The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 20, 1926, Page 1

The DAILY WORKER «. a me s AF ep the Standard for a V and Farmers’ Gove NEw "Yo by mall, $8.00 per year, Vol. Ill. No. 136. Subscription Rates: Bulle Bae _ WORKER. Entered at Second-class matter September 21, 1923, at the Post Office at Cnicagy, illinois, under the Act of March &, 1879. by “mail, $6.00 per year, SUNBAR es JUNE 20, 1926 a” PUBLISHING CO., This Issue Consists of Two Sections, SECTION ONE. Published Daily except Sunday by THE DAILY WORKER 1113 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, IL, Price 5 Cents CONFESSES SACCO, VANZETTI INNOCENT! WHERE ARE BODIE S OF BLAST VICTIMS? | GARY, OPEN SHOP HELL, DEGRADES STEEL WORKERS Sanitary Conditions are Unspeakable (Special to The Daily Worker) GARY, Ind., June 18—Around the open heart and all rolling mills the laborers in this paradise of the open shop hell of steel and iron suffer many miserable conditions. At all mills the arinking water, 80 needful to men working at top speed in an inferno of| molten metals, is obtained from wells. There is only one well to a whole mill and no provision is made to get the water to the workers, The men have to go to the weil with buckets, often waiting in line for 15 to 20 minutes and carry the water back to the place of work. On their way, however, they must dodge the huge cranes and crawl between them, always in danger of having their lives crushed out, Dirty Lake Water. Where The mills have wash houses, and not all have even this simple ne- cessity, they use lake water pumped from the dirty frontage filled with drainage and dead fish and all sorts of disgusting filth. No soap or towels are furnished by the steel trust, altho this is supposed to be done. Where there are excuses for wash houses there are not enough, and thousands of workers daily have to go home without washing, with no place either to change clothes on, clean up. . ij In.. the_ street. carp..the men..are. packed like sardines, 150 or more to the car, still covered with grime and “sweat from their work and packed so as to suffocate each other with their odor, let alone making them- selves obnoxious to other passengers. * No Washing Here. In the American Sheet and Tin Plate Company there is no wash house at all. Workers must come and go in dirty clothes. There is even no place to wash their hands before eating lunch. Here there is one foreman to each four men, driving them at top speed. The wages for common labor, the hardest work, are 45 cents an hour. If the men work at tonnage rates the rate is cut if they make more than $5.50 or $6 pér day. Accidents Every Day. No day in the steel mill passes but what there is an accident of greater or lesser horror to the workers, all caused by the terrific speed up, caus- ing the workers to step into danger and undertake extra hazards to hold their jobs and make a wage barely able to exist. It is physically impos- sible to be safe and still work in the steel mills, te Every month the slave drivers, the foremen, are called into a meeting, (Continued on page 4) MOTHER TAKES BABE TO COUNTY JAUL WITH HER Garment Picket Starts 15-Day Sentence Mrs, Vanda Kaleto entered the Cook county jail late yesterday after- noon with a seven-months old bahe in her arms to start serving a fifteen- day jail sentence imposed on her by “Injunction Judge” Denis E. Sullivan, for her activity in the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ 1924 strike In the Market St. district. Morris Krvetz entered the county jail at the same time to start serving e@ 50-day sentence, Ida Dubnoff and Fannie Goldberg are to be released trom the county jail this afternoon at 4 o'clock, A number of union committees and sev- eral hundred friends and fellow-union- ists are preparing to meet them as they leave jail after serving their 10- day sentences. ee (er TODAY ISTAGDAY By B. K. GEBERT. HE Illinois Steel Corporation, a subsidiary of .the United States Steel Corporation in Gary, Ind., is a huge plant that employs more than 12,000 workers.” The plant extends for three miles along the front of Lake Michigan. The factory buildings are surrounded by water, three’ bridges connecting them with the mainland. On the bridges is a heavy company police guard, watching that no one ex- cept the slaves get into the plant. In the front is a five-story building, look- ing like a jail; it is.a “hospital.” Monday morning the plant was shaken by an explosi-_n, “How many were killed?” I asked a worker from the plant. “I was there,” he said. Thirty Killed. “Not less than 20 and not more than 30 were killed. I saw them and HERRIOT 10 TAKE POST OF PREMIER Briand Fails to Form Coalition Cabinet (Special to The Daily Worker) PARIS, June 18—Edouard Herriot, | leader of the “radical socialist” party, tonight agreed to form a cabinet after the attempt to do so by the past premier,,Agistide Briand, had failed. Herriot accepted the mandate from P¥ésfdent Dotmergue “after the latter had been notified by Briand that he was unable to form a ministry because Herriot’s party would not collaborate in forming a “national union” cabinet from‘all right and some of the left bloc parties. ~ Fall of Franc Behind It. As Herriot had refused to take part in Briand’s venture, which was under- taken as an attempt to unite sufficient forces in hopes of stopping the disas- trous fall of the franc, friends of Briand declare that he will decline to serve in any position in the Herriot ministry and will pass on the min- istry of foreign affairs, which he has occupied at the same time as the premeirship, to someone of Herriot’s choosing, 3 Reliable reports from inner circles say that some powerful French bank- ing interests which are close to Her- riot and other left leaders, even being on friendly terms with Leon Blum of the socialist party, were opposed to Briand and wished by shad to replace him. Briand Aivoghtnar Outs Briand, in an interview, stated that the caucus of the “radical socialists” would not permit fierriot to accept a cabinet post with Briand in the pre- tmier’s post, hence he had to quit. Amalgamated Builds Apartment Building NEW YORK, June 18.—Work wili shortly be begun on the first co-opera- tive apartment building to be erected by the Amalgamated Clothing Work- ers’ Corporation, formed by the Amal gamated Clothing Workers of Amer- ica. The building will be erected on 42 city lots adjacent to Van Cortlandt Park and the Jerome avenue subway station, Half the land wiil be ased for the building and half reserved for gar- dens. There will be 250 apartments of three, four or five rooms, and there will be no more than three apart- ments to a staircase. Average rental will be about $12.50 a room, Each tenant will be required to invest $250 a room, which will constitute his equity in the property. Members of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers ot America and of otherJabor unions will be eligible for apai nts, Put a copy of the DAILY WORKER in your pocket when you go to your union meeting,» For about 100 or more injured carried to the ‘hospital.’” “What did they do with the dead ones?” “All the workers who were killed in the plant were taken to William, Mar- shall & Goods’ undertaking establish- ment. You see, Williams is the mayor of Gary and Marshall is a deputy coro. ner, “The trust kills the workers, and the ‘honorable’ gentlemen bury them. Everybody knows that there is an un- derstanding between the mayor and the trust. And nobody knows exactly how many were killed, except the com- pany, the coroner and the mayor, “Many workers were torn to pieces. Parts of bodies were found all over the place of the explosion. Workers picked them up and sent them to the mayor.” “What caused the explosion?” was my next question, Board of Education Ban on Free Speech Rouses Big Protest NEW YORK CITY, June 18—The American Civil Liberties Union, which was barred from using high schoo}: buildings by the board of education for a free speech meeting, a prohibi- tion approved of by the New York | board of trade and transportation, has asked the latter tojallow a speaker to come before the board to speak on the purposes of the union. The Teachers’ Union of New York City attacked the ban of the board of j education, declaring that “this display ;of petty intolerance is unworthy of those who stand ‘sponsor for educa- tion.” The teachers added a demand on the board to “cease its repressive tactics and hold public hearings on the question of opening the public schools to the discussion of. allpolitis eal and economic questions by respon- sible groups of adults.” PRIMARY SLUSH 'FUND NOW OVER 2 MILLION MARK Votes Stolen | by Vare in Labor Wards Special to The Daily Worker. WASHINGTON, June 18 — The known expenditures in Pennsylvan recent three-cornered senatorial race soared above the $2,000,000 mark to- day after Eric Fisher Wood, western campaign manager for the Pepper- Fisher ticket, told the senate slush fund committee that he had spent $200,000 in thirty-one western counties outside Pittsburgh. This testimony brought the total sum spent on behalf of the candidacy of Senator George Wharton Pepper and his ticket to $1,273,945. This amount includes the $327,335 reported by 8. J. Topley, the Pepper-Fisher treasurer in Pittsburgh, as spent and obligated for the campaign in that city. The total revealed cost of the race at the same time mounted to $2,075,- 117. Mayor Chas. H. Kline of Pittsburgh was forced to admit that he “talked” to city employees just prior to the primaries. The committeemen were dissastisfied with his denial that he threatened to oust any city employe that refused to help the Pepper cam- paign, Ballots ‘Shaieky Not Counted By LAURENCE TODD, Federated Press. WASHINGTON.—(FP) —Testimony by leaders ofthe Vare machine in Philadelphia, given before the senate committee investigating corruption and fraud in the Pennsylvania pri- mary of May 18, indicated that whole- sale theft of ballots cast by trade unionists for Pinchot had taken place. For instance, Harry A. Mackey, (Continued on uagé 2) Relief of the STRIKING BRITISH MINERS [sao] iThe Cause. “The airsteam pipe was leaking. The old fomeman knew what was wrong. We)protested, demanding for a week thatthe pipe be fixed. Noth- ing was done. A new foreman came. You can not have more than 4,300 pounds of pressure in the pipe. But the new foreman, a very young man, didnt know this’ Besides, he liked to show the b0ss that he can speed up the work. , Hp} put the pressure up to 5,600 pounds, and it happened, “It was le, No one can imag- ine how terrible it was. Blood and tar, bodies anil steel mixed together with the gro from the injured and dying workers!” Company Coroner, The explosion happened on Monday. Friday morning was chosen as the day to make the official investigation of the blast and its causes. And who do you think 4§ going to investigate? | shifts, eight hours a day. ECHO OF SACCO, Butler Aid As Asks D. of J. Investigation } WASHINGTON, June 18—The ef- fectiveness of the nation-wide cam- paign to save Sacco and Vanzetti from the electric chair was testified to by the int iction into the house of rep- resent y of a bill by Repre- sentaive (Rep) of Massa- chusetts, calling for a Department of Justice investigation of mass meet- ings being held thruout the country on behalf ofitthe two framed-up work- ers. ore Underhill told the house that a con- certef campaign was in progress, “probably backed by Soviet Russia, to use the Sacco-Vanzetti case as a means of gathering Communist re- cruits dn the’ United States.” | I. L. D. Statement The statement of the International Labor Defense was as follows: . HE International Labor Defense, thru its secretary, James P. Can- non, has issued the following state- ment on the resolution of Congress- man Underhill: The attempt of Congressman Under- hill to use the Department of Justice to suppress the protest movement for Sacco and Vanzetti is in line with the whole procedure from the very incep- tion of this case; which is one of the most outrageous conspiracies of mod- ern times, It was the exposures by Sacco and Vanzetti of the barbarous and illegal actions of thesDepartment of Justice against Elia and Salsedo which brot about their own arrest and conviction on framed-upsevidence. We denounce the attempt to sup préss the justified protest of the work- ers against the legal murder of Sacco and Vanzetti but we welcome a real investigation of the great campaign in their behalf which is growing in strength and volume every day. This campaign is ithe expression of the opinion of the American workers that Sacco and Vamnzetti are innocent of any crime and ‘are being sacrified for their activity dn the labor movement. We are wiring today to Congress- man Victor Berger requesting him to sponsor a resolution demanding a con- gressional investigation not only of the campaign of the workers in be- half of Sacco and Vanzetti but also of the Saceo and Vanzetti case itself-— an investigation held in the light of day before the eyes of the whole country and not in the star chamber of the Department of Justice—which will reveal such a monstrous miscar- riage of justice against the two Italian workers, Sacco and Vanzetti, and will arouse such a storm of public protest that the contemplated legal murder will be rendered impossible, ** 3427 Indiana Ave. 2409 N. Halsted St. | 10900 Michigan Aves1806 S. Racine Ave.’ from $4 to $4.40 for one shift. even these small earnings we must divide with the bosses. Before every Christmas and on other occasions, the bosses force us to give donations for presents for them. The bosses get from $300 to $1,500 in donations from The very Mr. Marshall who, by bury- ing the killed men, is actually on the pay roll of the company. He is a deputy coroner. The investigation will-be short. It will take place in the offices of Coroner Evans. As Mr. Mar- shall said “he already did much inves- tigating.” us every year. On every pay day In the meantime the wreckage] every foreman expects us to give him around the plant was cleaned of the} some money. If you do not, well, he bodies and fallen bricks and slate, will find a way to kick you out. Also ‘In many cases the workers pay the foremen for jobs.” I looked for more than a half hour at the workers as they were coming from the Illinois Steel Works. Tired, exhausted, they barely shuffled to their miserable homes. They were workers of all nationalities and races. Ther were Americans, Negroes, Span- iards, Mexicans, Slavs, Greeks—thou- It is a sure thing that the “official investigation” will be a company whitewash. A real investigation can- not be made without the representa- tion of the workers, and until the pub- lie press is permitted to see things and move freely. Up to today every- thing is suppressed. Conditions in the Shop. I talked to another worker about conditions in the shop. “Well,” he} sands of them. said, “it is like this: We work three The bosses went home in automo- We make | biles. | Gary—Today and Tomorrow | Toe city of Gary is the living example of what the lords of coal, steel, oil and finance would make of America. It is a city built for a steel corporation, governed by a steel corporation and owned by a steel corporation. There is no will in Gary except that of the steel trust. The men who work in the mills and by-products plants, and their families, eat work and sleep, go to moving pictute shows) hold their modest social affairs, tell each other the small gossip of a workingclass community, are born, live and die. These things they may do—the things that are taken as emblems of freedom in Gary. But the workers are unorganized. Unions are hated by the steel trust. The municipal elections are contests between groups of steel trust agents, contending for the favors of the rulers. The workers may vote for one or the other section of the steel trust's henchmen. This too passes for freedom in Gary. But let a worker, or a bysinessman for that matter, criticize openly the labor policy of the steel trust and the power of the master is felt. Loss of the job or bankruptcy follow. The steel mills are the fortresses of the steel trust. In ad- dition to being fortresses they are prisons as were the fortresses of the czar of Russia. They are prisons where workers are con- fined for from eight to twelve hours per day, prisons where they may be killed or maimed as happened last Monday, without the steel trust being punished in any way. Of course, the steel trust does not force workers to labor in its prisons. The steel trust is an enlightened and Christian corporation which forces no one to work for it. The days of chattel slavery in the United States have passed into history. But thousands of Negroes and white workers do the hardest and most dangerous tasks in Gary. They are free to work or to quit—and starve, To paraphrase Anatole France: The steel trust gives both rich and poor the same right to suffer cold and hunger and sleep under bridges, In Gary the workers are free to sell themselves to the steel trust OR die, or to sell themselves to the steel trust AND die. There is only one way in which this condition car be changed. It is by the organization in a militant union, not only & of the workers in Gary but of all the workers in the steel in- dustry regardless of craft, color or religion. The disaster in the by-products works, the death and maim-| ing of a number of workers the exact total of which is buried! in the secret files of the rulers of Gary, has shown clearly the fact that this unorganized basic industry is a slaughter-house for workers. Shop committees in every depavament of the Gary plant, the beginning of agitation and organization work for a union, the publication and distribution of a labor paper, even tho very small and modest at first—this is the way to reply to the mur- der of workers and the brutal unconcern of the steel trust for the hardships of its employes. The steel trust has great power. ~ So have the workers—if they organize their power. Organ- ized power is the only thing the steel lords of Gary respect and fear. We hope the hot anger of the Gary workers aroused by the murder of their fellows will become a cold anger—an anger of cold determination, as hard as the Gary steel, to build a union that will turn steel trust serfdom into workingclass democracy. The steel trust Gary of today must become the Workers’ Gary of tomorrow. 2733 Hirsch Blvd. 3116 S. Halsted St. But |REAL MURDERER CONFESSES IN VANZETTI CASE Affidavit Gives New Hope to Defense By ESTHER LOWELL. Federated Press Staff Correspondent. BOSTON, Mass, June 18—New hope for freedom for Nicola Saceo and Bartolomeo Vanzetti after six years of imprisonment is based on the con- |.fession of Celestino Madeiros, himself awaiting execution as a twi ed bank holdup slayer, revealed for the first time today. The confession of Madeiros is supported by strong corroborating affidavits filed with a motion for a new trial, \ Two Weeks Gained. Defense Attorney William G. Thompson won two weeks more from onvict- | Judge Webster Thayer in order to se cure further affidavits which will make the proof of the innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti most conclusive. In his motion, Thompson disclosed that he had had eighteen af- and now hopes to have more han twenty-five. One of the strong of these is from United States hal Richards, who arrested the notorious Morelli gang, from Provi- dence, R. L, for stealing from freight cars. The Morelli gang took Madetres on the South Braintree pay roll rob- bery murder for which Sacco and anzetti were convicted. The affiday- of the defense show this. The Mo- relli gangsters now serving terms in federal prisons, while Madeiros waits in Dedham jail for the oute»me of his appeal for a thing trial. Weeks, the companion in crime of Madeiros after the South Braintree af- tair, is in Charlestown prison serving a life sentence. He told what Madei- ros had told him, and thus helped the defense despite the attempts of the state police to intimidate him and prevent kim from giving the informa- tion, Attorney Thompson told the court that the state is not co-operating in gettting the real criminals in the South Brdintree affair and thus say- ing Saceo and Vanzetti from an un- just execution. * 1. L. D. Urges Renewed Fight. “The publication of the confession of Celestino Madeirios should be the signal for increased and inteasified activity of the workers for Sacco and Vanzetti,” said James P. Cannon, sec- retary of International Labor Defense. “The absolute innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti was proved long ago and this new revelation contained in the con- fession of Madeiros only gives added confirmation to what has always been known to all who have interested themselves in the case, including those who are determined to take the lives of the two Italian workers. The Sacco-Vanzetti conferences which are now taking shape thruout the country must make the labor movement ring with the slogan: ‘Life and Freedom for Sacco and Vanzetti.’ This slogan, backed by the workers, will free Sacco and Vanzetti and be the most powerful warning to the reactionary interests that the legal murder of innocent workers cannot be carried out unchak | lenged.” pete | IN. Y. Taxi Drivers - At Mercy of Police NEW YORK, June 18.—Dropping of charges against Patrolman Joseph W. Heaney by Taxi Driver Valentine Bor- zello is taken by other New York cab drivers as a futther showing up of police control of hack jobs. As long as the city police department has charge of licensing cab drivers, and can revoke licenses so readily, the abuses wilich make it almost impossi- ble for a driver to get justice will con- tinue, the taxi men complain, CENTRALIA, IL, June 18, — The body of an unidentified Negro, “badly mangled, was found in the Iinois Central railroad yards here early to- day. Indications were the victim had been run down by a train during the night. 3209 Roosevelt Rd. 1902 W. Division St. 19 S. Lincoln St.