The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 25, 1924, Page 2

//} Page Two | meme THE DAILY WORKER January 25, 1924 (Continued from page 1) President are such that we are of the opinion that the delegates to our} convention should be informed of them. With this object in view our Local Union No. 4529, New Aber- deen, N. S., has drawn up the fol- lowing statement. were used to prevent the miners join- ing the U. M. W., and in 1922 during cept troops were sent to the District. The corporation has used these troops against us without provocation since there has never been any dis- order during our strikes which would make the use of troops No Contract Violation, In July, 1923, our District officers were accused by the International President of calling a strike in viola- tion of a contract with the British Empire Steel Corporation. The strike last July was not called in vio- lation of the contract because there was no clause in the contract prohib- ) ers. iting the miners from quitting work! ‘Therefore the strike in July last during the period of the contract, In| previous contracts with the corpora-| tion there was a clause prohibiting with the corporation. Tontract signed in Adgust 1922 this|CO*POration in industrial disputes. clause was opposed by the represent~) Ue" May the provincial police actu- dtives of the miners, and was qn- ally raided our district office in the absence of our officers, and pried into contradiction when we assert that the | aha sig Sade ducing: thie tees 2 Hig a HB oe Be arg The corporation has used this arm- strike was called on duly ord, 192°. | ed force in its attempts to smash our The strike of July, 1923, was called) union and throw us back into the dis- as a protest against the use of arm- organized state we were in before we 2 Sere reer aas oe organized District 26, U. M. W. Un- oKe y e al pro " the | der these circumstances is was our provincical police sent by the provin-| duty to make as effective a protest cial government of Nova Scotia to| as possible against the troops which compell the steel workers of Sydney/the corporation is constantly using to return to work without gaining the | against organized labor in the prov- gy aad for which they struck} ince of Nova Scotia. on June 28th, on July 1st this police é force charged the pickets of the Lewis Revokes Charter. ie steel workers and in the attack rode|_ On July 17th, the International down many people not connected | President revoked our District Char- with the strike in any way with the| ter, and deposed our regularly elect- result that many of them were in- ed District officers without an inves- jured including women and children, | tigation into the situation. Our of- mi cers have not been given a trial Evil of Long Standing. jwhich they are entitled to as mem- For many years the miners of Dis-| bers of our union. The International trict 26 have suffered by the use of| President proceeded to set up a pro- armed troops by the coal operators our District has always protested the strike in August against the 387] per cent reduction in wages which the | corporation tried to force us to ac-| | against our union. V | district officers from the district of- necessary. | The Town Council of Glace Bay in| against the use of these troops by/| the corporation to intimidate the min- | year had no connection with “wages, | |conditions of labor, or the contract | It was a pro-| tions in August 1922. Provisional Officials Use Police, These provisional officers menced injunction proceedings in the courts against the deposed officers in the same manner as the open-shop operators have used injunctions They drove the fice by threats of using the town police, the armed provincial \police, and the Militia. We wish to point out to you that it is in violation o: all the principles of our organization that application should be made to the courts for action against mem- bers of our union until the matter has been disposed of by the institu- tions of our union. Despite this these provisional officers did this, to the detriment of our union in Nova Scotia, At the same time International President ordered the locals to re- turn to work under threat of losing their charters. Had the miners of this District remained on strike the district would have been destroyed and a split caused in our organiza- tion. Rather than risk this the min- the unity of our organization. Never- theless the miners of this district un- derstand thoroly that they could have} forced the withdranwal of the troops from the province in spite of the corporation, the provincial and fed- eral governments, and the troops and armed police, if the International President had not aided these forces by revoking our charter, deposing our officers, and ‘threatening to cancel the charters of our locals if the miners did not return to work. Betray Indicted Men. At the time our district officers were deposed the corporation had been able to get them arrested on charges of “seditious libel.” The fact that they had been deposed and de- About the Nova Scotia Situation to prevent us raising our wages to the] provisional officers men who had been nounced by the International Presi- | level of those prevailing in other dis-| overwhelmingly defeated when they ,dent of our union is greatly respons- tricts of our union, In 1909 troops| stood for election in the district elec-| ible for the fact that our deposed |Secretary-Treasurer James B, Mc- |Lachlan has been sent to the peni- \tentiary for two years. com-| When the provisional officers | were unable to secure a decision from ‘the courts to suit themselves they gave up their injunction proceedings. The miners of this district have re- fused to take any action which would split our union, and have stuck loy- ally to the U. M. W. The provisional officers who have been foisted upon us against the will of the vast ma- jority of the rank and file have no standing with the miners because of their actions in the past in trying to force the miners to accept 2 wage re- duction which would aave brought the wages of the datal workers down to $2.44 a day. The miners have no confidence in these men, and they could never have been elected to the office in this district because of their bad records, Was Autonomous District. ‘When this District, which until |1910 was organized as the Amalga- ers returned to work and preserved| mated Mine Workers of Nova Scotia, became a district of the U. M, W. it was done by means of a_ tri-party agreement between the operators, the | mine workers of Nova Scotia and the United Mine Workers of America, Before the operators would rec- ognize this District of the U. M. W. it had to be agreed on the demand of the operators, that this District would have complete autonomy, so that the coal operators of Nova Scotia would not have to face a strike of the mine workers of Nova Scotia called by the International President be- cause of conditions existing in the | United States at that time. This is the understandmg upon which the International President at that time sent us our charter. Lewis’ Action Aids Bosses. In view of the above facts which | cannot be contradicted, we appeal to} the delegates to the convention of | our union to see that these things are | corrected. Our district has been dis- organized because of the loss of our’ charter and the fact that our officers have been deposed. Men have been | blacklisted by the corporation since ; last July, and the provisional officers have not worked to get them rein-| stated. Our conditions of labor have been destroyed. The corporation is doubling up the jobs and firing many miners, checkweighmen are driven from the tipples by the company po-| lice and not allowed to function for the miners who elected them because the corporation has them on_ the} blacklist. The corporation is taking | advantage of the fact that we have no| District Charter and have therefore | no control over the affairs of our| union. If this state of affairs con- tinues much longer it will result in the destruction of our union, .Therefore we appeal to the dele- gates to our International Convention to see to it that the following meas- ures are carried out to the end that we might get justice from our own or- ganization: 1. That our District Charter be immediately restored to us so that we will be able to conduct the affairs of our union. 2. That our deposed District Of- ficers be reinstated in office and car- jry out the work of the District as | they were elected to do until a Dis- trict election is held. We beliefe that if the delegates will examine the facts of our situa- tion that they will extend to us a helping hand and correct the terrible | blunders of the International Pres-!¥ ident in this District. The miners! of this District fought for years to | ¥% become a District of the United 4 ; Mine Workers. Now that we have at- | tained that we appeal to the delegates to see to it that our rights and privi- leges as members of the United Mine Workers are protected. LPP TTT E, EXCITEDLY ON COAL MINERS! Talk To Your Convention Thru Daily Worker Coal Miners! Your convention is on at Indianapolis, Ind. It will be responsive to your needs if you will taik to it, talk “RED MENACE” Tries to Confuse the Real Issue Before Delegates ~ alsin HN FITZGERALD ... .| (Staff Cor?apondent ‘of The Daily Worker) TOMLINSON HALL, Indian- apolis, Ind.—Wild scenes were enacted late yesterday in the miners’ convention here when the administration machine closed debate on the resolu- tions condemning John L. Lewis, president, for revoking the charter of District 26, Nova Scotia, while that district was on strike against the use of troops by the Canadian gov- ernment. Lewis, in a speech that was obviously composed to confuse the real issue (the lining up of the international union officials with the British Empire Steel Company and the Canadian government) covered the distance be- tween Nova Scotia and Moscow. In the best style of rotary club oratory fo he raved about the red menace and denounced the opponents of his ad- ministration as enemies of society in — and the United Mine Workers particular. Lewis Recognizes Himself. The resolutions committee had of- fered a substitute for the Nova Sco- tia resolution glorifying Lewis and the international officials. A Cana- dan delegate was on his feet imme- diately. Lewis said, “The chair rec- ognizes himself” and then proceeded to attack Jim McLachlan and the officers of District No. 26, claiming that they thought more of the in- structions of the Red Labor Union International than of the laws of 4 United Mine Workers of Amer- He wound up by saying that Me- Lachlan is in jail now for violating the laws of Canada and the British Empire and, so far as he (Lewis) is eoncerned, he can stay there. (Mc- ag 9 a age sentenced Psd tw years “in the penitentiary for de- nouncing the a of troops by the government and the Canadian steel trust to break a strike of steel work- ers. When Lewis finished his tirade, Vice-President Murray took the chair declared the previous question i been pets for and mae cw exact o; ite appeared to be the case. On a viva voce vote he to it in loud and emphatic tones. You can do this thru your paper, THE DAILY WORKER. You can do it every day. You can make yourself heard. Every day THE DAILY WORKER goes to the convention at Tomlinson Hall, at.Indianapolis. The miners’ delegates are reading it, from first page, first column, to last page, last column, If you will write to THE DAILY WORKER, telling your needs, the delegates will read your letter. One of the big things you are interested in is unemploy- ment. If you don’t work there is no pay envelope. If you don’t work, there is nothing with which to pay the landlord, the grocer, with which to buy the things your family needs. How do you get along? How do you make both ends meet? What do you demand? Tell it to the delegates at Indianapolis. Tell it to your. highly paid officials, whose salaries go on the whole year around. Write about all the other great prbolems confronting the! coal miners of this country. Your letters will be published in THE DAILY WORKER and read by the delegates at your con+ vention at Indianapolis. Write to the Editor, The Daily Worker, 1640 N. Halsted St., Chicago, Ill. sary thirty per cent of the delegates present wanted the roll-call, The machine tellers counted only 421 of the 1,800 delegates present, but the prevailing opinion is that they were extremely short-sighted. Tactics Astound Reporters, Experienced convention sepotters r capitalist papers claim to have never seen a more brazen abuse of power than the tactics employed by Lewis in crushing a man who could not be at the convention because he is in jail for his loyalty to his union and his class while Lewis de- fends the right of the British Em- a Steel Company to put and keep im there, The convention went on record for recognition of Soviet Russia by the adoption of a resolution to which the resolution committee had added a few phrases cribbed from statements of Secretary of State Hughes. A cautiously worded resolution on affiliation with the Farmer-Labor party movement was passed by the convention with which was incorpo- rated a message of greeting and con- gratulation to Ramsay MacDonald and the British Labor Party. Nationalization Emasculated, For the various resolutions call- ing for nationalization of mines was substituted a feeble recommendation advising the continuation of inves- tigation and the collection of data, While this massacre of the major program of the miners was being committed, neither Chris Golden or John Brophy—supposed to be the fathers of the nationalization pro- gram—attempted to utter a word of st. ‘ith the exception of those deal- declared the substitute resolution] ing with the Howat case all impor- carried, Storm Breaks. A demand was made for a roll- call which was denied by Murray but tant resolutions have been disposed of, Don’t be a “Yes, But,” supporter of such a storm of protest broke loose|The Daily Worker. Send in your sub- KENTUCKY MINERS CALL FOR HELP IN ORGANIZING FIELD Tell DAILY WORKER Convention Must Act (Special to The Daily Worker) The United Mine Worker's’ Con- vention, sitting in Indianapolis, MUST find a plan for the unioniza- tion of the non-union fields in Ken- tucky, says a group of rank and file miners, writing to The DAILY WORKER, The communication, which is drawn up by W. K. Ambrozio, of the Cromona local union, which has a foothold in the unorganized fields of Lesher county, tells of disastrous conditions, Thousands of men are out of work and others are working two and three days a week. Con- ditions are made worse by the com- pany’s policy of employing 15-year- old boys and thereby crowding out men With families, The local company gunman is a one-time preacher. is gun-toting by the clergy leads Ambrozio to the ironica] conclusion that the workers won't be safe, even in heaven. ‘ aes ty: Cone local ‘cs ast December to Lonie ad trict President of the needles in Kentucky, explaining , and urging aid in organizing er county. Jackson wrote back that he had referred their letter to William Turnblazer, president of District No, 19, Knoxville, Tenn. No reply come from Turnblazer up to date. and Th: tee on appeals and MINER RANK AND FILE IN NEW REVOLT Stage Comeback and Upset “Lewis Machine (Continued from Page 1)¥! cause brotherhood officials were against the proposal. Kennedy, chairman of the resolu- tions committee, replying to a ques- tion from Freeman Thompson, de- clared that in his opinion the rank and file of the railwaymen were for a working agreement with the miners, but the officials were against it. He stated further that the com- pany owned by the Locofffotive Engi- neers is running a scab mine and re- lated the incident of the scrike in a West Virginia mine owned by the Lo- comotive Engineers. Mooney of West Virginia, declared jit is said, believe the miners will ¢ that amalgamation of the railwaymen | Strengthen their hand by the cutting | and ghe miners would nevevr come | Ut the “bargaining points” and ask |4 thru the brotherhoods but thru the }for a renewal of the present scale. rank and file. He spoke of the slave conditions prevailing in West Vir- ginia and urged that a resolution be passed against injunction proceed- ings that have tied the hands of min- ers in that state. For Alliance With Railroads., Delegates to the International Con- ‘vention of the United Mine Workers of Ametica today instructed their national officers to hasten efforts to bring about a workin tween miners and railroad unions, The affiliation is strengthen the hands of both organ- ‘[izations'in the event of strikes. The miners complained that the | Jose; ae ik ge cago had been | Nor! endangered by union railroad work-|000 to “worthy” fi ‘ ers hauling coal dug by men sent in | forestall the Foaveatad Boren Lanee the mines to break the strike. Constant heckling of speakers and charges of “railroading” resolutions gr farm-mortgage del marked the sessions today. Mrs. Mooney at Convention, Rena Mooney, wife of Tom Mooney, is here and attending all se: the convention. She has requested permission of President Lewis to ad- dress the convention on Mooneys’ be- half; his mse was to advise her to appear mittee and secure the introduction | Ja of @ resolution on the Mooney case. Howat and Myerscough. The appeals of Alexander Howat omas Myerscough, similar in many respects and having the solid bac! of the Miners Progressive In- ternational Committee have not yet been disposed of and they will come up during the report of the commit- grievances, There Are 750 Resolutions. Seven hundred and fifty resolu-| subjects, tions were introduced by the dele- has | Sates in spite of the union rule that | erated all resolutions must be sent in at} St., or use the affiliation be-| successor to the VOICE sought to| ceeding isues reinstatement of Alex Howat; three !% requiring that no miner be allowed |# to switch cars; eleven demanding the election instead of the appointment : 4 of convention committees and one |% condemning war, declaring that no|% coal miner should belong to a mili- | % tary organization and demanding a boycott on coal for war purposes. Division on Scale Questions. Proposal for the new working con- | % tract for bituminous miners are un-/| der consideration today by the scales committee of the United Mine Work- ers’ convention. ; The committee last night went over : resolutions from local unions deal-| ing with wage and working condi- tions, , f é Some of the resolutions asked a renewal of the wage contract on the | 4 present basis, while others demand | % increases ranging from 10 to 25 per | 5 cent. ig The committee itself is divided into | # two groups on the question of an | increase. It was said one group wants to!4 go to the Jacksonville wage confer- ence with demands for an increase of probably ten per cent to gain con cessions from the operators on other | %, points. Other members of the committee, | % \4 New Farm-Labor Paper Is Due For Wide Circulation The FARMER-LABOR VOICE,|% published twice a month by the Fed-|¢ erated Farmer-Labor Party, and OF LABOR will have a wide Spiatee, if its suc-|3 continue to good oh ght a wat aii tl irst page is an article by|% yh Manley gras ? the Batator ck proposal to loan $50,000,- Party's demand for a five year mo-|% ratorium for all porting toate on. ‘arold M, Ware, agricultural ex- pert, is beginning a series of articles on the “Farm Crisis”. Valuable news reports of the farmers’ ‘political movements in the Dakotas, Okla- homa, Ohio and Washington are found in other columns of T. J, O’Flah ir & year, months, A a F. P. cera | bang font pa annual inner Fed- erated Press league will be held Fri- day, Feb, 1, at 6:30 p. m. in King’s restaurant, 160 W, po street, Chicago, The management and ex- ecutive board of The Federated will be bl ding en discuss labor ‘ail ite seeeerativn to The Fed- 511 N. Peoria Seeeedestondendosten Roetoetontoatoatentoege meepepeense none that he finally asked if the neces-seription at once. The Comfortable Stand Aghast NEW YORK,—The Circles of the Comfortable are aghast at the behavi- the banker, in inviting Roland Hayes, negro tenor, to mansion to sing before a select private audience. This heresy has caused the Rewiy-arrived Otto Kahn himself wan looked ears a, ni v al was y Me ‘octal, superiors”. Hayes received favorable criticisms of Otto H. Kahn, dovecotes of elegant Too Cold to Escape. INDEPENDENCE, Mo,—Rene Lin- deman, negro, obtained enough mo- ney in a collection from his fellow isoners in the county jail here to uy a saw, Seventeen escaped dur- ing the night. Thirty-one others “de- clined” to leave because it was “too cold outside.” None of the fugitives have been caught. Get unity thru the Labor Party! least ten days before the convention. | 4540. The charge is $1 0 plate. There are seven resolutions demand-| Members of the league and all others ing that international organisers be| are welcome, elected instead of being appointed by a The Land for the Users! the president; fifteen demanding the Greetings From The London Daily Herald she Beat Daly, Worker Here are sil eond wishes tor she eusease of Daily Worker. I expect, u have a hard struggle, 1am very conddent you will win thru--W, N- EVER. Forsian Editor, The RED ARMY NOVEL What Floyd Dell Thinks About It. “A Week” by Iury Libedinsky. With an Introduction by Arthur and it belongs to us, not only Ransom. B. W. Heubsch, New York. aes WEEK” is a great novel, u because it is about Russia, in which our revolutionary hopes are centered, but because it deals with that revolutionary moyement of which we ourselves, however humbly, are a part. It tells the story of a reyolutionary movement far from Petrograd and Moscow, out in the rural districts, which were but yesterday the latest battle- fronts of the revolution; of a few days in the life of that govern- ment, involving a counter-revolutionary plot and its suppression, at the expense of the lives of the best members of the little government. In the story, swiftly and poignantly told, we see vividly into the minds and hearts of a score of people, men and women, who repre- sent the Russia of today, and in their lives and deaths we see—what we have perforce waited until now to see—the inmost human 'emo- tions of the revolutionary cause in its newest phase of heroic ruler- ship, This novel is an event in our literature, and in our lives. It is not by any means the first splendid imaginative work in which the revolutionary cause is interpreted with truth and power; but it is the first which deals not merely with the dreams, the struggles, the martyrdoms of revolutionists, but with revolutionists at last success- fully at work—a srfecess which is not in the least smug, for it is a success attended by all the beauty of the old dreams, involved in the same endless struggle, and crowned with the same martyrdoms as of old. It is a book which marks not so much a new development of our literature as a new stage of the revolutionary process, with which literature has only kept pace. Yet how good it is to be able to read a revolutionary novel in which the familiar ARGUMENTS in behalf of a new order have given place to ACTIONS! For in truth fiction at its best deals with actions, and with ideas only as illustrated in action. Many of the best revolutionary novels of the past have smacked too much of the pamphlet and the soapbox. In so doing they were true to their purpose, that of interpreting the revo- lutionary struggle, and we need not take seriously the reproaches of bourgeois critics that such novels violate the canons of “art”. There will be a need of such novels still, in countries like America, where the revolution is yet in the pamphlet and soap-box stage. But in Russia, argument has changed its function, it no longer represents the furthest effort of the revolution, it is concerned with policies of economic reconstructign; the ardors of the revolutionary cause now find a new and further expression in the task of maintaining in gov- ernment and battle the revolutionary order that has been established. A novel that interprets truly the situation in Russia will find here its best materials, in the lives of men and women who in their new role illustrate the old hopes and dreams of the revolutionary cause. .... And it is interesting to note that it has required a new writer to interpret this new revolutionary development. Of the old writers, some of course were frankly reactionary, and many who supposed themselves impartial were too committed by temperament and habits to the old order to be otherwise than bewildered and discouraged by what was happening. Even such a writer as Gorky, who only a few years ago understood the revolutionary movement in its current phase, has lost touch with it in its swift changes, and now stands outside it, himself bewildered and even unsympathetic. How, indeed, could Gorky understand the Russian revolutionary movement of to- day? Gorky was a tramp, a vagabond, and an interpreter of vaga- bondage of which he wrote stood as a symbol for the spiritual vaga- old loyalties were being shattered, when mere discontent and belief and withdrawal of sympathy from the Czaristic regime w the typical things, then his art was significant, for the free va: bondage of which he wrote stood | bondage of the Russian intelligen' those intellectually homeless individuals who fell back upon their free individualism as a gospel. It was an important phase of the destruction of Czarism; but that i st. The tramp Gorky becomes the tourist Gorky, living in able vagabondage in his Italian villa—while unknown to him the factory workers of Petrograd and Moscow are uniting not merely for the overthrow of Czarism but for the establishment of a prole- tarian regime. He returns to Russia, gives advice that is not heeded, pleads for tolerance, speaks of ce when there is no peace, critic- izes the Bolsheviki, comes to ‘ir aid, leaves them, changes sides because he belongs on no side, is respected, applauded and practically ignored as a gentleman adventurer of amiable intentions and no importance. The new revolutionary phase in Russia has but little scope for tramps, rich or poor, pit Gorky, the super-tramp, cannot to-day. Such a novel can only be written by a youth, one who has grown up amidst the struggle, who has no old ideas to take years to dis- solve, who can see what is going on with fresh young eyes. He will see the drama of revolution not through spectacles of Turgeniev or Chekhov, he will not search for those “typical” Russians of classic fiction, who doubtless exist, but who no longer are of prime signi- ficance. He will not be chiefly concerned either with decaying and romantic gentry, or with futile and wordy theorists of change, nor will he view the peasant with the superstitious veneration of a bygone day. He will see the speculator, the bureaucrat, the counter-revo- lutionary conspirator, the expropriated shop-keeper dreaming of ven- geance; he will see the gentle idealistic young aristocrat led by his dreams of perfection into this hard proletarian movement whose exigencies are too crude and practical for him to measure up to, a rather despised and misunderstood but devoted and serene visionary; he will see the Red soldiers, learning patiently while they fight just what it is they are so loyally fighting for; he will see the Chekists, their natures not quite ‘subdued to the bloody necessities in which they are immersed; and above all he will see those over-worked rulers the new regime, who go from the office to the battlefield and back again without time to rest, sleepless and weary, with but a moment for friendship and love, men and women without illusions, but undis. couraged—such men and women as alone can bear the brunt of su a struggle, who give themselves utterly to it and die in its midst without even knowing whether they are dying in a moment of victory or defeat. ’ It is in thig last matter that Libedinsky’s book does blaze a new path in literature. The great stories of the past have been stories of individuals; and because all individual effort meets with final defeat, even if it is only the defeat of old age and death, these stories have been tragedies, seen as such by the story-teller. The greatest art of the past has been tragic art, for this reason, since from the individualist point of view life is a tragedy. But the time has come when life can be viewed otherwise; and in the revolutionary art of ious pilgrims or famous prophets. give us a novel about the Russia of the present, which presages the art of the future, it it be _ mus' seen a kiss to die hastily in battle, though we see some of them painfully tortured by their be! is still not tragedy, this ending. are part of a cause that goes on, that goes on to tri go on no less even if thi = : - es 3 OPPS SOOO EEE EE EPOCH I PEED EDEL P EEO DIT LOREM EDP H IED PITT rete eee eee i i i ? zt niis EFS Hi f : THE DAILY WORKER. 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