The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 9, 1926, Page 17

Most of the historics of the American Negro give the impression that their writers have tried very hard to evade the phase of that history which reveals the Negroes’ problem as a labor problem. To ignore the Negro’s status as a WORKER is to falsify and to sterilize hig history. The important thing is that a true history of the Negro ato eg the basis of his problems and thus lay wide open their solution, The Negro worker has“teen placed on the order of the present The Negro Worker in Labor History their expression, ‘Well—if our men do not see fit to accept our terms, we can telegraph for those who will’.” Cameron then tells as a case in point how the mine-owners were dup- ing Scotch and English miners into coming over to break the great an- thracité strike then being fought out in the Pennsylvania district. After the cause of labor, have, as yet, re- ceived no consideration... . “The first thing to be accomplished before we can hope for any great re- sults is the thorough organization of all the departments of labor. . . . This work, altho its beginning is of such recent date, has progressed with am- azing rapidity. ... In this connection we cannot overlook the important po- day in the labor movement—not thru any honest help from the reac- tionary union bureaucracy, but by history itself and the initiative of some of the Negro workers. The recent national convention of the American Negro Labor Congress forced the issue in a hundred ways. It isthe only one that has oceurred within the memory of the present generation. But there was an earlier Negro Labor Congress more than a half century ago. The writer of the following article, and of future articles of the same series, explores the early history of the Negro wage laborer following the civil war. In doing so, she has discovered some highly interesting material which she undertakes to present in this and subsequent issues supplement of The DAILY WORKER, By AMY SCHECHTER. ~ close of the civil war found the workers of the United States face to face with a tremendous new problem—the problem created. by the “emancipation” of..thé toiling masses of Negroes of thesouth, In its eco- nomic aspects the question was prr marily one of a vast reserve of labor being suddenly thrown upon. the market, adding a new and portentous element to the supreme danger with which American labor was confronteu at the moment—the systematic at- tempt of the employing class to smash the rising organizations of the work ers, by the-use of immigrant ana contract labor to break strikes and undermine wage and living standards. The capitalist class of postcivil war days—whose development as the dom- inant force in society had received tremendous impetus from the great railroad expansion of the fifties follow- ed by the profiteering orgy in war supplies, the immensely high war- time protective tariff, and the rapid extension .of wmachine industry—was _ determined to crush the rapidly grow- ing labor movement, which, in answer to the same conditions, was for the first time organizing on a national seale, and becoming a force to be recokned with in industrial life. Cap- ital was endeavoring to press to the limit the advantage gained at the close of the war, when two million men had been flung back from the battle onto the labor market, with acute unemployment as a consequence. The resulting conflict which culminat- ed in the great nation-wide strikes of 17, forms as militant an episode as any in the history of the American workers’ movement. The capitalist press of the period is quite open in dealing with this campaign against organized labor. In those days the capitalist class still had the crude aggressiveness of a class newly feeling its strength; and its newspapers had not yet acquired the knack of ascribing a high and holy purpose to its union-smashing tactics. During the hot struggle of 1874 in the New York building industry, for ex- ample, the New York Times wrote with engaging frankness recommend- ing the use of an Italian scab-herding agency to break the resistance of the Irish and American workingmen. “The workingmen,” it writes, “would un- doubtedly give way but for the de- fense afforded by the labor unions. These enable them to hold out.... “The time has come in which the employers are beginning to make a determined effort to break up this stagnation, and reduce the scale of wages. They have the advantage in this city of being able to get access to a class of foreign workmen who are not in such intimate connection with trades unions as our own or the German and Irish laborers—we mean the Italians, Yet there is no more industrious or sober nationality among the working classes, “This effort is made by the em- ployer in the form of an incorporated company, and with purely business objects. The association is entitled the ‘New York Italian Labor Com- pany’.... This arrangement will al- most do away with strikes, and as of the Saturday Magazine e * the Italians are.a remarkably sober set of workmen, a contract beginnin with them. ... can reasonably. ho} to keep them thru his job. . . , These men work their full number of hours, and only charge from $2.75 to. $3.30 per day, while the unhappy house- holder has previously paid from $4 .o $5 for an eight-hour day, with eve- cy now and then a strike.... “The men know nothing of the language and nothing of the customs of the country. But they are willing io work; are steady, sober and indus- trious; they have nothing to do with trades unions and they are accus- tomed to low wages... . THE IRISH MALCONTENTS CAN DO LITTLE .NJURY TO THE ITALIANS, AND THE AUTHORITIES WILL PRO- TECT EMPLOYERS IN THEIR RIGHTS. .. .” (our emphasis.) It is, by the way, amusing to com- pare this rapt admiration on the part of the “Times” for the “sobriety and industriousness” of the Italian worker in this country—so long as he could ve employed as a scab—with its lurid portrayal of the Italian worker since he has entered the ranks of militant labor—of a Sacco or’ Vanzetti; for ex ample. The importation of contract labor and the bringing of workers over on lying promises to be used as strike- breakers, or be stranded penniless in a strange country if they refused, was a question of the utmost concern to the workers on both sides of the Atlantic. It was this question that first compelled American labor to think in international terms, and to enter into relations with European labor as represented by the Interna- tional $Workingmen’s Association (First International.) In 1869, two years before the formation of a sec- tion of the International in the United States, the National Labor Union (a loose federation of national unions and trades assemblies, formed in 1866, representing some 600,000 organized workers at the height of its develop ment, and largely partaking of the character of a labor party) sent one of its leaders, A. C. Cameron to the Basle congress of the international, on the invitation of the latter body, in order to take up the question of the establishment of an emigration bureau for the regulation of emigrant labor in the interests of the workers of both continents, After the congress the general council of the interna- tional (of which Karl Marx was then a member) passed the following reso- lutions: “1, That an emigration bureau shall be established in conjunction with the National Labor Union of the United States. “2, That in the case of strikes the council shall by all possible means endeavor to prevent workmen being engaged in Europe to be used by American capitalists against the workmen of America.” Commenting on the action of the first international in correspondence to the Chicago Workingmen’s Advo- cate of which he was editor, Cameron writes: “Ever since the completion of the Atlantic telegraph it has been the threat of unprincipled employers in every state.... to threaten the im portation of foreign.workmen; to use failing in their attempt to smash the strike by “lashing the public into a furore” over the “exorbitant” demands of the miners, when the committee on mining of the National Labor Un- ion had given publicity to the actual facts in the case, and showed the starvation wages that the strikers had been receiving, the owners, as soon as “their little game was blocked and the truijh made known.... set on foot a movement to secure, by mis- representation, the services of Sé¢otch and English miners. Consequently the most outrageous falsehoods were cir- culated and the most exaggerated in- ducement held out to those ignorant 6f the true state of affairs.... On landing ‘in Liverpool we found the docks rded with advertisements for miners, . .. which contained the most false and shameless statements, —yet statements which succeeded in duping many an honest, unsuspecting miner, who would sooner have cut off his right arm than defraud his brother of his due. ... Now under the system proposed, no such decep- tion can succeed. Where a legitimate demand exists, the truth will be made known; when the ‘crushing’ process is attempted, the fact can be as easily anderstood on the other as on this side of the Atlantic.” (Vol. 9.—Cum- mins & Andrews Documentary His- vory.) : It can readily be seen that American capital would view a mass of Negroes transferred from chattel to wage slavery as a heaven-sent instrument for their campaign of beating down the living standards of labor as 2 whole, The fact that the supply was so vast and immediately available, and that, moreover, the Negro work- ers had for generations been beaten dato, submission to. the, will of the master-class, rendered the danger particularly pressing. The advanced elements in the labor movement fully realized the urgent necessity of win- ning over the Negro proletariat, both for the sake of the general cause of American labor, and because of the merciless exploitation to which they foresaw these newly “emancipated” workers would be subjected should the capitalist class succeed in its aim. The “Address to the Workingmen of the United States” issued by the Na- tional LaborUnion in 1867, as a state- ment of principles of the organization, devotes a large amount of attention to this question. It deals with both the economic aspects of the problem, as stated above, and with the highly im- portant political role that Negro labor must necessarily play in the future of the workers’ movement in this coun- try. Both aspects are treated with a clarity of vision and definite class- viewpoint that make the maunderings of a William Green anent the recent convention of the present American Negro Labor Congress appear curi- ously archaic by comparison, Some of the paragraphs seem almost prophetic of the tragic incidents of the half cen- tury intervening between their time and ours—of race clashes, with, as the “address” puts it, “labor warring against labor, and capital smiling and reaping the fruits of this mad con- test...” Altogether, the “address” shows a remarkably just estimate of the part of the labor militants of the day, of the drama upon which the curtain had just risen: the struggle of the vanguard of the workers and the capitalists (with the bourgeois politicians of both races as lieuten- afts) for the Negro proletariat. “The condition of the Negro as a slave,” the “address” declares “and the moral and economical effects of slavery, were discussed by the press, from the public rostrum and in the halls of congress for years and years with great energy ar! zeal; what shall be his status as a free man is at present a matter of no less national anxiety. But aside from this, his in terests as a workingman, and especia) ly the part he is to take in advancing sition now assigned to the colored race in this contest. . . to disguise the fact that they are destined to occupy a different position . it is needless in the future to what they have in the past; that they must necessarily pecome in their new relationship an element of strength or an element of weakness, and that it is for the work- ingmen of America to say which that shall be. “The systematic organization and consolidation of labor must hené¢e- forth become the watchword of the true reformer, To accomplish this the cooperation of the African race in America must be secured. If those most directly interested fail to per- form this duty, others will avail them- selves of it to their injury. Indeed a practical illustration of this was af- forded in the recent importation of colored caulkers from Portsmouth, Va., to Boston, Mass., during the struggle on the eight-hour question. What is wanted then, is for every un- jon to help to inculcate the grand, ennobling idea that THE INTERESTS OF LABOR ARE ONE; THAT THERE SHOULD BE NO DISTINC- TION OF RACE ORNATIONALITY; NO CLASSIFICATION OF JEW OR GENTILE, CHRISTIAN OR INFIDEL; THAT THERE IS BUT ONE DIVI- DEND LINE.... THAT WHICH SEPARATES MANKIND INTO TWO GREAT CLASSES, THE CLASS THAT LABORS AND THE CLASS THAT LIVES BY OTHERS’ LABORS. THAT, IN OUR JUDGEMENT, !S THE TRUE COURSE FOR US AS WORKING MEN. THE INTEREST OF ALL ON OUR SIDE OF THE LINE §S THE SAME, and should we be so far mislead by prejudice or passion as to refuse to aid the spread of union principles ationg ‘any’ of our fellow toilers, we would be untrue to them, untrue to ourselves and to the great cause we profess to have at heart. If these general principles be correct, we must seek the cooperation of the African race in America. “But aside from all this, the working- men of the United States have a spe- cial interest in seeking their coopera- tion. This race is being rapidly edu- cated, and will soon be admitted to all the privileges and franchises of citizenship. ... They are there to live amongst us, and the question to be decided is, shall we make them our friends, or shall capital be allowed to turn them as an engine against us? They number four million strong, and a greater proportion of them labor with their hands than can be be counted from among the same number of any other people on earth, Their moral influence, and their strength at the ballot box would be of incalcul- able value to the cause of labor. CAN WE AFFORD TO REJECT THEIR PREFERRED COOPERA- TION AND MAKE THEM ENEMIES? BY COMMITTING SUCH AN ACT OF FOLLY WE WOULD INFLICT GREATER INJURY ON THE CAUSE OF LABOR REFORM THAN THE COMBINED EFFORTS OF CAPITAL COULD ACOMPLISH, THEIR CHER- ISHED IDEA OF AN ANTAGONISM BETWEEN WHITE AND BLACK LABOR WOULD BE REALIZED, AND AS THE AUSTRIAN DES- POTISM MAKES USE OF THE HOSTILITY BETWEEN THE DIF- FERENT RACES, WHICH COMPOSE THE EMPIRE TO MAINTAIN HER EXISTENCE AND HER BALANCE, SO CAPITALISTS; NORTH AND SOUTH, WOULD FOMENT DISCORD BETWEEN THE WHITES AND BLACKS, AND HURL THE ONE AGAINST THE OTHER, AS INTER- EST AND OCCASION MIGHT RE- QUIRE, TO MAINTAIN THEIR AS- CENDANCY, AND CONTINUE THE REIGN OF OPPRESSION, LAMENT- ABLE SPECTACLE! LABOR WAR- RING AGAINST LABOR, AND CAP- ITAL SMILING AND REAPING THE FRUITS OF THIS MAD CONTEST.”