According to his obituary, published in the New York Times on August 5, 1960, economist Leland Olds was a New Deal champion of the consumer and government regulation of public utilities including the electrical, oil and gas industries while serving on the Federal Power Commission. His role in government was interrupted during the early phase of the post-World War 2 “Red Scare” because of “searing criticisms of free enterprise” he wrote for the “left-wing labor news service,” Federated Press, in the 1920s. In a 1949 Senate hearing, one of Old’s fiercest critics was future President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Johnson, who represented Texas and the oil industry in the Senate, accused Leland Olds of being a “zealot” who had “an uninterrupted tale of bias, prejudice, and hostility, directed against the industry over which he seeks now to assume the power of life and death” and wanted to “destroy the delicate balance between responsible public regulation and out-right public ownership.”
Examining Olds’ written record from the 1920s, Johnson charged Olds traveled with those “who proposed a Marxian answer” and associated with communists and other radicals. Johnson was right about Olds’ background, but that does not mean Leland Olds was wrong about his economic criticisms of the United States in the 1920s or his support for government regulation of public utilities.
The Federated Press Labor Letter was published out of Chicago between 1919 and 1956, but its most influential period supporting the American labor movement was during the 1920s and 1930s. Olds’ economic articles written for the Federated Press were often reprinted in labor union newspapers and in The Daily Worker, the official publication of the American Communist Party. In 1928, an article by Olds published in The Daily Worker argued that the American celebration of the 4th of July was viewed around the world as a celebration of American imperialism. Johnson accused Olds of “scorning the national holiday.” Olds responded that his intent was to “protect rather than besmirch the Fourth.” I’m not sure Olds’ recollections about the article were accurate, but the article itself bears reading at a time of transcendent global capitalism, the struggle to reign in fossil fuel production that is causing a catastrophic climate crisis, increasingly global inequality, and the continued exploitation of the mis-developed world by industrial and financial super-powers.
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IMPERIALISM AND FOURTH OF JULY
By Leland Olds, Federated Press, The Daily Worker, July 5, 1928, 5
To millions of workers slaving throughout the world to provide the tribute exacted by the American dollar empire, Fourth of July will loom as anything but the birthday of liberty. They will view it as the day set apart by the world’s greatest exploiters to glorify their rise to power. Gradually it will be transformed into empire day, demanding worship of imperial power, wherever the dollar has established its dominion.
The change in the character of the Fourth has been in progress many years. But it has proceeded most rapidly since the World War enabled Americans capitalism to declare its financial independence. This transformation is reflected in the recent expulsion from the Daughters of the American Revolution of a member who protested the blacklisting of scores of prominent persons for professing the principles of the Declaration of Independence.
Prior to the World War the United States was still in part an economic colony of Europe. Its workers had each year to produce the tribute required by European capitalists on the 5 to 6 billion dollars which they had invested in America. The greater part of this tribute went to England, which held about $4,000,000,000 of American securities.
WAR PROFITS FOR UNITED STATES
Huge was profits shifted the balance of power to American capitalists. They bought back a large proportion of the American securities held in Europe. They bought the investments of England and other European countries in Central and South America. They established New York as the money-lending center of the world and with the end of the war began to pour dollars into all parts of the world, taking mortgages on governments, buying up industries, engrossing power resources, building railroads and factories.
The latest census of American’s invading dollars shows $5,200,000,000 invested in Latin America, $4,300,000,000 in Europe, $3,900,000,000 in Canada, $700,000,000 in China, Japan and the Philippines, and $400,000,000 in other parts of the world. These dollars, which extend the domination of American capitalists over the economic activities of other peoples, are increasing more than $1,000,000,000 a year.
ENSLAVE LATIN AMERICA
The growth of imperial power over Latin America is evident in the increase in dollar investments in Cuba from $220,000,000 in 1912 to $1,400,000,000 in 1918, by the increase in dollar investments in Mexico from $800,000,000 in 1012 to $1,288,000,000 in 1928, by increases in China from $15,000,000 to $451,000,000. Brazil from $50,00,000 to $388,000,000. Peru from $35,000,000 to $169,000,000. Venezuela from $3,000,000 to $162,000,000 and so on all the way down to amounts increased from $3,000,000 to $20,000,000.
UNITED STATES INVESTMENTS FIRST
In total foreign investments the United States is still second to Great Britain, if British investments in the Dominions are included. But American foreign investments are increasing more rapidly and in economic power there is no comparison. The annual income of the United States at $90,000,000,000 is nearly equal to the entire national wealth of Great Britain, which is estimated at $100,000,000,000. American wealth is estimated as high as $550,000,000,000. In productive power the United States stands preeminent.
UNITED STATES DOLLAR CONTROLS WORLD
The dollar has established capitalism in Europe, blocking the spread of bankruptcy and social revolution. It is recognized even by British bankers as the world standard of value. American bankers, bulwarked by the Federal Reserve System, are capitalizing the situation. Under their direction American dollars are boldly storming the economic defenses of other nations or filtering in as the situation requires. And behind the dollars are the American marines and the enormous potential war strength of the American people.
All this is summed up in the celebration of Fourth of July 1928. It marks the development of empire worship.
