The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 8, 1928, Page 4

Page Four THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER §8, 1 nr 4 i 5 WF] TH “TRANSFORMATIO N” OF ALEX HOWAT: THE STORY OF A MINE LEADER WHO LEADS NO MORE By CHARLES MILLS. (Secretary, Tri-District Committee.) Industrial struggles between labor and capital always produce new leaders of the workers and brings forth new experiences of our class with lessons that can be used in uture battles. Such is the case of the miners’ struggle of six years ago in Kansas when the organized work- ers fought the Kansas Industrial Court Law, the operators, and the Lewis betrayal. In this battle the militant miners of Kansas were the shock troops of the American work- ers. Out of this struggle, from the un- known to the known came Alex Ho- wat, leader of the Kansas miners, President of District 14, a man who was big, rough and ready, yet one who was always good to friends. One who trusted too many The miners defied the state. Howat led the fight. And then the miners de- fied the treacherous Lewis and again Howat led the fight. Howat’s| name was read from coast to coast. Such opportunities to men come sel- dom and even less do men realize these opportunities. A chance as a leader to do the working class great good or great harm; an opportunity to reach millions where in the past one spoke to and was heard by hun- dreds. The good they can do de- pends upon their loyalty to the workers and their theoretical devel- opment in the class struggle. A Year in Jail. The result of the Lewis sell-out was a defeat of the Kansas miners even though they beat the law as a law. From the standpoint of the workers this defeat was practically a loss but theoretically it was only, one of the many dress rehearsals for future struggles. To Alex Howat it was more than that, a. year’s sen- tence in jail, removal from office as president that kept one fairly well, a slap in the face by Lewis and a year to think it over; to dwell on the fact that although right he gets the worst end. | Naturally when this man was re- “Build the New Mine Union! ” title |log may | Monsieur Coste. The fact that every- jone on the stage pronounces |lieutenant’s first name differently, |In a loyal attempt to consummate |the marriage, she opens her door “The Phantom Lover’ by G. | AT the Forty-ninth Street Theatre they are playing Georg Kaiser’s 1928 play, “Oktobertag,” under the “The Phantom Lover.” I do not know how closely the transla- tion follows the original, but some of the super-sentimental passages which mar an otherwise clever dia- be due to too close adher- ence to the German, a language in which you utter extraordinarily sweetish phrases without sounding like The Family Magazine. i MILDRED BROWN To be brief, the situation is this: Lieutenant Jean-Mare Marrien (act- ed by David Newell) is summoned, with threats if he does not come, to appear before a perfect stranger, the) brated a year’s run at the 46th S! Ps . | tre, is not a part of the play, and is not| 7PC2*?e Kaiser, a Poetic Phantasy In Ray Henderson’s musical show “Good News”, which has just cele- A Novel of “Poor Whites” By a Literary Ku Kluxer | STRANGERS AND LOVERS. By|volume when the author’s intense | Edwin Granberry. The Macaulay | preoccupation with the simon-pure Company. $2.00. | esthetics of writing result in several ‘ a beautiful (albeit artificial) effects. Reviewed by EDWIN ROLFE. But these moments are so scattered THs book falls within the category |and unfrequent in their presence | # of the might-have-been-good, nov- | that they do not on the whole affect els. That is to say, the author, at | the hopeless mediocrity of the book. | the very outset of his work, had a sencoeties fete Stowkowski to Present Music of New Russia the “poor white” class in the south. | (By United Press) ‘ But, confronted with several meth- ods with which to attack the story, [FOrOLD STOWKOWSKI, Phil- adelphia orchestra conductor, t.| There are many prejudices re- vealed in the book which definitely | |stamp the author, who has been what causes his handsome sulky face to fill with displeasure. The trouble is that Coste accuses him of being the father of a child recently born to Catherine, Coste’s niece. Jean, etc., offers proofs to the contrary in the way of an alibi, but admits being in the city on a day in Oc- tober. Finally it appears that Caterine saw the lad on that day, looked with him into a jewelry shop at marriage rings, knelt with him at prayers in church, and sat in the same box with him at the opera, all without his knowing it, though she thought this constituted a marriage with ring, blessing, and celebration with music. | Catherine. only. way to explain the cuttin; wanted only to become a capitalis |that followed by other capitalist of by playwright and audience, lof mystic fairyland about it, an | much is left unexplained. You don | Kaiser is kidding you. Or maybe German is having a little fun wit ; the French army again.—V. S. that night, and grasps out into the hallway to lead her husband in, the lieutenant at that identical moment being miles away and utterly ig- norant of her existence. The baby came about by the fact that when Catherine so grasped into the dark- ness she accidentally got hold of the butcher boy, who was sneaking in- to the house quietly to visit one of the maids, Now though Catherine never knew the difference, this maid did, and AT CAMEO of the story Nurse Edith Cavell, i: | which Sybil an excellent cinema-portrait, Arts Guild. |system which he now shares with This seems to be the down of Leguerche, for Coste was | willing to buy him off, and the boy in a way not morally different from and therefore, presumably approved However, in spite of the fine act- ing, especially of Brent, who is real | enough, the whole affair has an air know quite whether half the actors} are meant to be crazy, or whether “DAWN” IN THIRD WEEK “Dawn”, the English film-version Thorndike contributes is ‘playing its third week of pheno- |menal business at the Cameo The- |atre under the auspices of the, Film Our censors in the hinterland have Granberry, it seems, chose the | with his wife and daughter, re- worst, that of treating his central characters in a decidedly snobbish turned from Europe yesterday after an 18 months’ tour, during and supercilious manner. which he made a study of Oriental music. Stowkowski said he had brought back seyeral Russian scores which he would play for the first time during the winter season in Phila- delphia. The conductor kept what he called a travel book, in which he made notes each day of what he had seen and heard. “The book will never reach the publie,” he said. “I kept it so that I could bring back at will many of the experiences of our trip.” | given a place “in the front rank of our younger novelists” by bourgeois | ig | critics, as a follower of the decadent |literary school of the Dial and the |now defunct Little Review groups. | t,| There is, to mention one of these | prejudices, a loftly contempt for the Negro, whom he treats not sympa- thetically or understandingly but in ra way that is sure to lead the un- witting reader, who imagines that | Granberry knows all about the! south of which he writes, to adopt} a similar race-prejudiced stand | |against the Negro. Then there is| the difference in his treatment of Millie, the girl of the poorer class, | and Mrs. Boynton, a member of the southern aristocracy. This differ- ence is subtle; so subtle in fact, that were it not for a close scrutiny of | the novel, this false and narrowly | aristocratic stand of the author| men were injured, 4 seriously, and would not be discernible. But one|10 others were overcome by smoke, can see that there is condescension| jn a fire in the Loop Market block in his descriptions of Millie and a! in the downtown district last night. fawning humbleness in those of| The fire was believed to have re- Mrs. Boynton. sulted from an explosion in a ware- There are some moments in the' house basement. 8, d | % a h 12 FIREMEN HURT DENVER, Sept., 7.—Twelve fire- in | decided that “Dawn” is not mre 10) AMUK |man, etc., and so Ohio and New|, | Jersey picture theatres will show the film New York state mentors of our iy film morals censored by eliminating | e) the scene showing the shooting of a| ry € German officer by a private, a ‘eased he spoke bitterly against *ewis and his machine. Had not he *ived through and felt this betrayal? "tad not experience taught him the truth. His tours that followed were exch and although more subjective than objective we can say with all ‘he shortcomings his speeches were basically correct because he fought the octupus of the miners bureau- eracy. After years of fighting the ‘ewis machine, after touring all Alex Howat came presumably, partly out of motives of revenge, urged on Leguerche, the butcher boy (played by Romney Brent, the best actor in this pro- duction) to blackmail Coste for the price of a meat shop. Marrien, having met Catherine, falls most romantically in love with her, and so far adapts himself to Catherine’s delusion and her pre- THEATRE ~-627d ST CENTRAL PARI EVES at 8:30 ~-MATS WED ard Mo A HK Woops T OHIO UNIONISTS TO MEET. COLUMBUS, Ohio.—Officers uf | the State Federation of Labor have ceding paranoid state (the mystic|issued the call for the annual con-| |Marriage, etc.) that he murders} vention which will be held in this| over the East, hack to Kansas thinking that he did >ot get the prover response. Many miners in the East had not had the axperience Howat had had and al- showigh the masses supported him he still had the machine to buck. Howat Changes. But this did not last long. With the years, day by day other miners ‘n other districts experienced simi- lar sell-outs and they too began to ~espond to the left wing slogans. Soon district after district was be- troyed! District after district re- ~olted. Such was the period prior to and after the April First Pitts- hurgh Conference. Like wildfire the revolt spread. Like a new day the “iners took up the battle cry. Con- ditions determine our order of busi- ness and today masses could be mo- bilized while six years ago only a section of the miners responded. At last the chance had come. Six years ago Howat preached revolt, told how he was crucified by the Lewis machine, how he was ready to fight to the end. The time had come but Howat was not ready. Years changed conditions and men. Alex Howat could not see the time had come. Alexander Howat would not act. First he voiced his sym- pathy with the left wing revolt, Hundreds of thousands of miners were in movement, hundreds of thou- sands looking for a voice for their feelings but Howat could not be that voice. F Excuse after excuse was given for not going East and taking up the hattle, The time had comé for leaders to recognize their place and lead but Alex had spoken six years ago and not all miners responded and now when they responded Alex could not hear. Alex had passed | away. At first Howat took a position of verbal support to the left wing. Next he went to a position of neu- tral and neutral inevitably means helping the strongest force in a fight and this meant helping Lewis Actions speak louder than words. The Turning Point. At the Arma mass meeting called by the Burr Skahan machine when the revolt in the district was gain- ng, when the July 1st convention vas a few weeks off, the machine put Alex up as speaker for a mass! neeting, the only speaker to be put 1p. Howat fell for the trap of the machine. His speech by the words of his old time followers was the worst he ever made. In a period) when the storm rages he did not yee mention the Lewis machine one) way or the other. His militancy and | fire was gone. He tried to skip the) ssue and in doing such he helped she machine again. It was the turn- ng point. He drifted further. Or naybe someone is just learning a few things? i Alex Howat went to Kansas City 9 collect relief for the miners, only ‘or the Kansas miners. The Nation- 1 Miners Relief had a station at Arma but Howat turned his money) wer to District 14 machine, to the| vewis machine, to the fakers who vere living good while the miners, vere starving. x Aids G. 0. P. the primaries Howat was, mt campaigning for republican can- | ddates. Campaigning for Winters % THE LIFE AND DEATH “#2 OF NIKODIM PAVLICH Our teacher’s name was Nikodim Pavlitch, and his surname Kostiuk He was employed in our village dur- ing twenty-two years, and almo: all those who could read and write in our village. had been his pupils. My uncle, Danila, has already five children, his son Gritzko is of my age. Sometime ago I asked Danila: “Uncle Danila, who had taught you to read and write?” He replies: “Nikodim Pavlitch.” The old men relate that Nikodim Pavlitch came to our village when he was quite young—he was not even twenty years old. And when I entered school he was already bald and his face was covered with wrinkles. Fives times, if not more, gen- darmes came from town and searched the lodging of our teacher; once they beat him with canes till he bled, but they could not arrest him, for Nikodim Pavlitech did his work carefully and referred always to laws which existed. For us, village children, Nikodim Pavlitch was like an elder brother. Nikodim Pavlitch did not die a natural death; he was martyred to death by Polish gendarmes. That’s how it happened. * oe After the war against Germany, the Soviet Power did not remain long in Western White Russia, The Polish lords declared that our coun- try is under their rule and that they. will rule over us according to their laws. The Polish authorities issued a decree, according to w children were to be taught in all schools in the Polish language, and that they had to learn from those books, in which the rule of the Polish lords for County Attorney, a man who is a cousin of Burr, the District Sec- retary Treasurer who was ousted by the July First Convention. Rurr, a Lewis man; Burr who had helped stop Howat and all things progres- sive; Burr, the bosses’ agent, Howat also supported other reactionary candidates and while the State Fed- eration was drumming up business for democrat shysters, Burr was using stationery for Hamilton for governor on the republican ticket. Any one who went through Howat’s experience should have known the A B C of the class struggle of po- litical action. A labor party of the county could be a power but when ike i i @ Pt Bi men like Howat hinder its develop | whips. ment, they sabotage it. Errors may be committed by revolutionists in an| attempt to build a labor party, but errors corrected and work renewed for such is consistent in policy and does not justify excuses of such ac- tion as support of any old party | candidates, i ed. The Polish lords issued in order to confuse the the pupils and in order was pre this ¢ mind of the chi n should become faithful servants to the lords. When Nikodim Pavlitch received the decree of the Polish authorities, |, he gathered us together and asked US : Who of you children knows the Polish language?” The children say that they do not and Polish, and only the ’s son Basil and the saloon- keeper’s nephew Pavlo bragged that they could read and write Polish. Then Nikodim Pavlitch thought and said: “Well, children, look here, I know the Polish language and shall teach you in the afternoons to read and write Polish. And in the day time we will learn the White Russian language.” | “And from whigh books?” asked the priest’s son, Basil. “From White Russian ones,” an- swered the teacher. “We have no other books.” “It’s not allowed to learn from White Russian books,” said Basil, “The authorities have forbidden to learn from White Russian books, and he who does not obey the au- | thorities, commits a mortal sin.” | “Well, then hut up! It’s not your business!” shouted the children to the priest’s son. “You are not an instructor for us.” * * « In the e ing Nikodim Pavitch sent a de ‘ation to the authorities. In this declaration he stated that the children do not understand the Polish language, and that in the evening he will teach us to read and write Polish, and in the day- time White Ru n. This paper he sent, and our life went on usually, When the priest and the kulaks (rich peasants) got to know, that Nikodim Pavlitch teaches us from old books, they also sent a declara- tion to the town authorities. In this statement they said that the teacher goes against the authority of the) Polish lords, tells the children about Lenin and about the Soviet System and that it is necessary to arrest him. One morning, when we had a les- son in arithmetic, three gendarmes entered the school. They had fierce | faces and round their belts hung re- voly and in their hands they held One of them, the chief one, approached Nikodim Pavlitch and shouted to him: “You, are you liteh Kostiuk?” “I,” said our teacher, “What are you doing here?” “I teach the children,” answered! Nikodim Pav- a _Nikodim Pavlitch and Tanka and (Drawing by Fred Ellis) ‘The teacher handed the arith-| metic hook over to him. The gen-| darme saw that the problems are written in White Russian language. His face grew quite red. He lifted his whip and struck Nikodim Pay- litech heavily.on the face. The children screamed, jumped | from their seats, ran towards the} gendarme, weeping and shouting: “Don’t hit him! Why do you beat Nikodim Pavliteh?” And Tanka Krivtchuk got hold of | the gendarme’s sleeve, weeps, bites | and screams with all her might: “Brigand! Brigand!” x Ete She suffered very much for Niko- | dim Pavlitch and was deeply humili- | ated. The gendarme lifted her with both hands and hit her head against the edge of a desk. Tanka died on the spot. At first convul- | sions shook her body twice. The brain poured out—so died Tanka. | And the other gendarmes locked the | door and beat the children with whips. They beat their faces, their backs, their chests; they beat them | so mercilessly that the shirts and| trousers of many children were torn | to pieces and the whole body was in stripes and bled, They they locked us up and led Nikodim Pavlitch away to some| place. We were released only in the eve. ning. It was already quite dark. Siycaes Oe When we came home to our huts | we were told that the gendarmes | had already left. I asked my} mother: “And what happened to Nikodim | Pavlitch?” | And mother weeps, kisses me and | between sobs says: “He is on the square, our martyr. They have killed him, killed, the brutes,” My whole body bled. Every touch eaused pain, I couldn’t move, but when I heard that Nikodim Pay- litech lays on the square, I forgot | all about my pains and ran to the square. There I saw.him lying near the church fence. His shirt was torn off, his chest was stabbed in many places with bayonets and on his) forehead were two bullet wounds. | Next day the whole village buried Nikodim Pavlitch and Tanka. And | after another day the new teacher | -—a Pole—arrived, who taught the} children only in Polish, from Polish books, and according to these books | the rule of the Polish lords is the most just on earth and established | by God. And life becomes in our village | more and more unbearable. The peo- | ple sigh, being plundered by the} lords. Little children die during the | winters from hunger. | We read the false books of Polish | lords, we think of the graves of | our eyes fill with tears, Our life is hard, very hard!. . . \any interference with the delusional | Leguerche to protect himself against | cit; ‘17th. New Workers Records Made in Europe and in the United States. Released for the first time in this country 7007 International Marseillaise We invite yew herewith, all the readers of the Daily Worker, to come to our store and hear how it plays and sounds on our $600 machine. It’s just wonderful. RUSSIAN RECORDS DOWN THE VOLGA RIVER. Folk Song. GRAND FATHER PAHOM. Folk Song, SORROW WALTZ and MOSCOW POLKA. BEAUTY and POLISH MAZURKA. KOROTCHKA, Soprano Isa Kremer. MOSKVA. National Song. Isa Kremer. PA D’ESPAGN. Russian Orchestra “Odessa”. PERED RAZLUKOJ (March). Russian Orchestra “Odessa”. UKRAINA (March). Russian Orchestra “Odessa”. UKRAINIAN RECORDS BAJATI (Kaukasian Melody). Kavazky Orchestra. EKH. 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