The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 11, 1928, Page 6

} THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1928. Daily | Central Organ of the Workers (Communist) Party | | Published by NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS’N, Inc., Daily, Except Sunday | 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. Cable Address: “Deiwork” SUBSCRIPT By Mail (in New York only): Phone, Stuyvesant 1696-7-8 | ION RATES : By Mail (outside of New York): $8 per year $4.50 six months $2.50 three months year six months $2 three months i Address and mail out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. ¥ —— -ROBERT MINOR <a .WM. F. DUNNE yo of Entered a For President WILLIAM Z. FOSTER For the Workers! VOTE COMMUNIST! | ond-class mail at the post-office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. | | For the Party of the Class Struggle! Against the Capitalists! For Vice-President BENJAMIN GITLOW Liberal “Friends” of the Workers. “Perhaps the police were too lenient at the beginning of the strike in the face of the reck- less defiance of left-wing leaders, but that can- not justify——” etc., ete. This is just a little passage from an editorial in the current number of the “Nation,” the . Standard weekly organ of a section of liberal- ism which includes the softer type of middle- class “Jeffersonian” reformers, LaFolletites, a section of semi-labor journalists, ex-preachers and a portion of the leaders of the socialist party, most notably the Reverend Norman "Thomas. The quoted words are from what appears on its surface to be a defense of the New Bedford strikers in what the Nation calls “the jolliest riot that ever came to our attention . . . when 240 pickets were arrested on July 30.” “Some 28,000 strikers have fought for six- teen weeks against a 10 per cent wage cut, and still there are almost no strike-breakers in the mills,” sounds almost like praise of the fight- ing qualities of the workers. And, “Judge Frank Miliken of the third dis- trict court does not reflect credit on Massachu- setts justice by his handling of the New Bed- ford strike cases.” (Here we see that the Nation is slipping into the thought methods of liberalism; its concern is already shifting away from the welfare of the strikers and over to the matter of “credit upon Massachusetts jus- tice”) Then the editorial begins to clarify its point: the real complaint is that “the statute is very vague,” and what the “Nation” wants is that every striker shall be able to know “whe- ther he is committing a crime or not when he) walks on the picket line.” For, | “In some cases Judge Milliken has ruled that picketing in large numbers is ‘parading with- out a permit,’ in other cases he has called such picketing common-law rioting. His rulings are the more remarkable because the strikers were not molested in forming large picket lines in the first three months of the strike. PER- HAPS THE POLICE WERE TOO LENIENT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE STRIKE IN THE FACE OF THE RECKLESS DEFI- ANCE OF LEFT-WING LEADERS, but that cannot justify Judge Milliken in depriving the i workers of recognized legal rights.” (Our emphasis.) ‘This is the political essence of this dirty strike-breaking editorial: The editors of the Nation realize that the fight of the textile workers owes its success largely to the tactics of “forming large picket _ lines in the first three months of the strike,” ‘and they regret the success of these tactics and _ think “perhaps the police were too lenient at the beginning of the strike.” But the “Nation” ‘does not fail to see the source of the successful tactics in “the reckless defiance of the left- wing leaders.” Here we have it all. Rate an impression that it takes sides with the strikers, though not precisely saying so. But “the police were too lenient” in not doing some- thing more effectively to remove the “left-wing leaders,” and the strike-breaker judge made a mistake in that “the strikers were not molested in forming large picket lines in the first three months of the strike.” The ‘‘Nation” is really complaining that now the beans are spilt, the left-wing leadership has proven that it can lead a strike, that it can organize an effective union can provide the only tactics that win. And y there must be, an the part of the capitalist and police, some of that inconsistency is the bugbear of liberal fools, in order the strike, destroy the union, jail the leaders of the workers and restore the in the situation to the mill owners, the and their agents, the right-wing leaders, ty, Binns and company, the political cou- the Reverend Norman Thomas and the The “Nation” must cre- s is liberalism! workers of New Bedford and Fall River, thoughtfully take warning from this of “liberalism” and the socialist par- s class cannot consistently be relied the working class ne any real test. | horse. eaking socialist party. | eaking editorial which expresses a cer-| ood of the petty business class that forms | During the New Bedford strike, it is commonly said, the small store-keepers and petty business class generally has been friendly to the stri ers, due to the fact that the cruelly low wages of the textile workers were already too small to enable the workers to supply their families with even the necessities of life, and that the proposed new 10 per cent cut would play still more havoc with the trade of the small mer- chants of the community. A friendly attitude of this sort on the part of the small merchant TLEMEN, YOU SEE HE’S TIED DOWN.” class, while it lasts, is an advantage to the striking workers. But it has it dangers, too. The petty capitalist class has none of the stead- fast qpalities of the genuine wage-working class, does not see with working class eyes, and by the nature of its class character wavers be- tween a momentary sympathy with the work- verke! : é Spat! i A foreien and national ers (in a situation like this) and the “real b capital, coupled with the growth of ness men” of the community, the mill owners. ousness among the It is quite consistent that the words above - i re ve: resuled onfronting the wor ig women quoted from the “Nation” appear in the same editorial column which begins with an endorse- ment of the socialist party “major issues” of “Peace, Freedom and Plenty,” and wishing Mr. Thomas “every success in his effort to persuade people . . .” ete. working class consists in its solidar- Can anybody find a line of distinction be- ity and or tion tween the socialist party and this camp of lib- | eralism, with its disguised and filthy strike- breaking propaganda in its standard organ of : which the Reverend Thomas, socialist party candidate for president, is a contributing edi- tor? The Fall River police and mill owners are now following precisely the advice of the “N: tion.” The Fall River police are not “too leni- ent at the beginning of the strike’ there. The same degree of brutality that began in New Bedford in the thirteenth week, is beginning in Fall River in the first week. The Fall River strike has only just begun and the troops and police have already drowned ‘the six-year-old boy of one striker and crushed the body of the pregnant wife of another; the “Nation” edi- tors need not fear any inconsistency here. Why do the uniformed thugs of the state and the mill barons act in this ruthless way in in China with the task of as in the struggle of the working for political and economie emanci- pation. The Chinese woman has long since realized that the strength organizations of women e Women’s Unions, sr the women’s: organ- rope and A omen Organ’ are wom in the Hunan pr 200,000 members, while in the rest of China there are 238,000 members in the women zations. Who ers of the Women’s ‘0 they constituted mixed organ ns with a pre- valence of the intellectual and petty bourgeois elements of the towns znd only in Hunan the members consist mostly of agricultural and indust working women and housewives. The objective of the Women’s i to gain formal political for women, and it is only the cultural and political backward- ness of the working women which Unions? r 5 y keeps her in the organizations. | Fall River? Because they see in the Fall River 922 a wave of strikes swept strike the extension of the struggle that began China, and having orig- and continues in New Bedford. Because they Su eae grounds he ‘ ae war 7|8 aturally assumed a politica! ‘4 We see that not only is the Fall River strike gro AN esis of theon ing with the coming out of the Algonquin Mill, 4 stehiware caphelal: cere but the movement for*organization is spreading yaised by the revolutionary trade to Rhode Island and even to North Carolina. unions on behalf of the working There is the genuine movement that can, with women. Some of these demands the fearless and intelligent left-wing leadership, Bee ee partly granted by the be brought to its crystalization in a great na- mp % tional textile workers’ union. Textile workers, depend on yourselves. Keep * up your mass picket line. Build your new union! ueate Women. had a tremendous al influence upon the work- Their class-conscipus- they took an active ed, part, in feminist organizations, trade unions of the workers. ‘Johnny Madeiros Goes ‘Swimming’ Altogether there are now 325,000 A Massachusetts “cossack” is an important! .omen organized in the Chinese fellow. He can prance around the street on a trade unions. fine horse, paid for by the State, and anyone| __ The growing exploitation of the] of the |* strikes and quit the | forming | their own special trade unions, or | | getting into line with the general | Organizations of Working Women; Militancy in Strikes; Fight Old Prejudices In the Kwantung province, out of 60,000 women employed in the tex- | tile industry, only ten thousand are members of the union, of whom 3,000 are employed in the cotton in- dustry. In view of the fact that the unions have: not conducted a single strike until 1927 to bring any advantages to the working women, the latter are inclined to take a skeptical view of the trade unions, Quit the Company Unions. The women of the same provinces had formed in the cldthing indus- | try a joint union with the employ- ers in 1926, but they soon realized the differences in their interests from those of their employers, and, , they formed | quitting the unions, their own trade unions of working women. This union has conducted several strikes which have resulted in some wage increases and in gen- eral amelioration of working con- ditions. Woman Workers in China. In 1927 a number of other trade tnions were formed by the women, whilst a large number of working |women joined the general trade ‘unions (Hongkong, Shantung. etc.). In Shanghai, the most proletarian center in China, the women are par- ticularly well organized. Women Organize Strikes. Since 1920 there have been scores of strikes in Shanghai, in rapid suc- cession. The women took advantage of these strikes to raise their own economic demands whilst at the same time supporting the common struggle of the Chinese workers against national and foreign capiltal- lists. They acted as strike pickets, took part in demonstrations and ad- dressed public meetings. The po- lice authorities imposed the same penalties upon working women as they did upon tho men, They are bludgeoned and jailed, tortured and executed by all the refined methods Demands in 1926. The Shanghai working women in | 1926-27 raised the following de- |mands: Higher wages, shorter | working hours, prohibition of night |work, prohibition of child labor, | Sunday rest, pregnancy vacations, sick benefits, school for children of working men and women and finally the freedom of the trade unions. Women First to Strike. After the suppression of the trade unions by Chaing Kai-Shek, when hundreds of revolutionary working men and women were mur- dered and the work of the revolu- tionary trade unions was driven un- derground, the first strike which raised the banner of the struggle against the Kuomintang traitors |was the strike of 600 women in the | silk industry in South China. They |asked for a wage increase of 20 per \cent. They were joined in a soli- |darity strike by 3,000 in the na- |tional and 3,000 women in the for- jeign cotton mills. In June, 1927, a fresh strike broke out of 9,000 women in the national silk spinning miils in Shanghai. The strike went on for 16 days. The |cause of the strike was the dis- |charge of 800 women in one of the mills. While protesting against wholesale discharges the women asked for a 20 per cent increase in wages, shorter hours and the pay- ment of wages twice a month. Va- rious police measures undertaken by the employers and efforts to get settlement by arbitration brought no results. The women strikers | firmly held their ground. The man- \nfacturers had to yield and the |workers gained: (1) a slight in- lerease in wages, (2) a shortening \of the working day by 45 minutes, |(3) part payment of sick benefits, |20 cents extra for Sunday work and 20 cents a week for the time of the | strike, (4) the right to have a rep- | resentative organization of the (union in each factory. Other Strikes Called. Women Workers in China | enterprises which ended either in compromise or in partial victory for the working women. In 1927, on March 28, that is before the sup- pression of the revolutionary trade unions by Chang Kai-Shek, the Shanghai Trade Union Council in- cluded among the general demands a special point dealing with women and child labor: Equal pay for equal work, the prohibition of night work for women and children, a va- cation of six weeks for prospective mothers, etc. The. struggle for these demands is still being carried on by the Shanghai working women, and their example is followed by the working women throughout in- dustrial China. Fight Against Old Prejudices. Besides striking for economic and political demands, the Chinese work- ing women are struggling against old prejudices. It was by their in- sistence that a decree was issued by «he national government prohibiting the crippling of women’s feet. The | Chinese working women take an ac- tive part not only in the trade union movement, but also in the political struggle against foreign capital and the indigenous bourgeoisie, as well as against the brutal and reaction- ary Kuomintang government. Fight With the Men. In the course of the counter-rev- olutionary coup d’etat in South China, when thousands of working men and working women were slain in defending the interests of their class (about 238,000 working men and working women perished under the white terror), the working wo- men fought shoulder to shoulder with the men on the barricades. They handed shells and munitions to the men, organized their feeding and shielded the revolutionaries from the brutal assassins of the national government, paying for this with their own lives. Women were engaged also in laison service between the different workers’ | fighting squads, and they agitated at workers’ meetings for a rebellion against the national government. The Chinese: working women are ‘steadily becoming more militant and are consolidating their ranks for of cruelty which are .practiced in|, Besides these big strikes, there |the final knockout blow to the Chi- | China. was a number of strikes in minor who gets in his way does so at his own peril. | It’s fun—to a cossack—to see all these) miserable strikers duck and run to keep out) from under the iron hoofs. Big and little. Men, women and children— they all have to run. No ehance against a Makes a man feel powerful, to sit up |high on a saddle in a fine uniform, a gun on his hip, and make ’em scuttle to cover. The little ones are funny. Wednesday at Fall River a striker’s kid—six years old—got | Pacific Ocean! in the road. An officer had a little fun—rode | ¥° Bibi he eae of your thun- at the kid. ... Had to laugh the way that! when the wails of the Chinese toil- kid took fright and ducked through a hole in ers rise |the fence! He splashed into the water on the|To drown your frantic noise. |other side of the fence. Ha, ha! Didn't know | Pacific Ocean! the river was right there. You can no longer be proud of your P , |_ , deep blue dress! | The officer pranced his horse on down the street. By H. T. TSIANG (Appeal of the Chinese toilers to |the American labor movement.) Jt is now crimsoned by the blood of myriad Chinese workers. * Johnny Madeiros was drowned. | Well, what of it. The judge is O. K. This lis a mill town, this is Fall River. A Bosses’ |town. No Bolshevism here. Law and order. No strikes here, if the troopers can help it. Johnny Madeiros was not a boss’s son. Just a mill worker’s brat. Any story will do. “Just thought he was swimming,” says the | officer. All 0. K. | * But the picket line grows stronger, and every working man and woman from the mills is} Rocky Mountains! your height! For your lofty peaks Fail as a white curtain To hide from the American workers The heaped heads of the Chinese toilers That are high against the sky. O! Statue of Liberty! When we see you from the top of the heaped heads On Shanghai land, We wonder _ * he Red Flag more determined to beat the beastly bosses | a ee % riers $ tae) That is fly the t f Li and their troopers, and their judges. Hold the is rth ai) ee Ome are tee picket line! i about the Red Flag? You must cease to take pride in|’ Why should you still iook toward | O! the Red Flag will never stop | Fluttering in the revolutionary fire ‘That spreads into the four corners of the earth. O! Statue of Liberty! | Don’t you care about the land under | | your feet? “My country, ’tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing.” Liberty! Liberty! Liberty! Where is Liberty? Who has liberty? Sacco-Vanzetti? Negroes? Workers? Do you carry your liberty To the people of Nanking, and Nicaragua? O! we know ; They meet you only in the dream of their dreams, O! Statue of Liberty! Why don’t you turn your face And look at the eastern Asiatic land, ‘| Where four hundred million toilers live? They are thirsty for you! They are hungry for you! They are fighting for you! ‘They are dying for you! The aeroplane speeds Swift as the lightning, | How soon, 0, Liberty, | Will you come to us? How soon wil! you come to us? The Blood of Shanghai — |The wind is blowing around the Statue of Liberty! The rain is falling on the Pacific Ocean! The clouds are drifting over the Rocky Mountains! O wind! are you mourning for our | miseries? O rain! are you weeping for our sufferings? O clouds! are you trying to bury our griefs? O, dear wind! clouds! dear rain! dear »|Do you know why Our native bosses, foreign bosses, militarists and imperialists should Cut off our heads? t | One head must be more than twelve | pounds; ¥ Thanks for their kindness! |This is the only way to remove a part of our heavy burdens! For our weary, hungry bodies Can no longer carry our unneces- sary heads. | Heads! heads! heads! | Where are our heads? Hanging high and upon the tele- | phone poles! That is the only place they are safe From the insects and beasts | That would devour them. ‘a e |nese bourgeoisie. | Now there is nothing to worry about And our headless bodies can then rest Till dawn, Talk about “dawn!” She must wait for the cock’s crow- ing! O! the number of our Chinese or- ganized workers Is so smali, The voice of our crying Are not loud. i But look at the darkness that sur- rounds us! Dark! dark! dark . . . terribly dark! Fellow workers in America! If you fail to raise your voice to help us There can never be a dawning That comes to us and to you. Dear brothers!, Raise your voice in protest! Break the darkness with your cries! Also help us with your pennies! When the day breaks, We all shall be repaid A thousand-fold, Hark! hark! ‘The cocks are crowing! Look! look! The dawn is approaching! Columbia University, Angust 10, 1928, “|radios set for the services of the thas, is a tip to the unemployed and even the employed who are usually ahead of their weekly wages. Drop in on John J, Raskob, J. P. Morgan or Otto H. Kahn, and purchase a few thousand dollars worth of stock in General Motors or some other prosperous concern. You do not need any money. All you have to do is to get either one of the above-named gentlemen to en- dorse your note and then forget about it. If you need ready cash you may sell your stock but perhaps you would rather do as Andrew Carnegie did—let it pay for itself. * tate 3 INCE the announcement of Gene Tunney’s approaching marriage to $50,000,000 and the grand niece of Andrew Carnegie, interest in the canny Scot is reviving. The New York Times tells us that Andy made his first $400 without spending a cent. Neither did he spend a drop of sweat. This is what he did. He | purchased $400 worth of stock in an |insurance company but did not have |the money to pay for it. The presi- dent of the company endorsed his | note and Andrew did not let the mat- ter worry him until 11 years later, when he drew a dividend of $20 on ‘his stock. Being an honest man he turned this over to the company in part payments of his debt. Not until 18 years after he purchased |the stock had he paid for it—out lof the dividends.. This is a tribute | to honest toil and promptness in | paying debts. * | OVERNOR Smith insists that his answer to the Reverend John (Cock) Roach Straton must be made from the same pulpit that is oc- cupied by the evangelist every Sun- day. This may be good political strategy but we fear for Al’s im- | mortal soul. How can a believer in | the infallibility of the pope dese- crate himself by stepping into a pro- |testant pulpit? Should a more {humble Catholic layman than Al | Smith dare to: sit in the pew of | protestant church not to speak of |oceupying a.pulpit his soul would | be damned for all eternity. | re IS: worthy of note that bankers, manufacturers and politicians take care that the populace are aware of the fact that they celebrate their birthdays by working as usual. They figure that this is the best time to ai # ee ae: |fact that they work. On mayor | Walker’s arrival from his 20th | vacation since he became executive | head of the city, he presented acting mayor McKee with an alligator pear, on the occasion of that offi- cial’s birthday. If the mayor had as keen a sense of humor as he js credited with he would have brought a carload of plums from California instead of,a crate of pears. But pér- haps He believes his official family take their plums without asking permission. A EOE Sania, | working hours, rose to the position of assistant secretary of the Ban- citaly, said to be the second largest financial institution in the United States. No doubt he was pointed to with pride as an example of what every other little American boy could do thru hard work and loyalty to his boss. But when the young man went to Montreal on his vaca- tion the bank examiner pounced on his accounts and learned that he had embezzled $500,000 of the bank’s money. He gambled on the stock market. He was unlucky; that’s all. Had he hit it right nobody would ever know the truth of how he ac-~ quired his wealth and he would be another Gene Tunney in the Suc- cess magazines, FEW will be sorry that the exe- cutive council of the A. F. of L. hurled a well-directed shot of gar- bage at the Brookwood Labor Col- lege, Katonah, New York. That the A. F, of L. charges are unfounded does. not affect the chuckle which goes up from this department. Mat- thew Woll, the chief heressy hunter of the executive council, learned that Brookwood was a nest of atheism and Soviet propaganda. The fact is that it is neither fish, flesh nor good frog jelly. The writer never knew or heard of any graduate of Katonah that was fit for anything better than lecturing before the left wing of ‘the National Womans’ Party. Its directorate catered to the bureaucrats of the A. F. of L. for the sake of dough and respectabili- ty. Its fate at the hands of the ex- ecutive council is one ‘more demons- tration that those who stand neither with the right nor with the left get the bricks from both extremes, oe & Hose who are in need of healing might do worse than get their ease Most Reverend Arthur Edward Leighton, Metropolitan Archbishop and Primate of the Inlependent Catholic Church of America. He will preach over Station NMCA next Sunday evening and assures us that no matter how great the afflic- tion a cure is certain, provided the afflicted keeps a glass of cool water in the vicinity. Probably the Rever- end gentleman has devised a way for transmitting a drop of something \exhilirating thru the ether and that the cool water is intended for a BRIGHT young man who ap- plied himself to his work and _ never looked at the clock during’ By Fred Ellis ‘Told You SG 3 |eall public attention to the alleged .