The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 11, 1927, Page 6

y gio ee we Se Pes .. ee ; Page Six THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 1vz1 MURDER | " The New American Industry | By CHARLES YALE HARRISON. “There’s nothing like a good murder trial to increase circulation,” is an old newspaper axiom. Consequently when Henry Judd Gray and Ruth Snyder beat the latter's | husband to death with a sash-weight and the police prom- ised bigger and better details to follow, the New York editorial executives wiped the dripping saliva from their jowls and awaited the increase in circulation. It came. If it were made to order the press could not have had | a better story. A big blonde beauty, feminine interest; a lapper corset salesman, comic relief; a little nine-year- | old daughter, human interest; a garden-loving murdered | husband, respectability. | * * * | Sensational murder trials mean increased circulation; | increased circulation means higher advertising rates; | higher rates mean moré dividends; more dividends mean a successful industry, and newspapers, among many other scandalous things, thrive on murder. To be quite sure that the public would be aroused to} the proper pitch of sadistic frenzy, the newspapers began | a campaign of “special writing.” The ordinary news re- | porting would not do. “Trained seals” and writers of note were hired to increase the shriek, Novelists, philosophers, evangelists, reformers, prom- inent panders and celebrated divorcees were engaged to write “angle” stories. The dull gaze in the public eye turned to a bright glitter. The ultra-respectable New York Times devoted pages of space to interviews and “color” stories. A promingnt actress whose sole claim to fame was that she had “mar- ried” six or seven times, and whose reputation is none} too savory, gave vent to this bit of psychology, “Gray weak—Ruth love-boss.” Half a million New Yorkers licked their chops and went to bed to dream. * * * Came the day of the trial. Into the spacious courthouse in Long Island City swarmed hundreds of spectators. Crowds milled around the’doors seeking entrance. At the press-tables sat 125 newspapermen and feature writers. In a nearby room a tangle of special and leased wires clicked the crazy tattoo to the uttermost ends of the earth. Everybody basked in the limelight of: the two unfortunates’ misery. The New York Telegram (now a Scripps-Howard Newspaper) howled blood and thunder, engaged the knock-’em-dead, up-to-the-minute American philosopher, | Will Durant—and waited for the circulation to go up, Quoth he, “How it illuminates the revived matriar- chate of our day—the control of man by woman in the home and in the street—that this gladiator of the cab-| arets, this corset corsair (philosophical alliteration, C.| Y. H.) should be led by the nose from madness to mur-| der under the artistry of a woman’s eyes ‘and the elec- tric touch of her fingers on his flesh.” | Professor Durant goes from The Story of Philosophy | to the Telegram—or from bad to worse. * * * } Mrs. Aimee MacPherson, the honest-to-goodness | Sharon Falconer, said, “If only Ruth had known Jesus—” | The Reverend John Roach Straton, Christ’s first as-| sistant here on earth said, “If only Mrs. Snyder knew! the Ten Commandments.” Peggy Joyce, the marathon matrimonial champion said, “{f only Ruth knew how to love.” The circulation departments said, “It’s going up.” The spectators stormed the doors early every morn- ing. Nor were they the riff-raff one sees in common or garden courtrooms. They were, what a journalistic triend of mine calls “the respectables.” They, too, had ausbands whom they despised slightly. They too had uick cars ($450 still owing). They, too, had stereo- typed houses cast from the same mould. And they, too, had looked with a bleary bourgeois eye on the gayer! things of life—and dared not—or maybe they did. | * * * hey crowded into the spacious courtroom and beheld | a good show. “Just imagine, she had everything a woman could want—that’s what happens to people when | they become unsatisfied. I always said if your husband | earns a good living and treats you Christian-like—why | hai’ good enough for any decent woman. It serves her | *! leading him astray. Oh, I hope she gets it good| nd plenty.” e do tomorrow, honey, I got two tickets to} ee or a reporter friend of mine says he can| s in to see the Snyder trial.” * * ¥ | The amplifiers catch the testimony and hurl it into| eager cars with a metallic intonation. | “She told me that same night that she didn’t believe | in God. I told her there must be a God.” ; | “Your husband provided for you well and permitted | your mother to live with you, and you had a nice home | and d clothes and an automobile and a motorboat.” “Yes.” | “Yet you say you were unhappy.” | “You didn’t do anything? You were a perfect lady?” “Yes,” * * * Laughter breaks out in the court room. Cold, hard, | unsympathetic, American laughter. | The show is on. Virtue is triumphant—respectability and the home are vindicated; disrespect for a Buick and a mortgage and good clothes stands pillored. Hefty matrons clasp their hands and tighten their mouths. Telegraph instruments click and clatter in the neigh- boring room, reporters dash out for a bite to eat. On the newsstands throughout the country special edi- tions are hurled off the presses. Whee-e-e, the circula- tion’s going up. All day long in thousands of newspaper offices the telegraph instrument ticks of the murder news, hun-| dreds of thousands of words of testimony, “trained seal” | stuff, yards of special writing. Human interest stuff, “Mrs. Snyder broke down and wept on the stand when Hazleton asked her if her hus- band was disappointed when Baby Lorraine was born, because she was not a boy. “Yes, that’s right,” said the witness, breaking into tears. OP ee 8 On the third day of the trial the mob stormed the police lines and tried to gain entrance to the overcrowded courtroom. The red-faced crowd jammed the doors and reporters who tried to get out with their copy were shoved back and manhandled. Riot prevailed. Middle- class justice was being meted out. Downtown in the neighborhood of Park Row, newspa- per executives sit with tight smiles playing about their mouths, “Yessir, it never fails, play up a murder and up she goes.” Too damn bad it didn’t come in July.” Graphs appear in the New York press. The Daily Mirror carries more advertising, etc., etc., etc. The ‘’ New York Times more display advertising than all other. . . . During the month of April, the New York World, etc. ete... . More advertising, more graphs, more headlines, more circulation, “There's nothing like a good murder trial to increase circulation.” SEND IN YOUR LETTERS The DAILY WORKER is anxious to receive letters ’ from its readers stating their views on the issues con- fronting the labor movement. It is our hope to de- velop a “Letter Box” department that will be of wide Translated from the Russian of A. Novikov-Priboi by Vera and Violet Mitkovsky. Dear Friend:—Your second last letter reached me while I was still a captain of the first rank, command- ing a large dreadnought. That was about two months before the events of February. surprised by your cheerful tone, your hope of an early end of the war. Many years have passed since then, terrible years, shaking Russia to the very depths of her strongly establish- ed system. Where are our former “The Rough Road” I was then extremely | need little now that we are left alone. Our only and beloved daughter Claudia has married for the second time. How much sorrow she has caused her mother! But of that we shall speak later. is . . After all, we live not too badly. I will add that my former baroness need not mend stockings but that in years of famine she had become so} miserly that she saves every crumb of food and puts away in a trunk all | worn-out clothing. I too have become very modest in my demands of life. The navy shtee with meat, and buck- wheat with butter, warm clothing in friends? Some, the revolution scat- tered like autumn leaves over the whole world, some frightened off their warm nests, drag out a miser- able existence, while others are no longer among the living and it is long since a mass was said for their souls, This made it most pleasant for me to receive an envelope with 4 close, familiar writing. I thought you were dead, and here you are across the border, safe and well. This news caused me great joy. The fate of your estates, however, was very un- fortunate. * 3 I remember every corner of them, every detail. Perhaps it is so indeli- bly impressed on my memory becayse it was there I first met the Baroness von Berman and there first spoke my love. As I write this letter, she, my wife, having lived with me for over thirty years, sits at the table mending stockings. You would not recognize her. She is an old woman now, in every sense of the word, bent, |in a cheap grey dress and spectacles, | one of which is cracked. Sometimes I look with sadness at the gray hair hanging in wisps about her wrinkled face, into her black eyes, once scorch- ing with their passion and now faded by tears. * * * You ask how I live and what I have experienced during the revolu- tion. I shall attempt to answer you ina long epistle. It shall be a sort of tale in which I shall interweave my recent life with reminiscences of the past. You know my old habit. 1 like to record all my more or less vivid impressions on paper. Before me now lies a thick old notebook. On its pages is splashed a part of my soul. Sometimes, out of this material, I shall wrte an interesting book. In what I am sending you now how- ever, you shall see how the unexpect- ed sometimes breaks into our lives, At the end of the civil war I left the naval service, in which I had occupied a rather important position. I was begged to remain but refused, | and the age limit saved me from con- scription. I wished td live another life. There began a series of: at- tempts. First I tried the shoe-mak- ing business, then selling small wares |at the market, and working in a co- operative grocery store. All this winter, comfortable temperature in the house, are sufficient to keep me in a good humor. Occasionally I threat myself to a thimbleful of brandy. My health is excellent, far better than when I held my rank and denied myself nothing. * * * It is different with my wife. ‘She cannot reconcile herself to the new order and constantly grumbles and protests. It seems to me she will end her days in an insane asylum. I, on the other hand, on contem- plating the new conditions of life, ar- rive at-a totally different conclusion. A new life is arising, not in the least resembling the old. It is different to the times of military Communist dictatorship when we lived on frozen potatoes and stood in endless bread- lines for % pound of coarse bread or perhaps some sunflower seeds, or gartars; when they wanted to equal- ize not only people but the stars. In this respect our leaders have become more modest. At the same time; it is not what it was in the Czar’s time and not what is now the breath of Europe. (To be continued) Cooperator’s Festival. At the cooperators festival May 15 at Ulmer Park, foot of 25th Street Brooklyn, a display of posters pre- pared by cooperators of Finland, Russia, Germany, Poland, Sweden and France will be shown, There will be a musical program with sports, athletics, and dancing till midnight. ‘ ; Prehistoric Skull failed to satisfy me; only ships and the water attracted me. At last I realized my desire; I joined the mer- chant marine service. My duty was to fasten the cables of ships coming into dock. I occupied this position for two years and was content. Then I joined the crew of a sail boat on which I serve as the present time, The boat is old, needing much repair to fit it for use, It is for sale and securely docked. . Three of us take turns watching on it, guarding gov- ernment property. My fellow-work- ers are two old sailors. All our work consists of caring for the seals, which we hand over to each other on sign- ing in the watch-book. * * * This work is of the easiest kind, permitting me to rest in body and soul. In my spare time I read con- temporary literature. Books have awakened in me a desire to tramp through all of Russia, to know my people closer, and to learn to what distant point steers our young re- public, My salary is about sixty roubles, but that is not the point. The point is, that occupying such a democratic position, I. can clamor and howl at this or that injustice and be quite immune. A sailor is forgiven much. If I cannot carry the point myself, I have at my back such a powerful body as the Seamen’s Union. In spite of my former calling, that of an officer of the first rank, I enjoy all the rights of a Russian citizen, My rent is proportional to my union interest to all members of The DAILY WORKER family. Send in your letter today to “The Letter Box,” The DAILY WORKER, 33 First street, New York City. standing, an insignificant sum, Add- ing to this what I earn by lessons, I an. quite well off. My wife and I The first replica of the only skull of Neanderthal man which ever has been found outside Eu- rope, has been sent to the med- ical museum of Western Reserve University, Cleveland, O, The original was found by Turville Petre, British scientist, in a cave near Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee. Dr. T, Wingate Todd, above, professor of anatomy at -Naggin’ de Niggah | By WILLIAM MELVILLE SUTTON. | ARTICLE II | “Puttin’ the niggah in his place” is the favorite sport as well as the favorite locution of the south.| This means that he is taught that he is a child and/ |that because he is a child, all the privations, all the torture, all the denials, all the oppression and suppres- | sion to which he is subjected is for his “own good.” | He must not dare yearn for the education that is pro-| vided for the white. He must not yearn for the jobs| that white men hold. He must remember that he is| serf, not even so exalted as a vassal. And he must remain embalmed in ignorance and fear so that when northerners come down he may be pointed out as a “child.” A Law Place. Above all, he must remember that the white man is his peer, his overlord. Though he has been benignantly of late granted the right to walk on the same side of the street as his master, he must always be the cring- ing servitor, the obsequious side-stepper.. He must not “block” the path of the white, Jim Crow Hearses. And when he dares to ask the assistance of an ‘in- terne from a white man’s hospital or a white man’s undertaker or funeral ambulance driver—always on the scene of an aecident on the look-out for customers— though he may be dying, the Negro aspires to such dazzling heights that the white man is stung to homi- cidal wrath. Thus in the face of, the fact that Tom Lee, Negro though he be, risked his life for nearly a score of worthless politicians, carousers and hangers- on on the fatal day the steamer Norman went down in the Mississippi near Memphis more than a year ago, two ‘of his race lay dying back in August, 1925, while white ambulance drivers, forgetful of the fact that a man may be black and still be human, stood by, re- fused him succor, ignored his plight and all but laughed. The newspapers of Memphis—it was in this eminent Mississippi port that the outrageous drama was enacted—ga¥e vent to righteous indignation after the first act. The undertakers and ambulance , drivers promised to be good. Eight days after, Act Two was put on for the benefit of the southern audience—this time a dead Negro could not be transported to his own funeral parlors. The excuse? The typical southern excuse, A white southerner’s corpse could never rest in peace, if when he was still living, he had been brought to the hospital in an ambulance contaminated by a Negro, or if his carcass were brought to the cemetery jin a chariot that had carried a Negro. Two more incidents must I record from this southern land of the free, where human beings, because they are not white, are household slaves at two to five dollars a week, as much the property of their white employers as their ancestors, who got lodgings and clothes and food for their services—two incidents which I handled for the Memphis sheet on which I was working, the sympathetic, deprecating stories of which were re- ceived with sneers by the newspapermen of that emi- nent city. Tubercular Prisoner. Hattie Johnson, tubercular, poverty-stricken, shunned by blacks and whites alike, was accused of shoplifting. Perhaps the charge was true; perhaps it was not. If it was, the real criminals are the white overlords. Convicted on a count of petit larceny, she was sen- tenced to jail for sixty days and fined $100. At the end of her term, if she could not pay the fine, she was to spend five months longer in jail, at the current penal ng of forty cents a day, in order to “work out” the ine. In jail her cell was a sick-room. But no one came to plead her cause; no one cared whether she lived or died. When her sixty-day sentence was nearing its end, a kind-hearted lawyer—an anamoly, to. be sure— sought to have her freedom restored to her, so that she might regain health outside prison walls. His argu- ments were based not on the law—for he could plead no law, since she had not money wherewith to pay the fine—but on humanity. For freédom she must have bondsmen. The good and noble county commissioners refused to accept the two persons, whites, who would help her. Heaven and earth could not move them. So|' back to prison went Hattie, She may be dead now, for a cell would be fatal to a frail body, wracked by disease. I don’t know. But I remember her face, as she sat in the courtroom and wondered, I am sure, what Lincoln would say and where on earth is all this jus- tice one hears so much about. Corn Stealing. The other incident was made for the telling by a good and kind probate judge of Shelby County, Tennessee— county seat, Memphis. It involved a black boy, Davy Polk, fourteen years old, and a family of poor white trash—not so much white trash because they had sunk to such levels as to live next door to a niggah family, but because of their behavior in thé case of Davy, which condemned them even in the eyes of the other whites in the county. Two young sons of the family of trash and several other youngsters went into Davy’s patch of corn and very generously helped themselves to ear after ear with which to replenish, inexpensively, the family larders. Davy caught Willie, his neighbor’s youngest son, spanked him and sent him home. The next day, as the result of the machinations of a family of whites in lower standing than a family of blacks in the south, Davy was on his way to an industrial school, where he: was to spend those years of his life between fourteen and twenty-one. I can still see the headline written over: my “story,” out of which had been whipped all humane sentiments and such depre- cations that are anathemas to the southern ear and leye: “Chastiser is Chastised.” I keep my clipping telling about Davy, for both the story and the smart-alecky, smug head over it epitomize | one of the qnost vicious campaigns of oppression ever waged in America, FUNERAL By JOSEPH KALAR A funeral cortege passing down the street, quietly, stealthily, as if ashamed of itself. Beautiful lady,.open not the window with your hands ‘ gemmed with scintillating jewels, call not on the footman to find out what the hell is raising such a racket on the street. It is nothing. ¢ All will soon be quiet again. There is no need to shed tears. Western Reserve, who took part in discussions of the skull when it reached the Royal College of Surgeons, London, Eng., says it probably is that of a young man of about 25 who lived perhaps | Just another hunkie unfortunately crushed by tons of iron ore. Just another wop. you see the timbers were rotten, like paper. . . It is nothing. All will soon be quiet again. TO THE NEWS By Evcene Lyons WAR. Heinie fought in Flanders Field, Thyssen bought and sold; Heinie got his leg shot off, Thyssen got the gold. Tommy at Gallipoli Lies beneath the soil; Cowdray stayed in London town, His Lordship got the oil. Doughboy went to Valmy Ridge, Morgan never went; Doughboy got the poison gas, Morgan ten percent. | Thyssen, Cowdray and J. P. Had a lovely war: Soldiers tramp the streets for jobs: Ask themselves: WHAT FOR? —JOSEPH FREEMAN, This Cock-Eyed World.—Former Secretary of War, Stimson, has finally obtained “peace” in Nicaragua and 800 additional American marines are being sent to that country. Kerensky is writing articles for the New York “Times” and the editors of The “DAILY WORKER” are being hailed to court on framed-up charges. About 300,000 are homeless in the Mississippi flood regions and the price of cotton is going up because of flood damage to cotton fields. More than 90 miners are killed in a West Virginia explosion and the Department of Labor announces that despite the strike the soft coal supplies - are larger than ever. The fascist aviator De Pinedo is given official receptions and Enea Sormenti, editor of the Comniunist paper “Il Lavoratore,” has been ordered to leave the country within 60 days. Journalism As Is—The Snyder-Gray case is going the way of all sen- sations. A few days more and it will be as completely forgotten as the world-rocking affairs of Peaches Heenan, Aimee McPherson, Hall-Mills, etc., etc. Already a thousand editors are racking their brains—or at least their heads—in search of another thrilling inanity, Maybe the suit of Freda Hempel against old moneybags Hecksher will be ballyhooed into a world-beater. Maybe a sex comic will break propitiously. But something ' will be found to quench the thirst of a bored decaying society for thrills. Something will be found to guard the masses against infectious news from f China, stimulating news from Geneva, etc. § HALLELUJAH, PM A BUM. i They call me bum. They! Who are they that call me bum: The dolled up gentlemen With their damosels (Damosels hell! I'd like to call them what they are) Under their arms } Cooing (ain’t that the cat’s) cooing in the shadows of a leafy | tree... ‘ ‘ And how they startle : When they see me coming... And why shouldn’t they? They know what I want. Gee . . . Listen to him mumble; No, he ain’t got no change, no! The lousy little pasty-faced runt... . | Bum! : i God damn it, I am a bum : 1 lf that pop-eyed arrow-collared weazel | Is a gentleman. i —PUNCHINO. What's in a Name.—From the New York Times, Sunday, we clip: “Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Elliott announce the bar mitzvah of their son, Norman,” etc. So why fear for Judaism? Someone suggests (in a \ low timid voice) that there must have been a Mortimer-phosis, PORTRAIT OF A KU KLUXER. Tiny twinkling grey eyes nearly lost in the crevices of | a fat round face. Somehow the impression of flatness, like | a smiling moon. The full beaming countenance surmounted a short stocky body almost without the aid of a neck. Of course a modest saunch beneath the vest, not too prominent yet. \ Driving home with his boy, a manly youngster just en- } tering his teens, on vacation from school. The lad alert. Would he become bland as the father? The two talked eagerly together; quite affectionately, for this sophisticated age. The father put his hand simply on the boy’s knee when the youngster leaned over to ask from the authority. They laughed together, too. Father tremendously proud: of his son, He thought pub- lic schools among the world’s wonders to teach boys like that. ; And yes sir, that Oregon state law prohibiting private school instruction for children was a good thing. It wouldn’t give anyone a chance to feel superior on account of his exclusive school. Democracy, that’s the thing! The Ku Klux were trying to do something for America, too,—for democracy. But the newspapers were no account; wouldn’t give them much publicity. Of course the against Catholics, Jews, Japs and Niggers. Fine thing, Americanism. He couldn’t belong because he was an ali born in Australia, been in Canada and England. Yes, Mi enzie is the name. Furniture salesman. Make this territory every month. “You know, I always find the world pretty good. If you look at it the right way it’s bound to be. Always treats me well. I don’t go looking for trouble. ... « i “This is a good country; fellow can make all the money he needs. Been at it for 14 years hereabouts. Fine country.” Warms up with the food he has been packing down. _ “Waiter, bring my check. . . . Oh, I certainly didn’t ex- pect you to pay. Always take someone in my back seat for ballast; car rides easier. Well, thanks. Glad to have met you; hope you get on all right.” c The hitch-hiking workers shove off down the street, looking for a flop. The Kluxer and son go on in the auto, ESTHER LOWELL, Bi i dell AL BORE WU Mane Wher Remain Taper Nar et t vals lipe