The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 17, 1928, Page 1

THE DAILY WORKER FIGHTS: FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNORGAN FOR THE 40-HOUR WEEK FOR A LABOR PARTY THE DAILY Wo Entered ag second-ciaxs matter at the Post Office at New York, N. ¥., under the act of March 3, 1879. ER. FINAL CITY EDITION Vol. V. No. 91. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: In New York, by mail, $8.00 per year, Outside New York, by mail, $6.00 per year. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 1928 Publ hed daily except Sunday by The National Daily Worker Publishing Association, Inc., 833 First Street, New York, N. ¥. Price 3 Cents UNORGANIZED MINERS RISING IN MASS STRIKE SOCIALIST, PARTY SAYS NO CLASS! STRUGGLE IN U.S. Rev. N. Thomas, James Maurer, Candidates On the day when 100,000 additiona! miners and 30,000 textile workers went out on strike, and less than a year after the murder by the, capital- ist class of Sacco and Vanzetti, the socialist party, holding its national convention here, decided to delete from its constitution formal recogni- tion of the class struggle in the United States. By an amendment passed at yester- day’s session of the convention, which is being held at the Finnish Socialis Hall, 2056 Fifth Ave., applicants for membership in the socialist party will no longer be required io give lip- service to the idea of a strugle be- tween the capitalist class and the workingclass. Rey. Norman Thomas was chosen as the socialist party’s candidate for president in the 1928 elections, and James Maurer as the candidate for vice-president. At Sunday’s session Victor Berger was elected national chairman of the party and Morris Hillquit interna- ticnal secretary. MASS TABLEAUX INN. Y. MAY FIRST Struggles in Mine Fields to Be Shown The class struggle raging in the mine fields as well as the sweeping movement to save the miners’ union from destruction at the hands of the John L. Lewis crew will be the theme of a series of mass tableaux to be staged at Madison Square Garden on the afternoon of May First as part of the program for the celebration of the iraditional proletarian May Day. Miners to Come to N. Y. The Miners’ Relief Committee is sponsoring the spectacle that will put forth vividly the gist of the great so- cial struggle affecting the lives of several hundred thousand miners. It is expected that a large group of miners will come to New York to take part in the tableaux which shows every promise of being artistically striking as well as dramatic and poignant from a proletarian social standpoint. A corps of experts who helped staging the mass plays for the Lenin Memorial and the Freiheit Jubilee -are at work planning the details of the show, which is so designed that it will require but four or five re- hearsals. It goes without saying that this mass-spectable will be in complete harmony with the general spirit of the May rally at the Madison Square Garden. The mass of twenty thou- sand workews that are expected to fill the huge auditorium will not be mere (Continued on Page Two) GANGSTERS BEAT UP FRUIT STRIKER 13 More Shops Settle With Clerk’s Union Abe Rosenkrantz, a striking fruit clerk, was assaulted by thugs while picketing the Sloan Public Market, 1014 Southern Boulevard, in the strike of the Bronx fruit clerks for improve- ment of conditions and for recogni- tion of their union. He was so badly injured as to need treatment from a physician. In their week-old strike ihe fruit clerks have already succeeded com- pelling settlements from over forty retail fruit store owners, with many more applications waiting for the settlement mittee’s attention. They have succeeded in breaking up the attempt of one of the largest employers to organize an association and compelled this firm, Mason and Forman, to deposit security of $1,000. Yesterday alone, approximately 13 employers signed agreements. Of the four pickets who were to come up for trial on charges of dis- orderly conduct, two were dismissed _ by Judge Douras and two were fined $1 each. . j t of a tornado which wrecked many Tornado Brings Destruction to Farm Farmers in Arkansas are suffering intense. hardship as a result farms. Photo above shows the re- mains of a farm in Rogers, Ark. The baby of Dee.Osborn in this farm had a narrow escape when the tornado lifted it from its cradle and de- posited it outside without harming it. ye | THIRTEEN DIE IN FIRE OF (Special to The Daily Worker) PITTSBURGH, April 16.—Thirteen workers, their wives and children, fire started. | The Blair Limestone Company. is a subsidiary of the open-shop Jones and Laughlin Steel Mills, the officials of which are at the forefront in the} scabe drive against the mine workers’ union locked out from the coal mines owned by the company. Officers of the Blair Limestone Company refused to give out any in- formation but W. T. Mossman of the Jones and Laughlin Company admitted that the house in which the victims met death was a one-story frame structure with only three rooms and no fire protection. CLOAK UNION TO NAME. DELEGATES Workers Respond to the Joint Board Call The response of the workers in the cloak and dress markets to the call of the Joint Board of the Cloak- makers’ Union for e mass participa- tion in the elections for delegates to{ the convention, and the eagerness with which the Joint Board circulars are being read, is being cited by the left wing leaders as an indicaticn that one of the largest- votes ever regis- tered will be rolled up at the elec- tions today. The polling places, Bryant Hall, 6th Ave. and 42nd St., Joint Board head- quarters, 16 W. 21st St., and Press- ers’ Local office, 6 W. 21st St., will be open from 8 a. m. till 9 p. m. In the call to the workers to par- ticipate en masse in the elections the Joint Board declared that these elec- tions will be a protest demonstration against the shattering of one of the most powerful unions in the country by the right wing Sigman: reaction- aries in order to remove the popular left wing leadership. * * * Results of Sigman Control. In answer to the glowing accounts of the conditions in the cloak trade pericdically printed in the right. wing Jewish Daily Forward whenever the Sigman clique decides to carry on one of its paper “organization” cam- paigns, comes the publication of a survey by the Industrial Council of | were burned to death at Blairfour early this morning in a fire which started |in a company-owned house of the Blair Limestone Company. Details are lacking as to how the@ GORDON FUND AT U. OF WISCONSIN Classmates Plan Appeal for Communist Poet MADISON, Wis., April 16.—Stu- dents at the University of Wisconsin here have made plans for raising funds for an appeal for David Gor- don, member of the Young Workers (Communist) League, now in the New York County Reformatory for a poem published in The DAILY WORKER, organ of the Workers (Communist) Party. - ~ The Keymen of America, the Amer- ican Legion, the Daughters of the American Revolution and similar or- ganizations took exception to criti- cism of capitalist culture contained in the poem and instigated the prose- cution of the young author as part of a general attack on The DAILY WORKER for its militant working class program. Gordon came here with a Zona Gale scholarship and when summoned from his studies to appear in New York two weeks ago did not appear to realize that he was going to prison to serve three years. JOBLESS TO HOLD 5 MEETS THIS WEEK N. Y. Council to Push Relief Demands With long bread lines still forming daily in New York despite announce- ments to the contrary on the part of politicians who are doing nothing to relieve the unemployed, the New York Council of the Unemployed is con- tinuing its drive for organization and relief with several protest meetings this week. The first will be held Tuesday, 8 p. m. at 138th St. and Lenox Ave.; Padmore, R. B. Mcore and Louis A. Baum will speak. Others will be held Wednesday, 2 p. m., at Union Square; Thursday, one at 11 a, m. at 101 W. 27th St. and another in the Bronx at 8 p. m. at 138th St. the Cloak Manufacturers which only; and St. Ann’s Ave. and the last, Sat- partially admits the chaos in the|}urday afternoon at Rutgers Square.| will address the meeting. cloak trade. The survey states that 12 members ¢ of the Industrial Council, which con- sists mainly of large modern manu- facturing plants, left the association and became non-union jobbers, Two members left the association and frankly announced an open shop pol- iey. The following, however, is point- ed out as the most damning evidence of the disruption of the trade by the (Continued on Page Five) Gov. Al Smith Delays Graft Investigation Supreme Court Justice Arthur Tompkins, sitting in the Queens County Court in Long Island City, to- day postponed until Friday the draw- ing of grand jurors to hear evidence in the $29,500,000 Queen’s sewer in- vestigation which led to the resigna- tion of Borough President Maurice E. Connolly. The postponement followed Gov. Alfred E.)Smith’s action in directing the grand jury to convene May 8 in- stead of this week, as previously scheduled. The drawing of jurors was to have been made today. COMPANY-OWNED SHACK 30,000 Textile Workers Are Out on Strike WALKOUT AGAINST. WAGE REDUCTION IS 100% EFFECTIVE Mill Committees Call Mass Meetings (Special to The Daily Worker) NEW BEDFORD, April 16.— Thirty thousand workers struck in the New Bedford mills strike this morning. The ranks of the strikers are solid despite the failure of the union leadership to make arrange- ments for picketing. The Textile Mill Committees in New Bedford issued a public state- ment and leaflets calling for mass picketing, and for the organization of a rank and file strike committee to ensure the strike against a be- trayal similar to that in Fall River. Workers are joining the Textile Mill Committees in large numbers. The committees are raising demands for a 20 per cent increase in wages, the 8 hour day, 5 day week and the elimination of the speed-up system. The Textile Mill Committees are calling a big mass meeting to be held Wednesday afternoon at 2 o’clock in the Bristol Arena, New Bedford. Other mass meetings are being prepared and will be an- nounced later. * * NEW BEDFORD, Mass., April 16. —With a response seldom rivalled for its unanimity, thirty-five thousand textile workers here went on strike yesterday morning against the 27 New Bedford cotton manufacturing mills who were to have put into effect a wage cut of ten per cent today. Despite the fact that the over- whelming majority of the workers in the mills are unorganized they obeyed the decision of union membership, who, in a strike vote taken last Fri- day decided overwhelmingly to begin a fight to the finish against the wage- cut and speed-up policy of the mill barons. *% Committees Help. Largely responsible for the mar- shalling of the deep resentment against the wage cut evidenced by the tens of thousands of unorganized workers are the Textile Mill Com- mittees, an organization of militant workers with units in all the large textile plants in New England. These committees thru their central body flooded New Bedford with lierature calling for 100 per cent resistance against ‘the textile manufacturers’ vicious attacks on the workers’ stan- dards. Postponement of the strike was strongly fought for at the meeting of Textile Council by the officials of some of the locals of the union. It was learned that Samuel Ross, head of the Mule Spinners’ Local, who is also a member of the State Labor Board (Continued on Page Two) * The Season Opens Section 1, Workers (Communist) Party will hold its first open air meeting of the year tomorrow even- ing at 8 o'clock, at 10th St. and Sec- ond Ave. Pascal Cosgrove, organizer) of the hotel and restaurant workers} branch of the Amalgamated Food) Workers’ Union, and other speakers! ,attorney, Judge Maddenly in court h a Anti-War White House Pickets Arraigned Protesting the Wall Street war against the Nicaraguan workers, 107 pickets were arrested in a dem nonstration at the White House on Saturday. The demonstration was held under the auspices of the All- America anti-Imperialist League. raigned at police headquarters in W. FINE 84 FOR Photo shows the pickets being ar- ashington. ~PROTEST OF WAR ON NICARAGUA i WASHINGTON, April 16.—Following a loud and bald-faced espousal of the Coolidge government’s invasion of Nicaragua by the United States e: o) BONITA DEFENSE FIGHTS VERDICT Files Exception to the Judge’s Ruling WILKES-BARRE, April 16—An appeal from and an exception to the verdict in the case of Sam Bonita, young Pittston miner was yesterday taken by attorneys, J. H. Dando, F. J. and J. H. Flannery who filed reasons for an arrest of judgement and for a new trial. The reasons are based on the fact that the jury’s first verdict was one of “involuntary manslaughter” which at the order of the judge was changed | to “manslaughter.” On conviction of manslaughter the penalty is from six to twelve years. In the case of in-| voluntary manslaughter the penalty | is eighteen months to three years. In view of the suspicious circum- (Continued on Page Two) WORKERS’ CENTER BETTING MORE AID Bronx Sections Plan for Energetic Campaign The Bronx is swinging into action in the drive for $30,000 to purchase and finance the new Workers Center, 26-28 Union Square. At a meeting of Section 5 executive committee plans | were made for carrying on the cam-| paign in an intensive manner. Special Workers Party members of | Section 5 have been selected to direct the work of the units in the section and to canvass thoroughly all work- ing class organizations in the Bronx. The quota of this section is $2,800, but the members of the section execu- | tive committee feel certain, that with | the cooperation of every member in| (Continued on Page Two) | ® Workers. Four)” 100,000 Miners on Strike 30,000 Textile Workers on Strike To Save the Union; For a Victorious Strike; For the Miners’ Control of Their Union; Against the Wage Cut; Against the Speed-up; Against Longer Hours Thousands of requests are being made in every mail for The DAILY WORKER from the Striking Miners. requests are already coming in from the striking Textile All expired subscriptions of strikers are still being sent even tho the strikers can not afford to renew their subscription. Every day we are sending 4,000 area FREE OF CHARGE. We have WORKER into the Textile strike area Our Resources Are Limited——-We Cannot Afford It Any Longer Help us keep up the work-—-Help us to increase the circulation Help the Striking Miners--Help the Striking Textile Workers Send to the Daily Worker a free subscription to the strikers. Send The DAILY WORKER into the strike areas. Thousands more WANT The DAILY WORKER. Thousands more LIKE The DAILY WORKER. Thousands more NEED The DAILY WORKER. Send a subscription to the Strikers. ~~ liunetion aimed to prevent Hundreds of apers to the mine strike un to send The DAILY REE OF CHARGE. _ $Name Addre: City . picketing THE DAILY WORKER 83 FIRST STREET New York City months months months months month “(Continued on Page Five) » re today imposed fines on 84 of the pickets who participated in the dem- | onstration at the White House against the Nicaraguan war Satur- day. A total of 107 men and women were arrested when police and agents of | the department of justice surrounded the demonstrators. Thirty-one were in jail from the time of their arrest until after the trial today. The dem- onstration was held under the aus- pices of the All-American Anti-Im- perialist League. “The government, of which this court. is a part, must not toljrate em» barrassment of President Coolidge,” the United States attorney said in de- manding that the demonstrators be found guilty. He called the court’s attention to the placards which the pickets had carried attacking the Nicaraguan in- vasion. The pickets were arrested under an ordinance governing parades in the District of Columbia. “The judge’s attitude proves that the whole government is prosecuting the war on Nicaragua,” Manuel Gom- ez, secretary of the United States sec- | tion of the All-American Anti-Imper- jalist League, said after the fines were imposed. “The militant work- ers of the United Stafes will con- tinue their fight for the Nicaraguan army of independence led by Gen. Sandino.” Money is needed to help pay the fines of the demonstrators, consist- ing largely of workers from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Wash- ington and Wilmington, according to Gomez. The maximum penalty under the ordinance is $5. The judge imposed the maximum, “Y’m sorry I can’t give you more,” he said to the defendants. Appeal to Masses. Slogans displayed by the pickets on their placards were as fo! “We Do Not Appeal to the White House But to the Masses Against the White House”; “We Demand the Immediate } Recall of the Marines From Nicara-| gua;” “Millions Unemployed While United States Funds Go For Conquest”; “Why Not Help the Farm- ers Instead of the Bankers in Nicara- gue. “Wall Street, Not Sandino, is the Real Bandit in Nicaragua”; “Im- perialism Means World War’; “Sup- port Sandino Against Wall Street and Its Politicians,” and “Defeat the War Against Nicaragua.” Students at Workers! School Meet Tomorrow An important meeting of class sec- retaries and student representatives of the Workers School, 108 E. 14th St., will be held tomorrow at 8 p. m. in Room 46. A program for future activities of the Student Council when the Work- ers School is established at the New Workers Center will be at the meeting. formulated Bertram D. Wolfe, director of the school, D. Benjamin, assistant direc- tor and A. Markoff, chairman of the district school committee, the discussion. | tive secretary of the Student Council, will preside. will lead Sidney Levy, execu- MAGIL ON RADIO TONIGHT. A. B. Magil, of The DAILY WORKER staff, will read from his poems from station WEVD tonight at 10:40 o’clock as part of the weekly program of the “Rebel Poets.” THOUSANDS BEGIN PICKETING WHILE WALKOUT GROWS Police Terror Spurs on Movement (Special to The Daily Worker) PT 3URGH, April 16. — The great strike of the unorganized sec- tion: West Pennsylvania broke this ning in prac ly every mine dis- ict. More than 10,000 non-union miners left the coal pits by ten o’clock at the call of the Save-the-Union fore ayette County miners near Brownsville have shut down the-pits completely. At Thompson number one Republic mine one-half of the miners walked out. The remainder | went down for their tools and a com- plete shut-down is expected by this evening. Strike Widespread. Reports from White Valley, West- moreland County indicate that 600 men have left the pits. Delmont Mine is closed down 100 per cent. At Clarksville Mine, only 10 per cent of the men reported for work. In the union districts throughout Pennsyl- vania great picket lines of men and women are pulling out strike breakers in spite of tear and gas bomb attacks by police and state troopers, |. Numerous arrests have been made, but other mine pickets have taken their places and picketing goes on in great force. Sentiment everywhere is very strong and the strike is spread- ing to every district, * * y (Special to The Daily Worker) PITTSBURGH, April 16.—Despite the extreme terrorism and threats of | evictions a steady stream of non- | union miners continued today to pour out from the coal pits. ‘Three hundred men left the Avella mines. A similar number walked out at the P. & W. Mine at Coverdale. ;At Midland number one mine only fifty men have remained at work and | these will be out this evening as soon jas they bring up their tools, Mass picketing organized by the Save-the-Union Committee is bring- |ing tremendous response. Women in Meadowland have made a special ap- peal to the women of the scab mines. As a result only 75 miners appeared at the tipple. Tear gas bombs have been thrown by state troopers, but picketing has increased in spite of the terrorism by the police. Stifle False Rumors, False rumors that the strike in the unorganized fields had been called off | were circulated over the radio by ; agents working for the operators and the union officials. Operator-con- trolled, labor papers have been print- ing malicious statements about the left wing movement; detective agen- cies have been circulating false news in the name of tne Save-the-Union (Continued on Page Five) LEWIS MACHINE { . Strike Spreads. oe | - EXPELS LOCALS {Penn Miners Will Re- fuse to Recognize Act AVELLA, Pa., April 15 (By Mail). | —When Sam Caddy, international or ganizer who was sent into the field | by John L. Lewis challenged all union |men who did not agree with the poli- jdes of the Lewis administration to jleave the field, the ‘overwhelming |number of miners did march away |from the open air mass meeting in | Avella Friday afternoon, April 18 | State troopers were present to avert | 8 demonstration. The handful of men remaining, who were brought to the meeting in six trucks, bleated in the affirmative to every resolution introduced by the machine officials like so many sheep. | later in the day, Pat Pagan, presi- | dent of District 5, declared the char- | ters of the four Avella locals revoked. | This meeting came as a result of the refusal of the Avella locals to expel their delegates who attended the “Save-the-Union” conference in Pitts- burgh April 1 and 2, and the attack of the women upon Carlyle Woleutt, internaticnal organizer, when he at- tempted to give relief only to the few miners who signed the “yellow dog (Continued on Page Two)