The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 24, 1928, Page 6

Page \ ea THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORE, TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 1928 THE DAILY WORKER Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS'N, Inc. Daily, Except Sunday 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. Cable Address: “Daiwork” SUBSCRIPTION RATES By Mail (in New York only): By Mail (outside of New York): $8.09" per year $4.50 six months $6.00 per year $3.50 six months $2.50 three months, $2.00 three months. Phone, Orchard 1680 and mail out checks to Aad THE DAILY WORKER, 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. . ROBERT MINOR ... WM, F. DUNNE Entered as second-class mail at the post-office at New York, N. Y., under the act of Marc! 9%. Assistant Editor... Hughes’ Havana Speech a Threat Against Nicaragua That the imperialist government of the United States is de- termined to continue its predatory course against the liberties Qt | the Nicaraguan people was clearly indicated by the head of the | American delegation to the Pan-American conference, Charles Evans Hughes, in a speech before the Havana Chamber of Com- | merce. With the customary sophistry that characterized the ut- | terances of every spokesman for American imperialism at the | Havana conference, Hughes dealt with the invasion and Peas) He declared: | tion of Nicaragua. “We have no desire to stay. We wish Nicaragua to be strong, prosperous and independent. We entered to meet an imperative but temporary exigency, but we shall retire as soon as it is possible. No attempt was made to expound the details of the “impera-| , she spe aka cases tive” exigency, or to explain under what conditions it is “possi-| ble” for United States armed forces to get out of Nicaragua. An- Gther part of the Hughes speech, however, very. clearly showed :. ry ra gs . vas | to the Nicaraguans the picture of their.own dismal future as slav es of American imperialism if Hughes and his associates have their way. Their fate is to be a repetition of-the monstrous throttling of Haiti. In relation to that country, first ravaged by the marines under the Wilson government, a policy continued under Harding and Coolidge, the chief of the Wall Street delegation at Havana said: “We would leave Haiti at any time that we had reasonable ex- pectations of stability and could be assured that the withdrawal would not be the occasion for a recurrence of bloodshed. Meanw hile we are endeavoring in every important direction to a: t in the es- tablishment of conditions for stability and prosperity, not that we may stay in Haiti, but that we may get out at the earliest oppor- tunity.” What is clearly meant here is that the United States intends | to stay in Haiti until it has succeeded in so training and equipping | with military force a puppet government composed of servile na- | tives that the regular armed forces of the United States can b released from service in Haiti in order to ply their vandalism in| other parts of the world the resources of which may be desirable to United States imperialism. | According to Hughes we will get out of Haiti ‘‘at the earliest opportunity.” United States armed forces have held that country in the grip of death for thirteen years. Using, in relation to ~~-Nicaragua, slightly different language, which means the same, ‘Hughes told us that the armed forces will leave that country “as soon as possible.” Clearly Hughes’ speech can be interpreted in no way other than the open avowal of a determination to remain in Nicaragua until such time as the imperialists are assured of the utter extinction of the national liberation movement and the es- tablishment of a puppet government that will never offer resist- ance to the unrestrained plundering of the country, but will itself be the hired instrument for the enslavement of the masses. The whole farcical scene at Havana was revealed in bold relief by the comments of utterly debased aggregation of Latin American delegates “representing” Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua. Dr. Carlos Caudra Pazos, head of the Nicaraguan delegation handpicked by American military officials, a creature thoroughly despised by the overwhelming majority of the population of Nic- | aragua and who could not even live in his own country without the | protection of the bayonets of the imperialist invaders, thus grov- els before Hughes: “Mr. Hughes’ declarations vindicate the widely denounced poli- cies of the Nicaraguan government and ought to convince our citizens of the justice of the United States’ efforts to establish peace in Nicaragua.” Thus, at a time when hundreds of defenseless men, women and children are being slaughtered in air bombardments, when | whole towns are being reduced to smouldering ruins, the vile pros- | titute, Pazos, licks the boots of one of the imperialist butchers! | | Two other depraved grovellers, Dr. Jacob Varela, Uruguayan | minister in Washington, and Fernando. Denies, chief of the Hay: tian delegation, likewise play the role of lickspittle before yankee despotism, and in almost the same weasel words. The real rep resentatives of the masses in Haiti were prevented from attending the conference by the simple ruse of using the Cuban immigra- tion department to bar from the country all critics of the United States government. So criminal, so indefensible is the course of the United States government in Central America that it dare not even attempt open discussion with the representatives of the peoples of the suppressed nations. Its dastardly crimes must be concealed at! all costs. The fraud of the Havana conference was revealed at the first utterance of Hughes when he declared that the United | States would favor the abolition of the secrecy that has veiled all previous conferences of this agency of imperialism, and then en- couraged the adoption of a qualifying clause that secret sessions must be held on motion of any one delegate. This means that whenever anything arises that cannot bear the light of day some one of the many pawns of imperialism will glove that the sessions be secret. \ ae The only hope for the Man Americans is a bloc of anti-im- perialist nations against the United States. In spite of the ef- forts to conceal the crimes against the peoples of Nicaragua, Haiti, Santo Domingo, Colombia, Cuba and Latin America generally, the movement against the Northern despot is gathering force and as the imperialist rampages increase in volume and frightfulness the peoples of all Central and South America will come to’a realiza- tion of the fact that again they must unite to repel the despot «just as more than a hundrej years ago they united to drive from \\their lands the bloody reg #.es of Portugal and Spain. - In this they will have ¢ae support of the workers and farmers of the United States who ‘nore and more are coming to realize that the same power that throttles them at home draws a considerable portion of its power from the super-profits it obtains through the | exploitation of the co onies and semi-colonies. ay AIRLINES WHY THE WORKING WOMAN NEEDS A LABOR PARTY By VERA BUCH. The position of the American work- ing woman today is a particularly bad one. The bosses are using her labor power to lower wages for the whole working class. The speed-up, the long hours, the general wear and tear of modern industry are hitting her harder than the man worker. The woman worker is struggling, too, with the problem of keeping house and bringing up children without enough money and in a wretched en- ironment. In a hundred ways in which she is oppressed, the working woman can find in a Labor Party some help for her difficulties. Woman’s Minimum Wage Law. Perhaps the first need of the work- ing woman is for a minimum wage law. The low wages paid to women workers in some lines are almost un- believable. The studies of the U. S. Women’s Bureau bring to light such remarkable facts as these: In Ohio, of 30,735 women studied, half earned less than $13.80 a week. In Mississippi, out of 2,853 working women, half the white women earned less than $8.60 a week and half the Negro women less than $5.75. In Oklahoma, of 4,185 women workers, half the white women earned less than $13.00 and half the colored women less than $8.20. Low Wages for Women, Lower Standard for Men. Low wages are not merely the con- cern of the women who receive them. In certain industries women are being hired in recent years for half the wages of men, for the same work. Thus we see in New York City that women in the stone, clay and glass products industry are receiving an average of $16.24 a week, and men $44.02. In wood manufacturing, wo- men are getting $17.02 and men $35.76. In chemicals, oils and paints, women’s wages are $16.64 and men’s $e . And so on down the line. It is plain that there is a tendency, at least in certain trades, for women to replace men at a lower wage. Thus the standard of pay for the whole industry is Courts Kill Minimum Wage Laws. In the face of these facts, do we anything being done to protect wages? Do we see minimum wage laws being enacted, under the guidance of the republican and demo- | cratic parties? On the contrary, with- in recent years, court decisions are more and more wiping out such mini- mum wage laws as did exist for the protection of women and child work- ers. Such laws exist now in only eleven States, and even there they are not the best kind of laws. Women’s Working Hours Long. In the matters of hours of labor, there is again the same lack of pro- tection for women workers. The states of New Jersey, Maryland and South Carolina have a legal working day of ten hours for women, while in Alabama and Towa there is no limit to the hours which a woman may legally be made to work. Women Workers Do Two Jobs. When we consider the hours that women work at their job, it must be kept in mind always that many thou- sands of working women—in fact, a quarter of all of them—are married women and are. keeping up a home. The factory job is not the only job for these married women workers. Several hours of housework await them when the day in the mill is over, 2 Health of Woman Worker. We must keep in mind, too, that women are mothers or potential moth- ers, and that anything which injures their health is threatening the health of their children also. Long hours, speed-up—these conditions aca qa men workers, too, but are far more serious for women. The poisons in industry, and the diseases resulting from them, are in- creasing daily. These too have a more serious effect upon women. Women are more susceptible to poisoning than men, they become poisoned more eas- ily and suffer worse effects. Their child-bearing function is affected. Wo- men suffering from lead poisoning, for instance, become sterile or sub- ject to miscarriages. Middle Class vs. Working Women. All the conditions of working wo- men point to their need of special protection under the law. And yet we have the National Women’s Par- ty, that group of middle class ladies of leisure, propagandizing the country to the effect that women must have “equality,” they must be treated just the same as men under the law, there about, and they will sing a very dif- ferent tune about the “equality” of working women. “Home” Life of Women Worker. In her life outside of the factory. more difficulties and troubles sur- round the working woman, and here too she suffers more keenly than the men. It falls upon the woman, even if she is a worker, to keep together that miserable farce which the work- ing man’s home usually is. In most big cities, and in small industrial towns too, the workers live in wretch- ed houses. Bare, uncomfortable shacks or black dens called “apart- ments” at high rents are the work- ers’ so-called homes. Cities Should Build Workers’ Homes. In some cities, as in New York, the housing question comes perenially be- fore the workers, and perenially, like the flowers of spring, bloom the rosy must be no restrictions placed upon|promises of the old party politicians. their jobs. In other words, women should be delivered over helpless to the employer, to be worked ten and twelve hours a day, paid half the wages of men, speeded up so that they drop with exhaustion. Let these middle class ladies go to work at the jobs they talk so much The Ohio Governor’s Appeal By I. AMTER CLEVELAND, Jan. 23.—The gov- ernor of the State of Ohio, Vic Don- ahey, has sent out an appeal to the people of the state to furnish cloth- ing and food for the needy miners’ families, especially in the Hocking Valley. He has ordered the nationai guard units to participate in the gathering of these essentials, and has designated the armories thruout the state as the centers for collections. Donahey emphasizes the need of the miners: Their impoverishment, the fact that the children receive no food, have no clothes or shoes and consequently must remain away from school by the hundreds. His picture is more pessimistic than many a miner would depict it. Why is the governor suddenly so interested in the miners? Donahey “Good Man.” First of all the miners have been great supporters of Donahey—for he is a “popular” governor. Although Donahey has announced that he wiil run for no office this year, one can- not tell what he has up his sleeve. then the outlook for the democratic party is none too bright, and any sittle plan that may retain or bring iv some thousands of votes must nov be scorned. How can one take Donahey’s ap- peal as a sincere move? Donahey called the miners and operators int conference a few weeks ago. The operators refused to attend—Although the miners accept the call. The opera-' .ors declared that there was nothing to consider, that they had made an offer to the miners months ago, ana that this offer still held good. But Helps Break Strike. At the same time, the Hocking Valley operators made a new offer tu the miners which meant the break-up of the union, and the formation of a kind of company union, which woula prohibit any and every strike. That seemed perfectly reasonable to the operators, but the miners would nov listen to it. What did Donahey do when the operators turned down his call? Did he attack them and threaten to take over the mines? He did not. He merely “regretted” the attitude of the operators. Had the miners’ repre- sentatives refused to heed the call, they would have been denounced as betraying their men i Py But is the housing improved? On the contrary, it grows worse and worse as time goes. on. Munitipa) housing, houses built by the city an~ rented at low rates, is the only solu- tion for this evil. Certainly no re- publican or democratic ‘candidates ever advocated this. over to the bitter pangs of hunger. But the operators must be treated much more lenieptly, for they are the owners of the mines and nobody can bluff them. Helps Herd Scabs. That is not all. This same governor Donahey has viewed the sending in of sheriffs and U. S. marshalls wi equanimity, while they protected the importation of scabs throughout the Ohio coal fields. Only the other day in South-Eastern Ohio, scabs were brought in, and sheriffs were on hand to protect them. There was a little skirmish; nevertheless, according to report, the effort will be made to open the mine non-union. This same Governor Donahey only a few months ago was preparing to send in national guardsmen to guard the mines of the operators. The mine By Fred Ellis The traffic accidents of the city streets, the mowing down of the work- ers’ children by automobiles, are an- other painful consideration to the working mother whose children must run loose while she slaves at her job. More city playgrounds for children, nurseries maintained by the city gov- ernment for the young children of working mothers, better regulation of traffic, of these things the working mother dreams. What Woman Worker Must Demand. The needs of the working woman ean find place only in the platform of a party of the working class. Minimum wage laws, limitation of hours, prohibition of night work, pro- tection against poisons, better homes through municipal housing, city play- grounds for children and city nur- series for the babies of working wo- men, these demands are alr among the demands of the Labor Party. The intelligent working woman who is looking for relief from the almost overwhelming difficulties of her life, should earnestly support any cam- paign in her city or state to establish a labor party. It is at least a step in the right direction. owners declared that the sheriffs could not supply sufficient protection, but the sheriffs and U. S. marshalls declared that there was not yet any need of the national guard. The gov- ernor was picking a select company And in the meantime, the officials of the American Federation of Labor, through their “great” efforts have collected the paltry sum of about $170,000 since Nov. 14. If ever there was a disgrace lying upon the Ameri- can Federation of Labor officials, this is one of the most appalling. From 3,000,000 men belonging to the A. F. of L., such an insignificant sum has been gathered for these 90,000 miners and their families who are fighting for the life of the American labor movement! This shame of the of- ficialdom of the A. F. of L. will not be forgotten! Reader from Colorado Nails Lies of Press Editor, The DAILY WORKER: The Denver Post, Jan. 9, jeered at a miners’ march called a funeral at which guns were carried. On its face this has no news value for many of the readers of The DAILY WORKER. It is a waste of words to brand all such items as this one as a lie, but there is more to the article than the lies it tells, and I want to bring it to the notice of the readers of The DAILY WORKER, so they can see some of the things the striking miners of Colorado are up against. True enough there was a funeral with over a thousand strikers march- ing and about sixty cars behind them paying respect and fraternal feelings to their departed, a young seventeen year old striking miner. . There was one arrested with fire- arms on him. But he wasn’t taken from the line of march. If the Den- ver Port was capable. of telling the sruth they would inform their readers that Marvin Jarman, the arrested man, also had a police badge on him at the time of arrest. He is a char- acter the strike committee got wise to as a wolf in sheep’s clothing by posing as a striking miner. Pete Vaughn referred to is a col- ored fellow worker. He was released. He was arrested Sunday morning and taken first to the Kline Hotel there to C. F. & I. and bullied and abused by R. R. Maiden, assistant chief of the the State Police. vy R. R. Maiden, assistant chief of the cossacks, told Vaughn that what he needed and deserved was a real old southern K. K. K. beating that would leave scars that he would carry to the grave. Maiden also said that he in- tended to close the hall in Walsen- burg even if he had to shed plenty of blood to accomplish it. “All those striking miners are ignorant foreigners, very few of them are American citizens.” As a matter of record, many of these miners of Spanish blood fought in France. Ac- cording to Maiden all committee men and speakers are ex-convicts. He and his subordinates don’t deserve to be classed as ex-convicts for ex-convicts have atoned for their crimes. If the cossacks got their just deserts they would long since have had their necks stretched in a noose. Murder has been an every day crime. The striking miners are still hold- ing firm. They are more determined to win now than they ever were. The odds against them are terrible, but they are surmounting them, Persecution is increasing which is a sure sign that they have the opera- tors worried. Help the worry along by aiding and encouraging the miners and their forty thousand dependants. Food, Clothing, Shoes, Groceries, Medicine and Money. A quick re- sponse means an early victory. \ Yours for the Workers, HARRY CLAYTON, SPARKS From the Ni Ws | | eae the special efforts of sucn good standing socialists as Mac- Donald and Snowden, class collabora- tion in England is having tough sled- ding. The Conference of Industrial Cooperation, promoted by such vio- lent anti-union British capitalists as Sir Alfred Mond, is up against it. Called to secure “peace in industry,” it could not face the problems press- ing upon the workers. The militant miners’ leader, A. J. Cook, dealt it a solar plexus blow before it even got started. Then the British Cotton Em- ployers’ Association immediately put on the order of business for the achievement of industrial peace, @ wage cut of 12%% and leng hening of the working hours from 48 to 52%. This is the “reconstruction” plan of British capital. * Ptr LASS collaboration in England is today facing a different test from what it faced in the United States when it was applied here, on a large and systematic scale, for the first time about five years ago. When class collaboration was thus first ap- plied in the United States as a sys- tem of war against the workers, American capitalism was heading to- wards a peak point in its imperialist development. Today Britain is apply- ing it when British capitalism is head- ing towards the trough of the curve of its imperialist development. The slightest industrial recession in the United States is an occasion for a weakening of class collabora- tion. Class collaboration essentially takes root in upward trends of capi- talism when it’s easier for the em- ployers to split the skilled workers away from the unskilled by giving the former certain petty concessions at the expense of the latter. Such cor- ruption of the upper stratum of la- bor cannot be successfully resorted to by an imperialist country like Great Britain going down head-long. The contradictions of capitalism are the realities of capitalism. It is on the rocks of the contradictions of capital- ism that the very first efforts of the British industrialists to copy the American class collaboration system will go to pieces. * * * oe Socialist Party National Com- mittee has just completed a very “eventful” session. It. adopted a mo- tion here; it passed a meaningless resolution there; it promised else- where and did nothing everywhere. This is what the New Leader, the official mouthpiece of the decadent socialist party, editorially calls “So- cialist Vitality.” This sheet has brass, if nothing else. It says: “In the absence of a labor party, supported by the organized work- ing class, the socialist party serves as the only substitute. It is the la- bor party of the United States. It bears honorable scars for its long service to the working class.” Such comment belongs in a funny column, Even the smallest insect can do in- calculable damage. The socialist party is a corpse. But precisely as a corpse it is still a source of deadly infection in the labor movement. It works overtime, fighting the organization of a labor party. Its leadership serves as the most pliant tools of the re- actionary trade union bureaucracy which is in the pay and clutches of the big capitalist interests. * * * WE must here also note some of the resolutions adopted by the socfal- ist party. The resolution on Nica-. ragua is particularly enlightening. It demands arbitration! Perhaps the so- cialist party would nominate the ar- bitrators between the United States and Nicaragua. Will they nominate Chamberlain, Hillquit, Berger or Pil- sudski? These are all good comrades in the cause against the Soviet Union, Arbitrate between the imperialist blunderers and a robbed, oppressed, colonial people! Arbitrate between a highwayman and his victim! This is “socialism” in action. The most tragic joke is to be found in the resolution on the striking coal miners. Every worker knows that John L. Lewis, the vilest of labor fakerdom that has infested the Amer- ican trade union movement, receives the unquestioned and unquestionable support of the socialist party. The resolution doesn’t say a word about Lewis. To the socialist party, Lewis is no problem. He is their teacher and leader. What the socialists do ‘complain against is that the federal govern- ment is “remaining inactive.” We wonder whether the socialists take themselves seriously, when they peddle such rant. There are plenty of federal government injunctions. The workers see them, feel them and fight thom. But the socialist party, with its phantasmagoria of fake in. dustrial democracy schemes, finds the government inactive! Why hasn't Mr. Berger introduced a resolution de- manding an immediate appropriation of $1,000,000 for the relief of the striking miners? Very likely Mr, Berger wants to show that he stands more for economy than Coolidge. There seems to be a race between the two, Whoever wins, the workers will =~?