The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 25, 1928, Page 6

Page Six THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 235, 1928. orker - Central Organ of the Workers (Communist) Party Published by NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING ASS’N, Inc., Daily, Except Sunday Phone, Stuyvesant 1696-7-8 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. Cable Addres ziwork” SUBSCRIPTION RATES By: Mail (in New York only): 68 per year $4.50 six months $2.50 three months | $6.00 per year By Mail (outside of New York): $3.50 six months $2 three. months | | out ch Address and mail ks to THE DAILY WORKER, 26-28 Union Square, New York, N.Y. «ROBERT ..-WM. F. DUNNE MINOR : | Entered as second ma post-office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March. 3, 1879. For the Workers! Smith on Prohibition Among the newspapers th Smith, one section which caters to “liberal” readers is busy shouting abo ism of Smith’s acceptance speech; the-other section catering to a wealth the bourgeoisie, is equally ins acceptance speech shows that as good as Hoover from th point of view. The truth that speech is fully as reactionar. of Hoover. Look into the “liberal” phrases carefully, and every Smith made contains an “ou has its reservation tended liberalism, except such as are purely negative statements of pious ment. Smith is not a liberal. If he were a liberal he would come closer to ma each of which would be igno tion. But search Smith’s speech through and through, and every pretty flower of speech VOTE C For President WILLIAM Z. FOSTER 2 | worxers (communst) PaRTy Smith’s “liberal” that nullifies For the Party of the Class Struggle! Against the Capitalists! and Labor at support Al | ut the liberal- : and the other ier section of ant that the Smith is just | e Wall Street | acceptance as the speech statement t”; everything pre- Ss OMMUNIST! For Vice-President BENJAMIN GITLOW getting the highest degree of efficiency and the greatest exploitation out of labor in the big American industrial plants, and Smith | or Hoover will take orders that will be de- livered to either of them from the same desk. Smith said, “If with one hand on the bible he promises to enforce the constitution, he will do so—but he specifically applied this to the prohibition amendment, not to the four- teenth and fifteenth amendments. question of the fourteenth and fifteenth amndments his position is expressed in the :| figure of the dead Negro swinging by a rope’ at the door of the democratic convention that’ | nominated him. | As for what Smith calls his “labor” plank, | it commits Smith to absolutely nothing. His hand reaching up to heaven” On the | “GOING TO HIS FUNERAL, BUT JUST FOR THE RIDE” By Fred Ellis ‘Told You So ICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER has burst into the limelight again with a bang. Nick is one of those fellows who needs no introduction, for where is the man with ears so deaf who has not heard of Columbia University? Because of his opposi- tion to the prohibition of booze—not the prohibition of free speech on the campus—Butler is known among the irreverent as Nick the Bartender. He is a republican of considerable standing and his@ame has been fre- | quently mentioned for the presi- dency. Nick is against the substitu- tion of fusel oil for whiskey and a mixture of T. N. T. and ditchwater for beer. He is also against war with England and perhaps France, but not so that you notice it against war on Nicaragua. | pune * |Niess latest bid for public atten- tion is a letter to the New York | Times, in which he berates Hoover and the republican party for their | evasive attitude on the Volstead act | and Hoover’s sponsoring of a navy | that will command “respect.” As a member of the Carnegie peace foun- |dation, Nick objects to this. Now | that Gene Tunney has disarmed and made an alliance with the Carnegie [pee millions, there is no good rea- son why the United States should |not turn its gun cotton into bathing suits. * te |PEPUBLICANS say that Nick’s blast against Hoover doesn’t | mean anything; the democrats say that it means much. Nick’s next or a New National Mi ¢ By JACK OBLAN. “Jabor” plank is for capital. His words in favor of “the principle of collective bargain- ing” do not commit the General Motors or, the Du Pont de Nemours Powder Co. to agree to the unionization of their plants. Nor does anyone seriously imagine that Raskob, Woodin and Du Pont will even juggle with company unionism because of anything Smith says, or that the U. S. government wish or senti- king promises, red after elec- The coal mines of the United | States are the private property of some seven thousand companies. |Of these about two thousand are | affiliated nationally and control 75 | per cent of the production. All these | companies are like fish ina pond— the big ones eating up the smaller ones. The production capacity’ is ap- Coal Diggers of All Districts Rally Forces for September 9 Convention Source of Power. They are so all-powerful because they have succeeded in paralyzing temporarily the great giant—the organized strength of the coal min- ers, the producers of coal. This For the country as a whole, while fataliities due to haulage increased one-third, those caused by mining machines more than doubled. “Tt is surely unnecessary to ar- ne Union |move will be to walk down Broad- Way arm in arm with John J. Ras- |kob, who is busily engaged making |the democratic party respectable. John will have nobody around him who is not worth at least a million. | Democrats are going to be as scarce “Consolidation Coal Co.” | in the democratic party pretty soon owns the mine towns and so thejas Negroes in the Ku Klux Klan. | . The has a Tammany worm in it. There is absolutely no difference of class basis between the republican and the demo-| will make them. Smith, though he is said never to have proximately double the market ca-|gue the point that the introduction pacity. With the present low and/| of mechanical haulage increased the ever falling wages, long hours and|risk of injury to underground em- even worsening conditions of la-| ployees thru incident speed of move- \they achieved thru planting their agents, tools within the ranks of the U. M. W. A.—the Lewis ma- | cost of living rise surely took away the 21 per cent and more. | Mr. Anderson thus proved t@ his coal baron colleagues that it pays to break up the miners’ union. 4 | Praises Lewis. | Since these are his figures the |actual condition is undoubtedly | much worse. | cesses he proceeded to singing odes |to Lewis. Referring to the strike he sail: | “On the operators’ side they know \ |the time of his Drunk by his suc-) * | JUST the same Nick pulled off q |“ dirty trick on the Rev. Dr. John |Roach Straton. Roach was having life, breaking into {the front page daily, until Nick |shoved him over into the want ad ction. Now, it will take the dis- covery of a brewery in Calvary Bap- tist Church to win him back his rightful position in the news. Of course, our readers know something lof the fit-throwing fundamentalist, | | »? * cratic party today. division among the directors trusts and The real or pretended read a book, must have grinned inside when finance-capitalist he repeated Sam Gompers’ idiotic phrase he largest . i i i of the larges' “labor is not a commodity,” and it will not institutions interfere with the Steel Trust’s purchase of bor, the coal companies can produce over one thousand million gtons a| year. The market cannot consume | more than 550 million tons. | ment and consequent less prompt | chine. control,” is the admission of Harry L. Gandy, secretary of the National | | Bituminous Coal Mine Operators, in| The coal barons have set up a bureaucratic machine of their own within the miners’ ranks. This is |but perhaps not all of them have only goes to prove that both Hoover and Smith are acceptable to the finance-capitalist oligarchy that rules America. It proves equally well that both Smith and Hoover are completely. and unquestionably disciplined servants of the same giant oligarchy. An examination of the various points of eontroversy (so-called) in this “gentlemen’s campaign,” upon the “high level” of which each side compliments the other, only goes to confirm the fact that they serve the same masters. The prohibition question Smith tr ballyhoo into the first place of controver: But when all is said and done, each of th fapitalist candidates would carry out pre- cisely the same program in regard to pro- hibition. Is the directorate of General Motors divided on the question of best policy in re- gard to liquor? Well, the directorates of this and other such corporations will decide among them what is the best system for that commodity at the lowest starvation rate: Smith declares for injunctions in labor dis- putes. He is for the use of injunctions; he merely “recognizes” “abuses” in the use of injunctions and is only against what the board of directors of General Motors would be disposed to class as “unwarranted” issu- ance of injunctions! Smith’s acceptance speech is the speech of John J. Raskob, the open-shop manufacturer, Pierre du Pont and their banker-friends. Smith is obliged to scratch harder for votes because he is the man outside of office, and this affects his language. If he can per- suade millions of diseontented workers and farmers to vote for capitalism, he will be serving capitalism as well as any politician can. Smith is equally as reactionary as Hoover or Coolidge. ; A Signature Drive in Arizona By FRANK R. LOGAN. (The following story is an interes (The following story is an in- teresting account of how three com- rades—Saul, O’Brien, and Logan— toured the State of Arizona in a fliyver to collect the necessary num- ber of signatures to put the Workers (Communist) Party ticket on the ballot. Thhe job was accomplished, and then Comrade Logan sat down and sent in the following intriguing narrative.—Edtior.) Phoenix, Arizona.—Comrade Saul arrived in Phoenix 11:30 p. m., August 3rd. He went to Comrade O’Brien’s. home, where he spent the night. The next morning Comrades O’Brien and Saul came to my room and pulled me from my bed, and in @ very few minutes I was dressed and ready to go. After our break Jomrade O’Brien went to work, Yeaving us with the understanding that he would get permission to join us at 12:30. Comrade Saul and I went to the State Capitol to get the required number of s'yners Yad to get trom each cov et a copy of the election s then went to Comrade O’Brien’s home and had dinner. Comrade O’Brien overhauled his flivver, after which we put some cots in, so we would have beds to sleep on. At 8 o'clock we left Phoenix for Superior, which is 78 miles from Phoenix. and arrived there about azsv. We got a small number of signatures Saturday night. After all of the people had left the streets, we decided that we should pitch our tents and lie down. Comrade Saul and I slept somewhat cold, not being nsed to the climate in the mountains. “We left Superior for Miami. 21 “niles distant. We reached Miami at 1p. m, Sunday evening, and started “9 work. Everything looked very “looms. as it seemed that it would be ‘mpossible to get the required num- “er of signatures from Gila County ‘ve thought 90 was the required symber). We worked until 11 ‘aJock, and ‘obtained only three vs. We signers, We all met at a certain, be place as per agreement, and then drove outside of town, where we had the use of a natural camp-ground. “No Negroes Here.” After a good night’s rest we awoke at 6:30 o'clock. We went for breakfast to a Greek cafe, where I was refused service at the table but was invited to the kitchen, because of my being a Negro. I rejeeted this offer, and we found a cafe a short distance away where we all had breakfast. We then started out to get the signatures, and although it seemed an impossible task, by about 2 o'clock we had the required num- ber. After lunch we left for Safford, which is in Graham County, 95 miles southeast. We arrived there at 10:30, got a number of signatures by 11 o’clock, and decided to call it a day. We were able to drive out a few blocks to accommodate ourselves with another natural camp-ground. Safford is a town of Mormons (hicks). We were up at six o'clock, and went fot breakfast at a cafe operated by the so-called lily white A. By instruction I was told that I could not get service there because of my color, and I said that I was born here and not colored. Yet this lily white Caucasian refused through his little hick waitress, who doesn’t know whether she lives on earth or exists on some unexplored planet. Nevertheless we found a cafe where all were served. Get Signatures Comrade O’Brien went to the County Hall to find out the required number of signatures to complete the list from Graham County. Comrade Saul and I went right ahead with getting signers. Everyone seemed to be somewhat indifferent, but we overcame all of the objections, one by one, until we got the required number. It was then about one o'clock, and we made our affidavits and ate lunch. We then (1:30 o'clock) went over and started the flivver for our next long drive of 185 miles to Tucson, which is in Pima County, The coal barons thus are always provided with a “reserve army,” an army of unemployed miners, which they skillfully use to exert .a ter- rific pressure on the miners at work and keep them at starvation wages. The miners exist under a condition of exploitation both degrading and humiliating. Crazy Speed-Up. The crazy speed-up is on the gal- lop. From 1916 to 1924 production of bituminous coal per man-hour in- creased 29 per cent. Accidents and fatalities are in- creasing. The increase in the acci- dent rate is even more rapid than the production rate, While the pro- duction increased 29 per cent the ac- cident rate increased in the same period 38 per cent; 53 per cent of the accidents were due to collapse of roofs and in most cases were avoidable even according to capital- ist engineers; 18.6 per cent due to mine car and locomotive accidents and 12.2 per cent due to electricity —nearly all these are avoidable. Almost all accidents occurred due to) dastardly, criminal negligence and \the May issue of the “Coal Mine | Management.” | Speed-up blessings! Dear child \of the Greens and Lewises! Gandy \further admits that “it is safe to | say that it (the total effect of var- ious forms of mechanization upon the risk of life-—J. C. 0.) is very substantial” (boldface mine. J. C. 0.). Dastardly Record. In the matter of killing off its producers the parasitic coal barons of the U. S, A. are the best racers on a world-scale. During the five year period of 1921-1925 inclusive, average num- ber of men killed per 1,000 on the |basis of a 300 day year (record lowing is a comparative table: United States . Great Britain Prussia Belgium .. France (to 1924) -..487 men 21.13 ++ 1.86 -1.00 -0.97 |from capitalist sources), the fol-| . 4 Ys | George J. Anderson, president of | the chief source of their strength. This Lewis clique has done the bosses an invaluable service by crippling the union and sapping it of its strength and vitality. next step in the bosses’ strategy is to use this Lewis clique as a lever with which to further break up the union into many more fragments, to further weaken, devitalize and demoralize every one of its parts, and, therefore, the union as a whole—and to thus lay the basis for a final smashing of the union. That such is the mission of the present Lewis misleaders of the U. | M. W. A. is testified by the capi- | talists themselves. | Proof of Treachery. | the “Consolidation Coal Co.” at a | banquet of coal operators at’ Pitts- burgh in February sought to inspire them with fighting capacity against | 200,000 striking miners. There must have been some “lame ducks” | among the coal interests. The| |that the present conflict is an ‘in- \dustrial war which has lasted twice |as long as the world war.’ On the | other side the miners have a great |general. When the history of labor will be written, he will be recog-| |nized as one of the great labor leaders of our country. “In the old days thirigs were bad when the companies were compelled to sign with the men nationally. Lewis has taken a great step for- ward by permitting individual com- | panies to sign.” Lewis stands branded as a most despicable, miserable, prostituted tool of the coal interests and with him his clique of flunkeys. His present strategy of draining the U. M. W. A. of all its progres- | sive, potent, militant, virile and honest elements is directly in line | with the needs and wishes of the coal barons to further devitalize |and demoralize, the disunited and | shrinking union, “Open Shop” is the program of | the Mellon-Rockefeller-Schwab-Mor- | gan and other big capitalist inter- |ests. “To smash the U. M. W. A.” lis their next step. John L. Lewis |heard of the recent purchase of a |hotel by Roach for $50,000. And, What did a blackguardly reporter do but purchase a quart of whiskey in the place and invite Roach to have a snifter. Roach did not blame the devil, but he plamed Al. It was a dirty trick, anyhow. + ee | Heist Stl the war UWepartment |B plundered a Washington dog | pound for subjects on which to test | a new brand of poison gas there is considerable indignation among the members of the Animal Rescue | League and other humanitarian or- | ganizations. A deaconess of the | House of Mercy had a friend who ‘wanted a dog, her husband pre- sumably being a congressman. The lady of mercy went to the dog- pound and picked a sadfaced little |terrier. Her kindly nature took pity | on him and she thot he would be just | the kind of a little animal to counter- act the atmosphere created by the other member of her friend’s house- hold. shucks! * * ‘UT the deaconess was informed |™ that before she could have the dog she must present the pound- * We had a hard job in front of us, | disregard of human life by the coal The German socialists contbined | request of John D. Sao HARE) | with their capitalists could not kill/ he made a speech. hier half as many workers as could the} |American coai barons combine! He stated that in his mines |is the servile messenger boy to do | keeper with papers signed by a this dirty job. Lewis, of course, notary public giving assurance that does not think it time yet to go the} the animal would not be used for way of his once bosom friend, Mr.| Vivisection or otherwise subjected to with John L. Lewis’ treacherous | (thanks to Lewis’ efforts—remem-| but we never thought about the job as we went on. We just wanted to get to Tucson, so we would be able | ‘to get started. We arrived in Tuc-| son at 9:00 o’clock, had supper ,and then worked until 11 o’clock. We went out to look for another free camp-ground, which we found. We) slept a little longer the next morn- ing, as we were very tired, but got | up at seven, had breakfast, and went | to Comrade McFadden ‘and Lewe’s| home. They gave us their support | by helping to get signers. Without | their support it would have been almost impossible to get the required number of signatures. Also Com- rade McFadden gave a donation of $11.50 to the cause. By about 9:30 p. m. we had the required number of signatures. Comrade McFadden got in touch with a notary, and by 11:30 p. m. we had our affidavits made. After a short rest we left for| Superior to get other affidavits made. After driving all night we reached Superior about 8:30 in the morning. We ate breakfast antt| then got busy and found an ex-| I. W. W., who made the affidavits.) We left for Phoenix, and arrived there at 3:30 p. m. We decided to file the papers the next day, which was the tenth. I went home, and Com. Saul spent the night with) Com. O’Brien. | Friday morning, August 10th, we | went to the capitol to file the papers | with the secretary of state. When) we got there, we found that the as- | sistant. secretary took care of these | matters. As he was out, we had| to wait for him about two hours. | When he did come, he told us. that | South Manchurian railway line. In} we should go down and see the at- | companies. In the brief period between May 19 and 25, of this year, in only four coal mine disasters 230 men were killed, namely: Mather Mine, Mather, Pa., May 19th, 195 killed. No. 1 Mine, Yukon, W. Va., May 22, 17 killed. No, 30 Mine, Kenvir, Ky., 8 killed. No. 50 Mine, N. Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 10 killed. Other Causes of Death. The introduction of machinery further increases the hazards of hu- man life in the mines. So, for in- stance, in the states of Alabama, Colorado, Indiana and Pennsylvania, with a low percentage of machine mined coal (62 per cent) fatalities were 4 in 1,000—bad enough! How- ever, in the states of Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky where machine cut coal is high (84 per cent), fatalities rose to 7.2 to 1,000 men. (Continued.) Since the beginning of 1927 mass arrests and executions have been taking place in Manchuria. The Japanese authorities have taken the finger prints of the Chinese railway workers along the whole of the July, 1927, 48 Chinese Communists jelection laws and went right ahead. torney general, The latter was out, were arrested in Dairen because they and would return at 2:30. After had organized strikes in Japanese eating our lunch we refrned to the undertakings. In consequence of attorney general’s office. Upon|this Tong Ho-kao and many others checking up, we found that we were recently sentenced to death. In needed 38 more signers from Gila August a strike of 1,300 coolies county. They were somewhat hos- tile toward us, but we knew the The strike was drowned in blood by the Japanese troops. ( took place in the mines of Pentchibu. | |ber the 1922 strike in which Lewis against the protest of the union lo- cals involved signed a separate agreement with the “Consolidation | Coal Co.” in W. Va., while the men |employed by the same company in W. Pa. were still out), the union | was smashed in 1924. machine. It must be remembered taat the American mines are at the same time the most “advanced” from the point cf view of machine proJuc- tion. So, for instance, in 1924, the | following percentages of mines had cutting machines installed: Comparing the last union year (1924) with 1927, the “Consolidated Coal Co.” with practically the same United States Germany, about . Britain . number of men (7 per cent in- | The U. S. mine barons hold the |°te@se), increased production 66 per }eesord dat cent. The men were worked more than twice as many days a year | (265 days, as against 131). They naturally worked longer hours, hav- 14 ing no organized™backing. Produc- 2. An ever increasing percentage tivity was more intense. In Sum- of hazards—accidents and fatalities. | merset County, Pennsylvania and 8. Seting free ever greater num-|in W. Virginia his company recent- bers of miners (installation of cut-|ly eliminated 2,500 workers, which ting and other machines “liberates” constitutes 20 per cent of his force, five miners out of every 6). thru. machine installation. The What makes the power of the workers were getting on the aver- 1. Mechanization of mines; along- side with it speed-up; intensifica- tion of production, and exploitation. What is their strategy in the pres- | only 21 per cent increase in wages ent situation? | for probably treble the exploitation. Fight Reaction. reprisals of the Kuomintang and The movement against the reac-|the bloodhound Chiang Kai-shek, tion took on a mass character. In organized an anti-Japanese move- Mukden prices ara rising steadily| ment: This anti-Japanese move- and the Mukden paper assignats are | ment is spreading in Tsinan, Tsing- steadily failing. At the beginning | tau, Tientsin, Peking and also in of this year the value of these as-| Mukden. 7 signats lad fallen to one-fortieth of Order is being maintained by their nominal value. The lower of-| Japanese troops alone. \ficials are sabotaging, soldiers are) At the same time the jealousy and 2 " | competition between the powers is striking, many factories have joined | becoming more intense. Chang Tso- the strike wave. \lin’s former adviser, the English- In North China in the years 1927| man, Simpson, had long been agi- and 1928 Chili and Shangtung were | tating for a resuscitation of the ac- the first two provinces where the tivity of British capital in North strike movement welled up. | China where the revolutionary wave Since the events in Tsinan the | does as yet but little harm. In masses themselves have, despite the | point of fact one can observe the 4 deserting, police and teachers are coal barons so supreme? Untamed? age $28 in 1924 and $29 in 1927, | Farrington. He still can be more | useful to the coal operators. However, the “Lewises must go” storm clouds are the symbols and the left wing and progressive forces are the guarantee that Lewis and his whole pack of wolves will go. Leadership of Left Wing. In this whole messy and confused situation the national organized left wing forces are the healthy kernel giving the miners leadership and understanding in their struggles and laying a base for re-building | the union and not permitting its be- ing smashed. The September national conven- tion of the miners is the only bright | star on which are centered the hopes, not only of the entire miners, |rank and file, but of the entire la- bor movement of the United States. Down with the misleaders of labor! | All power to the progressive min- ers’ forces! On to the September 9 conven- tion! Japan’s Stranglehold on Shantung Province beginnings of new activity on the part of the British in this direction. Tha United States is looking for new markets and Germany also is commencing to send its wares to North China and to Manchuria. The Japanese imperialists are striving to conclude the work of building the railway lines, Shang- tung-Girin-Kainei and Sypingai- Taunan-Tsitsikar. like to lay their hands on the East China Railway and are preparing an attack upon the U. S..S. R. and its Primorskaya district. V. The military division of China is commencing. The Chinese na- They would then cruel and unusual punishment. When the lady returned with the papers, | fancy her embarrassment when she | was informed that the war depart- |ment ordered the terrier and the jother dogs in the pound sent to | Maryland, to be used in experiments with poisonous war gases. Perhaps the members of the Animal Rescue | League are of the opinion that with so many unemployed around there is no necessity for the war ’epartment to pick on the dogs. x * * IGHT on the heels of the Kellogg pact for the outlawry of war, comes news of the renewal of the entente cordials between England |and France. Of course the Kellogg treaty is about as effective an instru- ment for the prevention of a war as the incantations of medicine man- against the ravages of an epidemic of cholera morbus. tional bourgeoisie has completely betrayed the national revolution. Whilst the Japanese troops were attacking the Southern army and bombarding Tsinan and the advance guard of the Southerners were put- ting up a desperate resistance to the Japanese, the commanders of the Japanese and the Chinese troops were shaking hands as a sign of “peace.” Only an immediate resuscitation of the international solidarity of the proletarian with the oppressed peo- ples can ward off the threatening catastrophe and prevent a bloody campaign against the Chinese peo- ple and the Chinese revolution. The Chinese and Japanese prole- tariat already see the necessity of a common and joint struggle against Japanese imperialism and intervention in China and against. the occupation of China by the Japanese militarists. ae i