The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 7, 1928, Page 6

THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 7, 1928 “Daiwork” ROBERT MINOR + WM. F. DUNNE Editor sesescceeceed Assistant Editor SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By Mail (in New York only): $4.50 six mos. $2.50 three mos. By Mail (outside of New York): _ $6 a year $3.50 six mos: $2.00 three mos, Address and mail out checks to The Daily Worker, 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. $8 a year Wall Street Names the President The election of Hoover, carrying with it a | big majority of both houses of congri is in no sense surprising to those political ob- servers who could look beneath the surface and see behind the bombast, the clowning, the almost incredible piffle that characterized the campaigns of the two big capitalist par- ties and the little capitalist party masquer- ading as socialist, and perceive the real alignment of for It is too early to state definitely the exact percentage the republicans got of the 35 senators and the 481 congressmen. But it is certain that Hoover, the very personification of all that is vicious in imperialistic America, will have a working majority that can ride rough-shod over all opposition. That so many millions of voters, among them a heavy por- tion of the working class, accepted the maud- lin glorification of capitalism which is Hoov- er’s creed, is indicative of the continued up- ward swing of American imperialism in con- tradistinction to the rest of the capitalist world. The acceptance by the masses of the glorified “efficiency engineer,” the vulgar economist of the doctrine of increased pro- duction, the speed-up, the “hero” of syste- matically starving whole populations in im- peria war, the lackey who could capitalize the calamity of the Mississippi flood for the bankers under the guise of saving the victims of the criminal neglect of grafting politicians who prevented the building of adequate dikes to stem the recurring inundation of the land, does not convict the American workers and farmers of idiocy, as the professional cynics of the Mencken type would have us believe. The enormous vote for Hoover falls in with the Marxian observation that the prevailing ideas of any given period are the ideas of the ruling class. This holds true of all times and places.. It is only when economic conditions are such that the ruling class is in a state of political confusion, when the irreconcilable contradictions of a slave system become | | sharpest, in short when the old ruling class is no longer able to rule and the subject class or classes, as the case may be, are impelled to revolutionary action,—it is only then that | the ideas of the masses no longer correspond to the interests of the ruling class. The vic- tory of Hoover an& the millions of votes cast for his democratic opponent, Smith, are evi- dence that the overwhelming mass of ex- ploited workers and farmers are not yet class conscious. In spite of widespread unemploy- ment among the industrial workers, the wage-cuts, the lengthening of hours, the union-wrecking drives and the fact that the capitalist state appears more and more openly as the enemy of the working class, the major- ity of these workers supported the parties of capitalism. In spite of the continued im- -poverishment of the poor farmers and the cynical contempt with which the republican administration scorned the proposals for farm relief, a majority of farmers also ¢: their votes for Hoover. However,. not all is: smooth for the fat American capitalism. The exact opposite forces are sharp at work. There are, even in this orgy of reaction, clear indications of the approach of the time when the masses will break away from the parties of capitalism. This was indicated dramatically during the campaign by the in- spiring response to the Communist drive against all the capitalist parties. For the first time in the history of this country there was waged a widespread revolutionary cam- paign among the workers and farmer Proof that there is in certain sections a s from the old illusions, is the series of s el conflicts, particularly the long drawn out struggle of the miners, the strikes of the textile workers, and the small sporadic strikes in the auto industry. All these are indicative of a sharpening of class conflicts in certain industries. Countless thousands of | workers that defiantly face the political power of the state in strikes and lockouts in industry are deprived of exercising the fran- chise, hence the election returns are not a perfect barometer of the degree of class-con- sciousness of these workers. Add to this the millions of Negroes who are deprived of franchise through race discrimination in the south, and we have a huge mass of workers, the most exploited sections, who have no means of registering their resentment at the polls. One of the factors in the overwhelming de- feat of Smith was the industrialization of the south that has been proceeding apace within the past decade. The industrialists of the south are far more politically aggressive than the old land holding class and maintain mf&ny newspapers that preach the gospel of the Fordney-McCumber high protective tariff as against the traditional free trade policy of the democrats. The poor showing of Smith, in contrast to the noise raised during his campaign, is a subject for lamentations in the Tammany press of New York about the woefully be- nighted voters who were swayed by “in- tolerance” and “bigotry.” They have the happy faculty of apparently ignoring the fact that there is no fundamental difference be- tween the two major capitalist parties. Both parties speak for the same interests. It is impossible to ascertain any boundary line that separates the democrats from the re- publicans; likewise no one can distinguish the dividing line between the democratic party and the party of spurious socialism, headed by the Rev. Dr. Norman Thomas. At one end the democratic party merges with the republicans; its liberal middle class wing merges at the other end-with those who be- foul the name of socialism—thus there ex- ists a capitalist front from Hoover to Thomas. The one party that alone represents the interests of the masses of workers and im- poverished farmers is the Workers (Com- munist) Party. Regardless of whether the | total vote of the candidates of the little party of capitalism masquerading under the name “socialist” exceeds that of the Communist candidates, nevertheless it is significant that in many of those working class centers where the infamy of the socialist leaders as part- ners of Tammany courts, police and strike- breaking bosses is known the Communist vote surpasses the vote cast for Thomas and Maurer. In sixteen precincts of the sixth as- sembly district of the Bronx, the vote for Foster and Gitlow was 634 a$ against 294 for Thomas and Maurer. Compared to previous elections in New York the socialists lost heavily. A portion of their middle class and liberal following went to. Smith, while many workers who formerly supported them, went to the Communist can- didates. i For the first time in history a nation-wide uncompromising revolutionary campaign was waged by the Workers (Communist) Party and countless thousands of workers and farmers were reached with the message of Communism. The election campaign was utilized to expose the capitalist class and all its agents of every variety as enemies of the workers ‘and farmers. , Now that the campaign and election is over it is essential that those masses who sup- ported the Communist banner at the polls rally to its revolutionary standard for the continuation of the political struggle through other forms and in a more intensive and de- termined manner. Let every worker and farmer who in full consciousness supported the Workers (Com- munist) Party become a member of the party of his class and aid in the struggle to build an invincible political power that can | THE PROSPERITY CANDIDATE WINS PROFITS V5 SOO OOOO alt 21 0Qu00 00 () $QOOOOOOG 0 Vanzet By EUGENE LYONS. EDITOR’S NOTE—This chap- ti | ter from “The Life and Death of Witnesses. Perform Miracles to Railroad Worker for 15 Years Sacco and Vanzetti” is especially illuminating at this time in view of the recent confessions in vonnec- tion with the Bridgewater robbery. “The Life and Death of Sa.co anc Vanzetti” (International Pub- lishers) is a vivid account of the frame-up of the two murdered Italian workers). * * Judge Webster Thayer, a small, |shriveled man lost in the folds of a | black judicial robe; thin lips that} rarely smile though they sometimes bend into a sneer; sharp features and small nervous eyes in a pinched |gray face. He carries his title as | though it weighed tons and speaks in ‘a voice thin but pontifical. Thayer is a stickler for form; too legalistic] to appreciate substance. His every |am Massachusetts!” There was no reason why he should feel anything but contempt for the man in the cage—the man with a swarthy skin and a ferocious mustache. Thayer believes with | every one of his class whom he meets in clubs and on golf links that foreign agitators are undermining | Massachusetts, depressing its stand- ards of living. . .But he is not one to deny any man his day in court. All the forms would be observed. Vanzgtti was known to the po- | litical powers of Plymouth. He was |one of the foreign agitators who struck against the largest cordage | company in the world, the company | which practically owns Plymouth. That was one of the first biographi- cal details featured in the papers after his arrest. 2 The trial began on June 22, 1920. A jury of farmers chiefly, except one, Nickcrson, who was a foreman at the Plymouth Cordage. Prosecu- tor Katzmann is ruddy, well-fed and jovial. ...almost playful in hand- | ling witnesses. He looks at the jur- | ors significantly. He is a good actor. | & | He frames questions that embarrass and confyse his victims; he seizes up:.. an ipnest phrase or a slip of | memory to maneuver them into con- meet and defeat the exploiters of labor in “\tradictions. All of this is right and factory, mill and field. proper. Katzmann is a good prosecu- BARBUSSE ON FASCIST TERROR By HENRY BARBUSSE. (Continued) “The public proclamation of fas- cist deeds of shame, whffth we have been able“to make at the cost of much inquiry and effort, has saved the lives of many innocent people who would otherwise have been dragged into the courts with the deliberate intention of encompassing their deaths. But there is one of our inquiries upon which even stronger light must be This is the inquiry into thi preparations made towards the Milan assassina- agents who prepared for this affair during their sojourn in Tessin. “We know that the police depart- ment of the Canton of Tessin pos~ the victim of a vile deception, and |fell unwittingly into the trap. This |deed must be fully explained and cleared up/ You must apply to your government, and demand that all the documents existing with reference to this case be published. This is a matter which must be cleared up, not only your interests, Swiss work- ers, but because it is of the utmost importance for all anti-fascists; if this case is cleared up, then we will see plainly who is responsible for the various assassinations commit-| | ted in Italy of late years. was prepared on Swiss soil. The “ineapacity” of this band of con- spirators representing the Italian political police today prevented the infamously planned plot from at- taining its end, The elucidation of this case gives the opportunity of tracing the fascist criminals to their remotest lairs, of exposing them to the public, and of obtaining the strongest united aid of the whole population against them. “In this act of fumigation we as- sure of the solidarity of the free in- | tellectuals of all countries.” | “Who engaged this Tessin social-| The Committee for the Defense of tion, und refers especially to the) ist? Who induced him to take part | \in a “joke” assassination? The re- | plies to these questions cannot be | kept back much longer. And the re- plies will bring confirmation of our sesses information and document); | assertions that the Milan assassina- | which it is prevented from publish- | tion, prepared for a year by the ‘avors the rep. ing. It is about a year since fascist, Nudi Pacenza band, taking place wad tl ‘finally on April 12, doing 20 persons |*t the same agents commissione] a Tessin social i! transport a box of explos taly. This Tessin socialist wi to death, an@ intended to compro- | mise the Swiss antifascist emigres, beg ecaitaibians the Victims of Fascism, Paris, Rue de la Crange Bateliere 12. (The End.) The Workers (Commnnist) Party ronda agains the most) malignan: tor—that’s what the Norfolk County taxpayers hired him for. The courtroom was crowded. Folks from Bridgewater were especially jinterested. A daylight hold-up is a blot upon the fair name of their town. The prisoner lived up to their preconception of a bandit. No one | smiled at Vanzetti, not cven his at- torney, A few Italian friends sat huddled in the rear, intimidated by the court procedure. They were strangers in the court of the Amer- icans, * Vanzetti’s lawyer was John Vahey ; Vahey has defended many crimin- als. He has excellent connections in the underworld; his brother is some- thing of a political power in the county. This was just another rob- bery trial to Vahey. He had been gotten into the case by an Italian “runner,” a fellow Govoni, who drummed up business for lawyers. Vanzetti’s friends, frightened and in- experienced were easy bait. Persons close to the Sacco-Van- zetti defense, and Vanzetti himself, have always believed that Vahey be- trayed his client. The fact that he later went into law partnership jwith Katzfaann gives color to his bplief. Vanzetti, in a letter publis! {gesture proclaims to the world, “I) | the defensé group, says of Vahey and Govoni: “They railroaded us to the electric chair, and this they did most consciously and intention- \ally.”. However u: may be, there is at leazt’no doubt that Vahey con- ducted the cefense in a slipshod fashion. He failed ‘to round up eye- witnesses for his own side; he failed to file a bill of exceptions. For fear of exposing his client’s political opinions, which the jurors knew any- iway, he kept him from testifying in his own behalf, thus arousing a )presum; ‘ion of guilt. A Farcical Trial. at 7:45 in the morning. As the L. Q. White Company’s pay-truck, with board, drove up Broad Street to- |began firing at the three on the |truck. The first was returned. One | bandit had a revolver, the other a shotgun. The truck escaped around a trolley-car, and the bandits got |away in an automobile waiting on Hale Strec*. ‘Vanzetti, according to the prose- cution’s theory, wag the bandit with the shotgun. He had only one de- ifense, a simple one. He brought about thirty witnesses to the stand who v.-.....1 to his presence in Ply- mouth, 28 miles away, before, dur- ing, and after the hour of the crime in Bridgewater. He was up early that morning and worked late that [ma S$... .-..vng. He had previous- ly made a house to house canvass |for eels. He was selling them at 35 cents a pound at the same time that Doston stores were exacting a dollar “ar and a half. Naturally he But all his witn 3s were Ital- ians, since his customers that day were lt So it could 12 made to look a conspiracy, a case of |‘‘wops sticking together.” Katz- mann made that clear enough in his! | questions. Louis Bastoni, an Italian baker :45 sharp Vanzetti at his b: y shop asking for \a loan of the delivery wagon. It | would expedite the distribution of t!: cels. Bastcri was scrry to deny the request, he, too, had holiday ries to attend to. “He v in the woz!d do you know that it was exactly 7:45?” Katzmanr thundered, hat ie replied, “and I will never forget that while Vanzcvti was leaving my bak- ery, I bard the Cordage Company’s siren whictle of a quarter to eigh' o'clock,” B sy Brini, a thirteen-year- old boy, testified that he helped Van- zetti make deliveries early on the 2ith. He was with Vanzeti! before by Katzmann for two hours and re- called for another hour’s grilling the following day. His story® was not shaken, Cre al..: gnother they came tc the stand and told of seeing Van- zetti on the street, of receiving eels from him. But they made an aggre- gation v three men and about $30,000 on} {day delivering eels for the Christ-, of his customers and taken orders} “I remember,” the Italian baker | eigh* o'clock, The boy twas grillec | ‘would scarcely impress| the cass . sider “by la jury of Yankee farmezs, Stout|paticrned his answer after Bowles. The jury, wus wo anxious. It dis-| took Italian ousewives in aprons, un- couth laborers, a few small business | P | men—ill at ease in the court, strug-|° | sling with a foreign tongue. It was leasy work baiting them and Katz- mann had a good time. The jurymen chuckled and nudged each other in tha ribs. Much later the state has sought to place the blame for the injection of | the “radical issue” upon the defense No’ one injected the issue. There | was no need to do so—it was already there. But even in the technical sense of the court record, Katzmann |was the first to bring tho matter | Vanzetti’s witnesses, John Di Carlo. | the prosecutor asked. insinuatingly: “Have you ever discussed govern- |ment theories over there between guestion of the poor man and the \rich man between you?” The purpose of such questions, of |course, was to convince the jurors | that this collection of Italians were | mestly Reds trying to saye another Italian and another Red. In the same fashion he asked a defense witness, Michael Sassi, whether he had heard Vanzetti speaking of his political ideas, whether hé had heard Venzetti making public speeches? To disprove the cumulative alibi several contradictory, badly patched | “identifications” were advanced by |the state. .. BenJami J. Bowles was one of the men on the pay-truck. He was at the same time a special officer |for the shoe company and a member of Chief Stewart’s police force, the |same Stewart who was exerting him- self to convict Vanzetti. On May 10, at the preliminary hearing, Bowles testified that the shotgun bandit’s mustache was “short and croppy.” | At the trial he amended the descrip- tion to make the mustache “bushy.” | Three times he stated at the prelim- inary heai:ng that he was “pretty pe | zettj. At the trial such equivocatior {was eliminated. He was “positive.” Consider Bowles’ opportunity for obscrvat'on, By his own account of the affair, he had seized the whee) after the chauffeur fainted away. With vas... hand he drove the truck and with the right he fired at the bandits. All of it lasted a few chaotic seconds, Nevertheless he described in dc‘ail the bandit’s hair, eyes, face jand clothes, 11.8 memory was so \photegraphie ti.at it corresponded ex- e ‘'y with the prisoner before him. Prank W. Harding, better known es ‘Slip, criginally described the shotgun bandit as “smooth shaven” toa reporter of the Bosw.4 Globe In the preliminary hearing he caiked ¢2 an “cyezgzawn Charlie thaplin” mustache. By the-time the tria) came he was ready t6 identify Van- zetti. The value of his identificatior may be measured by the fact that he also had “identified” Orciani, ore pe-fect alibi saved him from trial. Paymaster Alfred E. Cox, in the prelimindry proceedings, asserted many times that the shotgun man in contrast to the other bandit, war “short and of slight build.” When « +2 trial Cox carefully ve” that the bandit was Van-| By Morris Pass s First Farce Trial LOpe eee aire hes,” said Bowles on the stand. “Five feet eight inches,” said Cox after him. Such agreement upcn.an observation made while shooting and being shot at ap- proaches, the miraculous. But Cox did not go the whole wey. He re- fu tu make his identification ive, Miracles multiplied when Mrs. Cocrgina Brooks took her oath. Go- ing along tae strcet early that morn- ing she became curious about ar automobile. Three she did -not no- tice—the fourth was a man with 2 | dark, face, a mustache and a dark | soft hat. ».aued some kind of a foreigner.” She looked twice at | that mar, and he paid in kind by back “severely.” “That man,” she t.-tified, “I ‘1d. jadge was the defendant.” From the street she went to a we The Bridgewater hold-up occurred into court. Cross-examining one ofjr.ilroad depot a block away: 300 feet cwey from Hale Street and 76 feet back from Broal Stve be was looking th @ spec... pot window when the crime tcok wards Hale Street, two men on foot| you?” and “Have you discussed the! place. She heard the shooting anc |she saw “fire and smoke 11 2 gun.” woman’s testimony, a _ two-story frame house on Broad Street com- pletely shuts off the view of the Mrs. Brooks was foll-wed by a 14-year-old high school boy, May- nard Freeman Shaw. This b-y c:oo¢ behind a tree and had a fleeting glimpse of the zavigun man run- ning, 145 feet away. . “T could tell he was a foreigne: by the way he ran,” young Shaw tet: 1 at the trial. “What sort of a foreigner?” asked the defense. “ither Italian or Russian.” “Does an Italian or a Russian run | differently from a Swede or a Nér- ; wegian?” “Yes.” “What is the difference?” “Unsteady.” The question of innocence or guilt jnecessarily revolved around these identifications as opposed to the alibi witnesses. Other tenuous “evi- dence” was worked in by the prose- cution. There was, for instance, a heroic attempt to prove that Van- zetti had once had a “Charlie Chap- lin” mustache, or that he trimmed his ‘mustache, in order to bolster up the contradictions of Bowles and Cox. Two Plymouth policemen who had often sc:n Vanzetti pushing his cart testified that he always wore the same br... .... ae. An Italian barber so testified. The trial lasted into the first week of July. Vanzetti was‘not permitted to go on the stand and speak in his own behalf. You will be asked to explain socialism and anarchism. Vahey warned him, and everything you. And your horrible English will make a bad impression, Vahey warned, Katzmann earned his pay from Norfolk County. His summation at the conclusion cf this trial was a ma.i...,ece of innuendo, reli-ved by some humor and ending in a ringing call to duty. Then the thin lips of Judge Thayer read the instructions to the jury. There were two counts against tae defendant, he pointed out, “attempt to rob,” and “attempt to kill.” The jury must disregard the second count for which there was insufficicnt evidence and con- But. unfortunately for the) crime,area from the depot window! | you say will set the jurors against |\ The Writings of Tolstoy and the Bolsheviks By EM. YAROSLAVSKY. (Translated from the “Pravda” by Valentine V. Konin.) “In our day, all attempts to idealize the teachings of Tolstoy, to justify or to mollify his ‘non- resistance, his appeal to ‘spirit,’ his call to ‘moral perfection,’ his doctrines of ‘conscience’ and ‘brotherly love, his sermons of ascetism and quietism, etc., will re- sult in immediate and the most profound harm.” —V, I. Lenin in “Tolstoy and his Epoch.” oe ib the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of Tolstoy’s birth, Lenin was forced to reveal the hypocrisy of the liberal press. “All the declamation and the flowery phrases about the great God search- er represent no more than a false- hood,” he wrote in his article, Tol- stoy as a Revolutionary Mirror. “A Russian liberal does not believe in Tolstoy’s God, nor does he sympa- thize with Tolstoy’s criticism of the existing regime. He attaches him- self to the popular name simply to multiply his little capital and to play the role of a leader in the na- tional opposition. By means of thundering, ripping phrases he tries to drown out the inevitability of a straight and clear answer to the problem: What causes the roaring contradictions of Tolstoyana; what faults and weaknesses of our revo- lution does it express?” Within the twenty years follow- ing the appearance of this article, the world has witnessed the great imperialist war. The storm of the revolution has resounded in almost all parts of the world. In the coun- try of the great writer and thinker Tolstoy, this storm has swept away completely the class of the land- owners’ nobility—the class from which Tolstoy came. This storm has overturned and cleaned out without a vestige the relics of feudalism, the social roots of which had fed the creative power of Tol- stoy for many decades. This storm has brought the proletarian class into power, whose social nature and political role had remained incom- prehensible to Tolstoy until the end of his days. The strong union of the peasant and the proletarian classes, which is now beginning to |be realized, had always been to him an incredible thing, ~~ D. Makowitsky has preserved the notes of an interesting dialogue that took place in Tolstoy’s family prior to the Revolution of 1905. Tolstoy’s son Ilya, on the occasion of the surrender of Port, Arthur, passed a rumor that a/tevolution was expected. “The revolution will come,” said Tlya. “It is already here,” replied Tol- stoy. “People are expecting the peasant revolt in the spring,” ‘said Ilya. “The peasants will take the land away and will massacre all the land- owners.” Tolstoy: That won’t happen. Ilya: Yes, it will. The peasants from Yasnaya won't do it out of re~ spect for you, but the others will. Tolstoy: No. The peasants will not do it, You can incite the hyp- .|notized factorysworkers but not the peasants. llya: The socialists are aiming at the land; they promise to divide (it. | Tolstoy: This can be done by the | government, not by the revolution. | This is how on the verge of the revolution, Tolstoy conceived the jsituation. The revolution had be- |gun, but the peasants Wouldn’t take jthe land away, Perhaps the “hyp- /notized factory workers” only, were able to act like that. (To Be Continued.) regarded instructions and returned a verdict of guilty on both counts. Thayer discreetly overlooked this un- due fervor. He sentenced Vanzetti only for the “attempt to rob.” The | prisoner before him was a “first of- fender,” never known to have asso- ciated with criminals, with a record of hard work and seber living. These are elements which normally recom- mend mercy for a prisoner. For this reason the judges theoretically | have leeway in meting out punish- ment. = Thayer imposed upon Vanzetti the utmost penalty, fifteen years’ im- | prisonment! Let Vanzetti comment on this: s “But ...yer was not satisfied with so little. . .in sentencing | me, he insulted my principles, my ideals and the truth, saying ‘The defendant’s ideals are cognate with the crime.’ Those words alone prove irrefutably the judge’s prejudice and hatred against our persons and our principles, Thus ended the obscene parody of a trial known as the Plymouth trial, that split my existence and plunged in sorrow and mourning the hearts of beloved ones.” “The defendant’s ideals are cog- nate with the crime,” said Thayer. The saying stands to give the lie to his claims of fairness and to the claims of fairness made in his by the higher courts, . Vanzetti had been quickly pre- vided with a “criminal record.” As a convicted criminal, he was put into the State Penitentiary at Charlestown,’ a suburb of Boston. Sacco was placed in Dedham jail. On September 11, 1920, both were indicted on a charge of murder in the first degree for the wouth Brain tree crime. They were arraigned anc pleaded not guilty on September 28 No appearance of counsel in behalf was filed until November when Fred.H. Moure forma’ their defense, siglo aR