The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 7, 1928, Page 6

Page ! '''' THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, MONDAY, MAY 7, 1928 / : THE DAILY WOR Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHIN Daily, Except Sunday $3 First Street, New York, N. Y Cable Address ASS’N, Ine. Phone, Orchard 1680 | ‘Daiwork | SUBSCRIPTION RATES By Mail (in New SRC per year $2.50 three months {outside of New York): ar $3.50 six months .00 three months. Address and mail out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. Y. ...ROBERT MINOR F. DUNNE | =ntered as second-class mail at the post-office at New York, N. ¥., under the act of March 3, 1879 | Miners Will “Revoke’’ Lewis | The outrageous and impudent action of Lee Hall, the stool- pigeon whom the coal operators are trying to keep in office as president of District 6 in Ohio, in declaring the charters of seven- teen local unions of the Mine Workers to be “revoked”—is a warning to the miners that it is time to throw these private dicks of the coal operators such Lee Hall out of the United Mine Workers’ Union. of the coal compan pacity more dangero that of any so-called ‘‘mine guard” that stands at the pit-head with a sap to use on the pickets. .Of course the attempted action of Lee Hall, which is defeated only | because the miners’ locals refuse to recognize it, is in fact the} action of John L. Lewis, Hall’s boss. Lewis, Hall, Fagan, Cap- | pelini and the whole gang of Lewis henchmen in every district, are now in their final drive to break up the United Mine Workers’ | Union. These men have long been doing the work of company dicks by expelling individual members and occasionally locals and even a whole district. But now they are in full swing to attempt mass expulsions as the standard policy. Lewis is trying to ex-| pell the United Mine Wo: Union, This great Union is the heart of the organized trade union movement of the United States, | KER °s John L. Lewis, the “William J. Burns” | ged in the present strike in a ca-| KUN! AVE BELA and the attempt to throw seventeen of the finest locals out of this Union is a stab at the heart of the entire labor movement. It| must be regarded as such, and John L. Lewis must be properly { branded as the vilest traitor ever known to work for the bosses in | the labor movement. | Is there any doubt in the mind of any honest worker now | that John L. Lewis must go? Either Lewis and his Halls, Fagans and Cappelinis must g6, | -or the United Mine Workers’ Union will go out of existence, leav-| ing only a miserable fragment resembling a company union with | John L. Lewis employed by the operators to run it. But the United Mine Work Union belongs to the coal | miners of the United States, and not to the foul traitors who are trying to destroy it. The Mine Workers will not give up their Union. . When Lewis tries to “revoke” the charters of local Unions, | these local Unions will tell Lewis and his gang to go to hell, and will continue in business of protecting and fighting for the rights of the miners even harder than before. Revoke charters? The mine workers must “revoke” John L. Lewis, Lee Hall, and all their gang. Lewis will not be allowed to fire the Union. The Union will fire Lewis. The mine workers should keep their lines intact in all locals attacked -by Lewis, should fight even harder and build up their organizations, All local Unions should hasten the district emerg- ency conventions! Get rid of the Lewis stool-pigeons as quickly as possible, free your union of company influence, organize the unorganized fields—and strengthen the mass picketing that will beat the operators and win the strike! Lewis must go! The Mine Workers must take control of their Union and use it for their own welfare. Elections Have SNown the Strength of Communist Party By JULIUS CODKIND. May first besides being a day of strike and struggl also the day on which the work wed the achievements of the past, and con- ties of the bourgeoisie and whose true role as defenders of the capi- talist system has been openly ex- posed. In Germany. sider the prospects for the coming year. The first of May, 1928, saw the Communist Parties giving more at- tention than ever to the parliamen- tary elections and e ywhere the results are remark ignificant. In Poland the nat held in March showed that the C munists made great The Polish Commur outlawed cist dictatc an opportunity elections careful pre ns had to be made. Altho only 1,000 signa- tures to petitions are necessary to put a party on the ballot, the Po- lish Communists were compelled to secure 60,000 signatures, to allow them to place a Jarge number of lists in the field. Communists Strengthened. The result of the elections showed the middle parties greatly weakened, whil the fascists and the Commu- nists came out decisively strength- ened, indicating that the class strug- gle had been considerably sharp- ened and that the class issu becoming clear to the worke striking significance is the fact that the elections show the Communists to have become the greatest factor in the labor districts. Communists In France. The April elections in France were a tremendous victory for the Communists, While the socialist party stood still as compared with 1924, the Communists raised their yote from 875,900 to 1,064,000, a gain of 25 per cent. This was ac- complished in the face of tremen- dous difficulties. of outstanding leaders were in jail and police suppression took on a most violent charavter. So signifi- 1 elections | A large number | | | | | | det Within a few days the elections will be held in Germany. Every sign indicates that here too there will be decisive Communist gains and that the coming period will show its first election registering a great Communist election triumph. Great Britain. Recent local elections have been a revelation as to the real strength of the Communists in Great Britain. The Labor Party has carried on a nined expulsion policy against all local organizations that refused to expel the Communists, This tac- tie of the Labor Party is helping the Communist Party to win wide masses of the work.zs to the ban- ner of Communism and the Com- munist International. The United States. In America the Workers (Com- munist) Party is just commencing to enter seriously into the work. This is the first year in which the Party is to reach into every section of the country in a determined ef- fort to mobilize its adherents to a political campaign that will bring out all the forces latent in the American working class. A great deal of preparatory work has already been done. The prob- lem of solving the complexities of laws in 48 different states has been | met and already the work of put- ting the Party on the ballot is pic ing up speed in many of the states. The Party is reasonably assured of placing its ticket in 26 states with work in 14 other states also going forward. A Mighty Convention. An indication of the manner in which the Party is taking hold of the job is found in the arrange- ments being-made for a great Na- tional Nomination Convention in Horthy terrorists. The Hungarian fascist regime is making an effort to extradite Bela Kun from Austria, where the Seipel reactinonaries have jailed him. Workers thruout the world must fight to save the Hungarian Communist leader from being murdered by the By Fred Ellis | i ! factories Youth League Is Active in Los Angeles By ORGANIZER. The Young Workers Communist League of Los Angeles has in- creased its activities a great deal in the last several months. The Y. W. L. was instrumental in organizing a youth conference for the relief of the Pennsylvania, and Ohio striking miners, and we expect to do good work, The League is actively participat- ing in its campaign among the un- employed young werkers. We have issued leaflets with specific youth demands fer which the unemp!vyed young workers must organize and fight. The Y. W. L. is conducting an organizaticnal campaign vround two which employ mostly young \workers. We have issued several monthly bulletins already, and they were very well received by the young workers. Several workers of the Los Angeles Period Furniture factory came up to the meetings and expressed their ap- proval of our work around - their factory. It won’t be long before we have a real Young Workers League nucleus functioning in that factory. The inner life of the League has also improved very much. Our open forums every Friday night are very interesting’ and usually very well attended. All the young workers who are interested in knowing more about the conditions of the young workers in the United States and-how to better them are inviterl to come to the meetings of the Young Workers League every Friday night at 122 West Third St., Room. 314. TO RETURN WAR TROPHIES. WELLINGTON, (FP) May 6.—The municipal council of Christ Church, where labor controls, has instructed (the authorities to remove from the | public parks the captured war trophies and return them to the New Zealand government, with the inti- mation that the life of the community is not enhanced hy such emblems of barbarity. é By JOSEPH GIGANTI While we are accustomed to think of the United States as being the greatest industrial country on earth, we sometimes forget the very im- portant role that agriculture plays in both the economy and politics of the country. »Today, after unequalled in- dustrial expansion, agriculture re- mains the leading ‘industry in the United States, in regard to number of persons employed as well _as in value of commodities produced and estimated investment. (1) The working class must not over- look, in its estimate of the economic conditions of the country,- that agri- culture still yields one of the greatest portions of the national income. Po- litically, the farm masses have been and are, the pawns of capitalist poli- ticians. No other class, or classes rather, are so depended upon during| election times for support by the poli- ticians as are the farmers. Particu- larly does the ery of farm relief be- come so ‘audible during election | periods. The press of the country has ridi- culed the idea that there can exist any common political ties between the proletarian and the farmer. This newspaper campaign has been waged in the last few years, when it is be- coming obvious that the political basis for a farmer-labor alliance exists, What is this basis? | Farm Population Decreases. | We have in this country a_ total farm p ion o 984 » accord- ing to figures. This constitutes about one-fourth of the people in the United States. But the farm popula- tion is constantly decreasing, both | absolutely and relatively. This is ap- Zaritsky By J. B. SALSBERG The memorandum which I sent to all the locals of the Cap and Milli- |nery Workers’ Union, and which was jalso reprinted in the Daily Worker, |and which caused my expulsion from the general executive board, had as jits purpose to prove to the large membership of our international the dangers of the new policies of the ruling group in the general board. |There can as yet be found enough naive workers who cannot reconcile |themselves with the idea that there parent when we compare the follow- ing figures, published by the Depart- ment of Agriculture: Total Farm (2) Year Population 1910. . -382,076,960 1920. -81,614,269 1925. - -28,984,221 In the year 1925 alone the net de- crease of farm population was almost a million! Farm population is de- creasing at a very rapid rate. The following table will show the relative standing of the farm and urban popu- lations by decades since 1880: Percentages (3) Year Rural Urban 1880... 70.5 29.5 1890, 63.9 36.1 1900. 60.0 40.0 1910. 54.2 45.8 1920. 48.6 51.4 These figures cover the period sinee the United States embarked upén its imperialistic venture, and when one considers that towns. of 2500 and less are classed as communities, it can be seen that they do not tell the full story. It is a well known fact that in the United States today a great many of the small towns are of industrial. character. But the ten- dency is indica correctly. Of all those listed as being en- gaged in gainful oceupations for the same period as above, the oes en- gaged in agricultural pursuits were: Year ‘ Percent (4) 1880.. oe 443 1890 1900 1920.. What is the significance of all this? The answer is found ia the continual expropriation of the farmers through foreclosure of mortgages, chiefly, al- Machine, Wreckin organization. The “club” is the Tammany organization of Local 24 even has a “Murphy” at its: head. Spector, the manager, is the figleaf of which the club is so much in need, This “club” and the one on the same style which grew up in the New York capmakers’ local is busily occupied with one problem: How to retain control of the union, | their ruling position will be shaken jdown should one-of the management jcommittee be elected ‘as. president, has developed in our union a clique jrule in the full sense of the word.. | Now, however, the clique is working fronts that it will not take long for jeven the most, backward members to realize the new roads upon whi Cap and Milliner Union of: | has embarked. The new orders which |are forced on the New York Milli- brought back Zaritsky and made him ichief. The deal was made months \before the last convention. The job lwas put over in such’ an uncouth ‘at such feverish speed on all the |manner that even such a loyal. ma- ,;chine-man as Roberts, himself a con- jtendor for the office, has expressed | h our. jhimself in private conversations very Idom juncomplimentarily at the expense of |Zavitsky and the “club”. ‘scientific taxation as is the farmer The “club-men” being afraid that though to a smaller extent increasing | unemployment of farm labor is also a factor. This simply means that the) farmer cannot keep up'the payment | on his land and equipment. Roughly, the debt of all farmers reporting is about 42 per cent (5) of the value of all farm lands and buildings in the country, or about five billion dol- lars. Fully one-half of the total acre- age is under mortgaged debt. What about the question of taxa- tion? .The art of shifting the burden of taxes is practised in every capital- |ist country. But in the United States it has become a fine art. Nowhere do there exist such clever tax dodging devices as in the United States. As a} consequence, it is the farm that shares |} the heayiest tax burdens. The follow- ing table illustrates the extent: Percentage of Net Profits Paid in Taxes: (6) Agriculture and related industries, 83 per cent. Mining and Quarrying, 60 per cent. Transportation and Public Utilities, 36 per cent. ‘ Construction, 82 per cent. Finance, Banking and Insurance, 31 per cent. Wholesale and Retail Trade, 27 per cent, Manufacturing as a whole, 24 per cent. u Even Roger Jabson remarks: “The farmer and his purchasing power are being taxed to his own death partly by himself and his indifference to scientific taxation principles; but largely because the influential busi- ness leaders and manufacturers are quite indifferent to‘ the principle of himself,” Of course, it is not true that any- one is “indifferent” to the principles of taxation. This is merely a warn- York locals were fighting against him. Since the last convention, |therefore, Zaritsky and his. body- guards worked in two definite direc- tions: (1) To eliminate all oppos- ing elements fromthe out-of-town locals and not to permit a substan- tial left-wing delegation to the next ‘convention. (2) To carry out in New York a policy that in the end would wipe out the growing influence of the anti-elub locals and would hand over the hegemony of the 10,000 New York millinery workers to the millinery ‘club” which also controls the General Board and through it the whole’ International. Grasping the two chief aims of Zaritsky and jhis club men it is not difficult to un- ‘derstand their attacks on Boston, |Where they suffered a defeat; their | jattacks on the ‘Chicago millinery | workers where Zaritsky suffered the | biggest moral defeat in his whole | g Cap and Milli ing to the lords of Wall Street to “go a little easy.” Despite all this, the productivity of farm labor has increased in the last four decades, if one may judge by the crop yields. There has been a 77 per cent increase (7) in the total produc- tion of corn, wheat, oats and pota- toes. Two-thirds of this is due to an expansion in acreage under cultivation and a third to increased productivity threugh application of modern meth- ods, machinery, etc. In the period between 1880 and 1910. the productivity of the farm worker averaged an increase of 24 per cent for the country as a whole, decreasing by 3 per cent in the next decade, That this does not compare with that of the worker in industry | can be seen by the fact that increase in productivity betwen the years 1919 and 1924 was 43 per cent for industry as a whole, while in some industries it was much higher; to mention particu- larly automobiles, the worker pro- duces 400 per cent more in one day than he did ten years ago. (8) 7 Land Values Drop. And what is happening to land val- In the brief span of five years, from 1920-+o 1925, the total- farm land--valuein the country dropped from $77,924,100,388 to $49,467,647,- 287. (9). This is one of the gravest symptoms.of sick agriculture in the United States, The difference between the farm worker and the tenant farmer is very little. One receives’ the munificent average wage of $32.94 a month with board while the other pays rent, taxes and mortgages. The net income of the tenant farmer often amounts to less the wages of the worker, No Relief From Capitalist Parties. That the capitalist parties have no intention of enacting real relief meas. ues? While the operators, cutters and blockers’ were organized for years and had already won the recognition of the bosses, the thousands of milli- nery hand workers remained totally ‘unorganized. Union cutters, operat- ors and blockers worked in the same shops side by side with unorganiz badly exploited hand workers: many instances the trimmers com- prise one-half and even more than one-half of all the workers in the shops. The hegemony of the open- ‘shop inthe New York millinery market lasted until about two or three» years ago. At that time a strong Movement began in the ranks of the trimmers to organize and build up a strong, effective union in place of the freak which existed on paper only and did not exert any control or inflience in the shops. The intensity and willingness to sacrifice with which the rank and file threw itself Agricultural Crisis in the United States jures can be seen by the manner in which they handled the McNary- Haugen bill in congress; How it was joyfully allowed to pass through the Houses to be vetoed by Coolidge is a matter well known. The tenant farmers and farm work- ers are discontended. The city has an unemployment ‘problem of. its own, That there is good basis: for the al- liance of proletarian and poor farm- of political disillusionment is taking place on the farm is also evident. The time is nigh when the city pro- letariat can look to the exploited farmers for support in its every day struggles Against capitalism, We must’ take the occasion offered us by the ‘approaching elections to point out to the farmers that they have been pawns in the hands of politicians long enough and that the only relief they can get from capitalism must be ob- tairied under duress. A political or- ganization, independent of the twin parties of Wall Street becomes the immediate objective. There is one way that the exploited farmers can better their economie and_ political conditions; and that. is by acting unitedly with the working class of this country. That message we must carry to them. (1) From estimate made by Evans Clark in article in N. Y. Times, March 27, 28. Figures from official sources. (2) Yearbook of Agriculture 1926, (@) Yearbook of Agriculture page 1225. (4) Yearbook of Agriculture, page (5) Statistical abstract of U. S. 1926, | page 595. (6) From figures quoted by Amer- (7) From report of 1926 by Secreta: of Agriculture. fi (3) Quoted by M. E. Bridston, im b, 1927. nery Page 1235. 1926, 1232, ican Agriculturist, Marcy 1927. Forbes, F «@) ensus Bureau, lude Livesto: Implements.) a bership of 400 two years ago it in- creased to 3000 on February 28, 1927; In the seven weeks from March Ast, 1927 to April 21st, when the report is written, there was a further in- crease of nearly 1,000 members, so that their membership now is close to the 4,000 mark. The negligible number of organized shops in tho downtown section at the end of 1925 has been increased to 120 organized shops in that section in which 900 members are employed. From the number of twenty organized shops in. which over 2,000 members are em- ployed”. According to logic the local and) those who occupy the leading posi- tions in such successful work should receive the fullest cooperation and support from those who are really interested in retaining the already- won positions and the furthering of ers is now quite clear, That a process ~ << BReared Loss of Power. | presidential career; their last adven-/into that campaign influenced the| this work. But this was not in Ag cant were the Communist gains that widespread interest was everywhere | -It must also be remem- aroused. bered in this connection that in France the Communist tactics were clearly and decisively based on the ‘class struggle. No compromise was made with the socialist party, which entered into alliances with the par- New York May 25 to 27, at which 200 to 250 delegates will be present from all states of t%: country. The convention will be opened with a mass demonstration, to welcome the delegates. This will be held at Mecca Temple, one of the largest auditoriums in New York, Friday evening, May 25, jof one of the largest locals are the best example of the new songs which {are sung by Zaritzky and his “quar- tette”. “Clubs” Own Union. ‘| In the past few years a “club” has developed in Local 24 of New York which is actually the me of that gations of two of the largest New the aid of a secret club. nervy Workers’ Union at the expense} ~ |solid_ opposition bloc but.Zaritsky has | z jalso “discovered that besides the sub- | The convention has proved, how- lever, that the position of the “club” ‘is mot -“ogether. secure. Not only |were: they met face to face with a! ‘stantial number of — oppositionists from the out-of-town locals, the dele- ture through which they want to | general office to give financial aid dissolve hy force the second largest ‘and the other ‘Igeals to help in the local of the International and hand wonderful work which brought splen- over the 4,000 organized millinery did results. workers of Local 43 and later the. Women Good Unionists. blockers of Local 42 into the hands In the official convention report to of their “own boys” who rule with |th . Ma 4 tes the general koard told about Laval 45 that “From a mem- ft agreement with the policy of Zarits- ky and his “club men” and the result was that they began’ a systematic. sabotage and various maneuvers which ended in the special order to wipe the local completely out of tence, +h . Ke