The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 8, 1924, Page 4

Page Four NEW LABOR BOARD DECISION ENDS EIGHT-HOUR DAY No Extra ‘Chvectine for 9th and 10th Hour The eight-hour day for mainten- ance of way men except those work- ing around shops and roundhouses, has been abolished by the railroad la- bor board, and petitions of the unions for better working conditions have been denied. Twenty-two railroads, including the large transcontinental systems, are affected by the change. “Except for the classes enumerated, the ninth and tenth hours, when work- ed continuously with regular work periods, shall be paid for at pro-rata hourly rate,” says the decision of the U. 8. railroad labor board, to take ef- fect from December 1. “Beyond the tenth hour shall be paid for at the rate of time and one-half.” Sundays and Holidays Regular. “A rule providing for the payment of, double time after sixteen hours’ service is denied,” says the railroad board curtly. The railroad labor board again ruled that overtime pay will not be given for Sunday work. “Those regularly assigned to work on Sun- days and holidays or those who work in place of those regularly assigned, will be compensated on the same basis as on week days,” says the labor board decision. The petitién of the employes for one day rest in seven, and for over- time pay for work on Sunday, way denied by the board,. which states,, “The positions have always been con- sidered monthly positions and work no hardship on the men. Service nec essary for the continuous operation of, the railroad should be paid for at the regular pro-rata rate regardless of who performs the service.” A. 0. Wharton was the lone mem: : ber of the board who dissented to the opinion. | RUSSIAN MOVIE | ADDS ZEST 10 | 4-DAY BAZAAR (Special to The Daily Worker) MILWAUKEE, Wis., Dec. 7.—Rus- sia and Germany, an eight reel pic- ture furnished by the International Worker’s Aid Committee drew a very rig large crowd in Milwaukee and proved a great help in insuring the success of a four days bazaar organized by the Workers Party. The picture was shown twice on Thursday, Nov, 27, and at both per- formances in the afternoon and even- ing the hall was packed, accomodating approximately 1,000 people. On Friday the Russian night a splendid program was arranged which included among other things singing by the Russian Choir and dancing by Russian children. The West Allis jun- ior group presented a dialogue © be- tween the preacher and the worker. Saturday night witnessed a splen- *y did program arranged by the Hungar- ian and South Slavic branches, An ' interesting play from the history of proletarian revolution in Hungary was staged under the direction of Comrade Kline. The program also in- cluded the South Slavic Orchestra and South Slavic Choir and a solo by Com- rade Kovach. Sunday night over seventy five people enjoyed a very fine banquet with Comrade T. J. O'Flaherty as the principal speaker. Representatives of the various branches and the Young Workers League and junior groups delivered excellent speeches on the progress of the movement in the state. The growth of the influence of our party is demonstrated by the hearty support it receives from the workers in all of its affairs and meetings. At the last election Workers (Commun- ist) Party of America received over 4,000 votes notwithstanding the fact that work during the campaign was greatly handicapped by lack of funds. Elizabeth, N. J, General Membership the foregoing words were copied or paraphrased from a much worthier document. To state the case as hav- THE DAILY WORKER SHALL WE DROP THE SLOGAN OF A POLITICAL UNITED FRONT? (Continued from Page 3.) and yellow socialists which claimed to preempt the field—we demanded that there be “no renaming of bank- rupt disintegrating parties, nor a quiet refuge for effete politicians, but a great mass organization formed by organized labor.” As against enemies of the working class, as against exist- ing or future aggregations of socialist party leaders, “progressive” gentle- men-politicians and small groups of yellow trade union bureaucrats form- ing “labor parties” over night by pri- vate conference or. conferences. ex- cluding all but hand-picked bureau- crats, we very correctly raised the ery, “A labor party only if it is formed by the trade unions!” For the purpose of broadening the move- ment to the furthest possible limit in the worker's organizations, for the purpose of stirring up -and bringing with us into this political activity the last possible rank and file member of a trade union, we described the all- inclusive labor party and had no hesi- tation even in®declaring that “any other form would be a mere carica- ture, a political swindle, and a mis- carriage”; and we have no apology now for having done so under the circumstances of that time. To hear Comrade Bittelman argue now, after time and the fight have developed a new relationship of forces, that we cannot lead any sort of left. wing crystallization of workers willing to turn against their bureaucrats under the slogan of “a mass farmer-labor party,” reminds me of old Doctor Isaac Hourwich arguing against the Russian Bolshevik’s dispersal of the constituent assembly on the ground that the Bolsheviks had made the calling of it a slogan of struggle. 3. Majority thinks the present trade union burocracy must be the leaders of any farmer-labor party that is formed. The idea of the Foster-Cannon ;}|roup was that we must refrain ‘rom making ourselves and our Communist Platform conspicuous in concrete la- bor-party situations, but must on the contrary let the movement have such non-Communist leaders and platforms as will as Comrade Foster said, “rally the great mass of farmers and work- ers.” “We expect that type of organ- ization and that type of candidates,” Comrade Foster told the St. Paul Con- vention; and he told us that éven to consider the possibility of a farmer- labor organization made up of left- wing sympathising organizations cen- tred and led by Communists would be “dividing the labor movement.” The majority thesis carries out this idea very clearly when it explains, in effect, that the Foster-Cannon group thinks the role of Communists in the labor-party action was to compel the trade union burocracy to form a labor party or failing to get Mr. Gompers to do this (tho “not necéssarily by the Gompers crowd,” writes Comrade Bit- telman), to withdraw from the labor party action, denouncing the labor burocracy as “exposed.” But under no conditions to consider the forma- tion of any farmer-labor crystalliza- tion of any other kind. It might be difficult to belive that the Foster-Cannon group really con- ceived of a labor party led by the Gompers burocracy as a probability and the only possibility in America, if it were not for the use they have made, in their thesis, of the follow- ing words: “We also realized that, unlike the Communist parties of Europe, our task was not to win away the masses from reformist mass political parties speaking in the name of labor, be- cause there were none at that time in the United States, but to compel the reactionary trade union break with their old non-partisan Policies and to lead the union: the political struggle as labor organiz- ations; that is, to promote among the masses the growing movement in fa- vor of independent political action and thus compel the trade union buro- eracy to either form a labor party or expose themselves before the masses as enemies of the working clas: (My emphasis) leaders to into I have a haunting impression that be rallied for the slogan of independ- ent political action; and that this left wing can be material over which we can establish our leadership for the purpose of building our Workers Party the Workers Party as the leader in|into a mass Communist party. the“ political’ united front action; crystallized possibly in a united front organization, But the majority thesis shows the astonishing fact that the majority con- sidered exactly the opposite alterna- tive to be the only reality: that the only possible organizational outcome of the united front farmer-labor party campaign would be if the trade union burocracy actually did form a farmer- labor party! 4. Majority thinks that since the trade union burocracy refuses to of ganize a labor party, and betrays the movement, then the object of the slogan (which was to have a labor party) is lost and the basis of our political united front action has vanished, For, after the trade union burocra- cy has failed to form one of these far- mer-labor parties of the kind which “if it is to be a success cannot be a Communist party,” and after they have thus presumably exposed them- selves, then, says the majority thesis: “But when the leaders of these or- ganizations enter into a permanent alliance with the petty bourgeoisie and when such an alliance with the LaFollette movement receives the re- cognition and support of almost the entire organized labor movement, then the question of forming a labor party loses its basic foundation and ceases to be a fighting issue for im- mediate practical use.” Foster and Cannon think that the desertion of the leaders breaks up the basis of the united front. For them in theory, as in practice it was shown tobe, the political united front is in- conceivable except as a farmer-labor party to be reached thru agreement from the top. “To say that the Fitz patrick group did not want a labor party is ridiculous,” said Comrade Foster to the Comintern. But now Fitzpatrick is with Gompers, and Comrades Foster and Cannon turn in bitter remorse to tell us: “Now .. . it must be the united front to fight for specific demands, on burning issues, from below in the shape of ‘councils of action,” unemployment © councils, shop committees, etc., and not the united front from the top in the shape of farmer-labor parties.” (See the majority’s summary of its thesis.) 5. Is the period of 1924 the same as that of 20 years ago, when British Labor Party was formed? We assert that the misconception of the Foster-Cannon group in consi- dering» that the use of the farmer. labor party united front slogan would not be “profitable or successful’; because there is “no immediate -pos- sibility of the growth of a mass farmer-labor party,” arises from that group’s belief that the only “profit or success” from the use of the slogan would be the actual formation of a labor party something after the type of the British labor party, including at one sweep the respectable A. F. of L. practically as a whole. We have never believed this. As we say in our minority thesis: “The conclusion that it will produce a similar party to that which exists in England ignores the fact that it is developing in a different historical period — the period of the decline of capitalism and of the proletarian re- volution.” And ‘as far back as our thesis of November 1923 (which the Foster group desperately fought against but later accepted momentarily for the convention), we said,“ ... it would be an illusion to believe that an all- inclusive mass labor party will be or- ganized in the near future.” We said then, “Only the left wing of the labor movement will in the beginning par- ing two alternatives (either the buro- Meeting. ELIZABETH, N. J., Dec. 7,—On Mon- day, Dec, 8, the general membership meeting of the Workers Party of Elizabeth will be held at Ukrainian Hall, 69 South Park street at 8 p, m. “caylee Charles Krumbein of District cracy must form and lead, etc. or else the burocracy stands exposed etc.) might be a very acceptable way of stating it if the majority realized at the time that it is not truly an alternative, that in fact the burocracy is not going to form a labor party, and that really it is only a case of one pos- sibilty: the exposure of the burocracy * | labor convention of July 3, 1923, when ticipate in the organization of a mass class party of the farmers and work- ers.” But when the Foster-Cannon group discovers for the first time in November 1924 (exactly a year later) that an all-inclusive mass labor party as large in the girth as the British labor party is not in the immediate future in America, they hurriedly sound the alarm and scurry out of the political united front policy. Our ‘conception of the aim of the united front has differed from theirs from the time of our first practical action—that of the Chicago farmer- our policy was the ruling policy. From the beginning our conception of the united front labor-party policy has always been that: “The first task of the Workers Party is to become a mass Communist Party of workers.” (Immediately after the July 3 Chicago convention it was Comrade Pepper who called the polit- and consequent entrenchment of ical. committee together furfously .to denounce the inadvertent slogan which Members of Local 39 Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America’ Employed by A.B. Price &Co, Are Giving $44.00 to their shop we MEYER PERSON (Shop,.2) ' And $29.00 to their shop chairlady MAY HILL (Shop 1) ° AS A CHRISTMAS PRESENT. had crept into the party organ, “build the F. F..L. P.,” and to demand that it be changed to “Build the ba 6. Does the betrayal by Gompers, Fitzpatrick, Hillman, Hillquit & Co., or the electoral defeat of LaFollette, destroy the basis for the use of the labor party slogan? We assert that the mass basis of the demand for independent political action (historically expressed as the labor party demand) is still in exist-| ence. This demand did not originate in the soliloquies of Mr. Fitzpatrick or Mr. Hillman or Mr. Johnston, and therefore the Foster-Cannon group is| wrong when it says that “when the| leaders . . enter into a permanent alliance with the petty-bourgeoisie”’ | and get for the alliance the support of “almost the entire organized labor movement” which they control—that then “the question of forming a labor patty loses its basic foundation.” On the contrary. If the class struggle is sharpening and creating the friction which generates the mass demand, and unless the class struggle is being abated, the- betrayal of these leaders creates the best possible basis for the use of the slogan. The greetings sent to our last year’s convention by the Comintern are still valid and quite ap- plicable on this point: “That Gompers and his reactionary trade union officialdom oppose it (the united front) because of their. anti- quated, treacherous policy of ‘reward- ing the friends and punishing the ene- mies of labor’ in the capitalist par- ties; that the socialists, having re- nounced every revolutionary idea and lined up with the reactionary forces of the country, also oppose it; and that a few so-called ‘progressive’ trade union leaders of the middle west have betrayed the workers and gone over to Gompers, that they denounce the ideas they once stood for and there- fore also oppose the united front—is creating the best basis for the united front policy.” The class struggle is sharpening in America, not abating. The fury of government repression will. strike death blows at labor more, not less, in the immediate future. The demand for political action on the united front basis (which historically takes the form of the demand for a “farmer- labor party”) will be more urgent now than ever before. But “the present situation calls for neither a labor party policy nor a la- bor party slogan,” writes Comrade Bittelman! And under such guidance we slip into setarian solitude while the A. F. of L. convention comes and goes, and the C. P. P. A. conference, where the betrayed trade union dupes of LaFollette were to have their show- down on the promise of “a labor party after election,” comes and goes, and the Communist Workers Party no longer speaks for political action on the basis of the united front. SOVIET ISSUES INSTRUCTIONS TO ITS MISSIONS Emphasises Proletarian Rule in Russia MOSCOW, Dec. 7.—The Soviet gov- ernment has issued instructions gov- erning the conduct of its diplomatic agents accredited to foreign capitalist nations. The regulations emphasize the proletarian character of the Soviet government and are designed to meet the wide social and other differences existing between the Soviet and other governmnts. After stating that the Soviet mis- sions would observe the principle that nations do not appoint foreign mis- sions for the purpose of carrying on propaganda, it points out that the Soviet missions represent a republic of workers and peasants where there exists a special mode of life and spe- cial social and moral convictions. The statement continues: “Owing to this fact Soviet missions accorded to foreign countries must in their personal relations as well as in their diplomatic households observe simplicity of form and economy of ex- penditure. Their refusal to participate in the customary dipomatic and social functions of foreign countries does not arise from the position they occupy and should not be regarded as an un- friendly act. “The same view should be taken re- garding their refusal to participate in manifestations which have a mon- archial character or which generally are not in harmony with the Soviet principles, Such acts should not be considered in the nature of propa- Sanda or as demonstrations of a po- litical character. “On the other hand, the Soviet gov- ernment will not regard as an un- *|friendly act the refusal by foreign diplomats accredited to Soviet Russia to participate in functions which they consider contrary to their custom or which appear to have a revolutionary character, “We believe observance of these regulations will establish better un- derstandings: be yany the ‘Soviet and These are DAILY WORKER Agents —the Captains and Lieutenants in the Army of Builders. ‘if you don’t see your branch men- tioned—it means your branch has no DAILY WORKER Agent to mobilize the comrades to “Build the DAILY WORKER.” Get one elected at the next branch meeting and send us his name and | address! Captain L. E. Katterfeld, City Agent Captain Thurber Lewis, City Agent Captain John Lyman, City Agent Monday, December 8, 1 ROLL CALL The Daily Worker Army of Builders PRESENT! NEW YORK astoria, L. |., English J. Herman astoria, L. |., Italian amuel Mafrici Corona, L. |., Italian. . Menegon Maspeth, L. |., Lithuanian No. 3. Jos, Stanelis New York, Spanish U. T. New York, Armenian. New York, Y. W. L. 11. Bronx, Y. W. L. 29... Bronx, Y. W. L. 1. New York, English W. S.. New York, Jewish D. T. No. New York, Russian Harlem Brooklyn, Jugo-Slavie .. Brooklyn, English Boro Park... New York, Lettish Branch. Bronx, English No. 3..... New York, Hungarian D. T. Brooklyn, Y. W. L. 16. Bronx, Jewish No. Brooklyn, Jewish, Bath Beach New York, German, Yorkville... Brooklyn, Y. W. L. 5......... New York, Greek Section 11.. New York, English, Harlem. New York, Ukrainian D. T.. New York, English No. 2, Bron: Brooklyn, Jewish D. T. No. 4.. Mariners Harbor, Finnish Branch S§. I. aac Amir D. Baltavan ouls Barnett avid Berchénko ulvia Bleecker red Cammer -Eva Cohen Rose Conn hrist Cosich Eliza Douzmashkin E. Eikwald ay Feinstein Lillian Greensweiy va A. Hadgis ohn Hnatysh Morris Hurwitz Harry Kah Yrja Kakkala New York, Russian D. T... Kankoft New York, Scandinavian U. T. .L, Lagen Bronx, Hungarian No. 45. ..Voros Lasziem New York, Finnish U. T. Leo Laukki Bronx, Jewish No. 1, Bronx.. eon Litvin New York, Esthonian. .Aug. Mackle New York, English. M. L. Malkin Brooklyn, Y. W. L. 1 ..Max Manus Bronx, Y. W. L. 12.. .Wm. Margolis New York, Italian W. A. Mellina Brooklyn, Y. W. L. No, 2. y Mickel! Brooklyn, Brownsville Englis! .E. Mitnick Jamaica, S. L. 1., Finnish. Ibert Maller Brooklyn, German, Bushwick. P. Mueller New York, Checho-Slovak..... Chas. Musi! Brooklyn, Williamsburg Englis! Rockaway Beach, L. |., Oriental D. Brooklyn, Jewish Y. W. L. No. 24. New York, Polish D. T. Brooklyn, Seandinavian Brooklyn, Finnish, South... New York, Bronx No. 1 Englis! Brooklyn, Jewish, Brownsvill Brooklyn, Y. W. L. No. 18... New York, Lithuanian No, 32. Brokolyn, German, Ridgewood. New York, Hungarian... New York, Jewish No. 2, Bron New York, Jewish No. 3 D. T. Coney Island, English New York, Jewish, Harlem. S. Ogrednick C. 0. Peterson W. Peterson Michael Rosenberger ..Louis Rosenthal -H. Sazer Bronx, German Section 111 Ed. Sontag New York, English, Yorkville. J. Toycousky Brooklyn, Lithuanian No, 1 uJ. Undjus Brooklyn, Jewish, Williamsburg. Morris Weiner Brooklyn, Lithuanian, Boro Park. ad. Weiss Brooklyn, Ukrainian, Williamsburg. -H. Wengryn Brokolyn, Russian, Williamsburg. .S. Wershitz CHICAGO, ILL. Chicago, Lithuanian No. 5. S. Zalpis Chicago, Lithuanian .. Chicago, Scandinavian Lakeview Chicago, Scandinavian K. M. Chicago, Lithuanian Cicero, English Chicago, Italian Chicago, District No. Chicago, English .... Chicago, District No. 3. Chicago, Y. W. L, Ryko’ Chicago, English Irving Park Chicago, Y. W. L. Irving Park.. Chicago, Roumanian Chicago, D. P. Jewis' Chicago, Finnish .. Chicago, Greek Chicago, Czecho-Slovak Chicago, Polish ... Chicago, German Chicago, Russian Chicago, Ukrainian No. 2. Chicago, John Reed Y. W. Chicago, Marshfield Y. W. Chic; Lithuanian No. 3. Chicago, Lettish . Chicago, So. Slavic Bendokaitis’ Henry Berglund © H. P. Clausen Chicago, District No. 1, Agen Chicago, Hungarian John Skovera Chicago, Douglas Park Englis! D. C. Spiegel Chicago, Chicago, Northwest English District 3, Age! PHILADELPHIA, PA. Philadelphia, Italian . Philadelphia, Armenian Philadelphia, Lithuanian, No. 71 Philadelphia, Jewish N. W. Philadelphia, Finnish . Philadelphia, S. Slavi Philadelphia, Hun, Philadelphia, Lettish . Philadeelphia, Y. W. L.. Philadelphia, Russian Philadelphia, Jewish . Philadelphia, Je (Strawberry Philadelphia, Ukrainian Philadelphia, Scandinavian Philadelphia, English Philadelphia, German .. A. Valentine ‘0. Winsberg . Watch for your local—and if your branch is not mentioned—remember— elect one at your next branch meeting. Traune Tee Sat, barker for Iyis We Need His Help to 4 and