The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 7, 1926, Page 1

i “The DAILY WORKER Raises the Standard for a Workers’ and Farmers’ Government Vol. II. No. ? i Ve ARMOUR’S CONFERENCE BOARD THE DAIL Entered as Second-class matter Schtember 21, 1923, at thé Post Office at Chicago, Illinois, under the Act of March 3, 1879. © eae . In Chicago, by mail, $8.00 per yeer. viption Rates: Susie Sticeren oe fit, Bee ee: year. PUTS ACROSS BOSSES’ SPEED-UP SYSTEMS IN CHICAGO “YARDS” The history of the packing house workers has been one of active militant struggle against the exploitation of the food trust, Time and again-the work- ers of this industry have organized, downed their tools, and defied the slave- driving tactics of this powerful combination of interests that levies its toll from every living person in the nation. down the workers’ organizations and break up their solidarity and force them back at their terms, the grievances of the workers grow greater and greater. The attempt of this trust to make more and more profit is creating greater and ever greater dissatisfaction. a In order to stave off the organization of the workers into industrial unions in this industry, which the food trust fears, they have created con- ference boards in their plants, where so-called representatives of the employes ~#and the bosses meet around a table in Current Events By T. J, O'FLAHERTY . ARDINAL Mundelein pulled a good one when he addressed the holy name society here a few days ago. The society was organized for the purpose of abolishing blasphemy and cursing. Mundelein said: “I have lived for more than fifty years in the larger cities of this country and I like others of my contemporaries, have noted with satisfaction the change in speech that has taken place.” Evidently the cardinal never had the experience of spending a night in the detective bureau and hearing the holy name policemen test their obscenity on the prisoners. BO: +6. HE cardinal also complimented President Coolidge for receiving a@ body of holy name men at the Capitol a year ago. The canny New Englander, probably cares as little for the pope as his witch hunting progenitors did, but 1 just as good as protestant votes and perhaps a little more docile. se @ 'T is rumored the prince of Wales is about to wed one of the few remain- ing princesses in captivity. She ‘is Swedish. It seems that the Swedes are rather good natured people and don’t mind having a royal family hang- ing around, provided they don't throw their cigarette ashes on the carpet or park their second hand chewing gum on the family armchair. A modern princess is liable to grab anything for a husband that looks like @ map but more careful girls would just as soon hitch on to a virulent germ as to the prince if credence can be given to reports of his South Am- erican exploits. se ¢ UR capitalist papers tell us that king George's subjects are rather worried over the failure of the prince to take unto himself a wife and beget an heir to the throne. Perhaps the prince does not believe in waste mo- tion, or in supplying something that may not have a market after it is pro- duced. I read several British work- ing class papers each week and I ga- (Continued on page 6) Tho the packers have been able to the company office to iscuss the grievances of the workers” and to out- line the plans of the bosses, Board Is Bosses’ Tool, What is this conference board? The conference board created by the bosses and maintained by the bosses is a blind—a rag—placed over the eyes of the workers to keep ‘them from recognizing the identity of inter- est that exists between all the work- ers in the packing plant—wthether he be black, yellow, brown or white, “You don’t need a union in this plant, why if you've got grievances, you go to the conference board. If you had a union here you'd have to pay dues. Now, you don’t have to and you get the same benefits,” This, in sub- stance, is the argument of the bosses for the conference board and many of the poor packing house workers be- eve it to be true. Has the conference board at any time aided the workers in the plant? This has to be answered with a power- ful NO! The conference board was created for but one purpose—and that. was to .ai bosses to Tr ‘ Hoi the WORONT TS CHE InGOEE ODS PE conference board was created not to} present the grievances of the workers | —but to enforce and put into opera- (Continued on page 3) BOARD REMEMBERS ITS POLITICAL CHIEFTAINS: FORGETS NEEDY WORKERS The Chicago city council finance cl OU om Only the Hog Is Well.Fed THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 1926 <a” is CG ee pe Poe committee held an all-night session at which it voted to give various heads of departments increases: in salaries and then voted down pro- posals to give firemen, scrub wo- men and other municipal workers slight increases in pay. Before the session closed, however, the board “nullified” its former action, when it was pointed out how raw the deal looked and decided to “recon- sider” the budget question before reporting to the council. Strings are now being pulled to prepare the aldermen for the increase for the political chieftains and to turn their backs_on the workers, The International Workers’ Aid, tion. Give help now in the hour of KANSAS CITY PACKING HOUSE WORKERS GET LOW WAGES; MUST TAKE OUT COMPANY INSURANCE , By a Worker Correspondent, KANSAS CITY, Kansas, Jam: 5.-—-Wages in the Armour meat packing plant here are low and vary according to the department in which the work: ‘ ers are employed, Laborers get from 35 to 45 cents an hour. cents per hour. Beef workers and butchers 53 cents and a few as high as 90 cents per hour, There are more women employed in the beef departments than jn the pork departments, Women receive $13.50 straight wages and a few make as high as $30 per week on piece work in a good season by working themselves to death, Out of these miserable wages, for even in the best seasons you are only guaranteed 40 hours per week, if you work in a department where you have a laundry, you must buy ttree or four changes of working clothes-—the company says 5—so to be sure you get them back from the Jaundry in time to make a change. In the hog cutting department Negroes predominate composing 90% ot the working force. The other 15 workers are mostly foreign-born. In this department, they average 4500 | destructive viper—dual unionism—is again showin In the last] {Ilinois, Pennsylvania, and in particular in the hogs in 8 hours work, |\CHINESE WORKERS NEED RELIEF FROM WORKERS OF OTHER LANDS thru Fred Biedenkapp, secretary, has issued a nation-wide appeal calling upon all workers and friends of workers to rally to the support of the suffering Cainese workers. “No man or woman can read without compassion of the inhuman and barbarous crimes perpetrated upon tne workers of China by the hired mur- derers of international imperialism—as told of in The “it is a duty we owe to every human being that help, generous and sub- stantial, be given the workers of China to aid them in their fight for libera- It says: DAILY WORKER. greatest meed. Send your contribution to the International Workers’ Aid, 1553 West Madison stfeet, Chicago, III.” on conditions in the meat packing Pork butchers from 53 to 68 workers passed thru the gate a copy “NO SPLITS! NO DUAL UNIONS!” APPEAL OF PROGRESSIVE MINERS COMMITTEE TO U. M. W. MEMBERS By ALEX REID Secretary Progressive Miners’ Committee. In many places thuout the mining districts of America the its head. In orthwest and three weeks we averaged 700 per! Nova Scotia, the policy of splits is producing the same results as (Continued on page 3) Danish Textile Lockout Settled. STOCKHO).M, Sweden, Jan. 4.—~ ‘The textile tickout was settled with have attended the split movements of the past—complete de- moralization. Thruout the western districts of Alberta and Nova Scotia the splitters have got in their deadliest licks, with the result that the the menders being granted the right} United Mine Workers of America has been practically annihilated, to organize and to retain their, nigher|@nd in Alberta about half a dozen labor skeletons are fighting miltiess, to surrender somo of their] each other for supremacy, with the inevitable result of complete * (Coutinued on Page 6).." us CHICAGO STOCKYARDS WORKERS EAGER TO READ DAILY WORKER MESSAGE; VOLUNTEERS NEEDED By A Worker Correspondent. Two thousand copies of The DAILY WORKER contaiming special articles houses were distributed at the gates of the Chicago “yards” yesterday morning inside of halfan hour. As the of The DAILY WORKER was handed {to distribute The: DAILY WORKER. Must Start’/Work Early. Most of the workers in the “yards” enter the gates between 5:30 and 6:30 o'clock in the moening. They start to work at 7. Butsas they must go to the filthy locker rooms and dress for the floor and then sharpen their knives and cleavers they must get into PHONE STRIKE I$ CALLED IN $0, ILLINOIS \Company Refused to Arbitrate HARRISBURG, Ill, Jan. 5. — The strike of telephone operators for the {Southern Illinois Telephone company was carried out as planned, according to reports received from the territory served by the company here early this afternoon, Thirty operators operating long dist- ance phones service and individual phones here, together with operators of Galata, Carrier Mills, Raleigh and Stonefort,: walked away from their switchboards promptly at noon. The strike had been scheduled for last Thursday at midnight, but Mayor Guy Patterson,‘and business men in- duced both sides to enter into a five- day period of arbitration, According to them by workers who had volunteered to be on hand'lat that early hour|‘® Mayor Patterson today, General Manager G. L. Mays refused to arbi- trate, |New York Daily Worker Builders’ Club to Hold Meeting After Zoncert NEW YORK, Jan. 5 — After The the “yards” on hour or two before} DAILY WORKER anniversary con- “starting” time. All of the sharpen- ing of the tools and préparation for work must be done on their own time. As the workers entered the gates and were handed The DAILY WORK- BR they wanted to know “what it was all about.” When told that ‘The DAILY WORKER, their paper, was carrying’ on a special drive in the packing houses of the nation, showing up the speed-up systems and other conditions in the meat packing plants, they would all say, “That's the stuff. We need more such: papers that ain't afraid of these big guys that own the works here,” Most of the worke?s entering the yards were Negroes and they were all (Continued om page 6) cert, which will take place this Sun- day afternoon, Jan, 10th, in Yorkville Casino, 86th Street & Third Ave, The DAILY WORKER Builders Club of New York will hold its official meet- ing, in the same hall. At this meeting arrangements will be announced for The DAILY WORKER Banquet which is to come six weeks later, Every reader of The DAILY WORKER willing to support The DAILY WORKER with a certain minimum of effort is eligible to-mem- bers\ip in The DAILY WORKER Builders Club,.and welcome to take part in this banquet on the same basis 1s the others. To learn the details attend this meeting Stinday immedi- ely after the anniversary concert in Seeeville Casino. WORKER. NEW YORK EDITION Published Dally except Sunday by THE DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO., 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, UL Price 3 Cents “A 6,000,000 ACRES IN 20 STATES FARMERS FORCED TO MIGRATE ———" FROM LAND AS GRISIS GROWS THRUOUT THE WHOLE MIDDLE-WEST (Special to The Daily Worker) KANSAS CITY, Mo., Jan. 5.—The condition of the farmers of the middle-west is becoming rapidly worse according to a brief submitted here before a committee of the interstate commerce commission which is conducting cultural crisis. hearings regarding the agrl- Farm abandonment by families forced iato bankruptcy by the forclosure of mortgages, the growth of farm tenantry, the flock- ing to the cities of the children of farmers, and the terrible im- poverishment of hundreds of thousands of farmers was portrayed in the brief submitted by Rex E. North Dakota agricultural col- lege. From 1910 to 1920, Williard said, $8,000,000 acres of farm land were abandoned in 20 western states. He said this condition was brot about because of the discrepancy in the price the farmers receive for their products and the price they have to pay for manufactured products. The point under discussion was the de-| mand of the western railroads for} higher freight rates. Williard argued that higher rail rates would still fur- | ther increase this difference in prices jand cause still greater devastation among the farmers of the country. Proposes No Solution. Williard confined his objections to the question of freight rates and did not touch upon the role of the banks, the millers, the grain trust in gener- al, the various extortionate swindle: practiced by the middle men, all o which contribute to reduce the farm- er to pauperism. It i8 appropriate that this question should come up at this time wher thousands of families of farmers « flocking into middle western citi? and haunting the slave markets ic a chance to be shipped to variov ts of the nation es common labc: ers on construction gangs, lowa Crisis Grows. Iowa farmers, unable to dispose of} their crops for enough money to meet the loans the banks have advanced them on the crops, are being driven from their farms and the smaller banks, unable to dispose of the grain crops at the prices they loaned the farmers are going out of business and their assets taken by the larger banks. There are dozens of bank failures every week, which eloquent- ly portray the horrible conditions existing in this once prosperous agri- cultural state. The crisis is also felt by the small merchants of the towns and if the present exodus from the farms continues, Iowa will soon be lotted with deserted villages that formerly supplied agricultural sec- tions with commodities. Coolidge Considered Fraud, The farm crisis is too young yet to develop definite political move- ments, but the entire middle west looks with hatred and contempt upon Coolidge and his fraudulent farm re- fief proposals and if the president of the United States were running for reelection today, he would not carry one state in this vast region. At the same time the farmers look with suspicion upon the frantic ef- forts of congressmen who propose various panaceas for farm relief, as they do not forget that a few weeks ago these same “statesmen” were on the Coolidge bandwagon. All government agencies, such as the interstate commerce commission, are considered enemies of the farm- ers and servants of the big bankers (Continued on page 6), [CALLES TO HAVE OWN WAY IN MEXICO; WILL ASSIST CAPITALISTS MEXICO CITY, Jan. 5—The Mexi- can congress, before it closed its sessions, enacted all of the legis- jon that President Calles had asked for making him virtual dic- tator of Mexico. He has been given such tremendous dictatorial powers that he may regulate and enforce the laws in any manner he may see fit. He will have charge of the na- tion’s income and will appropriate as much of the budget as he wis He is given supreme command of the army. He*was aso given power to revise the Mexican civil and criminal cod and control the ju- diciary. He is also given the power to administer the petroleum laws in any manner that may suit his pur pose. These me. res were pro- posed and highly desired by Calles, who has the backing of Luis Mor- ones, the Mexican “Sam Gompe Calles in ew role as admin trator of the republic will be able to give American capitalism all the assistance it needs to better ex- ploit the Mexican workers. Loe Ha , Willard, farm economist of the GANGSTERS ATTACK OFFICIAL OF NEW YORK BOX MAKERS’ UNION GEORGE E. POWERS. Picture shows clothes spattered with blood after attacked by thugs. GANGSTERS BEAT UP BOX MAKERS’ UNION OFFICIAL Resented Withdrawal of Graft Booty NEW YORK, Dec. 5 — George E. Powers, organizer for the Paper Box Makers’ Union of Greater New York, was beaten up here by four gangsters nesting in Norfolk and Delancey Sts. These same gangsters, Moe Gross- “Joey,” “Silvy” and “Young only got thru collecting the 2,100 of a total amount of $3,600, having been paid Dec, 2nd, 1 a8 blackmail booty of the most treacher- ous kind, Not satisfied with this, they went a step further. They went to work for the Maderight Paper Box Co., 46 Wooster St., a firm owned by a Mr. Meister and three other partners, where a strike of paper box workers is in progress, and intimidated the pickets on the picket line, telling them that they would “allow” girls on the picket line but no men Last Tuesday night, Dec. 22nd, the organizer of the Paper Box Makers’ Union, while in front of the struck shop, was approached by “Moe” and “Silvy” and told by the former that “they” won't. “allow” any men on that picket line and that if he would show up again they would “chase” him and the girls from the picket line, When the organizer told them that he was an official of the Paper Box Makers’ Union and would come to do his duty, then “Sfvy” told him, “that means a fight.” Attack Organizer, This threat was carried out in less than one week. Monday night, at about 5:20, while Powers was talking to the girl pickets, the four gangsters came out of Meister’s place and be- gan to beat him until he went down, then kicked him, up he came and down he went, under the weight and pain of more blows rained from all sides by the four gangsters, This gangster attack expresses their resentment of a policy inaugurated by the new administration of using the money of the union in the inter- ests of the 2,500 workers who make up its membership, instead of turning the treasury over to an unprincipled crew of double-crossing, grafting “guerillas,” who, leech-like, have been for years sucking the vitality from the Paper Box Makers’ Union of Greater New York, and who still infest labor organizations in this city,