The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 28, 1928, Page 6

THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, MONDAY, MAY 28, 1928 Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS’N, Inc. Daily, Except Sunday $3 First Street, New York, N. Y. Cable Address: Phone, Orchard 1680 “Dalwork” SUBSCRIPTION RATES i By Mail (in New York only): By Mail (outside of New Yors): » $8.0C per year $4.50 six menths $6.50 per year %3.50 six months $2.50 three months. $2.00 three months. Address and mail out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. Y. ..-ROBERT MINOR ..;WM. F. DUNNE Assistant Editor... © as second-class mail at the post-office at New York, N. ¥., under | the act of March 3, 1879. _ Foster and Gitlow Carry the Red Flag to the American Masses The end of the National Nominating Convention of the Work- - ers (Communist) Party marks the opening of an election cam- paign such as the United States has never before known. Foster and Gitlow, who are the carriers of the red banner of the Communist Party in this campaign, were our candidates also in 1924, and these are the same two-fisted fighting men of our class as they then were. But otherwise there is a vast difference. The Communist Party is something more than it was in 1924. | In a Communist campaign, the men and women who best embody | the aims and policies and leadership of the Party are chosen * as candidates, but in reality it is not individuals but the Party it- self which is the candidate. And the Communist Party of Amer- ica has passed through a tremendous process of development in the past four years. Z The Communist Party of America has during the past four years gone through the test of fire, the test of actual leadership of masses of workers in struggles against the capitalists. In ev- ery important strike that has occurred in the United States for four years, the Workers (Communist) Party has played a leading role. In every case the red line of Communist workers has been! the line of fiercest attack and hardest resistance on the picket line. So it was in the Passaic strike, which was a lightning-flash over the world of American labor marking the storm which now} is raging in several fields of struggle. The intense struggle in| the needle trades of New York, Chicago and other big cities was | again one in which the Workers (Communist) Party inevitably | became the backbone of the workers’ forces. In the great miners’ strike now in progress, the forces of reaction, the open-shop bosses, the government, the state “cos- sacks” and the bureaucratic traitors in the labor movement tes- tify no less plainly than the desperately fighting mine workers themselves, that without the activities of the Communists led by their Party the mine workers would have been crushingly defeated many months ago. All of these struggles have been marked by two features. A greater and ever-growing participation of the government, local, state and federal, in direct use of violent repressive measures and the accompanying legal forms against the workers, and, second, the appearance of the trade union bureaucracy more clearly than ever before in history in the role of violent strike-breakers obey- ing the same central direction which leads the individual coal op- erators and every captain of coal and iron police or city gunmen. The results are inevitably the disillusionment of many thou- sands and tens of thousands of workers begin to realize the true nature of class collaboration. When bosses and $12,000-a-year trade union “leaders” are openly seen in common counsel for the admitted purpose of breaking a strike, when the affidavits of officers of trade unions appear on warrants for the arrest of pickets as an ordinary phenomenon, when trade union bureaucrats openly declare that any union wishing to elect other officers than agents of the employers shall be deprived of its charter—then the transformation of the mind of the large sections of workers in- evitably begins if the Communist Party’s activity is sufficiently positive. At the same time the constant operation of injunctions, po- lice, state troops and federal courts, presidents and “mediators” in more and more flagrant action against the working class in general and against each strike in particular,—tends to wear away the illusions and to politicalize the working class. The terror of the capitalist state expressed in the cold blooded murder of Sacco and Vanzetti and the ceremonious welcome to the agents of Euro- pean fascism by “democratic” functionaries of the state, more or less slowly undermine the stupid faith of multitudes of toilers in capitalist “democracy.” The opening of actual warfare against the peoples of Latin America dissolves the mist of “peaceful” pa- triotism, and the piling up of armaments, huger than ever in his- tory, slowly open millions of eyes. In 1924 the old and prison-tortured Eugene V. Debs, who was loved by the American working class because he represented in their eyes everything to which the socialist party is antagonistic, could still be palmed off as the “leader” of that party of treason, and it was then also possible for the traitors to wreck the move- ment for independent political action of the working class by pre- senting the LaFollette petty-capitalist republicans as the “labor party.” But in 1928 the socialist party has to come before the workers as the Hillquit party, the Berger party, the party of the Reverend Norman Thomas, the party of Morris Sigman and the “Little Augie” gunmen-strikebreakers, the party which now fully identifies itself with the Lewis bureaucracy in destroying the United Mine Workers and breaking the strike. In short, tens of thousands of workers know today what was concealed from them before,—that the socialist party repudiates the class struggle and lines up with reaction nationally and internationally. When the working class sees the open purchase of two presi dents of the United States with bribes, when the working clas: sees Harry Sinclair, the bribe-giver, walk free from the crimina court while the same capitalist courts hold Mooney and Billings in life-long imprisonment and send Sacco and Vanzetti to death -—under these circumstances, the Workers (Communist) Party comes before the working class of the United States with a pro sram of living class struggle. This program reflects the needs of fe of the working class. It reflects all there is of working-clas: evolutionary tradition, and at the same time it reflects all tha here is of resistance to the capitalist class offensive which i | | BY SCOTT NEARING. NTARIO, Canada, is prosperous— after the capitalist fashion, with profits mounting and workers barely holding their own against the rising cost of living. One worker described wages and conditions in a machinery plant—one of the largest shops of Toronto. Machinery Replaces Men, “Working forces are greatly re- duced as against last year,” he said. “There are fewer orders, but above all, there are fewer jobs. Machinery is replacing men in every production department.” This statement was repeated by workers in other shops. Rationaliza- tion is proceeding. Machines are tak- ing the places of workers. Skilled men are becoming machine feeders. Oné big machine plant in Toronto worked an eight and a half hour day —half a day on Saturdays. Some de- partments had shut down on Satur- days because of slack orders. The tragic comedy enacted at Con- vention Hall in Boston is at an end. There was a grand finale. Sigman. Dubinsky, Schlesinger and Breslau fel! into each others arms and from now on will jive happily (but not forever after). The farce that was staged as a convention of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union is over, and now the cliques are once more face to face with the grim real- ities—a union shattered and destroyed as a result of their treachery; their coffers empty; their prestige (if ever they had any’ gone; themselves dis- credited and despised, the objects of the burning hatred of all those who hope for and aspire to a real union representative of the workers. For almost two years the yellow “Forward,” the mouthpiece of the pog- rom chieftain Sigman, has been print- ing screaming headlines about their amazing victories; how they defeated the Communists; how their union blos- somed forth to its full glory; how rrateful the workers were for having ‘een saved from the “despised Com- nunists.” Pictures were printed of ‘ake lines of workers waiting pati- ently for a chance to pay dues to the Sigman locals. The Communists were dead, buried and forgotten. But in pite of all these proclamations, which have been printed numberless times yver and over again, the clique sent ‘ts emissaries to Boston weeks before he convention in order to prepare the rround for their convention and forti- *y themselves against the rage of the vorkers. iow striving to crush the labor movement into nothingness. Our Party and our standard bearers, Foster and Gitlow speak in this election campaign with the only voice that can bc called the voice of the working class. With a stronger and more seasoned Communist Party, anc with a field in which there is not even a semblance of any othei claim upon the loyalty of the working class, and with a working class cer tain important sections of which have gone through disillusioning experiences in the past four years, the red standard of Communism should receive i: this election a vote that will etartle the enemies of our class. And our candidates will make clear to the workers in this campaig- that these sham “democratic” elections cannot be the means of freedom fo our class—that only tho working class revolution can liberate them fror. the grownig exp! id repression. . Raise Red Scare. The most horrifying hair-raising tories were circulated in Boston about he dangerous Communists, who were oming there to disturb law and order ind the lives of the peaceful citizens. “hru the good offices of prominent apitalist politicians, who undoubtedly eceived due renumeration, the police ‘orce was fully arrayed to meet the listurbers of the public peace. Guard- d by a cordon of police, who com- letely surrounded the convention hall and who had driven away ur legally he THE DAILY WORKER) ™Y cali rr Loan “How about Negroes?” I asked. “Hard to say,” the worker an- swered. “The plant is run on the piece work basis, Everyone is hired at a piece rate.” “Any minimum?” “Yes, 35 cents per hour.” Those who do not make more than that as piece workers are paid 35 cents as time workers.” “Do many get the 85 cent rate? “Yes, the hour-men. Also many workers who fail to make their piece rate because of low production or be- cause of slowing up in the depart- ments.” “How much do the piece workers get?” “Up to 60 cents. cents an hour.” “Is that a good wage?” “Yes, very good. There are a few skilled men, working in the more im- portant machines who make 60 cents and 65 cents an hour. But they are Usually under 50 the exception.” elected delegates and the rank and file of the Boston workers, Sigman, the chief pogrom leader, opened the so-called convention. And lc and behold! The dead Com- munists had risen from their graves and once more became the target for Sigman’s attacks. The beautiful myth about the reconstructed union built up by the clique was entirely dispelled. Such pillars of the “machine” as Nin- fo, Breslau, Dubinsky and the others, on the floor of convention hall. From the mouth of Dubinsky came forth a flood of glaring incriminating indict- ments against himself and the entire administration, responsible for bring- ing the ruinous war upon the union. Bankruptcy Admitted. The following is an excerpt from Dubinsky’s speech at the convention: “The moral of the membership is at the lowest point in the history. The tax collected is evidence of that. | In mormal times the tax paid is about $250,000. Now it is only $46,000. That shows the confidence of the membership. I started a drive for dues to try to remedy this situ- ation in some way, but it met with very little success. “We had to take the $400,000 un- employment insurance fund, we had to borrow some of the money there, six months ago; then when that was tied up we had to go to the fund for more money; we have signed notes for it and there is not another nickel that we can borrow. “Now, if you reject this referen- dum, what are we going back to New York with? I am going back to my locals with these presents: with a tax of $30 or $40; with the referendum submitting the election of ‘the international officers to the membership, rejected; with resolu- «tions passed which do not mean any- thing; with all our problems left unsolved; with nothing done. Now, I have gone to my local before with many. difficult things, but I have not the courage to face them after this. You pass resolutions that the membership must be compelled to = made open declarations of bankruptcy | In Hamilton (pet name, among the bosses, “The Birmingham of Can- ada”) I found workers doing heavy lifting work in wire mills and steel mills for $12 a week. Several men were working for $11, Next I asked about unions in the Toronto plant. The worker said: “No unions at all. And no one seems to take any initiative in or- ganizing the workers. There are two anarchists and two Communists in our shop but they are so busy trying to make a living for their families that they cannot do much in the way lof organization.” ~ Wave of Strikes. The worker with whom I was speaking had been trying hard to \study in the evenings. But the pace was beyond him. “When I am working 8% hours piece work,” he said, “I am too worn out to study. I find it impossible to hold my attention or to keep awake.” A wave of strikes is sweeping thru Eastern Canada. Two months ago | power at any price. the workers in the General Motors pay dues. But how can you com- pel them when they have not the spirit that makes them willing?” These telling truths and indictments against his own administration, which Dubinsky was compelled to affirm on the open floor of the convention, have long been known and communicated to the workers by the Joint Board. For a period of almost two weeks these cliques of self-seekers who are cal- lous to the sufferings of the workers, were engaged in a mad wrangle for Dubinsky, who thru his entire career had sneered at the idea of democracy and had insti- tuted a fascist dictatorship in his own local which was shattered only thru the heroic struggle of the cutters dur- ing the past 19 months, suddenly be- came the champion of the referendum. It was indeed an unusual and astound- ing spectacle to see the cynic, Dubins- ky, prating of democracy and the rights of the membership. The speech of Dubinsky revealed more openly than anything else the spirit of des- pair tnat is permeating the entire clique, Like a pack of hungry wolves they are ready to jump at each others’ throats in order to save themselves from annihilation. This was the mean- ing of tke speeches delivered by Dub- insky, Ninfo, Breslau and the rest, and of the open struggle on the floor of the convention, The attacks against Sigmar, with whom they share the responsibility for the ruinous war, were but a desperate attempt to sacrifice him in order to save themselves; just as Sigman him- self had done with Feinberg and Pearl- stein during the struggle of the Joint Action Committee in 1925. Blackest Convention. The trade unicn movement of this country has many reactionary conven- tions on record. The I. L. G. W. U. itself has gone thru the notorious Boston convention of 1924, which had spent eleven days in unseating the delegates representing the largest locals of the international. This was followed by the Philadelphia conven- tion where against the most deter- By Fred Ellis New York bankers, with the aid of Kellogg are planning to foist a loan of at least $12,000,000 on Nicaragua. The ‘ loan will go for the most part for the payment of fake claims made by Wall Street investors. Prosperity Among the Neighbors Plant at Oshawa, Ontario, walked out in opposition to a wage cut, There was no union in the plant. Subse- quently the men were organized and affiliated to the American Federation of Labor. On April 16th the Struc- tural Iron and Steel Workers of Tor- onto and Montreal walked out. A few were union members. Other strikes have occurred among unor- ganized workers who are entirely out of contact with the labor nfovement. Among all these strikes, the strike of the 5,000 General Motors workers is the most significant. General Mo- tors has thus far ‘been as bitterly anti-union in Canada as it is in the United States. The workers at Osh- awa had not even been approached by the A, F. of L. organizers. They took the matter of defense into their own hands. Canadian labor is on the move. Piece work, drive and wage cuts are pushing them to action. Even the un- organized are using the weapons of the labor struggle with the vigor and precision of labor veterans. Sigman & Co. Bankrupts, Ready to Resume Business resenting 80 percent of the member- ship Sigman elected himself as pres- ident of the international. But never in the history of our own or any other union was there a convention, sup- posedly representing the workers, that was so barren of any accomplishments and so undisputedly bankrupt. For almost two weeks the so-called convention was in session, but not a single decision concerning the welfare of the thousands of struggling work- ers in the industry was made. It was nothing but a conspiracy to further betray and sell out the workers. The 40-hour week, which the cloakmakers had won during the long and bitter strike of 1926 and the other gains of the woskers were officially ceded to the bosses, Sigman openly declaring that the bosses cannot afford to ob- serve the 40-hour clause of the agree- ment to wh‘ch they had affixed their signatures. The stru¢gles and the achievements of the workers were condemned in the most outspoken terms. They have de- cided to levy a three-days tax on the workers in order to fill their empty treasury and stave off the day of their ultimate defeat; this tax they hope to collec thru the good offices of the besses as price in retuen for their treacheries. . (To Be Continued). Discover Vast New Iron Ore in the U.S.S. R. Results of prospecting carried on at the Magnitnaya Mountain showed that it has large deposits of ore rich in iron, The resources of the pros- pected area alone amounted to 118,- 000,000 tons of iron ore. As prospect- ing has been carried on in a compara- tively small area there can be no doubt that the deposits of ore will amount to more than 160,000,000 tons. It is interesting to note that iron can be obtained from the Magnitnaya deposits exclusively on the surface without the necessity of sinking shafts, states the American Russian * HANdOuTS c was bad enough to have to buy flowers and white gloves. But pat- rons began to complain against the |management of the Baron Hirsch |Cemetery, of Pert Richmond, S. I, |when aged mourners fainted on the | long trek from the cemetery entrance |to the graves. The long walk was too |much for them. The ‘management | would not permit automobiles to enter | the cemetery proper. Attorney Gen- eral Ottinger investigated. And the investigation disclosed the fact that the mourners’ cars were not allowed. to enter, the cemetery because the | superintendent of the cemetery had a restaurant at the gate. * * * ROGRESS in illumination is in- dicated by the announcement that Mrs. G. Eyre-Matchman wore a $150,000 diamond sunburst on being presented to the ‘blue-blooded’ non- entity King George V. The news- papers say “The sunburst operated by clockwork revolved slowly, emit- ting dazzling rays which visibly at- tracted the attention of their maj- esties.” A daughter of an American business man, eager to kow tow, has promised to glide into the royal presence clothed in an electric sign board which is calculated to divert the minds of the king and queen and yet not cause sun burn. * * * Norman Thomas, the white-haired saint of the socialist party, has lately been haranguing the textile strikers in New Bedford. The starving mill workers are said to find it hard to digest the socialist bologna. * * Ha! Ha! And talking about a sense of humor, Broun still believes in free speech. ® Our not yet completely extinguished contemporary Heywood Broun who is now expressing himself on the Tele~ gram (owned by the Scripps-Howard syndicate which is boosting Hoover for President) finds that Commun- ists have no sense of humor. * * * J, Havelock Wilson, king of Bri- tish trade union reactionaries, is re- tiring from the lucrative profession of labor betrayal. Fifty years of lick- ing the boots of the bosses have filled Wilson with so much of the holy ghost that he is now ready for a halo and a place among the saints of the Bri- tish labor movement. * * * f be erchealogical blue ribbon fur 1928 goes to The Outline, the Bri+ tish weekly, . The relic which this magazine has just unearthed is Rud- yard Kipling. The editor in the May 12 issue of the journal proves him- self oblivious to his readers’ sensi- bilities by publishing a photograph and biography of the former English writer. The write> of the biographi- cal sketch maligns Kipling by ac- q@arately repeating some of his thoughts, of which there has spread over the world a deep forgetfulness. The rather impure carcass of Kip- ling’s philosophy is dug up as fol- lows: “He struck again that note which was the note of Nelson, a good feeling towards the other nations, ‘the lesser breeds without the law,’ but a firm and steady conviction that the English were the superiors of all, better fighters, better rulers, better lovers, better friends.” * ee eee are breaking nicely for the campaign publicity.bureau of the republican party. The outstanding publicity stunt of the republican cam- paign was to book President (him- self) Coolidge for this Memorial Day address. The word has been passed around to all the first, second and third rate orators of the solid south to play down their stuff next Wednes- day and give Cal Coolidge a chance on the rostrum made famous by Lin- coln’s inyocation ,of armed republi- canism. Well, down in Montgomery, Ala., lived Capt. William Knox, 89 years old, who was born in the origin- al confederate “White House” and who became aide de camp to Jeffer- son Davis when he was inaugurated president of the Confederacy. It was feared that some of the old spirit would revive in Capt. Knox and that he would sit in the front row at Get- tysburg next Wednesday afternoon and give Cal Coolidge the razz. But not for nothing does Cal Coolidge carry around in his coat pocket the shoe from his electric physical cul- ture hobby horse. Capt, Knox died yesterday, ‘ * * * Paid Agent Exposed in Army Propaganda Plot WASHINGTON, May 27 (FP).— Rep. McClintic of Oklahoma, address- ing the house, read a report from a postal inspector exonerating the Na- tional Council for Prevention of War from the charge, made by an army propagandist in the employ of the war department, that the council’s printed matter was sent out under tho frank of Rep. McClintic. Such use of the congressional franking privilege is illegal. McClintic had opposed the big-navy bills. Rep. Andrew of Massachusetts and Rep. Britten of Chicago, big-navy ad- vocates, had spread a report that printed arguments against the big navy construction program, issuéd by enclosed with a speech by McClintic in McClintie’s franked envelopes. Sane Harold Weeks of Wellesley ; rae made affidavit that he the council, had come to many persons o