The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 17, 1928, Page 6

Page Six THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESD. THE DAILY WORKER| Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS’N, Inc. val: Except Sunday $3 First Street, New York, mae i ddreus: Phone, Orchard 1680 iwork” SUBSCRIPTION os By Mail (in New York only) 2 $8.00 per year $4.50 six mon $2.50 three months. (outside of New York): ar $3.50 six months 0 three months. a Address and mail out checks to DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. .-ROBERT MINOR ..WM. F. DUNNE bnwered as second-class mail at the post-office at New York, N. ¥., the act of March 3, 1879. They Won't Take It Lying Down The move of the 100,000 unorganized mine workers who are marching out in Western Pennsylvania and the 80,000 textile op- eratives who by unanimous will laid down their tools against the ten percent wage-cut in New Bedford, is a lesson to those who think there is no fighting spirit among the workers in the United States. The movement among the coal miners is rapidly assuming the proportions of a great national strike. In spite of every handicap that could be devised to prevent the expression of the will of the miners—even the control of the Union machinery at the top by the coal operators—the most obvious truth is that the ranks of more than half a million coal miners are already seeth- ing with determination to fight their way out of the impossible slavery and starvation now being imposed upon them. No longer does anyone try to conceal] the fact that the right of the coal mine workers to live and to feed their chlidren is at stake. When Oral Daugherty, president of the Hocking sub-district of the Mine Workers in Ohio, told a meeting of enraged miners last Thursday, “We will have to get rid of part of you, so we can care for the rest,” and when in the same breath he admitted “there is noth- ‘ing I can do for you,” while declaring “if I obey the policies laid down by John L. Lewis I can’t go out and lead marches,”—he showed plainly that the official bureaucracy that follows Lewis is fighting against the mine workers and for the coal operators. ' Daugherty, the pessimist, said, “You can’t win a strike un- less everybody strikes.’’ The rank and file coal miners, optimists who still have faith in their class, raised the ringing cry, ‘““We can win the strike, because everybody strikes!” The fight of the Pennsylvania and Ohio mine workers is go-| ing stronger in spite of near starvation and misery, in spite of the violence used against the miners by bosses and agents of the bosses in the Union, than it was a year ago in determination and fighting strength. | The Illinois mine workers, fighting against the open treachery of the Lewis-Fishwich policy in signing up separate agreements, are equally determined. The Anthracite miners are rapidly developing the struggle against the operators, beginning with the point of the contract+| system, and which can lead only to the nation-wide strike with the hard coal miners fighting side-by-side with their brothers of the bituminous fields. In short a national coal strike for a national agreement set- Uement is now in progress. The textile industry, of course, very different from the coal industry, is nevertheless in a national crisis to be compared with that of the coal industry. The attack of the mill owners against the standard of living of the textile workers has been going on since the end of the 1920 boom. Wage-cut after wage-cut and a growing speeding up of work with lengthening of hours, have goaded the mill workers to the point where in the typical New England section of New Bedford, the will to fight the bosses is expressed in a 100% strike. The mill workers answered the strike call practically as one man. The Textile workers will fight. The Mine workers will fight. Only the union bureaucracy will not fight. But the mine workers and the textile workers have shown that they wili fight the bosses whether the officials of the Unions are willing or not. The Lewis bureaucracy has made itself a part of the front line of the mine owners, and has thus made necessary that the mine workers fight the officials at the same time as the bosses. Yet under these most difficult conditions, the tremendous will of the miners to save their Union and to fight for their right to existence, is sweeping the entire country into the national struggle. All hesitation and willingness to surrender, on the part of | officials of textile unions, has had to give way to the fighting spirit of the textile slaves. The will to struggle, the determination of the workers in these two hard-pressed sections of the American workers to resist the capitalist offensive, promises much for the Labor movement. In this moment of the offensive of the capitalist class against the working class, the working class, in its most important sec- tions, shows that it will not take it t lying down. SMOKE RINGS TURN TO DOLLARS FOR A FEW By LELAND OLDS (Federated Press). Camels, esterfields, Luckies and Old Golds between them produced ubout $70,000,000 in profits in 1927, Each dollar of profits was matched by a dollar spent on advertising to persuade men, women and children to in- crease their consumption of thesce¢- THE Y. Assistant Editor... under leading brands of cigarets. As a re sult America’s consumption was whipped up from 89,447,114,951 inj 1926 to 97,176,607,484 in 1927. To Spend $70,000,000. The 4 leading tobacco companies expect to spend more than $70,000,- 000 this year in pushing the 1928 smoking of cigarets to a new high figure. Reynolds Tobacco will spend more than $20,000,000 in advertising Camels; Liggett & Myers will match that figure for Chesterfieids; Amer-| ican Tobacco is expected to lay out) close to $25,000,000 in boosting Lucky Strikes; while Lorillard’s ex- penditure on Old Gold is expected to top last year’s total of $6,000,000. More Profits Wanted. The stage is set for one of capital-| ism’s grand assaults on the public pocket. The aim is not to satisfy but to stimulate the public appetite for cigarets in order to satisfy the de- mand of the investing elass for more profits. Each of the 100,000,000, 000, cigarets to be purchased in 1928 will) assess a small tribute on the con-| sumer. The small tributes taken al | together will total upward: # $150,- ~~ aires | 000,000, bout half of which will go | to advertising and half into the cof- |fers of the owning class. 36 Per Cent Returns. The tobacco manufacturing com- panies, according to the Wall Street | Journal, have just closed the most | prosperous year in their history. Profits of the 10 leading concerns! totaled $89,548,001, compered with | $84,511,249 in 1926, $80,928,909 | in 1925 and $73,470,872 in 1924. The rate of return on the invest- ment in some of these tobacco com- panies are extraordinary. The Rey-| nolds profit is reckoned at $7.27 on $25 par value stock, or about 29%. | But stock dividends since 1920 have | multiplied the holdings of the own- | ers more than 6 times over so that} the real rate of return figures at| about 180%. American Tobacco’s re- turn of $10.29 a share really means about 36% on the investment of the owners, The Liggett & Myers profit sim- \ilarly figures at about 35%, Amer- ican Cigar at 24.88%, General Cigar & “THERE’S YOUR ANSWER!” Strike! By Fred Ellis The textile workers of New Bedford reject the infamous proposal of the mill owners to make another ten per cent cut in their present starvation wages. 4000,000Starve; Rich Get Richer in Wall Street By SCOTT NEARING 4,000,000 shares of stock recently changed hands in one day on the New York stock exchange. On the follow- ing day the number reached 4,790,000, This was the 13th consecutive day on which 3,000,000 shares or more changed hands. Radio shares, motor shares, oil shares, railroad shares vied with one another in the mighty com- petitive struggle of speculation run- ning wild. Two weeks ago a seat on the New York Stock Exchange sold for $350,- 000. When the orgy of speculation was at its height a seat changed hands at the record price of $375,000. Glorified Poker. Seats on the New York stock ex- change entitle their owners to a place on the floor of the exchange, where they buy and sell stocks and bonds either for their private profit or for the profit of their clients. No economic values are created on the stock exchange. Brokers who buy and sell and clients who order secur- ities bought and sold do so chiefly in an effort to get something for nothing. It is a gambling game in which the stakes run into millions. Gambling is an old game. Men have gambled in many places and in many ways, but perhaps never before was one man willing to pay $375,000 for the privilege of representing other men in a gambling game. 4,000,000 Unemployed. { 4,000,000 unemployed — in bread lines on the Bowery; patiently waiting Ohio; tramping the streets in a fruit- less search for work; sitting hope- lessly at home; besieging the charity societies in St. Louis, badgered by the police in Los Angeles. parasitic, unprosperous 1928 U.S. At By ARNE SWABECK At the April 10 Illinois primary elections, a number of so-called labor | friends were snowed under by an| avalanche of hostile votes. The Small- Thompson-Smith-Crowe republican clique suffered the worst defeat of its career. The much-heralded “Am- erica First” ship was sunk, but as the smoke of the battle is clearing away, one question now becomes of first rate importance: Does Labor, and particularly its organized section, begin to perceive the treasonable character of the poli- tieal policy pursued by the trade union officialdom, of supporting “Labor’s friends”. and punishing its enemies, on the capitalist party tick- ets? Certainly in these primaries the bankruptcy of that policy was ex- posed, Huge Stakes. While an anxious world was hold- ing its breath preparing to watch Chicago shooting its way to the polls, the primary fight showed the mad seramble of the various corrupt poli- tical cliques to capture the alluring offices. The stakes were great for the capitalist politicians. There were the immense omnibus bills passed by the last legislature, making nearly 100 million dollars available for state administrative purposes. There | was the immense Cook County budget mounting into millions of dollars, and the immense payroll for thousands of political hangers-on, in addition to the right of state and county pat- ronage dispensing. Governor Small, Bill Bill Thomp- son, former senator-elect Frank L. Smith and State Attorney Robert E. Crowe, had succeeded in patching up their jealous differences, organized an air-tight clique and reached out for complete political control of the state. The Insull slush funds of fame in the 1926 primaries made unity pos- sible. The price to be paid to the Insull corporation was to be a perpe- tual franchise cf the Chicago trac- tion system, increased rates for street car and elevated fares, as well as the building of a subway to be oper- ated by Insull. There were millions of dollars of additional profit in pros- pect for this corporation. Big Bill Thompson during the 1926 primaries jumped into a questionable sort of fame by issuing the slogan “America First.” It then provided an Aroused by the fact that no city or state provided health and safety regulations for garage workers or} auto mechanics, the first national la- bor health conference held under the auspices of the Workers’ Health Bureau in Cleveland last June, au- thorized the appointment of a na= tional trade union committee to} gather information on the hazards in the industry and prepare regula. | tions which could be used by unions in demanding protection from their employers, the city and state. The work of the committee is now effective antidote for the world court. He promised to lick the King of Eng- land and began to organize his Amer- ica First Foundation which was des- tined to sweep the country. He ad- |vocated relief for flood sufferers and supported a good old-style pork-bar- rel flood-control bill in congress. He advocated the building of deep water- ways and efficient air ports. He al- most visioned himself as the next incumbent in the white house. With the backing of the Insull millions, this clique seemed almost invincible. Labor Misleaders Aid. The labor officialdom of the state began to apply the traditional A. F. of L. political policy, stretching it to its broadest possible ramifications. The officials of the Illinois Federa- tion of Labor, the official machine of the miners’ union, all of them en- dorsed the Small-Thompson-Crowe- Smith clique all the way down the line, and recommended them as true friends of labor. The Wage Earners League of Chicago, an aggregation of union officials, even went them one better in endorsing Charles H. Weber, running for the general assembly against Agnes Nestor, secretary of the Women’s Trade Union League. Weber ran on a record of helping to defeat the women’s eight hour bill. As to the candidates endorsed by the labor officials as true friends of labor, the following are but a few examples: First, Governor Small, who, when | state treasurer, failed to account for Agi perhaps mounting into millions, which he has since been ordered by the courts to pay back to the state $650,000. Under Governor Small’s udministration, state jobs were free- ly given out to contractors using non- union labor exclusively. Under his administration, hundreds of miles of hard lutely non-union conditions, workers being employed at 40 cents an hour and working 10 hours a day. Aid Smith. Frank L. Smith was endorsed as | the candidate for senator py the) ceived $237,985 in slush funds from the Insvll corporation, and numerous smaller sums from other employers. Ile worked actively to effect a wage ally by the Workers’ Health Bureau and the International Association of Machinists, who will print them in their journal. Representatives of the Machinists’ Union from Washington, Cleveland, Chicago, Seattle, Savan- nah and San Francisco are members of the code committee. Half Million Face Death. “Over half a million garage work- lors im=the United States face the danger of asphyxiation from the deadly fumes of carbon monoxide every day,” the Health Bureau’s re- port continues. “The danger is great- est in winter when windows and doors completed, the Workers’ Health at 14,24% and U. S. Tobacco at nearly 40%. J Bureau reported yesterday, and the safeguards will be sponso: offici- in garages are kept closed. One per cent of carbon monoxide in the air will kill a man in a few minutes, Ex- reduction for the Chicago street car workers in 1922. He was barred from the senate for corrupt practices. The Labor officials endorsed John Dailey, as candidate for attorney general! This is the same Dailey who, preceeding the Chicago Landis awards fight, formed a Chicago commission an headed the investigation into the building trades unions, made scream- ing publicity against the unions and effectively prepzred the basis for the enforcement of the Landis award. The labor officials further en- dorsed for candidate for state attor- ney Robert F. Crowe. During the Ladics Garment Workers _ strike, Crowe held office and furnished pol- ice for protection of scabs. Indeed, in 1924 Crowe’s entire labor record in the Chicago Ladies Garment Work- ers strike became so hostile, that the Chieago Federation of Labor pub- lished a special issue of the official paper cf the Federation, devoted to exposing Crowe. They charged that Crowe had turned over the state’s attorney’s office completely to the employers association and their in- junction attorney, Dudley E. Taylor. They charged that Crowe made an unveiled threat to break the back of organized Labor in Chicago, support- r interest on state money and for | | roads were built under abso- | } Labor officialdom in spite of the fac. | that after the 1926 primaries he was found guilty by the special senate in- vestigation committee of having re- ARNE SWABECK. haust gases from automobiles contain as much as 15 per cent of carbon monoxide. Headache, dizziness, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, indi- gestion are danger signs. One hun- dred and thirteen garage workers were asphyxiated in New York gar- ages in two years. Other cities could tell similar stories. “Recommendations of the trade ‘union code provide ‘that under no \circumstances shall garages or re- pair shops be maintained without adequate systems of artificial yen- tilation’ and specifies the number and capacity of ventilating fans required. Hazards Opposed. “Other provisions ‘include protec- tion against seh | “prohibition of f ! | | ed by the “wheat king” James Pat- jton, and the employers association. | These Labor officials never raised one single labor issue or questioned the candidates as to their stand. To- day almost 100,000 coal miners face a life-and-death struggle for the maintenance of their standards and the existence of their union, which is being fiercely attacked by the operators aided by the treasonable miners’ officials. Today the injunc- tion abuse is running rampant thru- out the state despite the fact that the so-called injunction limitation law is supposed to be enforced. Every dispute of labor against capital dur- ing the last few years has found! ever more drastic labor injunctions. Today unemployment in the state of Illinois and particularly in Chicago has become as high as during the depression of 1920-21 with nothing whatever done by the authorities to- wards unemployment relief. Today factory workers are employed under constantly increasing speed-up condi- tions, low wages and long hours. The employers are preparing a general offensive against labor and the labor unions, already so clearly shown in the fight against the miners. The Labor officials never raised any of these issues, never at one time pro- posed any labor candidates or the jneed for building a labor party. Anti-Labor Records. Their policy was a blanket endorse- ment of one particular corrupt repub- lican clique. Some of the candidates of this clique had tried to pose as labor friends but all of them, as well ‘as their republican opponents, were pledged to the program of the repub- jlican party which is definitely anti- labor and for capitalism. This does not mean that the candidates of the democratic primaries were any better, since they too were pledged to an en- tirely anti-labor program. This ac- tion of the labor officials represents an endeavor to make labor merely an adjunct to the capitalist parties, to i |leave the workers entirely a prey in ‘the claws of their class enemies— the capitalist class and the capitalist politicians. The candidates winning the repub- lican nominations, of course, are in |no way different from those who were defeated, except perhaps, that ‘they do not try to pose as labor’s |friends, but stand openly for their capitalist policies. Louis Emmerson, for instance, the winning candidate basement repair shops, protection from hot chemical solutions and acids, proper lighting and adequate washing facilities. “Of particular importance is the provision for the compulsory train- ing of persons to administer first aid to ‘gassed’ workers, and the require- ment that every garage have on hand an oxygen inhalator to immediately revive victims of carbon monoxide poisoning. “Unions can obtain copies of this code and educational leaflets by writ- ing the Workers’ Health Byreau, 799 Broadway, New York. “Garage workers are often re- quired to ork day and night, with ee Labor Fakers Aid Anti-Labor Politicians for governor, is an important share- holder in several great open shop concerns in the state. Otis F. Glenn, the winning candidate for senator, was the prosecuting attorney against the Herrin, Illinois miners, All the winning candidates are definitely anti-labor and enjoy the support of the great majority of the Chicago capitalist press, of the manufactur- ers and of the bankers. Workers Misled. The labor officials who so freely gave their endorsement to the corrupt Small-Thompson-Smith-Crowe clique perhaps now will proclaim this pri- mary election as a defeat for labor. This is not so. WHile the overwhelm- ing vote for the Small-Thompson op- ponents administered a defeat to the labor officials with their policy of supporting of so-called labor friends, so far as the rank and file working class is concerned the victory of the one crooked capitalist clique over the other will make no difference. Yet the tremendous republican vote shows |the extent of working class illusions in regards to the capitalist political parties. The development of a labor party would thus become one impor- tant step away from these illusions and one step toward political con- sciousness. It cannot be expected that the labor officials with their bankrupt political policy will do anything whatever to advance the political consciousness of labor, organized or unorganized. We cannot. look to them for any support for a labor party. They have shown themselves definitely as its enemies, |It remains for the rank and file work- ers to carry on this struggle, Its most. conscious section will lead the |way. In this spirit the Workers |(Communist) Party will enter its candidates for the coming elections to jhelp advance the political conscious tea of the workers, give real sup- port for the building of a labor par- ty, take up the issues of meeting the employers’ offensive, strengthening the rank and file coal miners in their struggle, fighting for relief for the unemployed and for better conditions for factory workers, fighting to smash the injunction evil, and fight- ing for the complete abolition of the capitalist system. The working class of Illinois will be asked to support the Workers Par- ity candidates on the basis of these issues. It will be asked to cast its vote on class lines. Deadly Monoxide Fumes Add to Hazards of Garage Workers’ Jobs week.. One day’s rest in seven ik a luxury. In a survey of New York City garages made by the Workers’ Health Bureau in 1926 only three of seventeen garages reported that their employes received one day’s rest in seven, “Eight of the seventeen gave no day off during the month, “The code provides for the enforce- ment of the one-day rest in seven law in all garages and recommends the 40-hour week wherever workers are organized. City Centrals are urged to use these standards as arguments for building up a powerful union of try which is at present pract c in employment offices in Illinois and ~ garage workers, as this is an indus-