The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 16, 1928, Page 5

Page ive THE. DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK. PRIDAY, jOVEMBER 16, 19 Activities 2 MINERS SHOT IN ANTHRACITE Workers Pa rty Meet. fiaticnal secretary of the Marine | Workers’ Progressive League, at |the headquarters of the Seamen’s | Club, at 28 South St. I Ship Owners’ Greed. “The sinking of the Vestris,” | said Mink, “is a tragic proof that | those who trust their lives to the Two Wesker. Die in Luge a Blaze in Brooklyn NEGRO WORKERS| TRAPPED IN HOL Memorial Upper |seamen, must understand that the 2s'\Lewis Machine Opens ees for dollars which imperils ee s+ m, also causes the bitterest hard-| € C pee for the seamen.” “Members of the Marine Work- lers’ Progressive League who have Mass Meet Sunday | sailed on the, Vestris previous to| | this trip, tell how the ship was Continued from Page One | overloaded with passengers, 300 ha tradictory reports circulated imme-| ing taken in excess of the capacity | diately after the news of the sink- | 250. This is done, of course, to) ing was broadcast throughout the | make money, more money than the | world, many new uspects of the dis-| regular profits which are always aster hitherto concealed and dis- | high. The crew, knowing the dan- torted were revealed. |ger better than the passengers, | The big fact of the disaster,|dare not protest or refuse to saily| Seamen, Bitter, Plan) than ing to 1 retlon neglect he » refusing er sections Section Bran ie 8. s of the namely that the Lamport and Holt|as this would be ‘mutiny,’ and all | wilt be “oe Company and the United States| sorts of charges would be levelled p.m. in f the Lewis. and British shipping authorities are :against these workers, besides their | Shey need #auet mainly responsiblé for the tremen-| losing their jobs. | belteved dous loss of life and conscious crim- “Ploating Junk-Pile.” now word inal negligence in the management| “The seamen tell us that the Ves- | the Boy- of the ship, received further verifi-| tris was a floating junk-pile, that; cation. | rust-corroded plates are covered | Sailors who survived the ill-fated| over with nice new paint, but under | trip were unanimous and bitter in| the paint lies danger to the vessel | their denunciation of Captain Carey| and all aboi Dare the seamen| and the condition of the Vestris be-| who know these dangers protest so | fore it set sail last Saturday. That) they can be heard? No, for they the vessel was totally unfit for the; Would at once be labelled as ‘Bolshe- together “for. a complete : i fe Attention s. J & ‘ { The City Centra! Committee of strenuous voyage into the stormy|viks’ and fired by the company and Elizabeth, N. J > ng a Mas: waters of the Atlantic, there can| blacklisted by the shipping trust | : querade Ball and Bataarcter Batur- be no doubt. The testimony of sea-| Which for profits and more profits day evening, Dec ist. All units and nief! has established the fact that] underneath the comparatively new cover of paint that the Vestris had received recently, rust had eaten imto the hull of the vessel. Deliber- ately and with full knowledge of the possible results, the company had disregarded the report of their own inspector who had reported that the ship was in bad condition, that only a complete overhauling would restore it to a reasonably safe condition and had ordered that the corroded spots be covered with a new coat of paint. This was done,|18 hours with no extra pay, given | NEGRO CREW HELD AS | PRISONERS NEAR DOCK the Vestris workers charge, full knowledge that the slightest squall or stormy, weather would send the vessel to its doom. from the skunks,” they said. The worker who did more per- haps than any other to bring aid to those on board, O’Loughlin, the ra- dio man who stuck to his post throughout the confusion and terror on board, is definitely known to be among the 114 dead. Incompetence of Captain, Inimediately after the Vestris had left port, all on board had noticed the pronounced list of the vessel to the starboard side. As the .voyage continued, the list became more pro- nounced. Captain Carey had been asked to send out calls for aid, but had flatly refused. Seamen yesterday charged that Captain Carey had been drunk from the moment the ship left port, and that he had ridden the vessel broad- side as an attempt, by letting the waves strike’ the side, to right the cargo which had been incompetent- ly and badly stowed in the hold. Riding a ship broadside to the waves brings the full force of the waves on one side, and is universally con- demned among seamen as the most dangerous way of handling a ship. In the face of the gale and the rot- ten condition of the hull, the ship soon sprung a leak, in a spot where the corrosion had eaten its way most deeply into the hull. After this, not equipped with pumps strong enough to keep pace with the continual’ flow of water into the hold, the sinking-of the ship was only 4 matter of hours. Money Versus Lives! That Captain Carey refused to send out S. O. S. calls immediately after he knew that the ship was sinking, was told by many of the survivors yesterday. Many of the workers who sailed aboard the Ves- tris believe that Carey delayed sending out messages for aid, be- cause he avanted to save the com- pany the cost of salvaging a dis- abled vessel and thereby gain re- ward for himself as skipper. Ef- forts are under way at present to ascertain whether Carey, who was commodore of the entire Lamport with , and Holt fleet, had any extensive fi- nancial interest in the concern, in order to discover other possible rea- sons for his criminal negligence in the face of the impending disaster. Workers Get “Dole.” A new revelation yesterday dis- closed the fact that the Lamport and Holt Company, in its miserable munificence, had given each of the surviving workers who had sailed with the Vestris on its fatal voyage, the measly sum of $10 each. Not even those who were crippled for life received more than this. Ten dollars to pay for the loss of a limb! Sailors were indignant yes- terday at this example of the greed of the ship owners. “Well, we didn’t expect to get any more "than that from the skunks,” they said. Many aspects of the sinking, hitherto unknown, were revealed in an interview with George Mink, endangers the lives of those who | travel as well as the crew. ° “What lives do the crew lead that | the passengers know nothing of? Members of the Vestris crew tell us of beimg crammed into, dirty sleep- ing quarters, eight in a place too small for three, no change of linen, no opportunity to keep clean, and. therefore in no condition nor in any mood to be clean with the food and beds of passengers except in a | driven, superficial way. Often they jare compelled to work as much as |food not fit for human beings, and forced to eat standing up in the pantry, fighting each other for food, instead of eating at leisure in the | |dining saloon after passenger mess. Low Wages, Tyranny. “Joined with this, the low wages | what can be expected other than thet such ships, and there are many besides the Vestris, cannot get | steady crews and fill out the crew with inexperienced men and with men who make the whole trip, tak- | ing months, without knowing their fire and boat drill stations. Natur- ally this endangers the lives of all on board. “But this is not the fault of the men, neither is it the fault of the West Indian Negroes who, because they wish to escape from the ter- rible conditions prevailing under British imperialist rule in the islands, seek escape by working on the boats, but who find exploitation little, if any less, severe than on the sugar plantations of Barbadoes. Under British Whip. “Once the haunt of pirates of the Spanish Main, the ports of Barba- does and Port-of-Spain in Trinidad are no less terrorized today by more genteel pirates of British business. Workers dare not open their mouths and the Negro natives live under the brutal whip,of British masters. Ne- gro seamen, as well as the white seamen, are not permitted to organ- ize by the shipping , and all alike are victimized if protest in the only way they have, by strike. “The shipping trust uses all means to prevent ‘organization, which, as is plainly seen, would expose dan- gers to travelers and correct condi- tions imperiling both the lives and the health of all on board. Instead, the ship owners and the so-called ‘sailors’ homes’ and ‘seamen's insti- tutes’ to obstruct organization and furnish strikebreakers if the men revolt spontaneously against unbear- able conditions. + Survivors Locked Up. “In this connection, the Marine Workers’ Progressive League asks the public what it means that the New York Seamen’s Institute, a tained by subsidies from the s! ping companies, at this moment 1 the rescued crew of the Vestris on the second floor of this so-called ‘institute?’ What other purposes does that ‘institute’ have than to prevent the Vestris crew from telling the truth? “To protest this terrible state of affairs, our organization has called a meeting at the Seamen’s Club, 28 South St., on Sunday at 8 p. m., to allow the seamen to tell their own story of the Vestris.” PRODUCE NITRATES ELEC- TRICALLY, TORONTO, (By Mail) —Electri- cal energy may be used to produ nitrate fertilizer in agriculture in the near future, according to Prof. Watson Bain, Canadian chemical engineer. f Arranged by SHIFRIN AND MINEOLA DEFENCE COMMITTEE at WORKERS CENTER 154 WATKINS STREET (corner Belmont Ave.) Refreshments — Dancing — Music — Contests Music Every Evening. Friday 25c—Saturday 35c—Sunday 25¢c. NOVEMBER 1 ’ | 5- 10-11-18] locked up, as if they were criminals, | 50-year-old warehouse in Brook: building. The two workers died himself. The building was said t ers were eyeaneered. The charred bodies of two workers, Patsy Pisano and Thomas Sirino, were found in the ruins of a yn after firemen succeeded in putting out a huge five-alarm fire in the in an effort to save a third worker, Pater De Billa, who managed to save ‘0 have been a fire-trap of the worst kind and the lives of many other work- Continued from Page One demning the poor equipment, | complete negligence of the officers. |not concerned with getting anyone’ not a “spotter.” | boys for not wanting to talk. Of) course, we all know that the boys. got to watch out for the spotters.” | “Spotters” seem to be an ordinary | phenomonon for the seamen and it) was very plain to them why the ship- | wrecked Negroes did not speak. would soon be out. get him to talk. Hetold the r tell the whole story. When I he refused, down there. A white man never se! foot there. of the girls. And my friend himse wouldn’t talk j It was impossible to get the r porter an invitation. came out. the I'm talking to.” and tyranny and graft practiced |“frosted” life boats (the rusted gear upon them by officers and purser, hindering their free release) and the poignant. The reporter finally succeeded in he and other members of crew who convincing one of them that he was, were below in the forward part of |number, that, although he was white, | |to save themselves, and only came he wanted to get the real story. The/0n deck when the listing of the ship seaman told him confidentially that) Was great enough to alarm them. he had read the Daily Worker and, listened to some of the Communist) Were all over when they came on speakers on the Harlem streets, and| deck and saw all was in chaos. that he thought the reporter was|Was a question of everyone for him- “You can’t blame any of these & H, As a whole the seamen are angry at the treatment the crew got at the hands of the capitalist news- paper reporters, and there is a pre- vading spirit of sullenness arid de- fiance along South Street. Later, at the International Sea-| en’s Club, 28 South Street, two | ‘amen who had spoken to mem- ers. of the crew yesterday, told the reporter that the captain stegred his ship at the rate of 18 or 19 knots an hour, broadside’ to the waves, during the height of the gale, thus using openings in the joints. any seamen would not believe story for a skipper who had been on the seas for 40 years would never have taken this action, which meant sure death for such an old | ship. According to the version of by chapter. But I’m careful who Memories of the scene were too And some escaped him From him the reporter learned that s|the ship were not warned or called Many of them thought that things It self. The captain and officers were nowhere to be seen. He just began to speak about the white passengers | body knows the ah T never | shipped on one of their’ boats.” Seamen Defiant. workers organizations of nearby ®l cities are requested not to arrange , “ny conflicting affairs for that day Room 202. Ss committee must be to come, time Continued from Page One 000,000‘ in the war, But American PR es. Sm Labor and Fraternal citizens gained ten times that sum. A meeti of all Woman Work Fy * The fiction of government expenses Directors of Section § will te Organizations is an article invented to impress ii simple souls. America’s enarmous vealth was born in the war. Even the help given to Europe was a mere mortgage with interest at the normal rate.” P, directors must th st “Hard Time” Party The ¢ Fretheit Hard Ti urday, Hall and Dance. ction Bronx Y,. The Bronx Section |is holding an open nd Dance on Se November 24, at the Allert near the Cooperative Colony ing on the Harr: as Ten ‘prizes will be given out to the " " day at Williams and Intervale Aves. oldest and poorest masks, The chorus See World Conflict. j will take part in the singing and evert resent Upper Hartem Y, 5 ae The Tevere forsees the p , The Up; far of the . we struggle as a preluding a conflict Sonne, Workers La ride AR dd Esperanto Class, which may end in the eclipse of Bight at \8:16 sharp at 126 W. 18ist| an Msperanto class for workers! p at bates: St. In view the fact that meet-/ will be held today at 8 p. m. at 108 B,, Purope. ode ye? ae peones re Muy tedly | 114th St., room 403. This will be the “We are at the beginning of a most necessary. for all com-| last day for registration in this class ee i i- rades to attend and start the unit if great drama of Anglo-American ri for this season. orking : . valry. Rivalry, perhaps, is not the word because it is a battle between two forms of imperialism. The first is old, the other new; the first is in *| decadence, the other just awakening to life. British military imperialism now appears to be behind the times. Certainly it is beaten in all four cor- ners of the world. Yonkers Branch, of the Work- will hold a elebration of of the Rus- day evening, The supper will Co-opera- n Ave., Working Women Meet. United Council, of Working e a Central Body meeting on sday evening, } 92., at the Workers Center,, on’ the 6th floor. All delegates, The Women wil th ann evolution secretaries ganizers must attend, Members | welcome, are evening's entertainment has need rkville, will nota ow at 248 1. 8 gram will include nger Choir. German Fraction, the Utma 2 “For Any Kind of Insurance” ((ARL BRODSKY Telephone Murray Hill 5550 7 East 42nd Street, New York s tonight at Workmen's Home, The building u organ and other import are to be discussed. All peaking party members are requ ed to be present. the 350 : ft | We demand the immediate aboli- of our tion of all vagrancy inws; protec- tion of unemployed workers from arrest on charges of vngrancy. {| COOPERATORS! PATRONIZE [ } E. KARO when he stopped short and wouldn’t say another word. “I ean’t tell you a word, boy.” That was all the reporter could get from him and he did not succeed in meeting any other members of other sailors, the captain, in an at-| |tempt to right the ship, which had | left port with a list, had run broad-} side to the gale in order to shift the| cargo. | It was this action which caused | Phone Stuyv. John’s Restaurant Your Nenrest Stationery Store | SPECIALTY: ITALIAN DISHES Cigars — Cigarettes — Candy 649 ALLERTON AVE., Cor. Barker, BRONX. N.Y Tel. A place with atmosphere where all radicals meet. NEW YORK 302 E. 12th ST. OLinville 9681-2 — 9791-2 Hotel 183 W. Bist St, and Restaurant Workers Branch of the Amalgamated Food Workers Phone Cirete 783% = BUSINESS MEETING: On the sly the seaman told the} Daily Worker reporter that a friend) of his, one of the shipwrecked crew, who was the last to leave the boat, Maybe I could | porter that the shipwrecked seaman would come to his house at night and \edeid to have myself invited to his oun “You’d be mobbed if you come) They boys would think I was bringing you up to see some} he saw you there.| But shortly the shipwrecked Negro White men at the door | watched him closely. As soon as he | saw me in the group he began to |the crew. What About the Crew? the heavy side waves, and battered the hull, which was already not sea- vorthy. Some sailors expressed the The seamen at the Institute all) “°tthy P |defended the crew and called the| P70" that the captain had tried to right the ship himself and thus ital | capi alist newspaper accounts all javoid paying for salvage, which | would mean a great expense for the company. If he had succeeded in his gamble with death he would have been commended as an able seaman by the company. But he lost, and over a hundred were | “They only print what the pas- sengers say, and what the hell do} the passengers know about ships? Why don’t they ask the crew?” “The officers are all over at the | hotel and that’s where the capitalist reporters get their stories. They keep the crew down here and watch | them.” | “When a ship goes down and the officers desert her, then the crew hes every right the passengers have to save their lives. There’s no dif- ference between a passenger and a member of the crew.” “All these lies in the paper about | the Negroes! You can’t blame any- ——————— body for saving himself when a ship| |fmbeT YOUR FRIENDS at drowned. ts All Comrades Meet at BRONSTEIN’S ARIAN HEALTH Ris TAURANT 658 Claremont P’kway lf. e- Bronx | Eron School 185-187 FAST BROADWAY. NEW YORK JOSEPH E. ERON, Prineipal THE LARGEST AND BEST AS WELL AS OLDEST SCHOOL. to learn the English language, to prepare oneself, for Ce hi tees to college OUL is registered by GENTS. of the State of . It has all the rights of a Government High School. Call, Phone or write for Cutalogue. REGISTER NOW! Our 26,000 alumni are our yest witnesses. TELEPHONE ORCHARD 4473, } CENTRAL BUSINESS SCHOOL —Bookkeeping , —Stenography —Typewriting Individual Instruction CLASS LIMITED 108 E. 14th STREET ~ Patronize No-Tip Barber Sh 26-28 Pim SQUARE _Q tight up) 2700 BRONX PARK EAST (corner Allerton Ave.) Individual sanitary service by Experts—Ladies Hawr Bobbing Specialists, . make his way off across the street. goes down. Everybody was ex- | T managed 0 atop hita. \Gited.” | Messinger’s Vegetarian “Boy, I know that story chapter) “The damn, rotten hulk. Every-| ET. == | and Dairy Restaur ant - For Good Wholesome Fo.¢ |\|]1708 Southern Biv BAT aT Right Off 174th St. RATNER’S Darry and Vegetarian Restaurant 103 SECOND AVE. H. L. HARMATZ, Prop. Self-Service Cafeteria | 115 SECOND AVE. Near 7th St. || BAKING DONE ON PREMISES i} Visit Our Place While on 2nd Ave. || Tei: Dry Dock 1263; Orchard «44u | | | Wit ALL MEET i at the | | NEW WAY CAFETERIA | 101 WEST 27th STREET “NEW YOKK Rational Vegetarian Restaurant SxCOND AVE Health Food | Vegetarian Restaurant | 1600 MADISON AVE. PHONE: UNIVERSITY 6865 Abbr bh bbibb bbb bbbbebbbbde Scott Nearing will lecture on DOLLAR DIPLOMACY ROLE OF AMERICAN IMPERIALISM ° THURSDAY EVE., NOVEMBER 22 at IRVING PLAZA, 15th St. & Irving Pl. LEEEEEEETEEEEEEET ELEY \ ia on the first Monday of the month at 3 p. m, Industry—One Union—Join and Fight the Common Enemy! Office Open from 9 a. m. to 6 p. me | One Advertise your union meetings here. For information write to The DAILY WORKER Advertising Dept. 26-28 Union Sq., New York City, First Soviet Costume Ball at Madison Sq. arden PARADE OF 104 NATIONALITIES COMPRISING THE SOVIET UNION IN NATIVE COSTUMES SURGEON DENTIS7, 1 UNION SQUARE Room 803—Phone, Algonquin $188 Not connected with any other office et J. MINDEL Dr. ABRAHAM MARKOFF Office Hours: Tues, 9:80-12 a, m Sunday, 10:00 « Thurs. & Sat.” 8 pm, to 1:00 p. m, PHONK FOR APPOINTMENT q ser m. ow “Lehigh None MARY WOLFE STUDENT OF THE DAMROSCH | CONSERVATORY PIA NO LESSONS loved to 2440 Bronx Park East Near Co-operative Colony. A Telephone EASTABROOK hae special rates to students from the Co-operative House, ‘Get Your Monee Worth! Try the ee Clothing Store For Men, Young Men and Boys Clothing 3 Avenue A, Corner 6th + Pe. NEW YORK CITY ADMISSION 1.00 in advance; $1.25 at door. COOPERATONS PATRONIZE M. FORMAN Allerton Carriage, B and Toy Shop a0 ALLER Now on Sale at the Daily Worker Office, 26-28 Union Square, N. Y. Auspices: Daily Worker and Freiheit J. SHERMAN Your Nearest Fane) Cletners and ALLERTON AVE, Saturday Evening December 15th au3,