The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 4, 1925, Page 3

eas ry NEXT EXPLOSION MAY KILL MEN IN ILLINOIS MINE Panama Mine Ignoring All Safety Rules By TOM TIPPETT. PANAMA, Ill, April 2.—If you hear of another mine explosion with scores of coaldiggers blown to atoms, don’t be surprised if the report comes from Panama, The men employed in the Cosgrove Meehan Coal Co, mine here declare a disastrous blast may occur any minute and have lodged a protest, to prevent it, with the Illinois mine inspector. Tho present owners re cently bought the mine and have in- augurated a system to cut the cost of coal production that breaks the law to such an extent that the men threaten to strike, The Panama mine is the most gase- ous pit in the Taylorville district, ac- cording to the state examiner. Three explosions in the past decade have burnt 23 miners tu death. Almost every explosion in a coal mine is caused when coal dust which accumulates ip the. haulage ways is set off by gas, accidentally ignited. Coal dust is highly combustible. The state min- ing law requires this dust to be re- moved and all haulage ways kept sprinkled with water. This work is done on the night shift to prevent jamming the work schedule of the day force. After the explosions in Panama the old company constantly kept a night crew of 125 men on safe- ty work, One gang did nothing but clean roads. Air Courses All Clogged Up. The new company reduced this force of 125 to 12 men. No mine roads are cleaned any longer. Air courses haye become clogged and the main air current is now being circulated through an abandoned section of the mine before it réaches one of the working sections. The danger of this lies in the fact that the old workings are full of gas which has been blocked in by conerete walls. That part of the mine is now squeezing (the earth settling inte the worked-out cham- bers). The squeeze has cracked three of the concrete walls. When the erack releases ges the air current will carry it to the working section. Six hundred men are in that mine on working days. The Panama miners, having gone through explosions before, sent for the state mine inspector, John Mill- house, the inspector, has just finished $day examination of the mine, His report, posted at the mine top, cites’ haulage ways as “very and dirty.” Another haulage way is “usually dirty.” His recom mendations in part read: “All haul. age ways mentioned must be cleaned and sprinkled with water often.” The squeeze section is not ordered closed to the air current but “it must be watched and examined regularly be- fore the men go down.” The miners object and say the earth settles by day as well as night and that a new air course should be pro- vided. Company Says Profits Come Firat. None of the changes have been made. The company claims is it un- able to run the mine at a profit if it must abide by the state laws. If the Panama mine blows up again there will be no need for a commis- sion to determine why it happened. ‘The miners, the inspector and the company will know why in advance. Mob Violence. NEW ORLEANS, April 2.—Judge Be- attie sitting in the federal court has denied the right of Sol P. Dacus to a new trial against the Great Southern Lumber Co. for 130,000 for damages growing out of the anti-union mob- bing at Bogalusa in 1920. Dacus with other union labor men was mistreated by a Liberty leaguo, composed of citi- zens and employes of the lumber com- pany when the union tried to secure adequate wages and better housing. Subscribe for the WORKER! DAILY The Latest Issue is now being mailed. — This number of the ' “Communist International” in ition to: “Seven Years: The First Anni- versary of the Revolution Without Lenin” by GREGORY ZINOVIEV contains articles on: United States, England, Georgia, China, France and Jugo-Slavia, tome, Single Copy 26 Cents. $2.50 a Year—$1.25 Six Months Order from the Daily Worker Agent in your city or THE DAILY WORKER . 1113 W. Washington Blvd, _ Chicago, HI. once more Here is a’small part of the great procession that picketted the Polish consulate (in the background) in Chi- cago, demanding the release of the Polish Communist, Stanislav Lanzutsky, sentenced to death. SAND HOGS IN STRIKE THREAT WIN VICTORY Limit Hours Under Air Pressure Labor AS WE SEE IT By T. J. O)FLAHERTY. (Continued from Page 1) duty. Arthur used to be a radical, or at least something to the left of the socialist party. But lately he has been traveling so far to the right that he is scraping the polish of Victor Berger's heels, Hearst's foremost co- lumnist has an idea that warships are out of date and the airplane is a much more effective weapon for raining death on the heads of any people foolish enough to get fresh with Wall Street’s government, Arthur is an old man, and it would not be fair to post- pone the next massacre until he pas- ses away. ‘ (Special to The Daily Worker) NEW ‘YORK, April 2—The Com- pressed Air Workers’ Union, in which the 3,000 ‘sand hogs’ of New York are organized, ha# won a signal legislative victory in thé Passage and signing of the Nicol-Phélp bill at Albany, radi- cally limiting the hours under which men may be worked at the higher air pressures in the Caissons and tunnels beneath our'jsky-scrapers and rivers and harbors, +; Representatives of the contractors’ association fought the bill to the last ditch but’ legislators were aware of the union’s declaration that not a ‘sand hog’ would go into the ‘air’ in the construction of the much adver- tised Brooklyn to Staten Island tun- nel unless hours were §0 shortened that the men ‘would be protected in some degree against the terrible ‘bends’ or compressed air illness that laid nearly nine hundred men out in the New York to Jersey City tunnel now nearing completion. The 6-hour day, broken into two shifts, begins at 18 pounds pressure above normal, under the new bill, in- stead of at 21 pounds as in the former regulations. ‘The 4-hour day starts at 26 pounds instead of 30, which means that a large proportion of the men will be on a 4-hour basis as much of the work is,done between 26 and 30 pounds. Hours decrease with in- creasing air pressure until 48 pounds is reached, when men will be allowed to werk only one hour a day: The bill now signed goes into ef- fect July 1, Stone Abandons Plan to Amalgamate the Two Head End Unions CLEVELAND.—Hope for amalgam- ation of the Brotherhood of Locomo- tive Engineers and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Engine- men has been abandoned for the pres- ent by Pres. Warren S. Stone of the Engineers, he declares in the April issue of the Locomotive Engineers’ Journal. Committees representing both organizations to sniooth out merging of insurance, pensions and other funds discovered “insurmount- able difficulties.” The Firemen and En- ginemen will consider the question in their June conven- tion. For several years both brother- hoods have negotiated wages and con- ditions in common under the Chicago Joint agreement. ee 8 T is not so certain that Otte Braun will be the next Prussian premier by grace of the democratic and catholic parties. The socialists offered to back the catholic Wirth for the. presidency of the republic in return for the Prussian premiership. But the catholics decided to throw their votes to a democrat, leaving the so- cialists up in the air. The latter are now scurrying, around trying to find a market for their seven miliion votes. If the kaiser isn’t dead broke he can have them, The yellows are out for the dough, ' Russian-Japanese _ Trade Is Booming as Result of Treaty (Continued from page 1) an can likewise expect to sell a good many of her products in the U. S, S. R.: among such products there may be mentioned paper, fishing nets and various fishing equipment, raw silk and, generally, raw materials for the Soviet silk industry, and so forth. Beats Pre-War Record. “According to the latest customs returns, the general Soviet-Japanese trade turnover in 1923-24 reached 15,- 500,000 rubles, which was about three times as much as in 1913. To pro- mote trade relations with the U. 8. S. R. there is no need to organize any special combine of Japanese firms. “Following the conclusion of the commercial treaty, there will be es- tablished a Soviet trade mission in Japan, which will enter upon direct business relations with Japanese com- mercial and industrial concerns. At the same time, however, it would be useful to organize a Ruuso-Japanese chamber of commerce, where Japan- ese businessmen concerned could ob- tain all the necessary information on the position of the market and the respective laws of tle U. 8. S. R., and which eould enter upon close rela- tions with the Russo-Oriential cham- ber of commerce and other similar organizatio Soviet Trade Commissions. “Tt 18, of course, difficult to say just now how many trade missions the U. 8, 8. R. would establish in Japan,” Mr. Ganetzky further stated, it would depend on the actual de- velopment of trade relations. But I believe it would be useful for all par- ties concerned to open Soviet traa organs in some other big commercia: centers of Japan, beside Tokyo, such as Osaka, Hakodato, etc.” De S. ZIMMERMAN DEwTri1S1 ARMITAGE. 746 MY NEW LOCATION ial X-Ray : - ing i Collection at Unity Workers Given Conference for Irish Relief and Defense The collection taken up at the unity demonttfation held in the Ashland Au- ditortim’ last Sunday afternoon’ amounted to $276.50, Those who have had tékéts to sell are requested tr make returns for same as soon as pos- sible. a ESTABLISHED BARS. My Examination ts Free My Prices Are Reasonable My Work Guaranteed Extracting Specialist DELAY MEANS DECAY 0 ho a EA RS ot Ea Ieee a SSR SD titans hata Pend Be BIG CAPITAL GRABBING BIG FARM FACTORIES, Tenants and Proletariat Increasing “The danger is that it is already too late to find a remedy short of revolution,” writes Herbert Quick in his book The Real Trouble With the Farmers. He sees.a class conscious farm proletariatycoming into existence as a result of the increase in land val- ues due to the complete occupation of all good farm land. Most writers, he says, are “ignoring the fact that-farm tenantry has in- creased until it,is the controlling fac- tor in the condition of the farmer. It controls the majority.of the farms in most of our rictfest farming districts When to the’ préportion of fatms un- der tenantry is added the other farm areas which are mortgaged dnd the owners of which are in fact if not in law merely tenants, it embraces a vast majority of the farms in the United States, Farm Tenantiy On Increase. “Farm tenantry increases with such rapidity because Jand grows so valu- able that a poor man cannot buy it and pay for it. Farms in good farm- ing regions are not for people in even moderate circumstances, as working people go. Lands which sold for $6 an acre in my boyhood have been sold in recent years for $500 an acre. Rich people in towns and cities bid with un. varying success against the dirt farmer for the ownership of farms.” Quick points out that this passing of the land into the hands of the rich is increasing the average size of farms. The 40-acre and 80-acre farms of yesterday have been combined into rms worth $100,000 to $150,- young men could buy and equip a farm with the savings of a number of years’ labor. Now that fs impossible where land is good. New Farms Cattle Factories The curse of landlordism, he says settles on a region wherever the land increases in value. It resalts in farmer which lack flowers, shrubs and fruits. OPEN SHOP TO | DRIVE AGAINST: STRONG UNIONS Miners’ and Building Unions in Line ° By LELAND OLDS. (Federated Press Industrial Editor) Watch the open shop pincers tight: | en on the organized coal miners. The golden age for the American invest- ment empire requires a subservient workmg class at home.. Oper shop is the domestic side of imperinjism. The war left three powerful labor groupe that could challenge the div- ine right of the money lords: the rail- road workers, the mine workers and the building trades. Other strong un- fons did not so directly threaten basic industry in which the financial dicta- torship is intrenched. Administer “Breadline Cure.” Open shop strategy since 1920 has been to starve these groups into sub- mission one at time, to administer what the capitalist press calls the “anemployment cure.” First the railway shopmen, the stronghold of the metal workers. In less than a year, about 200,000 were laid off and the railroads either let the work slide or contracted it out at exorbitant cost to nonunion con- cerns. It was an informal lockout which the unions fought bitterly but vainly. After two years in which tens of thousands had little employment or none, the railroads forced the 1922 shop strike. And. thé government backed the railroads. Heavy Losses in Metal Trades, The metal trades unions test heav- ily in’ membership, lost their entire right to, represen: the employes on & majority of roads, and lost their‘mil- itancy. Strike action was at a dis- count, co-operation with capital on a poor-relation basis at a premium. Then open shop hit the miners. Un- ion mines in Illinois, Indiana, Qhio, Page Thr * : Big Business Knows \COOLIDGE STEEL the Value of Having * Uni (Special to The Daily Worker.) WASHINGTON, April 2.—Two hun- $600 YEAR dred trade associations and 1,100 lo- the country are affiliated with the : U. 8. chamber ,of..commerce, whose | Steel Trust Cleaned Up headquarters are in nor tie $153,114,811 national body .come from associate| Workers in the steel mills of the and sustaining memberships, held by | U. S. Steel Corp. during 1924 turned big merchants, manufacturers, bank-| over to the owners a profit of $153,- officers speak to the governmental | this amounts to $589 while George K™ chiefs. | Baker, dean of New York bankers am * largest stockholder, gets $690,500. ". W; Cal 8 all Street ings just about equals the wages on which the average steel worker’s fam- ily is supposed to live for four months. WASHINGTON, April 2.—Rejection at the next senate session of Thos.| year’s budget of 387 families in the F. Woodlock, former editor of the| Steel towns. Profits Double the Investment. the interstate commercé commissio: is apparently the response to the re.| organization in 1901 have totaled $3,- cess appointment to Woodlock after|517,348,727 or more than twice the ty Against Labor STOCK GOT HIM cal chambers of commerce throughout Three fourths of the revenues of the ers, etc., in whose name the national | 114,811, Calvin Coolidge’s share of Cal’s share on his steel trust hold- Appointee on Job Baker’s haul would cover the entire Wall Street Journal, as a member of Profits of the corporation since its the senate twice failed to act on his| capitalization, nearly half of which nomination. Woodlock's appointment| was wate! Out of this enormous has apparently been urged by the| total $2,087,771,000 has been available Morgan and Mellon interests in the|for dividends on the preferred and belief that the new commissioner| common stock. This represents about can accomplish a great deal of valu.| four times the actual investment rep- able work for them before the senate] resented by stock at the time of or- shall throw him out. ganization. The corporation has paid $1,176,473,763 in cash dividends. The water in the common stock has been squeezed out by annual appro- priations for new construction out of surplus profits. These have totaled $1,210,662,572, thus placing behind the common stock which originally repre- sented little if any investment a value of around $238 a share. Thus the real investment represented by the com- mon stock has been put in by under- paid workers and overcharged con- sumers and the $595,960,000 in cash dividends to common stockholders has been little more than legalized robbery. Story Told by Figures. Figures of interest to labor im the last two annual reports are: Weeks to Lease Power Plant. WASHINGTON—Secretary of War Weeks is getting ready to advertise for bids for the hydro-electric power— about 100,000 horsepower— which will be generated at the Wilson dam, Mus- cle Shoals, beginning about July 1. Inasmuch as the power can be dispos- ed of for only a brief time without the consent of congress, which refus- ed to finally enact the Underwood leasing bill, it is anticipated that the General Electric power trust will bid fit this “juice” at a small fraction of its commercial value. GET A SUB AND GIVE ONE! West Virginia, Kentucky and the southwest were forced to part-time, in many “instances to complete shut- down, while nonunion mines exceed- ed all records, Later union mines in outlying districts cautiously opened on a nonunion, basis. Recently the Cleveland conference of operators in the central fleld was put forward as a feeder with the hint that if it proved ineffective toward the capitulation of the union the lock- out would exténd® to Pennsylvania, The Pittsburgh lockout followed. The union has been forced to threaten ex- pulsion for locals working a fake co- operative scheme in order to evade the agreement and get jobs. Who is next? There are the build- ing trades, protected so far by the un- usual housing demand, And beyond them the ynore strongly intrenched railroaders. Peru Feels Cheated Over Award Giving Nitrate to Chile WASHINGTON, April 2.—Public in- dignation in Peru against the Hughes- Coolidge award of the Tacna-Arica nitrate territory to Chile, under the thin disguise of a plebiscite in which only Chileans will vote in large num- bers, has forced Leguia, the dictator president, to send to Washington a note demanding modifications of the award. He asked that American forces be sent to the disputed region to protect Peruvians during the taking of the vote. If his demands were not complied with, he would not accept the award and would take no part in the plebiscite. Ambassador Velarde hesitated to convey this ultimatum to Coolidge. The White House and state depart- ment learned its text when someone else in the Peruvian embassy gave it to the newspapers, Then pressure was applied, and over the week-end It produces farms which are merely corn, hog, wheat and cattle factories. Remedies such as Jower freight rates, diversification, farm credits anc cooperation, he says, will eventually only boost the value,of lands and the farmers will be no better off. He cites an instance in which cooperation with @ better system of rural credits raisec the price of land, 200 per cent, 300 per cent and 500 .per cent until it became too valuable for @ poor man to hold. The farm rental system in the United States is described as the worst in the world. To find one as bad we must go to prewar Russia. It is rack-renting, @ system in which the landlord has the legal right to get as much out of his land as he can. It is filling the land with people on a peon scale of living, Franco-German Delegates Break, PARIS, France, April 2.— Th French delegates negotiating for a Franco-German commercial treaty withdrew today, after failure to agree with the Germans oyer German buy- ing of French, exports. « —$—+ Seven Hurt, ip Fire. Seven firemen were injured by an xplosion that oceurred at a firé in the Fillmore Paint shop, 3630 Roose- velt Road, The fire-spread to the Central Park \dAyaundry, where mharmed, The building was de- stroyed, , mes Velarde got new instructions which , toned down the demands to polite re- juests. Peru's government now sug- sests that a native constabulary be organized to control the plebiscite and its preliminaries. This new note was delivered to Secretary Kellogg. But all the world had meanwhile been tn- formed that the Peruvians felt that they had been cheated out of their territory by the Hughes-Coolidge de- cision, Bill Lee Now Out for Stone’s Scalp Using Lewis’ Gun CLEVELAND. — The Warren 8. Stone-John L, Lewis war is raging on a new front. Pres. William 8S. Lee, Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, i distributing 2,500 copies of Lewis’ pamphlet charging Stone and his sociates with operating a nonunion coal mine in West Virginia. Lee and Stone have been at sword's points for years. Lee has held back from co-op- eration with the 15 uwmer railway or- ganizations which united to publish Labor, the national rail labor weekly, and réfused to join the Conference for Political Action which sponsored the LaFollette insurgent presidential cam- paign last fall, ‘ Get a sub for the DAILY 5 girls were working, but they were] WORKER from your shopmate| and you will make another mem. ber for your U. S. Steel 1924 1923 Products sold $842,969,442 $992,916,162 Net profit .... 153,114,811 179,646,674 Cash dividends. . 60,800,852 54,447,071 Undivided profits ... 717,960,222 693,650,134 Cash checking acct. . 131,357,416 143,499,628 Total wages ....... 442,458,577 469,502,634 Number of employes .. 246,753 260,786 Average wage ........... 3 $1,794 $1,800 Value produced per worker 3,417 3,806 Profit per worker .... 621 689 The corporation can continue cash dividends for a number of years even if it shuts down altogether. Wages Cut as Profits Pile Up. In the last 10 years the average wage pald by the corporation in- creased from $925 in 1915 to $2,178 in 1920 and then fell to $1,794. The ay- erage worker employed right through the period received a total of $15,860 for production worth $38,040. He turned over a profit of $7,194 to the owners. In the two years 1916 and 1917 workers averaging wages of $1,041 and $1,295 provided the owners with profits of $1,321 and $1,102 re- spectively. ‘For the entire period of the corpor ation’s history the owners sitting in comfort, have received 60 per cent as much in profits as the hundreds of thousarids of workers have been paid for 23 years of gruelling work, New York Solons Fail to Pass the 48-Hour Law ALBANY, N. Y., April 2--The New York state legislature closed without passing the 48-hour bill for working women in spite of both parties’ pledges that such a bill would be passed. The republican majortty, led by the As- | sociated Industries, tried to substitute a joker bill which would have per- mitted employers to work women (permanently) 54 hours a week. The industrial board under what Senator Mastick, sponsor of the 48-hour bill, ¢alled “complicated an@d unworkable conditions” could reduse working hours in certain industries after investigations and hearings. The Women’s Trade Union League fought for the passage of the Mastick-Shonk bill which would have limited working women’s hours in industry to 48 per week, Put Pollsh Priest on Trish MOSCOW.—As a result of -the Sow iet protest the Polish consul, at Minsk announced today he had turned over to the Soviet the Polish priest Ussast, who will be taken to Leningrad for trial on a charge of lashing young girls. Join the Workers Party? <ss SSS eee, State Spends Mililons. SPRINGFIELD, IIl., April 2.—Seven senate bills making an appropriation of $142,000,000 was passed by the house today and sent to the governor for his signature. - A Most Important Publication from England! A Descriptive Summary of The Report of the British Trade Union Delegation to Russia and International Trade Union Unity. With Preface by A. A. Purcell, A full account of all facts on world trade union between Amsterdam and the Red International of Labor Unions .... one of the most important pamphlets in years. A pamphlet of the Labor Research Department of Eng- land, containing indispensible material for the intelligent worker on the latest developments in the world of labor. 10 CENTS EACH. IN BUNDLES OF TEN OR MORE—7 CENTS BACH, THE DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, Ill, For the enclosed $......0. send .. copies of the BRITISH DELEGATION TO RUSSIA SUMMARY pamphlet to: . Name Address City... ae Oy LS