The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 22, 1927, Page 2

Page Two THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 1927 Banks and Railroads Aid Insurance Holdup Past Events of Insurance Expose, s the eleventh of a series of thirty articles exposing the Previous ” This fraud of “industrial” (weekly payment) life insurance. articles have dealt with the methods employed by the “Big Four’ in misusing “mutual” assets to the benefit of the banks which uperate hand in glove with this powerful combine. The “Big Fou’ is composed of the Metropolitan, Prudential, John Han- cock and the Colonial Life Insurance Companies. Names promi- rent in financial and government circles have figured largely in the series. Charles Evans Hughes, Governor Smith, Supt. of Insurance James A. Beha, Charles M. Schwab and Alanson B, Houghton are among those present. ee Lal Se | eater nial hobnobbing with his erst- WORKED, 1221-) Jes Evans Hughes was no By. CHARLES YALE HARRISON outside looking in—he was ARTICLE XI. s counsel for the Equitable To the uninitiated ‘the question 1 ance Company. The odor occurs, “If the ‘Big Four’ are mutual | of the fleshpots smelled sweet to the companies, and there is no wholesale ae while ex-investigator’s nostrils. The insurance companies let loose theft of assets by the directors, < sso pa where do he sv ’ on a fury of uplift. “Service” be- this article evidence wil the slogan and watchword. to show the interests of the ree” nursing service was given to the bewildered policyholders, were so amazed at this burst of ben- evolence that they failed to notice weekly-payment po those of the high-fin directors are in direct each other. hat the cost of the insurance (al- Following the Armst ace | Te too e ssive in price) was be- Investi, ie be-| ing jacked up. gan clamoring for the mutualization Haley. Fiske beca ent of of life insurance companies. It was| the Metropolita he second argued that the insuring of lives was| vieé-president under the old regime. a public service < great social On assuming office he issued an significance, and t the attendant] ency¢lical letter to his underling accumulation of great sums of public! agents that hengeforth the company money in the hands of hard-boiled; must be referred to as ‘Mother manipulators was a mienace to the | Metropolitan.” economic life of the country. Stingy Step-Mother. To Sell and Keep. Said he, “Your” Mother Metropoli- Came the day when the “yellow| tan is a sweet, kind Mother to her dog” directors reasoned thus: why | 28ents and clerks.” In those days clerks at the home office were get- ting $10 per week. Today twelve and fifteen dollars is a good week’s continue as privately owned corpora- tions and thus invoke the wrath of a defrauded public Would it not be wiser if we were to “sell” our inter-; P8Y- Sounds more like a_ step- ‘ : { ! ests to the policyholders, taking the | mother! . payment price from the assets, and| To the outsider all this mother- still retain ou ts on the director-|liness ma ound like so much slop. ates and still continue to manipulate | But the officials of the “Big Four’ the “reserves” and “assets”? In this}@° in for the new uplift and all its manner two birds will be slaugh-| attendant hokum. To this day Haley tered with ene projection of financial! Fiske in opening his annual man- reasoning. 7 agers conventions: leads of by call- So the mutualization of the “Big) "2 agatha A cg ve ‘ St aed paged sine i But uplift or no uplift, business is Four began. The capitalistic PYESS| tusiness. “The Big Four” assets hailed the move as benevolent and were pyramiding. Now that the far-seeing. The then superintendant of insurance beamed and declared that “a new day had dawned for the insurance businéss.” All this hap- pened in 1915. The old stockholders dipped a hungry hand into “the necessary ‘reserve’ which is required to insure payments to policyholders weekly payment life insurance com- panies are no longer soulless corpora- tions but nice big brothers to their policyholders, everybody may there- fore rejoice in a friendly spirit of Same Situation. 400 Plumbers Are Back At Work With All Their Demands Granted Them Victory for almost 400 of the |] striking plumbers of Brooklyn was |] announced yesterday with all of their demands granted. They are $14 a day and the five day week. The workers are back at their jobs || today following meetings with the || bosses in Lenduth Hall, Waverly and Myrtle Aves. Helpers Prepare. | C. E. Miller, president of the |] American Association of Plumbers’ Helpers, said last night that they are preparing to organize the help- ers throughout the city in prepara- tion for the threatened lock-out. | John Dewey to Speak At Anti-Legion Meet PHILADELPHIA, April 21.—John Dewey, psychologist and author, of Columbia University, will be the prin- | cipal speaker of the mass meeting who | held by the American Civil Liberties | Union in the Stephen Girard Hotel auditorium, Philaedlphia, Sunday at 3 p. m, “to expose the meddlesome tactics of the American legion in schools and colleges.” Other speakers, who will talk on the attack of the Bernard F. Schlegel Post of the American Legion against the West Chester State Normal School Liberal Club are Dr. Albert C. Barnes, of Merion, Pa., founder of | the Barnes Foundation; a representa- tive of the Willard Straight Post of | the American Legion, New York City; and Professor Robert T. Kerlin, andj John A. Kinneman, who defended the | Liberal Club and were dismissed from | the Normal School faculty. Congréss- man Hamilton Fish of New York’ an- | nounced that he was unable to attend the meeting but would send a state- ment. Four Aviators Killed. MELBOURNE, Australia, April 21.—Four aviators were killed today when two planes taking part in the official ceremonies welcoming the Duke and Duchess of York collided in mid-air. The accident took place just as the royal visitors reached Government House. Indiana & Illinois RR Interborough Rapid Transit Pittsburgh Terminal St. Louis & San Francisco RR Western-Pacific RR Wheeling & Lake Erie RR The total amount of “mutual” Metropolitan money invested and de- DEATH TOLL IN RECORD FLOOD | | has not reached the crest, the great- already has taken a toll of 60 dead, 300 injured, made more than 50,000 homeless and caused property damage | estimated at approximately §$25,000,- 000 atcording to official totals here today. a Waters Still Rise Flood waters today are rapidly spreading out over the entire St. Francis basin, and hopes of repairing the main Mississippi levee near New | Madrid, Mo., have been abandoned. | The levee at that point has been swept jaway for a distance of ten miles, Clarendon, Ark. where the crumb- ling White River levee sent the tur- | bulent waters flowing into the town }at a speed of 40 miles an hour, was under 16 feet of water today. Claren- |-don’s streets were canals and scores | of houses’ were reported to have been washed away. The town’s 3,000 popu- | lation fled to the hills. | Medial authorities of Arkansas and | Missouri are rushing vaccines, sup- plies and manpower to the refugee | centers to check any outbreaks of dis- Chek Some cases’ of measles and mumps have been reported and with the con- centration points hourly jnereased in numbers of refugees, fear of contagion jis felt. | ease. | Thousands Homeless The main barrier at Scott, Miss. |crashed before a torrent, sweeping .a wall of water into a dozen counties in the delta section of the state of Mis- sissippi, and adding thousands to the | huge number of homeless. | The known death toll mounted to 22 today with the death of a Negro workman, who was drowned near Scott | when the levee gave way. Three other | Negroes went to the bottom of the river near Litéle Rock when their skiff overturned. The 14-year-old daughter | of James Ross was drowned at Para- gould, Ark., and E. Rainwater, 14, was | drowned near Morrilton, Ark. Refugees jp Arkansas have been | kept almost constantly on the move |the past 24 hours, according to re- ports. Following the break in the | levee of the White River at Clarendon, | 2,000 persons fled from that city when | water one to 15 feet filled their homes. | These refugees went chiefly to | Brinkley but they were advised to |mové even further from the flooded REACHES SIXTY ST. LOUIS, April 21.—Though it jest Mississippi River flood in history New York’s ‘ UNITED FRUIT CO, WORKS MEN UNDER WORST CONDITION The United Fruit Company exer- eizes one of the most tyrannical} methods of supervision and control | of the workers in the Maine industry | that any Wall Street controlled cor- poration can be found guilty of. This company is the leader in the impor- | tation of fruits and similar products | such as coffee, ete. | The work in the industry at its best | jis very hard and exhausting being | the connecting link between the News and Views of the Biggest World Port | WASHINGTON, April 21. (FP) Teamsters’ Union | | JERSEY CITY,—(FP)—April 21. |—Another injunction hits teamsters and building trades workers of north- jern New Jerséy. The writ, issued by vice chancellor Church, is an attempt 0 ove: ionization 0! open Machado, Murderer and | stop ‘isms. "°° Sugar Trust Puppet. to Be Entertained by Cal Water Front Want Closed Shop. The injunction is a counter move of employers against the vigorous drive unions have been making in ani northern counties. Nearly all of the actual construction work is done by union labor but half the hauling and most of the building material work is non union. . By an informal alliance recently formed between the various trades the constriction workers have been discouraging the use of scab building materials and all goods hauled by non union teamsters and chauffeurs. Most of the seven unions enjoined in the temporary writ—returnable April 26th—have already been en- joined by other firms, They are Lo- cal 560, teamsters; Local 189, Hudson —President of Cuba, whose police agents até credited by the investi- gators for the Pan-American Fed- eration of Labor with having mur- dered more than 100 labor union leaders in Cuba in the past 18 months, is to be given a pompous reception By the Coolidge adminis- |! tration when he comes to Wash- ington April 22. Trade unionists have formulated no plans for approaching him dur- ing his visit with either a petition for decent humanity toward the source of the supply and its trans-/| portation into the United States and) |the freighting and shipping of the! Mtruit or coffee or cocoa. Miserable Conditions. Working conditions on the docks jand ships of the United Fruit Com- | | pany are miserable, | Thé men commence work at 6:45 |A. M. on the company’s program, | | but in reality if the men are not! down at the dock and at work ten} ‘minutes before this time they are| | either heavily fined or else fired be- fore the job really begins. Most of! |the men are up at four or five in the }morning waiting to get this work, | | which consists at this time of the ryear in unloading of the heavy) | bunches of bananas which artive from | | South and Central American ports. | It is no rare sight to find a veritable | | mob of men of all nationalities around | the empty docks piled into the empty freight cars, shivering and milling about waiting for @eir turn to slave) away the day from four in the morn-} ing to six thirty, when the foremen| come around to pick their men. | Do they get these jobs then, by) rotation or somie other such method. Nothing of the kind, regardless of the fact that they have been waiting all | morning and that some of the weaker |men have even gone to the extent jof getting in the ovens which are provided for the heating of the freight |cars by the company, that the cargo | may net spoil. Hardboiled Foremen. The foremen then choose the men |whom they feel will do the most work or else pick their personal Cuban wogkers, or with a warning that the P, A. F. of L. will take steps to bring upon him the de- nuneiation of organized workers in the othe} republics of the west- ern hemisphere. Machado will be closely surrounded by police and detectives, and will be accessible only to known conservatives and reactionaries and the official set. | ASS Sennen e ne on any longshote work whatsoever. The work is by no means steady. Four or five hours in the slow season and ten hours 4 day in the busy sea- son.. There is never eh ge an Brooklyn Shoeworkers average of four days a week, When A 4 the men de work ten hours they! TO Defend Their Union work at a fierce pate without stop- | ping to rest or eat. If you are | he Shoe Workers Protective caught eating, the foreman will fine | Union held a membership meeting you anything from fifty cents to/ last night at the Amalgamated Tem- half of your wages, and you got no| ple, 21 Arion Place, Brooklyn where kick coming and no damned chance to! plans for the preservation of the kick if you want to. union were discussed, If you do raise hell about itg and| It was disclosed that the bosses you are tunable to protect yourself | have forced strikes upon the Brook- against the strong arm tactics of the | lyn shoe workers by a series of wage foremen who are specially selected| cuts. That they have employed thugs for this kind of work, you are in for| and private detective agencies to a heck of a bad beating atid then| smash the strikes, Defense measures getting fired afterwards. The fine | was adopted by the meeting. also holds good in the event that you | SSP pale PORTH AF cea ena aoe are too tired to stand the average | grind for a length of time. | When the dongshoremen are not A copy for every Party Functionary County carpenters; the Intl. Brother- hood of steam and operating en- ginéers and Locals 825 and 825A of that organization; also the Hoisting and Portable Engineers of Néw Jer- sey; the international iron workers union afd their Berge county board of business representatives. The open shop firms are: building supply, quarry and construcsion firms em- ploying several thousand workers. Read The Daily Worker Every Day. carrying bananas for the United Fruit. Company they are carrying two hundred and fifty potind sacks of | coffee all day, and when it isn’t cof- | fee its two hundred and severty pound bags of cocoa beans—enough to breaks the average man’s back if Injunction Hits N. J. | that the teamsters and building trades | the | posited with the above corporations | section and an appeal was sent out in which Mr.,Ecker is interested is| for 1,000 tents to be used in that sec- $48,566,900.00. In addition to earn-/ tion, ing whatever he makes as an invest-| ment gé-between for -this string of | railroads, the Metropolitan Life pays | friends from out of the hungry, cold | overdone, but it seems that the long- | crowd. |shoremen that work for United Fruit | As to the actual working conditions ' are beasts of this quality in the eyes) Arkansas Hard Hit | these are of the worst type imaginable of the company. Arkansas js probably the hardest | But when the festivities are over, these facts still per The Metro- politan Life Insurance Company has hundr of millions ested in pub- lie utilities and railroa Take for in the event of epidemics.” The old of directors elected .them- selves to the fattest, cushigst, jobs, they could lay hands on. The in- ' 8 ress of justice for a long time. The} surance business secured a new lease eceuiple. Frederick H. , who | mm -GA8GNDD par year tok. hia ser. | bit séetion in the flood-torn territory, | court deplores it, but the court has| A life free from the prying} \~ th hite dor Haley # jc r . . |at Jonesboro, 700 additional refugees | - th holes bus to allow th | For ever tive eyes of a suspicious public: pinch hits for Haley as the} vices as vice-president. have just artived and 8,000 niore are | no other choice but to allow the mo- | or every acti Hughes Gets Job. first executive at number One, Madi-| When will the 24 million policy- tion for a mistrial.” son Avenue. | holders of the Metropolitan Life be-| ee ae ees repeat | ¥ 1 Hq The judge than discharged thé jury Charges fivahs Hashes attended! “Me weber director of the fol-|come aware ‘of the fact that. the in. | = ssissippl. ed Cross relief workers nds i istrial: but ordered all subpoenacs in fore ll ———————— insurance company luncheons and/ lowing corporations in which the|terests which Mr. Ecker serves aad phere eee oe rh gpk ans 5 for a new trial. | fig PART Y dinners and loosed streams sugary,| Metropolitan Life invests much of comes more. serious mass , feedings panegyric, about the selflessness of | its “Mutual” funds: life insurance corporations now dis- Chase National Bank guised as “mutual” companies. The Chicago Eastern RR press saw nothing ludicrous in the Cincinnati & Western RR sight of the late insurance investi-} Denver & Rio Grande RR Books That Lead to a Better Understanding and a Greater Usefulness in the Revolutionary Movement ALL BOOKS CLOTH BOUND. MARX AND ENGELS LENIN ON ORGANIZATION - $1.50 By D. Riazanov . $2.50 | THE ECONOMIC THEORY or SELECTED ESSAYS THE LEISURE CLASS By Karl Marx ....... seeeeee $1.75 | Bucharin-.............. oe $2.50 PEASANT WAR IN GERMANY EDUCATION IN SOVIET RUSSIA By F. Engels ....0...000065, $1,50| Scott Nearing ..........., gs $1.50 THOS. MORE AND HIS UTOPIA | LEFT WING UNION By Karl Kauteky .........:.. $2.25 | By D. J. Saposs .... SLEMENTS OF POLITICAL | WOMAN WORKER A} EDUCATION TRADE UNIONS Berdnikov-Svetloy (Paper $1).. $1.50 By Theresa Wolfson ., see SLIB SEND FOR A FREE CATALOGUE OF ALL PUBLICATIONS. THE DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING 33 FIRST STREET, NEW YORK. co. = their own are in contradistinction to each other? Let us now impale Mr. Albert H. Wiggin upon the lance of our pub- licity. Mr. Wiggin is one of those shy, retiring Wall Street buccaneers who detests the limelight. He pre- | fers to work in the dark; somehow or other knowledge of his operations mitigates against success, | Mr. Wiggin is on the Metropolitan | board of directors for the following reasons: | Chase National Bank | Adams Express American Locomotive American Railway Express American Securities Chase Securities i] Duquesne Light & Power Co. Franklin Securities Great Fall Power Co. Greenwich Savings Bank Hudson & Manhattan RR Lawyers Title & Trust Co, Montana Power Co. N. Y. Rapid Transit Pacific Coast RR Pittsburg Utilities Western Union Telegraph Westinghouse Electric Southern Express Co. In addition to giving “Mr. Wiggin the privilege of looking after some | of its investments the Metropolitan | pays him $880 a year or $16.84 per | week for acting as a director. Robert W. deForrest, another | Metropolitan director, is tied up | with: ; Lehigh & Hudson RR | Niagra Fire Ins. Co. Nat’l Employment Exchange Title Guarantee Russell Sage Foundation One'could go on indefinitely show- ing lists of corporations which are intimately linked with the directors of the “Big. Four.” Banks, railroads, security companies, and public util-| ities of any prominence are all inter- woven in this general scheme to de- . $1.69 fraud and swindle the 40 million| weekly payment policyholders who are victimized by this arrant holdup. Many of the corporations listed “above are the most notorious union- smashing organizations in this coun- try. | Company, whose gunmen killed and | wounded 28 pickets during a strike in 1921. How long will the American worker-insurer tolerate this gigantic fraud which operates in a vicious circle that perpetuates his slavery? Offhand in this connection one recalls the Western Union, the Mon-| tana Power Company, a subsidiary | , of the ill-famed Anaconda Copper} | Soon will be necessary. | Seven companies of Missouri Na- | tional guardsmen have been called qut | by Governor Baker to patrol the areas |most affected in this state—Missis- sippi, Pemiscot and New Madrid | counties. | National, state and local agencies were rushing felief to the, stricken | areas along the river from Tilinois to | the Gulf. Vaccines and other medical supplies were in patticular demand | because of the fear of an epidemic in the refugee camps. 1. N. S. Manager a Suicide BREMEN, Germany, April 21—As |the result of a nervous breakdown, |S. Dunbar Weyer, for the past six years manager of the International and killed himself in a compartment on the Berlin-Bremen express early today. pm Weyer was on his way to Bremen to embark for the United States. He ‘was accompanied by H. R. Knicker- bocker, Moseow correspondent of the to fill in for Weyer during his trip to America. + Marconi Is Silent. ROME, April 21—Senator Mar- coni on hié arrival here tonight re- |fused to discuss the Roman Rota’s annulment of his first marriage. This evening Marconi jparty of the crown prince mere for a gala Eastern dinner at the Grand Hotel, Weisbord and Dunne ° . Speaking Tonight at . . Passaic Mass Meeting PASSAIC, N. J, April 21.—A campaign rally for Albert Weis- bord, Simon Smelkinson and Simon Bambach, the labor candidates for city commissioners will be held to- night at Ukranian Hall, President Street. The speakers will include Albert Weisbord, William F. Dunne, editor of The DAILY WORKER, Emil Gardos and others, The meet- ing will open 7.30 p. m. * * * | | All those who have election cam- paign subscription lists are urged to return them with donations at once to campaign headquarters, 27 Dayton Ave., Passaic, N. J. News Service Bureau in Berlin, shot | International News Service who was | joined the} and | princess of Sweden and Lord Rother-| Frame-Up Charged DETROIT, April 21.—The million | dollar Ford-Sapiro libel case was thrown out of court today when Fed- eral Judge Fred M. Raymond ordered a mistrial, discharged the jury and remanded the case for a new trial, The preliminary scenes to this action were featured by charges and coun- ter-charges, in which the Ford attor- neys charged that a woman on the} jury had expressed prejudice in talk- ing with newspaper reporters and the Sapiro forces declared the whole thing was a frame-up engineered by Ford agents because Ford feared the case} would go against him. Baron On Detroit. Ford’s immense wealth and the fact that he practically controls De- troit and all its institutions gives color to the Sapiro charge that the trial ended today in order to pro- tect Henry Ford from keeping him off the witness stand. Many recalled the famous Chicago Tribune suit in which Ford was placed on the stand and under cross-examination proved to be one of the most ignorant men in the United States, having not the | slightest knowledge of history or any+ thing else except devising ways of | getting an exoorbitant amount of la-} | bor out of workers in his slave pens where he endeavors to standardize the workers as he does his flivvers that are turned out of his industries, At that time he made his one contri- bution to the gayety of nations with the observation that “History is Bunk!” Judge Flays Newspapers. The judge declared the trial might have continued, “if it had not been for the newspapers which went so far as to intrude upon the duties of the court.” “It is unfortunate that any report- er or editor should so far forget his ethics as to intrude upon the court’s | functions,” the court added. “These stories, though, make it impossib to make further progress with this trial.” “This intrusion of the newspapers exceeded any appreciation of the de- mands of justice,” the court conelud- ed, “Justice has been crucified upon the cross of sensational journalism. There will be no chance to make pro- gress in future trials of this case uniess justice is given the right of way over sensationalism. It is a terribly unfortunate experience for Communist ORGANIZER First number of a new monthly, party organiza- tional publication. 10 CENTS $1.00 a year. The WORKERS PARTY 1118 W. Washington Blvd, CHICAGO, ILL. Bank Failure Brings Panic to - Japanese) TOKYO, April 21.—Japan faced financial panic today. The failure of | the Jugo-Bank of Tokyo, one of the five largest financial institutions in the cinpire, created great uncasj ess | throughout Japan. Numerous s all- | | | er banks have suspended. The} Watkatsuki cabinet fell beeause of its attempt to bolster the tottering Bank of Formosa. The new cabinet, in- ducted yesterday, is doing everything possible to stabilize conditions, | Here’s How To greet the workers of the world The DAILY WORKER will print the names of individual workers and all working class organizations in its SPECIAL MAY DAY EDITION, Here’s How Much Individual names will be printed at the rate of $1.00 per\ name. Organizations will be given a special rate of $1,00 > per inch, ‘ Here’s When— All greetings must be mailed at once to reach The DAILY WORKER before April 25, All greetings arriving |; will be printed in following editions. Rte es Aer SEND GREETINGS TODAY the court. It has set back the pro-