The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 27, 1927, Page 12

“SHALL NOT HAVE DIED IN VAIN” ONDAY at midnight they were murdered. The working class was not. strong enough to stop it. Our shame, our grief and our indignation are fused jn a universal desire to avenge their death, But how shall we do it? . 1. INDIVIDUAL VENGEANCE IS IMPOTENT. Certain individualists who see society and its pro- cesses only as the work of good individuals and bad individuals have tried to concentrate their hatred upon Fuller or Thayer or Katzmann. They are hateful, contemptible, despicable creatures. Some dey, when the working class has won power in America, our tribunals will call them to account for the murder of our comrades. But today the execu- tion of individual vengeance upon them would not move the working class one step forward, would not weaken the frame-up system one jota—would rather strengthen it in the wave of reaction that svould follow. There are a thousand Thayers on a thousand judicial benches, a thousand Katzmanns functioning as district attorneys. If we were to execute qne of them thru individual action it would only serve to delude our class into forgetting the frame-up system, into believing that Sacco and Vanzetti have been avenged, into forgetting the real culprit, the capitalist system and the capitalist con- trol of government. Remove Thayer or Fuller, or Katzmann from the scene and the system that ere- ated them and placed them in positions of power over the lives and destinies of their fellow men would create fresh tyrants to take their places. Judge Gary died last week but the steel trust continues to coin the sweat and the blood of workers into solid gold. If every individual directly connected with the Sacco- Vanzetti frame-up localty and nationally were to die tomorrow, the frame-up system would remain un- shaken. 2. WORKERS CAN EXPECT NO JUSTICE IN THE CAPITALIST COURTS. If we-think it is only because the judge happened to be Webster Thayer that Sacco and Vanzetti have been murder- ed, then we have learned nothing from our bitter ‘experience. But there is a lesson that every worker must learn. It is taught by the Mooney case, it is taught by the Centralia case, it is tauxht by the Anita Whitney case, it is taught by the MiN Wagon Drivers’ case and the Stone-cutter’s case, it was taught by the Haymarket case, it is taught by every injunction, every verdict of guilty against a picket, every violation of free speech, press or assemblage rights. That these dead comrades of ours shall not have died in vain, every worker in our land must be made to understand it. “Workers can expect no justice from the capitalist courts.” 8. OUR GOVERNMENT IS SO CONSTRUCTED AS TO THWART THE POPULAR WILL. The Declaration of Independence speaks of a “decent respect for the opinions of mankind.” Mankind thru- out the world voiced the opinion that these two men were innocent and must at least get a fair trial. But all agencies-of government involved show- ed an indecent contempt for the opinions of man- kind. And they also showed contempt for the opin- ions and will of the American people. The dis- tinguished “progressite” Senator Borah even thot it would be “cowardly” to yield to popular demand, Yet judges and senators and governors are sup- posed to be “public servants” and express the will of the people. But our government is so constructed that the very opposite is true. Setting aside the fact that wealth controls press and pulpit and school, the big political parties, individual politicians, ap- pointments, nominations and elections, courts, exe- cutives and legislatures—considering the question purely from the standpoint of abstract democracy, —it is evident that our government with its system of checks and balances, of judicial legislation and contempt proceedings, of precedent, of “independent” judiciary, of growing executive power, of appoint- ment, of two-party system, ete., ete. is not respon- sive to popular will. Now Senator Borah the “pro- gressive” makes a boast of this fact. 4. OUR RULING CLASS WILL NOT GIVE UP ITS POWER WITHOUT A STRUGGLE. Socialists and liberals have tried to promote the illusion that: America is “different.” Altho history shows no single instance of a ruling class that has relin- quished its power and privilges without a strug- gle, America is supposed to be a democracy respon- sive to popular will where a majority opinion will be sufficient to destroy the capitalist system and institute a better social order by just voting it in. The American master class is supposed to be ready to give up its privilges without a struggle. The murder of Sacco and Vanzetti, proves the opposite. Every frame-up case, every strike, every injunction, every use of police or troops in strikes, proves the opposite. When steel workers fight for an eight- hour day—not to abolish capitalism but just to live a little more decently under it—the troops are called out. When miners fight for steady employment or a living wage—not challenging the system but fight- ing for a small additional share of the wealth they produce—barbed wire and machine guns are set up, mine guards and militia called out, meetings broken up, speeches forbidden. pickets slaughtered, leaders arrested and local unions smashed by force. If the American ruling class uses all the power of wealth and government, of courts and armed force against a mere fight for a living wage--to what By BERTRAM D. WOLFE lengths will it not go against the workers if they attempt to abolish the capitalist system? Any one who cannot see the character of the American rul- ing class and its use of government must be blind indeed. American labor history is full of bloody pages and it has not yet challenged the capitalist system in serious combat. The Colorado massacre, Centralia, Homestead, McKeesport, Gary, West Vir- ginia, Lawrence, Ludlow, Lowell, San Pedro, Ever- ett, Butte, Calumet—to name any industrial cen- ter is to call up visions of a bloody battle in which workers were attacked by armed force not for challenging the capitalist system but merely for asking for the right to organize or to receive some- thing approximating a living wage. Our ruling class is more arrogant and more brutal than most and will never surrender its privilege and power with- out a struggle. 5. WHILE USING EVERY LEGAL RECOURSE WE MUST BUILD UP A MASS MOVEMENT FOR WORKERS’ DEFENSE. Our admiration for the devotion and self-sacrifice of the men and women who made up the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Commit- tee of Boston must not be permitted to blind us to one fatal and fundamental mistake that they made in their conduct of the case. We must draw all the lessons so that such tragedies will be combatted more effectually and prevented in the future. That mistake was a too great and exclusive dependence upon the legal processes of the courts and a de- liberate effort at discouraging demonstrations and mass protests in America. They had seven years in which to build up a powerful mass movement which would have terrified the Massachusetts of- ficials and their masters and stayed the hand of the executioner. They did not sufficiently under- stand the class mechanism involved, did not see the lesson of the Mooney case, the Centralia case and a thousand other frame-ups. They confidently counted upon an abstract classless “justice” and nourished too many illusions in the legal processes of the capitalist courts. They kept the workers be- living that the courts would give justice, that the governor would give justice. For seven years when they might have been building a powerful mass movement,to.save Sacco and Vanzetti they discour- aged the building of such a movement. Only after Fuller’s decision a few weeks ago, did they perceive their mistake (or rather exhaust their illusions) when it was already too late and only a few weeks remained to build up a mass movement to arouse the popular will and save our two comrades. It is correct to use and exhaust every legal process that capitalist proceedure allows but militant workers, ean expect no justice from capitalist courts except where the courts dare not carry thru the act of in- justice. The only protection for militant workers is the organized power of the working class and all its allies and sympathizers. It was mass pro- test that saved Tom Mooney from death. Had we begun seven years ago, we could have built such a movement for Sacco and Vanzctti that they would not have dared to kill them. j 6. A PERMANENT DEFENSE COMMITTEE IS NEEDED. The Sacco-Vanzetti case is not an isolated one. Acts of injustice, arrests for labor activity, frame-ups, occur in every strike and in every struggle. Dramatic @ases ONCE THEY HAVE BEEN SUFFICIBNTLY DRAMATIZED. can and . no doubt should beget their special.committees. But until they have attracted national and international attention? And the cases that never attract na- tional and international attention? Such a perman- ent defense committee can handle EVERY case, dramatic or undramatic, grow with every case, learn with every case so as to be more efficient, more versed in the ways of courts and lawyers and frame- ups and publicity and protest, build up a continuous and cumulative public opinion against the whole system of class injustice and frame-ups, unite all branches of the labor movement so that anarchists do not have to depend only on anarchists, Commun- ists on Communists, socialist on socialists, trade unionists on trade unionists, or a milliner let us say only on other milliners for defense. Even where a case is dramatic enough to warrant a special com- mittee, a permanent defense organization could build a special defense committee more quickly and more efficiently than a bunch of inexperienced and bung- ling amateurs. Such a permanent defense organiza- tion representative of and open to all shades of opinion in the labor movement and ready to defend all cases of class injustice is the INTERNATIONAL LABOR DEFENSE. It must be built and strength- ened, 7. WE MUST UNITE THE LABOR MOVE: MENT AND STRNGTHEN IT. The weakness of the American Jabor movement proved fatal in the fight to save Sacco and Vanzetti. As long as it is divided, as long as there are innumerable warring groups, as long as militants are expelled and op-° ponents of militant struggle are in control of the official machinery, our master class can afford to laugh at the feeble protest of the working class. That Sacco and Vanzetti shall not have died in vain, we must organize the unorganized,*unite the warring unions, strengthen the labor movement, make it all inelusive of every tendency, develop its militancy and figthing spirit, eliminate its corrupt bureaucracy that shows no militancy in fighting capitalism but much militancy in fighting against militant workers. 8. THE SOCIALIST PARTY BY FIGHTING UNITED FRONTS IS WEAKENING THE LABOR MOVEMENT AND SERVING CAPITALISM. The biggest demonstrations for Sacco and Vanzetti were held in New York in Union Square. In these demon- strations the International Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee, the Emergency Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee, the International Labor Defense, the I. W. W., the Workers Party, various trade » Bi and other labor organizations united. The socialist party refused to join in the demonstrations. A strike was called for August 22nd, the day set for the execution. The socialist party condemned the strike and instructed its adherents not to participate. Business agents of the Amalgamated Clothing Work- “ers under socialist control instructed bosses in var- ious shops to fire any worker going out on strike. When the Workers Party wrote a letter to the so- cialist party saying: “However great our differences may be we must set them aside and unite our forces in this hour of need.” August Claessens threw the letter on the floor in the presence of the messenger who gave it to him. Thus the socialist party did its share to weaken the movement to save Sacco and Vanzetti and to perpetuate division and dissension in the labor movement. Notable excep- tion must be wade in the case of Alfred Baker Lewis in Boston who was actively engaged in united front activities with Communists, anarchists and (Continued on Page 7). Our Murdered Caliah By HARRY MEYERS. So you've left us Nicola Sacco— And you too, Bartolomeo Vanzetti— You've sampled American democracy as it is understood in Boston. Boston, the hub of culture. Here they grind out the blood of the workers Se that some be-spectacled, anemic, knock-kneed young idlers might stay. That they might acquaint themselves with the prophets of the past while stoning the prophets of the present. That they might admire the art of Dante, Boccaccio and other Italians of the past and slaying the Italians of the present. You have left to join the other fighters of the class-struggle. The Chicago anarchists who paid with their livas for the 8-hour day. Ling the impetuous, Parsons. the studious, Fisher the warm-hearted, ‘Engels the fiery one, and Spiess the scholar, torch-holders of the future. You have left to join the other fighters of the class struggle, Joe Hill, the singer divine who fell before a firing squad in Utah. . Wesley Everest, unsexed and lynched by the 100%’s of Centralia. Frank Little, the I. W. W. organizer lynched by the forces of smug re- , .. Spectability in the Anaconda town of Butte. ; Farewell, Sacco, Vanzetti—fighters, supreme heroes magnificent-— We'll never forget. THE DEATH WATCH Sodas Se ila dee eee cae A, ia