The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 7, 1927, Page 1

a t ALL ROADS LEAD TO UNION SQUARE AT NOON TODAY FIRST SECTION This issue consists of two sections Be sure to get them all. Vol. IV No. 98. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: In New York, by mail, $8.00 per year. Outside Now York, by mall, $6.90 per year. Wo Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office at New Terk, N. ¥., under the act ef Maroh 3, 1879, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 7, Published Dai 1927 RKER. PUBISHING CO., 33 First Street, New York, N. ¥. FINAL CITY EDITION ily except Sunday by THE DAILY WORKER Price 3 Cents WORKERS HERE TO DEMAND HANDS OFF CHINA “BIG FOUR” OFFICERS CRIMINALLY LIABLE FOR FAKE REPORT T0 STATE Amazing Discrepancy in Statement Made to Insurance Department Blamed on Poor Clerk PREVIOUS EVENTS OF INSURANCE EXPOSE As a result of a series of articles exposing the swindle of weekly payment life insurance Governor Smith ordered Super- intendent of Insurance James A. Beha to conduct an inquiry based on the charges made in The DAILY WORKER. Mr. Beha wrote to The DAILY WORKER calling for spe- etfic charges which were submitted to him on April 30th. His reply is awaited daily. The charges contained in today’s articles were not included in the letter to Mr. Beha and constitute additional evidence which the superintendent will have to cope with. i - *# « The gods are kind to the “Big Four.” They have made it possible for legislature to be bought, they have blessed the land with forty million unfortunate people who are not too sharp at figures—and above all they have given the insurance business a GUARDED RUTHENBERG URN { Hamburg Red Front Fighters who guarded the remains of Comrade C. E. Ruthenberg at the Communist Party headquarters over Easter Sunday and Monday, before Comrade Engdahl and representatives of the Communist Party of Germany departed for Berlin. most obliging Department of Insurance. This department exists as a go- between for the insurance companies and the “public.” Its duties are to see that these gigantic corporations do not conduct their business other than on an honest and equitable basis. All reports as to business done and} the financial condition of the com- panies involved are to be carefully scrutinized by the examiners of the department, On February 6th of this year The | Prudential Life Insurance of Ameri- ca submitted a report to Mr. James A. Beha, superintendent of insurance, which #mong tan; other things con- tained the following deliberate and} false statement: ? Under the main heading of “dis- bursements” and particularly under the sub-heading of Ordinary miscel- laneous expenditures the following items appear: Annual Audit $ 7,800.00 Examinations 20,843.11 Sundry & General 96,388.91 Investment Expense 531,058.30 Legislative Expense 1,598.15 Field Employees 115,092.20 Dining Room 181,222.75 Welfare Work 1,299.87 Premiums 23,303.50 Conferences 88,430.63 Election of Directors 1,895.76 Premium of Stock 60.48 Simple Mathematics. Now, anyone who ever got beyond the fourth grade in public school (let alone an expert accountant) is ac- quainted with simple addition by ex- ercising such elementary knowledge one would find that the correct and true total to the above tabulation is $1,074,632.66. In the Prudential Life Insurance Company’s annual report as submitted to the Department of Insurance the total is $1,028,026.66. How does the State Department of Insurance account for the discrepancy of $46,606.00? I visited the offices of the Insur- ance Department yesterday and veri- fied this error by examining the or- iginal statement as submitted by the Prudential. Blames Clerk. When questioned about the error, Mr. Hadley one of the state examiners said, “Oh a clerk must have made the mistake. You can’t hold the Pruden- tial officials for perjury.” No men- tion was made of perjury previous to Hadley’s remark, Daniel F. Gordon, deputy superin- tendent when jnformed of the error \ said, “I can’t see how the officials ‘of the Prudential could have made uch a simple mistake.” False—Fraudulent. ft is hereby contended that the re- port referred to is false and fraudu- lent and is in violation of Section 665 of the Penal Law of the State of New York in that it is a statement show- ing the pecuniary condition of a cor- poration which contains a material statement that is false. The report was signed by Edward D. Duffield, president, Willard I. Hamilton, secretary, John K. Gore, actuary and Fredric A. Boyle, treas- urer; all officers of the Prudential Life Insurance Company. This is clearly a case for the dis- trict attorney. ital Mother of 5 Dies By Poison After an argument with her hus- band yesterday, Mrs. Sophie Rapal- aska, 40, and mother of five children, drank a quantity of poison in the itchen of her home, 175 Frost St., coklyn, according to police. ‘ Thayer Clown in His Own Home Town, Says Play Editor of “Life” By ART SHIELDS (Heder 4>4), Press.) “Judge x a sort of town clov > joke of Worcester; nardly anyone even knew that he was a lawyer till he was put on the bench,” said Rob- ert Benchley, dramatic editor of Life makazine, in Valking~ vo ‘the Federated Press. “Thayer had been a lifelong democrat,” continued Benchley. “He suddenly became a republi- |) can, Then Governor Foss made him a judge. You can draw your own conclusions.” | “I was raised in the same town,” the editor went on, “and I tell you people are ashamed of him for the way he has acted in the Sacco- Vanzetti case. “He isn’t fit to be a judge.” Benchley was sorry to hear that his friend, Robert Coes, a Wor- cester manufacturer, has» denied the conversation with Thayer re- ported in the editor’s affidavit to Governor Fuller. “But I am not surprised,” ‘he said. “Coes is a club friend of Thayer’s and he feels about the same way as he does, that Sacco and Vanzetti ought to be hanged anyhow whether they are innocent or not. “It’s common talk how Thayer has been going about town button- holing folks about Sacco and Van- zetti. I know at least 25 people in Worcester to whom he has talked strongly about this case as he did to Coes.” Seven Killed and 15 Injured in Big Seal Taxi Blast Seven persons ‘are known to have been killed, 15 injured, eight of them women, and others may be added to the death list in an explosion that wrecked the garage and offices of the non-union Yellow Taxicab Co., at 23d St. and East River yesterday after- noon, The blast is believed to have come from a subterranean gasoline tank, but officials of the company were un- able to explain it. The force of it burst a water main in the basement, flooding it. It is fe that other employers may have trapped in the base- ment and drowned. Emergency crews of police and firemen and physicians and nurses from Bellevue Hospital were working frantically all night to penetrate the mass of debris and bring out other dead and injured. » Death List. The dead: Frank Zuhrmelim, Rob- ert O'Rourke, William E. Kelcher, Charles Mallet, Charles J. Quinlan, Florence J. Cavanaugh, and Eliza- beth Lovinger. It was unknown whether the dead were killed by force of the explosion or drowned by the inrushing water, but it is believed that at least two of them were drowned. Fighters Guard Urn Of C. E, Ruthenbers By J. LOUIS ENGDAHL. HAMBURG, Germany. (By Mail) —This famous seaport of Germany, center of many courageous battles of revolutionary workers in the class struggle, is truly crimson with Com- munist soldiers this Easter Sunday. Ten thousand delegates from all Germany to the German Youth Con- and claimed it as their own. Every- where on the streets are to be seen the Red Front Fighters, with their red arm bands, marching, singing, discussing. They came in hosts, these young German workers, with the party com- | rades, to the great Hauptbahnhof, to greet our coming with the ashes of our dead comrade, Ruthenberg, who had struggled so hard, against great difficulties, to organize the working | (Continued on Page Three) Parker-Watson Czars Are Quizzing Pullman Porters Brotherhood (By Federated Press.) Mediators assigned by the United States Mediation Board have arrived at the national offices of the Brother- | hood of Sleeping Car Porters to ex- amine the claims of the porters for recognition at the representative labor organization of their trade. Edwin P. Morrow, former governor of Kentucky, and now a member of the Mediation Board, with W. F. Mitchell, statistician for the board, are the two government officials working on the case. The porters’ full demands include a living wage, reduction of hours, and modification of working conditions; also recognition of their right legally to organize in their own union as against the company union. The investigation is expected to last many days after which the mediators will proceed to Chicago to get the Pullman Company’s side of the matter. Silly Frame-up Used. To Railroad Workers Bruno Silva, a cloakmaker, who was was arrested “on suspicion” in Brownsville and sentenced to 90 days in the Brooklyn County Court, was released on Thursday under a certifi- cate of reasonable doubt pending his appeal to a higher ‘court. Silva was convicted in spite of the testimony of the arresting police of- ficer that he did not have a weapon in his hand at the time of the ar- rest, but that the weapon he was charged with possessing, an iron bar, had been found in a nearby vacant lot two and a half hours after his arrest, Broker Messenger Robbed of $100,000 Julius Berman, messenger for a stock brokerage firm who disappear- ed with more than $000,000 worth of negotiable securities yesterday walk- ed into the police station and an- nounced he had been kidnapped and robbed, gress have practically seia¢d the *city-} Hamburg Red Front LONG WAR SEEN IN LOCKOUT OF PLUMBERS HERE Cleveland and Seattle in Grip of Struggle With the striking plumbers of Brooklyn, the locked out plumbers in the other boroughs of New. York and the Building Trades Employers’ As- sociation maintaining jmyielding .re- sistance~im thé bi war here yesterday, there were no imme- diate prospects of a settlement. | Signifying the gravity of the local | lockout, International President John |M. Coefield of the Plumbers arrived |in the city yesterday. He immediately | went into conference with C. G. Nor- man, head of the militant Building | Trades Employers’ Assn., but no an- nouncement was forthcoming to the press. Both sides are digging in for a long and bitter struggle which may determine the entire trend of build- »¢ trades wages and conditions in the *| United States for the coming five | years. Born on the crest of the ap- | parently unending building trades boom of the past four years, unions in that industry have pressed con- tinuously and successfully for ever higher wages. Bosses Take Stand. The bosses have at last agreed to jmake a stand against further “ag- gressions” and “labor monopoly,” as they term it. This was indicated when the master plumbers abdicated power in the @resent fight and allowed the Building Trades Employers outfit to take over the leadership. With the united bosses on one side, and the ar- rival of International President Coe- field on the other side, a prolonged deadlock seemed possible. A sudden settlement, by which Coe- field orders the Brooklyn plumbers back to work at the old $12 scale without hope of the 5-day week, thus ending the lockout, is also seen as a possibility. This would indicate that the higher officials of the building trades agree with some of the bosses that the building crest has been reached, and that the workers must now prepare for “deflation.” National Struggle. The New York situation is viewed as part of a national crisis in the building trades, with war brewing in Cleveland and Seattle. In Cleveland the bosses are separating the crafts and beating them one by one while in Seattle a knock down and drag out fight seems imminent over the full five-day week. Officials of all plumbers’ locals in the city met yesterday at 3 p. m. at the Aberdeen Hotel, headquarters of the international officials. Ask Labor Injunction. The Bronx plumbers injected a comic note into the serious struggle by applying for an injunction to re- strain the bosses from locking them out. They contend that they have a five-year agreement, which the Em- ployers’ Association is violating, and have asked the courts to make the bosses be good, A similar injunction granted re- cently was flatly défied by the master plumbers and later vacated by the judge when he saw what a farce it was. ‘ Plumbers’ Helpers Confer. At a conference between a delega- tion of the striking plumbers’ help- HOLD BACK ARM OF IMPERIALISM, IS LABOR'S CRY 38 Speakers to Address Demonstration All roads lead to Union Square to- day. At noon, thousands of workers will mass in the historic square on |14th St. in the greatest demonstra- |tion America has witnessed since | Yankee warships bombarded Nanking land brought western imperialism | face to face with the revolution in the Far East. Thirty-eight speakers, using as many platforms as needed, will ad- dress the seething throngs of work- ers. Representative of every pro- gressive group and of half a dozen) nationalities, including Chinese, they) will speak in English, Yiddish, Italian | and other languages. Every speech) bear the one great demand, “Hands Off China.” | Arrangements for the Union Square | demonstration have been made by a} “Hands Off China Committee.” Among the members of the General | Advisory Committee of this organiza- tion are Prof. John Dewey, Bishop} Paul Jones, H. H. Broach, vice presi-| dent of the Electrical Workers’ Union; Rev. John Haynes Holmes, Dr. James M. Yard, president of the West | China Union University; Louis Budenz, editor of Labor Age; Rev. Edmund B. Chaffee of the Labor) Temple; Rev. Charles C. Webber, of | the Church of All Nations; Lewis. S. Gannett, editor of the Nation; Will-| iam Pickens,‘of the National Associa- tion for the Advancement of Colored People; H. Linson, chairman of the Chinese Students Club of Columbia University, and several other Chinese | who are at the head of local Chinese | organizations. | The Hands Off China Committee, just before time for the great demon- stration, released the following ap- peal: will Issue Stirring Appeal. “Progressive workers will rally to a man at Union Square and demon- strate that they will not tolerate American military forces and British- serving ambassadors and consuls in- terfering with the struggle of the Chinese masses for national indepen- dence and national unity. “The Hands Off China Committee knows that the workers of New York City have only friendship and solidarity with the great Nationalist movement in China; the Hands Off China Committee knows that it is only the American bankers and trusts and their British-serving government in Washington that is opposing the victorious march of the Chinese peo- ple. It is therefore calling this meet- ing to oppose the guns and bullets of Wall Street with the one power that can prevent the imperialists from starting another bloody war— the organized power of militant and class-conscious workers.” Plane Scatters Cards. “Stop War On China.” “Demand Withdrawal Of U. Troops and Battleships.” These were the demands dropping from the sky itself, yesterday after- noon when an aeroplane, manned by Ying Hsien Shih, a member of the Kuomintang, soared above New York City and dropped a hundred thousand printed cards announcing a mass demonstration this noon at Union Square. Thousands of spectators witnessed (Continued on Page Three) 8. ers, who were represented by C. E. Miller president of the helpers’ or- ganization, M. Patrick, a vice-presi- dent and M. Singer a member of the executive board, with the officials of the different locals of plumbers in greater New York presided at by Thos. J. Burke, the problem of the striking helpers was taken up. “The attitude of the plumbers and especially Mr. Burke was a very fav- orable one for the helpers,” said C. E. Miller, “the fact that the plumbers are taking such an attitude encour- ages us in our struggle. We are pre- paring for the fight, which we hope will not be a long one, although we are making all preparations for a long battle. “On Monday we are opening a kit- chen that will feed all the striking helpers. The kitchen will be open every day at the Church of All Na- tions. This is necessary because the any money.” HANKOW NATIONALISTS THROW 100,00 TROOPS INTO DRIVE ON CHANG TSO-LIN Litvinoff Brands Chang’s “Documents” Frauds Drawn Up by White Russians Eugene Chen Nails British Lie; Announces Payment For Chiankiang “Damages” HIGHLIGHTS OF TODAY’S NEWS 1.—Hankow Nationalists score victory over Chang Tso-lin in southern Honan; 100,000 troops in Nationalist drive north- vards. Feng prepares for attack on Peking. 2.—Litvinoff brands Chang's “documents,” alleged to have been captured in raids on Soviet Union embassy compound, as forgeries. 3.—Eugene Chen nails British lie; announces paymen’ damages done at Chinkiang. 4.—Japanese labor pledges support to Nationalist mo * * * HANKOW, May 6.—Hankow Na- recovery from a_ tubercul The trial has been delaye t tionalist troops are making rapid progress in their northern drive against Chang Tso-Lin, Manchurian war lord. The expedition into Honan scored a complete victory over Chang’s troops at Chu Mai-tien. The Hankow Nationalists surrounded the northern- | ers and disarmed them, capturing ten | thousand rifles. 100,000 Troops General Tang Shen-tse is directing | the drive above Yengchow and a major engagement with Chang Tso- lin’s troops is expected there soon. | More than 100,00 Nationalist troops are engaged in the Honan expedition it ig stated. ‘ | Sreral Feng Yu-hiang is making preparations for a drive against Pek-| ing, while General Yeng Shi-san in! Shansi is expected to join the drive} against the northerners. ar ae * Chang’s Documents Forged MOSCOW, May 6.—Documents al- | leged by Chang Tso-lin to have been | captured in his raids on the Soviet | Union embassy compound at Peking | were branded as forgeries by M. M. | Litvinoff of the Ministry of Foreign | Affairs. | “We are here facing a wide-spread | plot to compromise the Soviet’s ac- credited representatives in China and to spoil the Soviet’s relations with other countries, for instance, Japan,” | said the assistant commissioner of | foreign afairs. | Work of White Russians | The only “document” of which a} photograph has been published so far | is drafted by an old process which | has not been used in the Soviet Union | since the 1917 revolution, and was | probably executed by clumsy White | Russians, M. Litvinoff says. ee & Chen Paid Indemnity (By Nationalist News Agency) HANKOW, May 6.—The attention of Eugene Chen, Nationalist Foreign Minister has been called to a state- ment by Rodney Gilbert in the North China News of April 27th, stating, “The check for $40,000 paid by the Nationalists for damages done at Chinkiang has been dishonored. Eugene Chen said the statement was a lie. Support of Japanese Labor Japanese labor is solidly behind the Hankow Nationalist Government and is demanding of the Japanese Govern- ment the recognition of Nationalist China, according to E. N. Ishida, Jap- anese delegate to the Pan-Pacific Labor Conference. He stated that ill-feeling which had been separating the Chinese and the Japanese had been due to aggressive Japanese and other imperialists. Japanese workers, he said, realize that they are the victims of capital- ism as much as the Chinese. Shore leave has been granted by the British naval authorities to British sailors and marines and they have gone ashore in the foreign concession. They have not been allowed to enter the Chinese city. Generals Liu Yu-chen and Chen Thiao-mao, northern generals who were captured at Wuchang and charged with mistreating the popu- lace, who were reported executed, are held there imprisoned awaiting Liu’s Bellanca Fliers Ready CURTISS FIELD, N. Y., May 6.— Weather conditions permitting, the Bellanca monoplane “Columbia” may take the air on its scheduled attempt for a non-stop flight from New York to Paris next Friday, G. M. Bellanca, low wages of the helpers—four dollars @esigner of the plane announced to- a day does not permit them to sav day. the flight is nearly completed. Installation of equipment for prisoners, despite reports trary, have not yet been s The Nationalist expediti: nan scored a complete vi the troops of Chang Tso-lin. war lord, at Chu Mai-tien. kow Nationalists surroun northerners and disarmed th turing ten thousand rifles. J.N. Beffel Swear Judge Thayer Wi Bitterly Hostie One of the strongest affidavits showing prejudice by Judge Thayer | against the defendants in the Sacco- Vanzetti trial at Dedham in 1921 was sworn to by John Nicholas Beffel, who covered the trial for Federated Press. Beffel is now employed on a local newspaper. His deposition, in part, reads: On or about the fourth morning of the trial, Marquis A. Ferrante, Italian consul at Boston, was present in court as a spectator. At the close of that session, I went over to where the consul was seated and talked with him. He agked me to take down a brief statenlent which he wished to give out to the press, and requested me to pass it on to all the reporters at the trial. The statement was this: Italy Deeply Interested. “The Italian authorities are deeply interested in the case of Sacco and Vanzetti, and this trial will be closely followed by them. They have com- plete confidence that the trial will be conducted solely as a criminal pro- ceeding, without reference to the political or social beliefs of anyone involved.” Immediately afterward I typed this statement, making several carbon copies. Then I walked down to the Dedham Inn, and entered the private dining-room in which Judge Webster Thayer and the reporters usually ate their lunches. I sat down with sev- eral of the other newspapermen and gave them copies of the consul’s ut- terence. Judge Thayer was sitting in another corner of the room, at his own table. When the judge got up to leave the room Jack English of the Boston American showed him Marquis Fer- rante’s statement and asked him what he thought of it. Judge Thayer made a gesture of anger. Testy About Consul. “Why,” he said, “that fellow came clear out to my home in Worcester and assured me that the Italian gov- ernment had no interest in this case.” This was uttered in the presence of several newspapermen including Jack English, Frank P. Sibley of the Bos- (Continued on Page Two) Worker Killed When Wall Falls on Him Bernotto Rios, 82, of 7741 West Beach St., Long Beach, died yester- day as the result of being suffocated when a wall collapsed while he was working on the excavation for a new hoted here. Rios was buried beneath a ton of cement and sand when the wall col- lapsed. When dug out by other work- ers he was dead, } '