The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 11, 1926, Page 4

THE DAILY WORKER aes _ ov . cam : New York and the United Labor Ticket |The Story of a P¥oletarian Life|, ae ARTICLE Y. By Bartolomeo\¥anzetti : > gm TE Y WODKEDS His Honor” as Strikebreaker. 'HIS story was written by Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who with Nicola Sacco, faces death by execu- CONDUCTED = BY TH WING WORKERS LEAGUE ae tion as the result of one of the most criminal frame-ups in the history of the American labor, movement. It was written by Vanzetti in prison and tells in simple and moving terms the story, HH first case on record where in- of his life until the time when, due to his activity in the labor movement, he and Sacco were 204 App. Div., 513, attempting to in- juctions were used against work- nen in labor disputes is the case of $pringstead Spring Oo. v. Riley, which cam up for decision in England n the year 1868. The defendants were workingmen striking against the dlaintiff's (bosses’) concern, and had posted axtvertisements urging other workmen not to hire themselves out © the company. The court held that they were injuring the company’s susiness and restained them from so joing. This decision was subsequent- y reversed by the higher courts, but 8 the basis on which every court of equity in the United States has since icted in granting injunctions in tabor tisputes, Pending the appeal in the nigher courts, the British Labor Move- ment had passed whet is known as the Trades Disputes Bill, which effec- tively and finelly did away with the granting of injunctions in labor dis- putes—in England. Not so in America, hdwever. The American courts are replete with ex- amples of the promiscuous issuance of injunctions in labor cases, (based on reversed English precedents) which have effectively crippled every Strike of great moment and innumer- able strikes of smalier importance especially since the famous (or rath- er infamous) decisions of the Hon. William H. Taft, U. S. supreme court judge in the case of Morres & Co. y. Bricklayers’ Union (1890) and “Wfhomas v. Cincinnati, etc., in re Phe- (the Debs case of 1894). Danbury Hatters. 'N Lowe v. Lawlor (Danbury Hat- ters Case, Feb. 1908) Chief Judge r of the U. 3. district court con- istrued the boycott used by the strik- ing Danbury hatters as en illegal con- lepiracy and heavy damages were re- covered against the workers which in many instances deprived them of their homes and their life’s savings. In the same year.in which the boy- ‘cott by the Danbury Hatters was held to be an illegal conspiracy and heavy damages assessed against members of the Hatters’ Union, the same supreme court held the Erdman Act, which de- clared that railroads could not dis- \charge their employes for belonging |to @ labor union, to be unconstitu- |tfonal. Blacklisting is legal, because it benefits the employers; boycotting, |which is the workers’ form of black- |Msting, is illegal because it is used by workingmen against employers. duce the employes, who ‘had signed written contracts not to join a union, to become members of the Interna- tional Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union was held unlawful and enjoined. In Yablowitz v. Korn, 205 App. Div., 440, the court enjoined picketing by striking union helpers of a meat mar- ket on the gound that— - “It is a matter of common knowl- edge when pickets are hovering around a place for the purpose of preventing the conduct of business, and that is the only object that is at present apparent, it does consti- tute an intimidation, especially to women patrons.” In Berg Auto Trunk & Specialty Co. v. Weiner, 121 Misc. Rep. 796, the court restrained picketing “extept by one picket at a time at each entrance to the employer's building, by which the employes enter or leave,” atid the use of threats, expressed or implied. Expulsion of Scabs Forbidden. In Best Service Wet Wash Laundry Co. v. Dickinson, 121 Misc, 416, an injunction was granted restraining the union from furnishing money ‘to strik- ing employes, and “from expelling from membership in the union or dis- ciplining employes of the plaintiff who either resume their obligations under their written contracts with plaintiff or have continued to perform them.” This is going far indeed, when a union is restrained from expelling or dis- ciplining its members for scabbing! When, however, the controversy is between one capitalist and another, the courts are extremely careful in granting injunctive relief. In Grambill Mfg. Co. v. American- Foreign Banking Corporation, 104 App. Div. 425, the court said: “It is the law, unless the rights of the parties are clear, the court will not exercise its power to grant an injunction.” This dictum was cited with approval im Reliance Grant E. E. Corp. v. Re- Hance, etc., Co. 205 App. Div. 320, where the court refused to restrain defendants from breaching a written agreement it had made with plaintiff, on the ground that the agreement was ambiguous. Examples of this kind might be, multiplied ad infinitum, but I think enough have been cited to show the “partiality” of courts in favor of capi- talists in cases imvolving labor dis- putes, and their unwarranted and ar- bitrary interference, with the aid of the law, to break strikes and bring labor abjectly to the knees of capital, singled out as victims of the anti-labor reactionaries in the mill-owned state of Massachusetts. In the Promised Land FTER a two-day railway ride across France and more than seven days on the ocean, I arrived in the Prom. ised Land. New York loomed on the horizon in all its grandness and illu- sion of happiness, I strained my eyes from the’steerage deck, trying to see through this mass of masonry that was at once inviting and threatening the huddled men and women in the third class, In the immigration station I had my first great surprise. I saw the steer- age passengers handled hy the officials like so many animals. Not a word of kindness, of encouragement, to lighten the burden of tears that rests heavily upon the newly arrived on American shores. Hope, which lured these im- migrants to the new land, wither un- der the touch of harsh officials. Little children who should be alert with ex- pectancy, cling instead to their moth- ers’ skirts, weeping with fright. Such is the unfriendly spirit that exists in the immigration barracks. How well I remember standing at the Battery, in lower New York, upon my arrival, alone, with a few poor be- longings in the way of clothes, and very little money. Until yesterday I was among folks who understood me. This morning I seemed to have awak- ened in a land where my language meant little more to the native (so far as meaning is concerned) than the pitiful noises of a dumb animal. Where was I to go? What was I to do? Here was the promised land. The elevated rattled by and did not answer. The automobiles and the trol- leys sped by, heedless of ‘the. _ HAD note of one address, and thither a fellow-passenger conducted me. It.was the house of a country- man of mine, on —— street, near Leaving this place, I found the same kind of employment in the Mouquin Restaurant. What the conditions there are at present I do not know. But at that time, 13 years ago, the pantry was horrible. There was not a single window in it. When the elec- tric light, for some reason went out, it was totally dark, so that one couldn't move without rifiming into things. The vapor! ofthe boiling water where the plates;"plitis and sil- ver were washed formed great drops of water on the ceiling, took up all the dust and grime there; thér fell slowly one by one upon my hea@ as I worked below. During working Hours the heat was terrific. The table leavings amassed in, barrels near he pantry gave out nauseating exhaldtions. The sinks had no direct sewerage connec- tions. Instead, the weter:wag permit- ted to overrun to the floor. In the center of the room thereswas,a drain. Every night the pipe wasiqlogged and the greasy water rose, higher and higher and we trudged in the slime. We worked twelve hours one day and fourteen the next, ve hours’ off every other Sunday.. Damp food hardly fit for dogs and five or six dol- lars was the pay. After, gight months I left the place for fear of contracting consumption, : HAT was a sad year. What toiler does not remember it? ‘The poor slept outdoors and rummaged the garb- age barrels to find a cabbage leaf or a rotten potato. For three months I searched New York, its length and its breadth, without finding work. One morning, in an employment agency, I met a young man more forlorn and unfortunate than I. He had gone with- out food the day before and was still fasting. I took him to a restaurant, investing almost all that remained to me of my savings in a meal, which he ate with wolfish voracity, «His hun- ger stilled, my new friend, declared Seventh avenue. I remained there a|that it was stupid to remain in New while, but it became all too evident that there was no room for me in his house, which was overstocked wita human beings, like all workingmen’s houses. In deep melancholy I left the place towards eight in the evening to look for a place to sleep. I retraced my steps to the Battery, where I took a bed for the night in a suspicious- looking establishment, the best I could afford. Three days after my arrival, the countryman already men- | York. If he had the money, he said, he would go to the couptry, where there was more chance of,work, with- out counting the pure air and the sun which could be had for nothing. With the money remaining in my posses- sion we took, the steambo&@for Hart- ford, Connecticut, the sam fay. From Hartford we str out fora small town where my rugpot ‘had been once before, the name of which I forget. We tramped along the road, for us he took us on his farm, al though he had no need of our agsist- ance, He kept us there two fweeks, shall always treasure the ylemary o| that American family—the first Ameri cans who treated us as human, despite the fact that we came from the land of Dante and Garibaldi. PACE limitations do not permit me to trace in detail our subsequent wanderings im search of someone who would give us bread and water in re- turn for our labor. From town to town, village to village, farm to farm, we went. We knocked at factory doors and were sent away . . . “Noth- ing doing . . . Nothing doing.” We were literally without a penny be- tween the two of us, with hunger gnawing at our insides. We were lucky when we found an abandoned stable where we could pass the night in an effort to sleep. One morning we were fortunate. In South Glaston- bury @ countryman from Piedmont treated us to breakfast. Need I tell how grateful we were to him? B then we had to keep going in the dis- heartening search. About three in the afternoon we arrived in Middle- town, Connecticut, tired, bruised, hun- gry, and dripping from three hours walk in a rain. F the first person that we met we inquired for some North-Italian (my illustrious companion was ex- cessively partial to his own section of Italy) and were directed to a nearby house. We knocked and were re- ceived by two Sicilian women, mother and daughter. We asked to be per- mitted to dry our clothes at the stove, and this they did most readily, despite the fact that they were Southerners. And while we sat there getting dried we asked about the chances for ob- taining work in that vicinity. They told us there was not a stitch to be had, and advised trying in Springfleld, where there are three brick furnaces. Observing the pallor of our faces and the visible trembling of our bod- ies, the good women inquired whether we were hungry. We confessed that we had not eaten since six in the morning. Whereupon the younger of them handed us a short loaf of bread and a long knife. “I can give you nothing else,” she said, and her eyes filled with honest tears. “I have five children and my old mother to feed. My husband works on the railroad and earns no more League Plenum Takes Big Step Forward Towards Unity and Mass Work plenum of the national executive committee of the Young Work- ers League was held in Chicago on Saturday and Sunday, May 29th and 30th: “The league plenum was preceded by the plenum of the central commit- @ of the Workers (Communist) Party which through the adoption of unani- mous resolutions on the most important phases of the party work, laid the basis for the elimination of factionalism from the ranks of the American sec- tion of the Communist International, and the gath Ing of all the forces for serious work to win the masses for the revolution, In representation and in the work accomplished this plenum was a real convention. There were present all the 20 members of the N. BE. C., the candidates and alternates, all the dis- trict organizers, and the leading’ com- rades of almost all the larger cities of the country. But unlike the last con- vention of the Young Workers League, which concerned itself only with the factional situation in the party, this plenum, following the party plenum, where full agreement on all resolu- tions prevailed, devoted all of its time for the duscussion of the,fasks of the Young Workers Leag ‘The plenum discussed the resolutioof the Young Communist International wherein are outlined the tasks of the American section in the immediate future, and unanimously endorsed the resolutio: Then followed discussion, on the nomic struggles of the youth, a militiarist work, sports, the childre: movement, agitation and propaganda methods, the condition of the newly re- organized units of the league, the press and a number of other impor- tant tasks. A great deal of time was devoted to a discussion on the strengthening of the league apparatus, and the training of the membership for work among the masses of tolling youth. Special attention was given to the task of winning over the young Negro workers. Americanization and Proletarian- ization, One of the best signs that the league is on the correct road and will become the leader of the American working class youth, was the man- ner in which the discussion was car- ried on. The Young Communist In- ternational in its resolution hag laid down as one of the most important tasks for the Y. W. L. the recruiting of new proletarian elements from the basic industries, and to pay special attention towards the recruiting of na- the furriers’ strike and other strug- gles found the league an active partic- jpant, there was the least evidence of the remnants of factionalism. . The plenum, after laying the basis for the complete: abolition of the remnants of factionalism by the adoption of unanimous resolution on the main tasks of the league, urged the com- rades to get deeply into mass activ- ity, as the best guarantee for the com- plete abolition of factionalism. Aside from the..resolutions the delegates manifested a spirit of unity which showed that they understood their re- sponsibility to the working class ~ Organizaitonal Changes, The first meeting of the N. E. ©. after the convention elected a bureau and a@ secretariat, as well as a na tional secretary. All these commit- tees were elected by a majority of one vote that of the party representatitve. This plenum reorganized the bureau and the secretariat and the vote on each was unanimous. The new bureau selected consists of Sam Darcy, John Williamson, Nat Kaplan, Max Schact- man, Will Herberg, Peter Shapiro, H. B. Phillips, John Harvey, Pat Toohey, Schneiderman, Valeria Meltz, 8. Mil- grim, and Jay Lovestone (party rep- resentative). The secretariat now consists of Sam Darcey, John Wiilliamson, Nat Kaplan, Max Schachtman, and H. V. Phjlips. Comrade Darcy was unanimously elected national secretary, in place of Comrade Zam, who is the first Amer- ican to have been elected as a mem- ber of presidium of the executive com- mittee of the Young Communist Inter national. _—JACK STACHEL, Every Worker Corresponde: just be a subscriber to the American The Boycott Becomes Illegal. begging the pittance which it receives | sioneq, who was head cook in a rich |and finally got up coi gh to tive young workers. This instruction | Worker Correspondent. Are you one? ee ene: 78s ths Zack Stoke, fr. ts tor. eae De , {club on West —~ street overlooking | knock on a cottage door. hmmers:| te 41-75 9. daripet sn mabe thins ty ene rot 1 wae: assnitell tt. eal hapeetiemmmemeiemmatat Rangé Co. vs. American Federa-| What Rios et vig jor must | the Hudson River, found me a post in| can farmer opened to’ ou . We bse ig gets most serious manner, the league lead- r “~ tion of Labor came up for decision be- | £0 {nto politics on its own merase to! his kitchen as dishwasher. I worked | asked for work. He had none to give wil + éit due Weeks a ership sharply criticizing its own past fore U. S. Supreme Court Justice | safeguard its lah Enetyeto si in there three months. The hours were |us, but he was touched by, our pov- ae bess “ad ripe i Ge Ome F activbies uncovering its errors, and Lhe A oa Wright. The boycott in that case was eventually to wrest from capital its long; the garret where we slept was|erty and our all too evident hunger. near icing a ment eats egal ne working out plans for more intensive tA held illegal, the judge delivering him- | Political and economic power, suffocatingly hot; and the vermin did|He gave us food, then wept through semrce Ane SuMly discovered Several kk in the basic industri d : self of this brilliant piece of wisdom: not permit me to close an eye. Al- apples, which she insisted upon our|Work in tl eS etch is Sbie : the whole town with ugj;inquiring adopting methods and forms of\work “It (the choice) is between the A sub a day will help to drive | most every night I sought escape in | whether there was work, Net a stroke yale Palgaryrnet we rig out .in the Pike Kee suned dali Towards the wii Every ts brostration under the fect of the | #Pétet_eway. pean. was to be found. Then, gut of pity | «wnat can that be over there where |ning of these elements. It was freely point disordered throng. . . . we the chimney is?” asked my companion, |stated by all the delegates that the will bring “It is written in this record that e be “Itds the brick factory, no doubt, |league is yet isolated, that its compo- you the labor union and its officials med- or ers ommunist art Let us go and ask for a job.” sition is Poor, being mostly a closer to die into a member's daily affairs ? - Pra sk sehen we’ ab cts spurte in small industry and for- MOSCOW deeper than does the law, restrtict- a - * fig him in hos that the law “Well, then, let ns go to.the home of f° esolutions adopted on the G ttl leaves free, and thus so continually 3 the owner,” was my suggestion. work of the league pay special atten- i the crowd their authority upon his at- “No, no, let's go on elsewhere. |tion to changing the composition of point! tention that insensibly he comes to regard them as of the first control in his affairs. ... His very respect for authority assumes that all authority is respectable, and so upon them he relies, by them he is led. + + . Amnouncing freedom to pur- chase what and where one will, they deny that right to him himself; pro- claiming the right of all men to la- ‘bor, they restrict it to the holders of a union card; declaring the right ‘to enjoy full earning capacity, they limit his daily earnings to a stated sum.” When these decisions appeared, dealing a death blow to the eftective- ness of labor’s most potent weapon, the strike, what was the attitude of Samuel Gompers, the president of the American Federation of Labor? Was at one of rebellion and resistance to the unlawful interference by courts in labor disputes on behalf of employ- ers? No. In his editorial in the American Federationist of December, 1908, he counseled supine submission to this unlawful usurpation of power by the courts and expressed the hope that at some future time humane judges would notsact as harshly against the poor wofkingman. New York Injunctions. ‘A ND now, a few cases in our own state (New York), In Edelman, etc., v. Retail Grocery and D. C. U,, 210 Misc. 618, the court held that where there was no real strike, patrol- ling the streets with signs averring a strike should be enjoined—the court, of course, being the sole arbiter as to whether the strike was real or no. ' In Altman v. Schlesinger and others, Plumbers Helpers’ Club of Brooklyn, New York calls on all helpers to join the club. Meetings every FRIDAY night, 8:30 p. m., at 7 Thatford Avenue, Brooklyn, N. Y. What The Daily Worker Is--- What It Must Become By WILLIAM F. DUNNE. Fourth Article. HE DAILY WORKER has devoted entirely too much space to reports of party meetings addressed by party members. Jt has been forced to do so because apparently there has grown up in the party the belie? that activity and achievement are to be measured by the amount of space that,ean be filled in our official organ. I do not want to mention names or districts in this connection and I re- frain, therefore, from giving concrete examples. The truth of the statement is obvious to anyone who reads,The DAILY WORKER. The evil is so pronounced at times that certain issues of The DAILY WORKER take on the appearance of the press agent material with which every journalist is familiar. 'S there any reason why a column or more should be devoted to the speeches of party members unless it is for the reason that our Communist vanity demands it? Does anyone suppose that a consid- erable number of workers are interest- ed in reading the reiteration of fun- damental Communist principles thinly disguised under the camouflage of a news story? If they were, The DAILY WORKER would have the largest cir- culation of any paper in the United States, Not only is much space in our of- ficial organ used for what is nothing more or less than self-advertising in a crude and to non-party workers dis- gusting form, but the custom has been established.of accompanying reports of meetings where comrades speak with eulogies of their eloquence and abili- ties which should make the vainest among us blush down to his heels, The offect of this on workers who might otherwise by sympathetic is shown concretely in the circulation figures of our official organ. may be true that all the eloquence, courage, knowledge end working- class political ability is concentrated im our party, and it may be true like- wise that modesty is a bourgeois vir- tue, but—we are trying to organize bourgeois-minded workers and draw them closer to us, Would it not be better to simply recount the facts of our struggles and let the workers say whether we are what we claim to be, to prove by our actions rather than by constant claims of Communist virtue made without the quiver of an eyelid in the columns of our press, day in and day out, that we are the most conscious and the best disciplined sections of the working class? HIS is what we finally will have to do anyway, th6 we shout daily from the housetops our superior quali- ties. But what we are really doing is shouting to ourselves, and we shout so loud that we fail to understand that it is only the Communists them- selves who are making all the noise. The truth of the matter is that the American working class is little inter- ested in what Communists are saying or doing or in what is happening to them. HE reason for this is clear. Our party has very little foun- dation in the American labor move- ment and its part in the daily strug- YOU CAN WIN This Bust of Lenin With 500 Points (Five yearly subscriptions to The Daily Worker) gles of the American workers is @] 4 peautitul work by G. Piccoli—9 in, small one so far. Its influence under these conditions cannot be very ex- tensive nor can it be increased by long ‘reports in the Communist press of speeches delivered by our com- rades. Even tho these reports are accurate high—in ivory finish. A BOOK OF RED CARTOONS: so tar as statements go (it is notice-|9 x12 in., with over seventy eartoons able, however, that seldom does the story of a meeting give any indication of the number of workers present), the artificiality of the whole approach is plain to a worker with any expe- rience whatsoever in the class strue gle, (To be continued.) by 17 leading artists, with each sub for one year to The Datly Worker, Deer eee eee Pe ' : | Work of that kind would kill you, You're not built that way,” he coun- tered. T became evident enough that in the long period of fruitléss searching for work the fellow had lost his taste for labor. It is a state of mind that is not at all unusual. In the repeated impact of disappointment and insult, hunger and deprivation, the unem- ployed victim develops a certain in- difference to his own fate. A terrible state of mind it is and one that makes vagabonds forever of the weaker in- dividuals among the unfortunates, As I stood there trying to swing* him back to a healthy view of our predicament I thought of the house we had left a little while ago. I thought with a pang of their slim evening meal, made slimmer because of the bread we had devoured. The thapght of my own troubles blotted them out for a while. The memory of the last night, the cold sleepless night, made me tremble. I took a look at myself; I was almost in rags, Another night coming on. . . . (Continued tomorrow.) Stanley Clark Tours for Sacco, Vanzetti Stanley Clark, well-known lab orator, will tour the eastern Ohio mining section in behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti as follows: ; Neffs, June 13, 2 p. m. Tiltonsville, June 13, 7 p. m, Powhattan Point, June 14, 7 p, m. Bellaire, June 15,7 p.m. | Other Sacco-Vanzetti meetings to be held there are: Bradley, June 16, 7 p. m. Dillonvale, June 17, 7 p. m. European Jobs Hard to Find, AMSTERRAM.—(FP) — Unemploy- ment in Burope has shown only a slight decline, and that is due largely to seasonal activities, says a review prepared by the Intl. Federation of Trade Unions. It forecasts a long pe- riod of industrial depression, SEND IN A SUB! the league, to make it the true repre- sentative leader of the American work- ing class youth. The resolutions call for the shifting of the membership from the light to heavy industry, the intensification of the work in the shops, the increase of the activity in the trade unions, increased efforts to organize the youth into the trade un- ions, the struggle for the betterment of the condftion of the workfhg class youth, and greater participation in all the movements of the working class youth, The plenum Jaid down as one of the necessary steps towards a mass league the application of the united front tactic, feorganization Not Yet Completed While already there were successes to report on the reorganization on the basis of shop and street nuclei, most of the district reports showed that the league has by far not yet com- pletely reorganized. One of the’ big- gest handicaps in the reorganization being the fact that the majority of the members work in. small shops. Also the league lacked experience and made many errors in the reorganiza- tion, On the basis of the experience now gained together with the intensi- fication of work in the larger shops, the league will be able to solve the problem of reorganization. The strengthening of the league ap- paratus as a whole was given atten- tion, that is, the strengthening of the district, city, and’ section committees, Unity and Mass Work. While at the last convention in Oc- tober, 1925, there were two organized factions and a national committee con- sisting of an equal number of each side was elected, with the party rep- resentative having the deciding vote, at this plenum there was evident a spirit of unity, “and all questions of major importance were unanimously adopted, The reason for this is to be found in the fact that the league has been conducting mass work, that it has seriously taken to the task of League. In the city, where the com- rades were busily engaged in work, where the Passaic strike and TTT TTL OM a ; ak THE YOUNG WORKER published twice a.month, is the fighting paper of Red youth—organ of the Young Workers League. The spirit of revolutionary youth is kindled—the lessons of our future leadership are learned here. For you or your children—subscribe! ~ ONLY $1 A YEAR But a Year's Sub Counts 30 Points! THE YOUNG COMRADE is the only children’s paper that is issued by the American revolutionary movement. Published monthly—give your children the pleasure of this little Red paper to assure them for the future fighting ranks of the work- ing class, ONLY 60 CENTS A YEAR But 10 Points for Each Sub! WITH EACH 100 POINTS A BOOK OF ‘ RED CARTOONS SUBSCRIBE! ee ee ee THE DAILY WORKER PUB. CO, 1113 W. Washington B! Chicago, ill, seven fOr subscription Young Worker srnnen.MO8, Young. Comrade .... 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