The Daily Worker

Renegades—American and British

Remorseful renegades are not welcomed back to the fold in England with any great display of warmth if we can rely upon comments in the Daily Herald on the decision of Robert Blatchford to forsake the capitalist press, into whose service he went at the outbreak of the war, and return to the Labor Party.

"I'm tired of all this dirty business of lying about the Labor Party and similar tactics," says the unctuous Mr. Blatchford now that the Labor Party is in power.

Letters to the Daily Herald, in discussing this striking change of heart, display a lack of sympathy with the mental agonies long endured of Mr. Blatchford that might be emulated with profit to the workers in the United States.

Says one correspondent:

"I believe and hope that all true socialists will view the return of the prodigal Robert Blatchford to the Labor fold with distrust and apprehension. Blatchford (himself not innocent of those tactics which now disgust him when practiced by his late paymasters) has been too long in the opposing camp for us to regard his volte face as a change of heart."

Another says:

"The war came as a blow to Labor. It killed the DAILY HERALD as a daily. Many Labor publications ceased; others dragged on a hand-to-mouth existence. Robert Blatchford deserted the apparently sinking ship and went to the Yellow Press, whose masters reviled bitterly the Labor Party and its aspirations.

"Now Labor is getting powerful. The circulation of the Daily Herald is rising every day. To it have been added Labor weeklies and monthlies. Propaganda is strong; also, there is going to be a Labor Government. Now, after seven years with the Yellow Press, Mr. Robert Blatchford says: 'I am tired of all this dirty business of lying about the Labor Party and similar tactics,' and resigns.

"Seven years! It took a long time. I hope I'm of a forgiving nature, but seven years!"

In the United States the Blatchford type is represented by the Wallings, Wrights, Spargos and Russells.

Two of these safety first gentlemen who rallied to the Wilson-Gompers standard are now cosily ensconced in jobs with the American Federation of Labor: their main task is to slander those who did not sell out to the American imperialists in 1917 and warn both the labor movement and the dear public of the approach of the red menace.

We must confess that some things are done better in Great Britain.