The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 1, 1928, Page 6

THE DAILY WORKER ener Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS i _ of our class. e * age Six THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, FEB. 1, 1928 » Inc, Daily, Except Sunday #3 Ficst Street, New York, N. Y. Phone, Orchard 1680 Cable Address; “Daiwork” By Mail (in New York only): $8.00 ger year $4.50 six months us ~~ $2.50 three months, SUBSCRIPTION RATES By Mail (outside of New York): $6.00 per year $3.50 six months 2.00 three months. ie ‘and mail out checks to Addrese THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. Y. a1 Editor....... see eee Assistant Editor.. ...-ROBERT MINOR a... WM. F. DUNNE Hutered as second-class mail at the post-office the act of at New York, N. ¥., under larch -3,- 1879. The Universal Yellow-Dog Contract and the All-Embracing, Perpetual Injunction Conniving with the progressive destruction of the American trade unions, the treason of the trade union bureaucracy to the American labor movement reaches its final degree in the acknowl- edgment of Mathew Woll that in the name of the American Fed- eration of Labor he participates in the conspiracy to fix around the neck of-organized labor a federal law proposed by a committee | of the American bar association, , by which the federal government ‘weuld be given the power directly to enforce upon the workers ~~“ ne terms of any “mutual agreement” which the bureaucrats of the Woll-Green-Lewis-Berry type care to make with their friends the employers. A statement issued by the committee and confirmed by Woll, says .hat Woll “indicated that, in his opinion, following the lines of Parker-Watson bill in congress, legal validity and enforceability could and should be given to contracts resulting from mutual agreement, and intimated strongly that if, instead of stressing compulsory arbitration as a means, we stressed voluntary arbitra- tion, we might have the co-operation of organized labor in our efforts.” This means that the heirs betraying American labor have tremes of treason to labor whic of Gompers in the profession of taken a step even beyond the ex- h were possible in Gompers’ time. Tt means that Green, Lewis, Woll & Co., now engaged to the extent of their ability in scuttling the American trade union movement, are ready to take the ghastly step of forcibly taking out of the hands of the American workers every. right of action against em- ployers’ tyranny, and turning over to the courts of the Wall Street government the legal power to outlaw all strikes, all protests, all resorts to the power of labor against employers’ oppression. Not oceasional strikes and picketing are to be outlawed in picketing, but all strikes and all advance, the affairs of the work- ers taken out of their hands and put to the tender mercies of the game capitalist courts which have made the name of America a shame thruout the world with “Mutual agreements!” to without the right.to resort to. strik made as Col. Berry makes “mutual anti+labor injunctions. be enforced by capitalist courts ! “Mutual agreements” ments” for the helpless and protesting members of the Pressmen’s Union! It is simply a foul lie to cover the plan of these biifédiicrats to fasten them- selves onto the working class as the capitalists’ overseers who, in the “name of labor,” can make for.gagged and powerless masses of workers, contracts which will have éxactly'the same essentials as the yellow-dog contract: which the foremen of the*scab. mines of West Virginia force upon the unorganized coal diggers. The essential quality of the yellow dog contract is the power- lessness of the worker to do otherwise than sign it, together with the surrender of all right to collective action of the workers them- selves, In the non-union coal fields, the’surrendér takes the form of agreement not to join the Union. In Mr..Woll’s plan for a uni- versal yellow-dog contract, the s' urrender: on the part of the worker would be essentially the same—the surrender of the right of the Union to exercise any of the functions of a Union in securing the welfare of the worker. Mr. Woll would agree to br: ing the whole field of labor strug- gle under the autocratic rule of federal courts which would place direct police control over the workers involved in any dispute, while a federal judge decided all questions of rights involved un- der contracts “voluntarily” mad of the right to strike. le in the name of workers deprived This incredibly vile betrayal includes, therefore, the extension over the whole field of labor of the same status of law that is established by the issuance of an injunction. All strikes, all pick- etting at one sweep made a crime before the law, a violation of contract, “agreed upon’’ by “American la! with the contract enforceable by exceptional laws bor” whose name is Mathew Woll. Now. of all times the American trade unions and working class must wake up to the danger! Léwises must go! The Matty Wolls, the Greens, the Remember Liebknecht , Nine years ago Karl Liebknecht and Rose Luxemburg were murdered. Liebknecht’s life was characterized by his constant struggle against capitalism and its inevitable offshoot, militarism. He did not become.a pacifist but raised the slogan, “War Against War.” Those whom. he relied upon were in the first place the socialist working class youth organization which he had devoted much time to organizing and building, and’ which in time became the basic material of the Communist Party of Germany. At the crucial moment, whetr leadership was necessary in 1914, the German Social Demgeratic Party betrayed the working class. knecht and his comrades were Liebknecht’s voice aloné was heard in the Reichstag. Lieb- on the street tliundering against Tmperialism and the social-démocrat lackevs. - in 1919. when the German-working class revolted, again it was Liebknecht, with the young workers wham he had carefully organized, who were to be found: battling in the streets for the revolution which the social-democratic. leaders drowned in blood. Jn this fight the Noskes came to the support of capitalism by deal- ing death to Liebknecht and Luxemburg... -- <The names of Liebknecht glorious traditions of the workin “Luxemburg express the most class and-especially of the youth ‘The memorial meeting being arranged by the Young Work- League of New York for Friday-night at the Labor Temple Rport of all New York 1 orkers, young and af SE entire Labor Movement by law. judges of the Wall Street government. By WILLIAM F. DUNNE. The officialdom of the American Federation of Labor, uniting with the American Bar Association, probably the most thoroly reactionary body in the United States, is preparing to de- liver another body blow to the right to,strike as an important part of its program for “pacifying” the labor movement. (We use “pacifying” in the sense that the state department uses the term in referring to Nica- ragua and other countries coveted by Wall Street.) Complete Unity. The sub-committee of the American Federation of Labor has been working with the committee of. the Bar Asso- ciation and everything has been lovely according to the spokesmen for both organizations. The ways appear to have been well-greased for a proposal. the exact details of which have not been made public but which provides machinery for “encouraging and maintaining peaceful industrial rela- tions and collective agreements vol- untarily entered into and without ap- plying any power of compulsion,” to use the language of Matthew Woll. “Peaceful Industrial Relations.” To speak of “peaceful industrial re- lations,” and especially in reference to “maintaining them,” is to speak of ja situation in which workers have | surrendered to the capitalists. It is when we view the Bar Asso- ciation “formula” in the light of the continual strugyle workers and their “THE UNIVERSAL YELLOW DOG CONTRACT” By Fred Ellis Mr. Matthew Woll, corporation lawyer, also vice president of the American Federation of Labor, claims to act “in the name of labor” in conspiring with his fellow-corporation lawyers of the American Sar Association w vuvam @ Lederat 1aw unger which the ‘Trade Unions would be deprived of all rights as unions, the strike and picketing being outlawed and all disputes to be settled by dictation of the U. S. federal Mr. Woll, traitor to Labor, wants a UNIVERSAL YELLOW DOG CONTRACT fastened upon the The Bar Association and the Bureaucrats Unite on Anti-Strike Legislation---Expose and Fight the New Conspiracy in order to maintain a bare minimum,to methods for “maintaining peace- | president of the American Federation of political, social and economic rights} that we get also a correct idea of| the manner in which this united front of lawyers, notoriously, so far as the overwhelming majority of them are concerned, the most willing and ef- ficient agents of reaction, and official labor leaders, and the anti-strike pro- gram outlined, dovetails into the scheme of surrender adopted by the Wolls, Greens and Lewises. Officialdom’s Answer. It is characteristic of the official labor leadership that with the whole labor movement in the worst crisis in its history, it wraps its arms around the, neck of the Bar Association an¢ enters inte a conspiracy with it against the working class, instead of calling upon the labor movement to ignore all injunctions, set up militant organization conimittees in each in- dustry, coordinate them nationally. back up the United Mine Workers by organization campaigns in other in- dustries—steel, railways and automo- biles particularly—and thus smash the drive of the capitalists. 600,000 Starving Workers. Six hundred thousand men, womer and children are being starved, evict- ed and ‘persecuted in the most ruth- less manner in the coal camps of Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Colorado, While the miners and their families bear the brunt of the struggle to maintain the living stand- ards of the whole working class and to save the unions. labor officialdor ful industrial relations.” The Anti-Strike Chorus. The Russell Sage Foundation has for a long time been carrying on a nation-wide campaign for anti-strike legislation. From other sources, the New York World, for instance, has come a demand for legislation similar to the Watson-Parker bill for pre- venting strikes in the railway indus- try. Secretary of Labor Davis has been loud in his insistence that such legislation is necessary and when Davis speaks the undertones of An- drew Mellon can be heard. For years the labor movement fought such proposals. Today labor officialdom takes the lead in making them and fraternize with the legal experts of labor’s enemies, More Surrender. Another step toward surrender has been taken by the official labor lead- ership and further proof furnished that, left in control of the unions these leaders intend to enslave the workers by cunning, open sale and united action with the courts and po- lice of the capitalists against those workers who do not hold out their hands for the manacles. The New York Times for January 81 says: “The formula designed to prevent strikes and labor controversies, pre- pared after long study by a sub-com- mittee of the Committee on Com- merce of the American Bar Associa- tion, received hearty commendatior organizations are forced to carry on By BERT MILLER. HE present period in the campaign for a labor party is one in which we are compelled to pass from the stage of mere propaganda to the stage where our slogan must find concrete expression. Objectively, we are compelled to move in this direction by the fact that capitalist prosperity in America has turned the curve or, in the words of Leonard P. Ayres, the well-known bourgeois statistician, “Prosperity is getting tired.” As usual, the working class is asked the pay the price. The American capitalist class has therefore taken up with renewed intensity its assault upon the workers. The Injunction Menace. The most effective weapon in this attack has been the injunction, of consults with capitalism’s agents as yesterday from Matthew Woll, vice- of Labor, president of the Interna- tional Photo Engravers’ Union an¢ an acting president of the Nationa’ Civic Federation. -Mr. Woll, Joh P. Frey, secretary of the Meta Trades Department. . .and Victor A Olander, secretary of the Seamen’: Union and the Illinois State Federa- tion of Labor, made up a special com- mittee from the American Federation of Labor which. conferred several times with the Bar Association’s sub- committee.” Workers Will Fight Proposal. Much as some sections of the unfor membership may have been beguilec by the “peace in industry” theory the destructive “union-management cooperation” doctrine, and the demor- alizing “non-partisan political action” program, it will not accept this new attempt to disarm it further as 2 gift from the gods. In every union the left wing can give this natural resentment effective organizational form by presenting resolutions denouncing this scheme for enmeshing the labor movement ir a web of anti-strike legislation and demanding that the united front be- tween the bureaucrats and the bar shall be broken at once. The smooth phrases by which the Bar Association and labor officialdom tries to cover up their attack on the right to strike must be sttipped away and the plan exposed as part of th: whole retreat movement into which the official leadership is trying tc stampede the working class. “If the trade unions form the basis of a Labor Party, they will give the best guarantee that the Party wil! be powerful enough to resist any change in economic conditions. Economic crises will diminish the strength of the trade unions, but they will increase the discontent of the masses and thus swell the sails of the Labor Party.” Although an economic crisis is in prospect rather than a present even- tuality, our present task is neverthe- less to locate, on the basis of a cor- rect analysis, the most fertile soil for the development of labor party bases. An examination of the economic situation in this country will disclose the fact that there are three main sources — the anarchic conditions of the mining industry, the crisis among the farmers, and the decline which the sweeping injunction against ,of the chief industries in the New the miners’ union is the most recent und glaring example. Mr. Hope Thompson, attorney, speaking at the recent convention of the American Federation of Labor, correctly char- rcterized the injunction as "the great- vst threat that faces organized labor today” and claimed that “it will mean he end of the labor movement.” When we add to this the renewed threat of. a nation-wide open shop drive and the increasing menace of a new world war, it becomes evident hat the labor movement is in serious langer. Need for a Labor Party. In such a situation, the labor party becomes the logical necessity. This ras been brought out by John Pep- oer, who, in commenting upon the ‘ffect of economic erises on the labor party movement, declared: England states. Therefore, thes three areas offer the chief center: from which the labor party movement will draw its motive power and in- spira ion. It is the purpose of this avticle to discuss the situation in New England, and more particularly in the State of Massachusetts. The Situation in New England. New England. and especially Mas- sachusetts, once the leading work- shop. of America and the hub of American industry, are being. forced to the rear by the pressure of. com- petition. with other areas better equip- ped to meet the demands of the do- mestic..and world market for low- priced commodities. - This-is ‘particularly true in the tex- tile, shoe and metal industries, Factories erected in the latter part of* the nineteenth century have be- come antiquated and unable to meet required standards. With its great distance from sources of raw materi- al, cotton, wool, hides, coal and iron, Massachusetts is being forced more and more to yield its leadership in manufactures to the South and West. The foreign-born workers who form- erly supplied the cheapest obtainable labor have become . “dangerously” sophisticated. Not only have they begun to adopt higher living standards but they have also become friendly to the idea of labor organizations. Industry Moves to South. On the other hand, the South and Middle West has loomed up with a formidable and irresistible challenge .o New England’s place in the Amer- ican sun. Located closer to the neces- sary sources of raw material—cotton, wool, hides, coal and iron, these sec- tions of the country can supply in |91St4on an adeanate amount of cheap, “Joyal,” 100 pereent American unor- Bausucd iavor, asen from the ranks of che agricultural workers, to whom even the pittance they receive in the mills is weleome in comparison with the deplorable conditions on the bank- | rupt farms. To some extent, the po- ition ‘of New. England is aggravated | still more by compecition with cheap labor of European countries, We find, therefore, mill after mill moving South or selling out, leaving the workers to face the blackest of prospects. The latest under discus- sion is the Amoskeag Mill, the larg- est in the world. Unemployment is rampant, Massachusetts and New England as a whole feel the dead hand of economic decline and disin- tegration. Capitalist Attack in Massachusetts. These are the objective conditions| Massachusetts Workers and the Labor Party which force the manufacturers of Massachusetts to employ the mosi ruthless methods to make the work- ers pay the price in terms of longer hours, lower wages, the restriction of free speech and the repeal of legal safeguards which labor has won thru years of struggle. These are the objective conditions behind the bar- baric murder of Sacco and Vanzetti, two foreign-born labor leaders, who will not be the last to feel the iron hand of the New England bosses in their desperate struggle against..the economic forces which threaten them. The textile workers and the shoe workers are not the only ones to bear the brunt of this struggle. The de- cline in the field of the textile. shoe and metal industries has already be- gun to affect the building industry. As a result, the building trades, the backbone of the labor movement in Massachusetts, also is threatenec with a general offensive. The aris- tocracy. of labor is being drawn int the maelstrom of the class struggle. is beginning to feel the general at- tack side by side with the unskilled and the semi-skilled in the textile anu shoe industries. The injunction against the Milkdrivers Union of Boston is but one example. Police brutalities against the Capmakers is another. Objectively, there is a basts in Mas- sachusetts fora real insurgent polit- ical movement on the part of libor. Other subjective factors must be ex- amined to determine whether the forces are sufficient to carry the project forward, so that it becomes a ee bap acta n 1924, Massachusetts polled 141,- 225 for LaFollette or more than one half the number of votes cast for Filth on Jobs Editor, The DAILY WORKER: " We often hear workers complain about the dirty and filthy jobs they are compelled to hold down in order to make a living. Z What I am trying to bring out is this, in the hotel where I am working as a house painter, there is an old Austrian who is my fellow worker. His job varies a great deal from mire. He is employed as a furniture “finish- er” for 99v a month and his work is confined to the sub-basement. All the furniture in the building is of a shel- lac finish and his work is to remove the shellac with wood-alcohol, and atter sandpapering over the stain he puts on a Iresh coat of shellac. Work- ing down the sub-basement and about six feet away from the engine room the temperature is 80 degrees fahren- neit and this fellow worker was over- come three times in the last two months from the fumes of the shellac, heat and the alcohol, and there isn’t \. any fresh air in the basement. He is forced economically te de that sort of work and he is at an age where he is not in a position to look for a new field. Fraternally—_JACK KALMAN. New York City. _ John W. Davis, a fair guage of strength of the protest vote against the two major parvies. Throughout the state there exists a labor official- dom which is closer to the rank and file than is true in New York, for instance. Many of these officials wor at the bench, and carry on their union acvivities in the evening. This 1s particularly true in the small factory towns, where unions are not big enough to support their own full- time officials. We find this layer of progressivism even among the of- sicials of the central labor unions in she smaller cities. No one should ininimize the importance of the role o£ these central iabor bodies in the formation of an American labor party. Class Division Clear in Factory Towns. In these small cities, the political class lines are much clearer than they are in the big cities, where rival capitalist interests may parade behind various opposing parties. Here we have the party of the mill or fac- tory owners openly running the city government in the name of the repub- lican or democratic party. There is therefore less likelihood of confusion on the part of workers in these small cities as to the characteristics of each of the two major parties, Further- more, it becomes more difficult for the bosses to corrupt labor officials without completely compromising them in the eyes of the workers. The bosses place the issues before the workers with Massachusetts brutality. .and it is a harder job to dodge. While it is true that this layer of lower officials in the small cities and towns lack the initiative that will make them the driving force in the forms tion of a labor party, yet no one can minimize the important part they will play as the spokesman and the front of such a movement. Socialist Party in Massachusetts. The die-hard and disruptionist ele- ments in the socialist party of Massa- chusetts are not strong enough to prevent the growth of a labor party in that state. This was proved at the labor party conference held last year, when in spite of the splitting tactics of the socialist delegates, and the tre- mendous pressure brought to bear by the official representatives of the American Federation of Labor (al- though the president of the State Federation of Labor followed a hands off policy, which is worthy of careful note) an excellent representative committee was established. It is evident from this that neither the socialist party nor the A. F. of L. machine has enough support to ef- fectively head off a strong movement for a labor party, once it gets fully under way. However, this committea must be criticized for not having made any progress since its inception. The ‘ssues afforded by the Sacco-Vanzetti case and the injunction against the Milk Drivers’ Union, as well as other local issues such as compensation, ate, should have been capitalized, statements should have appeared in ‘he name of the labor party commit- tee on each of these issues, so that the workers of the state might wake up to the fact that a new line of de- fense of their interests has been erected, Workers Party Must Supply Initiative Upon the Workers (Communist Party rests the responsibility for pod nlying the initiative and the moving force for the labor party movement of Massachusetts. In this connection, ur Party members will have to break down the spirit of sectarianism which has kent them aloof from the general nolitical life of the state as well as from those progressive forces in the 'abor movement which will be our most valuable allies in the near fu- ‘ure, The fraternal organizations of the foriegn-born will have to be brought into the labor party cam- naign, viving valuable material aid in the building of the labor party, as their strongest weapon against the employers, in the absence of the trade union. The entire membership will have to realize that the labor party campaign is the keystone upon which the fature of the party rests, par: ticularly in Massachusetts, To the workers of Massachusetts we look to take up the banner of the labor party and take their proper places as the courageous pioneers in the building of that movement. s { E