Open forum, vol. 2, no. 23 (June, 1925)

The Best Reward for Good Work is More Work.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, JUNE 6, 1925

NG. 23

and

How Los Angeles Can

Turn The `Tide

BY FRANK E. WOLFE

In The Labor Press, Los Angeles

Frank E. Wolfe was managing editor of the Los

Angeles Herald when it was a morning paper. At

the present time he is editor of the Independent

Oil and Financial Reporter, published at Fort Worth,

Texas. To use a Slang expression, Mr. Wolfe "knows

his stuff,' as will be seen by the following article,

written by him for the International Labor News

Service and forwarded by the latter to the "Labor

Press":

* * % *

Riding along on the crest wave of a protracted

period of prosperity, Los Angeles slumbered in that

feeling of security which comes to those who become

saturated with self-complacency. Then came an un-

pleasant awakening. A crop failed. The tourists

who had automatically turned westward with the

first flurries of snow did not turn. There were rea-

sons, of course, but these were not immediately

discernable.

Los Angeles saw a great flow of winter traffic turn

to Florida and they saw such propaganda in favor

of that State as they never dreamed possible. Frank

Wiggins, the veteran secretary of the Chamber of

Commerce, passed away a year or so ago. He left

a vacancy that will long remain vacant.

The realtors of another section had the inside run

on the realtors of the southern coast of California.

The Floridians took a leaf from the book of the

Californians. In fact, they stole the entire book.

They outboosted, outboomed, outkiwanied, outlioned

and outrotated the Los Angeles outfit.

The Hastern real-estate sharks used all the ways

and wiles they had learned from the Westerners.

In fact, some of the smoothest, cleverest go-getters

from Southern California went to Florida, and they

are there now booming the game and coining a lot

of money from the sale of town lots, swamps and

Sandy places. Miami is full of the fellows who used

to stand out on Ventura Boulevard with a circular

and map in one hand and a red and yellow pennant

ay the other, Selling, selling, gelling. Now he stands

Hoy front of a stucco coop on the Dixie Highway,

Waving a florid Florida circular in one hand, with

a blue and gold badge in the lapel of his white

flannel coat, Selling, selling, selling, the whiles the

Classic purlieus of Hollywood know him and his voice

no more,

Miami has a winter climate-and it had the propa-

ganda,

wae flood of tourists turned south and it flowed

: y during the winter-albeit there was a back-

ee the broke and the bewildered-but the tide

Muha ae Strong and cross-rips did not check it.

rhage oF dollars are buried, like Captain Kidd's

Siffre in the sands of Florida's sun-baked and

i` ee BHOres." Millions of dollars did not flow

~- hern California,

that : Los Angeles awoke to the grim realization

the ae had been working her own side of

the ae : eae go-getters had gone and got and

he a were dark and dreary for the realtors in

@ where the name and the game was in-

vented, 0x00A7

How cone?

Winter anq

She has,

Didn't Los Angeles have the best

Summer climate on earth? She did and

tia euro s

Butyshe had been caught napping.

eas was San Francisco, long slumbering

land ue awe cent. Again, there are Seattle and Port-

sant oth t Northwestern cities that are up and

ng and a') making a bid for the Westward turn-

ing tide of colonists and all getting far more than

the share Los Angeles had allotted them.

Los Angeles is awake. She has gone at the prob-

lem with that tremendous energy which has made

her great. Old-timers are taking the rubber band

off their pocket-books, dug up the silver in the weasel

skins and unlimbered the redoubtable check-books.

They have raised a tremendous fund for publicity.

They started out to raise a million and will get three

millions. We respectfully submit that is some dinero

and we don't have to prove that it is a powerful

puller. It will get results.

A million dollars will be spent to tell the world,

and the world will be told and it will respond. Ad-

vertising sent out in mid-winter numbers will not

bring in the side meat. It has to be broad-casting

of a far more readable and reliable sort. They will

have to soft pedal on the stuff about this being a

successful Labor-hating town. They will have to

boom with all their populace and not the employing

portion alone. There is a powerful force that has

worked against them that could be made to work

with them. They need, and doubtless will get,

team work. They will if they have a spoonful of

sense and a grain of reason.

Los Angeles has the most wonderful summer cli-

mate of any section of the United States. It has

a magnificent deep harbor. It has a vast and grow-

ing manufacturing business. From a commercial and

population standpoint it is one of the most rapidly

growing communities in the world. It is a great

exporting and importing center. It is advantageously

located between the. mountains and the sea and

can be and will be made one of the greatest and

most happily situated centers of population in the

whole world.

In order to turn the tide, and it will be turned,

Los Angeles will have to get on a basis of telling

the truth. It cannot deceive the world when it has

widespread disemployment and suffering and woe

from that source. It cannot dissemble the fact that

a large portion of its leaders in industries are bit-

terly prejudiced against the working people organ-

izing.

One cannot sprinkle the flowers on a windowsill in

that thriving burg without wetting the hat of a

kiwani, a lion or a rotarian. It is the most organized

community in the world and it is all right until

Labor takes a try at it. Then it is all wrong.

The Merchants and Manufacturers' Association has

done more to smirch the good name of Los Angeles

than all the I. W. W.-Syndicalist-Communists in the

State, and the latter groups are not inactive. There

has been a backfire of propaganda that has to be

reckoned with and dealt with. It is a phase of the

problem that the "All-Year" Club may take into con-

sideration.

Southern California has more good points to boast

of than any section of the world. Florida as a com-

petitor is a huge joke. There igs no serious con-

tender. Los Angeles hag the problem within her

own gates. If she will deal fairly, get on a basis

of truth and honesty and square dealing she will

go ahead with the same speed.as of yore. We want

to see her go, but we want to see her go straight!

2

If you would achieve undying fame, attach yourself

to the most unpopular righteous cause.-George Wil-

liam Curtis.

THE WOODEN CROSS

By Esther Yarnell

There is a little wooden cross

That marks a soldier's grave;

The trees above their branches toss;

The grasses 'round it wave.

I know that life is meant to give,

But, oh I loved him go.

I know through death we sometimes live,

But this I also know-

A little homely wooden cross

Is all that's left for me.

I know his death `to me is logs,

However else it be.

And when I think how nations count

Their gains in blood and gold;

How rulers see their treasures mount,

Through agonies untold-

I ask, O little wooden cross,

-Is this defeat again?

Is this another treachery

Of masters unto men?

But were I sure a better day

Were coming through my loss,

I think that I could carry then

The little wooden cross.

-From the ANTHOLOGY OF VERSE, Published by

The Verse Writers' Club of Southern California,

1919.

"

and

"

OOS

Esther Yarnell

It is with inexpressible regret that we announce

the passing of Esther Yarnell, whose name has ap-

peared on the staff of THE OPEN FORUM since

its initial number. Miss Yarnell was profoundly in-

terested in our paper, and planned before the first

number appeared to be regularly with us at least

one day a week, although her residence was out-

side of the city. Illness prevented her from carry-

ing out this program, except for a single visit to

the office in connection with the first issue. She

has been hopeful, however, of complete recovery and

of assuming an active part with us, and we have

cherished, the expectation with her, never for a

moment imagining that she was soon to pass on.

The end came on Friday, the 29th of May, 1925, at

the White Memorial Hospital in this city, where she

had gone for an operation. The funeral `service

was held today, Monday, June 1, at "The Little

Church of The Flowers" in Glendale. Although

many of those who knew her and loved her had not

so much as heard of her passing away the church

was crowded with her friends and admirers. The

poem, which we are publishing in this issue is

from her pen,. and was read at the funeral. For

the present her name will continue to appear as

one of our staff, as we feel that "she being dead,

yet speaketh," and her policy with respect to the

quality of the verse we put forth will continue to be

the policy of the paper. Modesty on her part is the

reason that her verse has not appeared here earlier,

as we have again and again requested some direct

contribution from her of her own work. We hope

within the next few weeks to publish several of her

best known poems. To her loved ones we offer

warmest sympathy and jcin with them in tenderest

appreciation of her beautiful spirit and the fine

work she has done.

Ra We

TO WHOM SHALL WE GO?

By R. W.

VI

The Appeal To Labor

Both the good and evil of our present civilization

are largely the product of labor. There has never

been a successful revolution for which labor did not

pay the bill, both in blood and money. However

restricted and: ineffective the ballot may be, the

extension of its use, as to the number of those who

have it, and as to the range of the issues which are

submitted to determination at the polls, is to be

credited to labor. It was the industrial man who

gave us manhood suffrage, and it is the industrial

woman who has brought to pass universal, or sexless

suffrage. Likewise labor has been the most potent

factor in the spread of popular education, and the

enlargement of the appeal to reason.

ern sciences, to a degree realized by every few of

the scientists themselves, are the outcome of the

industrial revolution and the expansion of commerce

consequent upon the increase of manufacture. And

finally, the appeal to the modern Caesar, the present

.ruling class, gets whatever strength it has from its

industrial background, from the fact that most of

the masters of business today have been laborers

themselves, or have a labor ancestry not more than

a generation or two removed, and from the even

more influential fact that every capitalist knows his

son or his grandson may be back in the ditch or at

the workingman's bench again. And it may be added

that rare and few as heroes and martyrs are, and

always will be, there is more of social solidarity

among the workers than with any other class in

modern society, and the martyrdoms of the common

people on behalf of each other far outrun the sacri-

fices and concern of the higher-ups for even their

own kin.

But if the credit of labor is great for the best

things in the life of today, its responsibility for the

-mischiefs and menace of our contemporary world

situation is also large. The major part of this

responsibility of labor for the ills of civilization is

unintentional, and in the main unrealized, and _ it

may be granted that up to this point it has been

practically unavoidable. Whether it is still unavoid-

able, or to what extent labor has an increased op-

portunity, and therefore an increased responsibility,

is to be considered a little farther on in this argu-

ment.

The immediacy and immensity of labor's res-

ponsibility for the maladjustments of civilization

grow out of the fact that the primary needs of life

are those with which labor has so much to do. It

is labor that provides us food and clothing and shel-

ter, and all that material equipment of life that is

vital to the whole order of civilization. When, on

the occasion of the General Strike in Seattle in 1919,

labor stopped functioning for even a very few days

in one of the moderate-sized cities of America there

was an appalling exhibit of the dependence of civil-

ization upon the workingman. When the scavengers

of New York City went on strike in November of

1911 there was a panic of fear and concern lest the

city be devastated with pestilence. If all the world's

labor laid down its tools for a week there would be

no civilization at the end of the seven days.

But this is only stating in part the significance or

labor in relation to world life as we know it. The

one big item wherein the world of our time differs

from the barbarian world of say fifty thousand

years ago is the difference with respect to man's

making and using of tools. The two foremost issues

of our day, both threatening the very life of civiliza-

tion are the issues of internationalism and industrial-

ism, and both are industrial at the bottom. Inter-

national conficts are struggles for trade control

more than they are anything else. And industrial

"class-struggles" are what they are today because

the productive process at the point of the making

and moving of goods is so enormously different

from what it was even an hundred and fifty years

ago. It is the manipulation of human labor that is

the primary factor in the whole world mix-up now.

Those who ask us what reason we have to believe

that the appeal to labor will be any more effective

for world welfare than the appeal to any other

class have confidence in their query to the extent

that they have ignored or failed to understand the

primacy of the material process, and especially of

Even the mod-

that part of the material process where labor func-

tions in the whole order of our daily life. They

insist, with much show of reason, that labor does

not use the ballot intelligently, that labor is no more

rational in its approach to public issues, if it is even

as much so, as the more educated middle and upper

classes, that the individual workingman is quite as

selfish in his reactions to his own hopes and fears

and loves and ambitions as are other men, even

though there may be a greater comradeship as a

whole among the oppressed than there is community

of mutual suffering with the exploiting classes or

the timid middle class, and that all our experiences

in America with working class governments in the

great cities have shown them to be quite as corrupt

and undependable as.any governments we have had.

The case against labor is not at all difficult to make

out as a very heavy and serious indictment indeed.

But all this sort of thing is after all quite super-

ficial. Nobody with any intelligence claims that

the workers are individually a superior sort of folks.

They would make no better kings, if the kings were

all chosen from them, than would the candidates for

royalty picked out of the upper classes. Nor would

they function better as priests and preachers prob-

ably, nor as educators, editors, or politicians. As a

matter of fact we know from a pretty generous trial

that workers lifted to positions of special privilege

or exceptional power have not proven to be of any

great excellence, nor have they functioned more

effectively on behalf of the great masses who still

remained submerged. To the extent that war has

become mechanical, that is, dominated by workman-

ship, it has become more terrible than when it was

more aristocratic. Capitalism, the profit system, run

by the workers would be a worse hell than capitalism

administered by the "nobilities," or the "intellectual

elite." But the appeal to labor 1s not, fundamentally,

that kind of an appeal at all.

Gas Rule In Next War

"The real value of freedom of speech is not to

the minority that wants to talk, but to the majority

that does not want to listen," according to Professor

Zechariah Chafee of the Harvard University Law

School whose article on "Propaganda and Conscrip-

tion of Public Opinion in the Next War,' has just

been published in pamphlet form by the American

Civil Liberties Union.

Pointing out that the supression of free speech in

war-time cannot kill ideas, Prof. Chafee states that

"men are imprisoned, but their words spread the

wider for that fact. The mere publication in a news-

paper of the statement of a leading radical-I am

for the people, and the Government is for the profit-

eers'-was considered so dangerous to the morale of

soldiers who might read it that she was sentenced

to ten years in prison, and yet her words were re-

peated by every important newspaper in the country

during the trial."

The phamphlet also declares that gag rule is harm-

ful not only during the war, but even more after the

war. "A nation which indulges in an orgy of intoler-

ance will continue after the cessation of hostilities

to suppress those whose opinions are distasteful. In-

tolerance produces an uncritical public opinion and

intense satisfaction with one's views."

On the basis of the national hysteria and intoler-

ance fomented by propaganda and persecution during

the last war, Prof. Chafee states that after the next

war, critical thinking in this country will be prac-

tically impossible.

Copies of the pamphlet may be obtained for ten

cents from the American Civil Liberties Union, 100

Fifth Ave., New York City.

-_---1+_+-____.

I ask you to think with me that the worst that

can happen to us is to endure tamely the evils that

we see; that no trouble or turmoil is so bad ag that;

that the necessary destruction which reconstruction

bears with it must be taken calmly; that everywhere

-in state, in church, in the household-we must be

resolute to endure no tyranny, accept no lie, quail

before no fear, altho they may come forth before

us disguised as piety, duty or affection, as useful

opportunity and good nature, as prudence or kind-

ness.-William Morris.

---$--s ;

Bryan On Evolution

MEMPHIS, Tenn., May 13 (By AP).-When J, 1

Scopes, science teacher, is called into court in thy

little town of Dayton, Tenn., to face a charge of

violating the Tennessee law against teaching evoli

tion in the public schools, the case will have paggaj

beyond the borders of state interest and an array y

nationally known individuals and organizations yj

be found lined behind the prosecution and defengy

The latest prominent individual to enter the lists

is William Jennings Bryan, foe of the theory oj

evolution. He announced in Pittsburgh yesterdy

that he had accepted an invitation to represent th,

World's Christian Fundamental Association in ty

prosecution of Scopes.

The organization also asked the Commoner to

tour the colleges and universities of the country aj

present the arguments of fundamentalists befor

the student bodies and reply to advocates of th

theory of evolution.

"I have been aSked to help in the fight to pr.

serve the integrity of that law (Tennessee eyoly.

tion law) and I am going to do it," Bryan said in a

address to the Pittsburgh Presbytery after the jp.

vitation had been received.

Bryan asserted that "carefully prepared figury

indicate that among freshmen who enter collegy

15 per cent are without religious faith.

"The attack being made right now upon those who

stand squarely for the Christian faith of their father

is not an attack on orthodoxy. It is an attack om

religion.

"There are about 5000 scientists in the United

States, and probably half of them are atheists. Are

Wwe going to allow them to run our schools? We ar

NOt.

A Stinging Rebuke

A special program recently. was.held. in a.Chatta:

nooga, Tenn. grammar school in connection with the

presentation of a flag and a Bible to the school.

One of the speakers of the day was Dr. J. N. Bull

pastor of the Hast Chattanooga Baptist Church, 4

cleric apparently of the Ku Klux Klan persuasion.

For in hig address, he thanked God that Govern0l

Peay had signed the anti-evolution bill, denouncel

those who do not accept literally every word in the

Holy Writ and wound up his address by an assallll

on other religions.

Sitting on the same platform was Commissionel

of Education Fred B. Frazier. He was the neil

speaker. When he arose, he turned directly to tht

Rev. Bull and said:

Doctor, you have just said you hoped no one

would be allowed to teach in the public schools

except those who stand for 100 per cent Amer

icanism.

I want to call your attention to the fact that

when this flag was born and the constitution

of the United States adopted, America invited

the oppressed peoples of every country to this

land of freedom. We promised them political

and religious liberty. We held out to them the

privilege of worshipping God each according 1

the dictates of his own conscience.

Real Americans have not changed in this pal

ticular. We admit to our public schools, with

hearty welcome, people of all creeds and faiths.

We welcome Catholic and Protestant, Jew and

Gentile. Neither you nor I shall say to the

how they shall worship. Neither you nor |

shall prescribe or persecute them. `They #e

all Americans.

What will be the outcome if the children 4!

taught hate, and suspicion and religious intol-

erance?

The flag stands for things of immeasurable

importance in our individual life; and it should

never be forgotten that it is not the exclusive

possession of any one race or creed ir America:

aL MS

Good for Commissioner Frazier! +e

1e af

The Rev. Bull must have had th'*-jde of a 0x2122

nocerous not to have felt some of t@yy sting of this

deserved rebuke. ' U.

iy

the

C of

Vl:

Sse

Y of

will

se,

lists

Y. of

day

- the

the

r to

ant

fore

the

Dre:

VOlt-

n al

it

Urs

065

who

hers

On

ited

Are

are

atta:

- the

Bull,

h, 4

si01,

ror

ncell

the

alt

onet

next

= and @(R)

O

poet i

We want letters.

Lots of them.

From lots of people.

On lots of subjects.

BUT NOT LOTS OF WORDS.

Make them "Century Letters,"

that is letters of not more than

One Hundred words.

Write on subjects of general

interest.

Typewrite your letters,

if possible. If you are

interested in anything worth-

while, say so. But say it in

as few sentences as you can.

Sign your name. It will not be

used if you do not wish it

published, provided you say So.

Let's make "SAY SO" the best

page of this paper. Mind you,

be brief. And again, BE BRIEF.

oO A]

Kditor "Say So," Column,

Open Forum:

Basing his deductions on conversations had with

"two or three members of the I. W. W." and a

member of the Los Angeles police force at San

Pedro, whom he credits with making the statement

that, "They ain't around here any more (meaning

members of the I. W. W.); we won't stand for it,"

BE. 0x00A7. Green, whose communication appeared in a

recent issue of The Open Forum, would seem to

have concluded that the I. W. W. is, at least tem-

porarily, somewhat in eclipse in San Pedro.

My object in writing to your Open Forum is to

attempt to place this gentleman right in his appar-

ently well-meant efforts to learn the truth regarding

the San Pedro situation with respect to the I. W. W.

and the fight against the Criminal Syndicalism law.

The I. W. W. never gives up a fight in any part

of the world, once it is started. Their slogan "we

never forget" is something more than an empty boast

or threat, as the history of the organization will

show.

Frank Little, I. W. W. speaker and organizer, was

hanged by a paid gang of corporation gunmen at

Butte, Montana, and in later years the organization

was So warred on through the instrumentality of the

blacklist, and other corporation devices, that it was

hard to find much more than a handful of avowed

members anywhere in the copper camp. But sur-

face evidences in Butte, with respect to I. W. W.

strength and activities, are deceiving, as well as

`San Pedro. In the hearts and minds of all those

rebels who have suffered for their efforts for eco-

nomic freedom in Butte or San Pedro or Centralia

or Patterson, or any other place where the I. W.

W. membership has been crucified, the longing for

freedom stil] smolders and will break again into

*conomic revolt upon the industrial field whenever

the I. W: W, raises its banner of industrial freedom

through peaceful industrial organization and calls

for action. The I. W. W. strength can not be

measured by its physical expression. The strength

ee I W. W. is its physical membership and

ae ae plus that spiritual reaction of rebel work-

`ee onsite tyranny which expresses itself

vanes a admiration and secret support in such

Padre' industria] persecution as Butte and San

aneaee support which flames into open activity

2 a Strikes or other forms of economic crisis

upon the workers.

co and his minions of terrorism within

a = Het Legion and the Ku Klux Klan can not

ing the Sane of progress in San Pedro by scald-

Soe ildren of the J. W. W. and tarring and

their elders.

The Scalded litt!

Scars, anq their

harrieg Out of th

I the prison hell

eeuro ones still suffer and bear their

elders, many of them, have been

euro land or railroaded to long terms

all othantas S of this state; but Mr. Green and

ae a Well-wishers of the I. W. W. can rest as-

gout at the I. W. W. "never forgets" and that it

dead in San Pedro.

The great majority

of those six hundred rebel

Water-front Strikers of

San Pedro who were cast

"he would like to see them.

into the foul dungeons of the Los Angeles medieval

jail and had the hot steam turned on them until

many fainted and some were injured for life, did

not go back home with love in their hearts for

their industrial and political oppressors, nor an oOver-

weening desire to lay down and give up the struggle

for living wages and decent working conditions.

Neither did they go back to their humble homes

with hatred in their heart for the I. W. W., as it

was the only organization that had ever had the

courage to come to them and offer a chance for bet-

terment: of conditions through peaceful industrial

organization and action. They still love this rebel

organization; but they can not give expression to

their feelings and adherence openly and live and

support their families in San Pedro. Jake Hammond

of the California Lumber Trust and the other great

allied shipping and lumber interests still have their

"Wink Hall," and the blacklist against all who are

known to be members of the I. W. W. still flourishes

in San Pedro. Rebel men in San Pedro must remain

silent or suffer the penalty of starvation for them-

selves and families and the loss of their little homes.

Even in the case of the rebel sailors of the I. W.

W. who sail into this stronghold of industrial tyranny

on ships from the seven seas, it is necessary that

all organization activities on their part be "soft-

pedaled" or they will be liable to arrest and depor-

tation if they happen to be of foreign citizenship, or

jailed or blacklisted if they belong under the starry

banner of free America. Silence on the part of

workers in the golden state is not exactly golden,

but it spells discretion.

Redoubled efforts aimed at the release of the I.

W. W. victims of corporate rule in California from

the state' prison hells and the repeal of the Criminal

Syndicalism statute are now being made by the

I. W. W. and the Civil Liberties Union.

If Mr. Greene and men and women of like trend

will come to the support of these movements of the

respective organizations it will hasten the day when

some small measure of freedom of speech and press

and assemblage for rebel workers can be had in

California.

JACK BLAIR.

* * * *

2279 W. 20th St., Los Angeles, Cal.

American Civil Liberties League,

Los Angeles, Calif.

Dear Sirs:

An item appeared in your valuable paper in the

issue of May 23rd over the signature of one E. S.

Green, in which he bewails the fact that the I. W.

W. members are not going to jail as assiduously as

It seems as though Mr.

Green would like to see members of the I. W. W.

going to jail in large numbers every day. So would

many others, notably A. B. Hammond, Harry Chand-

ler and the rest of "Our Best People." Mr. Green

says that we of the J. W. W. have given up the

fight against the Criminal Syndicalism law. Not so

Oswald. It is true that there are no members at

present waiting trial under this nefarious law. But

this is not due to the fact that the I. W. W. have

given up the fight, nor to a change of heart on the

part of the exploiters. It is due to the publicity given

to the law by the members of the I. W. W. and others

interested in civil liberties.

Mr. Green says that the I. W. W. themselves admit

defeat at San Pedro. Again Mr. Green you are

mistaken or misinformed. We have not given up

the fight in. that stronghold of the Shipping Com-

bine. But even if we had given up and admitted

defeat, would this be surprising? Hight hundred

members arrested in one summer; at least three

men and one woman dead as a result of the perse-

cution, one man in the insane asylum, six men tarred

and feathered, and several little children scalded by

a mob. Can any other organization show such a

record? Where was Mr. Green while all this was

going on? Has he gone to jail as a protest?

Mr. Green hopes that the Civil Liberties Union

has not given up the fight against the Criminal

Syndicalism law. He reminds us of the, all too

common, unorganized workers in the lumber camps

of the Northwest who exclaim, "I wish the I. W. W.

would come in here and clean things up."

Yes, Mr. Green, we have men on the water front

of San Pedro, and on the ships that ply the waters

of the Pacific, we're not divulging their names even

to such a staunch defender of civil rights as you.

Have you ever heard of the black list? Others are

anxious to know if there are any members in San

Pedro. The spies of the master, like the evil one,

are every where in divers disguises, so one must

be careful if he wishes to work in San Pedro and

bui`d up a working class organization.

Sincerely yours,

ARCHIE SINCLAIR.

* * * *

301 N. Avenue 66, Los Angeles, Cal.

May 13, 1925.

Editor of Open Forum, Los Angeles, Cal.

Oear Sir: |

It was during the month of April,.1925, that I had

the pleasure of meeting the evangelists, Mr. and

Mrs. Herbert Ireland, at the Garvanza M. EK. Church,

corner of 66th Ave. and Pasadena Ave., and during

a talk with them I inquired if they had read any of

Mr. Wm. Morris' works. No, but they would like to

do so. I therefore left them a copy of News from

Nowhere, with the following letter:

"My Dear Friends Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Ireland:

"T am pleased to leave you the book `News from

Nowhere' by Wm. Morris. Poet and artist and

staunch friend of the people, whose whole life was

devoted to the uplifting of the masses, during my

travels abroad I had the pleasure of meeting Mr.

Morris at his studio in London, England, and be-

came a member of his Club, `The Kelmscott.' I

also met Mr. Wm. Stead, author of the noted book-

`If Christ came to Chicago.' At that time Mr. Stead

was editor and owner of The Pall Mall Gazette, an

English newspaper, and for writing an article for

that paper, viz.: London's Virgin Tribute to Babylon,

was tried and sentenced to prison. I'm afraid that

these same judges would place Christ behind the

bars for his teachings. We have some modern jn-

stances of justice? in the United States-when Judge

Landis of Chicago fined Bro. John D. Rockefeller

$27,000,000 for illegal rebating, he remarked `you

will be a long time dead judge before that fine is

paid." He then got another Federal Judge, named

Krauskoff to reverse the sentence. Let me ask-

Is a millionaire a law unto himself, that he can

have the power to reverse a just sentence? Is not

that an anarchistic proposition? `Every man unto

himself a law.' Are we corrupt and content that

nothing will shock our sense of honest dealing? Not

even a case like the stealing of the Teapot Dome

oil property, on illegal profits of which have been

built an expensive church in this city which should

be dedicated to the memory of Teapot Dome.

"We have fallen among thieves, whose head-

quarters are in Wall Street and let us ask the good

Creator for the will and power to destroy this

robber system which corrupts and governs the

nation, and is responsible for the terrible evils of all

the poverty, crime, war and pestilence in the world,

"The work of Wm. Morris had no beneficial effect

on Mr. H. Ireland and Co. so far as I could see

after reminding him of the 600,000 Mary Magdalenes

in the U. S. whose souls and bodies are in need of

Salvation of some kind. See B. Shaw in Mrs. War-

rens Profession,

"= 0x00A76Yours truly,

sOWe E. HAYWOOD"

yen * * *

Editor Open Forum:

The degree of intellectuality in some brands of

patriotism is evidenced by the way some parents

allow their boys to run around in the uniform of

private military schools, being entirely unaware that

in so doing, they, the parents, advertise to the

world that they consider this country's war to abol-

ish war to have been a complete failure. And,

though their own action supports the contentions,

so dense in comprehension are they that they will

become very angry if it is intimated that the victory

we celebrate on Armistice Day, was in reality a de-

feat.

L. O'DELL.

* * * *

Mr. Robert Whitaker, 506 Tajo Bldg., Los Angeles,

California.

Dear Robert Whitaker:

We have recently received several very interesting

news articles clipped from California papers, brimful

of propaganda for a naval war with Japan. We have

already made use of some of these and we plan to

use others in our work.

We should greatly appreciate if you would be so

kind as to send us what you have on hand (from

time to time) of clippings regarding any striking or

sensational news on matters such as the naval man-

euvers in the Pacific, any unusual group resolutions ,

drawn up in protest of militarization propaganda,

and other matters along the same lines.

Sincerely yours,

NEVIN SAYRE

THE OPEN FORUM

Published every Saturday at 506 Tajo Building,

First and Broadway

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

J H. Ryckman

Doremus Scudder

Ethelwyn Mills

Upton Sinclair Kate Crane Gartz

Fanny Bixby Spencer

Leo Gallagher

Subscrinvion 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.

Entered as second-class matter Dec. 13, 1924, at

the post office at Los Angeles, California, under the

Act of March 3, 1879.

SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 1925

COMING EVENTS

I SK I I OR OI IE a

Los Angeles Open Forum, Music-Art Hall. 233

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

1 r- -___-__

EVERY SATURDAY NIGHT-OPEN DISCUSSION

At Eight O'clock

A Free Education is Offered at

EDUCATIONAL CENTER

INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD

224 South Spring Street, Room 218

be ee

I. B. W. A. FORUM

At the Brotherhood Hall, 508 Hast 5th St.

Sunday Afternoon Meeting 2:30 P.M.

All are Invited to Attend

John X. Kelly and J. Eads How, Committee

+ -______

NEW YORK, (FP)-Carlo Tresca,

Martello, Italian radical weekly, was

Atlanta penitententiary May 6 on completion of the

4-month term to which his one year sentence had

been commuted by President Coolidge.

convicted on a federal statute on'a charge of pub-

lishing a small birth control pamphlet advertisment

in his paper. The statute had never previously been

enforced in such a case but light was shed on the

reasons for the prosecution when the U. S. District

Attorney's office said the original complaint was

made by Mussolini's ambassador Gaetani. Tresca

will be a guest of honor at the Comppunity Church,

June 12, 8 P.M., where the story of his persecution

and that of Roger N. Baldwin and seven Paterson

silk strikers, sentenced for a free speech meeting,

will be told.

editor of Il

recued from

Federated Press.

Ht

Nothing would seem to be more certain than that

the inhabitants of the United States have i

the right to advocate peaceable changes in our Con;

stitution, law or form of government, although such

changes may be based upon theories or principles

of government antagonistic to those which now, serve

as their basis. And it seems equally certain that an

organization advocating such changes may adopt a

flag or emblem signifying its purpose and that the

display or possession of this flag or emblem cannot

be made an unlawful act.

--Calif. State Supreme Court in declaring the Los

Angeles Red Flag ordinance unconstitutional.

$$ f1-_-______

No practise of government has been followed so

often and with such uniform results as the practise

of attempting to stamp out by force the expression

of ideas and doctrines condemned by official author-

ity or by temporary majorities. In every case, under

every form of government, at all times and in all

places, such repression has, in the end, increased

and strengthened the very evils against which it was

directed. In every country reform movements have

always been increased in bulk and momentum by

efforts to suppress them; while eruptive and destroy-

ing theories have been rendered comparatively harm-

less by permitting their advocates to exploit them.

-Sen. Albert J. Beveridge Before the American Bar

Association,

Tresca was -

A Piece of Impudence

The following Open Letter from Henry W.

Pinkham, of Boston, Mass., to President Coolidge

is a sensible and courageous and much needed

protest against the despicable defacement of

private correspondence by the military arm of

our government. Pinkham is entirely right in

calling it "a piece of impudence."' Hven a

Quaker cannot send a letter, or receive one

in the United States today without having it

conspicuously stamped with the legends of war.

It is a colossal impertinence and there ought to

be tens of thousands who will join in this pro-

test. Write the President how you feel about it.

--. Wa

President Calvin Coolidge,

Dear Sir:

Every leter that comes to me is postmarked with

the words: "Let's Go! Citizens' Military Training

Camp." I suppose that every letter I send takes to

its recipient the same exhortation. Thus against

my will I help to advertise something in which I do

not believe.

Am I mistaken in my opinion that the

business of the Post Office is to handle

matter, not to make itself a propagandistic

in behalf of a policy on which the people

country are not agreed?

proper

mailed

agency

of this

The wholesale killing of fellow-men is the defiance

of common sense and the denial of common human-

ity. The training of men in the art of collective

homicide, that is to say, military training, is intellec-

tually stultifying and morally degrading. Benjamin

Franklin was right when he said: "There never was

a good war or a bad peace." Calling it self-defense,

or "a war to make the world safe for democracy,"

or any other euphemism, does not change the grim

reality. War is, always was, always will be, in its

very nature, the extreme of human foolishness.

There is always a preferable alternative. For war is

itself the supreme evil. To tesort to it to avert

some threatened wrong is like committing suicide

to ward off small-pox.

The World War was so effective an object-lesson

of the asininity of mass-killing as a method of real-

izing nob'e ideals that a rapidly growing number ot

the people in every country have decided that they

are done with war forever. The most encouraging

sign of the times is the spreading revolt of youth

against war. Multitudes of them are announcing

their determination never to engage in the wholesale

killing of fellow-men, no matter what may be the

commands of their government.

To the large number of people who are done with

war because it is such abysmal foolishness should

be added the great body of Christians who have

come to see that collective homicide can by no

possibility be reconciled with the explicit teaching,

not to say the spirit of Jesus, and who have resolved

that if through the folly of their government they

are compelled to choose between Christ and Caesar

they will follow Christ by refusing to engage in the

killing of fellow-men,

That postmark is a piece of impudence, a serious

affront to a very large and a fast increasing portion

of the people of this country. Therefore it should

cease to appear.

Will you give to this matter your personal atten-

tion? [I do not exaggerate its seriousness. Con-

sider the effect upon foreign peoples, the Japanese,

for example, of seeing such an appeal on every let-

ter that enters their country from ours. I pray you

to put an end to this impudent and mischievous pros-

titution of the public service to the support of that

ugly anachronism, that extreme of human folly, that

sum of all villainies called war.

Sincerely yours,

HENRY W. PINKHAM.

7 Wellington Terrace,

Brookline, Mass.

April 30, 1925.

-_-_-_-_--_1%-

So long as all the.increased wealth which modern

progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes,

to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast

between the House of Have and the House of Want,

progress is not real and cannot be permanent. The

reaction must come. The tower leans from its foun-

dations, and every new story but hastens the final

catastrophe.-Henry George.

Los Angeles

OPEN FORUM

MUSIC ART HALL

233 South Broadway

SUNDAY NIGHTS, 7-30 O'CLOCK

Program for June

JUNE 7-"`IMPERIAL AMERICA AND THR NEX)

WAR" by FRITZ KUNZ, an American young may

who has traveled extensively and has made {iry,

hand acquaintance with the peoples of severa] CON.

tinents. He has made a special study of the presen

drift toward another disastrous war, due to economy

maladjustment, selfishness and fear.

aim to show how that war can be averted, Baritone

selections by MR. M. FISH, accompanied by PROF

VON LIEBICH.

JUNE 14-"BEHIND THE SCENES IN GERMANY,

FRANCE AND ENGLAND" by Dr. LINCOLN |,

WIRT of San Francisco. This address was to hay

been given on May 24th, but Dr. Wirt failed to fin

the hall through a misunderstanding.

teresting evening may be expected as the docty

"knows his stuff," having recently been in Hurop

and having many times previously visited that ani

other parts of the world. MR. CARL ROSSNER

Cellist, will play for the occasion.

JUNE 21-"FREUD AND PSYCHOANALYSIS" by

DEAN ARTHUR BRIGGS of the Los Angeles Lay

School.

will make this an appealing subject, and Mr. Briggs

is just the man to present it; he is a thoroughgoing

student and a most pleasing lecturer. Music by

MR. AND MRS. J. A. ELFENBEIN-Vocal and in-

strumental,

JUNE 28-`RADICALISM AND BOLSHEVISM'

by WILLIAM CANFIELD. To flaunt these terms be

fore most people is to wave a red flag and stir w

prejudice. What do the words really stand for

Are they synonymous? What is back of them? Mn.

Canfield will try to enlighten us on the _ subject,

Music by WILBEN HOLTHER, boy pianist, and IR:

VING HARDON, baritone, pupil of Prof. Von Liebich.

*

EXPIRATION NOTICE

Dear Friend: If you find this paragraph encircle

with a blue pencil mark it means that your sul

scription to "The Open Forum" expires next week.

We hope that you have found it indispensable, and

will therefore immediately fill out the blank below

and send it in to us, together with the money fo!

the continuance of your subscription,

It will be his

A most jh.

The large interest in Freudian philosophy

BUCIOSSd TG hoe eee for which continue my

ade year

SUDSCrIptiON tO; the paper TOL. eee months

NGI Os in OE eh

ACOGCS Bos) en nthe Wie Shi aa

THE WORLD'S BEST MAN

Story of Jesus, in Scripture words, 4

published in Seattle Union Record, witl

comments in parallel columns. 64-pag!

booklet. Price 40 cents. 4 copies for $1...

Sydney Strong, 508 Garfield St., Seattle?

WILSHIRE UNDERTAKIN

and Ambulance Company

Atlantic 1698 -- Phones -- Atlantic 3709

717, West Washington St., Los Angeles

WalteryenC. Blue Ella L. Purcell Blue

Our Sympathetic Understanding of the needs of the Work

ing People t`nables Us to Give You the Best Seo vice.

pace eneEEESTgE - _-_-

FREE VIOLIN LESSONS

To Talented Children of Parents who

are unable to pay

MAX AMSTERDAM

Prominent Violin Teacher and Soloist

2406 Temple ate us, a ee) wale DRexel

Reasonable Rates to Beginners

: : . jon

Linotyping and press work done in Uni

Shops. The make-up is our own

t

9068

f

i

,

Wy