CAPITALISM IN U.S.A.

Grey River Argus, 10 January 1928, Page 3

CAPITALISM IN U.S.A.

SIGNS OF COLLAPSE. Financial Scandals Exposed. ‘at LOCO-ENGINEERS’ CONVENTION. The organisation which took the lead in the movement for trade union capitalism (labour hanking, investment companies, trade union life insurance,etc,) was the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, ono of the oldest and most conservative trade unions of America. The leader of this organisation, Warren S. Stone, now dead, set himself up as a great financier, and turned the whole strength of the organisation into the building up of a vast financial system. This comprised 12 Labour banks, 10 investment corporations, and many other business enterprises. The grand total involved in these concerns was apprixim/tely 100,000.000 dollars. BUYING OUT ‘THE BOSS.

The reactionary bureaucracy in all the unions looked upon the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers’ Institutions as models for them to pattern after. The leaders of this union, repeating the propaganda of the capitalists, declared in a thousand statements that the revolution in America is unnecessary, that th? class struggle is liquidated, and that the way for the workers to work their way out of wage slavery is for them to co-operate with the employers, to save their money, and to buy their way into control of the industries. This general philosophy, now known as the so-called “Higher Strategv of Labour,” is supported by the entire upper trade union bureaucracy. But now the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers’ financial bubble has burst. The whole system of investments are involved in one of the greatest financial scandals and failures in American history. The exposure began at the recent convention of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, which lasted six ■ and a half weeks, and cost a. million dollars. At this convention it was shown that the banks were in a most precarious condition. having lost at least 12.000.000 dollars. The whole financial structure trembled on the brink of bankruptcy. Desperate means were applied to save something from the wreckage. The rotten officialdom responsible for the debacle wer« removed forthwith from office and the wages of the others (which .-an as high as 25,000 dollars per year) -were slashed. All the enterprises were put in the hands of a committee to sell as quickly as possibly. Meanwhile capitalist bankers were secured to manage the whole business. An assessment of five dollars per month, or a total of about 7,000,000 dollars was placed on th 3 entire membership of the union. TOTAL COLLAPSE.

This financitl (debacle v(as caused by “frozen assets,” that is, bad investments resulting from incompetent and criminal mismanage-j ment. The convention investigation shattered the reputation of the former leader, Warren S. Stone, who had hitherto shown out as a great labour financier. The investigation proved that when Stone died two years ago the banks and investment company were already 5,00(1000 dollars in the hole. Stone’s successor, Prenter, -ami the band of Labour traitors surrounding him, continued the financial orgy started by Stone. One of their worst ventures was the wholesale plunging into the mad Florida land speculation of a couple of years ago. They sank many millions into the Florida swamps in the wild-cat attempt to build “Venice” into a great winter resort. Thousands of the members of the union were induced to invest their money in these ill-fated speculations. One of the schemes that I burned up vast sums was the Coal 1 River Collieries Company. This coalmining concern was bought by the union and operated, with the help of gun-men, strike-breakers, etc., as an open-shop mine, in the face of a lot- • ter strike by the United Mine Work-] C’s. This concern, capitalised at 2.800,000 dollars, is now bankrupt. In this orgy of squandering the funds of the workers the heads of the union, true to the type of the i Labour fakir, feathered their own' nests. Stone dies a rich man. Prcnter, his successor, recently bought an estate in Cleveland valued at 250,000 dollars, and his wife, who died a short while ago, left 100,000 dollars. But the principal grafter in the whole business was one, George T. Webb, who, in .addition to what he made from mishandling the union funds, received a salary of 48,000 dollars a year from the union. He lives in a great mansion in Cleveland worth at least 600,000 dollars. WHOLE MOVEMENT SHAKEN. This collapse of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers’ Institutions has shaken the whole Labour movement. The latest effort of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers 1o save something from • the wreckage was the mortgaging of their big office building in Cleveland for 4.000,000 dollars. There was a mortgage on the building financed by the insurance fund of the union, for 7,000,000 dollars. This mortgage was superseded by the latest mortgage, which means that in all probabilities the 7,000,000 of the insurance fund will be lost.

The membership of the union, which comprises the most aristocratic and highly paid sections of the American working class, are aroused and enraged over the unparalleled squandering of their millions in savings and dues. The Left Wing is stimulating movements amongst them to clean out all of their treacherous officials and to immediately sell off their capitalistic institutions# This whole incident is characteristic of the present corrupt tendencies among the trade union bureaucracy. It is a sample of the type of American unionism now being so widely advertised in Germany and elsewhere, lit is one of the many indications of the utterly rotten condition of the of the American trade unions.