The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 10, 1927, Page 6

Page Six corer re GENE er The City of Mills _ ’ ey MARY B. TRASK. sudden animation in her face. “May- Tt was at the bazaar, held to raise| he she don’t know how it is I want relief. I had slithered through the | that ¢ .” Her eyes stared to again wandering crowds and found myself | care t. ata booth where there y $ “I never have had a silk dress.” for sale, “Look here, Fell ,| The animation had faded into a dull did yc uch a bargain? |™onotony of tone. “In the old coun- Nice ve dol . Only try, nobody hav Then I marry and five doll nice dress-——worth |I come here, fifteen year back. My fifteen!” husband say to me ‘Soon I get money A little crowd of v had gather-'and I buy you silk dress.’ So-he go t t the materials, tried the | Work in the mill, but he not get much p against each other. Five| money. We save a little, then we Ww. very cheap—but, then, | have baby and the money go. I think, ht be better bargains some- | Well, sometime I have the silk dress. where else. They moved on. Everyone have; this not like the old One Wanted it country—here you must have.” One remained standing, her eyes Babies—Sickness. fixed on the shimmering green of the it seems that way.” dress. A bony hand reached out and re, and so I want. Again we save m ney—I think I get my dress next month perhaps. But we have an- ips of fingers felt the texturewf the “Nice dress, lady. Why don’t you| other baby, and my husband sick long get it?” 2 ; ‘ time, and I go work in the mill, too.”! The hand drew back quickly. “Yes, The bent, twisted hands had told me| nice dress.” that. “Come on, lady. Buy the dress, it’s| “Well; we go on so—and sometimes a bargain.” . ‘ we have a little, but never money for "Yes, it’s a | ain. I no buy.” | the silk dress.” \ “You won't buy it?” The sales- She laughed. “So the strike come, | novice looked at her “prospect” with | and my husband he say, ‘You going, scorn. “You won't buy it when it’s| out?’ and I say, ‘Sure, I go on strike} only five dollars? Gee, what do you|for a silk dress.” He know I want think we’re going to do? Give things | long time, so he laugh and say alright away?” | he strike too.” | “And you're still striking for it.” It was rather an obvious rejoinder, | but I was not much thinking what I not looked twenty years older in face | Said. My mind was absorbed with the than in body. “No. No. 1 know it is| Picture of those two mill-workers, the bargain. But I no have money.” | who, after fifteen years of starvation “No money? That’s what you all| wages, could still laugh together over say. You got money, lady.” | the joke of making the strike a per- I stepped forward—I had remem-| sonal matter—bringing it down to the bered that face. The woman was a|understandable level of their own striker, At sight of me she smiled,| cherished ambitions. answered my greeting. | When We Win! “It’s hard when you're broke and| Again her eyes caressed the sleazy want to get things, isn’t it? And/|silk of the dress—she turned to me everything's so cheap here, it seems a/ with a half-embarrassed laugh, the shame not to buy them.” {expression of one who realizes the She nodded. “Sure. I guess you| absurdity of her own dreams. been broke too and you know. That! “And when we win, I get a silk lady,” a thumb jerked toward the| dress—” unbelievable flash of an keeper of the booth, “she think I got | merriment lit, for a half second, that plenty money.- Maybe she don’t know 3 co not quite beautiful face—“and I think T been on strike ten months? |I wear my silk dress and go make “Maybe not. Maybe she doesn’t | call on the boss!” know there is a strike.” | She walked away, still smiling—as Never Had a Silk Dress. | she passed the dress her twisted hand We laughed. stole another moment’s shy contact The woman’ turned to me with a with its silk. 4 faint flush came into the woman’s sallow face. I realized suddenly that she would have been beautiful had she The Treasure Ship OAKLAND, Cal, May 9.—Gone_fast there’d be 75 to 100 empty bot- ere the adventurers and the Klon-{tles lying on the table.” dike “kings” of ’98, but the ship that} Among the famous kings of the errried more passengers and geld out| Klondike who shipped aboard the of the Alaska country than any other |“Humboldt” and were put ashore on vessel on the coast is lying at the} the rocks to hike over the passes to Oakland waterfront, as trim as she|the Yukon, were such men as Charlie was thirty years ago. | Anderson, “the lucky Swede,” who This “Treasure Ship” of the Klon-/ sat up in his cabin every trip south dike days—the “Humboldt”—was sold | to guard the piles of gold bars stacked recently at auction for $28,000 to sat-| all round him. “Kings” McDonald, isfy libels against her owners. | LeDue and “Soapy” Smith, ringlead- Auction Draws Crowd. jers of the Skagway “bad men.” Lusty tales of the Alaskan gold| The kings are long since. gone— rush days that cling to the once|their gold is spent and stolen and proud “Humboldt” brought thousands | hidden away. = Col = A Fantastic Legend. change to witness the auction. Al- ae : ae bert E. Gillespie was the successful There 18: fantastic tale that sail- ors tell about the “Humboldt”—that bidder. somewhere in the dark depths of her And the man who took her north for her first trip, who quelled the gun fights of maddened miners, set- tled the disputes of their angry camp following mistresses and lost only $100,000 out of $100,000,000 worth of gold dust and bullion that comprised his cargo, was among those present at the auction. Captain FE. G. Baughman remains| master of the historic ship that sailed through the Golden Gate, the slim, white craft that made 565 trips into northern waters. Captain Recalls Treasure Days. “Exciting days and dangerous, those gold rush days,” declared the captain, the tall, white-haired and unsmiling master whose word was the only law among the roughest outfit that ever thronged north at the smell of “gold.” “They drank champagne as if it were water and every morning after break- hold are bars of gold to the snm| of $30,000. Of the $100,000 that was | stolen on a trip from Alaska in 1910, about $20,000 was recovered ashore. The thieves were not able to land the rest and so they slipped the bars into the hold of the “Humboldt,” to be rid of it—at least, that’s the story. | Be this as it may, the ship that/ earried sled dogs and pet bears, wild | women and wild wolves, along with | her asure cargo in the old days, | still is sturdy; her captain and only | commander since she was launched in Humboldt bay, California. thirty- one years ago, is the only member of the old crew remaining. English Earthquake. LONDON, May 9,—Earthquake shocks accompanied by prolonged subterranean rumblings were reported today from Padstow, Cornwall, - TREKS 200 MILES FOR WORK ome At the rate of 12 to 15 miles per day, Edward Smith, 42, hauled his mother, Mrs. Mary Saxon, 63, more than 200 miles from their former home in South Haven, Mich., to Detroit, friends and Smith expects to find son loaded their possessions into a rickety his mother to ride, where they have work. Lacking railroad fare, the wagon, fixed a place for hitched himself to the outfit by means of a rude rope harness and set out on the road. Mrs. Saxon is a cripple, un- able to walk without crutches. The pair stopped at night at vari- sus farm houses where they were permitted to stay This photo was taken as they neared their destination. , { withovt charge, be ae | that although Negroes must take the | ! } \ ; A defective switch is blamed for this “L” accident in Chicago, at Van Buren and Wells Streets, where an eastbound Humboldt Park train crashed into the rear of a Wilson Avenue express at a switch turn. The cars careened as if they would plunge into the street below. Two persons were injured, ARTICLE II | By WILLIAM MELVILLE SUTTON. | | Whenever a northerner objects to| \the white man’s attitude or treatment | jof the’ Negro, and only a courageous | northerner will in the south, and} whenever he voices the opinion that the black man is a human being, the |thin-lipped, mean-looking mouth of |the southerner expresses the one- | tracked brain’s ever-persistent, ubi-| | quitous retort: | “Wal, would you-all marry a nig- gah; would you-all sleep with one?” Can’t Argue With Him. To him it is the retort magnificent. He has floored you and he cackles. | And against such logic one has no ar- gument. Evidence of the southern race- equality myth is the Jim Crow law which takes its place, among the moronic legislative acts of the south, with the Tennessee Anti-Evolution| law. Because you wonder why a seat is contaminated because a Negro has |sat in it or because a Negro sits in | the one next to yours on the street car and train, you are asked, “Would} you-all marry a niggah.” But no one will give a really good reason. Perhaps the southerner feels, like Europe’s consanguineous royal nin- |nies, that subject of common and |therefore lowly vintage is unfit as a seat-comrade. Or perhaps that a |Negro’s proximity to him degrades him. Who can know? For who can |fathom the southern mind, simple as tit might be? Want to Hog Room. The Jim Crow law stipulates in gist back seats and the whites the front | ones—in order that they may have the better view perhaps—there must be no dividing line; the arrangement must be made according to the num- ber of white. and black passengers. Yet—there always is a yet in the! south—white simpletons daily harass | the newspapers with demands that} they, the newspapers, use their. in- | fluence to gain legislation that would} bring about a cut-and-dried boundary | \line. Such a line, for instance, that} | would cause conditions under which | Negroes would stand, while only a} |few of their brethren sat, and the, | whites would sit in a compartment/ | with four rows of side-scats to spare) |and vacant. But, legislations or no,! |the whites see to it that similar con- | ditions prevail. | | Ancient Terrors, | For example—and I am not pre- | senting theories or hypotheses, but actual facts—two chattering, slimy _and skinny old spinsters drag their |empty carcasses into a_ street-car, | which, like all southern cars, has two short benches facing each other in the front, two rows of side seats intended |for two passengers each, and then |two more benches, as in front, at the |back. Seats and benches alike are | occupied, in that in front the benches ‘are full and in each side seat at least one person—a Negro is a person, if not a personage, to this writer—is ‘seated. Yet the chattering females, who could easily find seats alone, jamong the whites, of course, must |take places where their decaying hips | would be in juxtaposition, Two Ne- groes may be sitting together. They jhave all the rights of law, street-car ‘rules and regulations, etcetera, to |their seats. But the two females re- fuse to see it in that light. | A high-pitched, stringy voice that under other circumstances is a whine, orders: “Hey, you niggahs, we-all wants tea seats. Git up.” And They Do. And obediently, thie two blacks rise and walk to the regr of the car, where they hang theirfheads to hide the contaminated by black skin, Enforcing Gentility. Another instance: A little above center in a street- car is the scene. All seats are oc- cupied; the aisles, all other space, is jerowded. A fat woman, bearing a {burdensome offspring in one arm |close to her breast, pulling another | youngster, somewhat older, by the ‘hand, enters and pushes her way into the scene. A white gentleman—gen- tleman, understand—is enjoying a newspaper and, what’s more, a luxury of all luxuries on this jammed trol- ley-carrier—a seat. He is a gentle- man enough to see that a lady and her issue must rest, but he is not gentleman enough to give up his up- lifting newspaper and the restful seat. Instead, he calls out: It’s The Law. “Hey, you niggah, git up. Don’ you-all see a white leddy?” Behind two Negroes must rise. The white leddy gets her seat. The honorable gentleman has not exceeded any au- thority; the Jim Crow law is on his side. Doesn’t it say, somewhere in its unspeakable passages, that no niggah must sit while a white gentle- man or leddy is standing? This attitude permeates the peda- gogy of the south, too. But here the intolerance is not so limited. It goes a little farther, becomes more vicious; the minds of pedants are not so elas- ic as those of the less erudite. Vhereas in the street car the white man ean endure the presence of the Negro—at the back—he cannot bear the thought that his children must be subjected to the air into which and rom which a black child might breathe. The taint of black blood might touch his youngster. And then what calamities! Just imagine a white woman’s lowering herself to trousers hiding , a white child’s chances to become a |good preacher, Sunday school super- intendent, nurse or schoolmarm would |be jeopardized if a little black head, with tiny, kinky ringlets to which are appended minute pink bows, were en- deavoring to take in some of the im- becellic knowledge handed out by the |same ’marm in the primary grades! Called Culture. My wife, a school teacher in the Sacco and Vanzetti Who is it knocks upon the gate? Who is it cries from fallen feet? O brothers, let it not be late, O warriors, stand against retreat! The bloody ballad sings again, And men are wasted by despair, Lo, where the garrulous wings com- plain In a liar-crowded air! Dragging a noisome trail of wonder, The caravans of darkness drift Against your brightening: word of thunder. O dawn-awakened ones be swift! Who is it knocks upon my heart? They have debarred you, crucified! Called you savage, and upstart, gig ‘vite teeth, and pierced your side Wide are the currents of your grief, Deep upon deep your torment lies, O tasters of the bitter leaf, O runners where the summer dies! chagrin and maffce that shake them, and the two fhusbandless maidens ’ The lords have spoken, the laws are teach pickaninnies! Just imagine how) Naggin de Niggah |sink into the seats a moment before) north until she knew better, was curi- ous about the schools of the south. She expressed her curiosity to our pious, baptist landlady, whose pro- found loyalty to her church expressed itself in frantic efforts to wean away her husband from the methodist church and who did not stop, as she boasted, while discouraging his way- ward leanings, at destroying before he could see them the highly-literary, |mimeographed announcements of the Faxon methodist church which came tothim by post, This pure lady hails from Kentucky and she keeps chickens and a cow in her back yard in order to save pen- nies on eggs and milk and—to keep her roomers awake. She is high minded, righteous, perfectly correct. She supplies this to sociology and | pedagogical science. The “Bed,” Again. “A white man, he ain’t got no right to put his child in along with niggah |brats. They’s a place for niggahs and fer their kids. We-all got no use fer them down here. The big ones, |they’s big chil’un; the little ones, they’s worse. You-all cain’t teach them nothing’, ‘specially what you- all’s teachin’ to white chil’un. They don’ grasp what’s bein’ said, an’ they just natch’ly hinder the white ones. Besides, just think of putting blacks and whites together! Why, that’s just like puttin’ white folk and niggahs | together in one bed. Ah sure don’ know what’s worse.” They Raise Preachers, And then: “Do you-all mean to say that up north they put them together? My Gawd, what filthy habits! An’ you- all was teachin’ them? Just think of a white woman down heah teachin’ black brats! Why, her family would disown her an’ her friends would shun her.” And on and on in that vein. And this female is typical of all the whites in the south. | In the ecclesiastical schools of \higher learning—and the south |abounds in these fulsome institutions | that are never heard of, that rest amid shrubbery, foliage and cows and chickens in hills, dales, swamps and that are supported by noble baptists, presbyterians, methodists, Ku Klux- ers and fearful Catholics—the situa- | tion is the same. No mingling. The white may bear the taint all his life. North Cows Him. Oceasionally a Negro who hears that the north’s institutions are more liberal and that they actually teach something in the millenium and who has the means or obtains it by hard grubbing runs far above the Mason and Dixon line. But he comes back cowed for some reason, meets con- tempt from his less-learned brothers and shrinks into a day-by-day labor- er in an effort to return to the in- tellectual level imposed on them by their white masters, Maybe Liberalism! The southerner points to this re- clamation of the south from the north with vast pride: “The south is funny, sah,” he says. “If you were born here, or have got the mud of the soil on your feet, you can never leave, If you do leave, you always come back. There’s* some- thing here that brings you back.” And as an afterthought: “Maybe it’s liberalism.” That is how he accounts for the re- turn. But he does not know, or re- fuses to know, that it is the hustle and the hurry of the north, so dif- ferent from the lazy, shiftless life of the south, and the unendurable win- ters that terrify the Negro and send him scurrying back to the Spanish moss, the magnolias and the corn. As for the “liberalism” I fear that the Negro would rather endure the apa- thetic,"cool attitude of the free north than the loathing, contemptuous for- bearance of the anti-abolitionist south, IBOOKSg | THE FREEDOM OF ART. The middle-class fairy-tale about the freedom of art, its immunity from the effects of social conflicts, has been having a tough time the world over, most recently in Germany where Fascists and Social Democrats carry on the great “democratic” traditions, A number of publishers and editors have been arrested during the past year for issuing left-wing literary works. Matters have gone so far, that the Protective League of German Authors, which includes writers of every tendency, has had to petition the authorities to restore the poet Johannes R. Becher to the position of a man on trial for violating the book law. This may sound like a paradox, but here are the facts: Becher, who is considered one of the best poets in Germany, regardless of tendency, happens to be a member of the Communist Party. His poetry reflects his political views. Result: in 1925 he was arrested for holding the mirror up to Wilhelmstrasse. He was released during the so-called “Hindenburg amnesty,” only to get busy again on a novel dealing with chemical warfare in the future. The book is a stinging satire on bourgeois civilization. Title: “(CHCI-CH) II As or The Only Just War.” The amnesty made Becher immune from per- secution, but his publishers were arrested, tried, and condemned, and the chemical warfare novel suppressed. The newsstands and bookshops of Ber- lin freely and profusely display pornographic works, magazines on female beauty, with detailed illustrations, the official organs of the homosexuals and lesbians; but Becher’s novel may not be sold; and when I finally obtained a copy from a friend I was asked to carry it wrapped up in thick layers of the Lokalanzeiger. The decision of the court made every new work of Becher’s a continua- tion of the condemned book. While the poet is personally immune, as a result of the amnesty, any publisher who issues any of his works runs the risk of going to jail. Becher realizes the effectiveness of this form of censorship, and wants to fight it out in the courts. He sees no reason why others should be pun- ished for his writings, or—what is even more important—why the class character of the government’s war on books should skulk behind the smoke- screen of legal technicalities. The Protective League of German Authors has therefore asked the authorities to save Becher from his position as a complete outlaw, and to restore him to the position of a “criminal,” so that he can be tried in the courts, The Becher case is only one of many reflecting the class-struggle in literature, art, and drama, which in Germany, at any rate, is extremely con- scious and intense. INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN. Bolshevist Russia, by Anton Karlgren. MacMillan Company, New York. $3.50. Professor Karlgren seems to be suffering from political paranoia. The lies, illusions, and imbecilities current about Soviet Russia five years ago are for him still realities. While the more intelligent bourgeoisie everywhere is loudly admitting that the Bolsheviks have brought Russian industry and agriculture up to the pre-war level and that the economic prospects of the workers’ and peasants’ state are excellent; while bourgeois experts in educa- tion (vide Miss Farrel) and art (vide Lee Simonson) are whooping it up for Soviet culture; while workers’ delegations from Western Europe find that the Russian workers and peasants are actually running the country—the introverted professor from the Slav University of Copenhagen can see noth- ing but evil in the vast territory from Shebezh to Vladivostok. * * * Unfortunately for his case, though fortunately for truth, the professor from Copenhagen overdoes his stuff. No one can be so prejudiced against Soviet Russia as to seriously believe that it contains nothing but 140,000,000 criminals, idiots and fools, Furthermore, the professor doth protest too much. The entire book is written in a high hysterical falsetto; the author gesticulates violently; the foam runs down the corners of his mouth: His entire case consists of alleged quotations from. the Soviet press (he never gives dates by which these quotations can be verified) which criticise certain evils. That there are evils and difficulties the Bolsheviks are the last to deny; that the Bolsheviks are carrying on an open war against bureaucracy and inefficiency the Copenhagen professor will be the last to see. His logic is simple: the doctor who fight agafnst a disease is responsible for that disease! It may be that the esteemed professor is not deliberately lying; certainly he is a little hysterical. Why repeat over and over in what is supposed to be a serious political book that every Communist wears boots and spurs? Anyone who has been in Soviet Russia knows it is not true; but if it were true, in what way would that invalidate the Soviet Government? Another “serious” charge against the Bolsheviks is that the young girl Communists paint, bob their hair, and smoke. Many of them do smoke, and many do bob their hair; but for every Russian girl who bobs her hair there are ten Amer- ican girls who do the same, Russian girls do NOT paint; American girls do. Very interesting facts. What is their connection with the Soviet state, with the workers’ and peasants’ revolution? Why does the professor from Copen- hagen talk about these young Russian Communists with the voice of John Roach Stratton, over and over again? ‘ I recommend the book only to those who are interested in the psychiatry 6f politics. —JOSEPH FREEMAN. FACTS ABOUT NEGRO WORKERS. Negro Labor in the United States. Charles H. Wesley. Press. 50c. -y This book fills a long felt want. It is the first full-length study in its chosen field. The author traces the history of the Negro worker in America, from the time of his arrival in the country as the slave of southern tobacco and later cotton kings to the present. He gives an interesting picture, backed up by figures, of the Negro’s distribution through the varied industries of America. Painstakingly Mr. Wesley follows the course of the colored la- borer, from his start as a field hand, notes his development as a skilled worker, then shows him at work in the growing factories, shops and mines. The study represents a vast amount of effort. The work is heavily doc- umented. A long list of references supplements each chapter. A further extensive bibliography is furnished at the end of the book. Among the in- criminals, idiots and fools. Furthermore, the professor doth protest too Negro organization, the National Labor Union, * * * To my mind the most stimulating parts of the work are the chapters dealing with the history of Negro unions. These vital pages will furnish much needed encouragement to the colored worker, for here he can find lessons, to guide him in his future union plans. It is heartening, indeed, to know that the Negro has a long tradition of organization. The colored man was in the American labor movement from its start. Negroes were early members of the Knights of Labor, Later on colored workers formed a notable portion of the young A. F. of L, In some places, because of prej- udice, Negroes had to organize separately. On the other hand, Mr. Wesley records an instance where white union men in New Orleans, went on strike, to hack up the demands of the organized colored draymen, of that city. With capable leaders like Isaac Meyers, this mass movement went on expanding. The organization continued to flourish until elements, other than worker, were allowed membership. These persons, politicians for the most part, stressed the idea of allegiance to the Republican Party. Following this line, the hitherto energetic bodies sank to the level of tame political clubs. yee the important point for the present growing union movement to mar! Some space is given to figures of wealth accumulated by Negroes. Un- less these sums are the result of the co-operative efforts of workers, I 4 not see that they properly belong in a volume devoted to labor. Perha though they are justified, since they give some insight into the growth colored leisure class. 4 $ - The book makes almost no mention of the colored woman wor! few meagre statistics are offered about her and nothing else. This is ly “n oversight. The Negro woman has always been an important factor in the economic life of the country. Today a much larger number of colored are gainfully employed than white. A group like this in which nearly every member is a worker, should not be ignored in a study of Negro labor. No social or economic theory underlies this work. The author draws no conclusions of any sort from his great mass of material. He raises no ques- tions. The book is, however, a reservoir of facts. As such it will remain, for some time, the outstanding reference work on Negro rie , — YY ADAMS. The Vanguard “As a Doctor Sees It” is a vivid reproduction of life as seen by a doctor, As a Doctor Sees It, by B. Liber. The Critic and The Guide Company. $1.50. who has spent his life ministering to the poor. By painting the misery and the brutality of the life of the poor, Dr. Liber levels found criticism of the present state of society. N i Here is a/typical incident. A young girl is in prison for killing her baby. She cannot understand “why they put her there. “They” did not help her when she was in need. Her-husband had deserted her, he could find no work, What else could she do? ~ —A. GUSAKOFF, — | { { | j 1 } en | } | ] Pe es a