The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 19, 1927, Page 6

Page Six THE DATLY WORKER, NEW YORK, THURSDAY, MAY 19, 1927 Sailor Victimized After Refusal to Work Foreign Ship A blare of music, a splash of color,even the mock semblance of a trial. wavings, greetings, the band playing | If it’had been in the case of a rescue, martial strains, more greetings. Cars| or a salvage or emerge I would of the idle rich ranged around the|have gone, but under these circum-| pier at Hoboken, the occupants listen ances and in a foreign port I would | ing to the music on the pier. refuse to wo: He thereupon asked A ship of the United States lines|me if 1 was one of these I.W.W. leaving fora port in Europe* with | agitators. I answered him that I a cargo of rick, pleasure-bent passen- | was not, but that I was class con- | s and freight. A haze of romance | scious and held radical views. s to pervade the atmosphere on| “Oh,” he said, “that is a case of | the departure of a ship of these lines. | out of the frying pan and into the Such ships as the Leviathan, George | fire.” “T trip these ships make, Washington, the President Harding, | the crew ent into the foreign ten- President. Roosevelt and other liners | der.” assume a sort of holiday air on their “Well,” I answered, “then every | departure. The passengers disport-|time that happens, the American} ing themselves on deck and in their | cabins listen to the music blaring noises of departure and they are en- tranced. It’s a great world after all, God’s, in his heaven, all’s still right with the world. No Romance For Seamen. Uttle are they concerned with the abuses and suffering of the men that make their pleasure trips possible. They watch the seamen pull in the lines, and they also are imbued with the false air of romance that this capitalist machinery ‘of transporta- tion takes on. These sailors are workers like other workers when it comes to realistic slavery at a few dollars a month. They have furthermore to be really skilled in their trade, before the “ autocratic ship owners: will hire them. They must show at least six good discharges from former voyages to prove that they are efficient and able seamen. Also they must produce a lifeboat ticket. Then there is absolutely no question as to their ability as first class seamen. Just before the ship sails, they are forced to buy uni- forms from the ship’s slop chest at 150 per cent profit to the United States Lines. Of course the passen- gers think that the company furn- ishes the men’s uniforms free of charge. $62.50 A Month. The wages of a sailor are $62.50 a month, and tho he knows that the conditions on these vessels are pretty rotten, he is forced to ship on them. There is always an unemployment situation on the waterfront, so he hasn’t any choice of jobs and is pretty lucky to get any job at all. My experiences on a voyage on the President Harding are typical of the environment thru which the sailor passes aboard these vessels, with the exception that IT am more class con- scious than the average seaman that I meet, and can consequently under- stand the conditions and their cause a little better—it is the same experi- ence. Eastbound we worked two nine- teen hour days on mail baggage and freight. No overtime pay and no time back for this hard work was given. This is long steady work and we were continually being called out at all hours of the night thruout the voyage. Four days in port in Bremenhaven, and on the morning of departure, there was a council muster on deck. All men who did not appear were fined four days’ pay. Westbound before a gale of wind, we were obliged to wash oil from the fore part of the ship, This oil had leaked out of the fuel tanks of the ship. No Clothes for Sale I applied fer sea-boots and oil skins | which are supposed to be purchasable at the ship’s slop chest, but there| weren’t any in stock. This, despite the fact, that maritime law requires that every ship carry these articles | for the seaman’s use in~ heavy weather. Consequently, I had weather the gale witHout any. At the port of Queenstown, we} took the tender alongside, with mail | baggage, passengers and freight. | This tender flys the free State flag, | and her crew are organized. Never- | thless the crew of the President | Harding was asked to go abroad and | handle baggage. I refused to con-| cede to this demand, as my contract | called for work on an American ship, | and not a foreign one. How was I to know, if there might be a strike | on, and I might be scabbing on my fellow workers in their own country. Thrown in Brig. | For refusing to do this work I was placed in a wet brig behind iron! bars, and I had to sleep on an iron| floor. Here I was for 22 hours. They brought me white bread and water for sustenance. I was pretty | angry and refused the food on the| basis that white bread did not con- tain the necessary minerals to keep life and activity in the hody. So right thru the long hours of the night I tossed about on the hard cold floor of the brig in misery and in the, morning T was taken to the; ship’s doctor. He pronounced me} well and fit. From there I was taken to Captain Van Beak and Chief mate Stedman. Captain Van Beak asked me why I had refused to work on the Free State tender. He asked me whether I knew that refusing to obey an order was punishable by a fine of four days pay, and imprisonment. I told the Captain that I had never refused to work on the ship that I had signed on, but that it was against my principles to work on foreign vessels. I told him that the order to work on the Free State tender was af il- legal one, and that I considered my- self as being unjustly persecuted by being thrugt into the brig without \ Bias Breanne to} crew is scabbing on the foreign or- | ganized labor.” He told me that my | trouble was that I was influenced by | reds and bolsheviks. | On His Career. The Captain cited the instance of himself, he told me that 44 years ago, he was a hard working obedient | young man, he had started to save | his money, and studied navigation. “You and your shipmates have the same chance that I had” he said. ““Well Captain,” I told him, “if | I couldn’t make big money like you, without putting the crew to scabbing, and then logging them from their| hard earned wages, why then I don’t want to be a captain of a United States Liner.” Work On Sunday. The Captain impatiently asked the mate if he had any work for me to do. The mate said, “Yes there was work.” The Captain then turned to me and said: “if* you work seven hours today, (which was Sunday) I will fine you four days pay and will | not put you back in the brig. I replied, “Captain today is Sunday and | I have been twenty-two hours in, the brig and consequently am unable to work, and even if I were able to/ work, I would not work on a day of | rest, while the rest of the crew are| off duty.” He said, “I will fine you| eight days pay and you will have to} turn to in the morning.” } The following morning I was very sick. I had a sore throat, cold and stiff sore limbs. The cold had gotten| me while I was working in the gale| without oil skins and on top of that the wet brig had finished. things. T was told to turn to, which I re- fused to do on the ground that I w: sick and unable to work. The doct examined me and gave me powders and oil; he told me that my pulse was normal, and that I could go back to work. I said that I couldn't and I was thrown back into the damp brig for another ten hours. Then I was taken to the mate, who said that the doctor had pronounced me as well and able to work, and that there was no reason for my being sick. I told him that I-had caught the cold due to the lack of oil skins. In a few days we arrived in Ho- boken. Here I went to the Barge office and complained my fine to the | shipping commissioner. A ship mate was with me and he bore out my tes- timony. ‘There chief mate was there | and he said that I had continuously | refused duty, and that I had admitted | that I was a radical. The commissioner decided in favor of the company. How careful the capitalist instruments are of any-| thing that even savors of organiza- | tion. and betterment of the working} | and living conditions of their slaves | | at their expense. | | Washington and New York so- ciety, surprised over the suit for divorce instituted in Paris, France, by Bainbridge Colby, New York lawyer and former sec- retary of state, say the rift be- tween Mr. and Mrs. Colby might have developed when Mrs. Colby wrote a book on life in Washing- ton. Friends said one of the char- acters resembled Mr. Colby, but Mrs. Colby denied that she had tried to picture her husband. Mrs, Colby, whose picture is above, was Nathalie Sedgewick before her marriage in 1895, Inset is of Mr. Colby. CHARLOTTE ANITA WHITNEY —Drawing by Lydia Gibson. * By LAURENCE TODD (Federated Press). In two decisions the federal supreme court upheld, on May 16, both the political and the industrial ends of the California criminal syndicalism law. Miss Charlotte ta Whitney, East, who was convicted in Oakland on charges that she belonged to the Communist Labor Party which was born * * lof the schism in the Socialist Party in 1919, lost her appeal. She is now liable to serve a sentence of from one to 14 years in prison. William Burns, laborer, con- |victed of membership in the Industrial Workers of the World, and as an, organizer in that militant body of laborers, was held to serve a similar term, Decisions Contradict. A curious illustration of the quirks of the law is found in the fact that on this same day the same supreme | court held that Harold B. Fiske, convicted of violation fairly convicted. The justices declared in their unani- mous opinion that the I. W. W. preamble, used as evi- dence against Fiske, does not suggest “that the indus- trial organization of workers as a class for the purpose of getting possession of the machinery of production and Criminal Syndicalism Law in California Upheld wealthy and educated woman from the | jof the Kansas criminal syndicalism law, had not been | abolishing the wage system, was to be accomplished by | other than lawful methods.” that the I. W. W. preamble was not an illegal document or teaching, and that Fiske as an I. W. W. organizer could not be convicted Hence, the court decided ’ members in an organization proposing “crime, violence or other unlawful acts or methods as a means of effect- ing industrial or pglitical changes or revolution.” Yet Burns, the court—with Justice Brandeis dissent- ing—held, was rightly convicted if he seeured members for “an organization of persons organized and assembled to advocate, teach and abet criminal syndicalism, to y" the Industrial Workers of the World.” The court f that the I. W. W. “advocated, taught and aided var acts of sabotage that are plainly within the meanin; that word “as used in the California law. It recited some of these destructive acts, such as the driving of | nails into growing trees to kill them, the placing of weed seeds in fields, and the scattering of combustibles to start fires in grain and to destroy farmers’ property. Thus the I. W. W. was found guilty in the Burns case, under the California law, and Burns was held for prison because of his membership and activity in the I, W. W. Urged Revolution. Anita Whitney’s conviction was defended by the ma- | jority opinion, read by Justice Sanford, on the ground that the California law had been directly violated by the national platform of the Communist Labor Party, and the defendant failed immediately to leave the Oak- branch of the party when, against her urgent advice, dorsed the national platform which called for re- ion. hat society has nothing to fear from reactionary | nce is the belief expressed by the majority in dis- | issing the argument that this law discriminated against the radical workers. “There is no substantial basi§ for’ the contention that the legislature has arbitrarily or unreasonably limited its) application to those advocating the use of violent and unlawful methods to effect changes in industrial and political conditions,” it declares; “there being noth- ing indicating any ground to apprehend that those desir- ing’ to maintain existing industrial and political condi- tions did or would advocate such methods.” Brandeis, Holmes Agree. Justice Brandeis and Holmes, agreeing that Miss Whit- ney was rightly convicted, in view of her encouragement of the I. W. W. in California, through membership in the Communist Labor Party, disagreed with the ma- jority opinion that the California law was justified in. limiting freedom of speéch and assembly. “Fear of serious injury,” they said, cannot alone jus- tify suppression of free speech and assembly. Even imminent danger cannot justify resort to prohibitions of these functions essential to effective democracy, un- less the evil apprehended is relatively serious.” proposed proletarian revolution, they pointed out, must be very long delayed and hence could not be looked upon as a serious immediate danger to be so drastically , on this evidence, of enlisting | guarded against. The | (Continued from Page One) trade union officials who find condi- tions as they are very much to their liking. But when a person mixes with the workers who have to go to their daily grind when they are lucky enough to be blessed with a job, one gets a different impression. The for- eign editor of the Paris Matin ig- nored the poverty of the millions of American workers, And for a pur- pose. Instead of looking towards the Soviet Union as the workers’ paradise the European workers must be taught to look towards America. But this sham will not work and we will help in our own humble way to puncture the balloon. i wae ee UR old friend general Feng Yu- siang is on the move and things do not look as bright for Chang-Tso- Lin, our bandit ally, as they did a few years ago. Of course Feng has been mouching along for quite a while but the capitalist reporters hoped he would get an attack of the hives and spend the rest of the year scratching himself, Our friend Feng went and icaptured @ e@diy and his soldiers are / t PP [CURRENT EVENTS by 7. 3. OFLAHERTS | how busy chasing Wu-Pei-fu over the landscape. * * * not having much left in the way of consolation the correspondents are now hoping that Feng will make am alliance with Chiang-Kai-Shek. But he is more likely to connect his axe with Chiang’s neck when he gets within beheading distance of him. This would serve Chiang right. The most contemptible of mortals is the renegade who betrays a glorious cause and turns on his former comrades. This is what Chiang did at the sug- gestion and-in consideration of the money of the imperialists, particular- ly Great Britain. Watch the news from China during the next few days. * * Ts Soviet note of protest against the illegal raid on its trade dele- gation headquarters in London, is firm but restrained. It reads like the warning of a strong but peaceful man to a swaggering bully. Great Britain is asked whether she wants to main- tain trade relations or conduct her- self toward the Soviet government in @ manner befitting a civilized power or whether she will continue those re- Jations in the approved manner of the burglar. It is almost certain that Great Britain is disposed to break off diplomatic relations with Russia. Th visit of the French president and the French foreign minister has a direct bearing on this matter. . . . i AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN will not have anything more to do with Eugene Chen, foreign minister of the Nationalist Government of China with headquarters at Hankow. A few days ago Chen talked the Chinese language to Chamberlain in a tone different to what the proud Britons have been used to from former Chinese officials. He told Chamberlain that he would be delivering sneeches for international consumption from Peking in a short time and that the British foreign of- fice would understand his lingo, It. now seems that Chen will be in Pek- ing shortly with the aid of Feng Yu- siang. CHICAGO, May 16.—Three women were in custody and another wi: sought today in connection with the mystérious killing of Albert W. Val- ecka, former Cicero police chief, who died from the effects of & severe beat- ing. 5 WITH u nae a ‘Youth Day in Hamburg By ALEX MASSER. (Delegate British Young Communist League) |. The Hamburg young workers cele- brated their Youth Days on Easter Saturday and Sunday, following the National Congress of the Young Com- munist League held on the three pre- vious days. “Youth Day. Hamburg, Saturday and Sunday, 1917. | “Young Workers, Demonstrate on Youth Days. “Against the Rascist Terror. “Against the Monarchist Govern- ment. “Against Imperialist War on China. “For “the Victory of the Chinese | Revolution. “For world Workers Unity.” | So read the call—and the response! | Tremendous! Magnificent! Inspiring! |For the young workers of Hamburg |are for the Proletarian Revolution, they have taken their stand at the barricades of Revolution twice al- ready; they have suffered in the fire of capitalist aggression, of reform- ist treachery. They know that for the | workers the only solution to capit- | alist oppression, to Imperialist War, |to the dread “rationalisation” of in- | dustry is not the reformism of the Noskes and Eberts, brothers of the British Hodges and MacDonalds, who have let them down so foully and so often, but in the dictatorship of the proletariat, | Everywhere this 1927 Easter-tide on Hamburg, is breathed the spirit of | revolt; everywhere are to be seen the |uniforms of the Young Front Fight- jers; and every other person is wear- jing the special Youth Day Badge or jother Communist symbol. From Ber- Easter \lin arrives a contigent of over 2,000 | | Young Communists — how smartly |they marched to the strains of the |“Red Army March”! Every few min- utes, it seems, comes a group swing- ‘ing along, banners waving, singing |their songs of revolt lustily, men- | acingly, in challenging tone. And |ever and anon comes the salute that jis both challenge and greeting, with clenched fist raised shoulder high, “Rote Front”! Comes the time for the Demonstra- |tion in the Hamburg Circus to com- ;mence. Inside are over 6,000 young workers, singing to the Music of the Red Front Bands. Outside are more than as many again. They do not push, jostle and crowd; they “fall in”, unfurl their banners and march off to demonstrate in the streets sur- rounding the circus. Inside the scene is amazing, tier upon tier the seats are crowded. The Reds Bands crash out their music, the limelights play on the standard bear- ers forming a crimson background to the huge stage, surmounting all is a huge Red Star suspended from the roof. Suddenly comes silence—com- plete. The President calls, on the first speaker. In quick succession the others follow, with short, crisp | telling speeches arousing tremendous enthusiasm — German, British, Rus- sian—and provoking greatest applause | SOPOR But what will Dempsey do to the winner? We know how much he will make in dollars and cents—the ques- tion is, how much will he get in the If reports are true, nose? Jack Dempsey is looking like the Demp- sey, of old, and that looks bad to any- one who has to fight him. Oh, well,— what's the difference? The birds that go out to see them sock. each other will pay a high price for the No use running away from reality. If you are a young worker or stu- dent, your place is in the Young Workers League. National office: 1113 W. Washing- ton Boulevard, Chicago Ill. ? New York Office: 108 East 14th Street, New York City. SACCO and VANZETTI SHALL NOT DIE! "| iSK. of all—a chinese comrade. Tremend- | ous cheers greeted the report of | the anti-militarist work of the Brit- ish League. Speeches finished, the Berlin comrades present a revue, a | real gem of workers’ art in which | Chamberlain and MacDonald are none to gently dealt with. But Sunday—Day of Days! Young Communists, Pioneers, Com- munist Party, Red Front Fighters, Young Front Fighters, Red Marines thirty thousand strong they as- semble at the Central Meeting place, The uniformed Red Front Fighters have the, huge crowd well in hand, there is no confusion, but a military | orderliness. They start off. on the | seven miles march to the Stadt Park, | the streets lined with cheering, sym- | pathetic workers. From the windows | hang Red Flags, posters bedeck the | walls, overhead, transversing the | streets are streamers bearing fighting | mottoes. A diversion—Fascists im- | pudently try to utilise the occasion for propaganda by leaflets. Speedily a section of the Red Fighters fall out and their filthy weapons are torn from the disciples of Mussolini, who scurry away, cowed. The Stadt Park reached, the Cén- tral YCL Committee and the Frat- ernal delegates, who have headed the demonstration, take the salute. Heavens! Are they walking in a cir- cle, this never-ending stream of work- er fighters! But at last, in an héur and a half, the last file has passed, the 800th banner goes by. | In front of the rostrum, perched | high, bands are massed, ranged around | } | | { in a great semi-circle are the 300 ban- | ners. Splendid! Magnificent! A representative from the YCL | Central Committee mounts the ros- trum, follow representatives from the Front Fighters, then an American Party representative. Cheer upon.) cheer follows. the Chinese delegate as |he mounts the platform. , The bands strike up, the International is taken up by the mighty crowd and swells into a heaven rending challenge to Imperialist aggression, a call to in- ternational unity to the workers. Then the delegate from the British YCL, telling of the fight of the Brit- ish young workers. Excitement reach- es to fever heat when a Berlin com- rade comes to the platform to present to the British YCL a banner bearing the device “Better Death than Slay- ery”. Thaelman, Communist member of the reichstag, exposes the war plans and wage cutting plots of imperialism, his challenge is aken up by the 50,000 voices in a tremendous roar of as- sent to his call for militant struggle. The speeches finish at last; again the International! The demonstration disperses not to the homes yet, but to witness the football and racing of the worker sportsmen and later to wit- ness a fireworks display. “Youth Day, Hamburg, Easter Sat- urday and Sunday, 1927” is over! But its inspiration lives, its mes- sage spreads throughout Germany. The spirit of Youth Day is the spirit of Revolution, the spirit of the work- ing class youth, the spirit which is privilege of watching this sport (7). going to carry them forward in the fight for ‘a Workers’ Germany. Who'll win the Sharkey-Maloney fight tonight? Will the Lithuanian from Boston make baloney out of Maloney—or will Maloney make sau- .| sage out of Sharkey? Which will get the honor—and the heavy money: for fighting Jack Dempsey? * Put this down in your note-book (but\ don’t bet on it!—you know how they love to get croo in this game!, Sharkey is going /to knock the Irisher for a row of Beans. this sports bug is a better prophet than the weatherman, even if he will risk opinions on something the other ~ sport writers are guessing about. ~ 2 ee & re ie Vsaeqeretnn 33 First St, New York, N.Y, Xx "8 THE §! Enclosed $1 for a year's sub to the Young Worker, A Street ..cseseveee “i a CUEY verevee ut State ...... te | Maybe this is baloney, but: , f o ' |