The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 18, 1928, Page 6

Page fix THE DAILY WORKER) (RI eS ial EE a a 5 Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS'N, Ine, Daily, Except Sunday 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. Cable Address: “Daiwork” SUBSCRIPTION RATES By Mail (in New York only): By Mai! (outside of New York): $8.00 per year $4.50 six months $6.00 per year $4.50 six months $2.50 three months. $2.00 three months. ~\ Addrest and. mali out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. Y. ey Fteor.. ..ROBERT MINOR Assistant Editor... .. WM. F. DONNE Entered es second-class mail at the post-office at New York, N. ¥., under the act of March 3, 1879. | © | Woll’s Civic Federation Letter—Distracting Attention From the Starvation of 600,000 Men, Women and Children in the Coal Fields | Vice President Matthew Woll of the American Federation of | Labor, in his capacity as acting president of the National Civic | Federation, one of the chief open shop agencies in the United | States in which he fraternises with such individuals as Haley | Fiske, president of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company who) recently smashed an attempt to organize the 12,000 underpaid | clerks and stenographers working for his company, has little time | to devote to such minor matters as the drive of the coal barons | intended to smash the United Mine Workers and the suffering | 600,000 men, women and children in the coal camps. | But Woll can find time to take part in a new attempt to| start a new drive against the Soviet Union. Speaking in the name of the National Civic Federation, Woll has sent a letter to the American-Russian Chamber of Commerce in which he re- | quests the latter body to appoint a committee to meet with a like | body from the Civic Federation to discuss “Soviet activities” in the United States. | Woll wants an executive session of the two committees and | hints that he has some dark secrets to disclose “which it would | not be prudent to include in this letter.” | We would be the last to deny that Woll is the possessor of much shady knowledge but it is our conviction that this is in| reference to the activities of himself and other labor leaders in! tonjunction with capitalists and their organizations rather than | in connection with any acts of the Soviet Union in the United | States. Woll’s letter follows the stereotyped form. He cites the Workers (Communist) Party as one of the organizations thru which the Soviet Union works for the purpose of “promoting plans | for boring into the army“and navy, the schools and churches—in | short, every institution of our country is to be attacked in the interest of Communism.” Phone, Orchard 1680 Woll also says that “their destructive programs are promoted uot only in the labor field but in all the foreign-born and Negro groups for the purpose of inflaming them against our govern- ment and our institutions.” It will be news to the coal miners and their families that the Soviet Union and American Communists are to blame for the state and federal injunctions intended to strangle the strike, the attacks uf the coal and iron police, and the evictions and the clubbing of men, women and children which are taking place as part of the drive for the destruction of the United Mine Workers, As vice president of the American Federation of Labor why should Woll object to any organization of workers telling the truth about injunctions, the role of the state and federal gov- ernments and their courts, the attack on the labor movement, especially the United Mine Workers, by the combined forces of | the capitalist class? But Wol] does object and the purpose of his recent letter is to distract attention from the union-smashing drive of the bosses | and their government, to drag the well-known red herring across the trail of his masters and focus attention on other things than | anti-labor injunctions and the crisis in the labor movement. Woll objects to the exposure made by the Communists of the forces behind the drive on the labor movement. Doubtless he also has in mind William Z. Foster’s recent book, “Misleaders «? Labor,” which strips such imperialist agents as Woll stark naked, showing by documentary evidence which can not be dis- puted, the long series of just such betrayals as Woil is now engineering and their devastating results for the labor movement and the whole working class. | The DAILY WORKER, as the official organ of the Workers | (Communist) Party of America, has exposed Woll and his kind | to the best of its ability. thing we have ever said about him. We shall continue to urge that this agent of labor’s enemies be driven from the labor movement and we shall continue to point out to every worker whom we can reach that Woll and his kind are nothing more or less than instruments of the labor- hating capitalists. Any “labor leader” who goes out of his way to defend the government, the courts, the police and the army and navy at a time these forces are openly attacking workers at home and in countries like Nicaragua, and who tries to divert attention from these attacks and make the workers’ and peasants’ government of the Soviet Union and its supporters here the target, convicts himself at once of treason to the labor movement. Woll hardly could have done anything that would have Woll, however, has furnished us with additional ammuni- tion for the battle against bosses’ agents in the labor movement | and we shall see to it that his latest perfidy come to the atten- tion of several hundred thousand workers who are for the build- ing of a militant labor movement which will have no place for Wolls, Greens and Lewises and other “labor leaders” who have been bought and paid for by labor’s enemies. The Soviet Union, with the support of millions of workers and farmers throughout the world, will not notice the pin-pricks of a Woll in the eleventh year of its existence. But the Workers (Communist) Party, the revolutionary section of the American working class, will have further proof for the millions of work- ers whom the Wolls would betray to imperialism, that the labor movement needs a drastie disinfection and thru The DAILY WORKER will call the attention of the masses to this task. b | Railwaymen’s Unions. this there | arrcho-syndicalist le Woll’s latest statements, made as act- iB ing president of the National Civic Federation, confirm every- | po; THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 1928 By Fred Ellis ® ° We are attached to a policy of peace, the president said at; Havana. A thousand Nicaraguans have been killed since May. Who Is This Liam Cosgrave? An Imperial Rubber, Stamp Mexican Labor Movement Outlined by Diego Rivera (The following sketch of the Mexi- can labor movement was presented b) Diego Rivera in the form of a report at a meeting of the Executive Board of the Red International of Labor Unions. Rivera is an artist and decorator of international fame and was formerly a member of the Cen- tral Executive Committee of the Mexican Communist Party). * * * By DIEGO RIVERA MOSCOW, (By Mail).—The latest statistics show that there are about 7,000,000 workers in Mexico, of whom 5,000,000 are peasants, and 2,000,000 industrial workers. These statistics must, of course, be accepted with great caution, remembering that the ties between the industrial workers and the villages are still very firm in Mexico, and the difficulty often ex- perienced in placing workers in either of these groups. ‘the Mexican work- ers ave fairly well organized in the following organizations: Mexican Con- federation of Labor (C.R.O.M.), Gen- eral Confederation of Labor and In- dependent Oil-Workers’, Miners’ and In addition to is a National leasants’ League, uniting agricultural com- munes, most of which arose after the introduction of agrarian reform. The Crom leaders claim that their organization has a membership of 2,000,300, but this is not the case. Although it has been found impossible to arrive at exact figures indications are that it has a membership of slightly more than half a million workers and pamsanis. The founda- tions of the Crom were laid down by the so-called “Home of the World cer,” a one-time revolutionary or- tion under anarchist and an- Mexico and P. A. F. The Crom has now relinquished its revolutionary traditions. Its leader- s in the hands of a group of ists, openly supported by the rnment in their seizure of lead- ing posts in the Confederation. The Crom is getting into ever closer touch with the Pan-American Federa- tion of Labor (P. A. F. of L.), until it has practically become nothiag but a docile tool in the hands of this agency of American imperialism. Quite recently disagreements arose between Crom leaders and the P. A. F. of L., caused by the support of the Mexican Cicricals by the A. F. of L., the real controllers of the P. A. F. of L. Morones, Minister of Labor, Com- merce and Industry in Calles gov- ernment, the unofficial head of the Crom, entered upon negotiations with the Amsterdam International, in order to gain reinforcements in possible in- ternal P. A. F. of L. conflicts. In his desire to insure himself from all sides Morones even coquetted a little with Muscow. The rank-and-file members of the Crom have long lost ali faith in its leaders, who are only able to beep the reins in their hands with government assistance. The influence of the Communist Party in the Crom is steadily on the increase, and “E] Machete,” the Communist organ, whose circulation has lately grown from two to eight thousand, has a circulation of 5,000 among organiza- tions belonging to the Crom. e Anarchist Unions. The General Confederation of La- bor (GCL) has not more than 10,000 ‘members. Since 1922 its leadership | which has been in the hands of pseudo an- archo-syndicalists. Both the govern- ment and the Crom wage a campaign against the G, C. L, endeavoring to .dentify their members with the Com- munists and to prove that “the Left Wing of the Labor Movement is play- ing into the hands of reaction.” The G. C. L. belongs to the an- archist Berlin International, with fairly regular relations are maintained. Transport Workers Pay. The independent organizations unite about 64,000 members. Of these 9,000 are members of the oil work- ers’ unions, 10,000 are members of the Miners’ Federation and about 45,000 members of the Transport Workers’ Federation. That of the transport workers would be the strongest trade union organi- zation, were it not for the internal breach between the working-class aristocracy and the rank-and-file. The remarkable labor conditions prevail- ing in Mexico, while admitting of wretched pay for ldwer-grade em- ployees and workers, have promoted engine drivers into a sort of aristo- cratic caste, in receipt of fabulous wages. The minimum pay established by the union for engine drivers comes to about $225 per month. The cause of this high pay is to be found in the fact that during the frequent revolu- tions the various military authorities required engine drivers for the trans- port of their troops. At the close of the civil war Calles government was forced, un- der United States pressure, to return the railways to their former (private) | owners, leading, of course to a great: fall in wages. The Transport Work- ers’ Federation decided to counter with a strike which was lost owing to the federation’s internal weakness and bad strike leadership, the Crom play- ing no small part in its suppression. As a result many railwaymen were thrown into the streets and formed several political groups aimed at the support of Obregon’s candidature for. the presidency, in the hope that he} will get work for his electors. The! most important of these political groups is the “United Railwaymen’s Party.” | Revolutionary Elements. Although the autonomous organi- zations gre for the greater part in close touch with local politicians and sometimes under the infiuence of the governors of siates, they are not with- out reliable revolutionary elements. Indeed many of the unions are com- pletely under Communist leadership. Aspirations towards trade union unity are comparatively strong in the autonomous organizations and the Communist Party is doing its utmost to aid the practical realization of this unity. , How Much? t (By Federated Press.) i About 4,000 workers on New York docks and harbor craft received com- pensation for injuries in the last six months under the new federal act, re- ports Commissioner Gerome G. Locke. The commissioner's office handled 5,- 800 cases, 291 of which were declared under improper jurisdiction. Some of these were settled under the state law. Few appeals to the courts were made from the commissioner’s rul- ings. Most of the injured workers | were longshoremen. ey i ise AUREL ares a at eat i eM AR At By RIOBARD O’CONNOR. WR. LIAM COSGRAVE, president of 44 the Saorstat Eireann (Irish Free State), is coming to the United States shortly for a visit. Under the cir- cumstances, I feel, that the American workers should have some of the de- tails of his career. Mr. Cosgrave on his arrival here will undoubtedly pretend to speak in the name of the “Irish People.” Yet as everyone knows he is nothing more than a rubber stamp for Downing Street, London. Betrayed Irish Freedom. His part in the Easter Rebellion of 1916 when he joined Michael Collins, Arthur Griffith, Riobard Barton, Duffy and the other traitors in sign- ing the infamous Anglo-Irish Treaty, is likewise well-known. Since then he has done everything to prove to his masters in Downing Street that they can depend upon his support. Cosgrave has been the in- strument for suppressing the inde- pendence movement much more ef- fectively than the British themselves could have done it. Subsequent to the battle of the Four Courts, Cos- grave and Kevon O’Higgins contin- ued the slaughter of the republicans. O’Higgins was not alone a traitor himself but traitor’s blood flowed in his veins from an equally treacherous ancestry. For he is a descendant of Sham Squire O’Higgins, the man who betrayed General Patrick Sarsfield at the battle of Limerick. Militants Murdered. Some of the foremost militants of Treland have been murdered by the traitors now in control. Over ten thousand have been thrown in prisons. Numerous others have died from in- sanity and from the inhuman treat- ment inflicted upon them. The industries of Ireland have been given no chance to develop. Every- thing has been placed under the stif- ling control of British capitalists. The Gaelic speaking peoples of the west- ern section are being forced from the homes which their forefathers built up. They are being starved out and driven from their land. ‘Women and babies are starving in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and in other cities. Yet this does not prevent the Saor- stat Eireann from paying the gov- ernor general a sum equivalent to $50,000 a year in salary. Imagine Ireland with a population of but 4,- 000,000 paying its governor a sum five times that received by the average governor of one of the United States. In spite of the existing poverty and starvation, Cosgrave has had the brass to state that Ireland is “pros- perous.” Unfortunately some of the leaders of the Irish Labor Party support Cos- grave in his infamous acts, the only exception being Jim Larkin. Larkin seems to be fighting earnestly for the interests of the workers and farmers. This fact must be recorded even though I do not agree with his policy. The official reception to Cosgrave should be boycotted by all liberty- loving workers. This traitor’s hands are drenched with the blood of Ire- land’s fighters. Down with British imperialism! Down with Irish Slave State! Long Live the Workers’ Republic REVEALS FLORIDA BUNK Letter Tells of ‘Paradise’ Editor, DAILY WORKER: As a regular reader, I wish to make a suggestion. The problem is how t¢ increase the circulation of The DAILY WORKER. Now, sport plays an im- portant part in the life of the work: ing class. The paper has six pages on five week-days and eight page: on Saturday. I would suggest that every Saturday one whole page be devoted to sport, somewhat along the line of the “Sunday Worker” pub- lished in London, England. This sport page should contain a review of the sporting events of the week, announcement of coming events ,and a comment by the sport editor. The sport writers of the capitalist press interpret the various sporting events from the capitalist point of view, thus strengthening the capital- ist system. The sport editor of The DAILY WORKER should be a man. if such a one can be found, acquainted with the various sports and at the same time be a Communist. What does anyone think of this suggestion? —J. Vz. New York City. Editor, DAILY WORKER: When one watches how they are roping and hog-tying labor today, one wonders how safe “we” really made this country for democracy. Of course it might be, since “we” are the richest ountry on the globe, that Wall Street is just playing Santa Claus to our neighbors. If they can’t pay us back in money, I suppose “we” can get coal, iron, leather, cheese and crackers, and maybe later on, beer. Then the workers can come down to Florida and live on climate. And if that is not fattening enough, maybe we could get along with what our neighbors send us to pay the debt. I have a neighbor here who sold his oranges “on the tree” for $1.50 a box. The buyer didn’t want to pick them until he could find out whether we were going to have a frost. Mcan- while they kept falling off. The buyer didn’t care, because he was buying it iy the ae The trick is not to glut e market, so that he can charge $8.00° or $10 a box. ade Up there they tell you that we just cut a hole in the top of the orange and suck out the juice. I guess when they sell oranges at» the price of all day suckers, you sure can do that. Fraternally, WILLIAM BEIERSDORFER. Vineland, Florida. iw trom the NEWS EVEN hundred and forty million dollars are to be spent for additions to the American fleet. The House Naval Affairs Committee even went so far as to vote 15-1 that this gigantic sum of money be poured into hell-belching warships and cruisers in a maximum period of eight years whether there will be more success- ful or unsuccessful Geneva disarma- ment conferences or not. What is the matter? Against whom are “we” preparing? Is Uncle Shy- lock about to save Nicaragua for civilization. - With so many peace treaties being signed and so many peace conferences being held, why is the United States building the big- gest navy the world has ever seen? There is nothing mysterious in these appropriations. The dollar fol- lows the flag and the flag follows the dollar. They are both weapons of the same imperialist clique. Ten years ago it was German militarism. Now it is British navalism. The noted English writer, H. M. Tomlinson, lets us in on no secret when he tells us that: “The powers behind Congress and Parlament appear to be prepar- ing for war.” Nowadays we are hearing less and less about Anglo-Saxon alliances and friendship being the guarantees for world peace. It is precisely in the rivalry between the downward-going British imperialism and the upward- going American imperialism, in the clash for markets and the sources of raw material now being sharpened be- tween these two imperialist powers, that one of the acutest sources of war danger lies. Coolidge’s insistence on a huge sub- sidy by the government to the ship owners is only another effective step in mobilizing the machinery of war against Great Britain. Perhaps this is an answer to the recently an- nounced plan of a Big British corpora- tion to exploit and colonize in’ Bolivia fifty million acres of oil, mineral, timber and farm land. ¢ No pacifist illusions will stop this impending war. No social-democratic treason will put a halt to this threat- ening conflagration. At Geneva, So- viet Russia has shown the way to peace. Militant class war for the overthrow of the capitalist class is the only sure road to real peace. + 4° Re ae Havana conference is a good oceasion to take stock of the in- creasing danger of war. The Ameri- can workers had better wake up or soon millions of the best of our class will be put to sleep forever. Ameri- can imperialism is just running wild and is marching headlong towards a new capitalist war. In the main there are four types of omens of the rapidly developing war danger. These are: 1. The -increasing military and naval preparations. 2. The multiplying attempts to prepare the vast Latin-American economic hinterland for exploitation by the Yankee imperialists. 8. The sharrening attacks of the standard of living and the working conditions of the great mass of thg workers and exploited farmers. 4, The systematic attempts of the ruling class to camouflage their im- perialist war-maneuvers with so- called peace-conferences, treaties of amity, Lindbergh flights, extension of credits and generosity of financial advice. The American army is being brought up to the highest point of efficiency. The biggest navy in the world is being floated by the doves of peace feathering their nests in Wall Street. A tremendous chemical warfare apparatus is being set up. Plans are being laid for the most powerful airfleet in the world. There are already about five billion doliars of American capital invested in Latin-America. Central and South America, together with Mexico form a vast economic hinterland for American imperialism expecially in a war against a first class capitalist power. Here is a marvelous reservoir of the necessary raw material. And the workers must be smashed, their unions destroyed, their organi- zations wiped out if the country is to be reglly “united” in a war to the finish against a bloc of imperialist powers or even a man-sized opponent of the type of Great Britain (not Nicaragua). Hence the increasing wage-cuts and the injunction mania that is plaguing the American work- ers. Nicaragua won't be on the order of business at Havana, if Coolidge and his’ masters can help it. The Havana gathering is a peace conference. Let no one introduce such embarrassing “incidents.” At Havana there is no room even for so little a war. It’s@ genuine peace conference! ! —JAY LOVESTONE. — ;