The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 16, 1928, Page 6

Page Six THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 1928) THE DAILY WORK ER Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS’N, Inc. Daily, Except Suaday 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. Cable Address: SUBSCRIPTION RATES By Mail (in New York only): By Mail (outside of New York): $8.00 per year $4.50 six mnt! ear £3.50 six months $2.50 three menths. 0 three months. Phone, Orchard 1680 Datwork” 3 Address and mail out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. Y. SEraie as orate ROBERT MINOR WM. F. DUNNE Editor... Assistant 21 itor. . Ruterea as second-class mail at the post-office at New York, N. ¥., under the act of March 3, 1379. Al, the Sachem A tin medal—or was it a gold one?—-hung upon the neck of Alfred E. Smith last Monday in the celebration of the 139th an- niversary of Tammany Hall, made him a “sachem” of that old and more or less honorable institution which.has thrived upon contracts, bribery, gambling concessions, panel-games and police exploitation of prostitution for the greater part of the past cen- tury and a half. < But of course this is circus stuff. Not Jim Foley but bigger men make Al the “sachem.” Because Al is picked by the biggest guns in Wall Street as a second candidate acceptable for the presidency, in case the political atmosphere makes necessary the switching of the democratic party into power, the childish cere- monies of initiating Smith as an “Indian chief” take place. The old traditions of Tammany as a “poor man’s friend” is capitalized to help this choice of big bankers toward the democratic party nomination. Of course the old Tammany Hall, which distributed to down-and-outers in New York city a few crumbs from the rich graft of city corruption, has grown into the “New Tammany” which is more directly controlled by the largest New York bankers. It becomes doubly necessary to capitalize the old traditions of the earlier days when Tammany was the “bum’s friend.’”’ And so the project to move Tammany Hall to an up-town aristocratic neighborhood was vetoed, and much palaver is made of the loca- tion. of the new Tammany building on Union Square. Tammany and its candidate in the browm derby will remain “with the com- mon people,” picking, not strangely, the same square in which the new headquarters of the New York district of the Workers (Communist) Party and the office of The DAILY WORKER will be located. The Sachem of Wall Street must appear as the sachem of that portion of the working class which can be demoralized with the charities and the bribes coming out of the fruits of Tammany sewer contracts. But the Sachem remains the sachem of Wall Street. Dist. 1 Miners Ask Convention GEORGE PAPCUN, (Secretary, Tri-District Save-the- Union Committee, Anthracite.) The general body has been meet- ing at this time for several weeks in District 1 and considering the grievances of the miners and trying to get a special district convention in District 1 for the miners, The miners in District 1 must not allow this present date for the special dis- trict convention to be set aside as was done previously when the con- vention was set for April 16. The miners must also realize that there is a difference in the gorups which want the convention. Nobody can tieny that the group led by Brennan, Harris, McGarry and McCrone has} been the ruling group in the general | body. Where Brennan Stands. Nobody can deny that the majority ot the miners in District 1 are for a special district convention, yet the Brennan group has seen fit to post- pone the question of a special dis‘rict convention from April 16, in order that tiey may appeal to John 1. Lewis. In fact they have tried to have John L. Lewis recognize the By special district convention despite the | fact that they know what John L. Lewis’ attitude is towards the rank and file. We also know that they have :o far not put out a concrete policy on where they stand, on what program they advance. They have been up until now using the sentiment against the district of- ficials. They have continually been fooling around with board members of District 1 in trying to make. a deal with them as in the case of Boylan. They have even gone vo the extent of being ready to support Boy- lan for district president. The only reason that they did not do it is be- cause Boylan kicked them in the iace and refused to have anything to do with them. Yet they tried to spread this idea among the miners in District 1. The Brennan group has also been and is afraid that it will violate some work or part of the construction which we miners know is only framed up Zcr the one that is in power. Yet the district machine led by Cappelini has violated every constitutional provi- sien. constitution provides “tha’ “special conventions of the district shall be called by the president upon the written request of five local ue'ons who shall state the object of t¥= convention in their request.” Over iy Jocal unions have demanded a pecial convention, but Cappelini and district executive board, includ- ing Mr. John Boylan, have refused ‘a convention and have threatened tc expel every man who supports or docs anything to help this convention along. The Brennan group has also never said anything openly on the question of the contract system. Whether they favor a fight to the finish against the system thru a strike or other wise, they do not say. They have said very little about other grievances in the district. They have said nothing | soft coal. They have never made their stand on Lewis clear and in some cases they have supported John L. Lewis. They refuse absolutely to connect up the struggle of the soft coal miners with the anthracite min- ers despite the fact that we miners know that the struggle in our district is a struggle of the miners in the soft coal district and that their strug- gle is ours. Brennan refused to have introduced into the general body a resolution on Lewis. He refuses to go on record as to where he stands on this question. One cannot be sin- cerely against Cappelini if he is for John L, Lewis. Brennan must come out openly and state on what side of the fence he is. He even went so far as to speak in his own local union against the Save-the-Union move- ment which is led by John Brophy, Pat Toohey, Tony Minerich, John Watt and Powers Hapgood. Does he want to divide the anthracite miners from the soft coal miners? There have been some rumors that this is the policy of the Brennan group. If this is so, the miners must watch very carefully and not permit him to do this as this will divide the miners and play into the hands of John L. Lewis, Cappelini and his henchmen and to the coal operators who are the same, who own the coal mines in the soft coal as well as in the hard coal region. We miners in the anthracite must also asi: ourselves why he makcs a special request that the death of Frank Agati be investigated. We all know how Frank Ageti died. We all know that he was a contractor, a thug, and not an active union man as the Brennan group tries to put him in their resolution. Convention Must Be Held May 21. We must tell the Brennan group, “You either are going to vive us you policy and come out openly and state what you are going to do or we will fight you as we are today fighting Cappelint, John L. Lewis, Kennedy and the rest.” No deals with Lewis! The convention must be held on May 21 whether Lewis likes it or not, whether Cappcelini likes it or not. We miners want the convention and it must be held. The miners must not allow Brennan to postpone the con- vention again, no matter what the promises of Lewis or his agents are. The cot.vention must go thru. The delegates to the convention must be elected on a program. The member- ship must demand that every chance should be given it to express itself before anybody is elected as a dele- gate to the special district conven- tion on May 21. We must also instruct our delegates on how we want them to act. We must ask them where they stand on John L. Lewis, on Cappelini, on the individual contract system, on the soft coul strike, on Bonita, on the expulsion of our brothers from the union and on other very important questions. Brennan must be made to under- stand that he either is going to do what we, the miners, want him to do or he will be dumped overboard as Cappelini now is being dumped on the question of the crisis in the | overboard, THE ENEMY (=a By. Fred Ellis Refute Slander of .W.W. Officials To the Editor of DAILY WORKER, Dear Comrade: During recent weeks while I was absent from the office on my speak- ing tour, the press of the I. W. W. has made a number of attacks on the I. L. D. The general character of these notices has been that of veiled insinuations against our organization, but they have contained also direct misstatements of fact. For that rea- son a few words of explanation and clarification should be made in order that our membars and friends will know how matters stand. It is well known that in the past we have taken very little time away from our con- structive work to answer slanderers. The officials of the I. W. W. have evi- dently been presuming on this prac- tice of ours to attack the I. L. D. and the cause it represents, Aided I. W. W. Members. Since the I. L. D. was first organ- ized on June 28, 1925, our records show that we have contributed for the defense and relief of I. W. W. pris- oners and their families the sum of more than $10,000. We presume these attacks and slanders are the I. W. W. officials’ way of acknowledging the receipt of our contributions. There have been no other public acknowl- edgment. The specific charge made against us is that the I. L. D, promised to fi- nance half the expense of the defense cases in the Colorado strike and then failed to do so, sending only $800.00; whereas, it is claimed, the total de- fense expense was in excess of $9,000. Such a charge has naturally called forth inquiries for the facts in the case, as the reputation of the I. L. D. for scrupulously carrying out all its agreements and obligations in letter and spirit is as much a part of our organization as its official magazine or its practice of sending. monthly checks to the class war prisoners, or its undeviating allegiance to the prin- ciple of the class struggle in all its activities. The reply to the false charges of the I. W. W. falls into two parts: Made No Agreement. 1.—In the first place the I. L. D- never made any such agreement as the I. W. W. statements represent. All of our connections with them in regard to the Colorado strike was handled by correspondence and thay cannot produce a single document, let- ter or telegram to substantiate their claim. There was no such agreement and could not be for several reasons. We did definitely promise and agree to pay one-half of an estimated legal expense of $600 for the month of De- cember in response to a telegram from Tom Connors making that pro- posal. We kept that agreement promptly and went far beyond it with- out any obligation or agreement. We repeatedly suggested to them that some plans and agreements be made for a joint campaign, but our sugges- tions brought no response and the I. L. D. consequently conducted no cam- paign for funds for this issue. Prac- tieally all the, contributions received by the National Office for the Color- ado strike defense come from our own local organiastions and members with- out solieitation, and the contributions received for this purpose were less than the total amount sent by us to the I. W. W. The I. W. W. officials never fur- nished us with a budget of estimated expenses although we asked for it, and, in harmony with our past exper- ience with them, they never gave us any accounting of how our money was spent, It was only afterward, near the end of the strike, that we wera asked to pay the General Defense Committee of th I. W. W., four or five thousand dollars without trou- bling ourselves about “details.” The claim that we made such an absurd agreement and then violated it is not only a reflection on our in- tegrity, but on our intelligence and responsibility as well. How could the I. L. D. bind itself to pay indefinite large amounts of money without some regulation of its expenditure and some concrete plans for raising the money? An executive committee which would handle funds in such a manner, would deserve no confidence whatever and certainly would not have the intelligence and responsi- bility necessary to conduct such an organization as the I. L. D. which is enabled to carry out its manifold ac- tivities and obligations only by the|s most careful and exact financial man- agement. : 2.—In the second place the I. W. W. statements fall into a “slight” error in regard to the funds actually con- tributed to the Colorado strike by the I. L. D. The amount sent directly from the National Office was not $800 as they say but $1,050. This is known to the authors of the state ments as we hold their receipts and our cancelled checks for this total amount in items of $250, $300 and $500. The total amount received by the National Office for the Colorado strike was $768.82. Acknowledge Aid With Slander. In addition to that our local organ- izations contributed thousands of dol- lars directly and indirectly and were in many cases the driving forces in organizing local conferences which supplied funds for the strike. And when the I, W. W. officials acknowl- edge the receipt of this help in the strike and show their appreciation of the sacrificial work of the members of the I. L. D. only by a shower of slander-mud, we ask our members and friends not to allow their indig- nation at such incredible venality and double-dealing to blur the fact that our work and our contributions were not a relation between us and the officials of the I. W. W. They were acts of solidarity with the Colorado miners. In the future also we will palvays do our part for solidarity and our work will be all the more efficient and effective, and the I. L. D. will be a better instrument of the workers in their struggle, if we establish a bet- ter regulation and closer direct su- |pervision over the distribution of the | funds we contribute, | Slander and the manufacture of “money scandals” in the labor move- ment are always the weapons of weak |people and those who have no prin- cipal ground to stand on, It is the ;means whereby they try to muddy the ;waters and avoid an accounting of ‘their responsibility in principal ques- \tions involving the fundamental in- |terests of the working class. This ;phenomena is not new and is known ‘9 oll experienced workers in the la- bor movement. We witnessed it last year in the o-Vanzetti case when the Sacco- anzetti Defense Committee resorted to this despicable method in order to cover up their criminal sabotage of the workers’ protest movement and their philistine faith in “justice” from the Massachusetts courts and governor. It is no accident that the officers of the I. W. W., the little men who are wearing Haywood’s shoes, pick up this dirty stick just at the moment when the validity of their tactics in the Coloradc strike is called into ques- tion. The first duty of genuine lead- ers of the workers after every labor struggle is to provide for a sober and objective inquiry and criticism in or- der that the right conclusions may be drawn and errors avoided for the fu- ture. If the leaders of the I. W. W. fail to do this, if instead they sow jemoralization and create the person- al bitterness and hostility which pre vent objective thought and discussion, it is only because they have no con- fidence in their position or in their ability to defend their methods and conduct, This is the real underlying reason for their manufactured indig- nation and groundless attacks against the I. L. D. : For the immediate future we must remind our members and friends that there are no men in jail in Colorado now and there are no serious cases pending, while hundreds of miners are being arrested every week in Penn- sylvania, Ohio and Illinois, and many indictments involving prison terms, have already been returned against the most prominent fighters, The mambers of the I. L. D. are duty bound to direct their attention to this great battlefield of the class war and to concentrate their work and funds upon it. The fact that the officials of the A. F. of L, on the one hand and the officials of the I. W. W. on the other are in no way interested in the de- fense of these heroic miners, and even try to sabotage and obstruct the work we do for them, only puts upon the I. L. D. and its wide and growing circle of sympathetic supporters the jaluty to devote themselves with great- er energy than before to the construc- tive work of solidarity which has built the I. L. D. in the past and which will build it stronger in the future. James P. Cannon, Secretary, In- ternational Labor Defense. Chinese Workers Organize Militant League Militant Chinese workers in the United States. with the statement that the Kuomintang in China. has become the tool of the imperialist powers, have repudiated that organ- ization and have formed a progres- sive Chinese revolutionary organiza- tion, the Alliance to Support. the Chinese Worker-Peasant Revolution. The New York branch of the Alli- ance has issued the following mani- festo: “It was thru the activities of our group that the right wing San Fran- cisco Kuomintang main office was dissolved and that the left wing con- vention was called in 1926. Also thru our efforts the New York branch got rid of the right wingers. and is now a left wing branch. Again thru the activities of our group the Oakland Kuomintang main office supported our policy against the traitor Chiang Kai-shek. At the time when the Oak- land main office group supported Wong Chin-wai and its official organ took a wavering position on the same question, our group protested most vigorously. What made us fight so determinately? It is because we real- ize the real meaming of Sun Yet-sen- ism and the world situation. It is be- cause of this understanding of our principles that we are qualified to act as the “guide” of the left wing Chinese revolutionary movement in this country. It is thru our consistent attack on the opportunists that makes us the vanguard of the Chinese masses in this country. For the Class Struggle. “We have been accused of faction- alism. It is true that we built up the “Wu-Tang-Tun-Chi-Wai” (Save the Party) fraction. in the old Kuo- mintang New York branch, and we jalso opposed the resolution of the ‘Oakland main office to dissolve the \New York left wing branch. We also \protested openly against the editorial \policy of the “Kou-Min-Yat-Po.” We jopposed all these not on factional grounds, but on the grounds of prin- |ciples in the class struggle, “We are fighting for the interests of the exploited workers and peas- ants; the opportunists whom we at- tack are fighting for the interests of the bourgeoisie. If the opportun- ists find it profitable to support the bourgeoisie, they surely cannot ex- neect us to give up our class interests. That we were at the time in the min- ority should not make any difference. That is how movements are born. f Our aim is to build a strong left wing revolutionary wing, and it is only by attacking the opportunists that we bring the problem to the conscious- ness of the masses, who thru under- standing the problem will join with us to form a real rank and file or- ganization. When we started our fight we won the immediate support of the Kuomintang branches in Wal- nut Grove, Locke in California, Phila- delphia and Chicago. Since the exist- ence of our group in America it has always served the interests of the working class and was a thorn in the side of the reactionaries and tools of imperialism. We promise that they jShall not be rid of us until we are | victorious. “The group that is starting the Alli- lance thru its past activities has proven that it has adhered to the ‘principles of Dr. Sun. We tried hard to keep within the organization of ithe Kuomintang and to carry on the \spirit of its founder. However, since ithe summer of 1927 the Kuomintang has drifted quickly to the right and finally became the hangman of the Chinese Revolution. Chinese Soviets Hold Power. “Comrades and Fellow Country- men! The working class of the Soviet Union is free. The workers of other countries are fighting their ruling class every day. “Even in China the workers and peasants established a Canton Soviet for a short period of time. The work- ers and peasants of Hai Fang and Lau Fang are still holding power. They can never be crushed. The Chinese bourgeoisie is a decadent class. It is demoralized both physical- ly and mentally by the use of opium footbiding, concubinage, etc. Their philosophy constantly teaches of the past and their customs strictly adher to the past. They have no conception of the new developments in China or the rest of the world. Hence they are thoroly incompetcht to handle the new situation arising in China, or to properly control and govern the new demands of the Chinese. The task entirely remains to the working class, which is the only class that has a vision and a historical function to perform. Be quick to join the real most exploited, most militant class, the real masters of China and the world in the future. “Chinese Workers in America, we appeal to you in the name of the fighting revolutionary workers in hina, They are being murdered by The “Forward” Rev. Thomas! And Mr. Maurer By PAUL NOVICK. The character of the Jewish Daily} Forward is well known even outside! the circle of Jewish readers, “Deeent” socialists usually claim that they are “not responsible” for the Forward, and the story goes that Messrs. Nor- man Thomas and James Maurer are among them. These socialists con-( veniently forget that the Forward-/ erowd is the backbone of the New} York socialist organization, and inj that way the backbone of the Socialist, Party of America. They also like, to forget that the money that comes, from the Forward helps maintain the) New Leader and whatever there is| left of socialist activity. | The recent convention of the So= cialist Party, which gave up the idea: of elass struggle and has fully ex-j posed that party as a petit beurgeois/ organization, has also accomplished another valuable task of tearing off the mask of “deeency” from gentle- men like Thomas and Maurer: Thomas Speaks in Forward. The Forward of April 18th carried on its front page a special message from Mr. Norman Thomas to the Jewish workers. Mr. Thomas there- fore does not mind identifying him- with the Forward and using it as his| mouthpiece. The same issue of the} Forward also carries a_ resolution which the Socialist Party convention had unanimously, as that paper says, adopted “acknowledging the good so= cialist work the Forward is doing.’” It will therefore be worth while to{ examine this “good socialist work.”’! By exposing this yellow paper we will throw light on those who ap-' preciate its work and on those who: use it as their mouthpiece. We need not go back too far. We need not tell the gentlemen who ap- pear as the friends of the Soviet. Union what means the Forward em- ploys to besmirch and slander thol Workers’ and Peasants’ governments Mr. Maurer is probably also aware of the fact that the Forward has sup- pressed all news regarding his report on his trip to the Soviet Union. We will just cite a few very recent ex+ amples of the “good socialist ace tivity” of the Forward. Capitalist Propaganda. On Sunday, April 15, while the Socialist Party Convention was im session, there appeared in the For- ward an editorial headed: “The Price of the World War and the Price of the Russian Civil War.” In that editorial which was merely a clumsy translation from a recent editorial the New York Times on the same subject, the socialist paper tries ta “show” that the civil war in Russia was more costly than the World Wax with regard to the number of lived lost. This idea is based on the figured the committee of the League of Na: tions has recently published. With out going into the details of thesa very questionable figures, it is worth while noticing one feature of the “good socialist” editorial: The For- ward very innocently omits such names as Koltchak, Udenitch, Deni- kin, Wrangel, Pilsudsky, Petlura, etc., as well as the blockade and all direct intervention by the allies and tha United States. It seems that thesa good people and their humanitarian internationalism played no part in taking uway the lives of millions off men, women and children on the terri tories of the Soviet Union... . Is that the kind of “good socialist work” the Socialist Party Convention has endorsed? Now let us go back one week. Ord Sunday, April 8, we find in the For< ward a more striking example of good socialist ‘activity, i. e. the activity of that paper against the rank and iq of the trade unions. Supported All Corruptionists. We will not cite the gear et work of the Forward in the needl trades, where in alliance with Mat-( thew Woll and the needle manufac4 turers it has helped abolish the forty< hour week and other good union con< ditions inaugurated by the left wing! leadership, and has helped bring back slavery for the needle workers and misery and suffering for tens o: thousands of workers’ families. W: will not cite the support the Forwar had always given corrupt union of- ficials, even such officials as Bres< lauwer of local 35, F. L. G. W. U., wh was openly exposed by the report Stuart Chase in 1926, the Zausnen gang of the Painters’ Council whose Wall Street activities (with unio: funds) were recently aired in th courts of New York, etc., ete. Th editorial of Sunday, April 8 deal: with the rank and file movement among the miners. The stand of the Forward on this question is indicative of the general attitude of the For-, ward—for the corrupt officials an against the rank and file, agains every attempt to cleanse the unio) of corruption. (To Be Continued). the same exploiters and imperialist: who made the conditions in China s intolerable that you were forced ta run away from your own country, You had to eome to the United Stat to seek your livelihood. Join you fellow workers and help to crush class that prevented you from Ih J and working in your own country. The only way to show your solidarit with them is to join the ‘Alliance for the Support of the Chinese We and Peasants Revolution’ and us fight for your ;