The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 25, 1928, Page 2

families, most of them workers i in the Williamsburg and 4A re fe ca __ THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 19 1928 New Terror Reduces Mine > Fields to State of E mem as “Law” Winks TROOPERS SLUG URGE SPREAD OF ONE DOLLAR ‘DAILY’ SUBS AT MAY DAY MEETS WOMEN, CHILDREN; FILL HOSPITALS: Martial Law. Declared, | Miners: Evicted (Special to The De Daily Worker) PITTSBURGH, Pa., 1 24, The rapid spread of the s be the Save-the-Union Committee in the unorganized counties of western vennslyvania and West Virginia is being met by the sta’ office holders of the coal operators with unprecedented fury and terror- ism. Plans to declare practical martial Jaw are in preparation, armed thugs are patrolling the strike areas, beating and arresting Save-the-Union organ- izers and. athizers. Hund: of peaceful pickets are being ening to fill the hospitals as well as the jails. Despite this persecution the morale} of the strikers ising. Thousands of them are vet of other strikes and the cruel exploitation to which thev have been subjected by the non- rnion operators since the betrayal of. ‘strike by Jonn L. Lewis in 1922 » steeling them for a superhuman struggle to organize themselves in a powerful, militant union. They: are determined to continue their fight until victory is assured. ae EE | Many Injured. BENTLEYV'LLE. Pa., April 24— Many heads swathed in great band- ages aregeen on the mags picket lines at the Aeme and Gibson mines near here morning and evening. Martin Volentik, who has six stitches in his head as a result of a clubbing admin- istered by state troopers who swooped down on a line of 500 men, women and children at the Acme mine Mon- day morning, smilingly reported that production fell down more than 50} per cent since mass picketing began that day. To break the picket line, state troopers hurl tear gas into their midst from the right, while police in the pay of the coal company throw them from the left. When the club- bing and bombings become intoler- ably vicious, the pickets returned the attack with a volley of stones. Movnt- ed police rode chased the pickets over the hills until they reached town. Long Siege. “Tt took the yellow dogs two hours to do it,” one picket reported. “If a few of us came together, a cop would ride right on top of us, and hit us on the head with his club.” But this job of closing down the] nines, paralyz'ne production and for-| cing the operators to come to terms| that can be swept! aside lightly.. At a council in the} union hall that day, it wae decided! to approach the mine from te west fs not a reatter side instead of the east as they had} Tuesday morning all} There were no} and the} formerly done. went well for a time. police on the western side, pickets were able to approach s breakers and point out the necess‘ty of sticking together in the strike Many left the mine that day. Second Attack. But as the pickets marched to the second mine, mo-mnted police rode inte the line arain, hurling tear gas bombs in every direction. Flora ‘“tasnovv was Inter arrested and charged with throwing a large piece of concrete at a trooner. Mrs. tke. evidence was so big she even lift the damn thing.” While the men gathered at the union hall to discuss the next move| in the battle for a living wage and union conditions, the women decided to hold down the line. that afternoon more than 200 wives and daughters of striking miners marched to the Acme mine. A dozen state troopers and coal and iron police came to meet them with a volley of tear gas bombs. i Old’ Women Hit. Joe Maslanik, a 62-year-old of weveral miners, was hit on e called} and county | arrested | daily and the state police are threat-/| into the crowd and{|P Masnovy declared that the block brought to court as) “couldn't | At throe thirty | | “Popularization of the special one dollar subscription to | The DAILY WORKER is one of the most important tasks of |the May Day meetings thruout the United States, and they | should prepare to emphasize this act lof the business office of the paper stated yesterday. The special one dollar subscription rate brin, he any worker in the United States for nas special offer was made in order the workers who, owing to strikes or unemployment, are ivity,” a representative reach of al rate. the ‘paper a period of two months. to enable large sections at present unable to pay for their class press at a higher cost, to receive The DAILY WORKER regularly. The DAILY WORKER has now been brought within the Nat all the workers, however, know of this special reduced subscription It is the duty of the May Day meetings to broadcast among the workers the news of this opportunity to subscribe to their press, which the one dolla? subscription rate now makes possible. 1 but the most destitute workers. “Let every May Day meeting make the spreading of the “special one dollar subscriptions to The DAILY WORKER one sentative urged. “Workers, DAILY WORKER.” of the most vital issues before it,” the Business Office repre- “Let every militant worker take advantage of the unusual opportunity ‘which is offered him by the re- duction in the subscription rate to his press. readers, sympathizers, subscribe to The on Bonnet Industry Gets Fascist Atd ROME, April 23—To promote the sale of Italian made straw hats, Au- gusto Turati, secretary of the Fascist Party, has issued an order compelling all university students to wear straw hats. | The Italian youth is in the habit of wearing slouch hats, in most cases old ones. These are greatly desired py the young people. Under the fas- ee decree the students must imme- diately buy straw hats. TEXTILE UNIONS BAN PICKETING (Continued from Page One) shops and ordered them to raise their prices and do business only on a ¢ash basis, The store owners were told that this would compel the workers to return to their work in the mills and shorten the strike. Most of the re- tail dealers in necessities have already raised their prices. Waste Relief Funds. An example of how the reactionary officialdom of the Textile Council makes plans for relief was given when a team of vaudeville performers was | routed thru the textile areas of Maine to give performances for strike relief. | The amateur entertainers, who are al- }s0 minor functionaries of the union, are to get a percentage of the relief, according to current reports, and de- ductions are also to be made for the} maintainance of a relief committee composed of local’ aldermen. Advertise In Paper. clared that they had hired an “expert blicity man from New York,” to write statements for the union for in- sertion in the local newspapers at adv ertising rates. The union mem- bership is enraged at this use of union j funds, which could be used to relieve | the suffering of workers to whom two | weeks of strike means actual starva- tion. “Our fighting should be done on the | picket line,” a mill committee state- |ment says. tisements in the papers should be an- wered at Sa bs mass meetings and pi {the head with a bomb and collapsed !on the road,, unconscious. Although bombs were exploding on all sides. many women ran to Mrs. Maslanik’s aid, and carried her to the office of | Dr. Booth, Six stitches were neces- | sary to mend the deep wound in her The Textile Council leaders also de-} “The line bosses’ adver-| conditions have grown MAY CONVENTION OF CLOAK UNION FAKE, CALL SAYS ‘Build Union Over Head of Fakers,’ Slogan (Continued from Page One) alone, but against the attempts of the buregucracy of the miners, tex- tile workers and other unions to turn the workezs into submissive slaves under the yoke of a ‘company union’ conducted jointly- by the bureaucrats and the bosses. For seventeen months the workers have been fighting heroi eally repelling many attacks, and in spite of all their suffering they stand ready today to carry on the struggle until the clique has been beaten and the ranks of the workers united in the task of rebuilding the union and vestoring the conditions of the work- ers. Disastrous Results, “The spring season in the cloak and dress industry is practically at an end. The volume of business in the cloak industry during the past season was extensive but in spite of this the conditions of the workers \have grown even more deplorable during that period. “The 40-hour week has been com- pletely wiped out and the cloak and dressmakers were compelled to work 60, 70 and 80 hours per week. The week-work system has been abolished and piece-work at the lowest rates holds sway in the industry. Work on Saturday and Sunday was a common practice during the last season. The sweat-shop system with all its. ac- companying evils has once more en- |trenched itself in the industry, re- | ducing the standards and conditions of the workers to a level even lower than that of 1910. “Whereas, prior to the Sigman po- | grom the cloak industry was about 85% organized, a report made by the impartial chairman, Mr. Ingersoll, at} the beginning of last season, shows | that now 50% of the industry oper- jates on a complete open-shop basis. | Forty-three per cent are only nom- inal union shops, and but 7% can ac- tually be classed as union shops.| | Since this report was rendered the! even worse. | The recent report of the Industrial | Council demonstrates clearly how rapidly the open-shop is being re-es- tablished in the industry, undermin- ing union conditions, and to what extent the chaos is increasing from day to day. Open Shop Spreads. “This report states that twelve members of the Industrial Council | head. | Then the women marched to town }and picketed Burgess South’s house Jin protest against the inhuman bru. |tality of the police. Although Mrs. | South peremptorily declared that the | | burgess was “out,” the women con | tinued to picket the house for hours. | In spite of the attempted tartsiegs| tion of the mounted cossacks the mili- tancy of the striking miners and their wives is as strong as it was the first jday of the strike. If the workers of |th’s country will stand by them a ittle longer, and help feed their chil- | dren, the strikers say they will bat- | they suffer at the hands of the po- lice. The Pennsylvania-Ohio Miners’ Relief Committee urges that all funds be rushed to their headquarters at 611 Penn Ave., Pittsburgh, so that food can be sent into the isolated mining camps along the Allegeheny ba Monongchela Valleys to save the striking m’ners and their families} rines had not been down there, this | outrage would not have occurred” |from slow starvation. tle on until they win no matter what | have given up their inside shops and" |standards and conditions is so com- Troupers Face Hard Life in Making Living Life isn’t so funny for the vaude- ville comedian, once the curtain is rung down and the applause has died away. Unlike fellow actors on the legitimate stage, he is unprotected by a union and is at the. mercy of booking agent, manager, drayman and a dozen others, Vaudeville, for one thing, isn’t what it used to be, according to the old troupers. The ultra-movie palaces with their near-vaudeville attractions and. the radio have crimped the va- riety’s act. Patronage has been cut down, and in self defense, the the- atres have three and four shows a day instead of one, and the split week instead of a full. week’s engagement. Haulage rates have gone up, and every actor must pay heavily for lugging his stage trunks. On a split week engagement between Manhattan and Yonkers one actor ad 08 on his dozen trunks. became non-union jobbers; two manu- facturers have -left the council and are operating non-union shops; fif- teen. manufacturers have entirely gone out of business and 59 new manufacturers operating non-union shops have come into the industry. Thus the Industrial Council, the most stable association of manufacturers, has been so affected by the chaos and demoralization resulting « from} the pogrom that it is falling to pieces. This is equally true of the American Association, whose membership has dwindled to about half. As far as the dress trade is concerned, it is practically an unorganized industry today. Where formerly more thar 60% of the industry was organized, the figure has been reduced to about 15% nominal union shops. As for the dress jobbers they have long ago dis- solved their organization having no union to contend with. “New York, which was formerly the backbone of the International Ladies’; Garment Workers’ Union, has become a complete open-shop market where chaos is rampant. Misery, starvation and slavery have become the common lot of the workers. Sixty-five thou- sand cloak and dressmakers are to- day slaving in 5,000 cloak and dress shops in New York under the most: |appalling and shameful sweat-shop| conditions. The breakdown of union plete that the employers find .it more profitable to make their work in New York rather than in the out-of-town centers as heretofore, with the result that the far-reaching effects of Sig-| man’s treachery have weakened and} destroyed the locals throughout the -entire country.- Due to the low wages long hours and the speed-up system unemployment flourishes even at the height of the season. THREE DIE, SIX HURT IN FRAME TENEMENT FIRE ‘Brooklyn “Blaze Routs Workers’ Families Three persons lost their lives and six were seriously injured in a fire |that broke out early yesterday morn- ing in a tenement house at 244 Stagg Street, Brooklyn: Two of.the injured are in a critical state and may die. Of those killed, two, Anna and Eleanor Stallone, lost their lives jumping from the third story. Three sisters of the two girls, who also jumped with them, suffered serious injury. Angelo Barbara, five years old, was burned to death in the fire. The tenement house, a four-story frame building, was a fire-trap typi- eal of the working class sections of the cit “In spite of Sigman’s superior fi- nancial resources and the backing of the bosses and the entire trade union bureaucracy, as well as the state au- thorities with Governor Alfred E. Smith at their head, the clique has failed to defeat the Joint Board and today finds itself in a state of com- plete bankruptcy, ever’ in the eyes of its own supporters. With the ap- proach of the convention there is an intense struggle for power between the two conflicting factions in the International and the Sigman and Schlesinger groups. “Sigman, through his control of the official machinery, has succeeded in manipulating the fake elections for convention delegates in such manner that he now has the majority to vote him into power again. He is support- ed by the right wing machine, headed by Cahn of the ‘Forward’ and the socialist ‘Verband,’ as well as by the bosses who have practically endorsed his nomination for president in their official organ the ‘Women’s Wear.’ Sigman, who has turned the union into a ‘company union’ serving the bosses, Sigman who from the first day he became president began his expulsion crusade, Sigman who for the past 17 months has carried on-a campaign of terror against the work- ers converting the garment center into a veritable battle field, Sigman whose sole support l‘es in the number of gangsters ho can employ, is run- ning for re-election. as president under the slogans of fighting cor- ruption and eliminating grafters, Corruption’s Candidate. “Schlesinger, the second eandidate for president to run for election as delegate to the convention on the slate of Local 17, the old corrupt ¢ligue in the union which through its control of the election machinery in NICARAGUAN WOMAN IS ATTACKED ‘Coolidge and Congress Pay Pay §% $38.50 for Drunken Assault WASHINGTON, April 24—When } the bill H. R. 8888 was called up in the house, on the private claims cakndar, Rep. Warren of North Carolina arose to explain that this was the claim of Jose Francisco Rivas, of Leon, Nicara- gua, for $38.50. “It seems that two drunken ma- rines, sent down there on the pres- ent expedition of occupation,” he said, “brutally assaulted a preg- nant Nicaraguan, woman, her hus- band and her child, so that they all had to have medical attention. Of course, it is obvious that ig the ma- lated Secretary of the Navy Wilbur “for the splendid and hard bargain he has driven in this case.” The bill was for $32.50 hospital charges and $6 for the dress torn from the woman. Wilbur’s letter to the house committee had stated that, “The draft of the bill has been submitted to the director of the bureau of the budget, and the navy department has been informed that its enactment will not conflict with the financial program of the president.” ‘ To this formula, Warren made the reply that this claim, duly: ap- proved by the chairman of fhe house | Warren darcaatieante be congratu- | committee on claims, was only the precedent for others that would total millions of dollars, due to the unlawful occupation of Nicaragua. * * * | teh tata irony was added when a congressman induced the house to add $100 to the amount of «the award, as “adequate compensation. for the humiliation and suffering sustained by these good people, citizens of the republic of Nica- regua, with which we are told we are at peace.” He asked that the » $100 extra be sent down with the “apologies” of the government of the United States, And so the bill passed. Yaa ai Steeds of Oil Man Prance; Ban ts Lifted ALTIMORE, iba April 24— Deep relief was euconusld today by the race horses owned by Harry F, Sinclair, oil magnate, with the announcement that the Maryland race tracks will again be open to them. Freed from moral turpitude by the acquittal of their master of conspiracy charges, the energetic steeds are making preparations for competition shortly. The ban was lifted by the State Racing Commission which for a time deemed it unseemly for Sin- clair’s horses to run while their master was under a cloud, The oil magnate was accused of. bribing Albert Fall, former secre- tary of the interior, to the extent of $269,000 in return for a gift of Teapot Dome, a government oil re- serve. Local 2 has eliminated the delegates of thé Tolerance Group (which actu- ally had received the largest nuntber of votes), Schlesinger, the candidate of the Breslau-Ninfo-Dubinsky clique backed by a good portion of the For- ward Association, is put forth as the Messiah of the cloak and dressmak-| ers. The Breslau-Ninfo-Dubinsky clique, composed of the most hated and discredited despots in the union. is craving the return of the ‘good old days’ under Schlesinger’s administra- tion when they, surrounded by a most corrupt and unserupulous machine. were the sole masters of the union. This clique, which for years has ruth- lessly eliminated every opponent to its policies an was the first to prac- tice expulsions and frame-ups against progressives, is carrying on its campaign under the slogans that Schlesinger will save the union, Schlesinger will stabilize the indus- try. A Fake Convention. “The workers, who are well aware of the fact that there are no essen- tial differences in poli¢y between the Sigman and Schlesinger cliques, will not be fooled by their campaign and campaign slogans. The workers know that it is not a struggle for prin. ciples but a struggle as to which clique should be at the head of the! union, ‘which clique should enjoy: the spoils of leadership. The workers know that the present misery will not be alleviated irrespective of whether Sigman together with the ‘Forward’ carries on the pogrom against the workers, or whether the ‘Forward’ to- gether with Schlesinger, Breslau, Du- binsky and Ninfo dominates the union as of old, disregarding the wishes and the interests of the members. The workers ‘are well aware of the fact! that their interests can be, served neither by the Sigman nor the Schlesinger cliques, that both will maintain their policy of oppression, that both cliques believe in and have practiced exp:lsions and persecutions of members, both cliques have par- alyzed the fighting energy and mili- taney of the workers, that both have helped to weaken the power of the union and reduce it to its present status of a ‘company union’ in the real sense of the word. Rebuilding Lies in Workers’ Hands. “The locals of the Joint Board are sending delegates to Boston even). though we know, in advance that these legally elected delegates will hot be seated by the clique in contro! of the convention. The locals of the Joint, Board and the workers from the shops are sending delegates to the Boston convention to voice the protest and condemnation of the great Viet of the workers against the po- AENOSHA PICKETS FOR 26 ON TRIAL Judge Admits Fake Violence Evidence MILWAUKEE, Wis., April 24.— The gesture of “justice” made by federal Judge Geiger when he granted the 26 Kenosha strike leaders a trial by jury for violating a vicious anti- strike writ issued by him in the strug- gle against the open shop Allen-A Company, was proven to be a mere ruse as he continues to rule out of order every motion made by the union attorneys. The union attorneys’ attempt to prevent the bosses’ lawyers frora en- tering trumped up evidence of “vio- lence” before the writ was issued, was ruled out. <A similar attempt to halt the attack made on the tnion leaders in court received similar treat- ment. An attempt of the union’s to prove that the company imported armed strikebreakers was also ruled out of court. \ It is believed that testimony will be concluded to-night. The case will then go: to.a jury composed mainly of local business men. The strike in Kenosha has been in progress for many weeks against an attempt of the company to introduce the speed-up and the open shop sys- tem. vocations of the cliques, and against ‘company unionism’. These delegates, representing the true interests of the workers, are going to Boston to ex- pose the fake convention and to demonstrate more clearly than ever before that it is a convention of a clique and not a convention of work- lers’ representatives. We are going to Boston to tear down the mask from these arch traitors of labor, who are | working hand in hand with the em- ployers and the state authorities to |fasten the yoke of slavery on the | workers and sell them out to the em- jployers and capitalist politicians; thus strengthening the dark powers that be. We are going to Boston to yoice the demand of the thousands of workers in every part ‘of the coun- try for a union that will be a powers ful instrument to defend the inter- ests of the workers, to improve their position as workers of the trade and as members of the working class. We are going to Boston to unite all hon- est and sincere elements, all fighting workers of our trade into a campaign to restore the 40-hour week, to re- store the week-work system in out trade, to restore the minimum wage scales, and other union conditions accomplished through great struggle and suffering. We are going to Bos- ton to lay the basis for rebuilding our organization on the ruins of the pres- ent ‘company unions’ sestablished by Sigman and his henchmen. We are going to issue the slogan for a na- tional organization campaign to bring the thousands of unorganized work» ers into our folds and to re-establish our union and union conditions. “Down with expulsions, terrorism and. gangsterism! “Down with ‘company unions’! “Forward - to a united powerful freion: controlled by the cloak and dressmakers over the heads of the agents of the bosses, the Sigman and Schlesinger cliques! “Forward to a united rank and file union that will strive to merge its forees with the workers of the other needle trades into one powerful amal- gamated union of needle trade work- ers! “Forward to a powerful militant labor movement on the economic field anda labor party of all workers on the political field.” They Call 1t Relief PHILADELPHIA, April 24 (FP). —Unfit for normal use, 4n ancient police station in the heart of the slums has been turned over to house the jobless. A copper keeps an eye on the men, nabbing suspects at PARADE IN SNOW. leisure for real police station lodging,