The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 11, 1928, Page 1

THE DAILY WORKER FIGHTS | For a Workers-Farmers Government | | To Organize the Unorganized For the 40-Hour Week | For a Labor Barty. Daily Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office at New York, N. . under the act of March 3, 1871 ed daily except Sunday by The National Dally Worker Publishing Association, Inc., 26-28 Union Sq., New York, N. Y. DAY, OCTOBER ‘1, 1928 UBSCRIPTION RATES: In Outside New Yor 10,000 OUT IN HUGE WORKERS MURDERED BY GOV'T. WITH POIS EXPRESS STRIKE; WALK-OUT GROWS Workers Act] Following | Company Denial of Pay Increase N. Y. Food Supply Cut Union President Issues. Strikebreaking Order At least 10,000 freight hand-/ This ghastly picture shows a row of victims of the latest Prohibition-by-murder sree ernment officials have admitted that alcohol is intentionally poisoned to prevent it from being used in bootleg liquor. “enforcing” the prohibition admendment has repeatedly been approved by high government officials, including the millionaire secre- tary of the treasury, Andrew W. of the night-clubs and other rich booze-joints, but always reaches speakeasies in workingclass sections where workers are made to pay with their lives for this activity of the federal government. the lower East Side district—is the toll thus far of the latest flood of government. poisoned alcohol in New York Gi Mellon. Curiously enough, this sk of the ull-and-crossbones alcohol never finds Thirt y-four dead and more than 100 in the hospitals. United States government. ON ALCOHOL PATERSON SILK | STRIKE BEGINS: MANY COME OUT 5,000 Quit Mills; Hal) Is Jammed at Big Rally {Plan Sharp Struggle Passaic Girl Leader Rouses Meeting Gov This method of way into the fancy drinks practically all in Y. lers, clerks and drivers em- ployed by the open-shop Amer-| ican Railway Express Company | are out on strike here today fight- ing against a wage cut, against the efforts of the company to break the union, and against other grievances. Hundreds of workers at various | terminals throughout the city are} joining the strike hourly and un- less efforts by union officials to- gether with the Federal Board of | Mediation, which has been called in ATCOOPERUNION |Ragozin Will Present | | With United States Attorney Charlies H. Tuttle suddenly called to | Washington immediately after the start yesterday of a so-called inves- | tigation by a federal grand jury in- to the poisoned alcohol deati wave in this city, machinery is believed to by company officials, succeed in averting developments, 75,000 men} throughout the country will be in-| volved. The men demand union recognition and wage increases of, about $3 a week. The striking workers aroused over years of abuses which their International officials did nothing to correct, yesterday scorned the order of their strike-| breaking international president, George M, Harrison, that they re- turn to work immediately. The vici- ous sell-out was made public by vice-president L. R. Gwyn of the Express Company at whose request the international union misleader had issued the mandate. Harrison, it was learned, will ar- rive here himself this morning to take personal direction of the strike- | breaking activities. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of provisions and food sup-| lies are stacked up at the terminals, | a considerable part of which is per- ishing. Indications are that there will be a complete paralysis of food distribution in New York City with-| in a few days. Already the com-/| pany has declared a nation-wide em- bargo on shipments bound for this! city. The clerks and freight handlers} are members of the Brotherhood of | Railway and Steamship clerks. drivers are members of Internation-| al Brotherhood of Teamsters, Mem- bers of the American Federation of Express Workers are also involved, Workers belonging to these unions} have joined the walkout notwith- standing the hesitancy on the part of some, and the complete strike- breaking tactics on the part of other union officials. A jurisdictional battle between | the officials of these unions has been in progress for a number of tile workers of Tourcoing and Ar-| | years. That the rank and file has not shared in this is evidenced by i and grievances | Communist Program have been set in motion for shifting |the responsibility for the deaths A political symposium of work- from the federal prohibition authori- ing women will be held tonight, 7:30 | ties to scapegoats as yet unknown. p. m. at Cooper Union Hall, Cooper| The death of Lawrence Dwyer, Square, at which women speakers | 54 years old, of 2217 Third Ave., in | representing three political parties|the Bellevue Hospital brought the will present the issues of the 1928 | total of fatalities from the poison election campaign from the angle of jalcohol to 34. Six new victims were |the three parties, stressing those | admitted to the hospital yesterday, lissues which vitally affect women. thus swelling the total of disabled workers and housewives. to more than a hundred, many of The three speakers will be Ray) Ragozin, representing the Workers (Communist) Party, candidate for} life. state as.embly in the 23rd Brook-| In appearing before the grand lyn Assembly District; Mrs. Alice! jury, | McKay, representing the republican intended to cloak real responsibility, party, and Mrs. Anna Moskowitz | that the wood alcohol responsible Kross, speaking for the democratic |for nearly all the deaths had been para stolen from a special consignment Women Votes Important. passing through the city and then | The importance of women’s Tole ee eee ice others will probably be blinded for | speakeasies. lis this year more readily seen than |in previous elections. The total of Others who ‘appeared before ‘the grand jury were Dr. Harry | voters registered thus far shows an whom are not expected to live, while | Tuttle advanced the theory, | The | | increasingly heavy proportion of | women voters, |eoncern of women with political} questions, and the growing realiza- |tion of women workers and house-| wives that their daily lives in the) |shops, factories and at home are | vitally affected by the character of |the political party in power as well | as by the bosses, a keen interest is| | being taken by them in the plat- forms of the various political par- | ties. | Continued on Page Two '‘Reformist Officials | Move to Call Off Big | French Textile Strike | | (Wireless to the Daily Worker.) LILLE, France, Oct. 10.—The tex- mentier resumed work today follow- | ing the huge strike which threatened With the growing | The working women gathered | Schwartz, assistant city toxicologist, and J. W. Quillan, federal chemist, who testified as to their findings. The federal grand jury will turn over all its material to a special grand jury, which, on Monday, will continue unwinding the endless chain of another of the alleged “in | vestigations” whose real purpose is |to shield those really guilty and to befuddle the minds of the masses by presenting the government in the role of zealously “defending” their interests. The poisoned wood alcohol deaths | which have occurred since Saturday, | lit is pointed out, are directly trace- lable to the federal prohibition de- partmert’s policy of deliberately poisoning alcohol, a policy which has been endorsed by Secretary Mellon and other high government officials. This policy hits directly at the work- Jers, since the poisoned alcohol nearly | always finds its way to cheap speak- easies in working-class _ sections, | with disastrous results. It is sig- | the solidarity of today’s walkout in| to paralyze the industry in north-| hi¢icant that nearly all the victims | which all workers have joined al- most 100 per cent. Last April of-| ficials of the American Federation ern France. In other sectors the strike is still going on. Five thousand workers of Express Workers began an action|in Lys Valley and the textile work- in the federal court to prevent the|ers of Halluin are among this num- Railway Clerks’ Union from organ- | ber. Continued on Page Three | The workers are enraged at the iUNITS MUST temome He eda te ee CALL MEETS | Workers in other trades have in- All units of the Workers of the latest poison alcohol death | wave has been found in the lower | East Side. While Tuttle “ in Washington, Shoe Workers to Hold Mass Meeting Tonight A mass meeting of the shoe workers of Greater New York, under |the leadership of the Independent Shoe Workers’ Union, will be held at Lorraine Hall, Brooklyn, tonight. | |dicated their sympathetic support of (Communist) Party must \ing the last fortnight. | Among the speakers will be Ben SYMPOSIUM FOR GOV’T TO DODGE BLAME SAVAGE TERROR WOMEN TONIGHT: "OF ALCOHOL DEATHS holding star chamber conferences for the purpose of throwing a smoke | screen over this government murder ref workers, the Tammany police, to- gether with federal agents, are con- tinuing their “raids” on East Side and Greenwich Village dives which exist by Tammany protection, bought with cash. This: is another one of the gestures which are meant to delude the masses into thinking that Tammany Hall is actually prosecuting those who help to sup- port its graft ring. The 34 poison alcohol fatalities and the disabling of more then 100 others have aroused a wave of re- |sentment emong workers in the lower Kast Side. They are urged to express this resentment in a con- lerete way by yoting Communist in | the coming elections and thus vot-/ ing for a program which exposes the prohibition amendment as a capital- ist profit and graft scheme and points out that the curse of alcohol- ism can only be wiped out with the wiping out of the capitalist system. GITLOW SPEAKS AT SAN DIEGO Workers and Farmers Cheer Candidate (Special to the Daily Worker) SAN DIEGO, Cal., Uct. 10.—Ben- jamin Gitlow, vice presidential can- | didate of the Workers (Communist) | Party, spoke last night at Woodbine Hall, in this city, before an audience of 300 workers and farmers, receiv- ‘ing a great ovation from the au- dience. Emphasizing the working class character of the Workers (Commu- nist) Party, Gitlow raised the slo- gans of a political party for the ex- |ploited and oppressed workers and farmers, and the formation of a | Workers’ and Farmers’ Government, “representing the masses of people, the producers of wealth, the prole- tariat.” The meeting responded to the call |of the Workers (Communist) Party |by donating over $60 to the Red | Election Campaign Fund; many in the audience also applied for mem- bership in the Workers Party. After the meeting, a banquet was held at which more money was raised for the textile strikers of New Bedford. The formation of a San Diego unit of the Workers Interna- tional Relief capped the splendid work that had been accomplished during the evening. PATERSON, N. J.. Oct. 10.— When the hands of the clocks in many Paterson silk factories reached the hour of ten this morning, over five thousand silk workers stopped work, marched out of the factories and reported for strike registration at Turn Hall, the strike headquar- ters of the Associated Silk Workers’ mone STILL RAGES IN TEXTILE STRIKE Nothing Can Break Our mendous optimism was mani- a by the striking workers when they saw the size of the first re- sponse to the strike call. Members Worker New York, by m Union, Strikers Cry (Special to the Daily Worker) NEW BEDFORD, Mass., Oct. 10. -With unparalleled savagry. the New Bedford police force, reinforced by the engines of suppression mob- ilized for the mill barons from other cities, are proceeding with their ef- fort to smash the strike of the thou- sands of textile workers, who still remain out desnite beine sold out by the A. F. of L. officialdom. Arrests are still going on. Police are scouring the city for men and women known to have been active and leading strikers. The latest act of terror is the raiding of the homes of strikers, the adults of the famil- ies in these cases being dragged out of their homes into court to face a \set of judges that are handing out six-month and _ three-month tences indiscriminately. sen- Judges Act Against Defenders. The insolence of the terrorist | of the strike committee of 50, which is charged with conducting the |struggle for improved working con- | ditions, declared at the hall that the center of activities for the next few days will be the bringing out of the approximately 4,000 workers who are still working in the silk manu- facturing plants. These workers are not members of the union but are expected by even the capitalist press to join the walkout. Turn Hall Crowded. Every nook and corner of Turn, Hall was crammed tight with the workers that pushed their way into the hall. Hundreds more were out- side and got into the hall only after some of those inside came out to stay outside. At about 11 o'clock, the officers | of the union announced a mass meet- |ing which was carried thru’ with the greatest enthusiasm. Rank and filers themselv& raised the question of the immediate organization of FINAL CITY EDITION : Price 3 € Cents il, $8.00 per year by mall, $6.00 per year. COMMUNIST TICKET GOES ON BALLOT IN NEW YORK STATE 23,000 SIGNATURES PUT WORKERS PARTY SLATE ON BALLOT IN 32ND STATE Record Number ot New jew York City N Filed After Intense Campaign Nominees Foster and Gitlow to Speak at Huge Madison Square Garden Meet Nov. 4 The Workers (Communist) Party has gone on the ballot in New York State. Red petitions nominating William Z. Foster for President, Benjamin Gitlow for Vice-President, Robert Minor -for U. 8. Senate, William F. Dunne for Governor, Franklin P. Brill for Lieutenant Governor, Lovett Fort-Whiteman for Comptroller wand Juliet Stuart Poyntz for fa accepted e the office of he Secretary of State at ae making New York the thirty-second state in which work- ers will have the opportunity of voting the ticket of class struggle in the coming elections. 23,000 Signatures. The Sateen feature in the in- ANTI-WAR RALLY Thousands of Leaflets | candidates on the ballot in New Given at Times Sq. Yer was the unprecedented re- sponse of members of the Workers In a counter-demonstration ommunist) Party to-the call of against the and military pre- the Party for signature gatherers. paredness maneuvers held in Times war Over 23,000 signatures were ob- a a thruout the state despite Square by the military jingoes, 200 | enormous difficulties. In many up- e) ( i Ds the Worker (commana) ae been attempted before, members. of gathered at the same spot last night, ine Workers. (Communist) Party ob- tained wor most of them members of state counties where it had: caaaa holding “aloft placards denouncing tained the full quota of signatures imperialist war. rennived: Thousands of leaflets were given In connection with the signature | out to the crowds that cluttered the drive intensive propaganda was streets as the maneuvers were in|carried on by the party members! progress. These were eagerly |engaged in the drive, both in New grasped by the people on the square | York City, where thousands of Com- ! and all along Broadway, who read| munist platforms were sold and them carefully, discussed the Com- | other Red literature distributed, and munist message in groups, and in up-state counties, through which placed them in their pockets. George Pearlman and Donald Burke , one made a triumphant signature- | judges and police thugs is so raw that the legal representatives of the strikers coming to bail them out or to appeal their cases are threatened : ; with arrest for having provided bail Want Picket Lines. bonds throughout the entire length) When the meeting was over, many of the strike. The New Bedford | workers expressed their dissatisfac- secretary of the International Labor | tion with the fact that the paid Defense, A. Pizer, a regular organ-| union officers did not take imme- izer, was yesterday sentenced along diate step to organize the strikers ith strike leaders to six months in| for picket demonstrations. Many jail. His testimony as well as the|declared that such picket lines testimony of Robert Zelms, New! should have been flung around the England head ef the International silk plants that very afternoon. It was generally conceded, however, that such picketing will be put into force, because many members of the strike committee are in favor of the struggle being conducted along militant lines. These de¢lare that the only method of struggle that stands a chance of winning is an -aggressive fight against the bosses, conducted by all craftsmen in the silk manufacturing industry. The suddenness and spontaneity of the walkout yesterday has al- ready succeeded in effectively crip- by | pling production in the most impor- tant silk factories in town. Al- picket lines for the purpose of bring- ing out the workers who had not yet responded. Continued on Page Five SEWER GRAFTERS WIN FIRST COUNT Court Cuts Penalty by Two-Thirds The expected developments which the Queens officials on trial here in the $30,000,000 Tammany | though many of the manufacturers | here are not members of the bosses’ association, the strikers intend to Continued on Page Three 50 Czech Workers Die in Building Collapse sewer graft case are to be let free, as usual, began today, when tech- nical motions made by defense coun- sel were granted by the court as a result of which, at one blow, the possible penalty was reduced by two- thirds. From the first it has been stated that the Tammany-controlled For forty minutes workers held their banners and slogans aloft where all could see them. Slogans like “Hoover and Smith are Wai didates! Vote Communi: “1914. Was Only a_ Rehearsal!” “Down With Imeprialist W: greeted the hordes of jingo officials, surprised and outraged by the Com- munist demonstration. After the military demonstration, which turned out very badly because Continued on Page Two AGAIN BAR RED NEBRASKA SLATE Jingo Tool Refuses New Petitions A new atime to get the Work- ers (Communist) Party ticket on the ballot in the state of Nébraska was blocked by the action of the <retary of state, who informed Y ganda tour in the Red Essex. At the same time that the state! petitions were accepted at Albany, j petitions were filed with the Board of Elections in New York City} ,/nominating Red candidates for 16 assembly districts, six congressional } and four senatorial districts, the largest Communist slate ever nom-} inated in the city. Despite the attacks made on Com-} munist speakers by fascist organi- zation ch as the Tammany-con- trolled Veterans of Foreign Ware thousands of New York workers readily signed their names to put the Communist ticket on the city} ballot. Negro workers in Harlem and Brooklyn, thoroly disillusioned | with the capitalist parties, rallied in Continued on Page Three | Weisbord to Speak | at West New York Meeting Tonight! Albert Weisbord; ‘Woriuas (Com! munist) Party candidate for U. S.| senate will speak in West New York Roy Stephens that the Party would | at the Labor Lyceum, 17th St. and! not be on the ballot, despite the fact | Tyler Pl., tonight at eight o'clock. i F ; ones program of the Workers tatives of the Workers (Commu: nist) Party. (Communist) Party and what the} In a report to the National Elec- Workers can expect from the repub- tion Campaign Committee of the lican, democratic and socialist par- Workers Party at 43 E. 125th St., ties. This will be the first appear- | Stephens states t on aden ance of Weisbord in West New he filed 482 additional names wi the secretary of state and a certi fi. York as a candidate for public of-! ,Gold, Irving Potash and Arturo BEGIN "ANTARCTIC TRIP. Giovannitti. LOS ANGELES, Oct. 10 (UP).—| All shoe workers are urged to at-| Commander Richard Byrd and sev- tend this meeting, which will con- eral units of his party will leave | tinue the activities of the Independ-| here today on the C. A. Larsen dn| ent Shoe Workers’ Union of Greater the first lap of a trip that proposes | New York and vicinity to form a) exploration of undiscovered land in| strong militant union to cope effec- |the Antarctic. | tively with the cece ce oe MAILED FIST IN CUBA American ican Capitalists Send Jingo Vets HAVANA, Cuba, Oct. 10.—The and military pomp, while four new- United States military and naval|ly-purchased army planes arrived, power waved a threatening hand| from Key West and circled overhead. | over Cuba today, on the thirtieth) Viewed by 100,000 Cubans and Two hundred thousand franes | ‘were collected for the strikers dur- as the only subject for con- sideration the political letter of the Central Executive Committee on the tasks of the membership in the elec- tion campaign. Among the questions to be taken up are the following: 1. Reading of the political letter of the C. E. C. 2. Discussion of the letter. .| 8. Organization for Red Sunday, Oct. 14. 4, Plans to bring the cam- paign into the factories. 5. Canvassing of trade unions and fraternal organ- |the textile workers. z | meet this week and take up| | | izations. anniversary of the passing of the; American investors, chiefly sugar) ‘a ais _| | island from Spanish hands into the| growers, the military parade passed | 6. Selection of Red Volun American grasp. lover the Malecon, Havana's famous | teers. “\wo thousand veterans of the | ocean boulevard, and marched to the 7. House to house can- vassings. _B. Distribution of leaflets, ‘nish-American war, who were| Maine monument, which the United ht to Havana on the United| States government had erected to warship Texas, paraded thru| perpetually regiind the Cubans of ital accom; by sailo: Continued on Page Three ‘Head of Rockefeller | Scab Coal Firm Joins Al Smith Bandwagon Joining the parade of open-shop- |pers, power and trust buccaneers, | | traction pirates and big business ex- | ploiters who are now marching un- der the Al Smith banner, George J. Anderson, president of the Rocke- feller scab Consolidation Coal Com- | pany, yesterday announced his sup- | port of the Tammany Hall candi- date for the presidency. The Consolidation Coal Company, one of the first to break its agree- |ment with the miners union, is the largest soft coal operator in the | world and supplies coal to the New | | | York traetion companies. | Anderson is the second of the, io Rockefeller finance capital- ists who has declared for Smith. ‘The first was Edward S, Har! court would never convict or pun- PRAGUE, Czechoslovakia, Oct. ish its wn principal followers. | 10 (W,P).—Twenty-one bodies had eh been recovered tonight from the (By. United Press) ruins of a seven-story building, un- Maurice E. Connolly and Fred-| 4°" construction, which collapsed erick Seely, defendants in the $30, Yesterday. ce 690,000 Queens sewer trial, won| TWenty-six others were missing their first major legal batle with 24 feared dead, while 36 injured ithe stata today. were taken to hospitals. The chief Sustice Arthar S, Tompkins up- construction engineer of the build- held the contention of Max Steuer, defense attorney, that the state was obliged to select wh'ch count, in the conspiracy indictment of three counts, it would ask the jury to con- sider. As a result, the extreme penalty which Connolly and Seely face if convicted was reduced from three Continued on Page Three Lovestone to Speak on Negro Work Tonight Jay Lovestone, executive secre- tary of the Workers (Communist) | | Party, will speak on Negro work at | 126 W. 131st St. tonight, at 8 p. m.eof the exploited masses All Negro workers ahd members of the Workers (Communist) Party participating in Negro urged to attend this meeting. ing was rescued and arrested for questioning. fice. : The meeting will be held under the auspices of the Hudson County| Campaign Committee of the Work- ers Party. The public is invited to! the meeting. 1 cate of nomination certifying that a Communist convention was held on September 28. Fascists Aid Bosses. The National Office of the Work- ers (Communist) Party was noti- fied today by Stephens that I. E Continued on bats Five Elections in Latvia \ GREET RED CANDIDATES Workers ors. Cheer Foster, Gitlow. in West, Twelve hundred workers, mostly, | engaged in the production of steel, jrallied to a mass meeting in South Chicago, Illinois, to hear William Z. Foster, Communist presidential candidate, speak on the issues of the campaign as they affect the lives in the United States. Foster, the leader of the great rk, are steel strike, one of the greatest in- American Federation of Labor \dustrial struggles in the history of , Record Big Victory | for Left Wingers, (Wireless to the Daily Worker) | RIGA, Latvia, Oct. 10.—Results |of the Latvian elections, now being ! held, indicate an overwhelming vice | the United States, was greeted with tory for the revolutionary forces. | tumultuous applause when he arose | The Left Radical Trade Unionjsts to Aiddress the audience. South | of Riga received 32,000 votes, com= Chicago was one of the battle- | pared with 19,000 in the last elec> grounds of that struggle between | tion, This means eight seats in the labor and the Steel Trust. The | Sejm. : slaves of the steel mills remember There were no representatives of the fight that Foster pul up in their the revolutionary forces in the last hehalf against the steel harons and| Sejm. The election returns further the reactionary officials of the |indicate that the social-democrats Who have already lost three seifts pre- viously held. . Continued on Page Three