The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 19, 1926, Page 5

wo OFFICE WORKERS SURVEY REVEALS. LOW WAGES PAID Half Work for Less Than | $20 a Week | By SIDNEY BLOOMFIELD | (Worker Correspondent) BOSTON, Nov, 17.—The Massachu.- | setts Department of Labor and indus- tries has made a survey of salaried office employes in Massachusetts’ in- dustries as of May 1, 1926, The re- turns just made public, include data of 1075 establishments employing 22,- 427 office workers (about one eight of all persons so engaged in this state), 8,182 of whom are maleg and 14,245 of whom are females, More Women Employed. | The summary shows that for every | four males employed in” office work, there were seven females; that about one-half of all persons reported for were engaged at clerical occupations; that the stenographic positions were almost altogether filled by females, representing slightly more than one fifth of the total number of office workers of both sexes combined; that in the accounting and bookkeeping section, similar in size to the steno- graphic section, nearly two-thirds of those employed were females. The two largest - occupational groups, both sexes combined, were composed of bookkeepers and junior clerks and cashiers, The predominat- ing salary groups without respect to Sex, were: Those receiving $20 including 24.6 Per cent of all persons reported for. Those’ receiving $16 including 18.0 percent of ail persons reported for. In other words, 42.6 per cent of ali persons reported for, were receiving only between $16 and $20 per week. Women Worse, Taken separately, as a class, the females fared worse than the males. ‘The tabulation for the females showed as follows: Those receiving $20 per week 32.0 per cent, Those receiving $16 per week 24.7 per cent. That is, 56.7 per cent of the female |Rochester Receives CORRESPO! ( 131 Passaic Film with Great Enthusiasm By a Worker Correspondent, ROCHESTER, N, Y., Nov, 17.—The Passale strike film, which was shown under the auspices of tife Rochester Relidf Conference, was agcorded ah enthusiastic reception in this city, Lena Chernenko, one of the strikers, who accompanied the film, made stir- ring appeals for financial assistance for the Passaic strikers at each of the four présentations, The net result of her effort was about $180, contributed by the workers who attended. Aside from this there were about 4,000 tickets disposed of by the con- ference at 25 cents each, Comrade Chernenko, in the course ot her appeals, assured her listeners that victory for the strikers is near, basing her belief on the recent break in the ranks of the mill owners, Other features supplementing the Passaic strike film were singing of “Solidarity” and other strikers’ battle songs by the Young-Pioneers, singing by the Arbeiter Saengerbund, as well as the ladies’ section of the Saenger- bund; vocal solos by Comrade Mrs. Wernes, accompanied on the piano by Comrade Mrs, Will; a Scotch comedy skit given by Brother George Munroe of Carpenters’ Local 22, and two other films, the union bakers’ film and the typographical union film.. BY JANUARY 13 1927 | Appointee of Lewis Breaks Strike of | . By a Worker Correspondent. | MINERSVILLE, Pa, Nov. 17, — Anthracite coal miners at the South Penn Colliery mine, “Randolph” of Port Carbon, Pa., went on strike when one of the workers was arbitrarily dis- charged for refusing to work overtime, for which he was not to receive pay. But the strike was ordered broken by the sub-district organizer, R. Davis of Pottsvilley an appointee of Juhn L. Lewis, The strike was ratified by unanl- 920, The coal company refused to negotiate with the local’s gridvance committee, but instead invited the of- ficials of District 9 to “talk over the matter.” President Golden of District 9 sent Davis and M. Brennen of Heok- ervillé to the scene, They asked for a special meeting of the local, and ordered the miners to go back to work, and negotiate their grievances after- wards, j~_ “The pen ie mightier than the sword,” provided you know how to use it. Come down and learn how In the worker correspondent’s classes. Use your brains and your pen to ald the workers In the clase struggle. WRITE AS YOU FIGHT! OWNING CLASS GETS HUGE PROFIT GRAB AS PEACE TIME RECORDS ARE Pennsylvania Local | mous vote by the U. M. W. U., Local, SMASHED BY DIVIDED PAYMENTS Unexampled peacetime profits and increased dividends will make 1926 a red letter year for the owning class, according to statements issued by the largest corporattons at the end of the year’s third quarter. Headlines cov- ering newspaper articles from the auto, steel, hard coal and giant power office workers received between $16 and $20 per week. This survey does give an idea of the low wages paid office workers in this state not to mention the bad con- ditions of employment, even tho the investigators merely scratched. the surface of the situation, If a real in- vestigation of the entire office work- img force of tliis state composed of about 180,000 office workers, including the office workers in the textile mills nd in the smaller cities and- towns of Massachusetts, were to be made pub- Me nothing short of a scandal would be precipitated. And the. situation in this state cries out aloud for a real public investigation of the office work- ers’ conditions of employment. One Small Union. There is but one lone office Workers’ union in Massachusetts. That local in the city of Boston, is small and power- less. The American Federation of La- bor must utilize this report as a basis for a complete investigation of the conditions of the office employes and in turn use the reports ag the basis for an energetic organization drive to unionize the office workers, Are Dissatisfied. The office workers of this state are far from being satisfied with condi- tions as they are. A real organization campaign with the facts and figures as revealed in the investigation’ util- ized for unionization work will surely awaken the unorganized white collar slaves. : and $28,161,730 in the third quarter of 1925. Net.,for. nite month, says the Chi-’ cago Journal of Commerce, not. only exceeded any nine months in the his- tory of the company, but also was igreater than the net for any previous entire calendar year. It totaled’ $149,- 317,553 compared with $80,921,018 in the same period last, year. This rep- resents a return of.$17.77 a share of the common stock. As each share stands for ap investment of less than $40 by the original owners the retura ;so far this year is more than 44 per jcent. U. S. Steel Soars, Profits of U, S. Steel for the third quarter amounted to $52,626,826 against $47,814,105 in the preceding |quarter and $42,400,412 in the third |quarter of 1925. These are the larg- est third quarter profits of any year except 1916 and 1917 when the steel trust was drawing its huge profits from the war. U. S, Steel profits for the first nine months of the year amounted to $145,- 502,216 or about $4,000,000 less than the General Motors profits for the same period. This represents a re- turn of $13.06 a share on the common stick which originally had no invest- ment at all behind {t. “In the first {nine months of 1925 the profits were $122,907,625 equivalent to $9.44 a share. The steel trust, according to The Wall Street Journal, will only have to make a little over $3.50 a share in the fourth quarter to bring the year’s profits above the $16,60 a share in 1920, the previous peace time record. In the war years 1916-1918 this profi- Police Can’t Find Bandits. MINNEAPOLIS, Nov. 17.—Police to- day said that they were without a definite clue to work on in ther search for the two bandits who late Monday night. took $200,000 worth or uncut diamonds from David Davis, salesman and broker of the firm of Ba: net, Davis & Co., of Pittsburgh, Pa. industries tell of profits which set new marks. General Motors is cause for’ the greatest rejoicing in millionairedom. ’In the three months ending Sept. 30, its profits totaled $66,880,786 compared with | $47,571,903 in the previous 3 months+ teering corporation made profits of $48.50, $39,20 and $19.70 a share or a total of $107,40 for the 3-year period. Utility Trust Gains. The North American Co., giant pub- lic utility holding company, reports a profit of $53,781,465 tor the 12 months jended Sept. 30, 1926 compared with | $36,222,032 in the preceding year. |After all deductions for interest and depreciation there was $16,024,577 left for the stockholders equivalent to | $3.82 a shdre of common. As each jshare has a par value of $10 this means an annual return of 88.2 per cent for the owners, _ The North American Co, controls electric light and power companies in Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Wiscon-- sin and California. It owns large coal mines in Kentucky from which it se- cures coal for the operations of its properties, Other Profit Showings. Other god news for the investing class comes from Hump Motor Car Corp. with a 9%months profit of $3,070,879, a return of 33.6 per cent |on its stock; trom Dodge Bros, with ;a %months profit of $23,043,445, giv- jing common stockholders a return of ($5.58 a share og stock originally |siven away as a bonus; from the Dela- ware Hudson Co., whose cdmbined profits from anthracite mines and rail operations are expected to reach at jleast $25.80 on each $100 shares of |stock; and from the Pennsylvanja R. R. .whose huge profits have just en- couraged the directors to raise the common dividend rate to 7 per cent. Why don’t you write it up? be interesting to other workers, | It may | Boe HE DAI Prize 0 Proves Need of |short of disaster. WORKER apitalist Paper's Lies Labor Journals “ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO PRINT"—HOW THE N. Y. TIMES HANDLES THE NEWS. By LELAND OLDS, Federated Press st Rass failure of even the best of cap- italist newspapers to report fairly the great events in the labor strug- gle comes to Miind as we read the wholesale eulogies of the New York ‘Times, published by that Journal on its 75th birthday While the coi it by the existing in a supplement to The New Republic dated Aug. 4, 1926, in which Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz indict the New York Times for its handling of news con- cerning the Russian revolution. The authors are concerned only to see how accurately the Times pre- sented facts which it would have been of advantage to Americans to know at the time. They say: “The reliability of the news is tested in this study by 4 few definite and decisive happenings about which thete is no dispute. The only question asked is whether the reader of the Rews was given a pic- ture of the various phases of the rev- olution which survived the test of events, or whether he was misled into believing that the outcome would be different from the actual outcome.” They conclude their analysis of all the news items about Russia pub- lished in the Times during 36 months with the judgment: “The news (in the Times) as a whole is dominated by the hopes of the men who composed the news or- ganization. In the large the news about Russia is a case of seeing not what was, but what the men wished to see. They wanted to win the war; they wanted to ward off Bolshevism. For subjective reasons they accepted and believed most of what they were told by the state department, the so- called Russian embassy in Washing- ton, the Russian information bureau of New York, the Russian committee in Paris, and the agents and adher- ents of the old regime all over Europe. “From the point of view of profes- sional journalism,” the analysts con- tinue, “the reporting of the Russian revolution (by the Times) is nothing On the essential questions the net effect is almost al- ways misleading, and misleading news is worse tham none at all. What- ever the excuse, the fact remains that a great people in a supreme crisis could not secure the minimum of necessary information on a supremoly important event.” All this is said by journalists who are in no sense radical, about a paper concerning which postmaster-general New says: “No paper reprosents American journalism more creditably and none more completely holds the | confidence of those who depend upon it for accuracy. of the news of the world for the unbiased presentation of which the paper exists.” The authors. show the Times’ tide of, misrepresentation about Russia mounting steadily as the desire to overthrow the revolutionary order grows, The “red peril” is exaggerated to support the'demand for interven- tion. Each successive counter-revo- lutionary leader, Kornilov, Kolchak, Deniken, Yudenich, ete., is represent- ed as about to release the real Russia from bondage. Asa climax comes the WCFL Radio Program | Chicago Federation of Labor radio broadcasting station WCFL is on, the air with regular programs. It is broadcasting on a 491.5 wave length from the Municipal Pier. 4 TONIGHT. 6:00 p. m—Chicago Federation ef La- bor Hour. 6:30—The Brevoort Concert Trio; Little Joe Warner; Hazei Nyman, ac- cordion; John Ude, baritone; Anna ; Lucky Wilber. 00--Alamo Cafe Dance Orchestra, 11:30—Alamo Entertainers. 1919 dispatch in which the friendly Russian reply to Wilson and the al- lies in Paris, expressing willingness to negotiate a real peace, is so muti- lated as to appear in the Timos to express determination to continue hos- tilities, “The Russian policy of the editors |of the Times,” say the authors, “pro- foundly and crassly influenced the news columns. The éffice handling of the news, both as to emphasis and captions, was unmistakably controlled by other than a professional stand- ard.” * subject, with American labor still ac- cepting pretty much the viewpoint of the capitalist class. Might not labor’s attitude have been very different had it not been dependent for its knowl- edge of the facts ona capitalist press of which the Times is perhaps the least Mable to distortion? This analysis of the New York Timos on the occasion of its 75th birthday shows how important it is for labor to support its own news- gathering agency and tts own jour- | nals. Ask Coolidge to Take Action on Increase of Lynchings in U. S, (Special to The Dally Worker) NBW YORK, Nov. 17. — Declaring that the lynching of 3 Negroes, one of them a women, near Houston, Tex., brought the total to date for 1926 up to $1 lynchings as against 18 for the entire year 1925, the National Associa- tion for the Advancement of Colored People, today telegraphed President Coolidge urging a statement from him to the cquntry on this subject and asking that he urge congress to take the appropriate action within its pow- er to end the lynching evil. Second Outrage on Women The lynching in Texas {s the second in which a woman hag been among the year having occurred in Aiken, South Carolina, where a mob on the morning of October 8, lynched Bertha Lowman, her brother and her cousin, the | brother having been ordered acquitted | by the judge presiding at their trial, The status of the lynching states for the current year is as follows: Florida 8; Texas 5; Mississippi 4; So. Carolina and Arkansas 3 each; Ten: nessee 2; and one each in Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, New Mexico, and Virginia, Teach Birth Control to Poor Families, Is Urge of Woman Doctor Birth.control, the art of determining voluntarily whether pregnancy is to follow sex intercourse, should be taught patiently to young married cou- ples of small income, particularly when the wife’s share toward the in- come ceases upon childbirth, declares Dr. Eleanor Rowland Wembridge. Wembridge, discussed the economic side of birth control before the Chi- cago Women’s Aid. Other aspects were treated by pro- fessors and medical men, under the chairmanship of Dr. Wm. Pussey, for- mer president American Medical As- sociation, Breaking Overland Record, OMAHA, Neb., Noy. 17. —— Having cracked all previous speed records from Chicago to Omaha, the Overland Limited was racing westward today in an effort to.cut five hours from the running time between Chicago and San Francisco, ‘The train maintained a 63 mile an hour schedule throughout last night. It left Chicago at 8:10 o’clock and is being run over the Northwestern, Union Pacific and Southern Pacific rails. | Russia is still.a highly controversiai | victims, the first such lynching for the | |she was a good playmate, |both body and spirit—it was the way she earned her living, and Page Five ANEW Y NOVEL Upton Sinclair (Copyright, 1926, by Uptom Sinclair) <a Tom Axton was back n the field, at his organizing job, and |he and Paul_and Bunny had long discussions. Hero in the oil |workers’ union, just as in the labor college, there was the prob- |lem of what to do about the “reds.” You could never have any 9 jbig group of workers without Soclalists and Communists and |i W. W. among them—and all busily “boring.” Paul was en- dorsing the position of Axton, that the o' thing in the oil in- @ |dustry was to save the union; all the workers must concentrate jon that, and avoid every cause of division. To this the Socialists * and the Communists made answer, all right, they would help | but as the struggle developed the bosses would call in the police and the courts and the oil workers, like all other workers, would find they could not stay out of politics, they would have to mas- ter the capitalist state. So far the Socialists and Communists would agree; but then would come the question, how was this mastering to be accomplished—and at once two groups would be- imitating the Menzies family! , The “Industrial Workers of the World,” as they called them- selves, were a separate group, men who had been revolted by the corruption and lack of vision in the old line unions, and had formed a rival organization, the “One Big Union,” that was some day to take in all the workers. They were hated by the regular 4abor leaders, and the newspapers represented them as criminals and thugs. When Bunny met one, he found a young fellow cling- ing to an ideal in the spirit of the early Christian martyrs. These “wobblies” were now being hunted like wild beasts under the “criminal syndicalism act” of California; every one who came into a labor camp or indsutrial plant was liable to be picked up by a * constable or company “bull,” and the mere possession of a red card meant fourteen years in state’s: prison. Nevertheless, here they were in Paradise; half a dozen of them had a “jungle” or camping place out in the hills, and they would lure workingmen out to their meetings, and you would see the glare of a camp- fire, and hear the faint echo of the songs they sang out of their “little red song-book.” To Bunny this was romantic and mys- terious; while to Dad and Mr. Roscoe and the managers of Rogs Consolidated, it was as if the “jungle” had been located in the province of Bengal, and the sounds brought in by the night wind had been the screams of man-eating tigers! ml From these and all other troubles Bunny now had a way of swift escape, the Monastery. Nobody up there had troubles— or if they did, they didn’t load them onto him! “Make this your country club,” Annabelle had said; “come when you please and stay as long as you please. Our horses ought to be ridden, and our books ought to be read, and there’s a whole ocean—only watch out for the rip-tides!” So Bunny would run up to this beautiful playground; and sometimes Vee Tracy was there, and when she wasn’t she would turn up a few hours later—quite mysteriously. She was several years older than he, and in knowledge of the world older than he would be at a hundred. Nevertheless, It was her business to be young in she practiced the game all the time. She had to live hard, like an athlete in training, a pugilist before a battle. Who could tell } what strange freak might next occur to the author of a novel, or to a “continuity man,” or a director dissatisfied with the prog- ress of a melodrama? She would find herself tied upon a wild horse, or to a log in a saw-mill or dragged by a rope at the end of a speed boat, or climbing a church steeple on the outside. In ages past, in lands barbarian and civilized, the hardships of the ascetic life have been imposed upon women for many strange reasons; but was there ever one more freakish than this—that she might appear before the eyes of millions in the aspect of a terror-stricken virgin tearing herself from the hands of lustful ravishers! Anyway, here-she was, a playmate for a young idealist run- ning away from other people’s troubles. They would take Anna- belle’s unused horses and ride them bareback over the hills to the beach, and gallop them into the surf and swim them there, to the great perplexity of the seals; or they would turn the ho: es loose, and run foot-races and turn hand-springs and cart-wheels —Vee would go, a whirlwind of flying white limbs and flying black hair, all the way into the water, and the waven would be no wilder than her laughter, Then they would sit, basking in the sun, and she would tell him stories about Hollywood—and as- suredly the waves were no wilder-than these. Anything might happen in Hollywood, and in fact had happened—and Vee knew the people it had happened to, (Continued Tomorrow.) ‘Marx on Fordism Workers are thinking about Ford’s 5-day week. They are won- dering if there is a catch to it. Beginning in Friday’s issue The DAILY WORKER will run a seri of articles telling in a simple way the economics of the Ford system as Karl Marx would have analyzed it. Most workers don’t know that the Greatest economist that ever lived, the economist of the workingclass, figured out the mechanics of Ford's system of exploitation before Henry was born. “Karl Marx on Fordism” will run in four daily articles. They are written by Thurber Lewis. STRIKE STRATEGY By WILLIAM Z. FOSTER ARTICLE XVIII Tar Truce HE class war between employers and workers over the product of Labor goes on without letup. “Settlements” ‘in wage movements, whether these are accompanied by strikes or not, are at best only truces in the ceaseless strug- gle, only turning points where the struggle takes on new forms. The employers will continué to try to destroy the workers’ standard of living and break the unions; the workers will continue to build their unions and to advance their interests. Organization campaigns, strikes, settle- ments and their aftermath, are but various phases of the one great continuous process of class struggle, In making strike settlements this key fact must always’ be borne in mind. Such must be handled in the sense of preparations for new campaigns in the war. The right wing reactionaries have a wrong conception ofthe whole Oapital-Labor controversy. They believe that the normal relationship between employers and workers. is one of har- mony and collaboration, They look upon strikes as deplor- able misunderstandings. Hence, they consider strike settlements as real settlements. Thus they disarm the work= ers for the intense struggle that goed on in ,many forms after the settlements. ~ te a Portcres or SerrrmMent 10 A comprehensive strike strategy must include not only effective means for carrying on strikes, but also for settling them. Fundamental it is for the left wing to learn whéif and how to settle, no less than when and how to strike. Settlement proceedings, whether before or after strike movements, constitute real danger spots, genuine tests of leadership. It is then that the employers are keyed up td the highest pitch with their policy of splitting the work- ers’ ranks; it is then they have the closest working alliance with the right wing labor leaders. The settlement policy of the left wing clashes directly against that of the right wing. The right wing wants to agree with the employers to establish peace in the industry, which means that the workers shall give up the struggle. But the left wing maneuvers in settlement conferences in order to secure better positions from which to go on prose: euting the class war more vigorously than ever. The left wing must become a past master at conference strategy. Many a battle, industrial as well as military, has been well-won inthe field and then lost at the conference table by inexpert, corrupt, cowardly negotiators. A prime, 2 tives must know the actual state of both the employers’ and the workers’ organizations and resources. This is of decisive importance. The workers are always confronted with the practical question, “Are we in a posi- tion to strike successfully, or must we settle?” This vital question can be answered correctly only if they penetrate the employers’ elaborate system of bluff, get a line on their real position, and thus base their policy upon actualitics. A correct grasp of the forces at play is the foundation of strategy, no less at the conference table than in actual strikes. ° 4 Quauitizs of Leapersiip The workers’ negotiators must be honest, informed, experienced, determined, and flexible, They must be on watch against a maze of dangers, and yet be prepared to utilize every possible advantage. They must know the relative value of their own demands and also those of the employers. They must understand which are “bargaining points” and which are fundamental in the given situation. They must learn how to advance their main demands by sacrificing non-essentials, and how to prevent the employers from doing this. They must avoid secret negotiations and understandings, which betray their case to the employers compromise them in the eyes of the rank and file ‘kers, They must take the masses into their confidence essential to successful conference strategy is exact informa- |as to the progress of events. tion as to the balance of forces, The workers’ representa- ‘ : | Where the right wing 1s in control, the left wing rie, ; és. =oo—.-.2.-2.-..-..-..200 eee et ~. i insist upon open negotiations and frank publicity. - And when the reactionaries try to sell out the workers at the conference table, as Lewis did the héroic Connellsville min ers at the close of the 1922 strike, the masses must be mobilized, through referendum votes, protest meetings, ete., against the settlement to prevent its endorsement. And nat- + urally, where the employers seek to bring about. strike settlements through the company unions, as the meat pack ers did in 1920, the left wing must fight against it to the |: last ditch. ’ In strike settlements it is necessary to guard against the right danger of grossly over-estimating the employers’ | strength and consequently of weakly abandoning the strug gle, and also against the ultra-leftist.danger of over-estimat- ing the workers’ forces and thus leading them into hopeless strugglé when much could be saved by a settlement, Then there is the graye danger of | “second” strikes, Often these dtcur immediately after formal «settlements. They are usually brought about by misunderstandings at the conference table, sudden . provocative attacks by the employers, or over-militaney on the part of the. victorious strikers. Such “second” strikes rarely get the hearty sip" port of the masses of workers’. They nearly always result in failure, The fatal national packing house strike of 190% was typical. The employers, knowing the weakness of such. . strikes, sometimes deliberately provoke them. (To be continued) Sie tt zs < nd nee