The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 15, 1927, Page 5

THE DAILY’WOKKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1927 MARCH BRITISH ARMY OF. INVASION THRU THE STREETS OF SHANGHAI Chinese Indignant Over Proyocation; Act Will Intensify Hatred of England \ LONDON, Feb. 14.—Negotiation’ between Eugene Chen, foreign minister in the Cantonese government, and British Charge d’Affairs O'Malley which have been in progress for some time at Hankow, have broken down, according to a central news dispatch from Shanghai this evening. British military movements are believed to be the cause, the dispatch added. SHANGHAI, Feb. 14.—Chinese indignation is today at fever | heat as a result of the provocative action of the British in landing | two regiments from the Gloucester and marching them thru the city with fixed bayonets, drums beating and colors flying. The Chinese press unanimously declares that the parade was a “totally unnecessary insult to the Chinese,” The nationalists believe that the British are trying to provoke hostilitiés in order to force the United States government to carry out the secret agreement for intervention. In the opinion of the Chinese, the effect of the British dem- onstration will be to unify still more the Chinese masses against SHIPLAGOFF GETS imperialism and to intensify the deep hatred of the people for the British, Cantonese Moving. Page Five ‘Protest Mass Meeting { e 9 ijtivien Waveney: STAN S On Feb, 16, Wednesday, 8 p. m., at! e Wednesday, 8 p. m., at By POSE WoRTIS 81 East 110 St. will be held the first | ay Ry |mass meeting in Harlem to protest! HE first direct contact between |against the deportation of political | Morris Sigman and the Waist and | refugees. é | Dressmakers’ Union marked the be- | The Speakers are Pascal P, Cos-| ginning of the real struggle between |grove, organizer Amalgamated Food| the bureaucracy of the international Workers, Pat Devine, organizer Inter- | #ud the ragk and file of the dress- jnational Labor Defense and Alex|™2kers, a struggle that has contin- | Schwarzenfeld, secretary Harlem I, L.| ued for many years and has culmin-| ID. will be chairman. ated in the last act of treachery when | Arrangements have been made for| Si@man signed a scab agreement an overflow crowd. This meeting is with the dress jobbers and contract- held under the auspices of the Harlem | °'S, giving up concessions that the branch I. LD. | dressmakers had gained thru many| Shows Contradictions In His Attack Working himself up to a pitch of junrightéous indignation yesterday, of trade unionism than did the offi- cials of the international. Locai %> was organized on an industrial basis including all crait and language gioups, It was the first to bring organized body of workers regarded | their union not as purely a mea of improving their economic conditions, but as an instrument for the general advancement of the workers. The Role in was handed over to professional | gangsters, who were a drain on the union treasury and infested the union) ‘ith their poisonous atmosphere. All the energy of the organization, all its resources were directed in fighting the rank and file of the membership, No wonder that the jobbing system and the open shop flourished and be- came firmly entrenched in the dress industry. The struggle of 1925 brought great havoc to the dress dustry. Due to the general disor- ganized condition the dressmakers suffered even more than the cloak- makers. Rebuilding the Union. When the left wing administration came into power we found but a shell of an organization. The number of union shops had dwindled down to about haif. Union conditions and standards in the shops were com-! pletely broken dc the forty-hour week existed only on paper. The first and most difticuit task of the new! administration was to gather the shattered tragments of the union and hegin building it anew. To accom-| push this task it required not only tne utmost devotion on the part of ine Oliicers but the most active co- operation of the membership. In the course of one year we suc- cecued im repawinug most of the dam-) HANKOW, Feb, 14.—Seveval thou- sand Nationalist troops have arrived in Hankow, reinforcing the armies already in operation. The reinforee- MILITANTS FINED, Morris Sigman, president of the In- | ternational Ladies’ Garment Workers’ union, denounced the left wing once again and this time accused the Joint Piiiaislenciens ‘years of struggle and sacrifice. From its very inception the Waist GARMENT BOARD and Dressmakers’ Local 25 was under | | | DEF IES SIGMAN forth the idea of labor education and | the first to initiate educational ac- tivities under the direct supervision dressmakers were in the first ranks of the militant workers of this coun- try, the first to lend a helping hand ege acne to our organization during the internal war. We formed organ- wation commitiees in which uun- Bosses Call it Sweeping Victory. Mr, Schwartz, president of the sociation, is quoted in the Women’s Wear (the organ of the manufactur- ers) as having boldly stated at a meeting of the contractors, that neyer in the history of the association have the contractors been able to achieve such a sweeping victory over the union, Sigman has concluded an agree- ment with the dress contractors in which he has publicly conceded eleven demands. What does this agreement mean to the workers in our induatry ? The agreement does away with t guaranteed minimum for piece work- er This practicaily means that the earnings of the operators, who con- stitute the yast majority of the work ors, will be greatiy reduced to the imum, The two weeks trial period will mean that many workers will lose their season going from one shop to another without establishipg them- selves in any place. The abolition of extra pay for over- time re-established the forty-four hour week in our industry at the time when the entire labor movement has taken up the struggle for the forty- hour week. It will mean that while ir, some shops workers will be com- pelled to work long hours, hundreds Dressmakers’ may be completely ‘unemployed and! will constitute a great menace to the) workers employed, resulting in lower- e A change in the system of work which hitherto could be affected only by the mutual consent of the workers and the employers, is now optional with the firm only Firms giving business, who up upon resuming same, were hitherto compelled to re-engage all their old workers, are now no longer com- pelled to do so if they resume bu ness after two months; which means a 100% re-organization, for if a firm desires at any time to get rid of a certain set of workers all it has to do is give up business at the end of one ason and resume at other prem- at the beginning of the néxt son.- Cutters, who according to the old ont were to be paid by the week, have now become time workers and can be laid off at any time dur- ing the week. 7 agreement, seerctly negoti- ated by Sigman completely does atvay with union standards and places our industry on an open shop basis with a union label, These have been the activities of Sigman and his supporters in the Dressmakers’ union. This has. been the role that Sigman has played in the Dressmakers’ union since 1930. Yes, from the very first day that Sig- man placed his paws on the Dress- makers’ union he has brought noth- ing but ruin and destruction, misery and ‘statvation, His latest aet: of the leadership of progressive ele- j of the union. The dressmakers from to all struggling workers, the first! lreds of workers participated, and ed standards and conditions. - to be punished for opposing the union | wrecking policy that the right wing | +, BUT NOT GRAFTER Two Who Attended Left Meetings Persecuted Because they refused to support Abraham Ghipiacoff in his avtack against the \.orkers in the local needle trades, o members of the ancy Leather vods Workers have ben fined $99 eacn. ‘The charges against thenr\was that | instead of attending the mass meet- ings held in the 69th and 71st armor- ies by Sigman-Beckerman and Com- | pany, they had gone to. one of the seventeen halls where the left wing workers had gathered to counteract the right wing maneuv Graft is O. K. While the grievance committee was eager to fine militant members of their . organization they quickly squashed charges brot against a shop / chairman by one of the workers who claimed the chairman had accepted fifty dollars from the boss so the latter could violate the trade. agree- ment. This shop chairman is one of Shiplacoff’s henchmen and had to be protected while the two workers had administration of the union is pur-| suing. Worker Houkewives in | Aid of Defense Bazaar The United Council of Working Class Housewives is going into the | International Labor Defense bazaar | with all its energy. A special meet- | ing of the central committee sent out | an appeal for 100 per cent activity from their councils. | The Harlem Cloakmakers Women’s | Council, Councils Nos. 1, 2, 5, 7 and 8, are all having booths. Red honor | rolls and eontribution lists are in| wide circulation and are showing | good results, | Bazaar committees have been elect- | ed in every council. The Working | Class Women are out to make the ments have come from Ichang. There is a steady movement of | Cantonese troops down the Yangtsc from Hankow, while northern forces are reported moving up from Wu Hu, There is every indication of gen- eral fighting throughout the Yangtse valley during the early spring. * 8 6 Another Invasion. SONG MONG, Feb. 14.—Scoitish troops were dispatched today to pa- trol the little village of Shataukek, on the Chinese mainland following the posting of anti-British posters on the streets, The village, situated at the border of the British zone, is half-Chinese and half-British terri- tory. - ae a Chang Clashes With Wu. PEKING, Feb. 14.—-With hundreds of thousands of troops on the move |@ general spring offensive in the re- gion of the Yangtse River is in prospect. Marsha! Chang Tso-Lin, war lord governor of Manchuria, today began the movement of 50,000 of his Feng- tien troops across the Yellow River into Chenchow in Honan Province, the stronghold of Wu Pei-Fu, and constitutes the invasion of Honan by Chang's troops which “Wu last week warned Chang would be contested his troops, Chenchow is on the direct railway line between Hankow,| and. Peking. Wu Pei-Fu shifted his headquar-| ters from Chenchow to Loyang. eee eae BERLIN, Feb. 14.—“The situation in China is not nearly so optimistic | as Sir Austen Chamberlain paints in| London.” Thus cables the special correspon-| dent of the Berliner Tageblatt from | Peking. He continues: “The nationalists continue to de- mand the withdrawal of all British troops mobolized at points west of Singapore. Also there is a new anti- British boycott threatening at Hong Kong. : “Political bureaus Chang Tso Lin are organized by generals,” preparing for his} election as president by the senate er through the proclamation of his | ments who had a broader conception the first day of their existence as an to give ear to new ideas, new organ- Board of oreating a “dual” union among the Italian workers of-Locals|izational forms thru which to) 48 and 8). | strengthen and solidify their organi- Shows Confusion. zation. In Disfavor With Officials. Because of their progressive ideas the dressmakers quickly fell into dis- favor with the officiaidom of the in- ternational, For y s the president and the general executive board ex- erted every possibie effort to subdue the spirit of revolt among the dress- makers. For years they struggled to crush the initjative of these workers end keep the organization within the According to Joint Board spokes- men, this just “offers further proof | of the confusion: that exists in the| vight wing ranks as to how to justify the illegal ousting of the entire New York Joint Board and four of the most powerful locals of the union. “The statement made by Sigman points out that locals 4, 8 and 89 ‘were not reoragnized by the International | union’; but at the time the ouster! orders were given, the International | stereotyped forms which no longer claimed that it was ‘reorganizing’ | suited the developmenc ox the inaus- every local in New York, while ad-| try. But all these efforts were of no mitting that it had reappointed of- | avail, ficers of locals who were tools of the Finally the general executive board International. decided that the best way to rule the More Contradiction. dressmakers was to split them into “Although this statement implies| small parts. It required a strong that some locals were ‘reorganized’| man to put this policy into effect. even if Locals 48 and 89 were not,| The convention, where the proposi- the International, through its attor-| tion for splitting up the local had ney Morris Hillquit, declared at the | come up for discussion, dared not act hearing before the Impartial Chair-| on this matter in open defiance of man Raymond V. Ingersoll that ‘The | the decision of the members. The job! General Executive Board is without | had to be made, however, and Sig- power to expel members or suspend; man, who until then was but a locals without proper procedure, and | stranger to the dressmakers, ap- up to this time there has been no! peared on the arena. expulsion or attempted expulsion nor | Breaking Up the Local. removal from office, no suspension or; Sigman, the “industrial unionist,” expulsion of local or subordinate bod- | undertjook the job-of breaking up our! ies.’ The fact that the International ; powerful local 25. “Yhe excuse for claims one day that the Joint Board! ihis unwarranted action was that is expelled and the next day that|‘the dressmakers had violated the there has been no expulsion, proves | constitution” by instituting the shop! the weakness of its position legally. delegate system, a means for widen- “The Joint Board will continue to/ing the possibilities for the active! change the union books of any mem- participation of the members in the: hers of any local who comes to ask affairs of the union, to cope with the! .for a new book. It is the duty of the| growing problem of the jobber’s- Joint Board to issue new books every | contractors’ system. With an iron | six months,” | Sona Sigman undertook the work of | splitting Local 25. What matter the | kitter opposition of the members? } \ What matter the fact that this ac- | \tion was not authorized by the con-} vention? Local 25 was becoming a! | veal menace, a real threat to the] LONDON, Feb. 14. — Ninety-one | Peace of mind of the officialdom and! lives have been lost in a blizzard in| Sigman was the man to exterminate Niigata prefecture, according to a this menace. central news dispatch from Tokio. { | Loca: 4v was. broken up. For some} time reaction triumphed in the Dress- makers’ Union which was ruled by} Sigman’s appointed executive board.| LONDON, Feb: 14.—Eight persons | | were killed and at least fifteen- were the activities of our organiza- n department we unionized close to six hundred shops. ‘this gain in the numbcr of shops made up tor the norma! loss as well as the loss suf- ieved during the struggle. gair We re- 1 close to five thousand mem- s who ha’ dropped out of the nion, We cleared our organization om the menace of gangsierism and brought home to the workers the idea wnat the industry ean only be or- ganized thru the coilective efforts of the unicn members, And most of ail we awakened a new hope and contfi- dence in the ubility of the union to defend the interests of the workers. The Change ‘Lakes ‘lace. Our union meetings, which had for years been the piace where every free expresion of opinion was sup- pressed, became a place where the members discussed union affairs with their elected officers and together worked out plans as to how best to improve conditions in the industry. The union offices, which had for yoars been a stronghold of the union bureaucracy and the chosen few of their supporters where the average member met the unresponsive gaze of the union officials, became a place where members gathered to exchange views of the happenings of the day and give their-services to the union in whatever capacity they were need- ed. The union officers, who had for years acted as the bosses of the members, were now regarded by them as their representatives, With the ‘approach of negotiations’ for the new agreement the office be- gan to hum with life and acti «at every shop meeting and at every local meeting the question of organi- vation Worse was on the first order of the day. All preparations were) made for an organization campaign | on a large scale which would bring the gréat mass of unofganized work- ers within the folds of the union. } New Attack is Planned. But, dlas, we were too engrossed in the, plans for organization work to observe the new attack that was being planned on our organization, On the eve of the renewal of the agreement, when conferences with the employers had practically been arranged, came the new expulsion or- der issued by Sigman and the gener- The right of the association to take in new members without the consent of the union will mean that any time the union conducts a strike against any particular firm, the firm will join the association and the strike will be broken In case a stoppage the inter- national obligates itself to supply the employers with a new set of workers if the workers Yo not return to work within twenty-four hours. This means not only a re-organization but “open shop” with the union as a scab agency, No compensation for the first three days in case of an unfair discharge will give the employers the right to! discharge workers without any loss to themselves and will place the workers at the mercy of the bosses. Worker Fears Automatic Discharge. The worker who absents himself from the factory for twenty-four hours is automatically discharged. These are some of the points print- treachery has stamped him ag th -open) agent. of the bosses. : The dressmakers have known how to tight Sigman in the past. Now, when he stands exposed as an open traitor, they will not rest until Sig- man.and Sigmanism have been eom- pletely wiped out of our union and the workers, for the first time, will undertake the task of building their organization ona sound and solid foundation without any hinderance from self-appointed officials. ‘Amplifiers Will Be Used When Aimee Speaks in Church Aimee, McPherson, Los Angeles | evangelist, will. speak here next’ Fri- |church at 325 West day, Saturday and Sunday at the Glad Tidings Tabernacle, a pentecostal 33d Street, of | which Rey. Robert Alexander Brown ed in the agreement that has been | made public, The secret agreement, however, which will eventually he- come known to the dressmakers, in- cludes other points, such as, The elimination of the 15% to tem- porary workers,— No pey for holidays that fall out on a Saturday— ‘ Penne ee. night; is pastor. As this church can normally seat only 1,000 people arrangements have been made so that a like number can be accommodated in the basement and | hear her sermon by the aid of ampli- fiers. Amplifiers, though akin to ra- dio, require no operators. Read The Daily Worker Everyday Second Annual BANQUET and DANCE If YOU want to meet President Coolidge, Secretary Kellogg, the Prince of Wales and Queen Marie of Roumania next Monday don't come to the banquet and dance of The DAILY WORKER BUILDERS. These celebrities won't be there. sides, it’s to be a banquet and dance— Be- Vazaar a real success, Dance and Ball Harlem Casino, 116th St, & Lenox Ave. \injured today when two passenger trains collided head-on at Hull during ‘the dense fog which has blanketed all England for four days. WEST ORANGE, N. J., Feb, 14. Prying apart the bars of his cel] win- dow with a thick wooden curtain rod, Howard Menzel, 22, of Livingston, N, J., escaped from jail in the muni- | cipal building here today, | _ LONDON, Ve, .4.—Twenty per- sons were killed and many were miss- ‘ing today as a result of a terrific Very soon, however, the members jgained heart and before long ihe newly organized Local 22 again came under the leadership of the progres- | sive elements. A short time after | another expulsion followed. The most | active members were suspended and | expelled for permitting their names | to appear on a leaflet which criti- cized the officials of the internation- }al. Again the constitution, as inter- | wpeted by the machine, was violated und the offendess were punished, Expulsion Steels Dressmakers. But every new expulsion only Saturday, Feb. 19th cyclone Which swept Queensland, Aus- | served to strengthen the will and de- ‘tralia, according to a central news| termination of the dressmakers to! dispatch from Brisbane. The towns | free the union from clique control, | f Ingram, Cairns and Fairford were The hand-picked machine men could) {al executive board. The cloakmakers were expelled because they called what Sigman now terms an illegal strike altho he himself had been a part of that stvike for twenty wecks., The dressmakers on the other ¢hand weré expelled because they might have called a strike if they had not been expelled. Sigman’s expulsion or- der stated specifically that he was prompted to expel the dress locals so as to save the dressmakers from an | unnecessary strike. Yes, Sigman did save the dressmakers from a strike at the price of bringing back the open shop in the dress industry The signing of the scab agreement with the dress contractors is an act not a RIOT! But there are compensations, Contrib- utors and editors of The DAILY WORKER will be present: J. Louis Engdahl, Scott Nearing, Bertram D. Wolfe, William F. Dunne, Vern Smith, Tom O'Flaherty, Robert W. Dunn, Michael Gold and (illustrious fellow) Others. And there'll be sort of a riot, too—at -least it will seem that to us if the danging is as thoroughly modern as at ° some of the affairs we’ve been to : ‘ lately. | -, only maintain themselves in power of the blackest treachery committed | pn sd bh at ye hs | under the protection of the officials! by Sigman and his henchmen against | ! Concert music by an excellent orches- Cairns, county seat of the county) “f the international. No sooner, how-| the dressmakers. , From the very, Tickets in advance 50 cents, at the door 75 cents. Arranged by the Young Workers’ League, 108 East 14th Street, New York. SAVE THIS VALUABLE PRIZE COUPON — A Copy of Red Cartoons of 1927, Worth $1.00 for 50 Cents With 50 of These Coupons - CUT THIS OUT AND SAVE IT, RED CARTOONS OF 1927 is even a finer collection of the most recent cartoons of the well-known labor artists—Robert Minor, Fred Ellis, K. A. Suvanto, Art Young, Hay Bales, Jerger, Vose and others. Each picture is large enough to be framed and mounted. The book includes in all 64 of the finest cartoons of the past year. This wonderful volume is not for sale. It is offered only to those who help us to build the Daily Worker, ‘DAILY WORKER 33 First Street | of the same name, had a population (of 5,200, BOSTON, Feb. 14.—Bxooks Adams, \last of the famous family of the name, is dead at his home here today. |He was a great-grandson of John _Adams, second president of the | United States, the grandson of presi- | dent John Quincy Adams, and the last sons of Charles Francis | Adams, United States minister to | England during the Civil War. | He was 78 years old and was an ‘author, lecturer, lawyer, recognized | authority on international law and supporter of the initiative and refer- endum. MOUNT VERNON, N. Y., Feb, 14. -~Five classes of the Mount. Vernon high school, numbering 233 pupils, | were dismissed for a period of two days today, following the report to (the ‘medical authorities that Miss Tosephine A. Lane, a teacher in the school, had been stricken with scar- let fever. BUY THE DAILY WORKER New York, N.Y, = {| AT THE NEWSTANDS ever, than an election was decided |upon then the progressives agaih gained the ascendancy. To obviate | this danger the bureaucracy at first uals, then of groups. This was fol- lowed by the expulsion of executive | boards and in 128 wholesale expul- stons of all Trade Union Fducational League members. The climax came when the three largest locals, 2, ) and 22, were ex- pelled in 1925, which resulted in the {fight of the joint action committee. After a bitter struggle which lasted for fourteen weeks, Sigman was com- pelled to sign a peace pact; which officially ended the expulsion policy. In this peace treaty Sigman conceded some of the reforms for which the laft wing had been fighting for many years, such as proportional represen- tation to the joint board and conven- tions, no discrimination for political opinions, ete, Thru all the years, when Sigman end his leutenants were carrying on their destructive work in the Dress- makers’ Union, the members had been alienated from all activities. The organization work which in the past had been carried on by the workers resorted to the expulsion of individ-| | first day that Sigman began his war | of destruction in our union, he under- | took a widespread publicity campaign | that the dressmakers do not want to. strike, thus openly encouraging the | bosses to put forth the most impos- | sible demands to the workers, In| the role of an open agent of the bosses, he repeatedly exposed the union as being in a state of complete | ‘helplessness and in no position to o: | imevease the appetites of the dress contractors. After weeks of ‘secret workers, Sigman now concluded a/ seab agreement with the contractors which practically wipes out union | standards and conditions in the in- dustry. | The officials of the’ International | knew from the very outset that they jhad no chance of getting support |from the dressmakers in, their ex- | | pulsion policy. Their only hope was) | to line up the bosses, thru whose aid | | they would force the dressmakers to! |accept their domination over our | ‘union. As a ‘price for the co-oper- ‘ation of the bosses in this attempt, | Sigman has conceded the most im-} portant gains achieved by the dress- makers thru many years of struggle | and sacrifice, } \ tra during the dinner. Dancing after- a wards in the beautiful Yorkville ia Casino Ballroom. REMEMBER! Reserve Monday night, (Washington’s Birthday Eve) Feb- i ruary 21, 1927, for this SECOND ANNUAL BANQUET AND DANCE of The DAILY WORKER BUILDERS OF NEW YORK, YORKVILLE CA- SINO, 212 EAST 86th STREET, NEAR 3rd AVENUE, — Banquet at 7 p.m. Daneing at 9 p. m. TICKETS for the banquet and dance, $1.50; tickets for the dance only, 50c. For reservations, write or phone < THE DAILY WORKER Local Office : 108 EAST ith STREET NEW YORK CITY Telephone; Stuyvesant 6584