The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 31, 1924, Page 5

Thursday, July 31, 1924 ~-HE DAILY WORKER Page Five MINERS? UNION OFFICIALS USE _ LAST OF FUNDS District 5 Bankrupted by Pie-Carders By THOMAS MYERSCOUGH. (Special to the DAILY WORKER) PITTSBURGH, Pa, July 30.— BANKRUPT! Bankrupt, in every meaning of the word, can now be truthfully said of the officials of Dis- trict 5, United Mine workers of Amer- ica. For a long time we have charged that they were bankrupt in every sense but financially, and now they have reached that stage. After all these years of collecting per capita and. defense fund revenues from a membership of approximately 40,000, the officials of this unit of the miners’ union are devoting all possible time to the borrowing of funds from the local unions that are fortunate enough to have any in their treasuries. To say that this is a fine state of affairs is not the attitude for any self-respecting body to assume, for it can be safely said that the funds have been misappropriated. Any secretary of a’ local union can gather this and many other facts if he will take the time to read the financial report just issued by the district organization. It gives figures to prove that they have deliberately violated the consti- tution by paying the men on its pay- roll who sat as fake delegates to the last district convention, although the laws dealing with that subject are very specific. It shows that they have @ detective on the payroll who drew down more than $5,000 in six months, although he is labeled in the report &@s “something which he is not.” And while this bankruptcy is affect- {ng the membership through the fail- hre of the district office to meet its obligations, the entire staff is still kept on the payroll. To pay them, the organizers are being sent from local to local borrowing money so as to pillow the pie-card men to continue on their luxurious revel while the unem- ployed membership starve. Law ’n’ Order. PACIFIC GROVE, Calif., July 30.— Simon Moore, shipyard owner, was shot and probably fatally wounded and two others wounded early today when Wleged rum runners were ambushed by officers at the beach near here, where vans had been laid for landing a ‘argo of Canadian whiskey. Moore, vho was accompanying Pacific Grove ‘ficers, was shot through the head. MONTEVIDEO, July 30.—A battle, eatured by airplanes was fought last 1ight and early today at Sao Paulo, cording to reports from Santos. ‘ederal planes bombing the town vrought down a rebel plane which at- empted to drive them off. RIVERVIEW—RAIN OR SHINE AUGUST 10th—SUNDAY PRESS PICNIC DAY JOBLESS WORKERS AND FARMLESS FARMERS WANDER ABOUT COUNTRY AS “GAS GYPSIES” IN FLIVVERS By WILLIAM F. KRUSE. lucky place. and rest-up. do with boxing, but is just road jargon for the free-for-all talk- fest in which high and lowly compare mileage, road condi- tions, tire troubles and engine yaga- ries, just like any crowd of horsemen in the days of old. Into this idyllic democracy of the road the specter of “hard times,” of the acute unemploy- ment crisis now spreading to all cor- ners of the country, thrusts its un- mistakably ugly form. “Unemployment among the gas-gyp- sies?” Mr. ‘Stay-at-Home will ask. “Why, I thought that was what they were -tourists for—because they are unemployed.” Dispossessed Farmers Quite true, but there are tourists and tourists. The big fellow in his high-price car, with chauffeur and valet attendance, but seldom fre- quents the public camps. The great mass of the campers there are work- ers on the trek for the elusive job. Down in Nebraska we met dozens of Dakota farmers bound for the southern Kansas harvest, the old Liz- zie loaded with bedding and a few cook-pots, a. means of transportation by day and a hotel at night. When we discussed this new type of migra- tory worker with a well-to-do Nebras- ka farmer who owned a $25,000 farm but who declared that he had not made a living during the past two years, we were told that the Dakota men were on a fool's chase, that his own sons had done the same thing two weeks sooner and had found ten men for every job. California No Paradise. In a camp at Kingman, Ariz., just on the edge of the Mojave Desert, we met with a party of professional Cali- fornia boosters, who thought the Golden State a great place because they did not have to work there. They were silenced by an itinerant carpen- ter who had heard of the opening of a new oil field in Northern New Mexico and on this meager lead left his family in California while he went after the job. How widespread the unemployment menace reaches into the lives of the workers is shown by an old locomotive engineer, for many years operating a good run in the Oregon lumber coun- try, laid off indefinitely because sp many trains were discontinued as the result of the shut-down in the camps. Weathér and Workers. In Los Angeles there are two kinds of weather—-good and “unusual.” It is almost always unusual when visit- ors arrive. But to be out of work is nothing at all unusual to a vast OUR DAILY PATTERNS AN UP TO DATE ONE PIECE DRESS 747. A pretty style for crepe ves, for taffeta, linen and other sh fabrics, Two materials in com- tion are also good for this model. e Pattern is cut in 3 Sizes: 16, and 20 years! An 18 year size re- ires 5% yards of 32 inch material. rr yoke and puff of contrasting ma- rial % yard 40 inches wide is re- red. The width at the foot is 1% rd. {Pattern mailed to any address on ipt of 12c in silver or stamps, id 12c in silver or stamps for UP-TO-DATE. SPRING AND A PRETTY PLAY APRON FOR A TINY TOT 4735. Blue linen was selected for this design, with flower motifs and stitchery or in red floss for decoration. This style is also good for pongee, crepe, sateen or chambrey. It pro- tects the back and front of the frock, and has a roomy pocket. The Pattern is cut in 4 Sizes: 2, 3, 4 and 5 years. A 3 year size requires 1 yard of 36 inch material. Pattern mailed to any address on receipt of 12c in silver or stamps. Send 12c in silver or stamps for our UP-TO-DATE. SPRING AND SUMMER 1924 BOOK OF FASHIONS. ' Address: The Daily Worker, 1113 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, Ill. NOTICE TO PA’ RN BUYER: 6 bell sold thru the lepartment are a New York firm of pati |. Orders are forwarded by The public camp-site in our western towns is a happy-go- Here, at the end of a hard day’s drive in “flivver” or Cadillac, the dusty and tired tourist, like the horses and drivers his gas-gypsy has displaced, finds a place to feed-up, wash-up, Ford and Packard park democratically side by side while their drivers indulge in their after-supper session of “punching the bag.” This has nothing to*- army of workers, and practically every wage worker addressed there was only hoping by some means or other to get enough money to get away from the land of sunshine and super-dis- tilled bunk. While living costs seem considerably lower, wages also touch record low levels. “Trade schools’? hold out an $8 wage rate for plumbers as bait to attract students into their school, while a building contractor boasted that he could get all the car- penters he wanted for $3 a day and “they do twice as much work as when we paid ‘em $15 in 1916.” A terrible drought not only laid heavy hand upon hundreds of small farmers, but actually curtailed the water and power supply of the city, resulting in darkened street lights and skip-stops on the street car lines. The drought also brought on the customary forest fires sooner and with greater severity thateusual. When these fires began to threaten real estate develop- ment and Santa Fe holdings, the Chamber of Commerce got busy. At a session to which public officials were summoned a plan of action was out- lined. “Drafting” Fire Fighters, That evening a fleetf motor trucks surrounded the “Plaza” and the local authorities drafted men right off the streets, loaded them on the trucks and sent them out to the fire area. The “Plaza” is not, as its name might sug- gest, the rendezvous of the rich young bloods. It is the local slave market where unemployed workers rest up be- tween job hunts. The men were told that they would be paid 30 cents an hour and that mule trains with food avould follow as soon as possible. Not a single real estate agent was taken in the draft—only “those wearing sturdy shoes with heavy soles” were taken, according to the “Times” the next. morning.” Our American robots are already in uni- form. Besides the workers hunting for a master, there is also the traveling handitraftsman who drives from town to town in his gas buggy looking for buyers of his ‘skill. Thus in New York State and again in the West we met the sign painter; in Nebraska 2 traveling piano tuner; in Colorado + basket weaver with his large and active family, and even the lowly um- brella mender was riding a dilapidated Lizzie. In Célifornia one sees large families on Ford trucks fixea up like prairie schooners of old, while the honest-to-goodness gypsy, riding an antediluvian Packard or Cadillac, is seen in every state. On to Communism. It does not cost a great deal for a family to travel the gas-gypsy trail— less, by actual test, than for a worker to lay idle in a big city and try to keep his family in food and shelter. So the evicted city dweller and the dispossessed, foreclosed farmer meet on the trail for the job. They come into sharp competition with one an- other, but they also get to know one another. Another span of the gap that separates city from country worker’ is bridged. Both reduced to the status of nomadic proletarians, they must soon learn that the only road to freedom lies over the road of the Communist revolution, through the means of Communist Party organiza- tion, ‘ German Veterans of Last War Find Work in Industry by Law (By Federated Press.) BERLIN, July 30,—Among the 910,- 659 Berlin workers employed in plants having more than t there are 18,849 di Theseshave found places under a law which makes it obligatory upon in- dustrial concerns employing more than twenty men to recruit up to 2 per cent of its entire staff from the ranks of the heavily disabled soldiers. These 18,849 disabled veterans are employed in 4,862 establishments. There are in Berlin today 1,018 total- ly blind workers, of these 808 have found room in various concerns. It is an encouraging fact that 95 per cent of the disabled veterans em- ployed are receiving full wages, on the same level with those of healthy per* sons. Switch Trade to U. 8. LENINGRAD, July 30.—the North- re- Western State Trade Department, Len-| tock | ingrad, ordered a considerable quan- the present time paraffin was always tity of paraffin in America, Up to ordered in Germany, Strike-Intelligencer Room a Busy Place STRIKE EDITORS FIGHT HEARST | Two hundred thousand copies of the first edition of the Seattle Strike-Intelligencer roused the Washington w kors’ appetite for three hundred thousand copies of the second edition. The Strike-Intelligencer is protuced by the 150 striking and locked-out workers from the composing, mailing and stereotyping departments of the Post-Intelligencer. It is put out in eight-column width, four pages to the issue and carries a kick right thru—and the kick is at William Randolph Hearst. The DAILY WORKER is indebted to the strikers’ paper for this illustration. We wish these northwestern scrappers speedy success. Westinghouse to Lay Off More Workers in Pittsburgh District By THOMAS MYERSCOUGH, PITTSBURGH, Pa., July 30.— No single industry in Western Pennsyl- vania seems to be an exception to the rule of “No job today” to one who hunts for a job in these parts, With nearly every important mine in Dis- trict 5-closed or-working short time and the miners either slaving at add jobs with long hours, or loafing for want of work which they cannot find, while their families go hungry, it is a very sad spectacle indeed. In addition one finds the mills slowed down to almost a standstill, and with the prevailing low wages, the wonder is how the workers make nds meet. On top of this already serious situation comes the announce- ment, that the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co. has laid off 700 men and intend to make a wage cut of 20 per cent. This slave-driving concern employs approximately 25,000 men and girls, at wages scarcely suf. ficient to keep them alive. Machinists at this place get only 65 cents per hour, while others at other lines of important work get as low as 35 to 40 cents per hour. This latest announcement has served to makc many of the employes of this concer: apprehensive for their future, for they well know the immensity of the strug- gle with the present schedule of wages. U. S. Navy Officer Attacks Negro Boy in Virgin Islandé (Special to the DAILY WORKER) ST. THOMAS, V. L, July 30—In this United States Navy dependency, the Virgin Islands, the natives are actually a nuisance to the overbear- ing white imperialists who come to rule. One would judge this from an incident which occurred here recent- ly. A Negro boy who was pushing a wheelbarrow to get some ice for his master was suddenly brutally assault- ed by the Chief Sanitation Officer, a lieutenant of the Navy, who claimed without reason that the boy was dis- turbing the peace. ‘When reproached by the crowd that gathered, the Navy man said: “This is a white man’s country, and we'll soon get you niggers out.” FATE OF NICARAGUAN UNIONS IN BALANCE AS AMERICAN BANKERS SEEK TO OVERTHROW MARTINEZ By LAURENCE TODD (Federated Press Staff Correspondent) WASHINGTON, July 30.—Liberation of the peons of Nica- ragua from the conditions represented by a 20-cent wage for a 12-hour day is.not.an idle dream, says Prof. Salomon de la Selva, who has just returned here from the special mission to_his native country on which he was sent by the Pan-American Fed- eration of Labor at the request of the Central American Club of Mexico City. Prof. de la Selva was accompanied by Hartwell Bronson, field secretary of the Workers Education Association. They went to Nicaragua to urge the enactment of modern labor laws by the national congress, to stimulate the creation of a strong labor movement, and to discuss with President Martinez the prospects for the growth of the progressive move- ment of which he is now the * head. Their stay in the republic Nicaraguan Federation of Labor affill- was marked by a continuous ated with the Pan-American Federa- ‘ + f thusiastic tion of Labor, was secured by the Sulcee 8 hay d mission. Delegates will be sent to ener eee oe ceiheneaee the convention in Mexico City next (MILWAUKEE T0 PROTEST WARS IN BIG PICNIC Meet Sunday; Engdahl Will Speak MILWAUKEE, July 29.—Workers of this city and vicinity are invited to join in the great anti-war and anth militarism demonstration to be held Sunday, August 3, at Castelia Gardens. The park will open at 10 o'clock and everybody will enjoy the fine musical program and the speaking. J. Louis Engdahl, editor of the DAILY WORKER, will be the chief speaker. He will point out the real fight for the workers is against the capitalist bosses. He will show how the social democrats all over the world have betrayed the workers in time of war by forgetting all their pretty pacifist phrases. Come and bring your picnic lunch and invite your friends, is the word to pass around. Take the Wells-Wau- tosa car to 51 st Street, and walk two blocks north. The mass meeting and picnic are under the auspices of the Workers Party antl are part of the world-wide Communist demonstrations of this anniversary week of the last world war against all wars of capital- ism. Mussolini Mouths More Phrases in His Address to Fascisti (Special to the DAILY WORKER) NAPLES, Italy, July 30.—Premier Benito Mussolini addressed the Fas- cist Great Council today and declared (with his tongue in his cheek) that the “new order of Fascists is hands- in-the-pocket.” Mussolini may have meant “hands -in -the -pocket -on -the- gun.” He reiterated with solemn hy- pocrisy that “....he party must be puri- fied.” The blackshirt leader made a ges- ture calling for industry to set aside a part of its profits for the better- ment of the workers and then added that the government would “recog- nize” the Fascist trade unions which have supplanted the genuine work- ing class organizations wherever force and violence won. The Fascist trade unions are no more workers’ unions than the infamous “company unions” in America and the Fascist government of Italy has of course, all along “recognized” their own “un- ions.” Finnish Sign Pact. MOSCOW, July 30.—The delegates of the Ussr and of Finland have signed the Russo-Finnish Railway, the Post and Telegraph Conventions and the Convention for the Exchange of Archives. UNCLE WIGGILY’S TRICKS December. for the program they spon- sored. Opportunity Under Martinez. “We have returned to do what we can to secure a more sympathetic atti- ure at the State Department toward he struggle of the masses in Central America for improved conditions of life,” said de Ia Selva to the Federated Press. “The people of Nicaragua are now doing everything within their power to develop the advantages which the chance succession of Vice- President Martinez to the presidency has given them. If the election laws wene adequate to insure fair elections this year, a progressive administration would be chosen for the coming four- year term. But the election laws safeguard the interests only of the old reactionary political machines, The congress, which alone has con- stitutional authority to amend these laws or to summon a constitutionar assembly, is dominated by the.reac- tionaries. Dictatorship of U. S. Bankers. “American bankers, supported by American marines, hold all our reve- nue gathering machinery, and at a hint from Washington can starve out our government. The victims of this ‘situation are the workers, and they face the prospect of a suppression of their new organizations when the aristocrats come back to power.” A unification of authority in the Nicaraguan labor movement under the Unions’ Fate In Balance. The electoral. reforms which the progressives want were recommended by a special agent of the State Depart- ment, who studied the frauds which marked the last general elections in 1920. The Congress of Nicaragua ig- nored them, and unless they can be secured before the holding of the elec- tion this year it is likely that the reactionaries will declare themselves elected and will be supported by the American marines in any argument which may follow. In that event the unions will be stamped out, their lead- ers driven from the country, and the progressive movement set back for another decade. A mere nod from Washington deter- mines the future of Nicaragua. RUBBER STAMPS AND SEALS IN ENGLISH AND IN ALL FOREIGN LANGUAGES INK. PADS, DATERS, RUBBER TYPE,Erc, NOBLER STAMP & SEAL CO, 73 W. VanBurenSt, Phone Wabash 6680 CHICAGO MAIL ORDERS PROMPTLY ATTENDED TO——— E, W. RIECK LUNCH ROOMS Seven Places 62 W. Van Buren 42 W. Harrison 169 N. C 118 S. Clark 167 N, State Trans-Caucasian Trade. MOSCOW, July 30.—It is reported from Tiflis that the organization is being completed of the Trans-Cau- casian Chamber of Commerce. Con- siderable importance is attached to this institution, as this Chamber is destined to play a prominent part in the cause of economic rapproachement between Turkey and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The popu- lation of the adjacent Turkish districts will be supplied with Soviet oil products, sugar and cloths, while Turkey will in return furnish various z raw materials. HARRISON 8616-7 W. Rieck Boston Ba! Commissary and Bakery: 1612 Fulton Ct. Phone West 2549 PITTSBURGH, PA, DR. RASNICK DENTIST Rendering Expert Dental Service SMITHFIELD ST °"'Near 7th Ave. CENTER AVE., Cor. Arthur St one Spaulding ASHER B. PORTNOY & CO, Painters and Decorators PAINTERS’ SUPPLIES. Old_ Wi A_LAUGH FOR THE CHILDREN " Theye's Uncle Wiggily . 4 * p : Tiowve terme off fey. Whatatie idee. gnren, love tap! By, a