-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.boondocksnet.com/ailtexts/loveston.html <A HREF="http://www.boondocksnet.com/ailtexts/loveston.html">American Imperialism: The Menace of the Greates </A> --[2]-- Chapter V The United States -- The World's Banker and Manufacturer Gigantic Industrial Development The World War has given tremendous impetus to the expansion of American industry. America has become the leading industrial, trading and banking nation of the world. Abstractly one might still contend that the United States is a self-sustaining nation. But we are already dependent, if not for our livelihood, at least for our prosperity, on the world market. Our wheat growers look toward Liverpool for the price they are to receive for their produce. The cotton growers of the South, as well as the steel workers of Pittsburgh, are closely interwoven with the markets of Europe. The war has increased the dependence of the United States on the world for the disposal of its surplus. The tremendous development of American industrial enterprises since the war can best be seen from the following figures. From 1914 to 1919 the number of establishments in our industries rose from 275,791 to 290,105. At the same time the number of wage earners in these establishments increased from 7,036,247 to 9,0996,372. The capital invested in these industries rose from $22,790,979,937 to $44,569,593,771 during this period. The value of the products rose from $24,246,434,724 to $62,418,078,773. For instance, the value of our iron and steel and their products increased from $4,281,997,816 to $8,711,843,201. The value of our crops leaped from $6,112,000,000 to $8,133,046,000; animal products $3,783,000,000 to $6,513,600,000; manufactures, $9,878,346 000 to $17, 697,000,000; mineral output increased from $2,118,300,000 to $5,607,000,000; forest products, $568,820,000 to $1,680,900,000. The national income of the United States has increased from $33,200,000,000 to $52,457,000,000 in this period. From 1912 to 1922 the total national wealth of the country increased from $186,299,664,000 to $320,803,862,000, or a gain of more than 72 percent. Our merchant marine has grown from 5,427,536 tons in 1914 to 17,062,460 in 1922. Ships of American registry carried 45.5 percent of our foreign trade during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1923. In 1913 ships of American registry carried only 11 percent of our imports and 9 percent of our exports. Undisputed Financial Supremacy America has become the banker of the world. The Department of Commerce in its last annual report has stated that the world required no less than $4,692,000,000 to pay its current commercial obligation to the United States. Since the armistice November 11, 1918, European loans to the extent of 186,750,000 have been floated in the United States. In war debts alone the Allies owe America over $11,000,000,000. America has more than half the world's gold, $4,340,000,000, at this writing. In the last calendar year alone the world has sent to the United States $332,715,812 in gold. How rapidly the world's gold has been drifting into the United States can be seen from the latest figures of the Department of Commerce showing that for the 11 months ending November, 1913, we imported $1,608,570,909 worth of gold. For the same period in 1923 we imported $3,504,500,031. Since the war only four Scandinavian loans have been placed in London at the total value of $37,000,000. At the same time there were ten loans placed in dollars in New York at the total value of $162,000,000. America has been turned from a debtor nation into a creditor nation. In 1915 the European capitalists held $2,704,000,000 worth of United States railway stocks and securities. Two years afterwards more than half of these holdings were transferred to American hands. In 1914 more than one-fourth of the stocks of the United States Steel Corporation were held in Europe. Today the proportion is less than one-tenth. Because of the great need for credit for their huge borrowings, France and England sent over the best of their gilt-edge securities during the war. Through the investment of capital abroad the United States has become the silent partner in the fate of every established order in the world. In 1923 alone American capitalists bought foreign securities to the value of $410,000,000. Our foreign trade has increased from $2,250,822,000 in 1913 to $7,508,424,000 in 1923. Master of World's Available Resources In 1917 the United States exercised political or territorial control over 67 percent of the petroleum produced throughout the world, and over 72 percent of the petroleum produced was in the financial grip of Wall Street. The 1923 oil production reports show that 72.5 percent of the total world oil supply estimated produced was in the United States. Adding the quantity of crude oil imported, one finds that the United States today controls at least 80 percent of the world's available oil supply. But nearly 50 percent of our own petroleum resources in the United States have been exhausted. Thus about seven-eighths of the estimated world oil resources now lie outside of the United States. This accounts for the growing attention that the United States is paying to M exico, the Caribbean republics, and the South American republics which fall in the second greatest oil area in the world. Of the supply of corn estimated as having been raised in the world in 1923, the United States produced a quantity more than three times as great as that of all the other producing countries combined. Nearly three-fourths of the world's known coal reserves are in North America. More than half of the world's supply is in the United States. Out of the estimated supply of coal produced in the world in 1923, 1,335,000,000 metric tons, 43.5 percent were produced in the United States. A noted French economist summed up the European view of the American imperialist power in this fashion: "One fact dominates all others: the rise of the United States to world hegemony. Lord Robert Cecil has compared the position of the United States after the great war with Great Britain after the Napoleonic wars. That comparison is not quite exact, because the British hegemony was ever essentially European while that of the United States today is universal, controlling an immense reservoir of raw materials, of manufactured products and of capital. The United States has become an economic center in connection with which all the world must work and trade." Chapter VI Dollar Diplomacy Our Foreign Policy The Latin American countries form the natural hinterland for America's surplus capital and new sources of raw material. Observers of recent developments in the field of world politics have pointed out that there is a spirited competition for favor and trade of South American republics by the leading imperialist powers. The following are new developments in this sphere of international competition. "Great Britain has dispatched a financial commission from Southampton to South American countries to recommend loans. France has a military commission in Argentina, and seeks to extend her power and influence. Italy and Spain have entered into an understanding whereby they will go after a share of South American business, and will combat efforts of France and possibly Great Britain. The United States has for some time maintained a naval commission in Brazil and Peru, and late this month will send to Peru Lieutenant H. B. Grow to build up an aviation unit." Dollar diplomacy is no longer squirmed at or camouflaged by the spokesmen and diplomats of American imperialism. Secretary of State Hughes recently lauded the Monroe Doctrine, before the American Bar Association, as the greatest safeguard to peace and security for the Latin American countries. But perhaps the most whole-hearted endorsement of dollar diplomacy as a panacea was made by the millionaire engineer and former chairman of the Federal Coal Commission, John Hays Hammond, before the American Management Association on October 3, 1923. Tersely expressed, Mr. Hammond's program might be summed up as follows: "A few men from the United States with high commercial ability and business acumen, scattered in the capitals throughout the world, would be able to erect economic safeguards to capital to which would send a stream of American money into the far corners of the earth, developing unused resources, vastly increasing the total international productivity and raising the standard of living for civilized men." At this conference Mr. Hammond, whom we quoted, laid down the 14 points of dollar diplomacy. In the Pacific But the United States is not satisfied with the field afforded it by complete hegemony over the South and Central American countries. America has been steadily turning to the Far East. Addressing the Senate on February, 1923, the late President Harding said: "We have seen the eyes of the world turn to the Pacific. With Europe prostrate and penitent none feared the likelihood of early conflict there. But the Pacific had its menaces and they deeply concerned us. Our territorial interests are larger there. Its waters are not strange to us; its farther shores not unknown to our citizens." There is no question that the French-Indo Chinese empire though of tremendous size, is at present not a menace to American imperialists in this sphere of influence. Only England and Japan when allied are a menace to American interests here. American imperialist policy has been to separate Japan from Britain. The naval holiday offered by the United States to the debt-cursed England was the price paid by America for separating Britain from Japan. The Four Power Pacific Treaty has at least formally replaced the Anglo-Japanese alliance. Of course the United States does not intend to desist from its program of getting a Navy second to none as recommended by its General Naval Board in 1915 and 1920. The four-year naval holiday only gives America a chance to study the new developments in sea warfare and enables our experts to devise more infernal machines of destruction for war on the high seas. American imperialists are bent, under the guise of adherence to the open door policy, on establishing undisputed domination over China, one of the richest labor and raw material mines in the world. American imperialist policy is bitterly anti-Soviet in Russia and the Far East. The basis of this opposition is not at present directly military or financial. Russia is no longer an imperialist capitalist nation. What the United States fears from Soviet Russia is the following: The very existence of Soviet Russia as an implacable foe to all the capitalist world powers is in itself a challenge to American imperialism. Soviet Russia is an inspiration to the weaker and exploited nationalities of Asia and revolt against their European and American capitalist oppressors. "Restoring" Europe American European policy is only beginning to assume a definite character. In the main our financiers and industrialists have been pursuing a policy of watchful waiting to jump in at the most appropriate moment when the best bargain could be struck with a bankrupt Europe. American imperialism wants its pound of flesh here and is only waiting for the moment when it can get this with the least effort and at the smallest price. A broken down, bankrupt Europe would virtually be a coolie colony in the hands of American exploiters. The fate that has befallen Austria is a fate that Wall Street would have overwhelm the rest of Europe. Our capitalists fear the influence of Soviet Russia on European powers. They feel that the de jure recognition of Russia in the fold of European political and commercial relations would interfere with this plan. Therefore, the Coolidge administration is continuing the policy of attempting to isolate Russia. Through the acceptance of the Banker-Generals Charles G. Dawes, Owen D. Young and Henry M. Robinson on the Reparations Commission, the United States has taken the first step towards the achievement of its European program. That this has marked the first of a series of definite steps towards the dominating American financial groups becoming the receivers of bankrupt Europe is made plain by the swiftness with which subsequent developments in this direction are now taking place. Before the Dawes report was made public, J. P. Morgan & Co., whose spokesmen on the Reparations Commission were Young and Robinson, made a loan of $100,000,000 to save the tottering franc and the political head of their lackey, Poincare. The Dawes Report No sooner had the Dawes report mortgaging the German working class to the greedy and profit-hungry coterie of international capitalists been made public, than an open demand was made for an American receivership for Europe. It is significant to note that this has been the objective of the most conscious of America's capitalists. As far back as October, 1919, the special correspondent of the Wall Street Journal cabled from Germany to the effect that there was but one solution of the European crisis and that was "a straightforward receivership for Germany!" The same journal of high finance had also suggested then that Brigadier General Charles G. Dawes be chosen to untangle the reparations knot. In the light of this trend of events, the proud boast of the Wall Street Journal of April l1, 1924, is enlightening: "The essence of the Dawes report, the one possible means by which its suggestions can be carried out, is a receivership." Of course, a receivership for Europe today means an American receivership. The proposed $200,000,000 loan to Germany to help the stabilization of its currency will prove the immediate entering wedge for the receivership. About $100,000,000 of this loan to the International Acceptance Bank about to be organized in Berlin, will be taken up by American bankers. President Coolidge hastened to assure our capitalists the unlimited resources of the government in support of this new imperialist plunge when he declared publicly: "I trust that American capital will be willing to participate in advancing this loan." Obviously the policy of Wall Street here will be the same as the policy pursued in Hungary where a Boston bankers' attorney, Mr. Jeremiah Smith, now reigns supreme as financial dictator. This continuous encroachment of American financial and industrial interests on the natural resources and industries of continental Europe will, in the long run, bring about serious organized political and military opposition from the European countries. Our capitalists are preparing for such eventualities. Chapter VII Capitalist Imperialism and the Aristocracy of Labor Role of Labor Aristocracy The labor aristocracy, the upper crust of the skilled section of the working class, has in America, as in other imperialist countries, become an integral part of the entire machinery of our ruling class. This small group of our working class is developing more and more a tangible economic interest in the maintenance and the perpetuation of American financial, commercial and military supremacy in colonial countries, new markets and new spheres of influence. The handful of highly skilled workers is being welded to the high-handed imperialist plans of looting the weaker countries. This layer of the working class is permitted to share in the advantages reaped by the monopolists at the expense of the rest of the workers at home and the colonial and weaker peoples abroad. Thus we find that the officialdom of the American Federation of Labor speaking primarily for the upper crust of our working class, has turned a deaf ear to the cries of the nations oppressed by the Wall Street government. Upon his return from his latest visit to Panama in January, 1924, Mr. Samuel Gompers was emphatic in his description of the conditions in Haiti as satisfactory. Mr. Gompers handed out this endorsement of American domination of Haiti despite the fact that the behavior of the military and naval agents of Wall Street in Haiti is notorious for its brutality even in the history of American imperialism which is replete with practices of cruelty and utter disregard for the wishes and aspirations of the weaker peoples under its yoke. After months of agitation by the Communists the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor was compelled to take notice of the serious crisis prevailing in the Philippines because of the resistance of the native masses to the domination of American capital. In taking notice of this giant struggle against Yankee imperialism in the Far East, the Executive Council was primarily concerned with the fact that "many of the products of the Philippine Islands come into the states, duty free, in direct competition with the higher paid workingmen and women of the mainland, thus making it practically impossible for employees and independent manufacturers to meet competition." In its half-hearted endorsement of the Philippine independence movement, an endorsement which was adopted at an executive session of the council on February 15, 1924, the American Federation of Labor bureaucracy took no steps to solidify the ranks of the Filipino and American workers and to unite the workers of both countries in a common struggle against their common enemy, in the fight for complete freedom from economic exploitation and political oppression. When the reactionary German industrialist group, hiding behind the cloak of the traitorous social democracy, was menaced by the hungry German masses the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor issued an appeal, ostensibly for the relief of the German working masses, but actually for the salvaging of the capitalist dictatorship then threatened with ruin. The Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor has persistently fought all attempts at drawing the American trade union movement into the fold of even the faintest form of international working class action. The yellow Amsterdam International has proved too red for Gompers and his agents. However, the labor international of the League of Nations and the International Chamber of Commerce at Rome have not been black enough for Mr. Gompers who has formally co-operated with these capitalist institutions in sundry ways. Developing Vested Interests Evidence that the highly skilled labor aristocracy is more and more developing a vested interest in the imperialist capitalist system is multiplying. An examination of recent tendencies in the trade union movement amongst skilled workers towards labor banking affords painfully striking proof of this truth. Without getting into a discussion at this point about the merits and demerits of labor banking for the working class in its struggle with the capitalists, one need but cite the following pertinent authoritative remark which characterizes fundamentally the growing vested interest that the upper crust of our working class is developing in the imperialist order. We quote the following: "When a wage earner invests some of his earnings in the business enterprise in which he, himself, is employed, he becomes a better workman, he takes a new interest in the business; he feels that he has a stake in it which is more important than the weekly pay envelope. And when a man gets this feeling, he settles down and becomes dependable. For he comes to feel that he also has a part in the prosperity and progress of the country which places upon him the obligation of industry, of thrift, and of good citizenship!" (Bold face ours.) This eulogy of labor banking, unmasking the true character of labor banking and its dangers to the working class movement in the imperialist stage of capitalism, is not taken from such big business organs as the Wall Street Journal, the Financial and Commercial Chronicle, the Nation's Business, or American Industries. The quotation is taken directly from a pamphlet published by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers entitled "Making Millions Out of Pennies." Richard Boeckel, author of "Labor Banking," and one of the most noted students of this phase of our trade union movement, in an article captioned "Our Revolution at Home," in the April, 1924, issue of the Forum makes the following significant statements: "One of the first transactions of the Brotherhood Investment Co. was the purchase for the Brotherhood of a third interest in the Empire Trust Company of New York, a $60,000,000 financial institution. At the same time the purchase was made, the Brotherhood secured an option on the remaining shares necessary to control the bank. Two officials of the Brotherhood will complete purchases under its option and assume full control of the bank in June of this year. It is interesting to note that the Empire Trust Company is given in a pamphlet, 'The Capitalist Press�Who Owns it and Why,' recently issued by the British Labor Party as the holder of '587 shares or more than half of the total capital' of the Central News Limited, of London, one of the largest European news agencies." (Bold face ours.) It may seem strange to the reader at first sight to learn that the Central News Agency was one of the most energetic enemy of all working class movements in Europe. The following two statements taken from authoritative propagandists for the last World War and is today a bitter spokesmen of the biggest capitalist groups in the country, commenting on another financial venture of our trade union bankers, are most instructive. We quote: Financial & Commercial Chronicle, March 29, 1924: "Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Co-operative National Bank participates in offering of International Great Northern Railroad Bonds. An offering yesterday (March 28) of $3,500,000 6 percent gold bonds of the International Great Northern Railroad Company jointly by the National City Company of New York and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Co-operative National Bank of Cleveland represents the first financing on a large scale to be participated in by so-called capital and labor banking institutions. The offering does not involve any new financing by the railroad, or any increase in the amount of bonds outstanding, the bonds having been purchased from Speyer & Co. and J. & W. Seligman & Company, and thus consist of a block of bonds owned by the bankers. With respect to this week's joint offering it is pointed out as a significant fact that the largest bank in the country, representing the biggest aggregation of commercial and financial interests in the United States, is willing to hold out its hand and join forces with labor in a constructive attempt to create more harmonious relationships between the two elements." (Bold face ours.) New York Tribune, March 27, 1924. "This is the first public appearance of the Brotherhood Bank in connection with the floatation of securities by a Wall Street investment house, although it has handled local issues in Cleveland and has had a 'silent' participation in many of the large issues recently. The fact that, in its bow to the investment public, the Brotherhood Bank was associated with the National City Company, the investment branch of the largest financial institution in the United States, was regarded as of particular significance. The offering will be conducted by the Brotherhood Bank in precisely the same way as that employed by the non-labor banking firms and institutions, subscriptions being filled in the order received, regardless of their source. The Bank will, however, circularize the members of the Brotherhood in an effort to dispose of the bonds, this being the first occasion when it has ever offered railroad securities to its members. The officials of the bank are opposed to part payment plans on the theory that a man who cannot pay in full for a $100 bond should keep his money in the savings bank, and no arrangement of this kind will be adopted to facilitate subscriptions by members. "In connection with the offering, it became known yesterday that the Brotherhood Bank, the oldest and strongest of the labor banks in this country, only recently has turned its attention to railroad bonds. It has previously purchased these for investment purposes, but today will mark initial recommendation for such securities of plans for expansion made some weeks ago by the investment company through which the various Brotherhood Banks are linked up. Wall Street bankers, while frankly inclined to view the new alliance in the investment banking field with the Brotherhood institution as in the nature of an experiment, were ready to admit that, if successful, it would open up tremendous possibilities for future development. The enterprise is regarded as demonstrating that the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers is in the banking business on substantially the same basis as other financial interests, and that it is seeking to branch out into all fields where sound practice offers a profit. "Aside from that aspect of the operation the new activity of the Brotherhood is looked on as pointing to a closer community of interest between its members and the railroads, possibly capable of development at a later date into a movement toward joint capital and labor ownership." (Bold face ours.) One of the ablest leaders of the employing class of the United States, Mr. Eugene Meyer, Jr., managing director of the War Finance Corporation, has estimated the significance of this tendency in the labor movement in the following clear manner: "The advent into the ranks of capitalists of labor groups of great importance strengthens existing institutions and makes for evolutionary as against revolutionary change." Chapter VIII A Program of Action The price of our imperialists for the development of the industries and natural resources of the colonial and so-called backward countries, and the price of American "humanitarian help" towards European reconstruction is complete economic hegemony over all of these territories. The steps already taken by the United States government in helping capitalists secure a firmer foothold in the Near East, Far East, Latin America and Europe, are only a prelude to more entangling alliances which are bound, sooner rather than later, to draw an army of millions of American workers and farmers "over there" to fight for the safety and defense of the foreign investments of our employing class. The tying up of the interests of a small, skilled section of our working class with the interests of the monopolistic group of the capitalist class, is an added danger to the welfare and security of the whole working class and the exploited poor farming masses. In the light of this ever increasing militarist and imperialist menace to the peace and security of the American workers and poor farmers the need for united action against American imperialism is more urgent than ever. Towards this end the Workers Party of America proposes the following program: 1. General propaganda to arouse the opposition of the laboring and farming masses to imperialism and militarism. 2. A united front of all workers' and farmers' organizations against the maintenance and extension of American imperialist plans. 3. Concerted action by the workers' and farmers' political and economic organizations to compel Congress to enact legislation prohibiting the expenditure of a man or a dollar to guarantee the investments of American capitalists abroad. 4. A vigorous campaign in all labor and farm organizations for the economic and complete independence of all possessions of the United States. 5. Struggle against American interference in the political and economic affairs of Mexico, the South and Central American republics. The immediate evacuation of all territories now occupied by American military and naval forces should be demanded. 6. A special organizational and propaganda campaign to help the Filipino people in their resistance to American capitalist exploitation. Our workers and farmers should render the greatest help possible to the Filipinos in their struggle for complete national independence from United States imperialist domination, and for the improvement of their conditions at home. 7. Special publicity campaigns are to be organized exposing American capitalist brutality in our possessions and in territories occupied by the military and naval forces of the United States. The interests dominating Mexico, Central America, South America, and our island possessions must be exposed in their true light as imperialist brigands before the working class and poor farmers. 8. Struggle against the reactionary trade union leaders of the United States and of the weaker exploited countries. These leaders of the type of Gompers and the Mexican Morones have become part and parcel of the imperialist coterie oppressing the working masses. 9. Struggle against the attempt of the imperialist Coolidge administration to unite the countries of the world against Soviet Russia and against the tacit support given to the monarchist movement in Germany by American reactionary forces. 10. An intensive campaign against American participation in the League of Nations, the World Court, the Reparations Commissions, the Dawes Plan and all other imperialist conferences, alliances and schemes. 11. The organization of an international united front of the political and economic organizations of the workers and poor farmers against international capitalist imperialism. The workers of all the American countries must unite for a common struggle against American imperialism and the native capitalist groups of all countries. 12. That copies of this resolution be forwarded to the labor organizations of all the American possessions, Mexico, Canada, the Central and South American countries. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jay Lovestone (1898-?) was national secretary of the Workers (Communist) Party that was formed in 1922 and renamed Communist Party, USA, in 1929. Lovestone was expelled from the party in 1928. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Citation: Lovestone, Jay. "American Imperialism: The Menace of the Greatest Capitalist World Power." (Chicago: Workers Party of America, n.d. [1925]). http://www.boondocksnet.com/ailtexts/loveston.html In Jim Zwick, ed., Anti-Imperialism in the United States, 1898-1935. http://www.boondocksnet.com/ail98-35.html (Today's date). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Anti-Imperialism in the United States, 1898-1935, edited by Jim Zwick. Copyright � 1995-1999 Jim Zwick. All rights reserved. ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! 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