AMERICA’S WAR-BORN WEALTH INSURANCE AGAINST SPREAD OF BOLSHEVIST TAINT HERE

Study of Conditions in Various Sections of the United States, From the Point of View of Europe, Convinces Arno Dosch-Fleurot That Same Problems of Unrest Do Not Affect Our Workmen and Ground Is Not Fertile for Insurrection—Prosperity of Workingmen Cause for Thanksgiving Rather Than Complaint.

The biggest questions in industrial, social, political and economic life in America are:

Is Bolshevism finding root here?

Is America facing a political revolution?

Are we tainted by the vast social unrest now so characteristic of England, of all Europe, as well as Asia?

What impulses common to those countries are to be found in our labor structure?

In an effort to throw light an these vital matters, The World brought Arno Dosch-Fleurot back from Europe, where he has been the last four years, to make an investigation. The results of his extensive inquiry, covering the past three months, during which he has visited those centres of activity from which he could best obtain first hand information, are set forth in five articles.

By Arno Dosch-Fleurot.

For the past three years I have been living in the midst of the social revolution in Europe. A great deal of it has been active revolution, with the machine guns in the streets. During this time I have often wondered how much of this unrest was being communicated to America or how much we were developing here on our own account.

Looking at America from the point of view of Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, I have wanted to know—

First—How the Bolshevik revolution in Russia affected America.

Second—Whether the class war into which the World War developed had hit America too.

Third—How the United States was readjusting itself to the inevitable social changes.

At the time the Bolsheviki seized the power in Russia, we Americans who were there used to say to one another as we discussed the industrial and social problems that faced the world, “At home we are going to work this thing out another way.”

Are We Working Out the Problems in Another Way?

For several weeks I have been able to search for the answers to my own questions. I have been going about the United States studying the social and industrial unrest. To some of my questions I have answers which are satisfactory, at least to myself. Behind others I must still leave interrogation points. In addition I have seen things I had not thought of, some of them tranquilizing, others disquieting.

In this and the succeeding articles I shall give my impressions of the unrest in America and its significance from my point of view.

In the first place, I am overwhelmed by our wealth. I had been away long enough to forget how rich we were, and we have in the mean while grown much richer. That fact is of prime importance. Being rich, there is not the gruelling struggle for existence that makes the problems of unrest in Europe dangerous. It eases off enormously on whatever strain there might otherwise be.

Everywhere I turn, in every city, every street, every shop, every home, there is so much wealth it is hard to believe. After Europe one would be inclined to say we are disgustingly rich, if the new-wealth, in spite of the war fortunes, were not so widely distributed. I hear people complain that workmen have been making so much money they have been buying themselves $10 silk shirts and their wives are wearing $50 hats.

It does not seem to me a cause for complaint. Rather it would appear to be cause for thanksgiving that such things can be. I have myself seen factory workmen, men who make their living with their hands, men who belong to unions, going to work in their own automobiles. I should like to tell that to some workmen of my acquaintance in Moscow.

Wealth Obscures Depression.

Even though the country is going through an industrial depression there is so much money about that a casual traveller would not know it.

In Detroit, where 150,000 factory workmen have been laid off, it is interesting to see how little difference it has made in the daily life of this city of a million. Half the families in the city are affected, but they have money and go on spending it. I could not believe so many people could be out of work without evident sign of suffering somewhere, but I spent half a day unsuccessfully trying to find a soup kitchen or a bread line in Detroit.

Yes, we are rich, and that has spared us much. But with wealth have come pride and intolerance. I was in a measure prepared for this, but I did not expect to find it generally accepted as right and proper.

George Russell, the Irish writer, said to me just before I came home: “War is an exchange of characteristics. You have been fighting Prussians. You may find America full of Prussianism.”

I should have thought our sense of liberty were proof against contamination, but apparently not. As the first sign of Prussianism we seem to have curtailed free speech. In a dozen cities where I have been a man need only get on a soap-box and he will land in jail. The corner orators who used to act as safety valves for over-heated brains don’t dare show themselves. Men have gone to jail for reading sections from the Declaration of Independence. I admit they did it with mocking or malicious intent, but what of it? Since when, has the democracy of America grown so weak it needs policemen to protect it? In the West a man need only carry an I. W. W. card in his pocket to get arrested. They say in Seattle, “The Red Squad has driven the cards into the shoes.” There are 3,000 “Reds” in jail for various causes. The most important ones are serving long prison sentences.

There seems to be a common impression that the Imprisonment of “Reds” is suppressing Bolshevism in the United States. My observations lead me to the belief the only chance of revolution, and that not immediate, might come from continuing to keep these men in prison. Those who are under prison sentence were convicted under the extraordinary conditions developed by war. These extraordinary conditions no longer exist, but these men are still under sentence. The longer they stay in prison the stronger grows the resentment at their imprisonment. I find an undercurrent of bitterness, not very wide but deep, that can breed trouble. The small minority that is thinking about revolution is thinking about it hard. If these so-called revolutionists were turned loose without further ado, under a general amnesty, it would ease off on that hard thinking and would be helpful to the liberal movement in industry that is trying to “work this thing out another way.”

The same spirit in the country which is backing the red squads of the police seems to be actuating a Nation-wide, open-shop campaign. Men with any liberalism at all—and there are liberals managing great industries—are not in favor of either. They do not want the closed shop, but the ruthless way many employers’ associations and groups of associated industries are trying to use the present reaction as well as the existing depression to “break the back of labor” is regarded by them as the madness of power and wealth.

I find only two groups of rebels against democracy who view with favor this knock-down-and-drag-out fight for the open shop. I might call them roughly Bolshevik employers and Bolshevik employees.

As I travelled about the country I found that the active advocates of the open shop frequently referred to it as “the American plan.” The employers’ association which is pushing it also has a way of ostentatiously flying the Stars and Stripes. This is particularly noticeable in the mining communities where there are large bodies of foreign laborers. At first I could not understand how one group of Americans came to have the temerity to arrogate to themselves the word “American.” Then I discovered it was a survival of the war period. In fighting the Prussian we have adopted some of the Prussian’s disagreeable characteristics. The war is over, but we have licked militarist blood. What surprises me most is how few people recognize the danger of it. The phrase “American plan” has been allowed to stand without protest, though it practically says to union men who are just as good Americans as the members of employers’ associations that they are not Americans if they persist in their union ideas. It is not difficult to imagine how this is misused in the daily contact between workman and boss. It cannot help but do harm.

In Butte I was walking along the street with some labor leaders, bound for their headquarters. Thinking we had reached it, I started to turn into a building over which the Stars and Stripes were flying. “That’s not it,” said one of them. “Don’t you see the flag of the American plan?”

No Serious Bolshevism Here.

And yet there is no serious Bolshevism in the United States, I have been looking for it, and I have not been able to trace a consistent effort at a Bolshevik movement. There are no doubt enough people who believe in Bolshevism who would like to start a Bolshevik movement—but they have not been able to do it. At least they have not succeeded in starting it among wage-paid workmen, and there is no other place to start it.

There is, however, something which is called Bolshevism, and, as it is also rebellious against the existing order of society, it has been labelled Bolshevik, but it is really something different. I refer to the rather crude and unscientific but active, anarcho-syndicalism of the Industrial Workers of the World.

The two have been confused even by some of the leaders of the I. W. W., so it is not surprising that the general public, not to mention the Red squads of the police, have not always been able to make the distinction; but the difference is there and is of sufficient importance to prevent the growth of Bolshevism.

Bolshevism, by which is ment the idea that lies behind the Bolshevik Government in Moscow, is a long way from the One Big Union—the effective idea behind the I. W. W. Bolshevism has proved to be state Socialism in action. The I. W. W. is anarcho-syndicalism trying to make headway in industry.

But even the I. W. W. is not getting anywhere. It may some day, because it has a broader philosophy than Bolshevism behind it and because it is aiding in the movement toward industrial unionism, which is making some headway. But as an immediate revolutionary movement the I. W. W. is powerless before the powerful forces that oppose it.

Chief of these is the American Federation of Labor. The I. W. W. has never even had a chance to play a serious role in the United States because the A. F. of L. has fought it consistently since its inception fifteen years ago.

Industrial unionism, when revolutionary in purpose, even when developed apart from the I. W. W., has met the same opposition. If there had been no system of craft unionism in this country there might have been industrial unionism in this country long ago. Certainly the I. W. W. would have had a much freer hand. In that case the employers of the United States would, like the employers of Europe, have been faced with labor syndicates instead of labor unions, and that is a very different story.

In Europe labor leaders look upon the American Federation of Labor as almost a part of the capitalist system. Rumors that the big American industrials were trying to break the power of the A. F. of L. had come to Europe before I left and it could hardly be credited. The syndicalist labor leaders could not understand why the American manufacturers were fighting their ally.

Since I have been travelling about the United States I have also found many employers of labor who can also not understand why there is this vicious open-shop campaign. The industrial manager of one of the greatest industries in the world said to me hotly:

“If Judge Gary and Wall Street knew what they were leading to they would stop this anti-union campaign. They are trying to break down the conservative American Federation of Labor. If they succeed in destroying the power of Gompers they will remove the only barrier that stands between us and a real revolutionary labor movement, industrial unionism.”

Just how revolutionary industrial unionism is I shall examine later on, but it is certainly much more revolutionary than the A. F. of L. And as the craft unions of the A. F. of L. find it increasingly harder to breathe under the smothering process that is going on under the “American plan,” the industrial unions find a freer field to work in. The revolutionists of America, such as they are, could ask nothing better than the carrying of the open-shop campaign to its most ruthless finish.

Right now the enemies of union labor of any kind can do about what they please. There are plenty of men looking for work and they can break almost any strike that might be declared. Union men and I. W. W. leaders alike are sitting tight and are trying to save what they can to go on with when the fight is over. They are not afraid of being done in forever. They know this period of depression will pass, and, even if meanwhile the open-shop campaign were carried to the point where every union in the country were killed off, the union movement would spring up again. Next time, however, they believe it might take the more revolutionary form of industrial unionism.