in an article titled ‘Mars Is a Hellhole: Colonising the red planet is a ridiculous way to help humanity’ (theatlantic.com, 26 February), writes: ‘Legitimate reasons exist to feel concerned for long-term human survival. But I question anyone among the richest people in the world who sells a story of caring so much for human survival that he must send rockets into space.’ Neither misleaders nor multi-millionaires can save us. Sagan says : ‘Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate.’ Yet more positively he also stated: ‘Humans have evolved gregariously. We delight in each other’s company; we care for one another. Altruism is built into us. We have brilliantly deciphered some of the patterns of Nature. We have sufficient motivation to work together and the ability to figure out how to do it. If we are willing to contemplate nuclear war and the wholesale destruction of our emerging global society, should we not also be willing to contemplate a wholesale restructuring of our societies?’ (Cosmos, Futura, 1987, p. 358). Pannekoek, who died in 1960 just as humanity entered the space age, would concur: ‘It is time for mankind to ensure itself of material abundance by establishing a free, self-managed world-society of productive labor, thereby freeing its mental powers for perfecting its knowledge of nature and the universe’ (A History of Astronomy, 1951).

The Pseudo-Socialist Vote in U.S. (1913)

From the January 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

A million votes for Socialism! In exulting tones the worthy supporters of the body calling itself the Socialist Party of America tell us that this was, approximately, the vote cast for their candidate for the Presidency of the United States – Eugene V. Debs.

A million votes for Socialism! Would that it were true! Would not we too rejoice? But we have, in duty bound, to look into the matter before we join in the shouts of victory and – we decide to reserve our surplus steam.

This vote, perforce, compelled some attention at the hands of the capitalist Press. They found this vote a serious menace to “American institutions”, that is, of course, capitalist institutions, writ Uncle Sam. And probably the capitalist Press is not far wrong, for one may well admit that the vote for Eugene Debs for the Presidency is a presage of the fall of capitalism, without agreeing to the assumption that the U.S. working class have gone a million strong for the Socialist Republic.

A slight acquaintance with the S.P. of A. teaches one that its membership is made up of all sorts and conditions of men and women with, for the most part, very little more to recommend them for membership of a Socialist party than good intentions and enthusiasm. Only a small part have anything approaching a real grip of the proletarian position.

As was the case in the old S.D.F. in Great Britain, there is much talk of Marxism. But so little are the implications of Socialist economics understood and the conditions of the class struggle appreciated, that we find the party, in its respective State platforms, asking for the support of the working class for a long list of reforms, such as the Minimum Wage, the Eight Hours Day, Old Age Pensions, Sick Insurance, etc., much as we have been used to finding in S.D.F. programmes.

In fact, such emphasis and prominence were given these in the New York State platform that it was thought necessary to remind the public in large type on the last page, that the ultimate object was not overlooked.

Demagogue Roosevelt, the biggest bluffer Uncle Sam can boast of, created a distinct rustle by annexing a large slice of this reform program – and this on the recommendation of a prominent S.P. member, it appears.

This the membership seemed to think rather flattering, though, of course, it was, on the contrary, a tribute to the anti-Socialist character of their own party. For, surely, if those demands were Socialistic, capitalist Roosevelt would not even have looked at them.

However, one point is worth noticing, that is that the prophecy that Roosevelt would carry off a large part of the “Socialist” vote or prevent it increasing has proved entirely mistaken. Apparently his “revolutionary” candidatures did not keep a vote from Debs.

With regard to this reform question one hears from the S.P. members the same old confusing nonsense about a capitalism too rotten to be patched, and yet calling for a whole rag-shop full of patches in the shape of the S.P. “immediate demands”.

Reading the voting returns for the various parts of the country, one notices the great disparity of votes given for different candidates on the same local Party ticket – showing that many votes are cast for persons rather than for principles. Thus in Illinois an S.P. candidate came near being elected to an important legal office, while the remainder of the S.P. candidates ran hopelessly in the rear. In this case the party Press announces the intention to contest the election, thereby admitting the party’s readiness to accept office from voters who do not even indorse the party’s program, such as it is. Such a policy is an exhibition of weakness, and can only lead to failure, disappointment, and apathy. Inevitably the association of the name of Socialism with such a policy and its results must confuse the proletariat and hinder the cause.

In Milwaukee, where in a previous election V. Berger was elected to Congress in a three-cornered fight on the usual pledges of innumerable reforms, the party was defeated. The old parties combined to prevent the re-election of Berger. Likewise the city of Schenectady turned out of power the S.P. administration through an old party combination.

Now had the S.P. of A. at the previous election gone before the electorate with a simple statement of the Socialist objective, it is certain that these candidates would not have won office, and there would not have been built up the false hopes involving subsequent disappointment. Such would have been the better way, for the foundations of success would have been laid. For, surely, when a real Socialist majority has been developed and had its way at the ballot-box, the capitalist party combination will have done its worst and shown its impotence to affect the issue.

The experience of Schenectady and Milwaukee illustrates well the misleading character of the big vote for Debs. The possibility looms ahead of this vote growing on its present loose and unreliable lines to the point where the S.P. will find itself vested with the reins of Government and yet be so placed as to be quite unable to effect those revolutionary economic changes that alone can justify its assumption of the name Socialist. One shrinks from the contemplation of the likely outcome of such a situation, and can only hope that some of the pluck and enthusiasm of the American worker will soon get translated into that clear understanding of the problem of working-class supremacy that must precede any possibility of Socialist victory.

J. H. (New York)

50 Years Ago: Trust Busting in America (1961)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many worthy people have fondly cherished the notion that Roosevelt and his fellow Republicans meant “doing for" the trusts. Our Liberal advertisement sheets have praised him for his "great fight" and accepted him as the enemy of monopoly. But, true to capitalist methods, when something more than mere words and rhetoric is required, he turns round and defends the trusts and ridicules the idea of destroying them. In the current issue of the Outlook, Mr. Roosevelt says:

  "The big business has come to stay and it is futile to expect to return to the old days of laissez-faire. The government must see this and refrain from keeping American industries on tenterhooks and permitting foreign rivals to reap an advantage.”

In the course of his article he denounces the government for interfering with the Steel Trust and calls President Taft's policy a “chaotic" one.

So much for capitalist politicians. When they seek office they tell their poor followers that trusts can be smashed by anti-trust laws. But in the calm of other days the truth so often driven home by Socialists emerges—that combination and concentration of capital is an inevitable result of economic laws. That is the tribute of Theodore Roosevelt to Karl Marx. 

[From the Socialist Standard, December 1911.]

Put This In Your Collection of Golden Deeds. (1924)

From the December 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

You will of course have the Boudel Massacre, the Amritsar Horror, the Congo Rubber Atrocities, etc., duly docketed. The following extract from Mark Twain’s recently published Autobiography, quoted in the "Daily News,” October 25th, is a useful addition to Capitalism’s Book of Golden Deeds.

Mark Twain was roused to a white heat of anger by the killing of six hundred Moros by American soldiers in the Philippine Islands in 1906.

   "With six hundred engaged on each side, we lost fifteen men killed outright and we had thirty-two wounded.  . . . The enemy numbered six hundred—including women and children—and we abolished them utterly leaving not even a baby alive to cry for its dead mother.
   "This is incomparably the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United States.”

President Roosevelt sent a formal message of congratulation to the commanding officer. "His whole utterance is merely a convention,” comments Mark Twain. "Not a word of what he said came out of his heart. He knew perfectly well that to pen six hundred helpless and weaponless savages in a hole like rats in a trap and massacre them in detail during a stretch of a day and a half from a safe position on the heights above was no brilliant feat of arms, and would not have been a brilliant feat of arms even if Christian America, represented by its salaried soldiers had shot them down with Bibles and Golden Rules instead of bullets.”—From Mark Twain Autobiography extract in "Daily News,” 25/10/24.

The Greatest Show on Earth (1968)

From the November 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Harding or Cox? Harding or Cox?You tell us, populi -You've got the vox.

This piece of lumbering wit was a typical embellishment of the 1920 American presidential election, when Warren Gamiel Harding for the Republicans gave James M. Cox for the Democrats the drubbing of a lifetime. Harding won every state outside the South—and in those days southern votes would have gone for a chimpanzee, provided it was a Democratic chimpanzee.

Harding’s nomination had been a chancy affair. He went to the Republican National convention that year, Senator from Ohio and his state’s ‘‘favourite son’’ candidate—a dodge used then, and now, not as a serious bid for the nomination but to keep control of a state delegation.

But the Republicans were deadlocked and after four ballots they retired for some intensive nocturnal bargaining (it was said to have gone on in the legendary "smoke filled rooms"). The result of this was that the party pros settled on Harding as a compromise and the next day, on the tenth ballot, he emerged as the candidate. Harding was a keen poker man and his dazed comment was that he felt “ . . . like a man who goes in with a pair of eights and comes out with aces full."

Anxious not to upset his concentration on the cards by too complicated a campaign, Harding appealed for “normalcy’’. The voters were probably no clearer on the meaning of this new word than was Harding but they liked the sound of it enough to sweep him triumphantly into the White House, where, as his campaign manager had hoped, he made a “great looking President.”

The nomination is not always so uncertain. More often the successful man has it all tied up—like Johnson in 1964 (because he was already President); like Goldwater in 1964 and Humphrey in 1968 (by patiently and determinedly building up support at every level of their parties); like Kennedy in I960 (because of a series of compelling primary victories).

Kennedy’s primary campaigns were classics. He entered them to prove that a young Roman Catholic could win votes and to erase the memory of the Democrats’ disastrous experiment with Al Smith in 1928, since when no Catholic had got within smelling distance of the nomination. Kennedy fought the primaries with all the ruthless efficiency for which his clan are famous, destroying Hubert Humphrey on the way (Humphrey went out on a flood of his own, easily produced tears) and sweeping to the nomination on the first ballot.

Kennedy, in other words, fought the primaries because he had to. In theory the primaries are ultra-democratic, giving the electors a say in the people who stand for office. The fact is that no American politician ever enters them willingly — there are other ways to the nomination and, while victory in the primaries is usually inconclusive, defeat in them is disastrous.

In I960, Humphrey wailed to the pressmen assembled in an unheated coach bumping across snow covered roads that " . . . any man who goes into a primary isn’t fit to be President. You have to be crazy to go into a primary"—which might have had more point if Humphrey had not at that very moment been fighting a primary himself. Politicians after power do not shrink from putting votes before democratic theories; the primaries are an accepted field of political manoeuvre.

Of course an awful lot of nonsense is talked about them. Theodore Roosevelt’s attempt at the Republican nomination in 1912 was one important influence in increasing the number of states selecting their Convention delegates by primaries and in the course of his campaign Roosevelt seemed to be under the impression that he was God. That year the Republican pros were determined that, however many delegates Roosevelt won in primaries, the nomination would go to Taft. Roosevelt became an abrupt, fervent convert to the sanctity of primaries, although he had not had the same high regard for the voice of the people when he controlled the Republican machine.

After the primaries (and these are usually held in only about sixteen states) and after the painstaking work of collecting delegates all the way up from precinct caucuses, district committees and state conventions, come the National Conventions. The convention, we learn from certain novels and films, is a part of the American way of life, when overwrought business men and suburban fathers can show that there is still some life left in them. Here, amid the ballyhoo of processions and banners and mock-nomination of the favourite sons, comes the serious business of selecting the party’s candidate. Here, no matter what the primaries may have said, the delegations’ votes are traded or are thrown onto a bandwagon in the hope of political and other favours in the future. (In 1960 Kennedy’s men freely used the threat that, if Adlai Stevenson's supporters were too much of an obstacle to the nomination, their man would not even be considered for Secretary of State when Kennedy became President).

The nomination is usually an unexciting affair — only rarely is there the uncertainty which meant forty-six ballots before Wilson won the Democratic nomination in 1912, or the Democrats’ 103 to select J. W. Davis in 1924. Then follows the election campaign itself, when the candidates justify all the months and years of work, manoeuvring, threats and intrigue by a cynical attempt to deceive as many people as possible into voting for them.

Sometimes this deceit is quite blatant. In 1916, Wilson won on a promise to keep America neutral but six months after his election he took the country into the War. In 1932 F. D. Roosevelt attacked government interference in industry and deficit financing. He promised a balanced Budget and, among other things, a 25 per cent cut in federal spending. None of this prevented Roosevelt following different policies when in office, nor his becoming famous as the man who “cured the slump” with a combination of federal spending and Budget deficits. In all the admiration of Roosevelt’s magic genius no one noticed that the slump was lessening all over the world and that the politicians who happened to be in power at the time—for example Adolf Hitler—were getting the credit for it.

Some of the candidates’ deceits are a little more subtle. Every election brings its slogan, like Wilson’s “New Freedom”, F. D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal”, Kennedy’s “New Frontier”, Johnson’s “Great Society”. These all have the same advantage; they mean exactly what everyone wants them to—but they also have the same implied admission that the existing situation is bad enough to need altering. The voters are usually so bemused by these slogans that they vote for them without asking what happened to the old catch phrases —why, for example, did they need Johnson’s Great Society in 1964 when Kennedy’s New Frontier should have solved everything?

This kind of question is much too awkward to be faced. The workers dumbly vote for one of the candidates and then after Inauguration Day the way is clear for the process of disillusionment to begin. In 1964 LBJ was everyone’s favourite; he won an unprecedented victory, taking every state except Arizona and the Deep South. He had once voted a straight racist line but now, he said, he was a “liberal”. Even more—he had a “liberal” Vice-President, a “liberal” Congress, even a ‘‘liberal” Supreme Court. Nothing, apparently, could stop the Great Society.

We all know what happened. The Democrats’ failures and frustrations, after their years of overwhelming power, were vented in the splits and the brutalities of their Chicago Convention. Many of the voters, too, showed their frustrations and the vicious depth of their despair—they came out as supporters of George Wallace.

The American Presidential Election, with all its flags and bands and drum majorettes and campaign boaters and massive crowds, is one of the greatest shows on earth. It is certainly among the most expensive—according to Look magazine, the candidates will spend nearly $50 million on their campaigns. That may sound a lot of money but think what is at stake — no less than the hoodwinking of tens of millions of people, and power over the greatest state in world capitalism.

Ivan

Murder! (1923)

From the January 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

When two Irish Patriots, in the mistaken notion that they were assisting the Irish people, shot General Sir H. Wilson, they were dubbed murderers. They regarded him as the military representative of an enemy Government, and thought themselves justified in taking his life because they had but recently learned in the British Army that this was a right and proper thing to do; but they were hanged. The judge who condemned them talked some impertinent nonsense about the impossibility of reconciling Christianity and murder, but was apparently unaware that various Christian nations had been devoting the whole of their energies for some years to murdering each others subjects.

The fact is, that there is a double standard of judgment. Murder by an individual on his own behalf is wrong, and will be punished; but murder by a ruling class in defence of its right to the private ownership of the means of life may be deemed “the preservation of law and order,” and is then not only excusable but highly moral.

The politicians carry out the orders of the ruling class, and are, of course, permitted in the execution of their duty to murder as much and as often as may be necessary.

Recently, ex-President Taft was in this country, and was received with open arms by Society, the Press, the Legal Profession, the Political Clubs, etc.

Ex-President Taft is an honourable man: he was also Governor of Philippines during Roosevelt’s Presidency. When in 1904, Roosevelt was running for the United States Presidency for the second time, much depended on the success of his policy in the Philippines, which America had not long forcibly annexed from Spain. Owing to natural discontent and gross misgovernment, the Islands were in a state of insurrection ; but were this news to leak out, the election might be lost.

To send troops to assist or evacuate those already there would have exposed the true position. What, then, did Taft do?—this honourable man, this confidant of European Cabinets, this lion of the best Society, entertained by Judges, and beamed upon by Royalty?

Stanley Portall Hyatt, an eye-witness, gives the answer:—

  “The insurrection had broken out, or rather, had blazed up, some months before, inconveniently near the Presidential Election, as the leaders knew well. . . .
  “ When the men in red took the field . . .  the High Gods of Manila attempted to keep the news out of the Press by practically cutting off Samar from communication with the outer world, leaving the unfortunate coastal people, the tao or peasantry, to their fate. Yet for months past, those same tao, knowing the Pulojanes were preparing to rise, had been sending frenzied appeals for protection to Manila. A thousand white troops distributed round the coast would have resulted in the saving of 50,000 lives. There was actually a white regiment in the island, at Calbayog, yet even when the Pulojanes were burning and slaughtering a few miles away it was not allowed to leave its camp. Officially, Samar was at peace; and if the 14th Infantry had taken the field the American nation might have begun to doubt the truth of Official statements, which would have meant the loss of votes. So the tao were left to their fate. Within the year, nearly a hundred thousand of the natives of Samar perished, and the island was absolutely ruined; but still the election was won.” (The Diary of a Soldier of Fortune; page 304.)

Even Churchill might envy the man with the above to his credit, and he could certainly never hope to beat for cool cheek the United States Government’s statement that the Philippines are “ happy, peaceful, and in the main prosperous, and keenly appreciative of the benefits of American rule." (Manchester Guardian, December 23rd, 1921.)

H. E.

Who can boss? (1905)

From the April 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Roosevelt will fight the Trusts! So were the American people in particular and the civilized world in general told when he was put in power. Such of the American people as had knowledge smiled, if they did not, they should have done. The Beef Trust was impeached, and found guilty of conspiracy to fix prices, secure illegal rebates from the railroads, and stifle free competition. The United States Circuit Court of Illinois granted an injunction against the Trust on the foregoing counts. But the Trust did not worry—it simply continued in the same old way. On the 31st of January, 1905, the newspapers stated their belief that criminal proceedings would be taken against the firms constituting the Trust. Speaking an the following day at Philadelphia, Mr. Roosevelt urged, among other things, more federal control of commerce and particularly of railroads. “ Neither this people nor any other free people ” he declared, "will permanently tolerate vast power conferred by vast wealth in a corporate form, that does not lodge somewhere in the Government a still higher power of seeing that this power is used for and not against the people as a whole." In New York, on the same day, a railroad Trust, believed in financial circles to be the largest of its kind, was brought into existence. Mr.W. H. Newman, president of the New York Central Line, was appointed president of the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and S. Louis lines, popularly, known as the “big four.” This combination consists of nearly thirty distinct lines, and controls all the great routes from New York to Chicago, with the exception of the Pennsylvanian railway. The final aim of the Trust is to make practically one system from the Atlantic to the Pacific and to form one huge combination with a capital of seven billion dollars (£1,400,000,000). On the following day a Cotton Trust was formed, with a capital of a hundred million dollars (£20,000,000). It comprises almost all the mills in Massachusetts and some in the other New England States. The reason given for its formation was that the northern mills could not compete with the southern and they had to amalgamate in order to exist. The paragraph significantly concludes thus: “The new Trust proposes to reorganise the business of the mills it takes over, on the basis of economical production and new processes of weaving. There will be economies effected in the labour and management of the mills.” Thus the Trusts show their contempt for the powers that be. Not a President goes to the White House without their permission. As Mr. William Allen White points out in the New York “Collier’s,” “The people howl for Roosevelt and whoop it up for reform, until the railroads begin issuing passes and contributing to the campaign fund. Then these same dear patriotic people get in special trains, eat free railroad grub, corrode tneir insides with free railroad liquor, and hurrah for “the old man ” who sees the railroads run the government.”

But, says the Britisher, this is all in America and it does not follow that similar things occur or could occur in England. We have no such Trusts. Let us see. On January 30th of this year, news was published of the amalgamation of two most important cotton-spinning associations. Between them they controlled over 30,000,000 spindles, out of England’s total of 45,000,000, the world’s total being 110,000,000. In October, 1904, the Scottish and North of England Iron and Steel Masters met and arrived at an understanding, the result of which was very soon shewn in a reduction of the wages of the employees of the firms concerned. Recently the Cornish producers of china formed themselves into an Association. Even the capitalist papers refer to the London Coal Trade as “the Coal ring,” whilst that of the Billingsgate Fish merchants is well-known. The American invasion to capture the Tobacco trade taught the English manufacturers that the only way that they could fight a Trust was by forming another and the Imperial Tobacco Company was the result. The Liquor monopoly is of course a Trust, the strength of which is largely due to the policy pursued by the lopsided “Temperance” reformers. At the present moment, the “one-man grocer” as he is called, is much agitated about the statement that the Mazawattee Tea Co. is about to open 300 to 400 shops in the country for the retailing of its tea and other commodities, but it is no trade secret that the vast proportion of the retail grocery shops belong to similar mammoth concerns. The provision shops, too, are often merely distributive depots for the wholesale houses, whilst few of the “master” bakers are other than managers for, or “tied” tenants of, the millers. Then we have the Wall-Paper Trust, the Type-Writer Trust, and so on. Here, as abroad, industry after industry becomes trustified. The only way in which the capitalists of any country can hope to secure and maintain a hold upon the World’s Markets is by these large combinations of capital, with their resulting more systematic methods of organisation and “effective economies in labour and management.”

This ever extending growth of the Trusts means a more and more precarious existence for the workers. The ever-improving machinery that these large capitals can operate should prove to the workers that they have no effective weapon with which to fight them and resist their aggressions. The Trade Unions with their few thousands of pounds cannot hope to successfully fight the Trusts with their millions. The power of the machine alone will almost crush them, but the machine and the large capital combined in the Trust they cannot fight. The lesson of the class war must be brought home to them. Just as in the United States the capitalist papers admit the control of the Government by the Trusts, so will it happen here in England. The only way of salvation for the workers lies in the transformation of these Trusts into national property and the organisation of industry on a co-operative basis of production for use and not for profit. No capitalist party will legislate for this— they dare not, on the pain of self-extinction. The only party that dare go to the legislative assemblies to do this is the Socialist working-class, organised on the lines of the class war, with its tactics and policy in accord with its principle, with a clear knowledge of the fact that rent, profit, and interest exist because the workers—the wealth-creators—are robbed of the wealth they produce, whether taken from them by private capitalists or by the capitalist state or municipality. A revolutionary Socialist party alone can act in the real interests of the workers, and for the workers of this country that party is The Socialist Party of Great Britain.

E. J. B. Allen