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

— 1 SOR Rt NN Page Six THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, THURSD. THE DAILY WORKER Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS’N, SHING ASS'N, Ine. | | Daily, Except Sunday $3 First Street, New York, N. Y. Cable Address SUBSCRIPTION RATES Majl (in New York only): By Mail (outside of New York): per vear $4.50 six 1. $6.50 per year 3,50 six months $2.50 three months. $2.00 three months. “Daiwork” By £3.0¢ Address and mail out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. Y. | Editor. .-ROBERT MINOR Assistant Editor WM. F. DUNNE Enterea as second-class mail gf the post-office at New York, N, ¥.. the aet of March 3, 1879. under | Jersey Mosquito Justice Editorial comment on the action of the higher New Jersey court in reversing the lower court which four years ago convicted | four Patterson silk workers and Roger Baldwin, head of the} American civil liberties union, in connection with the silk strike | in Paterson, is significant: “But the final opinion re-establishes it (the constitution) as the supreme law of the land.”—N. Y. World. “It also shows that even radical socialists can go into an Amer- ican court red that any flagrant injustice which has been done them will be righted.”—N. Y. Times. This editorial comment exhibits the reason why the court | indulged in the inexpensive luxury of releasing five men from small jail sentences and fines imposed solely for trying to hold a| meeting during a strike. The reason is that by this gesture of “leniency” some of the working class can be further duped into believing what the Times says—that workers (and more espe- cially a member of the liberal intelligentsia) involved in police suppression in the course of the class struggle “can go into an American court assured that any flagrant injustice which has| been done them will be righted.” The reason for “leniency” of | Jersey justice is of course amplified by the following facts: 1. This is an election year. 2. It is a period of increasing union-smashing, wage cutting, suppression and police violence against the working class. | 3. Within a few months there has been open murder by state troops of six striking coal miners in Colorado allegedly for step- ping across a property line, but really for picketing. 4. A reign of terror is now in process in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and other coal fields, with clubbings, wholesale arrests and complete abolition of civil rights, injunctions entirely nullify- ing so-called constitutional guarantees so far as workers are concerned. 5. The pauperization and expropriation of smaller farmers is proceeding at a rapid rate, causing wide-spread discontent. The march of United States imperialism is just beginning u real earnest with the bloody war against Nicaragua and the .1vasion of China on a large scale. , At this particular time one of the alternative candidates ot W, ‘all Street for the presidency is necessarily put forward (as Woodrow Wilson was at an earlier time) as a candidate repre- senting liberalism, constitutional rights and the “common people.” 8. The open shop movement, now engaged in a nation-wide effort to sterilize and eliminate trade-unionism, can absolutely rely upon all of the present candidates of capitalist parties. Under these circumstances in this election year, which is also the year of the supreme crisis for the organized labor move- ment, every harpy of the capitalist press and pulpit is striving to prove to the masses that although strikers’ heads are broken, al- thou;"h men, women and children are jailed, evicted and assaulted without even the forms of law,—nevertheless “the constitution” protects them from all of these things, and “any flagrant injus- tice which has been done them will be righted.” That is why, on the day when-58 fur workers are sent to jail in New York for picketing and four workers are jailed for picket- ing a scab mine in Ohio, the New York World and New York Times pick out, not these incidents of the living struggle now in process, but a four-year-old case in New Jersey, to editorialize about. Crush the strike today! Stifle all speech and club the picket line of today at all costs! Smash the Union in the struggle which is going on now !—but it is safe and profitable to editorial- -jze on liberty in a four-year-old case in which a middle-class ad- vocate of “free speech” is liberated. * The working class must learn and is learning not to trust these miserable hypocrites of “liberal” journalism who strain at *a mosquito and swallow an elephant, in support of capitalist class rule. The courts of law which murdered Sacco and Vanzetti, the eourts which liberate Harry Sinclair and hold Mooney and Billings to a life-time of torture, the courts and the constitution which are now being used to repress with blood and iron the miners of | cannot be vindicated with this petty ges-| ture of “Jersey justice’ and the philistine boasts for which the | Pennsylvania and Ohio, Beetare i 3 mai Advertising in the Daily Worker By S. FISHER. ests .of. the working class. The| tlew can the militant and class con-/ DAILY WORKER, therefore, has a scious workers help build The DAILY! right to demand that you help get WORKER? Every comrade and sym-| advertisements for the paper. pathizer should always bear in mind | The DAILY WORKER must reach that when they patronize a restaur-| the striking miners, the textile strik- ant, or buy clothing, shoes, furniture,| ers, and the steel towns whvre the ete., they should ask the proprietor) workers have no organization. The to place an advertisement in The| DAILY WORKER is*the only hope DAILY WORKER, The needle trade|for these workers. It helps to or- workers in the garment center should} ganize the unorganized, and fights _ demand advertisements from the res-|for a progressive and militant policy taurants and cafeterias they patron-|in the unions, Comrades and sympathizers, let us do our duty and help build The DAILY WORKER in circulation and advertisements. The militant workers know that The DAILY WORKER is the only daily newspaper that fights for . inter- . Phone, Orchard 1680 | . MAY 17, 1928 FASCISMO By NICOLA NAPOLI The Sozzi murder is a definite sign of the situation of Italian fascism. It indicates that the Mussolini government after six years’ rule, can not stand on®its feet but through terror and crimes, and that it is still compelled to murder and ‘strangle militant workers in jail. It indicates that the opposition to fascism is still very strong and that, above all, it is gradually assuming definite forms, as in the recent tex- tile strikes of Gallarate and Por- denone—under the leadership of the most active and revolutionary op- | positional force in Italy: The Com- munist Party. 6,000 in Danger. The lives of 6000 political prisoners, who are in jail and in the various de- portation islands, are in danger. They are continuously under threat of sharing the fate of Matteotti, Gobetti, Piceinini, Sozzi, Riva, Ruggeri and other fascist victims bestially tor- tured and murdered. It is impossible to count them all! From a list recently compiled by the International Red Aid we note that from February 1927 to the be- ginning of April 1928, the special] |fascist tribunal has distributed more than 17 centuries of jail sentences to hundreds of workers. 1,300 Year Sentences. For the Empoli “incident” where the workers responded with energy to a fascist provocation—97 comrades were sentenced to 1300 years of jail! In November 1927, a young worker and his sweetheart were condemned to 36 years of imprisonment for having leaflets in their possession. In By PAUL NOVICK. (Continued). The editorial deals with the miners’ conference which was held at Pitts- burgh at the beginning of this month, and like a good disciple of Matthew Woll it raises the ery of “Com- munism” and “Moscow.” Let ‘us quote a few paragraphs. “The Communist Party of Ameri- ca---the Forward begins—has sud- denly become busy again. After the: Communist agents had for @ few years been active solely among the Jewish workers and have. for. that period succeeded in destroying and ruining a few of the most beautiful’“and progressive Jewish unions, they how decided to get busy in the ‘gentile’ unions. In Moseow they finally realized that solely.with the Jewish workers of New York and Chicago it is im- possible to create a Communist revolution in America; that for a revolution in America they must have not only the Jewish tailors, but also the non-Jewish workers of » the big inddstries of the country, and Moscow therefore has ordered the American Communists to start organizing the real American work- ers fer the Communist revolution” (Our emphasis). “Progressive” Lewis. Here the editorial. goes on to ex- plain how progressive the miners’ union is, and that “among the offi- cers and active workers of the miners’ union there are very many progressive trade unionists.” The editorial would have readers believe that these progressive elements are with the Lewis machine. Lewis April of this year comrades Vignoc- chi, Spinelli and Parodi were sen- tenced to 52 years for having taken part in an illegal meeting. A few days before three Communists, Chini, Grilli and Morellato were sentenced to seven years each for “inciting peo- ple to revolt.” How Fascism Works. These few instances, taken from tens of others, eloquently prove how fascist courts work and without what anger and insane brutality they con- demn those who show the least op- position to the Mussolini regime. Even those who speak of Mussolini must be careful lest they do not go to jail as Ricci Timoteo, a worker, who was sentenced to four years and one month for “lack of respect in mentioning the Duce.” Simply enough, Mussolini tries to violently suppress the rising voices of opposition. And he also tries to divert the attention of the public with chore- graphical proclamations, with “fascist tours” as the one recently organized in Milan where 10,000 workers were forced to go to Rome to listen to a speech of Mussolini under threat of being fired from their factories ana with a typical system of provocations. Any one who is acquainted with the fascisti and their methods knows of their elaborate artistry as “agent provecateurs.” We recall, a propos, the case of the agent Quaglia in con- nection with the Zaniboni “plot”; the scandal of Ricciotti Garibaldi in France (where the’ fascist police had instructed their agent to organize pseudo plots) and the murder of the fascist agent Savorelli in Paris used in order to compel the French goy- ernment to extradict all anti-fascisti himself, although he belongs to the Republican Party, the Forward says, is not such a-bad fellow: “In pure trades union questions Lewis is not any more conservative than. other American trade union leaders. In any case, Lewis is an energetic man and. the majority of the members of the union seem to have confidence in him, since at all conventions of the union and at all referendums Lewis has been elected _ with an enormous majority.” It is hardly necessary to point out the hypoerisy of these lines. The “energy” and the “majorities” of the Lewis machiné are well known. Let us get back.to “Moscow.” The editorial of the Fotward con- cludes-as followii “Attacks Soviet’ Union. “There is nd doubt that the Com- munists have suddenly become. ac- tive inthe miners’ districts, because there it ie easier for them to inci the workers, and meant be, possible to keep up the bluff he- fore Moscow that the Communists are active in the struggle of the miners, And there is also no doubt that among the ‘progressive min- . ers,’ that -haye suddenly become the standard bearers’of Communism in America, there area good num- ber of Pinkerton deteqgives, that are paid by the mine “companies for their revolutionary work.” This contemptible propaganda against “Moscow,” which is: “order- ing” its “agents” in America to stir up “revolution” among the miners, can very well be compared with any kind of propaganda against the Soviet Union, emanating either from the Civie Federation, Key Men of Amer- ica, or the D. A, R. And this kind to Italy where they would have been well taken care of. A New “Plot.” Now, we have the “Milan plot,” a new pretext for terrorism. Hundreds of workers have been arrested. We have been informed by cable that the trial will take place on May 28 or even earlier. No witnesses will be alowed for the defendants. Numer- ous death sentences have been prom- Fascist Terror Victim Italian left wing Gastone Sozzi, labor leader, murdered by fascist po- lice in Milan under Mussolini’s orders. of propaganda is unanimously ac- knowledged as “good socialist work” by a convention which so hypocriti- cally demanded that “Moscow” be recognized! Mr., Kellogg needs only point out to the editorial of the For- ward of April 8, 1928. And this is how the good socialist paper and the mouthpiece of Mr. Thomas regards the struggle of the miners to free themselves from the corrupt and murderous Lewis machine | that. has been the undoing of. their once powerful union and the source of cheir misery and suffering. ~ ‘This struggle, according to the slanders of -he yellow socialist sheet, is: paid by {it the companies and is led by Pirkker- ton’ detectives. Could the agents of the Mellons themselves have concocted ‘anything more’ devilish- against. the movement. that threatens to -bredk ‘their -deadl, Some Facts. - Mr. Norman.Thomas isa contri ing editor to the liberal magazine, Sov The Nation... In. the. issue of. ti magazine of April 25 there appeared }Gommiui an article on the Pittsburgh “Save-| the-Union” Conference. In -that. arti- cle we read that the delegation of: over 1100 men represented “a ma- jority of the coal miners, organized and unorganized, in North America.” There we also read that John L.|q Lewis has been so “energetic” that|Si he has drawn for the past six months $11,093 from the union treasury in salaries and expenses, at a time when the miners are getting one dollar per week from the union—‘when they get it,” as the writer of the Nation adds, He also tells us that the Save- the-Union Committee is headed by: By Fred Ellis ised. For the occasion, the head- quarters of the special fascist tribunal have been transferred to Milan. One of the arrested for the Milan bomb was comrade Carlo Riva. After 3 week of his arrest, the papers re- ported that “Carlo Riva had commit- ted suicide by hanging himself in his cell” in the prison of Genoa. As with Sozzi’s body, the fascisti also re- fused an autopsy for Riva. Murdered By Fascists. No, Sozzi and Riva did not commit suicide! They, as Communists who still had faith in the proletariat, would have never eliminated them- selves from the fight. They were killed by the fascisti after being tor- tured. Yet these are not isolated cases. The fate of numerous comrades. is still. unknown to us and to their families. Among these are the stu- dent Martellanz, the former secretary of the Chamber of Labor of Treviso, Ghidetti, the school teacher Betti, the workers Monfrini and Tepasso and Azzario who was arrested in Panama in 1927 by order of the fascist gov- ernment and was to be extradicted to Italy. Demand Their Release. Public opinion demands that the fate of these workers to be known! Public opinion demands that the fascist atrocities be stopped! Public opinion demands that the 6000 political prisoners among whom are hundreds of women and children (12 women have already given birth to their infants in dark, pestilential cells, deprived of every medical as- sistance) be released at once! And not only public opinion: It is our conscience as workers, as such men as John Brophy, “Tony” Minerich, John W. Watt, Pat Toohey, and Powers Hapgood, whose aim it is to oust the Lewis leadership “as a prelude to more extended union ac- tivity.” Does the contributing editor of the Nation agree with this article, or does he think that the activities of ‘the Save the Union Committee were ordered from Moscow end that those miners who are Communists inkerton detectives”? Has he for such serious accusa- s he, as well as Maurer, believe that the Forward was right in its statement of April 2 that “A Mex- man, a Barber and Jew- munists Are Delegates to the 7 of “Progressive Miners”? ‘$0; how. could they represent a ma- jority.of- — coal miners? rd; Agent of Lewis. _ this touch’ an issue most “labor movement? Did t ard act here as an agent = ares machine and as an "3 ‘eeator both against the ment and against those “niners | who believe in mmiunism ? ~But_ thes “decent” ‘ostaliats do not mind allthis. They gave the For- ward a-carte blanche, The S. P. con- ion’ indorsed’ that contemptible paper ‘unanimously, — “We oer 0 back another week and Hie e ivi of the Forward of Sun on “The Truth About the tel ilitarism” (this type of edi- torial’ seems to be the regular Sun- day sermon of the good socialist pa- per). That editorial, just as the edi- torial on the miners’ situation, “sur- passes what the New York Times ould have said on that subject. But, rages e said at the start, it is Lge ish C SP Underweight-- No Jobs Open For Ne grog By SCOTT TT NEARING. Joe weighs 118 pounds. He is black. | When I talked to him he had been standing in an employment office for a week waiting for work. Before that he worked for one day as an errand boy in place of another lad who was sick, But the sick boy came Tback ‘the next day and Joe returned | to the employment office. “Not much demand for Negroes these days,” explained the manager | of the office. “There is a feeling | around town that no Negro has a, right to a job while a white man is out of work. “Besides, Negroes are only hired | to do certain kinds of work. “Take Joe here as a sample. He | ‘weighs under 120 pounds. When we get inquiries from factories and of- | fice buildings for Negroes they al- ways specify, around 160 or 170 pounds. The Negroes do the heavy labor and they need heavy men. A | light fellow like Joe is no use on such a job. It doesn’t even pay us to send him out of the office. “Some day we'll pick up a job for | Joe,” the manager went on hopefully. | “Messenger or errand boy or some- thing like that. It won’t pay him much, Jobs like that pay little enough to white men and always less to Neg- | roes. But it’s the best he can expect to do. Joe’s handicapped. He’s under- | weight.” ‘Thousands 7 cas in New Fascist Terror brothers, as comrades that — these imperative demands. We also demand that the Milan; ial be conducted in the open,, that ample opportunity be given to the defendants to prove their inno- cence. We demand that a committee of liberals be permitted to investigate| the conditions of the political prison-! ers on the spot. We can not allow the further slaughtering of workers! The American proletariat must joii the international protest against at new wave of fascist terror. Labor Defense Active. The International Labor Defense| has taken up the cry of the innum- erable victims of fascism and has in-| structed all its supporters to p: protest demonstrations and energetically and actively participate; in this new anti-fascist campaign. As part of the campaign, the Interna< tional Labor Defense has issued special stamps with pictures of Mat- teotti and Sozzi. These stamps must/ be largely used and circulated. In a special appeal to the ete workers, written for the June issue o: the Labor Defender, Henri Barbusse| concludes: “Only one thing can make them/ (the fascisti) reply, one thing alona can force them to halt and to retreat, And that thing is the great avenging: voice of the outraged public opinion of mankind.” Let the voices of the world prole< tariat ring in the ears of Mussolini and his henchmen and let them en- courage our comrades who in spite off the fascist terror—are still in the front, fighting for the liberation of the Italian workers and peasants. The Yellow Forward, Rev. Thomas, and James Maurer fluous to touch upon the stand of the Forward towards the Soviet Govern- ment, There is no limit to what the Forward can stoop to here. The pa- per for instance maintains a special agent in Berlin who supplies it with cables about “Moscow” which the Chicago Tribune, for example, would always welcome, The Forward alsa maintains a special force here gather all news items regarding .tha crimes appearing in the Soviet press. A collection of such news is presented to the reader every Saturday, as a depiction of life im the Soviet Union (imagine how American life would look if any European paper would give its readers nothing but the crime news of any American big city). Hypocritical Action. If the socialist party were either ‘socialist or a party, it would have denounced the Forward long ago. This would have been the duty of a veal party towards a yellow, reacy tloviary and Soviet-baiting papex Which is identifying itself, and is be~+ ing identified, with the socialist cause. But instead of denouncing the Forward the socialist convention passed a resolution commending it for its “good socialist activity,” ac+ cépting it as its organ, and Mr, Thomas, its st@ndard bearer, uses it as his mouthpiece. Here the socialists stand exposed. By adopting that res+ olution they openly declared that the Forward expresses their opinions and ‘their policies, By adopting that reso« lution they have identified themselves with-that paper and have therefore branded themselves as Soviet~ s as supporters of John L. Lewis and all that is reactionary in the Amer ican labor movement.