The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 26, 1927, Page 6

Page Six THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, APRIL 26, 1927 History. of Coal Miners’ Union Proves Necessity of Action on National Scale By J. LOUIS ENGDAHL T SEA, Aboard United States Liner President Roose- velt, Thursday, April 7. (By Mail from Plymouth, England.)—There is a daily morning newspaper pub- | lished on this ship, in common with all the steamers of the United States Lines. It is called the “Chicago Trib- une Ocean Times.” It has many pages of features and| advertisements, 15 pages in the first issue distributed on} this trip. These are all made up on shore. Only the 16th page is printed aboard ship and this is devoted to news calculated to be of the greatest interest to the | passengers. It is clearly to be seen that the editor who | decides what news is to appear in these Ocean Dailies, | has a definite yardstick to guide him. Scandals, big | court trials like the Sapiro case in Detroit, famous | divorce cases, even baseball and other sport news is re-| duced to paragraphs. Each day, however, there is fea-, tured the news story that strikes hardest at the domi- nant social order, the news that affects all humanity | alike. Thus today China gets the double-column spread | with this headline: “Soviet Threatens to Quit Peking as | Reprisal for Raid on Consulate; Guns of Foreign Powers | Trained on City of Hankow; Situation Becomes More Tense; Premier Wellington Koo Resigns.” + * * But nowhere, as in the New York capitalist dailies of yesterday, is there to be found even a paragraph about the crucial struggle being waged between the mine own- ers and mine workers around the American coal pits. An Indiana mine owner is aboard this ship, bound for a holiday in Europe, typical of the unconcern with which American capitalism views the present effort of the coal miners to lift their standard of living, under the leader- ship of the reaction that rules in the union. Capitalists and capitalist press alike, realize to the full, that the mite workers have been hamstrung by the policies of the ime in the United Mine Workers’ Union of President John L. Lewis, and that they are not in a position at | the Raowd wandered up and down | for the workers.” Nine Furriers Must Be Freed “Remember, it is no concern of yours whom. your verdict pleases.— It is no concern of yours what hap-| pens to the defendants after you have |rendered your verdict.” So the judge admonished the jury as these twelve citizens of Nassau! county left the court room to decide} fate of \eleven fur workers, | brought to trial because of their de-/ votion to the interests of the furriers’ | union, Armed Sheriffs. | Following the jury out of the court room went the 11 prisoners guarded by sheriffs, conspicuously armed. Then came the spectators—fur work- | ers, cloakmakers, dressmakers, other | workers who had sat all day watch-| ing their comrades and offering si-| lent sympathy and courage. Wives, | sweethearts, sisters who had sat day | after day listening to defense and} denunciation of their loved ones. | It was 5:15, and for hours’ the the court house; out for something to eat; back to the vigil at the foot of the stairs ledding to the jury room. Many Rumors. “The longer they’re out, the better This was the the-| ory used to. cheer each other. Ru-| |mors spread. “One man is sticking out for complete acquittal.” “Every |one is acquitted except Malkin and | Franklin.” “Only Gold is freed.” | More recruits arrived from New York. They could not stand the | strain of waiting for a message at the Joint Board, or Local 22, where | hundreds sat listening for the ring |of the telephone. Everyone asked word about New York in order to forget the drama of Mineola. this time to wage an effective struggle. The British coal miners’ strike, for months, was. news, the world aréund. The American coal miners’ struggle will en- gage similar attention when it develops similar unity of purpose and militancy in action. To accomplish this end is the task of the left wing. Tt is nearly four-score years since the first local union of American coal miners was organized by John Bates in the anthracite field in Pennsylvania in 1849. That is the earliest effort at organization known in the Amer- jean. coal industry. This was more than half a century after Robert Fulton astonished the world with his steam- boat, that fired with wood, in 1793, and exactly 50 years: after Evans invented his high-pressure steam engine. But it was also 20 years before the first great recorded coal mine disaster, that took place Sept. 6, 1869, at Plymouth, Pa., claiming the lives of 179 miners, the greatest loss of life until the Scofield, Utah, mine dis- | aster on May 1, 1900, that took a toll of 200 lives. This pioneer effort at organization in 1849 did not bear much fruit. From this date and on thru the decade | leading up to the Civil War little is known, according to the historians of the miners’ union, of the efforts of the miners te organize local unions in either the anthracite or the bituminous fields. Evans “History of the United Mine Workers of America” records that toward the close of 1860 a call was sent out by union leaders in Illinois appealing to the miners to unite and to form an organ- ization national in scope. It was pointed out then, as now, that only thru organized effort could the miners obtain their rights and ameliorate their unbearable con- ditions. Thus the American Miners’ Association came into ex- istence as the result of a convention held January 28, 1861. This was the first national union of mine work- ers in America. It might be looked upon as an ambi- tious undertaking. The Weekly Miner, the propaganda and news publication of the union, was established and the organization !aunched upon a campaign to form locals in both the anthracite and bituminous fields. The years of depression following the Civil War proved too much for this first effort, however, and by 1868 it had lost its hold and “gradually dwindled away.” ¢ ‘ ‘a Overproduction is not a new evil in the industry. It is estimated that the yearly demand for soft coal today totals 550 million tons, while the mines in operation With their present labor force could produce approxi- mately 900 million tons. From the beginning, therefore, there has been con- siderable under-employment in the industry. The bitu- minous mines averaged only 215 days per year in the 80-year period from 1892-1921. The shorter workday has, therefore, been one of the big demands of the miners’ union since its inception, more important even than the demand for an increasing wage rate and im- proved conditions. With extreme competition prevailing in the industry, the mine owner has fought just as hard for decreasing | wage rates, the long workday and conditions of labor that have been the cause of developing arid growing un- | rest among the. mine workers. Brief mention of the| abuses suffered by the coal miners show that these have | not changed to any very great extent since the begin- | ning. They are: shortweighing of coal and excessive dockage, resulting in the demand for check weighmen | employed by themselves; the payment of wage rates | baged on the amount of coal which would pass over screens of a certain mesh and area was subject of abuse, anf it was pointed out that this abuse could only be } medied by requiring payment according to the weight | [the coal as it came from the mine; the non-payment | r “deadwork,” the company store with its high prices, | Monthly payment of wages and the company houses with their high rents. * * ’ “These conditions forced tH coal miners to make de-| ids upon their employers, not as individuals, but} their organized power. Even Arthur E. Suffern in book, “The Coal Miners’ Struggle for Industrial | atus,” the result of an investigation made under the| auspices of the Carnegie Corporation of New York: ad- | mits that: te “The history of the development of miners’ unions is replete with evidence of the ineffectiveness of local and | tn organizations as compared to national organiza- . Yet President John L. Lewis is trying to fly in the| of all the experiences of the mine workers, during | 80 years since the first miners’ union local was or- ‘ zed, putting into force a policy permitting district nd local agreements in the present struggle. These hice of the Lewis administration in the miners’ union ot help but have the effect of deep cutting daggers en into the back of the United Mine Workers of America. The history of ‘the long struggle of the miners’ union has proved this to be true. When the coal miners learn this lesson to the full they will effectively repudiate such traitor policies. i othe Article.—The next milestone. | * The organization Miners’ National Association of the United States of America in 1873, j They Come! | “Stand back, stand back all of you. | Way back to the end of the hall.” | The crowd is breathless. The jury jis coming.. With white faces and | trembling knees the workers file into |the court room. The prisoners are led in; the jurors file back; the judge | mounts to his rostrum. There is | strained silence. To Hear The Scab. “T understand you want to hear the testimony of Mary Farkas” (the scab from Barnett’s shop), says the judge. This means there is no verdict yet. The crowd relaxes a little and listens to a monotonous reading of question and answer, question and answer, in the even-toned voice of the court | stenographer. Then the Paid Spy. | Then the testimony of Detective | Greeve is read; then the words of | Miss May C. Gresser, secretary to | John Coughlan of the central trades and labor council. At 10:45 the jury files back to its room; the prisoners are led out; the crowd goes back to its patrol of the hall, with a dozen detectives and po- licemen watching every move. More workers arrive from New York. A girl falls asleep on the marble stairs —“one of them damn Bolsheviks,” as the cop calls her. They Wait. The last train goes at 11:43 but no one leaves his post. They can get busses, or taxis, or walk. They would not desert the workers and let them face that verdict alone. At 1:15 comes another signal, and the crowd surges back to the court room—tired, depressed, trying to ap- pear calm and unmoved. The prisoners file back, looking hol- lowed-eyed and exhausted. The jury come in, with their hats and coats. So it is a verdict. Many Police. | Half a dozen detectives and sher- iffs line up around the prisoners; a dozen policemen surround the specta- tors; a dozen more wait in the hall. Five attorneys sit on the edges of chairs at the counsel table. Half a dozen reporters sit with pensils pols- ed. The judge walks in. The clerk says: Threaten The Crowd. “There will be absolutely no demon- stration allowed in this court room.” The judge tells the jury to rise. | “Gentlemen of the jury have you) reached a verdict?” “Yes, sir.” “What is it?” | The foreman reads from a slip of | white paper, ‘We find the defendants Malkin, Franklin, Lenhardt, Schneider, Rosen- berg, Mileaf, Katz, Weiss and .Men- cher guilty of assault in the 2nd de-! ree.” | “We find the defendants Gold and} WHERE SIGMAN GETS HIS INSPIRATION carried downstairs to the meeting hall and sat upon the platform. The room was packed to overflowing, and he, who had been a prisoner two hours before, stood ‘and told them news of the jail and of the other workers left behind. Then Shapiro. Shapiro came in and he must be stood up beside Gold and questioned. The crowd came in from Mineola, and they could not let Gold go. Someone tried to rescue him. It was impos- sible. He was packed around with a solid mass of devoted workers. They wanted to touch him, to watch him | and be sure no arm of the law reoch- ed out to snatch him away. They Must Be Free! But at four o’clock someone de- manded the meeting be closed. and just as dawn was breaking the crowd surged out’ to the street, home after the night of waiting. Each one was filled with happiness that Gold and Shapiro had escaped; but each one was sorrowful at the thot of those nine brave fellow-workers who are still in Mineola jail. They must be freed! {Letters From Our Readers | Communists, Socialists and Hero- Worship. Editor, The DAILY WORKER: I am a reader of your paper, a Communist—but not a Party member, who has come in constant contact with many in the same category. Our unanimous opinion is that you are not doing much good to your paper, the Party for which it speaks or the cause for which it stands by your continual glorification of Ruthenberg. It would be all right for sob-sisters, a’ religious sect, Messiah peddlers and the like—but for grown-up scientifi- cally-minded people, for non-hero worshipping revolutionists, it is ab- solutely the bunk. It’s like the So- cialist Party slop about Debs— “Though jailed he speaketh.” The Socialist Party has lost its heart and soul and is forced to sustain itself with legends about the purity, ete., of the Messiah Debs. This sort of thing has not helped the Socialist Party. It will not help our cause. Childish hero-worshipping antics amuse outsiders. .They don’t attract them to our cause. Are they | the stuff of which revolutionary par- ties are made? This letter is not meant to detract from the services that Comrade Ruth- enberg rendered to the movement. He played his part gallantly and loyally. But is The. DAILY WORKER so poverty-stricken ideologically that it must work itself into a religious frenzy over his death? Shapiro not guilty.” | j A Silent Crowd. 8. Richarts. . . @ There is not a sound. Not a word) | A Letter From A Bystander. from the crowd. Not a word when/|Joint Defense and Relief Committee, they leave the court room. Scarcely | a word as they walk out of the! buildjng to the waiting busses. No} comment, A strained silence. A few questions in trembling voices. That is an army accustomed to blows. Even the wives weep only quietly. Their courage is remarkable. At the headquarters of the Fur- riers’ Joint Board hundreds of work- ers received the news in the same stunned fashion. They had thot they would burst into rejoicing if Gold were released. They .could not feel much joy now that they learned nine of their comrades were still behind prison bars. Would Not Let Him Go, When Gold arrived at headquarters about 3 a. m., he was surrounded by an excited throng, all wanting to em- brace him at once, all asking ques- tions, Gold was almost grey-faced with weaririess and emotion. Ie was Gentlemen: Enclosed please find check for one dollar toward your fund. I am not a working man and never belonged to any trade union, but seeing what is going on in the needle trades: how the International and then the A. F. of L. trampled on the rights of the union men, by overthrowing the of- ficers which were legally elected, I contribute to your fund to express my sympathy with you and my. pro- test against the International and the A. F. of L. Wishing you success in your strug- gle for right and democracy, I re- main, ‘ Very sincerelly youre,ak Zirman. BE SURE 10 GET THE SPECIAL ISSUE, MAY SIXTY DAYS IN WORKHOUSE By JULIUS MAILMAN (As Told To Alex Jackinson) (Continued From Monday). In the morning we were brought into a small room where a civilian dignitary took our fingerprints. There were other prisoners sitting on a long bench waiting their turn. Those who were slated to go to the peni- tentiary were photographed. To add necessary color a sign bearing their prison number was hung about their necks, This procedure we did not have to go thru. |. At eight o'clock each evening we were lined up to |be counted. An hour later a bell rang and the. lights | were extinguished.. During the intervening time the in- mates took advantage, of their short freedom. Some | played cards, others grouped about a game of dice, | Experienced criminals related with a bragative gusto |the various “jobs” they pulled. Tired bodies stretched }out on the narrow beds. Mice ran constantly across the cemented floor, someone would notice its flight ‘and throw a shoe or whatever was handy at it. From this pandemonium sounded the talk of hardened men, occasionally punctuated by profane curses. * * * Five A. M. the bell rang again and a keeper passed by, striking all those who have not yet risen with a club, After washing, we were lined up in fours, again counted and led to the mess hall for breakfast. The first meal was finished at six. Till eight o’clock we were allowed another round of freedom. Then the bell rings once more after which a keeper divides us into gangs and assigns us to work. Before that happens he yells, “Blankets in the barber shop.” That was a signal for us to fold our blankets and carry them to the specified place. Two chairs, an old table, a few prisoners and a long bench was all it boasted. We laid down our blankets and joined the other prisoners. * * * Three days later the warden informed us that we would be transferred to Rickers Island. We hurried to our dormitory and prepared to move. As we were leaving a new gang of prisoners arrived from the Tombs. ‘In this crowd we recognized several fellow workers and exchanged hurried greetings. The six of us together with several others stepped aboard a large barge. We were immediately taken to a cell on the lower deck, From a window we were able to see a strip of shore rapidly disappearing in the dis- tance. Our view was terminated by a large box being placed behind the barred panel of glass either on pur- pose or accidentally by men loading boxes of food stuffs, * * * Rickers Island is a shagged piece of land surrounded by water. Here and there uneven patches of grass grew amidst dirt and ashes. In the center of the island were green wooden barracks. We entered one where an at- tendant held an impromptu speech. We awrived.on Sat- urday which. was a “day of rest” After lounging about the premises we stepped into the library. There we found mostly religious books whith held no interest for us. The following day we attended the weekly church services, stepping in merely out of curiosity, and were surprised to find that most of the others were there for the same purpose. Later in the afternoon we watched the Sunday baseball game played, between the white and Negro teams, * u + The next day we were domiciled in dormitory No. 1. It was slightly more livable here; cleaner, warmer and the food tastier. Otherwise life was pretty much the same, After our first breakfast we were assigned to work on the garhage dumps. We walked about ten minutes along a dusty road to our destination. The keeper in charge of the gang led us up and down hills of dirt. On our way we passed a maze of railroad tracks upon which stood chains of “dinkey” cars. Along the river front floated a flotilla of garbage filled barges arriving from New York. Huge derricks bit into the putrescent rubbish and emptied back into flat cars. Volcanoes of odorous smoke curled up, which leadened the air with a suffocating grime. Added to our ‘discomforture were the innumerable rats, which scurried about under our very feet. * * * This rotitine lasted sixty days. It was always the |varied, Once a member of our group felt ill, and was sent to the doctor, who extracted two black pills marked CC from a large bottle. They brought him no relief. Some time later we learned that the same pills were given everyone, irrespective of their ailments. Another time we made the acquaintance of two gang- sters, former members of “Frenchy’s” notorious gang, now employed by Sigman to terrorize left wing ad- herents. They related in detail how they were hired for $15 a day by Sigman’s henchmen to beat up the pickets in front of dress shops called on strike by the Joint Board.’ Police arrested thom, after which they v oe double crossed by “Frenchy” and convicted of as- sault. for’ sy Harcourt, Brace & Co., New) York, 1927. The history of the Irish literary renaissance is perhaps as tragic as It is the tragedy of a dream that has sur- | | vived pitifully the light of day, of a body that keeps watch over its own | ghost. ‘ | Mr. Gilhooley, by Liam O’Flaherty. | |the history of Ireland itself. . * * * j The literary awakening in Ireland began in the early nineties as a }direct expression of the incipient Irish nationalist movement. It was also |meant to be a protest against the intellectual expropriation of Irish men of letters by the always beneficent mother country, A creative fever seemed to seize the young Irish writers of that day, and under the leader- ship of Dr. Douglas Hyde, William Butler Yeats and “A. E.” (George Rus sell), they. rallied to the holy cause of ceasing to be Englishmen and ex pressing themselves and Ireland as Irishmen. Much has happened since that time, much that has been cruel to its enthusiasms, its ideals. And looking back, the Irish literary scene seems | crowded with unreal figures, gestures, legends, absurdities, Yeats, lost | in a nostalgic mysticism, seeking solace for an unrequited love among the folk-gods and folk-myths of early Ireland; “A. E.”, another mystic, riding through the Irish countryside on his bicycle, with wild eyes and long, dark beard flying; George Moore and his malicious enmities; Lady Gregory and the Abbey Theatre; John Millington Synge, one of the great masters of the modern drama; the eerie law clerk, James Stephens; the militarist, Lord Dunsany; gods, goddesses, sacred fires, mystic roses. * * * And as the years went by, slowly the Irish literary movement became a tragic thing. Tragic because it was rooted in an inflated dream whose } dreamers chose to remain isolated. And suddenly the World War and the desperate realities of the struggle for Irish freedom thrust a great cruel light on the Celtic Renaissance and revealed it as old and weary and full ef twilight. Pious Irishmen striving laboriously to write in ancient Gaelic, Yeats and “A. E.” wandering among their decrepit gods, the camphor-ball symbolism of Dunsany, the garrulities of George Moore—what had these to do with the Irish masses? What had these to do with the rising of the exploited workers and peasants under Jim Connolly in 1916, the bitters ness of the civil wars, the martyrdom of Terence MacSwiney, the betrayals of De Valera and other fake radicals, and the establishment of the Irish “Free” State on the necks of the peasants and workers with the -great Yeats himself as a respectable senator? : And so the Celtic Renaissance died of pernicious anemia and its leaders went into spiritual exile to nurse their hurts, their memories. * * * But out of the ashes, the sentimentalism and perfumed wistfulness of the Celtic Renaissance, a new literature is slowly thrusting its hard, uncouth head, a literature that has been suckled bythe civil wars and in whose veins there flows a black, bitter blood. Footloose of putrescent dreams, the dust of dead idols, there emerges with silence and unshakable strength the novelist of a new Ireland, Liam O’Flaherty. 2 Nae Boe ss Liam O'Flaherty is twenty-nine years old. He has grown up with the masses of his country, has struggled and suffered with them, toiled and starved. He has been a member of the I. W. W. and the English Com- ;munist Party and has wandered through Canada and the United States, where he was associated with his “big” brother, T. J. O’Flaherty, and con- tributed'to “The Voice of Labor,” Chicago, an organ of the Workers (Com- munist) Party. “Mr. Gilhooley” is O’Flaherty’s sixth novel. (It may be of interest to note that three others have recently been translated into Russian.) It is a remarkable study of the psychological disintegration of a middle-aged voluptuary who, in the full possession of his physical powers, finds that the life-urge has died in him. Into this picture is thrust a strange, weird girl whom he picks up from the streets and who proceeds to toy half pas- sionately, half treacherously with his strength and his overwhelming tired+ ness. The story is told simply, almost imperceptibly, with a progressive in- tensity that inevitably creates the book’s crises and its tragedy. And the tragedy of “Mr. Gilhooley” is of an almost Elizabethan starkness, ending with the violent deaths of the two chief protagonists, Liam O'Flaherty has little of what is known as style. He marks, in tact, a definite break with the highly stylized writing of the modern Irish classics, The effectiveness of “Mr. Gilhooley” lies in its sheer creative impact, its tremendous grasp of life. Those expecting any sel®-conscious “proletarianism” will be disappointed. Liam O’Maherty is faithful to his artistic vision. But by being faithful to that vision, he presents, like so many of the genuine artists of our day, a relentlessly articulate picture of aecadence in capitalist society: And such work, whatever its intent, be- comes, by implication, prophecy—the handwriting on the wall. : —A. B. MAGIL, THE SURRENDER OF RAILROAD OFFICIAL UNIONISM The Watson-Parker Law, by William Z. Foster. Trade Union Educa- tional League. 15 cents. Here is a booklet which every railroad unionist should read if he wants to know why the Watson-Parker law is the most complete surrender in the history of the labor movement. Tho claimed as a victory by union officials, this law actually “registers a long step backward for railroad trade unionism. It legalizes and stimulates company unionism; it virtually fastens compulsory arbitration upon. the necks of the railroad workers; it outlaws strikes; it introduces the poisonous idea of the industrial court into the railroad industry; it intensifies the tendency toward class col- laboration. . . .” Foster follows up these generalizations by a forceful array of facts and a keen analysis of the past history, of the past and present policies and problems of the railroad unions, and of the implica- tions of the Watson-Parker law. * * * He traces very vividly the militant policy of the railroad workers in the period 1914-1920 when their membership grew to 1,800,000, and when their aggressive policy found expression in the Plumb Plan for the nation- alization of the railroads, the organization of the C. P. P. A., and the systems of federations which culminated in a joint national demand on conditions and wages, and the establishment of a general national agree- ment covering all railroad workers. * * * . The retreat of the railroad unions, begun in the face of the com- panies’ attacks in 1920, resulted in a complete abandonment of the militant policy for a policy of class collaboration of which the Watson-Parker law is the inevitable result. “This infamous piece of legislation,” says Foster, “is a logical and inevitable cap-stone to the whole structure of class che laboration which precedes it. It follows naturally as a result of the same policy which produced the failure of the four brotherhoods to support the striking shopmen, the dissolution of the railroad federations, the rejection | of amalgamation and the refusal to organize the unorganized, the kil of the Plumb Plan and the retreat back to the two capitalist parties, the inauguration of the B, & O, Plan-and trade union capitalism.” 3 . * » _.. The author makes a very clear analysis of the Watson-Parker law telling why it is a surrender, and how it inevitably will operate against, the railroad workers in major issues. “It establishes in the railroad i dustry some of the worst features of the struggle between the : From the beginning it is stacked against /the workers. By the very working out of the law the Board of Arbit ition, wif be controlled by the employers. . . . The conservative railroad ‘union leaders are emitting a great cry of victory because the W. P. L. has iimin- ated the hated Railroad Labor Board. . . . But the railroad unions have only jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. The compulsory /arbitra- at Beso Rs naga interferences, and company unionism of the Watson-Parker law will soon prove more disastr: ‘ than even the Railroad Labor Board.” ee ee * * * and the employers. . . In conclusion, Foster points to the only road out of this maze of class collaboration . “Prompt and vigorous action must be taken to remedy the situation, The workers must build their unions into powerful organiza- tions and equip them with an honest fighting leadership.” They must fight the Watson-Parker law, sweep away the B. & 0. Plan, smash the company unions, fight for amalgamation, combat trade union capitalism, organize the unorganized, and work for nationalization and a labor party. © —SEE MAY, —— A r ; ‘