The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 19, 1926, Page 3

THE DAILY WORKER ~~~— SACCO-VANZETTI. DECISION IS A JUDICIAL FARCE Merely a Whitewash of Judge Thayer By ART SHIELDS, Federated Press NDW YORK, May 17.—(FP)— The denial of the new trial motions for Sacco and Vanzetti was a terrible shock to the defense. There had been informal assurances thet the new trial would be granted. It was ex- pected that the six year persecution of the last two prisoners from Palmer “Red Raid” days—they were arrested May, 1920—would ‘soon be ended. All down the line the 67-page opin- ion of the supreme court is a white- wash for Judge Thayer. Among the high lights of the opinion are: The Decision, (1) Endorsement of the prosecu- tion’s grilling of Sacco on the witness stand as to his social views—his hat- red of capitalist wars; his aspirations to a workers’ society. Defense law- yers claimed the “red” issue was viciously raised for the purpose of prejudicing the jury. But the supreme court calls this a legitimate testing of the credibility of a witness, Supports Thayer, (2) The introduction of evidence into the jury room, secretly, without giving the defense an opportunity to combat. Certain cartridge shells hav- ing a bearing on the murder case were exhibited to his fellow-jurorg by Fore- man Ripley. The defense had no op- portunity to puncture this evidence; knew nothing of it till long after the trial. Judge Thayer, in denying the motions for a new trial in October, 1924, had ruled that the Ripley inci- dent was of no importance, The su- preme court put its O. K: on Thayer's decision. All thru the opinion the court emphasizes that the trial judge has “discretionary power.” Many other vital matters of evi- dence are brushed aside. The trial judge had “discretionary power” is the supreme court's line of policy. Ignore Travesties. The refusal to allow separate trials, the filling of the courtroom with armed men, the handpicking of veniremen for the jury after the regular list had been exhausted—all these and other mock- eries of justice pass muster with the Bay State black robes. Defense to Fight, ‘This final verdiét of the Masschu- setts courts will not be accepted by the defense. Big mass meetings in New York and Boston will be organ- ized as the agitation, which had lapsed while the supreme court's decision was awaited, is renewed. The first New York’mass meeting, called by the American Civil Liberties’ Union, the International Labor Defense and Ital- fan organizations, for Central Opera House Wednesday, May 19, will, it is expected, be followed by a nation-wide agitation. Meanwhile the defense com- mittee in Boston is conferring with Sacco and Vanzetti as to the appeal to the United States supreme court. Bosses After Judge's Scalp. SAN FRANCISCO — (FP) — Police Judge Golden, who dismissed striking carpenters and held their accuser, an ex-convict strike-breaker, in $2500 bail, is under attack by the Industrial Assn. for his public statement that strike- breakers should be tarred and feath- ered and ridden out on a rail. “This flood of crime, this killing of police- men and robbing of banks, is due in large part to the importation of thugs and yegxs’ as strikbreakers,” says Golden, WRITE AS YOU FIGHT! Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco, whose efforts to fight off their frame-up for the murder of a paymas' er at South Braintree, Mass., In 1920, have been aided by workers thruout the world. Their last appeal before the Supreme Court of Massacusetts was from death In the electric chair is the release, ‘ los mai Their only hope to be saved demand of the workers for their MANY WORKERS |HENRY FORD MAY OUT OF WORK | SHUT DOWN HIS IN FALL RIVER FLIVVER PLANT See Need for Real Union| Many Shops Now Work Organization Drive By ESTHER LOWELL, FALL RIVER, Mass.—(FP)—Fall River is a dismal city. The palsy of cotton upon it. Some of its 110 mills have been closed three years. Others are working three or four days a week, producing only 60 to 70% of capacity, Fall River is a one-industry town.. Fifty years or more ago the cotton mills began to line its waterfront. The main street is old.- Shops are small and shabby. The people on the streets are workers without, money. Old Portuguese mothers with black shawls over their heads. Pale children in the park. The American Federation of Textile Operatives, which seceded from the United Textile Workers 20 years ago, runs the Fall River textile council of representatives from its skilled craft groups. Weavers, carders, slasher tenders, loomfixers are in it, but spin- ners are in the United of the Ameri- can Federation of Labor. a The A. F. T. O. represents largely the old English %nd Irish weavers and other skilled groups which were first in the mills. The rank and file of the organization has many other national- ities, but the original group dominates. The United in Fall River is largely Portuguese with some French-Cana- dian. Both unions agree that national or- ganization of the cotton textile work- ers is necessary. Akececte-/ Strike of the British Workers Was Condemnation of Capitalist Society Four million workers fighting the industrial machine until assured that it will run in the interest of the work- dng class. That is the meaning of the general strike in England. The con- servative economist, John Stuart Mill, said the working class is not a class but the nation. A successful general strike will demonstrate this. “Private enterprise,” says the London Daily Herald, “is sick unto death, So alarm- ing is the condition that even a staunch anti-socialist like sir Alfred Mond has taken alarm. He said at Birmingham that unless the relations ot those engaged in industry were Placed on a different footing there ‘would be not only recurring labor dif- ficulties but such discontent as would make some form of svucialism almost inevitable.” Mond further said, “If the individualist system is the fail- ure it 1s said to be it ought to be de- stroyed. Nothing should stand be- tween industry and the rights of the community.” Producers versus Exploiters, The strike may go on to revolution or it may end in a settlement chiefly concerned with wages and recognition of the mine union's right to negotiate for its entire industry. The real is- sue will be control of the country’s economic life. Hither the great body of producers or the small class of ex- ploiters will come out on top. Capitalism is not delivering the goods. It is not permitting the work- ers to produce to full capacity the goods they need for a decent Hfe, This appears in the concerted capital {st attack on all wages and the chron- , 40 underemployment. If the miners gan; Organize! Organize! lose the blows will fall successively on the metal trades, the rail workers and eventually on all British wage earners, Pres. Smith of the British Miners’ Federation says: « Government Menaces All Workers. “This is not an attack on mine workers only, but on all workers, The slogan of all trade unionists must be —Organize, Organize, Organize every worker, male and female, so if any attack is made on wages or hours or other working conditions, we shall stand four-square to defeat it, remem- bering that the object of our move- ment is to make the life of the work- ers brighter and happier than it now is. “And, seeing the failure of private ownership in the mining industry to give the workers the standard of life to which they are entitled, our motto must be—The Mines For The Nation! Too many generations of mining folk have wrought for private profits and for landlords’ gains. We seek to serve all, and not a few.” From Britain to America. In England, today. In America to- morrow. Not literally tomorrow but perhaps in 10 years, Then the United Mine Workers will not be left un- supported to sink under the steady pressure of the capitalist overlords, The order to down tools will go out from the headquarters of American labor. As in England, it will extend even to the press, stopping the flood of lies the newspapers pour out against the organized workers, In. preparation for that day Amerl- can workers must heed Smith’s slo- Organize! on Part-Time Basis By STANLEY BOONE, DETROIT.—(FP)—Ford plants are working part-time and a general lay- off is not impossible. Rumors of a temporary shutdown persist though in- ventory does not come until late sum- mer. Sales Fall Off. Sales are falling off. Edsel Ford has gone abroad to stimulate foreign mar- kets. Chevrolet sales were up 300 vehicles in Wayne county, which includes De- troit, in March compared with March 1925. Chevrolet held the advance in April. Ford sales in March fell below March 1925 in Wayne county, and in April Ford sales fell more than 1,100 below April 1925. Ford prices were slashed last winter to catch a new class of buyers. There was a stiffening of production lines, driving 100,000 workers to the point of exhaustion. A second slash in prices may be declared to check the decline. Two price cuts in a year are extraordinary. What haS happened in Wayne county has happened:everywhere, The Ford Motor Co. has felt its own pulse and has given itself a shot in the arm. Condition Grow Worse. It doesn’t look as if the wages and working conditions of the Ford work- ers would improve. The economic and physical pressure will increase in all probability. The umionization of the Ford plants is far off. The only, lights on the worker horizon are faint signs of new Nfe in the Auto Workers union, which is an independent in- dustrial union, and the appearance of The Ford Worker, a,small but ag- gressive and interesting shop monthly published. by a few class conscious employes. Its second number has been distributed. Los Angeles Carpenter Sues ‘Black Jack’ Jerome SAN FRANCISCO. — (FP) — Black- jack Jerome, herder of gunmen and strike-breakers, has been sued for $25,000 damages by Capt. Cyril V. DeMille of Los Angeles, who recently secured Jerome's conviction on a bat- tery charge. DeMille, a Canadian war veteran, claims he was lured to San Francisco under false promises, found he was expected to help break the carpenters’ strike, and when he refused was knocked down by Jerome in the openshop Industrial Assn.’s offices, Another Gangster Has Been “Taken for a Ride” Another gangster “taken for a ride” is the theory advanced by police for the death of an unidentified man whose body, a bullet thru the head, was found in the Chicago and North- western Railroad yards a mile west of West Chicago. All marks of identifi- cation had been removed from the man’s clothing. - Hobo Convention Meets. SACRAMENTO, Cal. — (FP) — The hobo convention, under the leadership of James Eads Howe, in session at Sacramento, demands a shorter work- ing day, old age pensions, unemploy- ment insurance and adequate organi- zation and education of migratory workers. Private employment agen- cles were pr AVERAGE WAGE OF RAIL WORKER $125 A MONTH Maintenance and Shop Men Get But $80 The 1,733,004 employes on rafiroad payrolls in February earned a total of $228,116,868 in wages, according to the interstate commerce commission. This is a gain of about % of 1% in num- ber employed and nearly 2% in wages compared with February, 1925, Employment Change, The gains were not evenly distribut- ed, In employment there were slight gains for the clerical and train and engine seryice groups and slight loss- es for the station, terminal and yard service employes. The number of em- ployes in the, maintenance of way de- partment increased 6%% while the number employed in maintaining equipment whs cut about 3%. Import- ant changes in total wages were in- creases Of 8%% for maintenance of way forces'and 314% for train and en- gine service employes and a decrease of 2% in the maintenance of equip- ment totail? The avérdge February wage was $132 for thé month. This includes the high salaried officials as well as or- dinary wage® earners. The average for all employes paid on an hourly basis was $125 a month. Last Febru- ary the averages were $132 and $123, » Wages Paid. The numbers employed and average wages paid in typical occupations in February, 1926, were: Rail employes Feb. 1926 Mo, Wge. Clerks (class B) 133,755 $124 Section labor 179,380 68 Shop labor 104,970 80 Boilermakers 148 Carmen (freight) 132 Electricians 152 Machinists 146 Helpers 101 Train dispatchers 256 Station agt. (teleg.).. 134 Telegraphers .,. 136 Truckers, .... 87 Pass. condyctors 229 Freight conductors 219 Pass, engineers ... 248 Freight engineers 255 Pass, fireme! 186 Freight firemen 179 Pass. trainmén .. 15: Freight trainmen 164 For several of the occupational groups only ope class is covered in the table. T! the total of clerks in- eluding meghanical device operators, stenographers, etc., is 223,132, Simi- Refuses to Sell Negro a Ticket to Minstrel Show, Must Pay $70 Damages SPRINGFIELD, Ill, May 17. — Charles Kuchan objects to paying Jessie Pickett, colored, $70 for refus- ing to sell her a ticket to a minstrel] show in his theater at Canton, Ill. Jessie charges that Kuchan, owner of the Capitol Theater at Canton, re- fused to sell her a ticket solely on ac- count of her color. The Fulton County circuit court allowed her a judgment of $70 against Kuchan. Ku- chan appealed the case to the state supreme court. FLOODGATES OF VIGE OPEN AS PRIMARIES NEAR Pittsburgh Good Exam- ple of “Law and Order” By HARVEY O'CONNOR, PITTSBURGH. — (FP) — Although warm and sunfy spring has come to Pittsburgh the grimy city is reeking wet with a slush fund measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy the Republican senatorial nomina- tion for wet Vare, damp Pepper or dry Pinchot. Regular Republicans, moist Republicans and dry Republi- cans are engaged in a three-cornered battle to control the state machine and the incalculable millions in graft and influence that means, Gaudy signs flung across office buildings laud the three politicians while hundreds of office workers feverishly mail lit- erature, write letters and spend the fancy sums of money put up by the Mellon crowd, the steel and coal barons, the antiunion employers and the sleek business interests. Opened Vice Floodgates, The biggest Pittsburgh daily charges that the Mellon Republican gang has opened the floodgates of immorality upon the city. High schoo! girls are confined to ‘houses of ill fame where “unthinkable deeds” are the order of the day. Women solicit openly on the streets. By giving the vice gang the keys of the city, the Pepper crowd is coining money for campaign funds, according to this newspaper. The Re- publican mayor threatens to discharge all municipal employes who do not vote regular Republican. Nettie C, Gordon, Republican county committee- woman, according to another newspa- larly the total of common laborers in the et ed of way department is 233,171; carmen 114,577; and of electricians: "0,019, Shop'Labor Underpaid. The low Basic wage paid by the railroads is @lways the most striking feature of this monthly federal re- port. Grouping together maintenance of way and ’Bliop labor there are over 330,000 adulttmale workers who aver- aged $80 opvless for the month of February. More than two-thirds of this group averaged about $70 for the month, This:is far below the amount required to maintéin a family even at the lowest subsistence level. It means that the wage system of the railroad industry rests on a coolie basis. Only when all railroad workers unite to lift these lowest paid workers to a decent livelihood will the higher wage groups obtain full justice. eateries Barbers on Strike. ‘ BUFFALO, N. Y.—(FP)—Nearly 1000 barbers are striking in Buffalo for union recognition and higher wages. About half the shops are unionized. WRITE AS YOU FIGHT! per, is personally conducting one of the biggest brothels in town, Labor Aids Bosses Party. ‘The official trade union movement is badly split politically. One faction is training with boss Vare, while the miners’ officialdom, headed by Pres. John L, Lewis, is aiding Gov. Pinchot because of his attitude during the hard coal strike. If there is no independent labor ticket in the field, it is not the fault of economic conditions. Bank deposits, infallible register of prosperity, show @ decline in the past year of several million dollars. Unemployed men pan- handle. Housing conditions fornearly a million workers along the Ohio and its tributaries around Pittsburgh are comparable to the worst Buropean slums. ‘ Industrial Order. American capitalism has reared a civilization of iron and steel through the degradation of western Pennsyl- vania labor. Pittsburgh, reeking wet with political corruption, vice, pov- erty and meanness of spirit, is the keystone of that edifice and the best example on this continent of the true meaning of the present industrial order. PROFITS NINE TOBACCO COMPANIES MAKE OF $85,000,000 in 1925 Profits of $85,000,000 collected by 9 leading tobatco companies in 1925 show what raids on the public’s purse are possible under capitalism. This huge sum is acyear’s reward to private interests whose only service has been to multiply the country’s consumption of cigarets 10-fold. The total profits of these corporations over a 12-year period exceed half a billion dollars. The country’s consumption of cigar- ets in 1925, aceording to department of commerce figures, passed the 80,000,- 000,000 mark., In 1924 it was about 71,000,000,000,,in 1914 about 13,000,- 000,000. In 1910 it was only 8,000,000, 000 cigarets, 10% as many as in 1925. In addition the country used 6,500,- 000,000 large. cigars and about 4 000,000 Ibs. of pipe tobacco in 1925. The 1925 profits of the individual companies together with the percent- ages of these profits on the actual investment of the stockholders were: Tobacco profits Amount ° Percent Reynolds Tobaceo..$26,221,579 119.0% Liggett & Myers... 15,289,652 25.4 American Tobacco. 22,288,596 34.0 United Cigar - 8,813,228 23.8 Lorillard .. ~ 6,641,481 18.0 G, W. Helme. - 2,203,724 48.0 U. 8, Tobace 2,298,307 26,0 Consolidated Cigar. 1,523,162 27.5 American Snuff 1,640,157 12.8 Reynolds’ advertising put over Cam- els in 1926 to the tune of 35,000,000,000 about 45% ofall the cigarets con- sumed in the country, In the last 12 years this company has taken $164,- 000,000 in profits and paid $69,000,000 in cash dividends, The cash paid to holders of common stock in 12 years represents a return of 339% on their investment, They have received stock dividends totaling 300%. Liggett & Myers is booming Chester- fields and other popular brands. Its 12-year profits totaled over $87,000,000. The stockholders have received $48,- 705,784 in cash dividends. The profits of American Tobacco totaled about $100,000,000 in the 5 years 1921-25, Figures are not at hand for the earlier years, but cash dividends over the 12-|Sent without charge—with year period amounted to more than $130,000,000, a return of 254% on the investment in common stock, Nashua Education Board Rejects Demand of The Teachers For Sick Pay NASHUA, N. H., May 17.—(PP)— Nashua teachers petition for pay while on sick leave ‘was rejected by the board of education, eietancheinidemanhcims t Fishermen on Strike. PITTSBURGH, Cal,—(FP)—The en- tire fishing season in the Sacramento River may come to an end, and cen- tral California be deprived of fresh water fish except that imported from Oregon, by the strike of the Sacra mento River Fishermen's union, The men say they will not go back to work unless they receive 10¢ a pound for bass, bc for roe shad and lc for buck shad, without deductions for icing and transportation, They also refuse to limit the catch of each boat to 600 pounds, aa demanded by the buyers, MAN--- | We’re Proud of this Book! — | 4 oo That’s US You See— With our chest thrown out and our pants pulled up and our thumbs right under suspenders, Fred Ellis made this drawing of US in all our glory. ‘We're proud of the job we did and the cartoons we got and the genius that’s in our class. You betcher life we're proud! And you will be too! Just liker “Thank you most warmly for the copy of RED CAR- TOONS, which came to hand a few days ago. I am in- deed pleased to have this, as it is the first copy of its kind I have seen .. .” Hay Bales— who knows cartoons—he é makes them! THE ARTIST “T have just received RED CARTOONS. They are fine and I feel highly honored to have an example of my efforts in such notable company. It is a real inspiration to dig in and try and do something better for the move- ment...” Israel Josephson THE WORKER of Brooklyn— (Who says exactly what we believe) “Dear Sirs and Brothers: “Received the book of RED CARTOONS and I want to say it beats the capitalist cartoons any time.” They're All Proud of this Book— ; That only costs $1.00 —has 70 cartoons by 17 lead- ing artists—size 9x12, and attractively bound art-board brown covers. One Dollar without subscription A Premium one year subscription to THE DAILY WORKER» 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Ill.