The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 17, 1928, Page 1

THE DAILY WORKER FIGHTS For a Workers-Farmers Government To Organize the Unorganized For the 40-Hour Week For a Labor Party / aily I <—s yF THE WORLD toe TS Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office at New York, N. Y orker under the act of March 3, 1879. Vol. V., No. 273 Published datly except Sunday by The National Dally Worker Publishing Association, tne., 26-28 Union Sa., New York, N. ¥. IPTION RATES: In New ¥ SUBSE NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1928 Outside New York, by mai NEGRO SEAMEN RELATE HORROR OF SUPPRESSION “Get Back You S—— of a B—.” Yelled - Captain “Got to ‘Keep Mum” Officer Used Gun to Terrorize Crew An unbelievable tale of the incom- petency of the officers of the Lam-| port and Holt liner Vestris, and a description of the treatment of the| Negro crew as if they were animals to be .caged and sent to the bottom of the sea, were stories told to two reporters, Dunjee and Harlow, of ‘the Negro Champion, by rescued members of the crew. At first the Negro seamen refused to talk, saying that they had been| . ordered to say nothing about the disaster or to give any statements. But later, after the reporters had| convinced them that they were not) spies, some members of the crew talked freely. Licorish a Hero. \ H. Williams, Negro seaman from, Barbadoes, gave Dunjee a vivid ac-) count of the fearless actions of many | of the crew, especially of Lionel | Licorish, Negro quartermaster on) ard the Vestris. Licorish, seeing theegreatenumber drowning, jumped| ‘0 the sea from the crowded life| boat he was in, and struggled with| the raging sea until he secured oars, | and then swam to a boat. He suc-| ceeded in saving 20 persons. ‘ Wil- liams also told how those in the} boat in which he was, succeeded in| picking up one woman and five men.| After wrapping the woman in their coats and landing her safely on the Myriam, this woman thanked them} by referring to them as “niggers.” “Below, You Black Dog.” The most vivid story of all was) told by Joshua Ford, fireman for the last five years, to Harlow. He| said. | “When we left Hoboken, coal port} on starboard side was partly open! and ship had 3-feet of water in bilge. | After leaving port, ship took bad list to starboard side and quarter-| taster told me that she would not answer her helm. On Sunday star- beard boilers were out of commis-| sion on account of water in fire- room. When I went on deck I found passengers getting ready to take to the boats. The captain and officers at no time gave orders to lower away. In fact it seemed as if the officers were dazed. | “While on deck I saw a friend of , mine, Miss Henrietta Cubbins of Brooklyn (one.of those rescued and in St. Vincent’s Hospital) who had fallen and had hurt her hip. I picked her up and was about to place her in a boat when the chief reefer en- gineer rushed up to me with an axe in his hand and shouted, ‘Go below you black dog.’ In my opinion, cap- tain and officers were incompetent. "the crew acted cooly and efficiently, but owing to the dried out condition of life boats, it was impossible to do more.” An equally vivid story was told by Donald Holder, fireman: “Came off watch Sunday 12 o’clock. Ship had bad list to star- board. Boiler room was full of water. After I came off watch Engine Storekeeper and Oiler Hardle told us that everybody must get in the alleyway and assist bailing out the water which was pouring in through the starboard coal port. Went on w&tch Monday, had no rest since Saturday night. The chief engineer told us to try and get up am Continued from Page Three Weinstone Calls on Workers to Volunteer for W. LR. Tag Days William W. Weinstone, organizer of District 2, Workers (Communist) Party, yesterday issued a call for workers to volunteer today and to- morrow to aid in the Tag Days of the Workers International Relief, The call follows: “All Party members who can pos- sibly do so, should consider it their duty to participate in the Tag Days, today and tomorrow, for the pur- pose of raising money and building up the membership of the Workers International Relief, All the Party Continued on Page Two » i “INVESTIGATION” TO FRAME UP H “Let ‘Black Gang’ Die; Save the Rich Passengers Y Hoover to Push Nicaragua: Canal During Hs Tour | Lionel Licorish, Negro member of | |the Vestris crew, who. saved the| lives of 20 people in one of the most notable exhibitions of courage and| self-sacrifice ever witnessed at sea.| | SOCIALIST MAKES OPEN SHOP LEGAL Schlesinger Is Signing Fake Dress Boss Pact The utter degeneration of the so- called International Ladies’ Gar-| ment Workers’ Union into a mere racketeering outfit for a few was definitely shown when the Schles- inger clique in control ‘are practi- cally ready to sign an agreement with the Dress Manufacturers’ As- sociation, which openly legalizes the open shop it dress industry. And that the agreement will be concluded in the greatest of hurries is the certain belief of nearly every- one acquainted with the situation. This is because of the huge mass | Heroic Ne&ro Seaman | PARTY STATEMENT TO ALL MEMBERS OF THE WORKERS (COMMUNIST) PARTY OF AMERICA: DEAR COMRADES: The Central Executive Committee of the Workers (Communist) Party of America has informed the Com- munist International of the expulsion of James P. Cannon, Martin Abern and Max Schachtman as Trotskyists. The Central Executive Committee herewith presents to the membership of the Party a cablegram decision which it has just received from the Communist International rela- tive to this matter: “The political secretariat confirms energetic measures taken against leaders of the Trotskyist op- position and calls on all workers who formerly sup- ported this opposition to repudiate it publicly and defi- nitely.” We welcome the endorsement of the action of the Executive Committee by the Communist International. The Central Executive Committee is certain that every Party member will rally behind the Party and the Com- munist International against the attack of any Trotsky- ites who may still be in our Party and the enemies of the Party who are,already outside our ranks. The district committees have been informed of the action of the Cen- tral Executive Committee, and we are confident that they will protect the interest of the Party in a truly Communist spirit. For the Party and the Comintern! Against the social democratic Trotskyism! CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, WORKERS (COMMUNIST) PARTY. DEMONSTRATE AT|WAR MOVE SEEN. MINER'S FUNERAL IN RADIO MERGER meeting of dressmakers held by the | left wing union in Cooper Union,| where the workers’ unanimous vote | Continued m Page Two Pittston Terror (Special to the Daily Worker) PITTSTON, Pa., Nov. 16.—Thou-| sands of coal diggers 'Coal Diggers to Defy Morgan Bankers Match British Interests Matching move for move the war preparations of British interests, aroused to|the forces dominating American im-| ie RS | F AKER BROUGHT |mass fury at the shooting Wednes-|Perialism have made public their |day of their comrades by the paid | last step against their British rivals | ‘henchmen of the coal operators and| With the announcement of the con- INTO SILK STRIKE Muste, U.T.W. Man, in “Impartial” Role (Special to the Daily Worker) PATERSON, N. J., Noy. 16.—As the membership of the Associated Silk Workers Union, whether on strike or working, express more emphatically their adherence to the real strike committee, and condemn the officialdom for attempting to dissolve it, the desperate fear of the officials made itself shown yes- terday when they invited A. J. Muste to come into the situation. Muste, notorious among militant workers as a reactionary who fraud- ulently poses as “impartial” in la- bor disputes, is Brookwood Labor College deen,” Muste showed his real intention on arriving by delivering an insult- ing speech to the strikers’ mass meeting this morning. He unloaded himself of the following gems of “impartiality”: “You damn fools! Why don’t you use horse sense? You yourselves are responsible for your condition. If you had any sense in those wooden heads of yours you would act differently!” Strikers Enraged. To the storm of angry cries that | arose from the strikers, in which | they charged Hoelscher, chief offi- cial, with taking strikebreaking | steps, his impartial mustiness -re- plied: “I am not prepared to charge | Hoelscher with taking strikebreak- ing steps.” And to Gertrude Muel- ler, left wing lvader, who pointed out that it was the officialdom who dissolved the highest body in the midst of a strike, Muste sneered: “And I am not yet prepared to call your acts strikebreaking.” More than to workers in other Continued on Page Three Deny Aid to Aged British Unemployed LONDON, (By Mail).—Over 30,- 000 insured jobless workers over 65 years have been forced off the un- employed register since last year. Join today and to join, Help make the Tag Days today and tomorrow successful so that we can continue relief work among textile workers, miners, etc, boss-tools, the city officials. | The funeral demonstration, which | will be carried out this morning at} 9 o'clock, will take place despite any Of 2 similar union of the British/ orders or threats which the little| Great Eastern, Martoni and Empire) dictator of Pittston, Mayor Gilles- pie, may issue. Thousands of min-| ers here, steeled through years of struggle against their enslaving| bosses, and against just such boss-| servants as Gillespie, will not be} held back from honoring their com-| rade, fallen in the battle for their} freedom. Nor will they be stopped by the veiled opposition of the treacherous McGarry crew which it! was learned today has united with the Lewis-Boylan machine in a com- plete sell-out. Machine Shows Hand. In the meantime, under the order of the Boylan machine efforts have been made to secure the release of the murderer who shot down Jacob Loyack and seriously wounded his brother Mike, now lying in the hos- pital. It is understood that these treacherous officials are now work- ing with the police whom they serve to have the murderer released un- der habeus corpus proceedings. The McGarry machine has com- pletely sold out to the Boylan crew, | following a secret conference held| last night at the office of Sheriff) McCluskey, which lasted over three hours. At this conference were present John Boylan, head of the Lewis machine, John Knetz, district board member and International board member Davis. For McGarry Continued un Page Three |the Lewis-Boylan machine will to-|templated merger of the Western) day turn the funeral of Jacob Loy-| Union Telegraph Company with the| ack into a demonstration against) Radio Corporation of America. Both} the terror of their bosses and their| of these super trusts are Morgan-| |controlled and known to be of key! importance in the future war. The proposed merger follows that Radio Systems. One of the previous moves made by the Morgan interests was the consolidation of the U. S. Steel Cor- poration with the Bethlehem Steel Company in answer to the merging of the British with continental steel interests. * * * A War Maneuver. (By United Press.) A movement in the next session of congress towards amending the White Act to permit a merger of the Western Union and Radio Cor- poration of America was forecast today. Such a merger has been under consideration since announcement of the great British communications merger which will link the Great Eastern, Marconi and Empire Radio Systems, Not only would the American companies be forced to meet the competition of such a world-wide British system, it was pointed out, but Western Union would need to extend its facilities to meet compe- tition in the Pacific of the Commer- cial Cable Co. (Postal Telegraph) and of all America, now controlled by the International Telephone & Telegraph Co., the British trust. The recent opening of American Telephone and Telegraph facilities Continued on Page Three ‘SWIFT PASSAGE FOR WAR SHIPS: BEHIND PROJECT Military, Diplomatic, Banking Forces Active in Undertaking See British Opposition | | | Nicaraguan Politicians! “Agreeable” | WASHINGTO} Nov. 16.| \—Plans for war, necessitating the | swift transfer of battleships thru a} Nicaraguan Canal are the motives, |behind president Hoover’s visit to Nicaragua, a high official of the |state department disclosed today. Military, diplomatic and banking forces have already been operating to clear the way for the immediate jeonstruction of inter-ocean canal, and it is believed that the entire pro- ject will be completed and the quick route between the Atlantic and Pacific opened for naval vessels within five years. Lavish expenditures are envisaged by the government and no cost will be spared to hasten the construction | work. It was to secure a free way across Nicaragua that the American marines invaded that country and the supervision of the presidential ‘elections was assumed, the state de- | partment official asserted; = — | The expedition against Sandino | which while not yet successful has |cost so heavily in human life, had |for its object the clearing away of Continued on Page Five BELMONT COUNTY MINERS VOTE RED Women, Children Were Jailed There (Special to the Daily Worker) BRIDGEPORT, Ohio, Nov. 16.— Belmont County showed 302 votes counted in for the Workers (Com- rounist) Party ticket. Many votes jwere -trrown out for “technical” |reasons. How many votes were ac- tually stolen is not known. | But 302 votes for the Red ticket | in: Belmont County means some- thing! Who does not remember Belmont County and St. Clairsville, where coal operator “justice” jailed women pickets, jammed them into vile, infested cells, separated them trom their children; a county in |which the prosecutor. openly |boasted: “We have had to forget what we learned about the consti- tution and free speech in the schools.” This is Belmont County. Communists Lead on all Fronts. And the coal miners of Belmont County, after following the leader- ship of the Communist Party throughout the past 19 months of their struggle against the coal bar- ens on one hand and the traitors at the head of the reactionary U. M. W. A. on the other, showed by their Communist Party on Nov. 6 that they will follow the Party on the political field as well. At Wheeling Creek, where Party representative applied Continued on Page Five the | for | | ‘ag Days, today and | tomorrow. generously to the fullest extent sible for the des- titute strikers in New Bedford and | the miners, 1 Ww. LR EROIC FINAL CITY EDITION &, by mall, $8.00 per year , 84.00 per year. VESTRIS SEAM “Price 3 Cents Try to F Crew, Ignore Company Crime | y ry to Frame vi BEC TE COMPANY WIRED “Workers have no right to be alive if even one precious bour- geois is dead!” This was the judgment in the minds of government officials even before they started the called investigation of the Vestris disaster. The purpose of the “investigation” is to frame the surviving members of the crew and to completely whitewash Lam- port & Holt, owners of the rotten vessel, and the U. S. Shipping Board inspectors of criminal guilt in the disaster which cost 113 lives. Photo shows U. S. District Attorney Tuttle questioning members of the crew. Out of the welter of charges and counter-chargés surrounding the sinking of the Vestris there is one charge which should make the blood of every worker, and more especially every Negro worker, boil with fighting anger. Capitalist dailies flash it in screaming headlines across their pages: “Call Vestris Crew To Tell Why They Live.” The Daily Worker, defender of the working class and of the oppressed Negro race, emphatically asserts that such an attack on the exploited and oppressed is a class attack, a part of the class struggle which went on before and during the sinking of the Vestris and is thus continued. It is an attack on the working class as a whole and on the Negroes as a race. Slaves of the international shipping trust, blacklisted if they organize, subjected to the foulest conditions, whipped by hunger into long hours of under-paid labor on rotten tubs unfit for sea, re- quired to bow and scrape before socially useless parasites and pot- bellied exploiters who give never a thought to the lives of the crew unless it be to report them for some “‘incivility,” these workers are asked to lay aside their ideas of class struggle at a crucial hour when, unwarned of their peril, tied in the hell of the stoke-hole, these workers as well as the parasite passengers, faced death. All honor to those workers, white or black, who did not forget the class strugglesin that hour! Any worker, white or black, who | “¢hose to Save himself or another worker, rather than some idle parasite or sleek exploiter, did as he should haye done. But now the capitalist government seeks to prosecute, to imprison these work- ers, for violation of the rules of capitalist society, the ethics of servility and slavery, the tradition that workers of the sea must Why Should They Die? die to allow idle parasites of a “superior” class to live. Behind the demand that the seamen should die in order that parasites should be saved, lie the grim facts of the class struggle. The capitalist class wants the workers to live and to slave for them and, at the end, to die for them. that the Vestris crew, if they had sites might live. Stand by the Vestris crew! Stand by the class struggle! Workers everywhere will glory to choose, refused to die that para- WILL BE BUILT Socialists Back War Minister — BERLIN, Nov. 16—The Reich- stag today rejected by a vote of 255 to 203 the demagogic social- democrat motion to halt construc- tion of 10,000-ton armored cruisers.) ported socialist scab printers from| Eight deputies abstained from vot. ing. During the day’s debate the Com- munists made it clear that the mo- IMPORTS SCABS ‘Italian Daily Tries to Evade Rules The Italian socialist paper, “Il Nuovo Mundo,” has locked out the | members of the Italian Typographi- cal Union No. 261, and is trying to |man its composing room with im- various parts of the country. Attempt to Cut Wages. In an effort to maintain their sup- port from the few union workers CAPTAIN CAREY TO DELAY $. 0.8, Officials Are Trying to Shift Blame for Wreck to Crew Intimidate the Sailors Guilt of Government Is Definite While a so-called “‘investiga- tion” into the causes for the sinking of the Vestris took the form yesterday of seeking to frame up members of the heroic crew, new and startling information which the “investiga- j tors” could not hold back, disclosed | that the officials of the Lamport & Holt steamship company had sent a wireless message to the captain of the Vestris early Sunday order- jing him to delay sending out the S. O. S. call which would have saved those on board. These revelations came out in the |hearing at the office of U. S. Dis- |trict Attorney Tuttle in the Post | Office Building. Evidence disclosed jindicated definitely that there was |in existence the copy of a message |which the company officials wire- |lessed to Capt. Carey long before he |sent out his S. O. S., instructing him }to delay his summons for aid in order to save salvage costs. At the same time, the Lamport & Holt of- ficials evidently instructed Captain Carey to get in touch with the Vol- taire, another liner owned by the company, for assistance in order to save. the costs of rescue work. Four thembers of the crew of the sunken liner appeared in yester- \d@y's hearing. They were intimi- ated, browbeaten, by the same in- rp v re II vestigator who the day before had § - been so congenial to the stories of |the wealthy passengers who sur- vived the disaster. The purpose of the “investi- gators” was obviously to frame up |the workers who manned the Ves- tris and to exonerate the Lamport and Holt officials and both the United States and British shipping | authorities, who by their combined activities and criminal negligence in allowing the rotten old hulk that |the Vestris has been proven to be, to leave port, are chiefly responsible for the disaster and the accompany- ing tremendous loss of life, Start Official Frame-up The first steps in this frame-up srocedure were taken two days ago when Negro members of the crew of the ill-fated ship were impris- oned and virtually held incommuni- cado in the Seamen’s Church Insti- tute, 25 South St. Yesterday the | vicious legal machinery of the cap- italist class was definitely geared for action. The members of the crew who were called before the investigat- ing board yesterday upheld the |charges that were made immediately jupon their arrival after they had |kept themselves alive in rotten life- | boats until rescue came. The over- |whelming niass of evidence against tion served the purpose of the 86-' who still support their sheet, the|‘%e Lampert and Holt Company and cial-democrats in distracting atten- Italian socialist outfit defames the| against the United States and Brit- tion from the Communist endeavor | membership of the union by calling| 8% shipping authorities remained to stop building entirely. A Communist motion of miscon- fidence in the cabinet was defeated by a rising vote. Another Communist motion of/attempt to cut the wages of’ the 0" the Atlantic. misconfidence in minister of de- fense, Wilhelm Groener, the nation- alist militarist, was defeated by 392 to 65, five deputies abstaining. The vote cast for the candidates of the | .,cia1-democrats supported the min- the union fights them because the ister. Before the vote today, former Ad- miral Brueninghans supported con- struction of the cruiser before the Reichstag, pointing out that “while at present there is no menace, Po- land might conceivably in the fu- ture attempt to annex East Prussia, in which case the cruiser program would be necessary.” THREATEN WORKERS WITH LOSS OF CHILDREN Young Participants in Armistice Day Parade Freed After Imprisonment WASHINGTON, D. C., Nov. 16.—)prisonment in the House of Correc- tion, the quivering little judge sus- The three young revolutionists who were arrested when the Communist demonstration in front of the War pended their sentences. . court to stop them from up by police, came up for trial yes- terday in the Juvenile Court. With) threats of permanent penitent Textile Workers Union. from their parents and even im- All three in rendering their testi- mony openly defied the right of the nifesting Department. buildings was broken / protests against the imprisonment militants, resolutely told police af-) number of the prisoneys. The Immi- ‘Vork for scab wages. Fo? instance] giant dirigible, the Los Ang ter arrest that she prefers to face! jail rather than be released on bail. tion,” begun when the arrests were Per cent of their wages for the past|tris after the S. ©. S. calls had Meanwhile, stories of privation and suffering come from the 29 de- jer and vice-president of the New | for food from the outside. | gration Department’s “investiga- first made, are still continuing. The Daily Worker will publish ing attorney and the judge. The them fascists and publishing state- ments that the union membership are protecting fascists. The real mo-j| | substantially and basically the |same. These facts were: 1. That the Vestris was old, rot- tive for the lockout, however, is an|te™, unfitted for the rigorous trip printers. The Fascist Fraud. Rust had eaten jinto the plates, rendering the ves. |sel completely unseaworthy. 2. That the Lampert and Holt “Il Nuovo Mundo” contends that|officials had known this before the discharged a fascist. the case The facts in|liberately and criminally e that the man discharged rebuild the corroded parts, but had ship had left England, and had de- failed to was suspected by the union members| covered the Vestris with a new coat three years ago of being a fascist|of paint to hide the rottenness of and so reported to the management the vessel. of the paper. An investigation was 3. That government shipping au- held and the management decided|thorities, both of the United States the man was not a fascist, or so at/and Great Britain, had inspected ° least they told the rest of the work-| this rotten hulk before the fatai ers. The management further de- voyage, and, knowing its conditio) nounced the workers for charging|}ad allowed it to make the trip. the man with having fascist sympa- thies. 4. That Captain Carey, comm The Question of Wag | dore of the entire Lampert and He a es. The paper has been trying for his crew and of the passengers years to get a reduction in wages,|he send out calls for aid imm on the plea that it was in financial| ately after the list to the starboare difficulties. The printers did every-| thing they could to aid the pape: but refused to violate union rules or| U was discovered after leaving That the officials of ited States navy had kept the printers had loaned the firm 20| trom going to the rescue of the | nine weeks. They also contributed to received, because of the expense certain sustaining funds and bought! volved in such a course of action. monstrators now serving jail terms.| serially the stenographic record of bonds that they knew were worth-| With great care, the prisoners are|the trial, containing speeches by !€8s, only in order to aid the paper. | ‘of John Porter and imperialist war.| served with a fare that is as rotten|Karl Reeve, Paul Crouch, Clarence But that was not sufficient. The! | Porter is a young textile strike lead-|as it is scarce. They have appealed Miller, Ben. Thomas, the prosecut- Socialist outfit wanted a scab shop, Obvious Frame-up. These facts, although in the session of U® S. Attorney land the U. S. government, | preferably under the guise of still \completcly ignored when the inva Great danger of deportation by! first’ installment will appear Mon- ™aintaining a union shop. The work- tigation was begun yesterday, in A Helen Colodney, one of the young|the state department is faced by ajday, i Continued on Page Three i Continued on Page Three t \fleet, had ignored the demands of,