The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 25, 1927, Page 6

Page Six THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, MONDAY, APRIL 25, 1927 eo The Policies of John L.} Lewis Have Set the Coal Miners Back Many Years} By J. LOUIS ENGDAHL T Sea, Aboard United States Liner, President A Roosevelt, Wednesday, April 6. (By Mail from Plymouth, England) ming on board today, I took along copies of the recognized New York morning capitalist dailies. Among them were the Times, the and one of the tabloids, | Herald-Tribune. he World, The: Evening Graphic. I have scanned them all efully, thru all of their pages, but I have failed to discover one word about the subject in which I am most interested at the moment, | and which should interest the whole American work- | ing class, the epochal struggle between the coal miners and the mine owners in the soft coal fields, perhaps ane of the most crucial engagements in the whole his- tory of the American clas truggle, ‘ * * * | Less than a week has passed since the old agreement | between workers and bosses in the bituminous fields expired on March 31, with no new wage contract to take its place, owing to the failure of the Miami Con- ference to come to an understanding, But already the capitalist press finds no news in this battle for bread that directly concerns 800,000 workers, organized and | unorganized in the coal industry, and indirectly the| whole working class. I: the miners’ union can be| smashed, or even crippled in this fight, then the whole | American working class, organized and unorganized, | is affected. | I have before me one of the last issues before sailing | of our DAILY WORKER, Tuesday April 5th, and 1t/ tells of a prospective conference of the Coal Operators (Owners) Association of Illinois, which.employs some 72,000 men, to be held at St. Louis with “no hopes of settling the strike.” mine owners are being held elsewhere, at this writing, with equally futile promises of results. “Blown to pieces” literally expresses the fate of a powerful freight locomotive on the Chicago & Eastern Illinois: railroad near Salem, Ill. Three trainmen were instantly killed, LOCOMOTIVE ‘BLOWN TO PIECES’ Who is Behind the Prosecution of the Militant Needle Trades Workers? Who Are Matthew Woll’s Fellow Conspirators? They Are Leaders of the National Civic Fed- eration! Woll is Acting President of the Labor Hating Civic Federation. T. Coleman duPont T. Coleman duPont is a scion of the well-known “powder and | i i I ares Set rt ‘ s i : and shirt. We ‘entered the clothes room from which we Similar district gatherings of| qvnamite” family, which owns all of New Jersey, except the emerged, dressed in our new togs. When John Marshes and mosquitoes, and a member of the Civic Federation | glances and smiled. A keeper then led us across an L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers or| executive board. The workers employed in the highly hazardous America, announced that district and local settlements! and unhealthy occupation of making explosives are prevented SIXTY DAYS IN WORKHOUSE | | By JULIUS MAILMAN | (As Told To Alex Jackinson) ERE were six ‘of us in the courtroom known as Part 4, General Sessions, waiting to be sentenced. A hush spread over the audience as twelve serious men, their | faces clouded with a sombre nonchalance filed out of} j}the jury room. The foreman rubbed his right index finger across his lips. “We firtd the defendants guilty?” Hushed. whispers, lawyers’ pleas, and the presiding judge sentenced us to sixty days in the workhouse. We} were furriers, members of the Joint Board, convicted | on trumped-up charges of assault. The sentence, tho unwarranted, did not surprise us: We knew as class conscious workers what to expect in a capitalist court. From the courtroom we were taken back to our cell | and at four o’clock that same day found ourselves |erossing the Bridge of Sighs to the Tombs. There ‘we were carefully searched, handcuffed and placed in in-| |dividual cells on the 8th tier. Toward evening our handcuffs were removed. We spent the night tossing restlessly about on the hard pallets. In the morning a keeper poured some coffee through the bars into a| tin cap. _Nine o’clock we were taken downstairs and again manacled. A few minutes later two detectives ushered us into a waiting patrol wagon, Together with other prisoners, we were whisked rapidly off to Wel- | fare Island. | * * * | We arrived within fifteen minutes. In the office our |“bracelets” were removed but the red marks they left |remained on our wrists for several hours. A keeper| | began questioning us. One of the boys was thete once | before and he recognized him. ‘So it’s you back again?” |he questioned sarcastically. “How many people did you jeut up this time?” He then inquired how long our term was. We replied “Sixty Days,” to which he ut- tered, “All right, check ‘your things.” We stepped over \to a window marked VALUABLES and placed our | watches, fountain pens, and other belongings on the \sill, being careful however, that everything was proper- ly checked up. We were informed that inmates are often robbed, sometimes with the consent of the |keeper. Later on we learned that to complain of such losses meant a term in “solitary,” which spelled bread and water twice. daily. Each of us was then handed the regulation grey pants | We exchanged ally to the mess-hall which was a low, white building connected with the main prison. In the room were two rows.of tables, topped by porcelain. Soon other pris- Fighting Militarism Our military apologists are going ahead full steam in their preparations for making the C. M. T. C’s’ (Citizens Military Training Camps), a huge success this year. The New Jersey newspapers take great pride in pub- lishing the names of all the enlisted recruits. The Young Workers League (the only organization fighting these militarist maneuvers) answers with the following lettter to all the listed recruits: “Dear Friends: “We have seen your name appear in the newspapers as one of the re- cruits of Essex county to the C.M.T.C, Knowing full well that you are going to the camps for the first time, we want to tell you a thing or two about them, so that. you can still change your mind about going there before the C. M. T. C.’s open, or if not, to see for yourself when you get there, the truth of what we say. “The C. M. T. C’s are military in- stitutions—just as their name implies. The C. M. T. C’s are places where the youth of America become mili- tarized, become imbued with the spirit of war. The C. M. T. C’s are not at all pleasure resorts, but in- stead you receive 5% hours of drill per day, and quite strenuous drill at that. “At the same time, the C, M. T. C’s are more than that. They are places where the young workers and stu- dents who go there receive anti-la- bor ideas, anti-union propaganda. That is the reason that Mr. Gary, head of the U. S. Steel Corp., one of the biggest labor and union smash- ing concerns in America, endorses the Cc, M. T. C. - Tht is the reason that banking houses and big bankers, the Penn. Railroad, Standard Oil, etc., en- With the Young Worker The Young Worker Goes to Sea Probably about fifty percent of (the American. youth that goes out to sea is allured by some mystic sense of romance and a glamor of adyen- ture, which is the bunk that is thrown out over the sea industry to. the young workers. The actual condi- |tions which the young workers en- counter on the job are far from the conditions depicted by the stories of romance and adventure so commonly |peddled to them by cheap current | magazine literature and war depart- ment. publicity. The averave. worker |finds that he has to work twelve {hours a day under strenuous condi- | tions to which he is not adapted by | training. He finds that he is ex- | ploited and made to do the dirtiest |and hardest tasks and that on the | average job plus the bad grub which he gets he also averages but a mean forty five to fifty dollars a month jat the most. The work Is a constant, grind of four hours on and four off | for the most part. | The varieus companies that take |the young workers into the sea em- | ploy many times use them for any- | thing that the more skilled and union |members will not undertake. This lis very well illustrated in the case jof the Standard Oil Co. The Stand- ard Oil Co. has its shipping office | located at Pearl St. and from this office they have been sending mostly young workers who desire the sea {experience or are seeking steady | work at this occupation, down to the |Charles Pratt, a coastwise tanker, | They are sent down to the rratt with | the understanding that the ship is to make a trip to San Pedro and that all in all it is an easy trip to make. The conditions which they. find upon arrival are the following. The would be permitted following the breakdown of the| from organizing and are miserably underpaid. joint conference in the Central Competitive Field (Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Western Pennsylvania), he confessed to the weakness that the miners’ union has developed under his reactionary regime. Lewis pushed back the miners’ union, in its fight for power in the industry, practically 30 years, to 1898, when he broke the front of the mine workers’ army and announced that separate agreements would be permitted. It was in 1898 that the miners’ union first became strong enough to force the mine owners into the Interstate Joint Conference and develop the struggle on some- thing resembling a national scale. With the beginning of the century, unity and discipline were being estab- lished by tortuous struggle among the mine workers, thruout the industry. In these early years of the second quarter of the century, President Lewis anda the red-baiting regime of which he is the head, has brought chaos into the ranks of the mine workers, creating an outlook darker than at any time since the} panic 1893 nearly destroyed the beginnings of the vnion just taking root, and giving promise of growth. ‘The struggle for nation-wide action on the part of mine workers constitutes the history of the miners’ union. No wonder that Arthur E. Suffern begins his book entitled “The Coal Miners’ Struggle for Industriai Status” with the declaration: “The ability of organized workmen in the basic in- dustries to tie up the whole economic system is a com- paratively recent phenomenon. THERE IS SOME- THING OMINOUS IN THE FACT THAT MEN IN SUCH NUMBERS CAN MAINTAIN UNANIMITY OF ACTION.” * * * . The writer stil! had in mind the brilliant struggles of the coal miners since the war, when unity was de- veloped on a broader front than ever before, only to be broken by the now historic declaration of President Lewis that, “I cannot fight the government.” The present difficult situation that confronts the ‘coal miners is but the logical development of the reign of treason of John L. Lewis, that this year sends the mine workers in squads and depleted platoons against the well-organized regiments of aollars of the mine ewners, in perhaps the most affluent year that Ameri- ean capitalism has ever enjoyed. At least the profit showings for the first three months of the. year in- dicate that the record totals of wealth stolen from labor Known Corporation Connections. DuPont & Dunham, Inc., V. Pres. and Director. Empire Safe Deposit Co., Director. Empire Trust Co., Chairman of the Board of Directors, Equitable Office Building Corporation, Chairman of the Board of Dir. General Refractories Co., Director. Greeley Square Hotel Co., Vice President and Director. Industrial Finance Corporation, Director. Morris Plan of New York, The Director. National Surety Co., Director. Thompson-Starrett Co., Director. Waldorf Astoria, Inc., Director. LETTERS FROM OUR READERS | oners, dressed as we were, filed in and sat down on |the wooden stools. The food was served in zine dishes iby the mess hall gang. Our first dinner consisted of cold: oatmeal floating on a white fluid, which served as milk. Coffee and a piece of dry pudding completed the | meal which was eatén in silence. A keeper standing | dorse the C. M. T. C. The cry of) ship is located in Robins Dry dock in “citizenship” means nothing more or| the Erie Basin. The focale or living less than this anti-labor propaganda, | quarters of the crew have been en- and training to be a good soldier. tirely ripped to pieces due to the fact “With 5,500 American marines in| that the place was positively rotten in the center aisle saw to that. Nicaragua, with American marines|and reeking with filth. The men are * * * and warships in China, with new and | told to put their clothing in the car- After dinner, we were given two damp blankets and | greater possibilities of war, it is nec-|penter shed, and this is none too taken to our dormitory. As soon as we entered, our|essary that every young American | clean. After this they are told to noses inhaled a musty odor of decay, with which the| worker and student should get up| get busy chipping rust with power- room, once used as a broom shop, was impregnated./on his hind legs and ery—Down | ful air hammers and they are set on The four orange colored walls were sadly. in need of | with the billions of dollars invested painting the ship. When asked how re-painting. Eight dust-covered windows, some of which | by Wall Street in Europe, Asia, and! long this is to last before the ship could not be opened, faced the east end of the island.| South America! We refuse to fight/ will leave from the drydock for San From the ceiling patches of plaster were constantly|and die for the investments of the| Pedro the answer is not to ask too falling. A single line of lamps hung midway between | bankers in Wall St.! We will not go many questions. If you do they fire |the two rows of beds, each row consisting of thirty.|to the C. M. T. C’s or any other) you. They are pretty sure of getting |Three toilets and a long sink adjoined the furthest end military institution, in order to learn} other young fellows on this work’at | | Enjoys Reading The Daily Worker Editor, The Daily Worker:—The Daily Worker is for laboring people, | and I would like to see it on sale at the newsstands here in Burlington. I have | missed my paper since my return home two weeks ago and would like to | be able to buy it here. | Have saved all the D.W. that I bought last winter in another city and am showing them to friends and neighbors here, It is a paper that should receive the support of every laborer in the country, * * * | Conditions in Los Angeles Editor, The Daily Worker:—Have just made a tour of the employment/ offices and I would judge that there is at least 10 million unemployed, maybe not that many, but there certainly are a lot and very few jobs. lam a carpenter and just came off a railroad job where I was layed off |ing thru the ceiling. for not joining a company union for which they deducted $7.00 from your} | pay check. The forman on the job is the organizer. There were several jobs on the slave market this morning and in ox) planation to the above mentioned unemployed I will name over some of them. | | Carpenter $3.00 and $4.00, that’s per day, not hour; ranch hand $20.00 per | month; married truck driver $4.00 a day, must be huskey, Gardner $50 per | jobs. |a lot of discussion. | 180 pounds and be physically fit. | back in that country. | the big men originated. month; milker, 30 cows, $60 a month; dishwashers $8 to $15 per week and a few more not any better, and they want all the way from $2 to $5 for such I also saw a job at the free employment office that was responsible for The job was, 50 men wanted for: Power construction work in Michigan and Indiana; fare advanced, must be 6 feet tall, weight Some argued that there were no big men But i was under the impression that that’s where all I think they have decided its poor policy to have} last year are being outstripped by the passing months '(,, many unemployed in one section so they scatter them around. of 1927. The sun smiles only on that faction of the National Coal Association (mine owners) that expects “the union} will be permanently kept of or some day be uprooted from, at least, their section of the industry.” A (5 = The object of this series of articles will be to review the history of the efforts of the coal miners to build their organization, a study of the factors that have contributed to the strengthening or the weakening of the organization, and the inferences that can be drawn in their application to the present struggle. Even the most ill-informed coal miner must realize that the union is on the wrong track, that it is headed “hell bent” toward destruction under the Lewis policies, which are the policies of the mine owners and not of the mine workers. fake, for instance, the fact that only a few non- union miners in West Virginia are out in support of the present struggle, whereas, in 1919 enough non-union miners responded to the call to struggle for better con- ditions, higher wages and a shorter workday to cut off 72 per cent of the national bituminous production. Years that “re rich, like 1926, for the capitalists, usually give some favorable opportunities for otgant- vation work among~the unorganized toiling masses, But the Lewis administration was as inactive during 1926 in the mining industry, as the Green regime in the American Federation of Labor was idle generally thruout all industry in seizing this favorable oppor- tunity to build the power of labor against the Iéan years of depression and inevitable unemployment. Ge * Instead of a militant and growing army of mine workers, challenging the mine owners, we find the “Magazine of Wall Street® gloating over the fact that today the open shop mines are® producing the bulk: of the coal. It says that, “Alabama, for example, went up from 19,130,184 tons in 1924 to 22,356,000 tons in 1926; Kentucky from 36,127,183 to 47,006,000, and West Virginia from 101,662,897 to 147,209,000 tons, while corresponding increases were shown in other non- union territory and balancing decreases in the union strongholds.” When the militants in the union point out these facts they are denounced as “reds” and “Bolsheviks” and charged with being agents of “Mos- cow.” That is the only remedy offered by Lewis, which is no remedy, but instead the poison of the mine ewners. The Next Article-—Organizing the first local union of coal miners in the bee kad field in 1849, If these unemployed can manage to exist a little while longer the capitalists will no doubt reward them with the privilege of fighting its next for solidarity. * Truth About Workers Needed. Daily Worker Publishing Co., Dear Comrades: For one who can contribute only a few dollars a year, I don’t know of |any better plan than The DAILY WORKER. Put me down on the Sus- | taining Fund for $1.00 per month. Am sending $3.00 this time. More power to you on the Sacco- | Vanzetti campaign. They must not | die. The series of articles by Mitchell on organizing the subway workers is the kind of stuff we need more of. Just such points. as showing exactly |how the workers are divided are greatly lacking. Most class-conscious leaders will tell us that the workers were divided in such and such a strike. |The ordinary class-conscious worker | will know that after a strike is over. But when they learn just how they |are divided, workers can nip these tac- | tics before they fully begin. | Good stuff. More of it. Fraternally, D, G. ISRAEL. 604 East 84th Street, April 14, |rnembers and sympathizers, | When I heard that The DAILY WORKER was in danger I worked | day and night to get the money. | We all know that the reactionaries in the labor movement are trying to |erush the only genuine labor paper in | this country, but the day will come when things will change. The DAILY WORKER is our weap- on, ‘and we are going to defend it. war, which doesn’t appear to be far off. Must close for this time. Yours A. W, WITHERS, Los Angeles, Cal. * A Real Daily Worker Booster. To the Editor of the Daily Worker, Dear Sir: I am a steady reader of The DAILY WORKER since its appearance on the newsstands in New York. The reason I write this letter is because I am deeply interested in the circulation and popularization of this paper. I am a plumbers’ helper, and I be- long to the American Association of Plumbers’ Helpers. I try my best to spread this paper. Every day I bring two or more copies of this paper on the job. Some of the men take this paper from me; but you know it is hard to make a Graphic reader to read every day The DAILY WORKER. But the plumbers’ strike in Brook- lyn, and the threatened lockout in Queens and Mankattan raised the in- terest of some of the plumbers to the paper. Especially they liked the head- line of the paragraph, “The Bosses Unite.” Therefore I want you to print fe- ports, and encouraging ones, about the strike of the plumbers and the help- ers. Also print if ible articles Editor, The Daily Worker: ity the the 3 and if Pe Tam sending to your business office wail & ¥ me very much roe vs | $77.00 which I collected among our readers for our DAILY WO! yes new followers of the Communist movement, Hoping my request will be satisfied, I remain, for our common goal, Very sincerely yours, DAVID HOROWITZ. 1348 Sheridan Ave., April 16th, Pasta! Him windy WORKERS! PROTEST AGAINST D. Fedaruk, Scranton, Pa. | DEATH OF SACCO and VANZETTI ¢ , |of the room. Most of the inmates were Bowery bums arrested for | vagrancy. In this motley gathering with whom we had | without feet who had to be wheeled about. Here also| were homeless old men, cast off by society as unde-| sirable. Thugs, pickpockets, black-jack sluggers and| | numerous other derelicts made up the personnel of the |“House of Correction.” On the floor above was a laboratory where dogs, were | |quartered. These canines were used for experimental | work in behalf of drug addicts. It took us some time) before we got used to their continuous barking sound-| (To Be Continued). FOR THE CLOAKMAKERS | UNION (An Interview by A. SOKOLOV, Workers’ School.) I am on the picket line with the cloakmakers. Hun- dreds of pickets in rows of four march up and down the streets. I join a group and walk along with them. My neigh- bors look at me suspiciously, for they seem to recog- nize that I am not a cloakmaker. I tell them I am a reporter who is interested to find jout all about the struggle and fight raging in the union. To my surprise I find willing companions to enlighten me on the situation and we pass immediately ,to direct questions and answers. “Why are you picketing here?” I ask. Cloakmaker—“This shop,” pointing with his hand, “has been declared on strike by the Joint Board. . The ‘boss requested his men to register with the Interna- | to take a month’s vacation in the C. | iM. T..C. to be a soldier and a scab! “The Young Workers’ League is| a militant organization of young| against militarism and the new dan-| gers of war.” Line O’type or Two Fairy Tales. Two hundred and fifty large cor-| porations urge their young workers | Such generosity makes one | suspicious. ; Labor Lieutenant Ramsay. Coolidge is genial, affable and homely says Ramsay MacDonald. Wall Street can now say quite de-} finitely, “Come to Papa, you have! nothing in common-with these radi-, cals, your place is in any British Cabinet.” Poor Ramsay, gone but) not forgotten, Believe It Or Not. Judge Thayer sheds crocodile tears | when accused of being partial in| in Sacco and Vanzetti trial. How) could anyone be so rude? The Poor Fish Says | tional and discharged those who refused to do it.” ‘ © Bosses Get Privileges. .“Why do the bosses have to interfere in the struggle between the Joint Board and the International?” I ask. Cloakmaker—‘Some do not interfere, others do; for they have an opportunity to get out of union conditions. The International encourages those bosses by offering them certain privileges.” Second Cloakmaker—‘“Why, in my shop all those who registered with the International got at once a cut in wages from $5 to $10 per week.” Mass Against Thugs. “Why do you have hundreds of pickets for one shop?” Cloakmaker—“The gangsters, thugs and police, sup- ported and hired by the International and the bosses, are terrorizing the pickets desperately and only mass picketing minimizes their cruelty. Even then they beat, up and arrest many every day without any excuse.” “Do you believe that most of the cloakmakers have registered with the International?” Cloakmaker—“No, many did register not to lose their jobs. They were ‘out on strike for months and could not afford to lose the season.” Fight For Joint Board. Second Cloakmaker—‘Many who registered with the International, as myself and others in my shop, keep up the Joint Board through donations, picketing and otherwise. But in two or three weeks we will be with the Joint Board openly, since the season will be over.” “Why are you for the Joint Board?” Cloakmaker—“The Joint Board represents the cloak- makers. We have elected them and we are sure they Secretary Kellogg is correct. The U. 8S. must have eight battleships at Hankow to protect its eighty-five citizens. BE SURE TO GET THE SPECIAL ISSUE, MAY FIRST JOIN OUR RANKS fight for us. But this is not the case with the Inter- national. They tried to sell out the strike. Many of them were even scabbing during the last strike, and now they are the officers of Sigman’s union, Every cloakmaker knows them, and their activities.” “Do you expect the Joint Board to win the fight?” Cloakmakers—“Yes, the union and the Joint Board will win, Sigman and the rest will soon get out and very shortly.” ‘ At that moment the police began dispersing the pickets. I had to stop my interview and soon lost my YOUNG WORKERS ¢., ‘ Wy this time of the year. This work ordinarily pays the aver- age skilled. dry dock workers. six to live were deformed beggars, some armless, others| workers and~ students that fights| dollars a day. But the Standard Oil takes advantage of the youth and pays them only two dollars,.a day saving a great deal of money this way at the expense of the exploited workers, SPORT Anna Belle Stought of Crooksville (Ohio) High led national basket ball scoring honors with 92 field goals and 24 fouls for a season’s total of 208 points. Not so bad for Annie!. Ladies’ Day Today. The bosses, who have control of sports for their own ends, also have the help of the ladies. Workers Sports Clubs include but few organi- zations of the fair sex, The Fifth National Athletic Con- ference of American College Women at Cornell University reports a record of more than 200 delegates present from colleges and schools thruout the country, Reports include participation in all sports with the exception of foot-ball and the gentle | art of squashing noses. The boss gets them later. In large industrial plants these girls serve to teach underpaid girls to participate . in sports instead of the game of getting better wages. In Chicago ‘Westinghouse Electric has a baseball league. Girls indi teams in baseball bowling and ball are growing in leaps and Let’s get the girls inte: Workers Sports Clubs. Not idea, is it boys? National Office: 1118 West Washington Boulevard, Chicagoy TM. x.