‘June 29 to July 4 is Anti-Imperialist Week!’ from the Daily Worker. Vol. 2 No. 130. June 13, 1925.

Statement of the All-American Anti-Imperialist League.

No Mobilisation for Imperialism! Demonstrate! Agitate!

THE president of the United States has Issued the call for a nation-wide mobilisation of military forces on July 4. This “defense test,” as President Coolidge chooses to call it, follows close upon the heels of the big demonstration of the American fleet in Far Eastern waters. It is to be a festival of American militarism, dramatising on a much more tremendous scale the chauvinistic style of “flag day,” and the hosts of similar “days” which are being staged in the United States with increasing frequency.

Two days before President Coolidge’s proclamation of a general mobilisation for July 4, the American secretary of state made a public confession of faith in “the two fundamentals of American foreign policy,” the Monroe doctrine in Latin-America and the “open door” policy in the Far East. If the secretary had mentioned a third “fundamental”—the Dawes plan in Europe—his analysis would have been complete.

This Is the foreign policy which American mobilisation is to guarantee. It is a policy of flagrant imperialism. With measured cynicism, the date selected for mobilisation Is none other than the anniversary of American Independence from Great Britain. July 4, the historic independence day of the United States, has become a threat to the independence of every other nation in the western world.

The United States government talks in terms of “defense,” but this has always been its method. Who in Latin America does not remember that the Monroe doctrine itself was “to defend Latin-American territory against European aggression?”

But Europe does not threaten, and the Monroe doctrine serves to hinder any outside help against aggression by the United States. In the name of the Monroe doctrine, the United States has assumed control of customs houses, appointed “financial advisers,” and by systematic application of the many subtle devices of imperialism has worked itself into a dominant position in the affairs of Latin- America.

Cuba has been bound hand and foot to the American sugar kings, tobacco lords and shipping trust magnates, under the guise of the so-called Platt amendment. Colombia has been robbed and the “independent” Republic of Panama turned into a satrapy of American naval lieutenants. Haiti and Santo Domingo have been gutted. Mexico has been assaulted again and again. All Central America has been reduced to abject slavery, for plunder by the United Fruit company and the National City Bank of New York.

These are only the more obvious outrages of American imperialism. Sometimes the American financial oligarchy has set one Latin-American nation against another, as in the case of Chile and Peru. Sometimes bribery and cajolery have been resorted to. Where it suits the interests of Wall Street, the United States government has not scrupled to lend official support to native dictators and oppressors of the Latin-American people, such as Leguia in Peru, Orellana in Guatemala and the bloody Juan Vicente Gomez in Venezuela. Wherever “peaceful penetration” fails to achieve the desired end, American troops and warships are called into play.

Such incidents are not accidental. They are American foreign policy in action in Latin-America. The American capitalist order is the driving force back of American imperialism. Latin-America has immense deposits of oil, that great new fuel and war stuff of rival imperialism; so it must be brought under the domination of the American oil trust.

Latin-America is rich in raw materials of all sorts, from the wheat and meat of Argentina to the copper, silver and gold of Mexico; so it must be bound to the chariot of the American industrial magnates and the bankers who dominate them in the search for exclusive sources of raw material.

Latin-America is a fertile field for the investment of billions of surplus American dollars; so its lands must be seized and its sons to toil long hours for miserable wages under American taskmasters.

A huge American empire, with its base in Latin-America but with ramifications extending thruout the world, is being carved out of the suffering and toil of subject peoples. Latin-Americans, Filipinos, Chinese, etc., are looked upon as so much grist for the profit mill of Wall Street.

The lords of Wall Street dominate not only in Latin-America, not only in the Philippines, but in the United States itself, where the working class is exploited as a subject people for the sake of capitalism. Latin-American and Filipino workers are played off against American workers. Competition from “foreign cheap labor” is used as an excuse to force down the standard of living of the American workers. American imperialism is the black beast of the western hemisphere. It is the greatest menace confronting us today. President Coolidge’s “mobilization day,” or “defense day,” means a renewed dedication to the purposes of American imperialism.

It is time for militant resistance! In the past, the various peoples have struggled bravely against the encroachments of Wall Street, but they have done so in isolated fashion, and consequently without any permanent success. The All-American Anti-Imperialist League has come into existence to unify this fight, to bring together all forces in a concerted and ceaseless struggle against American imperialism.

The All-American Anti-Imperialist League now issues a call to all peoples groaning under the heel of American imperialism:

Against President Coolidge’s “mobilization day,” we set up “Anti-Imperialist Week.”

Let this be our answer:

WE PROCLAIM THE WEEK OF JUNE 29 TO JULY 4 AS “ANTI-IMPERIALIST WEEK” THRUOUT AMERICA!

Mass meetings must be held everywhere, newspapers must publish special anti-imperialist editions, handbills must be circulated–and on July 4 demonstrations of protest must be held before every American legation and consulate.

The week ending July 4 is “Anti-Imperialist Week!” Let the word go forth. Let us make “Anti-Imperialist Week” an unmistakable and ringing answer to the challenge of the American imperialists! Let it be the beginning of a great movement which will not cease until the curse of American imperialism has been swept from the world for all time!

ALL-AMERICAN ANTI-IMPERIALIST LEAGUE,

Manuel Gomez, Secretary.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1925/1925-nat/v02b-n130-jun-13-Chi-1925-DW-mfilm.pdf