The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 28, 1928, Page 6

Page Six Daily = Worker Central Organ of the Workers (Communist) Party THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBEK zs So Published by National Daily Worker Publishing As’n., Inc., Daily, Except Sunday, at 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. Telephone, Stuyvesant 1696-7-8. Cable Address “Daitwork” ROBERT MINOR.. Editor - WM. F. DUNNE Assistant Editor SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By Mail (in New York only): $2.50 three mos. By Mail (outside of New York): a year $4.50 six mos. $6 a year $3.50 six mos. $2.00 three mos. Address and mail all checks to The Daily Worker, 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. The A. F. of L. as a Police Force for Capitalism “We believe the restriction against entry of aliens into the United States should be more rigid in character, though tempered with humane considerations, and applicable to all aliens. “We must insist that no rule, order, proclamation, practice or procedure be per- mitted by any department of the govern- ment that will evade, avoid or make diffi- cult the enforcement of the immigration laws and that every precaution be taken and all possible support be rendered in the en- forcement of these laws.” The above words are from the declaration adopted by the convention of the American Federation of Labor at New Orleans. The gentlemen in charge of the convention de- clare in the name of the American working class that the worst enemies of the workers should increase the already czar-like tyranny under which workers, born in other countries, > are sorted out and for the most part excluded from entry into this country. Even at this time, when the A. F. of L. bureaucrats are using their best hypocrisy to aid the American imperialists in corrupt- ing and subverting the labor movements of Latin American countries, they do not hesi- tate to demand that workers of Mexico, Cen- tral and South America, the West Indies and the Philippines be excluded from the right to enter the United States. Even the coming across the border of a few thousand Can- adian workers at Windsor, Canada, on’ daily trips to their jobs in Detroit arouses the police instincts of these Pinkerton bureau- crats. Of course Mr. Green and the other rich gentlemen in the ‘Labor’ business do not say a word against the free entry of foreigners of the wealthy classes. It is only against the right of workers that they ask that the heavy hand of capitalist government be.made heavier. What is the reason? Green and the other gilt-edged flunkeys who stand above the working class as overseers while claiming to he the labor movement, weuld give the reason thag the restriction of immigration has the purpose of “protecting American standards of living.” But a casual glance at the records of these bureaucrats makeggone ask whether the protection of the stan@@rds of living of workers ever is a real motive of any of these bureaucrats? In the textile fields we have just gotten through watching Batty, Binns, Woll, Green and their like, assisted by the socialist party, help the mill owners to beat the textile workers in a long, hard-fought strike, and to lower their wages. In the needle trades, every effort to raise the stan- dard of living of the workers or to prevent its decrease has been met with the most merciless attack by the Sigmans and Hill- mans, backed by Green, Woll and Co., who \invariably fight to impose every possible handicap upon the workers, from piece-work to yellow-dog contracts. And last but not least, we have just seen John L. Lewis and his bureaucracy in the A. F. of L., backed by Green, the mine operators and the police, working with strikebreakers, guns and court actions to break the miners’ strike and to force the mine-workers to labor for less than the Jacksonville scale. . Surely something is more precious ‘to these seab “labor leaders” than. the “American standard” of wages Js it, perhaps, that they think by exclud- ing “foreigners” from the mines,mills and factories, they can better organize the work- ers? But in every industrial country in the world the workers are vastly better organ- ized than in the United States! Not more than one-eighth of the American workers are organized. And when we contemplate the matter a moment we remember that since 1920 the membership o# the American trade unions has been steadily going down—and this is precisely the period in which the strictest bar against immigration has been enforced! Surely it must be something else. The one consistent .thing (besides strike- breaking) that the A. F. of L. bureaucracy has done for a long series of years is to refuse to organize the unorganized—regard- | less of their present promises intended only to thwart the organization drives of the Communis e * So why do the bureaucrats want to in- crease the restrictions on immigration? It is because restriction of immigration is a fundamental part of the American im- perialist policy, and the A. F. of L. bur- eaucracy is bound up with the imperialist policy. The bureaucrats base themselves upon the small and narrow base of the “la- bor aristocracy,” frankly fighting to dis- organize and defeat the real proletarian masses, as in the mine and textile fields. Their whole philosophy is that of imperial- ism—the theory of helping the capitalist class in all efforts at conquest of weaker nations, colonial and semi-colonial peoples (Latin-America, Philippines, China), and seeking to share in the super-profits of that double exploitation of “inferior” peoples in | the form of a higher standard of living for a thin layer of skilled workers at “home.” But even within this country their policy is to aid in the heaviest exploitation of the masses of unskilled and semi-skilled work- ers—especially Negro workers. Thus they are: against the organization of the unskilled masses, against the organ- ization or equality of Negro workers, against any fight for raising the general standard of living, necessarily against the internation- al cause of labor—and against anything that would tend toward a wide movement of the unskilled in the basic industries, and supreme. against any struggle against the employers—the allies of the labor bureau- crats. It is but natural that the conspiracy goes further and includes the agreement of the bureaucrats to help the capitalist class (the “capitalist government) to control the flow of labor supply to suit the needs of the exploit- ers. The existing and proposed laws re- stricting immigration, constitute the iron hand of the employer class in control of the movements of the working class, as of herds of cattle to be driven where required and | held back when required. The bureaucrats lie when they say the in- | terests of the American working class are in accord with the restriction of immigration. The bureaucrats fear the radicalization of the masses, the seven-eighths of the workers who | are unorganized, they fear the internationali- zation of the masses of workers, they fear that a wider’ movement for organization of the masses would result from immigration. They fear their own unseating from power, and in common with their masters they cry for more tyranny against the working class. But all well-informed and sincere members | of our class will demand, with the Workers | (Communist) Party, the immediate repeal of the immigration laws—the abolition of all” restrictions upon the going and coming of | the working class. The organization of the | unorganized masses—the fight for higher | standards of living for the great masses of | workers, foreign and native-born—the class struggle against the bosses—not a con- spiracy with the parasite class against the workers—is the true working class policy. *umber of British y Jobless Continues (i to Grow Steadily LONDON, Nov. 27.—The number unemployed workers in England i: stendily increasing, despite all the « omises of the Baldwig government t°d the class-collaboration schemes © Lord Melchett and Ramsay Mac- ' onald, ~The registered number of unem- Feyyed on Nov. 19 was 1,364,400, sich was 16,242 more than on Nov. [}- and 238,146 more than in the “responding week of 1927. If the Ne registered unemployed workers re to be taken into account, the workers, a strike. ° 90,000. “All recent unemployed meetings by the Communist Party have ‘en broken up. 1 * NEW SOURCE OF RUBBER ‘SALT LAKE CITY, Utah.—A lew source of rubber in about 2,000 ved beneath the water of the Great not less than five to investigate con-| new trial for Dr. C, J. Withrow, do- Salt Lake. It is said that the state ditions in the epidemic, the commit- ing a long term for a fatal illegal politicians will hand the discovery|tee having the power to supoena and operation on Ruth Dembner, has wer to me private corporation. JERUSALEM BAKER JERUSALEM (By result ofa strike of bakery workers in Jerugalem, during whick Arabian workers stood solid with the Jewish minimum wage and a 10-hour day were won. had a 12 to 14 hour day before the Blame Olean Mayor, Officials for Typhoid; Demand Resignation OLEAN, N. Y., Nov. 27. (UP).— The resignations of mayor George H. Pierce, William MacDuffle, city tire would probably reach” over |health officer. and three water com- " | missioners will be demanded here to- \night in a resolution signed by 100 Olean residents which will beepre- sented to the.city council, it was |made known today. The resignations of the officials will be asked in con- nection with the typhoid fever epi- demic which took 20 lives. The council, it was said, ‘will be icres of bitumen has been discov-| petitioned to appoint a committee of iter oaths to witnesses, ‘Gambler, White Slaver Mail).—As a Phila. Graft “Probe” PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 27.—A prisoner serving a term for embez- zkment was brought before the special grand jury investigating Philadelphia’s widespread gambling interests as today’s surprise witness, | He was Charles F', Toomey. form- -r assistant secretary of the Fidelity Trust Company, who was brought! frcm the York, Pa., prison. Toomey | is said to have embezzled $342,000 | from the Fidelity Trust Company in| 1920, and gambled it away on horse | recing and dice games, which, it is} alleged, had police protection. It was said by examiners that| Fick Kaelker, ward leader implicated | by D. “English Toomy” Gilchrist, as | one of the clique’s leaders, and Joseph Fletcher had gambled with Toomey. “White Slave” activities |were also indieated by another part of today’s investigation. DENIED NEW TRIAL. | TORONTO, Ont. Nov. 27.—A) The bakers | been denied. ‘savage punishment, |to sleep on the floor. | but I was used to it. Another time | that I have to tell. All the comrades | are very brutal. The present head- | | when I passed thru Vacaresti, not are sick. Of the 100 political prison- jonly did I shiver, but I was beaten BILL GREEN, THE DOORMAN By Fred Ellis Rumania Fascists (Translated from “Inainte,” Ru- manian Workers’ and Peasants’ Bloc Newspaper) OMRADE Vasile Dodan, a shoe worker was freed the first week of Octobet from the jail of Doftana. Arrested in December, 1924 by the Many Cruelties, Unknown Outside, Practised |£04. The prison authorities tried to in Prisons “siguaranta” of Bucharest, he was| was so infected that I could not eat/The comrades remained a very short subjected to all known tortures, tried it. (It’s about four years sinceI have|time in the hospital. by military judges and sentenced in June, 1925 to 3 years in jail for Communist propaganda. He served his term in the jails of Jilava, Ve- carest, Galati and Doftana. He tells jus of terrible conditions; discusting meals, airless rooms, without heat or light, dirty, and damp. He tells of fettered, and solitary confinement, beatings; not permitted to read books, news- papers; refused visitors. “T came out a very sick man,” says Dodan, but all I have suffered, far from frightened me, on the con- trary it’ instilled in me the convic- tion that thes ideas for which I fought were correct and true. against the truth and against force | they take such savage measures. We are a force today and we have on our side the historical truth. Capi- talism that sends against us all its | strength will soon see the formidable power of the working class rising against it. |How a Politital Prisoner is Given Freedom. “Three days before I was freed they send me in the patrol, from Doftana to Vacaresti. This time nothing of significance happened to me. During the cold nights I had I shivered, up by the guards. When I came to Only | eaten a decent meal). I had the occasion to hear insults addressed to political prisoners. “The one who was swearitig was the guard captain of the prison. | Finally the day of freedom had ar- rived. In the evening I was sent to the court-house, thence to the central police station. As soon as I got into | the police station, an officer of ‘law -and order’ jumped upon me and started to beat me up. I protested, a tumultuous noise was raised. Then he let me alone. Next morning an- other officer came, for the same pur- |pose; he hit me once, and with that I found myself in the street. “Sensations? . . . Besides the regime in the hospital is not any different. The food is rotten. They give us a kind of a borsch of beans |or potatoes with ‘mamaliga’ (corn- \meal pudding). We have meat there three times a week. And what kind of meat? When it’s hard it is all bone and senew, when the meat is soft it swarms with worms. Many jtimes we had to refuse the meat. They feed us mamaliga, but since the last hunger strike which took place about three months ago we won the right to 400 grams of bread daily and now we have 600 grams. For this we fought and won. For (drinking we have water directly from the river. It-is abominable. Torture lly the unfortunates who happened to get the “H” were deprived of any |force hard labor upon the political prisoners. There were many furious fights. Many of us were punished in “H” in chains, From the first of | January¥1927 to Qctober, 1928 there were five hunger strikes in which \all of the hundred comrades partici- |pated. Sometimes the hunger strike lasted 18 days.@@oday you do not go |to prison for a rest. The fight begun loutside must be carried on inside with more strength even. They used to say that the prisons are the work- ers’ university of learning. Maybe they were, but now they are prole- tarian battlefields, thru and thru |revolutionary colleges. Workers and Others in Jails. |. “In prison we learn to fight our class enemy. It is too bad that the fights within are not helped by work- ers from outside. The International Labor Defense which in Rumania is Do you think | Linen and clothing is not given by illegal would be of great help fight-| that is nothing in itself, that there|the government. The political pri- ‘8 against the terror. The workers | is no more at your back -the sentry soners sleep in the cell on straw ™uSt fight to legalize the Rumanian |with the bayonet? The sentry is | gone, and now I have a plainclothes |man and, as before, I am under} guard. The only difference is, that |when I was in jail I had to go | where the sentry wants me to, now it is the plainclothes man who must follow me. Who knows how long he | will follow me? Doftana’s Regime. “What are the politicals suffering, you ask? A four-page newspaper |mats. | “The flooring of the cell is of asphalt, and the ceiling is of iron. The window panes are broken and during the winter it is very cold. Last winter we made ourselves a kind of stove, from pieces of iron, bricks and earth. We got five kilo- \grams of firewood for 24 hours. Much smoke, but no heat. We are |not permitted to read newspapers. |Books, only the ones that the pri- |son authorities approve. They are so iI. L. D. that will lead the fight for | general amnesty and fox a political \vegime in prisons. What I told you \above is what our comrades are suf- \fering at Deftana only. Our com- |rades in prisons must fight desper- lately. Some of thé events are un- known outside. We must without fail fight for the freedom of polit- ical prisoners, otherwise, slowly the | flower’ of the Rumanian proletariat | will be extinct.” “Did you see Comrade Bojor?” would not be sufficient for the story afraid of books! The prison guards |Dodan was asked. ‘ers that remain now at Doftana, over 60 of them are sick with tuber- |guard is a former detective and he eo political prisoners. The ex- court recorder, Popescu swears at us Vacarésti I was put in the prisoners |culosis and rheumatism. The others|and sometimes beats us up. For passenger section to sleep. There were no beds at all, and I lay all night on the dirty floor. Some kind|prison’s doctor at the visit found | and on feet. jare suffering of different illnesses. Stomach, bronchitis, kidney, etc. The j whole days we were punished at sec- jtion “H” cells, with chains gn hands These horrible cells are “Yes, I have seen him, he looks more like a dead body. More bar- | barous a vengeance could not be conceived bysthe bourgeoisie. They want to drive him crazy. With an iron will, Comrade Bojor lived |through all these. The proletariat | must not wait till this iron will has of a black soup was given,to me. It/that 50 comrades need hopspital care. ' without beds, lights or heat. Former-' been broken.” By WANG-JO Biocon’ reaction continues una- bated in China. Telegraphic com- munications are received daily re- porting new executions of Commu- nists and young Communists. only are Communists and other ac- movements being butchered, but all “unreliable” workers and peasants, even those who are suspected of sym- pathizing with the labor-peasant movement, are being tortured and shot by the infuriated Kuomintang warlords. But besides these new “exploits” of the White Terror now rampant throughout China under! the Kuomintang flag, we read daily of new peasant risings, of the cap- ture of new villages and whole dis- tricts by the peasant partisan de- tachments. Of the root-causes that compel the Chinese peasantry despite the bloody repressions, to rise over anew against the “National” Kuo- mintang government, the first is the exploitation of the landowners. The vast majority of the Chinese pea- santry have no land of their own and are, forced to rent land from the owners. is it lower Besides the “law- harvest, and nowhere than 50 per cent. ful” rent, the landowners extort ad- ditionally requisitions and gifts, cheating the peasants when harvests are being divided, and so on. The sane cause is the tyranny Not | Rent is paid in kind and is as high as 80 per cent of the | eS |Millions Starve; Serfdom Rife, But Sovietism Spreads Is Surprise Witness in tive members of anti-imperialist of the gentry. For ages past large , communal lands and great sums of |money have been preserved in the Chinese villages. These lands and financial resources are managed by | | cliques, who are never elected by the | villages, pass on this common herit- ‘age of the peasants to their own | descendants. Neither do they ac- count for their actions to the peas- ant masses, but administer the.com- mon property as if it were their own. They maintain armedebands of hooligans, with whose help they are now virtually masters of the| villages. With outrage and violence they compel the peasants under various pretexts—and indeed with- out them—to make them gifts, to entertains them, and so on. The third cause is the tyranny of the usurer. Plundered by the land- owner and the gentry, the Chinese peasant finds that he never has suf- ficient products to tide him over until the next harvest. *Thére is no cheap credit in the Chinese villages! The peasant therefore has to make his loans with the local usurer, but the interest that he is compelled to pay on them is stupendous even for | this Asiatic country. Fifty per cent jinterest on the loan is considered normal, but in certain localities it is as high as 100 per cent and 200 per cent, especially if the loan was made in seed. During the bad years Chinese peasants are frequently | compelled to sell their wives or chil- |dren to the usurers to save them- |selves from starvation. | Millions Starve. | The incessant warfare that be- gan between the militarists after the 1911 Revolution, is ruining the | whole country and completely under- | mining agriculture. The militarists requisition the peasant’s grain and |force them to enter the army and /act as beasts of burden for their officers and masters. The soldiers | pillage the village and rape the wo- _men. But when some catastrophe | (such as flood or draught) is added _to the exploitation and plunder of the militarists the situation becomes | so critical that millions of peasants ad doomed to hunger and death. j At the present moment there are | 9,000,000 peasants starving in the | Shantung province alone. | When the Kuomintang govern- ment arose it promised the peasants | to lower rents by 25 per cent, to pacininy usurers from charging more than 2 per cent interest per Reaction Fails to Halt Chinese Peasant Movement | month, on loans and to recognize the villages’ self-government on an elective basis. The militarists have toebe destroyed to permit the peas- ants to continue their agricultural activities unmolested. The govern- ment found that before it could help the peasants to improve their prim- itive agricultural methods, to build |up the irrigation system—so im- | portant for Chinese agriculture— |and give the peasants cheap credit, China would have to be ridded of | the imperialists who controlled the | basic industries and railroads, who had enslaved the country with fi- nancial obligations which meant that the Chinese people were continually paying them tribute. Kuomintang called on the peasantry to help to struggle against the militarists and imperialists. This call was enthusi- astically hailed by the peasantry. | Millions of peasants organized them- | selves in peasant unions, aided the Kuomintang troops on the front lines, bringing them supplies and struggling against the cofintry-re- volutionaries in the rear. (To Be Continued.) _A “BENEFACTOR.” PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 27.—The will of the late C. K. Eagle, exploit- er of thousands of women and girls in his Pennsylvania silk mills, pro- vided for a “home for girls provid- ing they are of American paren- tage.” The girls in the Eagle mills receive less than $15 & week. ‘Misleaders in the American Labor Unions By. WILLIAM Z. FOSTER During 1918, by pressure from outside unions, the antiquated A. A. was crowded into the general metal trades federation which carried on the big steel organization campaign. |But its leaders joined reluctantly. Tighe and Davis voted against every forward move in the entire move- |ment. The other unions affiliated togetker in the campaign were the driving force. The A, A. leaders be- trayed the movement at every step. At least one-third of the organizing |committee’s time was devoted to blocking their disruptive activities. They wanted to get out of the fight, |to retreat from the-great Steel Trust, ‘and to go back to their parasitic ex- |istence on the cater edges of the in- |dustry in the small, weak mills. When the big 1919-20 strike was over, they split from the other unions, thus breaking up the com- mittee that was to carry on the re- organization of the workers. These leaders rest today with a moribund organization of less than 10,000 in a great industry of 500,000 workers. They make no efforts to organize the masses of steel workers. More, they have no desire to do so. For general incompetence to face and lead the great struggles neecssary in their industry, Tighe and his confreres are# hardly to be equalled in the entire labor movement. For the Steel Trust. they are invaluable aids. They are strangling the steel workers’ union. Well-Paid Jobs. ‘ The A. A., occupying a highly strategic position in the labor move- ment, and one where good leader- ship is vitally necessary, has been afflicted with an especially venal | set of leaders. With but few excep- tions, the higher officials have used their positions to pave the way for their advance into well-paid bezths in the industrial or political service of the enemy. In an article entitl-¢ “Steel’s Lost Labor Leaders,” John Fitch says: “One significant thing about the history of the Amalgamated Association is that all of its presi- | dents have retired while still in | full possession of bodily and men- | tal vigor. All but one retired vol | untarily for the purpose of en- gaging in some sort of work out- side of the labor movement.” All the presidents since 1875, save |one, Schaffer, have stepped from | their official positions to high-paid | outside jobs of one kind or another. | Among these were Miles? Hum- \phreys, John Jarrett, William Weihe, M. M. Garland, P. J. Me- Ardle and John Williams. Count- less smaller officials also went the same route. These leaders advoca- ted the high tariff, like the steel magnates and republican politicians. Most of their promotions were to big political jobs under republican administrations. Jarrett, before becoming U. S. consul in Birming- | ham, England, under President Har- rison, served* as secretary for the American Tin Plate Co. He died a vich man. Williams, who quit the presidency of the A. A. in 1918, be- came secretary of a steel manufac- | turers’ association on the Pacific The present officialdom of | coast. the A. A. is living up to the tradi- tion of the organization and is quite prepared for such favors as the powers-that-be in Pennslyvania may bestow upon it in return for ser- vices performed in preventing the | organization of the steel workers. | Such leaders as those of the A. | A., with their eyes on future rich plums from the class enemies of the workers, are not going to liquidate | their own hopes by mobilizing the | masses and leading them in militant struggle against the employers. His- torically, the A. A. officialdom is. a bribed leadership, and today tf masses of disorganized and exploit- |ed steel workers are harvesting the dead sea fruit of its poisonous re- gime. | The other fragmentary metal trades unions, the machinists, black- smiths, etc., are unable, under pres- ent conditions, to defend the inter- ests of the masses of workers in the metal industries oyer which they claim jurisdiction. Except for some hold in the railroad shops, they have been long since driven out of the great trustified industries, such as automobiles, agricultural imple- ments, general machinery building, ete. Of at least 3,000,000 metal workers, less than 150,000 are or- ganized. The unions vyegetate among the weak, competitive sec- tions of the metal industry. This unfitness to cope with modern in- dustry is due to the failure to de- velop a leadership and policies ad- justed to present-day conditions. The metal trades leadership is of the same colorless, venal, unimag- inative type characteristic of the trade unions generally. The officialg have their minds set, not upon build» ing a great union in the teeth of their own advancement. This they refuse to jeopardize by unseemly radicalism. As. usual, a steady stream of them graduates from their official positions into jobs in business and politics, Courts Deny Pension to Dead N. Y. Teacher ALBANY, N. Y., Nov, 27 (UP). —The estate of Frederick W. Mem- mott, a New York City school teacher who died March 16, 1926, is not entitled to a $28,000 pension due Memmott from the retirement fund, for which application was not mailed until one hour before he died, the Court of Appeals held this after. noon. the opposition, -but primarily upon - | | }