The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 16, 1928, Page 2

i Page Two THE DATLY WORKER, NEW YORK, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1928 Textile Barons Announce Huge Profits Along with Wage-Cuts and Lay- Offs | SSC U. S$. LABOR DEPT, Gas Workers Slave, a Lifetime, Then Get Medals and Certificates for Bravery ADMITS JOBLESS ARMY PERMANENT S ccaagth Unemployed in Many States (Continued from Page One) Francisco alone. The open-shop in- terests are making a ong cam- paign to fight the organ movement and the Communi drive is capitalizing on the Situation to raise funds while working class is lining up in the soup kitchens and getting hand outs. spend- ing about The board of super ing a good deal of time the critical situation but been using the situation football. In view o: ation and the danger to the labor movement and the cal condition of the unemployed the Central Labor Council of San Francisco in a resolu- tion has called on the board of super- visors to hold public conferences com- posed of delegates of all labor unions, central and building trades bod and all other working class organiza- tions. Cite a CLEVELAND, Feb. 15.—The des- perate plight of the unemployed in Cleveland was illustrated last Satur- day when 15 workers constented to be auctioned off at the Public Square to anyone willing to provide food ana shelter. The auctioneer, Sadie Van Veen offered Carl Boby and Marion Fisher to the crowd. Police arrested the auctioneer and the “slaves” be fore any bids were made. It wa difficult for police to fix the charge At first it was decided to charge the workers with “holding a public auc tion without 2 permit.” This wa changed to “holding a public demon- stration without a _ permit,” and fimally the workers were held for “violation of the park laws.” The city authorities are determined} to break up the Unemployed Counci Last week three unemployed workers | were fined $25 each and costs for “common beggary” when they were arrested for participating in a Tag Day for the unemployed. The one place the unemployed may go to without cost, the Wayfarers’ lodge, has to turn away hundreds. 1. The Welfare Bureau of the city is do- ing nothing. The unions are also doing nothing even for union mem- bers who are jobless. | W. A. Breen ] | | rewards instead of decent wages and companies will unite aga Allan D. Pettee The above workers of the Consolidated G: unorganized, and work under conditions of constant danger at low wages, F. H. Behrman conditions. C. E. Edwards s Company received medals and paper testimonials for bravery from the company. Heroic acts are all in the day’s work for these workers, but the bosses give them pieces. of metal or paper as The formation of a huge power trust, of which the Consolidated Gas Company will be a member, has just been reported. Thus all the power ne mrorkers who are rendered Aeiplegs by their unorganized condition. A. H. Wielt Peter Smith C. Xenis The gas workers B. B. Townson J.C. Baker in New York are practically totally Drive Miners From Company Shacks; SeabsGoin | nia, Ohio, and Colorado. The coal bring the miners to their knees, using what were once the miners’ places. Into the snow and the freezing wintry blasts have gone over 100,000 miners and their families (small children, too) in Pennsylva- hardihood of the miners, their wives and children, born of generations of suffering. Scabs now occupy the company shacks, shown above, operators thought that this would but they did not reckon on the homes for brothels and gambling SET EXAMPLE WITH (Continued from Page One) we will save The DAILY WORKER.” “T received your appeal for funds a few days ago,” writes a street nu- cleus in California, “tho too late to get it to you by Feb. 7th. I am sending you $40 as our monthly | pledge.” Workers Respond. Scores of letters of which these ex- tracts are only an example are pour- | ng into the aid of The DAILY | WORKER, testifying to the absolute devotion of the militant American workers to their daily press. From coast to coast the workers have met the appeal to save The DAILY WORKER like one man. But in spite of the generosity and | loyalty with which the American workers are responding to the appeal for funds to save The DAILY WORK- ER in the campaign which its ene- mies in the capitalist class are wag- MILITANTS ACT ON THE “DAILY” APPEAL; BIG CONTRIBUTIONS ing against it, the need for contribu- tions is pressing. Hundreds of dollars are still needed to prepare the defense The DAILY | WORKER must make to keep Wm. F. |Dunne, Bert Miller and Alex Bittel- |man, now out on $1,000 bail each, from five years apiece in the cells of the federal penitentiaries which the American capitalists and their trus- ‘ties, the American militarist and pa- | triotie societies, are preparing for |them, Every cent forwarded for the de- fense of The DAILY WORKER and the three arrested Communists is a blow struck to defeat such enemies of |the American workers in the attack by which they hope to break to pieces the militant American labor move- iment and silence its ,only militant |daily organ, Thi DAILY WORKER. | | Rush your contributions to The | DAILY WORKER, 33 First St., New | miners and non-union operators is |York City. CHILDREN STARVE —— | Ohio Relief Collected, Under Cops’ Guns | (Continued from Page One) should redouble their efforts to raise funds to provide food and clothing ‘or the miners and their destitute de- pendents. Relief committees should speed up the work and individuals should organize committees where] + none exist. The need is urgent. Send all temittances to the Pennsylvania- Ohio Miners’ Relief Committee, 611 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pa. * ea | Order Mass Evictions in Ohio. PITTSBURGH, Pa., Feb. 15.—With coal production in the state of Ohio reduced to 200,000 a month, from the former grand total of 3,000,000 and mass evictions threatened on April ist when the terms of a federal in- junction become effective, the eleven- month-old stryggle between union approaching a climax, State militiamen are held in readi- ness to turn their guns on the strik- ers even while they are collecting re-| lief under the direction of Governor Donahey. A little food will make them softer targets for national guard bullets! The Lewis machine in Ohio ap- parently has broken down completely. it is making no attempt to give a lead to the strike. The initiative is now being taken by the rank and ile and a new spirit has crept into \the union. In the, growth. of: this movement under militant leadership | lies the hope of victory for the! miners. One Meal a Day for These Miners’ Children $700,000 PROFIT AFTERWAGE-CUTS IN MASS, MILLS Five Textile Firms In- erease Profits BOSTON, Mass., Feb. 15.—Just as \the outstanding news from the New | England industrial centers has been | marked for the past few weeks by | almost daily announcements of new Others Follow Suit. In addition to the statements issued by some of the mills in New Bedford, which showed profits of over $700,000 for 5 mills, a further number of cor- porations followed suit yesterday. The Blumenthal Company’s balance sheets declare profits of $1,056,104. This firm owns and operates the Shelton Looms. Belding, Hemingway Com- pany announces dividends amou z to $521,952, The profits of the Pil- grim Mills of Fall River were $180,- 000. The Butler Mills of New Bed- ford declare earnings of 111,008, and A bare nfeal of soup, crackers and coffee is being ravenously eaten by these miners’ youngsters in Pennsylvania who have tasted nothing for 24 hours. There are tens of thousands of children on the verge of starva- tion in the mine districts of Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Ohio, Their fathers are fighting to obtain a decent wage so that this sort of thing will no longer be the lot of the miners’ families. see the children of other workers starve must mediately needed, in the shape of clothing or Workers who cannot send relief, which is im- funds to the Pennsylvania Ohio Relief Committee, 611 Penn Ave., Pittsburgh, or 799 Broadway, New York City. ILL. MINER MILITANTS WANT NATIONAL MEET; 120 DELEGATES ADOPT PROGRAM (Continued from Page One) abolition of coal operators’ influence in the United Mine Workers. One of the most encouraging fea-| tures of the conference was the pres-| jence of John Watts, Dan, Slinger, | ” Freeman, Thompson and other well) known militants and their active par- ticipation in the business of the meet- ing. There appears to be a real re- vival of the famous figh:ing spirit of the Ulinois miners which slackened somewhat after the separate agree- ment was signed by the Lewis-Fish- wick machine. Previous to the conference, Walter Nesbit, district sccretary and Lewis henchman, had sent out a statement forbidding union members to attend it and threatening dire penalties. To add weight to the threat, Gus Fritz, | district executive board member who | formerly showed some progressive | tendencies but is now a creature of | the machine, was sent to Belleville to spy upon the conference and report its | decisions. | The delegates showed much resent- | ment at this presence and he left be- | fore the conference ended. Fine Spirit. The general opinion here following the conference is that the Illinois min- ers are once more in the fight to save the union, that the slogan “Lewis Must Go” has already a wide base of support in this district and that at the coming national conference there will be a large and militant Illinois ‘delegation. the Boott Mills of Lowell had $777,- 654. Proves Statesments False. Along with the posting of every wage slash notice in the plants came an explanation that this step was un- willingly taken by the employer. The bosses said that they were compelled to take reduced wages in order not to run their factories at a deficit. While it is true that the manu- facturers succeeded in putting over a average wage cut of 10 per cent on such a great mass of workers, with very little organized resistance from the operatives, the smoldering re- sentment evident may easily be fanned into a flame by just such an- nouncements as these, in spite of the fact that the mill owners had the active cooperation of the textile union officialdom in preventing strike dev- elopments. Workers Act. Word has not reached here yet as to the action of the membership of the Fall River Textile Council which was to meet last night to decide upon a course of action in view of the re- cent refusal of the employers asso- ciation to eliminate the wage cut. A stormy meeting is expected because the Textile Council leadership is known to be opposed to active re- sistance. Tasks of Werkers (Communist) PartyAnalyzed by Jay Lovestone in Report (eicuTH INSTALLMENT. ‘(Continued-from- yesterday. “4 few words about some mistakes] and shortcomings of the Party. We have committed a number of mis-| takes since the last Party convention. I believe, in general, the Party press and the Daily Worker have improved Since the convention, yet the Party as a whole is not taking a sufficiently vigorous interest in the press and the press dovs not reflect the Party life and the Party campaigns suf- ficiently. “2. Immediately after the conven- tion we made a serious error in neg- lecting to push vigorously factory papers. “3. In the fight against the war danger, in a number of districts, very dangerous pacifist illusions mani- fested themselves. “Opportunist errors have also been made in the last election campaign. I can cite the Bearak case in Boston which was condemned by the Secre tariat, the conduct of the. comra in conducting the el on campaign in Worcester, and certain very dangerous manifestations in western Pennsylvania where some of our comrades were so anxious for politi- eal participation that they even stepped into the primaries in the re- publican party. The Pittsburgh dis- trict committee promptly and sharp- ly corrected this error. “However, we made errors in the election campaign not only of a right} character. We have not yet shed completely or sufficiently the rem- nants of our yesterday’s mechanical, anti-parliamentary attitude. This we _must shed if we are to participate successfully in election campaigns as “The late start in the miners’ re- lief campaign was a costly mistake and served to weaken the whole min- ing campaign of the Party. “The faction-breeding conference arrangements in the Jewish fraction must be characterized very strongly as not helping Party unity but as _ hurting party unity. I refer con- - cretely to the Central Committee er- ‘ror in allowing two resolutions to be resented on the basis of groups af- er the convention decision for the ition of groups. “The failure of the Party center respond quickly enough to certain gations such as Nicaragua, China the unemployment must be men- ‘tioned as a serious mistake. “Insufficient support in laying the basis for organizing the labor party ommittees was also an error. Com- ades jin the districts yswticularly have t pushed this vital step to- wards the building of a labor party) movement, “This plenum should make note of such inactivity. “Insufficient participation of cer- tain language fractions in party campaigns and life. I speak of the mining campaign. With very few exceptions the language fractions participated vigorously in the mining campaign. “Another error, a very costly one, was the insufficient and not quick enough orientation towards the shar- pening developments in the mining campaign. Not only the districts, but the party as a whole, the party cen- ter must share in this blame. It is true we are now making big head- way. I say we could have made much greater headway and been in a much safer position if we had not made this mistake. “Briefly, what are the shortcom- ings of our Party? Our Party ap- paratus is still weak. It is our opinion that our Party apparatus to- day is still too weak to withstand well a severe offensive against our organization. The organization con- ference of the central committee must take positive steps to remedy this situation. “We also have the weakness of | Party auxiliaries. The Party auxi- | iaries, almost without exception, do lnot serve sufficiently as reservoirs | for Party membership and following. | “We still have some lingering fac-, tionalism and remnants of old group- ings. Here we must avoid particul- arly any attempt as some comrades of the Polburo tend to do, at gener- alizing into a characteristic of policy, | into a wrong estimate of basic policy, | when a mistake may be made here and there. “Insufficient basis in the trade unions, insufficient proportion of native born workers, weakness in election campaigns, weakness of the Women’s Department and the Negro work, insufficient development of our theoretical level, insufficient ca- pacity to attract working class forces in the campaign against the imperi- alist war danger, insufficient initi- ative of comrades in voluntary rou- tine work are among our worst short- comings. We have in our Party an insufficient response to any call for such basic, yes, so-called ‘Jimmy Hig- gins’ work. We must have much more of that throughout the Party. “Finally, the lack of workers’ cor- respondents is a serious shortcoming tasks, the outstanding problems and tasks of the Party divide themselves largely in the following six main lines: “First of all: the problem of an adequate program for the depression period. This is the key to our Party activities. The energetic execution of our unemployment program, demands on the government, the organization of the unemployment councils, the intensification of the 4abor party campaign, the intensification of the fight against wage cuts, against lengthen hours with concrete activi- ties and slogans must be pushed to the fore. For instance, the 40 hour week slogan. For instance, the pop- ularization in an agitational sense, of the fact that in the Soviet Union| we have a seven-hour day. This must be pointed out by the Party in its agitational field much more than it has been today. The question of So- viet Russian recognition, the fight against new forms of class collabor- ation must be emphasized. In the general propaganda and activities against capitalism as such, I think our Party has been particularly weak in this respect. Here we must work much harder. “We attack the government very well. We expose capitalist democracy effectively but we have not centered our blows sufficiently against cap-! italism as an economic system. We have not pointed out sufficently the costly losses suffered by the workers) thru the capitalist system. Finaity.) great weight must be lent to aggres. sive fight for a genuine social Insur-! ance program. er “Second: The Labor Party. We have reaffirmed the unanimously) adopted labor party policy as here- with given. We recognize that the sentiment for a labor party is today much bigger than its organizational strength. “We must prepare now. Whether there will be a labor party ticket or even a united labor ticket in 1928 ‘we must prepare now as part of the labor party campaign for the Work- ers Party running its own national ticket and being on the. ballot in as many states as possible. This is a task which every district organizer must meet and execute most ener- getically. This is a task the achieve- ment of which enables us to mobilize larger sections of our Party than any of our other tasks. We must raise a campaign fund of $100,000, not only for the labor party and the Par- ty election campaign, but also to of the Party. “To conclude: The fundamental build and strengthen our Party weap- ons and apparatus such as the Daily | paign without the slightest fear of Worker for this effective campaign. “Third: The crisis in the trade unions: Let me say that the critical condition in which the trade unions find themselves set before us trem-! endous tasks. The masses are awake-! ning to the danger and the slogan, ‘Save the Unions’ is a living slogan. We must raise this slogan and mobil- ize increasing masses. The organi- zation of the unorganized, the defense of the standard of living of the work- ing class, the question of amalgama- tion—these are vital questions today in facing the crisis of the trade unions. We do not uitilize this slogan of the crisis in the trade unions in a manner to promote panic. We utilize the slogan of the crisis in the trade unions in order to: point out to the workers that they must fight. “In general we reaffirm the resolu- tion as adopted by the Hexutive Committee of the Central Committee last May. But in view of the sharp- ening situation—in view of the new economic conditions, we declare that we must not allow ourselves to make a fettish of opposition to dual union- ism as such in our campaigns to or- ganize the unorganized. We must organize the unorganized and take the leadership in it at all costs. As ‘long as there be opposition against the organization of the unorganized| in the labor movement. Here the| mining campaign is of basic import- ance. We ask the comrades in the districts who have not mcbilized well enough to the demand of the Central Committee to eome into this cam- splitting the miners union. The miners union is split to smithereens now and we are the only ones who can’ save it. Our general slogans here are clear as above indicated. And last, but not least, in the crisis in the trade unions, is the building up of the Trad> Union Educational Leagué, I did not mention this be- fore but T want to emphasize that one of the mistakes of the Party since the convention has been insuf- ficient re<nonse and even opposition here and there to building strong more ‘decisively the pacifist illusions. I might mention to the comrades in the Minnesota (huge applause by Tallentire, D.-O, 9) district that they have done very well. in not failing to organize anti-war movements. It is my contentoin and Ithink it is the opinion of the central committee, that the comrades’ in the Minnesota dis- trict must fight more energetically certain pacifist illusions which have crept in. We must take more effect- ive steps to organize the masses. “I think we have fallen down in one phase of activity here. We must popularize much more extensively against pacifism the peace program given by Comrade Litvinoff for the Soviet Union at the last Geneva con- ference. We must also. learn that we must propagandize those masses that are against war to become real cpponents of war by propagandizing them for intereference with war prep- arations and raising such slogans not as ‘against war,’ but as ‘against im- perialist war’, and raising the slogan ‘not a man, not a dollar for imper- ialist war in China,’ ete. “Fifth: The road to the develop-! ment of a mass Communist party lies in the development of correct tactics, in the united front efforts of the Party. Our basic policy here is good. “We maintain that there is increas- ing opportunity for the Party as a party to appear before the workers as a party in the present struggles, The Party should show its face much more to the masses as a Party and more frequently and openly. Our basic line here remains: First of all: the greatest possible mobilization of masses for struggle with a view of developing left movements amongst the non-Communist workers. Sec- ondly, the bringing closer to the Party and under its influence non- Party masses, and thus to build and strengthen our Party organization. “Because of the conditions of the class struggle today, the center of gravity of the united front campaigns now tends to shift to the united front from the bottom much more than from the top. On the question of united fronts we also have our rela- tions to the I. W. W. and the social- ist party. Comrade Foster in the trade union report will elaborate our position towards the I. W. W. particu- larly in view of the recent develop- ments in Colorado. Insofar as the socialist party is concerned, we have stated our opinion in the characteri- zation of the political situation in the country. International ANNUAL DANCING EXHIBITIONS Five Big Days MARCH 7-8-9-10-11 WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY local sections of the Trade Union Educational League. This must be stopped, if we are to do all we can to meet the crisis in the trade unions. “Fourth: the war danger: this fight is now assuming a much more than abstract character. It is our opinion that the secretariat should be em- powered, under the direction of the political committee, to work out cer- tains basic tasks. We must fight STAR CASINO 107th Street and Park Avenue, N. Y. 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My newsdealer Is ....eseeeeee (ni ne eeeeeeecees e) eee eneneenreeerereereeeesonne (address) | No, Of COPLED .osessecsncceses | My name wage cuts in the textile mills, so ; | have the dispatches of recent days | been full of stock dividend declara~ | tions by these same mill owners. '