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

Page Six tc THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1927 SOR LE SA INN RLS OTSA A SAREE IS SAN EN NEEL A MOTO SL RIES ROOD PEA EN Sa 8 SO THE DAILY WORKER Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. Daily, Except Sunday 33 First Street, New York, N. Y. Address “Phone, Orchard 1680 Daiwor’ ~~"“SUBSCRIPTION RATES By Mail (in New York only): By Mail (outside of New York): $8.00 per year $4.50 six months $6.00 per years $3.50 six months | $2.50 three months $2.00 three months Address and mail and make cut checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N ~~j, LOUIS ENGDAHL WILLIAM F. DUNNE BERT MILLER.... Entered as sec class mail the 3 The Trade Union Delegation Report The report of the American Trade Union Delegation which recently returned from a tour of Soviet Russia, excerpts from which are published today, will claim the attention of many tens of thousands of workers and especially of active trade unionists. This report is important first of all because it is the report | of the first delegation of American trade unionists which has visited the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. The character of the delegation’s personnel is significant. None of its members | is a Communist. None is in any way a partisan of revolutionary | action. This being granted, it is self-understood that the delega- tion in its composition tends to reflect all of the prejudices against the achievements of revolutionary actions, which at the time are historically produced in the ranks and among the middle strata of officials of typical American trade unions. Yet this delegation—certainly not predisposed to commend | without convincing evidence the results of the most fundamental revolutionary upheaval in history—was compelled by the over-| “‘whelming evidence of their own eyes to report a condition now existing in the land conquered by revolutionary labor under the leadership of the Communist Party which cannot but bring as-| tonishment and wonder to the most skeptical of conservative workers. There are certain mistakes made by this first delegation. These mistakes are shown most obviously in relating and com- menting upon incidents such as the execution of the 20 agents of capitalist terror, where they display their failure to understand the exigencies as well as the history of the revolution and indulge in sentimental protestations. They fail to perceive that it is pre- cisely the firm hand of the proletarian state that has made pos- sible the remarkable economic and social progress that they| record. The delegation’s report, signed by James H. Maurer as chair- man, John Brophy, Frank L. Palmer and Albert Coyle as secre- tary, visited various countries in Europe to study the labor move- ments and reported that in the Soviet Union “there was plenty | to eat and from the standpoint of sheer biological well-being, the| urban population seemed far better off than that of Paris or London.” The people are reported as “a hardy, healthy race.” Speaking of the recovery of industry in six years from a state| of utter disorganization and ruin during the devastating famine the report declares it to be an achievement “for which history records few parallels.” Very interesting to American workers is that section dealing with the trade unions of Russia. Not only do the trade unions of the Soviet Union help to enforce labor laws, but they draft and secure the adoption of such legislation beneficial to them. The trade unions are consulted by the government trusts in the appointment of managers, and the shop committees and unions have the power to file complaints against. the managers. Thus both the administration of industries and laws are in the hands of the workers themselves. At this time, when a series of vicious decisions of the United States supreme court have practically outlawed trade unions in this country and when the reactionary leadership of the American Federation of Labor is praising in the most revolting manner the identical capitalist government that is responsible for the most frightful excesses against organized labor, the working class of the country will be interested to read the following paragraph from the report: : “We are satisfied that the workers have the legal right to strike, that there is no anti-strike law, and nothing resembling American injunctions to curb strike activities and the activities of the unions. The hiring of strikebreakers is prohibited by law.” The report further explains that strikes seldom occur in gov- ernment-operated industries, for the simple reason that the com- plaints of the workers are usually due to managerial neglect and are instantly remedied and those responsible for the condition removed from the posts to which they were entrusted. Strikes in| private industries are supported by the government and are therefore always successful. The workers in Russia are amused at the sug: breaking activities. “Our government never broke a strike,” they say. After detailing the many functions of the unions which in- cludes substitution of hovels for modern houses, organization of public health work, the report declares that: “The Russian workers possess economic freedom to a degree enjoyed by workers in no other country.” Instead of crawling, in the most abject manner, before a capitalist government that is openly and avowedly an enemy of the working class and then fawning upon its agents as benefac- tors of humanity, as do the reactionaries in the American labor movement, the trade unions of the Soviet Union play a dominant role’ in social life and write their own laws because the govern- ment of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics is their own work- | ing class government, created by themselves and acting as thei instrument of power. The American trade union movement is now outlawed by a whole series of vicious class decisions. Yet it is certain that the 7 reactionaries of the trade union bureaucracy will try further to justify their existence as labor lieutenants of capitalism by rail-' ¢ ing at this report of exactly the opposite course of events in the workers’ republic. The facts that are marshalled are a damning indictment of the anti-Soviet policy of the Greens, the Wolls and other enemies of labor. The announcement of the inauguration of the 7-hour day, published since the return of the delegation, and not mentioned in the report, will supplement it and give new impetus to the demand for recognition of the first workers’ and peasants’ government the world has ever seen. The printed report, it is said, is now on the press and will be ready for distribution at the first mass meeting at which the delegation will report to the public. This will be at Madison Square Garden in New York next Sunday afternoon. circulation of the report will do much to clarify the atmosphere in the labor movement regarding the Soviet Union. The achievements of the great Union of Socialist Soviet Re- publics are the fruits of social revolution led by the working | class. These fruits are garnered as the result of the policies of | the iron battalions of working class leadership, the Communist Party of Lenin. Femmes ncenseanainncenin reine ronan’ tion that the government could engage in strike-| A wide! “OH, WHAT Watering the flowers on “Little Augie’s” bier with their tears, Sigman, Cahan, (in spirit) Johnny Broderick of the Bomb ingers had a last look at their favorite gang leader as he lay in his $750.00 coffin on his way to Jehovah. Squad and other right w: A PAL WAS AUGIE!” } | | @ LESSONS IN “CIVILIZED” SLAUGHTER’ By W. J. WHITE. HE officer in charge of soldiers dispersing crowds of massed workers should see that his men never presen the butt of their guns to the crowd, | but always the bayonet end of the} weapon.* The reason for this is ob- vious. This or words to this eff are taken from a small manual of in-| structions published by the board of} stragedy of the army at Leaven-| worth, Kansas for the use of offi-| cers of bands of soldiers in case of| looked over the ground at the grove/ further their having to deal with bodies of} strikers, “or “mobs” as the book puts| it. This same book gives these same} officers careful instructions, on how} to get the initiative in such cases and} how to keep their minds ahead of the} minds of the workers. The book is} splendid example of how those who; erve the master class are trained for the purpose of guarding the prop- erty of the master class and the book- | let is filled with maxims for the use} of the trained and armed, as against the untrained and unarmed. How to march from the places of rendezvous to the scene of the} trouble. How to approach open spaces where they may be attacked by superior forces. How to avoid traps and ambushes while on the march and how to go into action in order to keep the minds of the people occupied in front of them while the; detailed troops are sent thru side streets to attack in the rear, and thus | gain the initiative if they have lost \it, is gone into the minutest detail. |How to attack with tear gas bombs and other gases and when and where |to use bombs is given much attention. | Barricades both by strikers and mobs }and the best methods of attacking | these occupy a liberal space. In fact | |the very best and latest means to jemploy under all circumstances of street warfare in the case of strikes {and other disturbances, is given not lonly liberal but lavish space. Not a thing is overlooked that will the bet- ter prepare the superior officer to cope with the difficulties, which may menace the property of the financial T= most approved utterances of the best trained officers who have de- voted their lives to the best methods of killing are quoted and set out in a manner that will best fix tnem in the minds of those who are gathered in citizens military training camps and in reserve officers corps. All of ‘these things contained in that book, came to my mind as I where the workers gathered in Ches- wick, Pennsylvania. I could see in my mind’s eye the plans carefully laid by those in command of the state Cossacks. How they had for days planned and mapped out their bloody work. No bungling in this matter, each and every move was thot out days in advance. The stool-pigeons placed where they could watch the crowd and give the right signal for the quiet entrance of these cowardly thugs, loaded down with their tear gas bombs and riot clubs. This was to be a massacre which was to be re- membered by the workers, intent upon rescuing two of their fellow workers from being burned to death in the interest of the masters of America. * . * OW these trained thugs glutted their lust for blood is brot out in the testimony of the maimed and bruised as they haltingly and in broken English describe the scenes that were enacted that dreadful 22nd of August in the state ruled over by the ‘big corporate interests of the country. The trained horses of the Cossacks, rearing and striking with their fore feet—what a mighty havoc they must have done among those closely-packed working people. It is a splendid thing for the work- ers that they have such an organ- zation as the International Labor De- fense to come to their assistance in just such cases, to bail them out!and get them lawyers to fight their bat- tles for them and to bring the facts and industrial, rulers of this country. out before the world. NS o Hands Directed By a Single Thot —By M. PASS. Republican and Democratic Candidates cast their hats into the ring. By JACK O'HARE. { CHICAGO, Oct. 18.—After six) months of fighting and starvation | it is clear that the whole labor move-j ment must unite to save the Miners’ Union, to organize relief and defense. |The miners of Illinois, Indiana and the southwest are returning into the dark depths of the pits, while the striking miners of Pennsylvania and |!Ohio are left in the fight to facej starvation, evictions from! their homes and injunctions. There | has been some vague promise of re-/| lief, but no money, no food, no cloth- ing has been sent by officialdom to Pennsylvania and Ohio where the miners are starving and freezing in their tent colonies. Secret Deal. | After six months of starving, over | fifty percent of the striking miners are compelled to accept a temporary six-month truce agreement signed on October 1st, in a secret session by the coal operators and the Lewis machine; | an agreement which practically means the signing away of the Jacksonville agreement after the.six-month period is over. For the first time in the} history of the Miners’ Union the rank and file had no voice nor vete in} the making of the agreement. in} the past, no matter how reactionary | the officials of the Miners’ Unien, they at least referred the agreements to the rank and file for a referendum vote. Broken Front. | The temporary six-month truce| agreement has destroyed the united} nt .of the miners in this struggle | vhen John: Lewis -assented to the signing of district agreements. The! district agreements have divided the miners, and is destroying the power} of the miners’ union. Inthe early days the miners strug- gled from agreements with individual operators to sub-district agreements, then as the miners became better organized, they fought for district agreements and finally after many} years of struggle a national agree- ment was won. All this was progress in the right direction. John Lewis’ retreat now from the principle of national agreement is a long step backward. The rank and file of the miners’ union has been continually struggling for a “national agreement” to cover the coal in- dustry and their slogan has been “An injury to one, is an injury to all.” | Yet in spite of the demand of the miners the officials are continually isolating and weakening the miners’ union and playing into the hands of the coal operators. Miners Were Betrayed. The Miners’ Divided Front | which ease a majority vote shall be | with them in betraying the miners | months, the convention of the Illinois Federa- tion of Labor and the agreement that Was signed by these same officials. Fishwick came directly to the con- vention after an unsuccessful con- ference with the operators which ended on September 13th. Fishwick said in part the following: “We have been asking that we be allowed to retain the Jack- sonville agreement from now un- til the first of April, and in the meantime a joint committee of two operators and two miners shall be created to conduct a full investigation of the situation and fomulate a NEW AGREEMENT to take the place of the tempor- ary agreement which would cx- pire on April Ist . . . We were asked, “Wouldn’t you like to have a fifth man selected hy Bill Taft?” We said, “No, we don’t want any fifth man selected by Bill Taft or anyone else.” Yet two weeks later, President Fishwick and Lewis went into a con- ference with the Illinois operators on October 1st, and accepted the follew- ing clause: “To facilitate agreement upon disputed points the commission may enlarge its number to five, in binding.” Thus again the Lewis mashine has told the miners one thing and then crawled on their knees to the coal operators and found common ground and leading them further into a blind alley. Approach New Stage. i The fight of the miners is ap-| proaching a new stage. The rank and file must watch out for the treachery of the Lewis machine in the next few Undoubtedly those districts where no agreement has been reach- ed have been very much weakened by the policy pursued by John Lewis. The miners that are back at work must raise the issue of immediate Events | Current By T. J. O'Flaherty J eee has decreed that Italy ME shall be speechless in the future, on the theory that the time devoted to making and listening to speeches is time wasted. The. privilege of in- dulging in such a futile activity will be the private monopoly of the dic- tator and his aides. The only two celebrations to be permitted annually will have to be heid on Sundays so that the workers will not be halted in their productive labors. Mussolini has already decreed the length of the female skirt and the number of chil- dren a patriotic married couple should produce. His latest ukase is just one more decree. Py * . HAPS Mussolini’s order, abolish- ug “ceremonies, manifestations, celebrations, inaugurations, anni- versaries and centenaries, either large or small, nor speeches of whatever calibre” was provoked by Mustapha Kemal Pasha’s seven-day speech— now in the course of delivery—on the subject of Turkey’s nationalist revolu- tion and the efforts of the imperialist powers, including Italy to crush the revolution. Mussolini does not like Kemal because Mussolini wants a slice of Turkey and Kemal once challenged the duce to come on and take his chances on finding enough graveyard) space to accommodate his blackshirts. an invitation which the gallant duce discreetly turned down, * * R it is possible that ‘the Italian workers, a vocal section of the world’s population, liked to talk of the inauguration of the seven-hour- day in the Soviet Union and that they showed a tendency to compare their own status as slaves of the capitalist dictatorship with that of the Soviet workers under their own government, Bigger and better celebrations, demonstrations and inaugurations and longer and more eloquent speeches is the order of the day in the Soviet Union. Mussolini has long since out- lawed singing and laughter. Soon he will have the masses going around with their mouths padlocked. By the time he gets their brains extracted he will feel that his mission has been accomplished. You can figure out to your own satisfaction whether you would prefer to live in speechless Italy or in the Soviet Union. ee Sac before the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, Major Gen- eral Summerall, who admits that his policies and those of the A. F. of L. are similar, declared that if the army is “to carry on with dignity and the respect of the nation” it must not be allowed to live “like workers in a log- ging camp, in tumble-down shacks on the scale of the immigrant class.” Why should an army that is com- pelled to live like the workers on less pay than that received by the work- ers be anxious to turn their guns on the workers in the interest of a class that lives in the style of solvent mon- archs? Summerall is a farsighted butcher. He should get far in the army. * * * T the opening of the late euchar- istic congress in Chicago, motor- eycle escorts with sirens screaming, flew thru Michigan Boulevard to warn the populace of the approach of Car- dinal Mundelein, prince of the Roman Catholic Church. This was gall to the Ku Klux Klan and non-catholie Nor- dics in general. Now, the city coun- cil of the Windy City has decided that hereafter only kings and presidents will be accorded this service. Is it support of relief for those. miners| possible that William Hale Thompson that are still on strike in Pennsyl-| will permit a moth-eaten monarch to vania and Ohio. | pollute the republican atmosphere of If these miners are compelled to| his beloved city? Or is his anti-royal The miners waged an heroic fight in this struggle and it is another great chapter in the history of the |miners’ union. The reason that this struggle is not a more glorious chap- ter is purely and simply the treach- ery of the present miners’ officials. | These officials from the beginning of ‘the strike showed a tendency to sur- nder by refusing to launch a mil- nt struggle against the coal oper- _ators, they sabotaged the extension \of the fight to the unorganized fields \and the anthracite fields as proposed the Progressive Miners’ Committee, failed to set up a national re- committee or draw the whole or movement to the support of the e, and now these officials have pted as part of the six-mvatha’ {truce agreement that the wage jrate paid to the miners using loac- jing machines or other machine *3- vices shall be readjusted, which in plain simple words means a reduction ‘in wages. | But worse yet, Lewis & Co., accept ‘the contentions of the coal operators \that the Jacksonville agreement can- hot be retained permanently, but must ibe revised, | the surrender it will not be so much be- cause of hunger, but because of the! treachery of the Lewis machine. As long as the miners have Lewis and his machine at the head of the miners’ union, the miners will never be victorious in their struggles. Only when the miners will be lead by a new leadership with a progressive| and militant program will they be! able to carry their struggles for their standard of living and for economic! * freedom to a victorious end. Poets Poets there are who write Of Spring Of misty air, Sweet singing birds: Of flowers that bloom In gardens of beauty; Or gleaming satins, Palaces of gold And sparkling jewels, multi-colored; Of Phantasy, Of Nothing. Some of their art a plaything make, And others barter it for gold. And poets there are who write Of pain and storm, Of Hunger Gnawing need for bread; \ Of lives that toss, Ebb and flow At the whim of masters, And of a People’s struggle for Light; ‘| That the treacherous six-month truce agreement is a complete sell- out of the miners can be seen by comparing the speech of President /Fishwick of the Illinois Miners to. Of Reality, Of Life. : And some with their Art bring hope, And others point the Goal. wrath aroused only against the mon- arch of Great Britain? * * . ILLIAM HALE THOMPSON may- or of Chicago_is about to na- tionalize his local campaign against King George. “Big Bill” has dis- covered that the English-dpeaking Union has been conducting a cam- paign in behalf of British imperialism n the United States. The mayor is presenting the ousted superintendent of schools McAndrew as exhibit A, Mr. Tom Sullivan, the mayor’s repre- sentative, expressed amazement at the extent of British propaganda in this © country. We sympathize with M Sullivan, but we hope that this vate war on a foreign potentate Ayill not be used as a smoke screg/n to hide the wage-cut that is hangirfg like a damoclean sword over the } school teachers of Chicago. * tonsorial . * yy order to elevate the profession and to lower the finan- cial blood pressure of the customers, the Master Barbers of Greater New York decided that the price of hair- cuts must be raised from 60 to 75 cents and shaves from 20 to 26 cents. They also decided to organize open shops as much as possible and to preserve unity of action in legislative matters. Devoted as they are to art the master barbers are not forget- ting the business end of things. Of course we will all feel properly ele- vated when we carry a higher-priced ‘haircut under our hats and no doubt the journeymen barbers will feel properly humbled if their masters ‘succeed in substituting the open shop for the more or less closed shop. * * * Wiss HALE THOMPSON, mayor of Chicago, invited H. L. Mencken to be a star witness at his anti-British rodeo, but Mencken on this occasion did not choose to throw the bull. ‘ A