The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 9, 1926, Page 6

- Page’Six ~~ ti THE DAILY WORKER|A F. of L. Lea Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. 1113 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, IIL Phone Monroe 4712 SUBSCRIPTION RATES By: maii (in Chicago only): By mall (outs'de of Chicago): $8.00 per year $4.50 six months $6.00 per vear $3.50 six months $2.50 three months $2,00 three months Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, titnols J, LOUIS ENGDAHL WILLIAM F. DUNNE {*" MORITZ J. LOEB Editors Business Manager Entered as second-class mail September 21, 1923, at the post-office at Chi- cago, lil, under the act of March 3, 1879, Advertising rates on application. e200 Even Jail Torture of Union Women Does Not Move Illinois Labor Officialdom to Open Protest. Another union garment worker, Sophie Rudell, has entered Cook county jail, sent there by the open shop forces of Chicago for violat ing an injunction against picketing. A stream of garment workers, most of them women, enter and leave the foulest jail in the United States as Judge Sullivan and his open shop masters take their revenge on the members of the In- ternational Ladies’ Garment Workers who fought the battle of labor in 1924 without care for the consequences to themselves. Meanwhile, inside the jail, under the rule of the gangster politicians who execute the orders of ‘the “silk stocking” capitalists in Chicago, scenes that resemble those in the lower depths of Dante’s hell are being enacted. The blood of the mother of a seven-months old child is exchanged with that of a prostitute by some drug-crazed jail hospital “trusty” and this union woman, whose hands are hardened by a life time of toil, is treated as an inmate of the lowest vice dens from which comes much of the revenue on which the gangster tools of the open shop interests fatten. But from the officials of the State Federation and the Chicago Federation of Labor comes no call for action and protest. In the Federation News has been a criticism of Attorney General Carlstrom because he did not “advise” Governor Small that pardoning of these union men and women was within his powers. This is nothing but an attempt to shift the issue and cover up the utter incapacity of the official leaders of Illinois labor to think in any other terms than that of back door deals with politicians of the bosses’ parties. There was a time when Chicago’s trade union movement was not so deep in the mire of capitalist party politics that it could not an act for the freedom of Mooney and Billings. Here is another case, right in its home, involving one of the basic principles of the American trade union movement—the fight against injunections—but it does nothing but whine on the doorsteps of the henchmen and officeholders of the republican party—the sworn enemy of the trade union movement and the whole working class. When are the officials of Illinois’ trade union movement going se the shameful blot on its name and courage by demand- ing the release of the members of the I. L. G. W.—men, women, wives and mothe who are paying the penalty exacted by the bosses and their judicial lackeys from all workers who fight the best they can that the labor movement may live, grow and come to power? spea to act to € Smudging the Record of Passaic Nothing for a long time has made so clear the great gap between the rank and file of the American Federation of Iyabor unions and the officialdom as the recent statement of the A. F. of L. executive council denouncing the Passaic textile strike as a Communist enter- prise and urging stoppage of all support to the United Front Com- mittee which has organized 15,000 textile workers and held them to- gether in a strike which has aroused the admiration of the whole working class world. Thousands of members of A. F. of L. unions have supported the Passaic strike morally and financially solely because it was a strug- gle of their fellow wor against ruthless and greedy bosses. They did not care whether there were Communists among the strikers and on the s e committee. They cared and they still care, in spite of the official statement, only for the successful outcome of the strike. ‘ Relief has been sent to Passaic generously. The response of the rank and file to the P ¢ appeal has written a golden page in the history of American trade unionism, That page has been smudged now by the narrow and callous statement of high-salaried and well-fed union officials whose wages for one week would feed a Passaic striker’s family for a month. We have enough confidence in the membership of the A. F. of L. unions to believe that they will continue to support the heroic strug- gle of the Passaic strikers even tho there be Communist workers ac- tively engaged in the same struggle. The A. F. of L. executive council, not the rank and file, has tried to break the unifed front of American labor against the New Jersey textile rons and their police and courts. “OF The PIERCE ARROW MOTOR Co. POREEN AOU E EEO HOE HOHE DOR MOU Sehchatehsheheheiehshihiiehiiehehihehsuaintebed Wold Merl. . — Butte _Fobruary § 1926 EAUNCH FIGHT ON PIFCE-WORK SYSTEM” ® LEAVE SHOP AS .PROTEST D4eWo ' Disgusted with tho dolay of the company and its failure to supe ply them with stock,17 motel fintahors,in tho Body Departiont & on their hats and coats and oft tho shop in a body at noon last Wednesday ' ' —_ : the first temuo ef cur} op paper THE WORKERS 4 ‘t will appoar regularly and , 4t 19 hopod in mudh improved form } twico every month, t 1 When tho "Straw Boss” trioa to* 1 intimidato Show’ into reat 1 tho mon told him that they W114 1 not spend their timo in the’ shop 1 without getting paid for it,” ' ' ' THE WORKERS POINT 4s ismued and written by workera of ‘tho Pioroo Arrow Motor Co, Plant,for all tho workers ef the plant, T HE WORKERS POINT an ergan ef the workors,recognizos that it is tho purpose of tho company to oX= 4 gl) departmonts of the plant, ploit our labor, That to the extent, with.tho prosont pleco’ work syee that the company is ablo to keep , “nm mhe * S aagantat® us wnderpaid and to the ovtent th: - it te nble to eave ‘ aor” Workers’ Factory Paper at Pierce-Arrow Auto Works, Buffalo, N. Y, —;~ Thore is widosproad dissatise faction among picgo workers in THE DAILY WORKER The Call for Aid for the British Coal Strike—The Factors Bringing This Action—Breakdown of Extreme Right Leadership in the U. M. W. of A.—Nationalist Loyalties. Scotch, Welsh, Irish and Slave—The Coolidge Debacle—Imperialist Rivalry ~~Powerful Sweep of British Struggle—Other Causes—The Passaic..Strike—Concrete Assistance Needed by British Workers—Its Political Value—Stoppage of Coal Shipments and a Boycott on British Goods By WILLIAM. F, DUNNE, HE announcement by Green on July 1 that the executive council of the American Federation of Labor had decided at its Cincinnati meeting to issue a call to all affiliated unions for financial aid for the Brit- ish coal strikers is of great impor- tance for the American and world la- bor movement, It is the first time that such an ac- tion has been taken in support of a strike in another nation. As a matter of fact, it has been with the greatest reluctance that similar appeals have been issued for support of strikes of American workers by the A. F. of L. executive council, HE action is the more significant when we recall that the British coal strike is a continuation of the general strike and that the struggle is plainly one between ‘the British trade union movement and the govern ment, and still further a struggle be- tween the right and left wings of the British labor movement. It would be a gross exaggeration to conclude that the appeal for aid for a strike which has decisive implica- tions for British capitalism means that the American Federation of Labor is developing strong left tendencies, nev- ertheless it is evidence of a ferment taking place in the ranks of the Amer- ican trade union movement, the causes of which can be sketched only in the broadest outlines at this time. HE departure of the A. F. of L. ex- ecutive council from its traditional policy of “non-interference” with work- ing-class struggles in other nations— amounting at times to either passive or active hostility—is the product of a number of factors, a few of them de- cisive, but the most of them of a contributory seccondary character having, however, a strong cumulative effect. Some of these factors are: 1. Tne bankruptcy of the Lewis policy in the United Mine Workers of America, the largest union in the A. F. of L. a. The Lewis machine has now only an “apparatus” contro! of this once powerful union, The Lewis machine, because it has brought the union to the verge of ruin, will ne defeated by a progressive bloc if the leading strata of these elements have the courage to chaitenge Lewis, conduct an energetic campaign, take up the task of rescuing the union from the coal operators and build- ing up its power by a militant or- ganization drive in the non-union fields, HE United Mine Workers have al- ready sent out a call for relief for the British coal miners to their local unions. Many of the leading local and district officials are Scotch, Irish and Welsh by birth or descent, the for- eign language blocs—Slavs and Ital- ians—in the union are the most class- conscious of the American working class, and these factors, coupled with the obvious need for a similar struggle by their own union, have resilted in tremendous sympathy for and interest in the British strike in the ranks of the U. M. W. of A. RESIDENT LEWIS, faced with what he admits is the hardest struggle of his career in the next elec- tion, is willing to make a gesture of this kind. Green, former secretary-treasurer of the U. M. W. of A. must appear at least as energetic as Lewis in aiding the British miners if he wants to re- tain a base in his union. 2. General dissatisfaction with the ultra-reactionary character of the Coolidge administration, more marked among the farmers, but also having a powerful effect on the trade unions even in this period of relatively stable employment, and setting in motion a leftward current which finds expression in such ac- tions as support of the British min- ers, a. It is probable also that the sharpening of the struggle between British and American imperialism, marked recently by tie controversy over British rubber concessions in the Panama canal area, and the clear dif- ference in policy between Britain and America in China, coupled with the fact that large coal orders from Brit- ain are being received here by non- union mines, has tended to neutralize the attitude of the American govern- ment towards support of the British strike by the A. F. of L. The officialdom, always in close touch with the government agencies, has been able to see that no official resistance to such a policy would be forthcoming, 3. The world-wide sweep of the great struggle in Britain has forced the A. F. of L. executive council to break with its policy of friendly re- lations only with those unions which accept and welcome the Dawes plan. The British coal miners’ union was the first to protest the cons quences of the Dawes plan with its lowering of the living standards of the whole European working cl. The miners’ strike and the general strike are manifestations of leit wing strength—political and organizational, The right wing leaders of British la vor, with aid from the center, are try ng to throttle’ such signs of mili tancy, That thera. F, of 1. executive coun cil aids evem formally these powerfi Bas , seit ¢ actions of the most conscious sections President |Of the British working class is evi dence that the most politically back- ward trade union movement in the world is not impregnable to inferna- tional working-class pressure. Even tho aid to the British min- ers involves a united front with the the Soviet unions on this one issue, the A. F. of L. officiaidom has been forced to act. a, Not to be passed over as one of the factors in bringing the A. F. of L. decision is the powerful leftward ten- dency in Germany manifested in the united front of Communist, social- democratic and non‘party workers and the lower strata of reformist trade union leaders for the confiscation. of the property of the royal family and the Weakening of the Dawes plan in- fluence by the rapid increase of un- employment as a result of its applica- tion. b. There is the additional factor that many influential officials of large A. F. of L. unions.are of Irish birth or extraction, strongly nationalist in sympathy, who act’on the theory that anything which is ‘bad for England is good for Ireland and are willing to support the British strike on that basis. c. “Phe leftward trend in the needle trades unions marked by the partial victory of the furriers’ union and the strike of 40,000 members of the I. L. G. W. under left wing leadership in New York, strikes of capmakers and turriers in Chicago and the support of the British strike by these unions, in- cluding the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, 4. The desire to be freed from Communist criticism on its failure to support the British trade union movement, That this is one of the reasons is shown by the action of the executive council of the A. F. of L. in the same session where support for the British strike was voted, i, e., denunciation of the Passaic sti as a Communist enterprise and the aésuance of a state- ment by President Green advising that no finances be sent to the United Front Committee, which is conducting the strike, but that contributions be forwarded to the secretary of the Pas- saic Trades and Labor Council. The ‘concluding paragraph of this statement reads as follows: The membership of organized la- bor should not contribute funds to be used for the purpose of advanc- ing the cause of a.dual organization or to pay the Butt of Communist leaders who are seeking the destruc- tion of the American Federation of Labor and the substitution of a Communistic organization in its stead. HIS is not the place to enter into a discussion of the Passaic strike and the attitude of the A. F. of L. officialdom towards it. We can and will deal with this question in a sepa- rate article as its importance merits. It is enough to say here that at- ;tempting to prevent the forwarding of funds to the Passaic strikers for the reason that it is alleged to be a Com- munist strike is of secondary impor- tance to the call for aid to the British miners, The first is of world importance as a gesture to the left wing of the inter- national trade union movement, the second is a gesture to the right wing of the American trade union move ment, |AKEN together, the two incidents show that American Federation of Labor executive council is the victim of irreconcilable contradictions in its policy, contradictions springing from the fact that as a trade union move- ment of a mass character it includes within its ranks great numbers of ex- ploited workers whose interests are in direct conflict with those of the highly skilled and privileged upper strata and the officialdom aligned with American imperialism's policy of “co-operation, conciliation, arbitration and trade union capitalism,” an inadequate char acterization for what is essentially the expression of a middle-class view- -| point. The call for financial aid for the British strikers marks an advance over the previous policy of the A, F. of L., but it is not enough, even tho it is energetically collected and for- warded promptly. INANCIAL aid alone will not win the strike. The call for financial aid should have been accompanied with a call for the stoppage of coal shipments to Great Britain and a refusal to handle shipments of British goods in Ameri- can ports, The executive council will reply that the A. F. of L. is an autonomous or- ganization and that the executive council has not power to enforce such requests. But this excuse is seen to be weak and evasive because such a call would be a political act of the greatest sig- nificance in that it would be an ulti- matum from the American trade union movement to the British government. Its effect in. international labcr circles could not be overestimated, Ty immediate task of the left wing is to ‘give life to the official call for aid in two ways: 1. By stimulating the collection of funds substantial amounts, 2. By conducting an energetic cam- paign for an embargo on coal for ‘Great, Britain and the boycott of Brit- ish shipments in American ports. The'struggle of the British working class hag had sufficient driving power to give the American trade union movement a new international out look. The -conscious section of the trade union movement must drive the les- sons home and give the sympathetic expression of the American trade union membership for the British workers, an organizational expression New York Socialist Party Bewails the Apathy of Members NEW. YORK, July 6. — The unof- ficial state convention of the socialist party in:session here at Finnish Hall, Fifth avenue and 127th street, bewail- ed the apathy prevailing in the social- ist party.” A state ticket which is to be nom- inated by the fall convention is being discussed. Municipal Court Justice Jacob Panken is expected to be nominee for governor. Panken is re- luctant to run for the governorship as he is awaiting a chance to go on the supreme court bench, James O'Neal, editor of the weekly New Leader, may be candidate for United States senator. H. W. Wilcox of Elmira may be candidate for at torney general. Morris Hilquit, Julius Gerber and Norman Thomas are not expected to run, Judge Panken and George Goebel of Newark clashed on the immigration acts, Goebel declared that the restric- tion of immigration was an excellent thing. He also declared that he would refuse to speak on any platform that called for repeal or modification of the prohibition act. A letter from the Workers (Com- munist Party) calling on the socialist party to unite in putting up a united labor ticket in New York was referred to the executive committee. Did you ever write? See how you'll like it! *.. “Our ‘Answer on June 20th to the Wreckers of Germany” So reads the above poster which was part of the campaign to expropriate the princes of Germany by referen- dum. Altho millions voted for it and practically none against, it was beaten by a technicality. But it stands as a splendid demonstration of the power of the workers when they unite to fight their. enemies, the owners. “Lessons” in French Democracy aa va, npsateeitl mocracy” Inte thé Children-of Syr By Win, Gropper, — met « Already, now go! | “P.e-r-s-0-n-a-l-l-y | have n-e-v-e-r agreed that the | eis saa iieliaaiiaeaaaiemieceera al ders Bow to Left and Right | WITH THE STAFF] 1 Being Things From Here and There Which Have Inspired Us to Folly or Frenzy E-x-t-r-al E-x-t-r-a! Andy Mellon, Hisself, Writes fox The Daily Worker! “By ANDREW W. MELLON Secretary of the Treasury Every boy and girl must have certain assets of character, and among the most important of these are ambition, industry, personality ] and thrift. Ambition is the will to attain something. The desired object may be knowledge, or honor, or power, but whatever it is, the ambition to reach it must be backed up by the willingness to work for it. Mere wishes accomplish little withoutthe aid of earnest application and in- dustry. The asset of personality is more elusive and seems to be born in some people without any effort on their part, but, on the other hand, it may be acquired by, every one who will concentrate on his career and not let it be marred by care lessness and indifference. To save part of what one earns is another vital element in a suc cessful life. Savings are not only insurance against the turns of for- tune, but also a means of seizing golden opportunities, which are so often lost thru lack of @ small amount of capital. There is no easy road or short cut to success. It means constant hard work and saving, and many sacri- fices, but it is really worth them all thru the ultimate feeling of~-ac- complishment and the lasting happi- ness which it brings to its .pos- sessor, WHEN THE GOVERNMENT STARTS A REVOLUTION, § | We have been reading J. Ram- y MacDonald’s article printed recently in the “Nation” and are 4 loathe to keep its choicest phrases from the readers of this young but aspiring column. But in giv- ing them to you, we insist that they be read as follows: If you haven’t got a mustache imagine you have one. Then imagine you are pulling it, first one side, then the other. Adopt feminine voice, one that needs oiling im spots. Then fire away, dragging out the agony in the words we indicate. sympathetic strike on a’ l-a-r-g-e scale was an in- dustrial’ weapon that. “s-h-o-u-l-d be tried. fn: . short, a g-e-n-e-r-a-l strike when fully developed can o-n-l-y be part of a policy of armed f-o-r-c-e, such as Tory leaders hoped to p-r-o-f-i-t by. But t-h One was kept in such s-p-l-e-n-d-i-d control by the trade union leaders, was not a-l-l-o-w-ed to get out of h-a-n-d; and the govern. ment’s s-t-r-e-n-u-0-u-s at- tempts to get it to become’ r-e-V-0-1-u-t-i-o-n-a-r-y and” to d-e-v-e-l-op were thwart- ed by the s-p-l-e-n-d-i-d ~ tactics and the b-o-I-d cour- age of those who were act- ing and a-d- headquarters.’ oo" s — -s-i-n-g at Six little editors, (Hope they stay alive!) The Polcom called a meeting, Then there were five, Five little editors, (We really need five more!) The T. U. C. took but one, | Then there were four, Four little editors, (Busy as a bee!) One got the belly ache, Then there were three. Three little editors, ; (Have all they can dol) feye One fails to come to work, Then there were two, 3 That’s Why! Two little editors, (Perhaps you think it fun!) One is called to make a tour, Then there is one. One little editor, (He has to be a snorter!) Listens to a dozen calls, Demanding “a reporter.” => ee @ Well Meaning Fools