The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 10, 1924, Page 3

THE DAILY WORKER eT RUSSIAN MOTHER WRITES “HOW 1 SCAB COAL SHEET LIVED AND HOW MY CHILDREN LIVE,” HAILS MURRAY’S | ‘conTRASTING OLD AND NEW REGIMES EUROPEAN TOUR} — neta Story of a Leningrad working-woman, written in a letter to Rabochi Moskva, and translated Will Visit His Holiness and Dodge Russia By ANISE. By THOMAS MYERSCOUGH. (Special to The Daily Worker) MOSCOW, June 15 (By Mail.) —1I was born in Petrograd. My “Mr. Philip Murray, vice-president of the miners’ International Union, at father was janitor in a church house and my mother went out this writing is enroute on the Titanic 4 | Thursday, July 10, 1924 —_—_—— eee N.Y, CAP MAKERS SURE OF WINNING STRIKE IN WEEK No Police Interference Against Pickets By LUDWELL DENNY, Federated Press Staff Correspondent. NEW YORK, July 9.—Five hundred of the 1700 members of the United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers’ union, who Page Three HEARST'S OPEN SHOP DRIVE IS FAILING IN WEST Everett Men Win Raise; Seattle Strike Holds (Special to the DAILY WORKER) SEATTLE, Wash. July 9.—The open shop campaign against news- paper printers in the northwest which McCORMICK HARVESTER TRUST EXPLOITS WOMEN AND NEGRO WORKERS IN DANGEROUS SHOPS This is the second of a series of articles written especially for the DAILY WORKER by a “Harvester Trust Slave.”.. Others will appear in later issues. The writer here tells about unemployment in the plant, about the unhealthy conditions in the twine mill, and about the dangerous work in the steel foundry. . * * BY A HARVESTER TRUST SLAVE. The biggest problem that is now hanging over all of us in the International Harvester plant, is the fear of losing our jobs. washing. At the age of seven I already began heavy work, Out of their own need my parents exploited me as an alien. I cleaned out the janitors room, I washed floor and dishes, I cared for my struck in New York, July 2, were back on the job in two or three days with all demands won. The remain- ing 1,200 expect to win before the height of the season in their industry, which comes about the middle of July. Unemployment insurance is one of the features of the new two-year con- tract between the union and the Cloth Hat and Cap Manufacturers’ associa- tion, representing 37 of the largest shops, employing about 1,200 men, The strike was called against inde- pendent shops and members of the new Wholesale Cap Manufacturers’ association to force them to sign the same contract. Ten of the big inde- pendent shops have settled the strike on that basis. Not One Scab. The union has the strike situation so well.in hand that no intimidation by employers or police has been at- tempted so far. No scabs have been employed. The New York market is 100 per cent organized. Machinery for conciliation and ar- bitration, with Dr. Paul Abelson as chairman of the adjustment board, is retained by the new agreement ex- tending to June 30, 1926, Minimum wage scale, the 44-hour week and full pay for five legal holidays are other conditions carried over from the old contract. Unemployment Fund, “Recognizing that the industry should assume responsibility to its workers with regard to unemploy- ment,” says a union statement on the new provisions, “and should bear the burden of the hazards of unemploy- ment as an overhead expense, as it does the hazards of fire and accident, the agreement provides that every manufacturer, member of the asso- ciation, shall pay every week to the union’s unemployment fund a sum equal to 3 per cent of his total pay- roll.” This is in addition to the reg- ular wages paid to the workers. “Since the distribution of unemploy- ment benefit involves the most inti- mate relations with the workers, the 3 per cent payment is considered as £n increase in wages, but instead of being paid to every individual work- er it is paid to them collectively— that is, to their union.” The prop- erty, control and management of the unemployment fund rests exclusively with the union. The agreement provides for strict enforcement of the rule that hats and caps produced for manufacturers by contractors shall be made only in union shops under proper sanitary conditions. The union is signing only with manufacturers who are willing to put up a cash bond, usually $200, as security for faithful observance of the contract. With half of our plant laid off, and the entire plant threatening to close down completely; with those who are able to cling to their jobs working only five days a week, the Harvester Trust SF has us completely at its mercy. Conditions are far from good in the plant, even in normal times. In the assembling factory now, however, over half the force has been laid off. Normally the tractor works turns out around one hundred or one hundred and five tractors every day. Now only about 40 to 60 tractors are completed every day. Black Outlook. I asked the watchman at the main gate on the boulevard whether things would soon brighten up. He replied that, “No, they’ll get worse. We have hundreds applying at the em- ployment office for jobs every day. We have been lucky to keep the plant go- ing as long as we have. I look for the plant to close completely in the near future.” if They are saying around the plant that the only thing that is keeping the reaper plant going is an order for 3,500 reapers and binders for Russia. I don’t konw whether it’s true or not but I do know that our foreign orders and our repair jobs have been keep- ing the plant open. Foundry the Worst. The worst place to work in the en- tire Harvester works is the steel moulding foundry of the tractor works. I have watched men inside this plant running around like slaves. They are pouring sweat even when standing still, altho practically stripped to the waist. Only Negroes are employed in this foundry, with the exception of the one man who operates the overhead crane. The foundry workers always remind me of Egyptian slaves working on the pyramids as they dash around carry- ing and pouring their buckets of molten liquid steel. Dangerous and Taxing. This is work which not only taxes the physique of the strongest man, but in addition is extremely danger- ous. An overhead crane runs around the foundry on a track. From this crane is suspended, on a large iron hook, a cauldron of boiling, molten steel. A terrific heat continually rises from the cauldron, steaming up to the crane-operator, who must sit as if he were one of the damned roasting on a griddle in hell. The Negroes working in pairs un- derneath on the dirt floor attach them- selves one on each end of a rod which supports between them a bucket hold- ing about 20 quarts. They rush over to the cauldron where another work- man tips it and pours the molten metal into their buckets. The “bucket brigade” then runs with the metal over to the molds, pours it in and rushes back for another bucketful. Negroes Usual Goats. Just standing in this place for a few minutes I have come out dripping sweat from head to foot. The men who work there altho of athletic build, look like old men. They are not able to stand this work for a long period of time. Colored men are employed to do this work, because the Harvester com- pany thinks that because it is harder for them to find work. They will work for less money and will stand the ex- treme danger with less grumbling. I notice that two men were killed in the Harvester works last month in an “industrial accident.” The colored men working in this hell hole tell me they make $30.00 a week when they work a full week. They make five dollars a day. Some of them work piece-work, and by run- ning around in the intense heat they make their $35.00 a week. Women Wear Uniforms. Another place in the Harvester works which rivals this slavery is the twine mills. Here women work under prison conditions. At lunch time as you walk along Blue Island avenue these girls call out to passerby and get them to come over and chat to relieve the terrible moontony. The girls wear uniforms just as if they were in prison—blue caps, blue dresses made of some thin cheap cloth, and blue aprens. Some girls called me over to the window a few days ago as I was pass- ing by. Many of the twine mill work- ers are older women, some are widows with children to support. They all ear a forlorn, hopeless expression, their despair showing thru their mechanical smiles. They grinned at me like kids whistling in a graveyard to keep up their spiirts. Ashamed to Tell Wages. When I asked them how much money they made, they were ashamed to tell me. “Thirty dollars a week,” one girl giggled out, but the others all laughed boisterously at the joke, The heavy odor of the sisal fibre from which the binder twine is made, drifted out onto the sidewalk. I have been inside twine mill, and I am sure that work here for any long period of time gives the girls tuberculosis. The whole mill is filled with the shreds which are continually breaking off the fibre. The shreds, especially after being soaked in chemicals, are injurious to the lungs, In my next article I will tell all about the assembling plant where the tractor engines and tractor bodies are put together, Russia Ready to Buy Harvester Goods (Continued from page one) Russion Order Keeps It Going. The International Harvester Trac- tor works on Western Avenue have laid off 1,200 men, and the other 1,500 are working only five days a week. Workmen told the DAILY WORKER reporter when he was inside the plant, that the harvester works ad- jacent to the tractor works are kept going only because of an order for 3,500 reapers and binders received from Russia. In this depression on the agricult- ural machinery market, when thou- sands of hungry workers are tramp- ing the streets looking for work, the only market the harvester trust is able to turn to is Russia. And yet the American capitalists pig-headly refuse to deal with the Russian gov- ernment on the large seale required to divert the impending unemploy- Trust inkrupting Farmers. © The Harvester Trust has been the vig factor in banrupting the American ‘armers. It not only charges top prices for the farm equipment, but controls freight rates charged the farmers. These freight rates cost the northwestern farmers as much as the whole crop sometimes brings the farmer in the market. The American financiers do not care whether or not the American workers starve thru unemployment. The Morgan interests, which control the Harvester trust, have thru the Dawes plan, made a strong bid to throttle France, Germany, Belgium and all Europe with the gold wrung from the American workers and farm- ers. While Russia is orying out for huge supplies of farm machinery, and Morgan agents are squandering the blood of Amercian workers thruout Europe, these same workers are tramping the streets looking for work. Morgan refuses to make an agree- ment with the Soviet government to sell them Russians much needed farm machinery in exchange for raw ma- terial and payments on a credit basis. Meanwhile the Harvester plants are shut down “because there is no mar- ket.” GET THE NEXT ISSUE “DAILY WORKER” MAGAZINE SECTION SATURDAY, JULY 12, 1924 1. Lenin on War and Social-patriotism... By Karl Radek The farmers of the country have gone bankrupt by the millions. They have been forced to mortgage their farms to the Morgan banks thruout the country, and then relinquish their farms outright to the bankers. They have seen the price of manufactured goods increase and of their returns the cost of production. And now they are asked to vote for “the principal” of the oil scandals, and for president of the United States and for Morgan’s private agent, Dawes, for vice pre- sident, and and on one ticket, and a Morgan lawyer or an oil stained Klux- er on another ticket. Duncan McDonald, candidate for president on the Farmer-Labor ticket, declared at a recent meeting that the Standard Oil Trust and the Morgan firm rule not only the industries but the politics of the country. He made a plea for all workers to vote the Farmer-Labor ticket as the only means of escaping support of Mor- gan run candidates in favor of a real workers and farmers working-class party. New Machinery Market The International Harvester Trust, Morgan owned, has not been able to grasp the significance of the new Com- munist society in Rusia, and to realize that the only thing that will open up the Russian market to America farm machinery manufacturers. The Com- munists have changed the form of production from individualistic and for old England. After a short stay in London, he will move to Glasgow, where he will attend an important conference of miners’ leaders. From Glasgow to Dublin; then to Paris; thence to Rome and back thru Aus- tria and even on to Berlin. “In Rome there will be an audience with His Holiness, the Pope. From Berlin to Prague, now in Czecho-Slo- vakia, for the big convention of the World Mining Congress. “The convention will convene dur- ing the first part of August and upon its adjournment, Mr. Murray and his party will journey to Hamburg, whence they will sail for the Statue of Liberty.” Scab Paper Likes Him. The foregoing, copied from the “Coal Trade Bulletin,” a scab trade paper, should be of interest to the thousands of coal miners who are at present wondering where their next meal is coming from. With unemploy- ment and its attendant misery star- ing them in the face, with no promise of an early abatement in sight, the miners are indeed a beneficient body of men when they send their officials, one after another, on a tour of Eu- rope. The article states that Mr. Murray will attend the Mining Congress at Prague, but I believe the memories of the delegates to the International Convention of the United Mine Work- ers of America held in Indianapolis last January, will serve to remind them that Thomas Kennedy, presi- dent of district 7, and Walter Nesbit, secretary of district 12, were declared elected as the delegates of the United Mine Workers to that gathering. Per- haps it is that no chances are being taken on the two delegates voting for things at the congress, that are not in harmony with the wishes of the International administration. International Scabbing. Such things as resolutions against war and against miners of one coun- try seabbing upon the other come up for consideration, as do other things with an International tinge and it probably is to guard against trans- gressions of this sort that Murray has gone along. Besides, is it not true that when Lewis returned from his European tour, the Executive Board voted to pay him his salary and an additional $800 for expenses? There is a pre- cedent established in official councils, whereby such vacations are declared valuable to the miners’ union, hence their willingness to pay for value re- ceived. There need be no thought in the mind of any person that Murray’: pocketbook will receive a dent as a result of this holiday he is taking, for the officials of the miner’s union sure- ly do believe in the custom of being governed by precedent. Wide Berth to Russia. However, there is one thing that all the miners can gamble on and that is that Murray, when he meets all his old friends back home in “Bonnie Scotland,” will not tell of his early ex- periences in America, wherein he worked in the non-union mines of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. NO! Mr. Murray is not going to RUSSIA! So. Chicago Union Leaders to Appeal “Conspiracy” Case Appeal to the Supreme Court of the state will be made in the case of T. J. Vind, for many years president of the South Chicago Trades and La- bor Assembly, and the five other un- ion workers who were convicted by steel trust pressure of alleged “con- spiracy to boycott.” Theodore Amorski, business agent of the union meat cutters in South Chicago; Stanley Walace, another business agent of the meat cutters; BE. Boatman, business agent of the teamsters’ union; O. K. Blevins, also business agent of the teamsters arid Mrs. Emma Piper, business agent of the waitresses, were the other work- ers charged with Vind because ot their legitimate ‘union activities, which included participation in the drive to organize the steel workérs and assistance in the 1919 strike. The Appellate court has already up- held the snap decision of the lower young brothers. We were fed for the most part from the tablé of the holy fathers,—the priests. If there was some left-over soup, the cook would bring it to us,—as a “present” to my father. I also had other work, when the lit- tle priest’s children wanted to use me for a horse, They would send the cook to father to ask for me, And I would be sent to serve the caprices of the little priestlets. I was a lively child, and when amusing the priests’ children I would sometimes forget and want to play myself, and in the dust of play would crack or break something. The priest’s wife would come complaining to my father: Terrible Beatings. “Oh, Ivanushka, your Shurka, what a street girl she is! She has broken this expensive cup.” .... Then my father in her presence would beat me wth a strap or stick till the blood ran and blue stripes stood out like strings on my skin. I grew up and wanted to learn to read. A school teacher lived in our court. Once she called me into the school when I was walking with the baby. After I saw the school I had the idea of learning. But when I asked father, he said: “If I let wou go to school we shall be without your mother’s wages and shan’t be able to buy any clothes but just shirts and stockings. What do you want to study for? You are not a boy. You will marry and sit at your husband's like a learned doll.” But the teacher asked him and he let me go. Not long did this happi- ness fast. My mother had a new baby and I was taken out of school in three months and never let go back. Then father moved to the vil- lage. Children Teach Mother. Here life was harder than ever, The brothers of my father divided the heritage; but we did not get the house. I, a 12-year-old girl, went ‘to the landowners to work. I beat out grain, I winnowed, I worked in the vegetable garden from 5 at dawn until 10 at night.... For this work I got 10 kopeks to buy my food with, sp without joy was my childhood. Quite different is the life of my children. My oldest son is a Comso- mol (Young Communist); he has sports and clubs and many classes to learn things in. My oldest daughter works in the office of the court. She “BORING FROM is all the time merry e studies c ics; she comes home and teaches mi The middle son and daughter are pio- neers; they also have their clubs and circles. They have' music, there they rest, there they play and there they Soviets Successful ° In Handling Minor National Groupings (Rosta News.) MOSCOW, July 9.—Speaking of the national problem.in the U. 8. S. R., Mr. Ozubar, president of the council of people’s commissaries of Ukraine, told a press interviewer that the So- viet power was constantly pursuing its work of insuring the development of the toiling masses of all the nationali- ties in the union. In Ukraine, he says, the decree on the equal rights of all the languages is being effectively car- ried out, and a commission of repre- sentatives of national minorities has been constituted, attached to the pre- sidium of the All-Ukrainian C. E. C., whose task is to elicit the needs of the national minorities and draw up any scheme for satisfying such needs. The Ukrainian government has in- structed the commission to revise the boundaries of the various areas so as to exactly determine the areas! with a majority of the population of a defi- nite nationality. This will allow the government to satisfy the needs of the national minorities, Mr. Ozubar states that, at the sec- ond session of the All-Ukrainian C. EB, C., the Ukrainian workers and peas- ants vigorously protested against the| persecution of the national minorities | in Poland and Bessarabia. This again | puts in a world-wide scope the ques- tion of the right of each nationality to its own culture and self-determination, Railmen Work Again. MILWAUKEE, July 9.—After 3 weeks layoff, 3,000 shopmen and main- tenance of way men of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad in its Milwaukee shops are back at work. They hope to continue through the summer, Send in that Subscription Today. 00 First Hand Information “THE RED MENACE” “COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA” WITHIN” “SOVIET RUSSIA” “AMALGAMATION” “THE LABOR PARTY” “FOREIGN RELATIONS” “UNEMPLOYMENT” These and many other first page stories are so live they cannot ignored by the capitalist press. You know how these live questions are always poisoned and misrepte- sented in the aver. these burning issues interest you then read the only daily newspaper in the English language that speaks with authority and from first hand knowledge—that THE DAILY WORKER AMERICA'S GREAT LABOR DAILY The Only Daily Newspaper Self-Respecting Workers Can Read! Hearst started when he lengthened hours in the composing room of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has failed to spread as scab publishers predicted. Everett local, No. 410 of the Typo- . | graphical Union, has just signed a contract with the newspaper publish- ers of that city in spite of the efforts jof the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Publishers Association, the anti-union organization. Wages Raised. The new Everett contract signed by the Evening Herald and Morning News, will run for five years. Higher wages and better conditions are ac- ceded than prevail in Spokane, Ta- coma, Portland, Vancouver, Victoria and other northwestern cities. Day }men get a 40 cent increase to $7.90; night men will receive $8.40, an in- crease of 75 cents. Protection is given against arbi- trary discharge—one of the griev- ances which forced the strike of the Seattle Hearst workers. Priority rights and reinstatement provisions are included. Three more holidays, Christmas, Memorial Day and New Year are added to Labor Day and July 4 in the new contract. Hearst Strike Continues. Meanwhile the strike of the Hearst compositors and the lockout of the stereotypers and mailers, who re- fused to work with scabs, continues. The typographical union is advertis- ing the scab condition and keeping union craftsmen from the plant. The press room is an exception. There union scabs are working, fearing ex- pulsion by strike-breaker Berry. MEN ARRESTED BY NUT FASCIST RELEASED BY PHILADELPHIA JUDGE PHILADELPHIA, Pa. July 9— Judge Perry released the speakers who were arrested at the anti-Fas- cisti protest meeting held here to commemorate the murder of Matte- otti and expressed his surprise at the exorbitant and unwarranted bond of $2000 apiece, which was de- manded of men who had committed no crime. H. M. Wicks of New York, was one of the chief speakers arrested, as well as Frank Destas- sano and Dominick Gadalati. te age newspaper. If paper is 9 Make Sure You Get It Every Day SUBSCRIBE monopolistic private production for 2. The Betrayal at Cleveland............By Alexander Bittelman profit to production by the state for courts in the case even tho it was 3. Benevolent Feudalism in Education. -By A Teacher |f|tne use of the workers. The only|clearly brot out that the steel car . 4. On a Hospital Cot—A Story... By John Lassen [j|basis on which the American capital-| corporations of South Chicago were SUBSCRIPTION Pore no eee ner nn nee 5. The “Spark” That Grew Into a Flame. ists can deal with Russia is to accept|responsible for the frame-up of the RATES: 1 THE DAILY WORKER, i i Pp. By David I ‘jo —for business purpoge,—this change |union leaders. Sentences given we OUTSIDE CHICAGO 1113 W. Washington Bivd., . y David Ivon Jones if! 1, Russia's social structure from one to five years in the pen By Mail— Chieage, til. \ | 6. Resolution on Factory Nucle! Agriculture for Russia is fast chang-| tentiary. grt rae sav TM Be ae } By the Communist International || ing trom the small scale individual- Fecaviinermuageen EI ay <pcmo e onths’ subscription to And Many Other Interesting Articles: tatlo production to the large industrial More Storm Damage. hwnd . y ds: farms run by communes and groups} LORAIN, Ohio, July 9. — Another 3 months VERSE PICTURES ILLUSTRATIONS of peasants, using large farm machin-|terrific windstorm swept, the devast- IN CHICAGO —_—_______ORDER NOW!—————__________ |] | 2. Soviet Russia is a market Amer-|ated districts of Lorain last night, in- By Mail— ican industry needs, Yet our Trust controlled government lets workres| mobiles from the roads and crumbling go unemployed because blinded by its| walls of buildings lett standing after hate of a workingclass government, it} the tornado which struck the city ten refuses to recognise economic pacts, days ago, juring seven persons, blowing auto- V YOR sscsssnne THE DAILY WORKER, “4113. W. Washington Blvd. ” Chicago, Illinois. « i eamadl i ate i en tM i ali ee naa eam. ue ARERR. OCP ACERIINTD yi ; Sela oe ne ~ oat: \ Mi ‘ Stanek Ce lll RRR mm aor eee - u —