The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 13, 1927, Page 8

_ TheMyth Aboutthe Progressive ewe illusions are abroad about the glorious fighting tradition of the Amaglamated Cloth- ing Workers, .its progressive policies, etc. Mr. Hillman knows better, so do some of the insiders. It is but £7 years since Nashville, Tennessee, where _ the A. C. W. A. was started. It took about. that long te unravel before the masses the game that * was sent afoot and then played between a few, ‘amongst whom was what is now known as Hart, Schaffner & Marx and his office employe, Mr. Hill- man. We must admit the game was played quite cleverly. There are but few who know the story and it makes quite imgeresting reading. Hillman’s abilities were recognized by his boss ,quite early, and having in mind the establishment of modern garment factories with cheap labor in Chicago, with the middle west as its chief market, Hatt, Schaffner & Marx found Mr. Rickert, then President of the United Garment Workers, affilia- jted with the A. F. of L. in their way. The U. G. W. vled by Rickert was playing the game of the «New ‘York bosses and Mrs. Schaffner found it necessary to use the union against his competitors nationally and locally picked out his able and trusted office clerk, Hillman, to do the job. Mr. Rickert by his arbitrary and brutal methods at the convention played into the hands of the opposition let then by a group connected with Hill- ‘man’s boss and out of it came the A. C. W., formed, ‘around the set of employers led by the first trust in the clothing industry, the firm of Hart, Schaffner & Marx. The opposition to’ Rickert returning to New York found a sell-out agreement signed by Rickert with the New York bosses, kept the tailors on strike thus forcing the New York bosses: to give further concessions, all of which was gravy for Hart, Schaffner & Marx. Mr. Hillman then became President of the new union and an agreement was signed in Chicago. Thus the modern big clothing manufacturers got a valuable ally against the smaller fellow who had intrenched himself previ- ously on the market and who had to be dislocated. Even the big Rochester manufacturers and Nash, in time began to see the game and: signed up, “through diplomacy” with the new union. The. lib- wal Hart, Schaffner & Marx kept on supporting he Hillman administration and used it to play its yolicies in the clothing market. A major part of the strategy was to pull the nasses of radicalized clothing workers away from lickert & Company. Circumstances were such as » facilitate this. The whole split maneuver bore the character of rebellion against the A. F. of 1. bureaucracy. It called for not recognizing the sur- render Rickert made to the New York bosses and continuing the strike for better conditions. The strategy of the firm of Hart, Schaffner & Marx left plenty of room for militancy on the part of the new union, particularly against its competitors in some of the eastern markets. Amalgamation of all needle trades unions would have facilitated the extension of Hart, Schaffner & Marx policy over the whole needle industry. This slogan also helped give the appearance od progressivism to the Amal- gamated. Mr. Hillman on the basis of this pseudo- progressivism surrounded himself with a staff ‘of radicals, who were willing to swallow his “states- manship.” Hillman allowing these radicals some freedom within limits in order to use radicalism to camouflage and bolster up his policy. ‘ The stunt with the Russian American Indus- trial Corporation, based strictly upon class _colla- boration lines and recognition of Soviet Russia in. the strict capitalist sense was utilized for the same purpose. ¢ Mr. Hillman was quite lucky. The war pros- perity helped-to established the Amalgamated, not that Hillman had any different policy than Gom-~ pers; namely of restraining the workers from taking advantage of the enormous profits of war profiteering. In the post-war crisis the left wing had not as yet sufficiently understood how to show up this Hillman policy. J Thus Hillman’s administration steered thru the first serious crisis without mrach opposition. Dur- ing the preserit prosperity, Hillman’s game became quite clear. Instead of mobilizing the union to take advantage of this prosperity for, the workers he utilized, the union: to profit financially thru labor banks and other financial schemes the same as the rest of the «trade union bureaucracy. New York, the strongest center lost its dominance on the con- trol of the clothing market and the union broke down. The whole situation changed. The left wing could not be flirted with any more and had to be fought. The workers instead got wage cuts to keep up the position of the Chicago market. and piece work to let New York eatch up. Speed up, piece work, expulsion and suspension of opponents, reorganization of opposition locals became the order of the day in Hillman’s Amalgamated, Beckerman for the New York bosses and Hillman for Hart, Schaffner and Marx, pulling together when the in- terests of thé bosses, whose reflex they are, appear endangered by the left wing. ® . The Amalgamated in Chicago, Rochester and Cincinnatti is a tool in the hands of the bosses, an advanced type of company union. New York has under Beckerman’s regime followed suit. The rank and file spirit and progressivism that gave. the Amalgamated leadership a certain degree of inde- pendence is gone, its hollow organization going thru the severest crisis with the leadership being completely dependent upon the bosses and working with them. ° A new economic crisis is looming up in the country. Even labor banking is in a crisis. Colla- poration is being abandoned by the bosses. The old. game is coming to an end. Mr. Hillman, your chances of further fooling the masses, of eashing in on the workers are very slim. You may think that you killed the left wing. Well, under this new- ‘situation a will be surprised. Your role as pasorgea is being unmasked and hence your usefulness to the bosses is waning. What now Mr. Hillman? The Church and the Marine Worker - HERE is no doubt in the mind of the progressive ‘ seaman that as far as he is concerned the edify- ag and uplifting influence of the ¥Y. M.C. A. and he various church and mission organizations serves ctually to pull him down deeper and deeper into he mire of black poisonous life to which he is con- ‘emned under a capitalist system of. society. The sea worker is constantly encircled by the wrow, never-ending sphere of the sailors’ life from hich there is at present no chance of breaking way. ‘ Ashore even among the most cruelly exploited orkers there is a pause in the scheme of things. Jays go and days come. True they are toil-driven, ainful days for the best part but still there is a ‘emarkation in the period of time. A. worker enters his shop in the morning, quits at oon for a few minutes to grab a snatch of grub ind chat with his fellow slaves before rushing back ‘o the grind of eking out an existence for self and lamily. At five or six o’clock, depending on the con- litions of organization, and the pressure that has been brought by the workers upon their wardens, ‘he employers, the work day ends. Then there is some chance.to meet fellow workers and discuss things to, go home to one’s family and hear of the woes and troubles which have accumulated in the domestte group during the day, and so on and so forth, as far as the scrimpy liberty allows the pro- ducers of this world. : But to the sailors and firemen aboard seagoing vessels there is no such break in the awful monot- ony and prison scheme of routine life. Costant back © breaking toil from early in the morning, broken only hy the interruptions of the two or three watch sys- tem, which allows the.duped worker to drop in his tracks for a few, almost stolen hours of slumber, is the lot of the sea worker upon whom so much. of the world’secommerce and trade depends. __ Serubbing, cleaning decks, scraping paint, hauling heavy lines, making fast, or standing wheel watch, are all part of the day’s work and grind. Or else there is the pleasant job in the sweltering. hot stokehold. Down -here in the cavernous depths of the ship’s body, between the heavy boilers, shovel- ‘ing coal with steady rythmic streKes in the blood red light of the blazing monster furnace fires, amidst the enveloping heat escaping from the pit, trimming, or tending even hotter oil fires; always vigilant, always ready to keep the life blood of the ° ship’s arteries running and circulating. The sea- man's is the task of pushing on the enormous ves- By S. AUERBACH — sels of modern-day commerce, carrying the world’s trade from port to port. This is the life of the sailor. It is a worker’s life. A heroic life, one to be proud of under different conditions. Today, however, with the constant drive of get- ting more and more work done in a shorter and shorter period of time, that is required of the sailor and man in the black gang below decks, the constant supervision, and beastly treatment, which the man THE DIRIGIBLE “LOS ANGELES” (Seen in its Hangar at Lakehurst) By tortuous ascent from cell to tadpole, Ape to savage, man to superman, a brain evolved itself to dream this dream of terror. Out of the crawling slime @eft hands took shape to conjure up . this vast and horrible hallucination. .. . The brain delves through immeasurable nights of darkness and insanity, backward and downward to the first cell. The hands likewise 6 - dig deep, < ‘ scooping aside the refuse of wars, of battles among beasts, fowls and fishes, the remnants of cannibalistic feasts, the bones of monsters, self-destroyed. . > The brain emerges with a mad thought. The hands dripping ooze and blood, drag from the depths and fling above the world this hideous and bloated bird of death! —Henry Reich, Jr. -aboard ship has come to expeet at the hands of his ‘superior officers, life is a painful drudgery and little, if better, than a prison workhouse routine, _ If you add to this fact that the wages of the able seaman and fireman are always below a compara- tive land wage and never averaging more than sixty dollars a month as scale, the life of the average sea- man ashore turns out to be little better to the life which he spends at sea. : Most. self-respecting sailors in spite of the fact that the sea is after all their natural calling and trade, begin to hate and doge the very thought of shipping out on some madhouse which leaves a man badly bent after after a trip. ~ Naturally the ship owners look after their enter-) prises in the field of labor quite vigilantly. This watchfulness manifests itself in the church insti- tutes which find, amongst the heaviest donors and contributors, those interests ihat are intimately bound up with shipping and ships. There is no bet- ter example of this than the Seamen’s Church In- stitute right here in New York, %: This magnificent pile of prison-styled architecture . which is supposed to cast a ray of hope and peace into the troubled life of the storm-tossed sailors of this world, is located at, 25 South Street, New. York. Perched before its imposing entrance there is a figure of that mythical patron, saint of all the conglomerated, conventionally-pure symbols of a de- cadent society, represented by Sir Galahad. It would be met at this point to recall some of the, fine phrases which were cast into the teeth of a harbor- bound breeze on the sultry morning of its conse- cration by the holy representatives of Wall Street not so long ago. One of the Rt. Honorable and reverend gentlemen who took part in its dedication said with great fervor and a fine tremolo: “Let this symbol _be‘one of purity and nobility to the common seaman. Let it signify all that is fine and manly in himself, Like fine music let it rise out of the waves in the midst of the thickest storm and comfort him in the perilous seas while he, stands dauntless on watch. Midsf€ the noise and heat of the engine room let this fair image arise before him and hold him steadfast and stalwart to his duty, his em- ployer, his country and his god.” This is the kind of hash which is served to the tired and work-worn sailors that rot in the dirty and over-crowded fo’c’sles of our modern day ships. And this is the trash which is given them in ser- mons and lectures within the Seaman’s Church Institute. a