The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 31, 1928, Page 8

_ meets in Pittsburgh Sunday must give the answer of the Mine | take the union out of the hands of its enemies, which will draw coal as well as soft coal, into the strike, and win the strike. Page Eight ee DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1928 - THE DAILY WORKER: Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS'N, Ine. Daily, Except Sunday 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. Cable Addres: SUBSCRIPTION RAT By Mail (in New York only): By Mz $8.00 per year $4.50 six months 5. $2.50 three months. ” Phone, Orchard 1680 “Dalwork New York): | x months Address and mail out eck > x it THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. Y. a ME RAO ccc ah g abe w ses ..ROBERT MINOR 5 Assistant Editor... ae ..WM. F. DUNNE mereted as second-class mail at the post-office at New Y y NS under | the act of March 3, 3. ° , ‘ ; : FE fe | Miners’ Union Fights for Life oO Four million men, women and children of our class are fight- ing for the right to live. Eight hundred thousand bituminous coal miners and over 100,000 anthracite miners, with their wives and children, an addi- | tional 3,000,000, are involved in the struggle. | From the point of view of our class, there can be no more | important section than the mine worke They occupy a most strategic point in manufacture, in transport by rail and by water, in industry in general. The great union which they have built up, and which they have-fought for, even died for, during the past two-score years, is the keystone of the trade union movement- Also from the point of view of the enemies of the working class the coal industry is a most important strategic section of American industry as a whole. The metal industr iron and | steel, and coal and oil, are the source from which has arisen the great industrial power which has merged with the great banking | capital centered in Wall Street, to form the Oligarchy of Finance- Capital which rules the United States and carries American im- perialism into world domination. The coal industry is vital to the American working class. Coal is important to the American capitalist class. Coal is at the present time the strategic point in the tremen- dous struggle between the working class and the capitalist class. Capitalist leaders, such as Schwab, Mellon and Rockefeller know this. These capitalist rulers of the United States have decided | to eliminate all union organization from the coal fields. They are working and maneuvering and fighting now to reduce the coal miners to that form of complete slavery known as the open-shop —the scab mine. The mine workers without their union would be |i helpless and hopeless slaves of the company officials. Even with the union, slavery exists. Without the union in any field, that slavery would be beyond human endurance. Yet this open-shop slavery is the aim of the coal operators. This is what Charles M. Schwab meant when he testified a few days ago that he would not say unreservedly that there should be collective bargaining in the coal fields. This is what Rockefeller meant, and what Mellon meant when they used similar words. CSR Se But the scab-herders do not work only by direct means. The greatest victory that the operators won in their effort to destroy the United Mine Workers was in the election of John L. Lewis to the presidency of the union in 1920. Lewis does not believe in'fighting the coal operators. Lewis ‘elieves in class-collaboration, that is, collaboration between the leaders of the union and the scab operators. Lewis belongs to the same political party with all of the biggest scab operators, and with the chief of all the operators, A. W. Mellon. John L. Lewis is a supporter of what he calls “American in- stitutions,” that is, a supporter of the private ownership of the mining and all other industries by the great capitalists, and the perpetual exploitation of the working class for private profit; he believes in capitalist government, that is the dictatorship of the capitalist class over the working class; he believes in the Coal and Iron Police, and in the capitalist courts which issue decree injunctions against the workers; he is against violating these injunctions, he is against mass picketing, he is even against the workers going on strike to win anything from the operators— because Lewis is a friend of the mine operators and the capitalists. Lewis is an enemy of the working class. He is an enemy of the United Mine Workers’ Union. Therefore there is nothing surprising in the fact that since Lewis became president of the union, the coal operators have ‘won fight after fight against the union. In 1920 the United Mine Workers had 500,000 members. Lewis, the friend of the operators, took over the presidency of the union in 1920. Since that time the union has gone down from 500,000 members to less than 300,000. The amount of coal dug under union conditions was 70 per cent, and under Lewis’ control, the union-dug coal has gone down to 30 per cent. Lewis, who shook hands with Rockefeller, extended the hand of friendship to the man who broke his union in West Virginia. He is also the friend of the steel trust. In 1922, when the great strike occurred, Lewis tried to save the Steel Trust from any embarrassment by preventing the mine workers from joining the “strike in those mines. which produce coking coal needed by the Steel Trust. When the miners of Washington and Fayette coun- ties came out on strike in spite of him, Lewis deliberately left them out of the agreement that was signed, in order virtually to | throw them back out of the union and thus give to his friends of the Steel Trust a free hand in scab coal production for the steel mills. . John L. Lewis is an agent of the coal operators within the United Mine Workers’ Union. In every district of the union, ‘Lewis’ sub-agents, Fishwick in Illinois, Fagan in western Penn- » sylvania, Cappelini and Boylan in the anthracite, Hall in Ohio, Kennedy, Golden, etc., etc.—all working as Lewis is working, | against the mine workers and for the policies which help the operators against the miners. This is leading straight toward the destruction of the United Mine Workers. With Lewis’ help inside the Union, the operators are now proceeding with a nation-wide lockout to wipe out unionism in the whole coal fields of the United States. The United Mine Workers’ Union, greatest of American trade | “pions facing the crisis of its life. | The great conference of the Save-the-Union Committee wi hich | Workers to the enemies of the union, outside and inside. | From this conference must come the motive force that will | the. entire 800,000 coal miners, organized and unorganized, hard | John L. Lewis must go. | The strike must be won. The United Mine Workers’ Union must be saved. _ The mine workers must take over the control of the union SLAG By FRED ELLIS By WILLIAM W. WEINSTONE. The rank and file miners are writ- ing a new and glorious page in the| history of the American labor move- | ment. The Miners’ Union in its struggle is inseparably bound up with the history of the entire Ameri- can labor movement. The battles of the miners against the coal barons and their gunmen are written in red upon the pages of the history of the American class strug- gle. This union has been the pride of militant labor and in spite of the treacherous policy of the Gompers leadership for the past decades has been able to hold high the flag of the class struggle of militancy, of viril- ity, of hope for the working class. It is for that reason ‘that the big banking interests and their reaction- ary capitalist politicians have been doing everything in their power to destroy the Miners’ Union—this back- bone of the American Federation of Labor. Lewis Against Miners. Lewis has been doing his job of de- moralizing and destroying this union, In Soviet Russia, special attention is given to the health of the children. This is done centrifically. In Moscow, I visited the Institute for the Protection of the Health and Life of Mother and Child. This in- stitute occupies a very huge build- ing at the same grounds where the Palace of Labor stands, It has many other smaller buildings attached ‘to it. It is surrounded by a very big | park and loyg rows of big trees. The grounds are probably as big as Cen- tral Park. A Soviet Mother’s Institute. and has room, modern improvements, a laboratory, operating clean airy rooms, The institute is under the super- medical specialists. Two doctors are attached to the institu- tion. to three years. The mothers are taught how to take care of themselves in time of pregnancy and otherwise in special periods, etc. by competent doctors of the institu- tion and by illustrations and draw- By MOISSAYE OLGIN. _When we think of the Pittsburgh conference and the movement around it, we cannot help recalling another movement in another country. The Lena Strike. Lena, Siberia. The year 1912. Just six years after the collapse of the first Russian revolution. Darkness in Russia. Dispair among the masses. Revolutionary labor movement re- duced to » minimum (2,863,173 strik- ers in 1905, 64,166 in 1909, 46,623 in | 1910). The open shop reigns supreme. Injunctions a la Russe have closed | 898 out of a total of 1,010 registered unions. The prisons are full. The workers’ pockets are empty. Prices are mounting every day. Wages lag behind. The Mellons and Coolidges of Russia, called Stolypin and Mak- arov, have introduced a system of o their own ee y" the oF terror hardly surpassed in Pennsyl- \ The institute is occupied with all | huge vision of a staff of very competent hundred In this institute the children are taken care of from the time of birth The mothers are also taught how to take care of the babies interests. jerew that rules America. {agents have been at work destroying} the union. But the Lewises and the fighting spirit of the miners and of the left wing. They have betrayed | | hundreds of thousands of workers in Pennsylvania, in Illinois, in Ohio, and able exploited workers of West Vir- ginia and Kentucky, Their policy has been “rule or ruin” and they have worked with the operators to strike terrible blows at the miners’ union. But the insurgent movement of the rank and file through the “Save the Union Committee” is showing that the old spirit of uncompromising struggle against the capitalists still lives within the Miners’ Union and is the force that will destroy the Lewis machine and build more pow- erful than ever before this union of the foremost section of the American labor movement, The struggle of the miners to save their union, to organize the unor- ings, pictures and reproductions in models, The institute has nurseries for chil- dren from 2 months to 8 years. The children are grouped in tens from 2 months to 6 months, from 6 months to 1 year, 1 year to 2 years and from 2 to 3 years. Each group has its rooms, one trained nurse, two nan- yas, or practical nurses, a room where they sleep, a room for play and ex- vania, Ohio and Illinois. Everything seems as black as only the Matthew Wolls and John Lewises can make it. And then, of a sudden, Lena! In far away Siberia, in the Lena goldfields, several thousand workers struck. It was an ordinary strike. It was an orderly strike. The mass elected dele- gates to present demands to the ad- ministration. The delegates peace- fully approached the company’s premises. The strikers marched be- hind to learn the results of the parley. They were met with volleys from army detachments summoned. by the company. 270 were killed, 250 wounded. The strike was broken. It seemed a defeat. It sent a shud- der of horror throughout the ranks of labor, much as the Colorado mas- sacres did. The master class had once more shown its iron claws. In the silly helpless Russian parliament Greens have not reckoned upon the, have abandoned completely the miser-| the fight against class collaboration, against cringingly accepting lower wages and longer hours, vitally con- cerns every craft and every section of | The out-|tling with an invincible spirit. Sub- America’s army of labor. come of the fraggle conducted by the “Save backed up # ie The United Mine Workers’ Union is in a fair way to dump Mr. John L. Lewis, agent of the coal operators, and all of Lewis’ henchmen, who are working for the operators within the Union. Common Cause for Black and White Worker Of the 4,000 lynchings, in almost every instance, some economic cause stands in the background, even when the foreground is occupied by sex scare or the crime bogey: The papers will say— “A Negro was lynched for murdering a white man,” but will not explain that the “white man” in ques- tion was really a slave-driver, who was attempting to whip or maim the Negro for demanding more pay and for refusing to work; or maybe the “murder” occurred when the Negro was attempting to defend his home or to conduct his business in a place from which his white rivals were seeking to oust him. The papers only mention the “murder.” They begin in the middle, at the closing scene of the drama. All the economic pre- ambles and prologues are entirely ignored. Most of the “race riots,” when investigated, turn out to have nothing to do with race as such, but to be efforts to beat the colored work- ing. masses back into the “place” from which they are naturally seek- ing to emerge. The only logic of the whole matter is: That white and black workers should defend each other—in both life and wages—in personal rights and in economic status. —Wnm. Pickens, national organ- izer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in the April issue of the “Labor Defender.” arenatentehi as a conscious tool of the open shop] ganized, to beat back the attempts to) state machinery and the working class His services have been of | destroy the living standards built up| will become wretched slaves at the inestimable value to the Wall Street/ after decades is the struggle of the| complete mercy of the big czaristic These | entire labor movement. The issue of| employers. Militant Miners Fight. But the militant miners are dash- ing to pieces the hopes of the open shop interests. The miners are bat- jected to hunger, to the terror of com- Union” Committee | pany spies, state cossacks and gun- overwhelming mass men, they are overcoming all of these of the rank and file will affect the| grim obstacles in the way of reor- course of the future development of/| ganizing their union into a powerful the labor movement. Should the operators and their hired agents, the Lewises and Cap- pelinis, be successful, the American labor movement will become a stag- nant pool, will degenerate and be nar- rowed down to a small sect unable to withstand the program of the Amer- ican imperialists to completely en- slave labor to the chariot of war. De- struction of the Miners’ Union will be followed by destruction of the re- maining mass unions (building trades, etc). Should the Lewises and Greens be successful, the American labor movement will be tied to capitalist instrument of the labor movement. This powerful movement of the “Save the Union” Committee, this uncon- querable determination to maintain their organization in the face of all odds, means that labor will fight! That the needle trades workers facing sweatshop conditions, the textile textile barons, the automobile work- workers under the iron heel of the Ford system of exploitation, the shoe workers ground under the heavy wheel of company unionism, the trac- tion workers enslaved by the traction kings and their capitalist politicians, the seamen unorganized and enduring ercises and an attached dining room.) very beginning to cleanliness and or- The rooms are immaculately clean and have colorful paintings on the walls which the doctor explained is very essential for the kiddies. There’ are also toys for the children. The! toys are selected scientifically to de- velop the children mentally and physically. Toys to develop collective undertakings and responsibility. The children are trained from the A rest home for peasant women and worker's wives in Soviet Russia. This was formerly an aristocrat’s palace. Palaces formerly used for the pleasure of a few idlers in Russia are now used as institutions for medi- cal care and rest for the workers. called the Duma, Minister of the In- terior Makarov, in reply to an inter- pellation, declared: “Thus it has been, thus it shall be—forever.” To which the representatives of labor replied: ae it has been, thus it shall not The Turning Point. It seemed a defeat. Yet is was the turning point. It marked the begin- ning of a rising tide. It shook the workers out of lethargy. It mobilized them for action. After Lena, strikes are increasing in number and scope: 1912—725,490 _ strikers; 096; 1914—1,337,458. After 1914 came 1917 and the final Vietory of | A, the workers. When we' think of Pittsburgh, we inevitably recall Lena. What was it that made Lena the turning point? A realization by the workers that they must stand up and fight for 4 CG 1913—887,- der and self-reliance. Everything is arranged in such order that the child is trained not under the whip of compulsion, of threat of punishment, etc. The food is’ prepared by special dieticians for the kiddies. When I vsiited the institution I no- ticed a very long row of little beds in the park. Later I found out that the kiddies are kept outdoors there every day for 3 hours. In the summer the children are kept outdoors the whole day. There is a special summer park on the grounds where the children are kept during the summer. It has little immer houses for each group of hildren. In the winter, the park is i closed. The institute has yards for sick children and sick mothers and also a ward for pregnant women who are not normal and have to be taken care of for some time before birth. The institute has also a sanitariur ie the country for children who need it. The doctor in charge is a very pleasant man of about 45 years. He told the visitors that now they are well off. He said, “Now we have linens, as much as we need. We have their lives. What is it that drives the miners to the Pittsburgh confer- ence? A realization that they must do something against the combined attack of the companies, the state power and the reactionary labor of- ficials. Both Pittsburgh and Lena mark the sinking of the workers into an abyss of poverty and hunger. Both signify the use of brute force against those who strive to improve their lives. Both are indications that the workers’ patience is at an end. Both express a rising protest against the powers that thrive on human blood. For years and years the workers of America have born the yoke pationtly. The masters ruled. The masters broke every strike or took away the fruit of a successful strike. The masters broke the union organi- zations. The masters cut wages and worsened labor conditions, The Miners Are on the March to Save Union unbearable conditions, will likewise take up the battle against their ene- mies and can look to the April 1st conference of the “Save the Union” Committee with a feeling of hope | that this vanguard of the labor move- | ment, the miners, will fight out the class-struggle with success, All eyes to the April 1st confer- ence! All support to the April ist con- ference! Here is being forged an un- in one inseparable army, that will breakable chain that will unite labor help to organize thé millions of un- organized slaves in industry, that is paving the way for the freedom of the workers from class collaboration, that is beating a wide trail through the wilderness of capitalism, and that will help in the freeing of the work- ing class from the capitalist system and from the dictatorship of the cap- italist class. And in the front ranks stands the ilitant left wing, at the head of ermined Communists and their hich are the courageous, far-seeing, party—the Workers (Communist) Party! Workers, join this Party! How Soviet Russia IsGaring for the Working Mother light and heat.” “In 1921-22,” he said, “we had to work without this and many others things. We are well off now. Of course we are still poor, we need more, but we are going ahead.” Then he said the govern- ment’s subsidy for the protection of health and life of mothers and chil- dren in Soviet Russia is a thousand times as big as in any capitalist coun- try in the world including rich Amer- fea. Workers Need Not Pay, None of the patients pay in this institution. Neither is there any- thing paid for the babies in the nur- series. This is only for working wo- men and workers’ wives and their children. In the nurseries only the babies of working mothers are taken in. It should be remembered that before the revolution, the children of the workers, under the ezar’s regime, were born and died like cats. It was only a matter that the stronaeet sur- vived. I ask the working mothers and workers’ wives of America whether America takes such care of the mothers and children of the workers, In another article I will take up another medical institution in Soviet Russia which takes care of the work- ers’ children in the schools from the age of 5 years to the age of 17 years. Lena, Colorado, Pittsburgh-Turning Points in History of Workers masters bribed the labor officials: chaining them by chains of gold to their victorious chariot. Mercilessly danced the the lash on the bent backs of wage slaves. The backs are now beginning to straighten. Fists are being clenched. Hatred surges. The spirit of liberty is abroad. “We are out to save our union and make it an instrument to defeat our bosses,” say thousand upom thousand of haggard want-worn miners. “We are out to fight tor our very lives!” Far and near, the call of the miners finds response. The world of labor looks at Pittsburgh with rising hope. The world of the exploiters looks at it with dismay. The masses awakem, The masses take their fate into their own hands. It devolves upon all of us to make this a turning point. coxr i gabercsmneccee