The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 14, 1928, Page 4

Page ruu THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK. THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 1928 THE DAILY WORKER) "1 | Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS’N, Inc. Daily, Except Sunday $3 First Street, New York, N. Y. Cable Address: SUBSCRIPTION RATES soe By Mail (in New York « By Mail (outside of New Yor’): $8.00 per vear $4.50 six n. $6.50 per year $3.50 six months/ $2.50 three months. $2.00 three months. Phone, Orchard 1680 “Dalwork” hs Address and mail out chécks to THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. Y. ROBERT MINOR WM. F. DUNNE 2 Editor SS Auistant Editor... New York, N. Y., under <u @» second-class mail at the post-office at the act of March 8, 187 Build the New Miners’ Union! The conference of the executives of union districts at Pitt | burgh yesterday took a step which makes history for American | Labor. | These representatives of the Mine Workers are to be con- | gratulated upon their courage and understanding of the situation before them, when they issued the call for a national convention | to establish a new miners’ union. ‘ ! SOLN TRADITION , By Fred Ellis HANdOuT ETERMINATION to protect | | | D American institutions at any | cost is seen in the fact that the | wedding cake of Katherine Smith, daughter- of Al, arrived at the gu- bernatorial mansion under police escort. Unemployed workers who are willing to labor a whole day for a chunk of bacon rind will be de- lighted to learn from the following lines that the wedding guests did not go hungry: “The cake was brought to Albany from New York city on the night boat, with maitre d’hotel Malnatti of the Biltmore Hotel, donor of the three tiered creation in personal charge, aided by chefs and stew- ards. After the various sections of the great cake were carried to the executive mansion, Malnatti and his assistants spent all morning and part of the afternoon assemb- ling their work of art.” * * * 'HE republican party will appreciate the following words of Dr. Ely, = } For fourteen months the United Mine Workers Union has | been tematically disrupted by the concerted action of the | foully corrupt bureaucracy headed by John L. Lewis together | |physician of the payroll-padding ex- | pert Mrs. Knapp, who says it is un- \fair to regard her as guilty when ev- | with the open-shop coal operators. For more than a year of struggles, a weakened and broken shell of the former union has | been standing in the place of the once powerful organization. The | Lewis bureaucracy held on by every device to the official hulk— to what was left ‘of the union. Having stolen the union elections | three times, the Lewis machine continued to hold on by means of murder and “yellow dog” contracts. Nominally fighting the coal operators, Lewis in fact was fighting the coal mine workers of | the whole country with both hands, and had not even a little finger left free to scratch at the coal operators. | Lewis, by the very nature of his profession as an agent of imperialist Capitalism, could make peace with any coal operator ; but he could wage only war with the massés of coal miners. Lewis and all the legion of petty office-holders who form his “army of | occupation” in the Miners’ Union are consistent supporters of the | system of capitalist exploitation of Labor. A prominent member } of the same imperialist political party to Which Andrew Mellon, | Calvin Coolidge, Rockefeller and Morgan belong, Lewis himself could see and think only in the terms of Mellon, the scab coal | operator, Coolidge the strikebreaker, Rockefeller the creative | genius of company unions, and Morgan the chief of the finance- | capitalist control of the Steel Trust. : | fs ruggle passed beyond the point where Lewis could even preserve the illusion that\he was acting as “president of | the United Mine Workers of America.” The union, severely | wounded by the earlier betrayals, was this time in the struggle in which its life was at stake. Lewis ¢quld not support any course toward victory for the workers, He “led” the union to its death as far as he was able. | Open strikebreaking which could no longer. be concealed ; deliber- ate expulsion of whole locals and even districts; support of police and troops against the miners; public organization of strike- breakers against the Colorado strike; an attempt to starve out militant local unions by cutting them off from strike relief, e imposing the “yellow dog” agreement upon..others—this course has led to the present situation where the immediate build- ing of a new union is inevitable. \ The mine workers have fought through. these long years and es ally the past fourteen months to save their union. Always the fight to save the union was. first of all a fight against the chief strikebreaker who held the thrée-times-stolen office of president of the union. The fight to Save-the-Union has been one of the most heroic in the history of American Labor. It recently reached the stage of emergency district conventions for the oust- ing of the Lewis gang of company agents from office. In several districts this object was accomplished. The Lewis machine re- fused to recognize the actions of the emergency district conven- tions. The new executives of the mine workers of these districts meeting Tuesday in Pittsburgh had the logic to face the present phase of the Save-the-Union struggle. Clearly they saw that the present phase of the struggle to save the union is in fact a strug- gle to build a powerful union where the old one has been destroyed. The mine workers of the United States must be organized 100 per cent. They must have a powerful union embracing every mine where coal is dug. The open shop must be fought to exter- mination. Where Lewis has given up 70 per cent of the territory to the operators, the mine workers must fight and win back 100 per cent, The national convention of the mine workers called for next September must perform its task of building a union where an old union has been destroyed. But the task should be well under way long before then—it should begin immediately. The strike from now on must be supported ten times more than ever before. Relief must be poured in to the National Miners’ Relief Commit- tee. It is clear that the mine workers can organize themselves only against all agents of the operators. The new miners’ union must sweep the country and make itself the most powerful in the American labor movement. Long live the miners’ new union! The Situation in Cleaners’ Union (By a Worker Correspondent.) jin the matter. The six union brothers An astounding thing happened on| tried to acquaint the rest of us with i om May 28, 1928, at Clinton | the wrongfulness of the proceedings, peonday, May 28, : !but were rebuked by the corrupt of- Hall where the members of the clean- ; |fiéers of our union. ers’ and dyers’ union were to nomin-| This situation caused the members ate their candidates for the coming! to hire a-hall by themselves, where clection of their new officials. It is they could freely discuss their prob- customary in our organization to mail \ yotices of the goming nominations znd elections to the membership. This year I didn’t receive any. “Lhe following are significant, his- toric events indeed, as they never oc- urved in our ranks before. If I ssn’t an eye witness, it would cer- tainly be hard to convince meyas to its truth, On my nearing the hall, I noticed that there were a group of men assembled, and were very much engrossed in heated conversation, I asked one of the men the cause of their meeting outside, when we had paid good money for the hall’ Can you imagine my surprise when I was told they were all refused admit- tance? On January 30, 1928, six of our members were expelled. The mem- bership at large not being consulted ’ er i] ‘ lems and speak openly of anything and everything. When our corrupt leaders got wind of one of these meet- ings, a rowdy bunch of gangsters, under the leadership of Weintraub, Hammer, Cohn and Goldberg, broke in shouting, “Line up against the wall!” They carried knives, black-jacks, hammers and clubs. Chairs and win- dows were smashed to smithereens, two of our brothers were hospital in- mates for some time after, a score suffered minor cuts and bruises. This occurred on May 11, 1928, and not in the-dark ages as you well may think, We held a mass meeting the Mon- day after at Irving Plaza where we simply discussed the reinstatement of our expelled members and nominated candidates of our own choice to rep- resent us. MAX ROSENBERG. wooo The old republican party, the traditional party of abolition of chattel slavery, is dead. Its putrid corpse is food for a legion of corrupt politicians. But the elephant left a descendant—the republican party of today, party of Mellon, Rockefeller, Morgan, Coolidge and Hoover—the biggest party of imperialism—the maker of slaves. The Cha By MOISSAYE J. OLGIN. i CRIBBLED in pencil or in cheap} colorless ink; on scraps of paper | torn from copy-books’ or picked up} anywhere; with hands more used to; hammer and drill than to the ae pen; in words betraying little school-} ing and little knowledge of linguistic refinement—these numerous letters are full of such intense feeling, they flow from such depths of proletarian conviction, they speak a language so direct, lucid and effective, that no other documents can give a clearer understanding of what The DAILY WORKER means for the American working class. } Sold Clothes for “Daily.” “Dear Comrades writes Adam Getto from Benleyville, | Pa., “I am sending you $4.85 for The DAILY WORKER ‘fund and I ask you to tell the world that the striking min- ers are behind The DAILY WORKER. We are striking here from April 1, 1927 and we were locked out since May 1, 1925, but this does not stop us from supporting our paper} I want to tell you how we raised the money I am sending. A ‘group of miners known as the Vesta Group in Bentley- ville had a lot of old clothing which was nothing but rags left over from what we had. This we sold to a junk man who gave us the enclosed money, and we send it immediately to save The DAILY WORKER. I want to say and Brothers,” | for the miners in Bentleyville that if} they were working there would be no need of such emergency calls. Also we are asking of every worker in the United States to rally to the support of our paper. We can save it and make it larger if every one does his bit. “IT am sending $1.00 for the fund of | The DAILY WORKER,” writes A. To. sheff from the Herman Kiefer Hos- pital in Detroit. “I need money very bad myself, because I have been in the hospital for 41 months but I don’t like to see our leader, The DATLY| WORKER, stopped, especially now when the struggle is greater than ever ie in the United States, and epee before the elections. So, comrades, and fellow workers, readers of The DAILY WORKER, I know you have given plenty already, but I am appealing to you: give all you can and some more because you know The DAILY WORKER keeps our hearts warm,” Out of Work 13 Months. “We do not want The DAILY WORKER to be destroyed by our enemies,” writes‘A. Turkaly from Bel- laire, Ohio. “Therefore I am enclosing $2.00 and that is not~all. I do my best to collect some rhore money. The coal strike has put us here in bad con- dition thirteen months. The DAILY WORKER has been our guardian in the fight. We do our best to help it} as much as we can.” “Comrades, please find $4.00, two dollars to help The DAILY WORKER in its present great crisis,” writes John FE, Keller from Chicago, “and two dollars for a three-months sub for (follows the name of a min- ing’town in Kansas and an address “General Delivery”). This worker is a miner and of course in very hard cireumstances. The DAILY WORKER® has weathered the financial storms be= fore and I’m sure it willagain. If it does suspend, however, it will be only temporary, for the class for which it fights will yet be heard in plainer and louder tones.” “For The DAILY WORKER to be in such a position which en its |found another position within a month, |we would consider ourselves lucky. “Daily” Gives Hope. | existence is bad enough at any time,” writes George Elser from Cleveland. | “But.at this particular time, when the Party is just entering the biggest campaign it ever undertook, that of | rallying the workers from all over the} United States to vote ‘Communist,’| for The DAILY WORKER to cease | publication would indeed be a crime} to the workers. The DAILY WORKER} fights: valiantly to show the workers the only true path to freedom. No strike is too small, no battle too large| but what The DAILY WORKER is | there to give hope and leadership in| order to bring it success. | Gives Week’s Pay. | “If we were thrown out of work and} Well, let us consider ourselves un- employed for only one week and don- ate the week’s pay to keep The DAI- LY WORKER aworking. “I am enclosing my whole week’s {pay ($25.00) as a start, and I pledge} myself (although having to support | a family) that when one hundred iar-) ty members do likewise, i will send| in another week’s wages.” “Comrades, hold forth, help will }come,” writes J. Posickow from Chi-} |cago in sending in $5.00. “L-firmly | | believe that the workers of America} jto whom The DAILY WORKER is} dear as the only paper in the English language which tights for the emancipation of the workers, will not \let it fall. We cannot permit out oar \emies to celebrate such a victory. Long |live The DAILY WORKER!” On Strike 15 Months, A miner who, for obvious reasons, does not want his name to become known, writes from Dillonvale, Ohio: I am awfully sorfy to hear our fighting paper is Rear its crisis, but I am sending in a dollar for the ten| thousand dollar fund. I would likp to} send more but I am one of the strik- ing miners and have been on strike for fifteen months. I wish it was a |hundred dollars I was sending instead of one dollar, as I would give any- thing to save the paper because I am very interested in The DAILY WORK- ER. I am: one of the employed in the United States Coal Co, at a Bradly, Ohio, mine and I have received only $18.00 benefit in the fifteen months.” Another worker, who does not even sign his name, writes from Brooklyn, N. Y.: “Dear comrades of The DAILY WORKER, I have heard that the Daily is in danger of closing up be- cause of a lack of funds. I hate to see The DAILY WORKER go under} as it is the only daily labor paper “in the country fighting for the workers and farmers under the capitalist sys- tem, So I will do-my share b: { y en-| of the Tsar’s empire bore a striking resemblance to the letters now re- ceived by our Daily from various parts of the Wall Street Union, The ‘work- ers appreciate its role. “No strike is too small, no battle too large... .” Herein lies ‘the .strength of The DAILY WORKER. “Herein lies the strength of our movement. Worst Exploited Give Most. The letters show that the Daily is close to the heart of many workers in the industrial sections of the country more than anywhere else. It is no accident that a considerable portion of the letters came from strfking miners. It is no accident that so many letters come from ,Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois. It is where the life- crushing wheels of the industrial mechanism turn the fastest that the voice of rebelling labor is heard the loudest, pew The letters further reveal — that though many of its readers and letter writers are foreign born, a fighting paper in English has become their weapon. Some of the letters were ob- viously written by children. The pro- letarian parents of these children may not have the courage or know how to write a note in English. Yet they read The DAILY WORKER. They understand that an English paper unifies the struggle of the various groups of the exploited; that, more than a labor paper in a foreign tongue for the foreign born workers of the United States, it gives class meaning to the various phases of the struggle. “Daily” Is Political Weapon. The workers realize the importance of the Daily as a political weapon. The elections campaign of this year is stressed in more than one letter. The venality of the capitalist press, its servility to the ruling powers, its suppression of news about labor vic- tories the world over, its befuddling influences cver the masses are vigor- cusly contracted in the letters to the work of The DAILY WORKER. Most of the letters came from non- partisan workers. Were they from communities alone, they would also signify great strides forward in the revolutionization of the American workers. For is not a Communist worker a first rank fighter in the class war? However, the letters in- dicate that the influence of the Daily, and the consciousness of the respon- sibility for its existence, are much more widely spread than the member- ship of the Communist Party. “Daily” Achieving Aim. Altogether the letters prove that The DAILY WORKER is increasingly becoming what Lenin told us a labor paper must be, namely: a mass or- ganizer and mass propagandist. There is, however, one line in one of the letters that impressed me more deep- ly than any other. “We cannot pet- mit our enemies to celebrate such a victory,” writes a worker from Chi- cago. In these few words there is, perhaps, a more intensive picture of the situation than in many other more eloquent appeals. We are in an enemy camp. We are in an enemy land. The struggle of the workers, of large mili- enemy is powerful, The enemy is tant sections of the workers in this ruthless. He wields the ‘peoples’ country. This is the best guarantee wealth. He wields the machinery of closing a dollar.” eer * We have selected only a few of the many letters that came in with con- tributions in reply to the emergency appeal. The few letters disclose many important facts. They show, first of. all; that The DAILY WORKER has become ‘a necessity in the life and llenge to Our Press officials, leaders of.Jabor. Our ene- }mies not only drink our life’s blood in their factories and plants, but the enemies in disguise make us pay from our miserable earnings for their work of treason. In the midst of this picture there appears The DAILY WORKER. It is unafraid. It tells the truth. It is with the worker in his daily life, in his struggle, smalk or big. It speaks not in the name of the officials but in the name of the masses, It defends not one group or one section, but all the working class as a whole. It or- ganizes the workers for the struggle. It leads their class war against the most formidable enemy in the world. Daily Holds Own, What a picturef Talk of romance. Here is the most gripping romance in the world® American imperialism with its domination far flung over the globe on the one side; the intrepid revolutionary voice of the class strug- gle on the other. “ Untold means at the disposal of the exploiters on the one side, poverty and a chronic finan- cial crisis on the other. The law, the court, the police, the militia, the army | | tion, blows and humiliation on the other, And still—The DAILY WORK- ER lives; it challenges the enemy; it predicts his fall; it helps undermine the ground under his fée\ And The DAILY WORKER is strong—with the potential strength of the working class, with those enormous reserves of revolutionary energy which are be- ginning to come to the fore and which will in due time destroy all the ene- my’s power. We are not-strong yet—this very moment, but we are strong with the future battles of the working class for which it ha& already begun to mobilize in the coal fields, in the clothing’ shops, in the textile mills, in the automobile plants, _We are the future. Victory is with us, for his- tory. is on our side. The enemy is doomed, for he can advance nothing if the workers understand their own interests and their own historic task. All this is felt by the worker who. puts it in such clear and simple words: “We cannot permit our ene- mies to celebrate such a victory.” No, we cannot permit, and we will not permit the enemy to wrest the weapon from the hands ,of the work- ing class. We will tide The DAILY WORKER over its present difficult position. We will make The DAILY WORKER live more vigorously, more fully—as the guiding banner of the revolutionary working class, The DAILY WORKER is anchored in the hearts and lives of the class- conscious workers. With them, sup- ported by their militant aid, the paper ill continue to be what it has been i—the great challange to the capitalist world. Correction The mine program of anthracite dis- tatives from 20 lagal unions which met at Hazelton, Pa., on June 3, instead of at the disposal of one side; persecu- | trict 7 was adopted by 150 represen- }AYorkers erybodj\ else in the party is getting as much or more: “Mrs. Knapp is the victim of a frame-up. She took the rap for oth- ers. She knows far more than she told. Instead of throwing her cards on the table, she preferred to cover up others. She is the victim of a true loyalty to her party.” Views of the Big City The above is a snapshot of the | stockyards at Forty-second Ave. and Lexington Ave., showing cattle being | herded into I. R. T. cars to be shipped to the Bronx. It is reported from re- liable sources that the Interborough subway plans to bring in a skilled, crew of Norwegian sardine packers to get more resuits from its Times Square factory. But no matter how | tragic a ride in the subway is if you |happen to be bringing home a dozen eggs the I. R. T. always provides comico relfef in its quaint “Subway Sun.” The latest issue of this wall news- paper contains the following joke “Fifteen years ago nickle was worth a nickle. Now a nickle.is worth only 38 cents. That is why the Interborough cannot properly pay its way on a five cent fare.” This also explains why a worker today is so much more able to pay a seven-cent fare. The Inter- borough is as logical as its passengers are comfortable. } Young Workers League Warns Against Wagner Editor, The DAILY WORKER: The Young Workers“ (Communist) League, New York district, wants to warn all labor and friendly organi- zations against a certain “Mr. Wag- ner” who claims to represent an or- ganization’ known as the “Interna- tional Students’ Club” at 225 Broad- way. This individual made arrange- ments for a meeting to demand David Gordon’s release, and claimed that he had obtained prominent Commu- nist leaders to speak at this meeting. Upon investigation, it was found that the International Students’ Club was non-existent; that the speakers ad- vertized never agreed to speak, and that the whole affair was obviously intended ‘to be used for personal gain. On further investigation, it was’ al- so found that in the name of the organization he claimed to represent, he had obtained collection lists from thePenn-Qhio Miners’ Relief Com- mittee and from the Youth Confer- ence for Miners’ Relief. It was defi- pitelrheuiaalished that he had raised . funds on both, of these lists but never turned them in, This same “Mr. Wagner” obtained $36 in books from the Jimmy Hig- gins Book Store before that concern went out of business. The Young (Communist) League at the same time warns all workers against the eavesdropping activities ifor the existence and the future (growth of the Daily. There are few self-sustaining militant labor papers in the world outside of the Soviet Union. Most papers of the revolu- tionary class-struggle depend on the workers’ aid for their existence. The. ‘old Pravda, in 1912-1914, appealed to state. He is cunning and resourceful, omnipresent and mean, He knows we hate him, we loath his domination, we are full of revolt even if we do not know it clearly in*our mind; we are great in numbers, great in strength, strong in will, but we have not come yet to:realize what to do. The enemy the workers of Russia for funds, and ithe letters that came in from all parts has his agents, traitors and spies in jour midst, but they appear as union by the Tri-district Save-the-Union | carried on by this individual. committee as was inaccurately’ stated by the DAILY WORKER yesterday. TWO MINERS INJURED. WILKES-BARRE, Pa., June 18— CHILD IMMIGRANTS. Two Lehigh Valley Coal Com Since 1868 approximately 90,00¢}employes were injured this morning child immigrants have been brought|in separate collieries by falls of rock. into Canada from the British Isles} The condition of each is reported cri- through the organized activity of} tical this afternoon by the jw agencies. ‘ie aawre. ve i