The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 29, 1928, Page 6

anaes Tn VAILY WUKKEK, NEW YUKKG te etteig IN VEMBEK ,, Published by National Daily Worker Publishing Ass’n., Inc., Daily, Except Sunday, at 26-28 Telephone, Stuyvesant 1696-7-8. Cable Address “Dateork” Union Square, New York, N. Y. ROBERT MINOR Editor WM. F. DUNNE Assistant Editor SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By Mail (in New York only): $4.50 six mos. $2.50 three mos. By Mail (outside of New York): $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. $8 a year $6 a year 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- enit 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. e 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, would give the reason that the restriction of immigration has the purpose of “protecting American standards of living.” Buta casual glance at the records of these bureaucrats makes one ask whether the protection of the standards 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 scab “labor leaders” than the “American standard” of wages! Is 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 of 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 Communists. * 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 supremely 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 bureatcrats 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. Number of British Jobless Continues promises of the Baldwin government | strike. and the class-collaboration schemes of Lord Melchett and Ramsay Mac-| Donald. ployed on Nov. 19 was 1,364,400, which was 16,242 more than on Nov. 12 and 238,146 more than in the corresponding week of 1927. If the unregistered 2,000,000. All recent unemployed meetings led by the Communist Party have | been broken up. | NEW SOURCE OF RUBBER new source of rubber in about 2,000 | ered beneath the water of the Groat) Salt Lake. It is said that the state_ JERUSALEM BAKER JERUSALEM (By Mail).—As a result of a strike of bakery workers to Grow Steadily in Jerusalem, during which Arabian Phila. Graft “Probe” | workers stood solid with the Jewish LONDON, Nov. 27.—The number workers, a minimum wage and a of unemployed workers in England | 9.hour day were won. The bakers is steadily increasing, despite all the| had a 12 to 14 hour day before the ‘Blame Olean Mayor, The registered number of unem-| Officials for Typhoid; Demand Resignation OLEAN, N. Y., Nov. 27. (UP).—| unemployed workers The resignations of mayor George were to be taken into account, the H. Pierce, William MacDuffle, city | figure would probably reach over jhealth officer, and twree water com- | missioners will be demanded here r impli night in a resolution signed by 100|y D. “English Toomy” Gilchrist, as |Olean residents which will be pre-|One of the clique’s leaders, and |made known today. The resignations jof the officials will be asked in con- |nection with the typhoid fever epi- SALT LAKE CITY, Utah.—A|demie which took 20 lives. | The council, it was said, will be acres of bitumen has been discov- | petitioned to appoint a committee of not less than five to investigate aon- ditions in the epidemic, the commit- 'Gambler, White Slaver Is Surprise Witness in PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 27.—A prisoner serving a term for embez- ziement was brought before the special grand jury investigating Philadelphia’s widespread gambling interests as today’s surprise witness. He was Charles F. Toomey, form- er 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. t was said by examiners that to- | Fick Kaelker, ward leader implicated |sented to the city council, it was Joseph Fletcher had gambled with |Toomey. “White Slave” activities were also indicated by another part of today’s investigation. | DENIED NEW TRIAL. TORONTO, Ont., Nov. 27.—A new trial for Dr. C. J. Withrow, do- 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 ever to some private corporation. administer oaths to witnesses. | been denied. BILL GREEN, THE DOORMAN By Fred Ellis \(Translated from “Inainte,” Ru- | manian Workers’ and Peasants’ Bloc Newspaper) |(OMRADE Vasile Dodan, a shoe worker was freed the first week of October from the jail of Doftana.| | Arrested in December, 1924 by the| |“siguaranta” of Bucharest, he was | subjected to all known tortures, tried yy military judges and sentenced in June, 1925 to 3 years in jail for Communist propaganda, He served is term in the jails of Jilava, Ve- |carest, Galati and Doftana. He tells jus of terrible conditions; disgusting | light, dirty, and damp. He tells of savage punishment, fettered, and solitary confinement, beatings; not |permitted to read books, news- papers; refused visitors. “I 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 the ideas for which I fought were correct and true. Only against the truth and against force they take such savage measures. We jour 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 Political 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 to sleep on the floor. I shivered, | but I was used to it. Another time |when I passed thru Vacaresti, not only did I shiver, but I was beaten |up by the guards. When I came to Vacaresti I was put in the prisoners |passenger section to sleep. There were no beds at all, and I lay all night on the dirty floor. Some kind of a black Soup was given to me. It By WANG-JO LOODY reaction continues una- bated in China. Telegraphic com- munications are received daily re- porting new executions of Commu- nists and young Communists. Not only are Communists. and other ac- |tive members of anti-imperialist movements being butchered, but all 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. Rent is paid in kind and is as high as 80 per cent of the harvest, and nowhere is it lower than 50 per cent. Besides the “law- ful” rent, the landowners extort ad- ditionally requisitions and gifts, cheating the peasants when harvests are being divided, and so on. The second cause is the tyranny , ¢ ‘Many Cruelties, Unknown Outside, Practised | Rumania Fascists Torture ly the unfortunates who happened to get the “H” were deprived of any food. The prison authorities tried to force hard labor upon the political | meals, airless rooms, without heat or! in Prisons |prisoners. There were many furious fights. Many of us were punished in “H” in chains. From the first of January, 1927 to October, 1928 there were five hunger strikes in which jall of the hundred comrades partici- |pated. Sometimes the hunger strike was so infected that I could not eat|The comrades remained a very short it. (It’s about four years since I have time in the hospital. Besides the eaten a decent meal). I had the/ regime in the hospital is not any occasion to hear insults addressed to different. The food is rotten. They . political prisoners. |give us a kind of a borsch of beans | /#8ted 18 days. Today you do not go ; or potatoes with ‘mamaliga’ (corn-|*© Prison for a rest. The fight begun “The one who was swearing was! mea] pudding). We have meat there | Utside must be carried on inside the guard captain of the prison. |three times a week. Avid. teat land | with more strength even. They used Finally the day of freedom had ar-|o¢ meat? When it’s hard it is all |t© S@¥ that the prisons are the work- rived. In the evening I was sent to|bone and senew, when the meat is (¢TS” University of learning. Maybe the court-house, thence to the central 5 i \they were, but now they are prole- | police station. . As soon as I got into |tarian battlefields, thru and thru the police station, an officer of “law They feed us mamaliga, but ines |Te’olutionary colleges. | Mavtad tS beat me ap. T protested vada iabeut ACSC TRIS SEE Workers and Others in Jails. | jperomuleaons noite was raised. Then won the right to 400 grams of bread| . “In prison we learn to fight our Next morning an-| 4,5 ‘class enemy. It is t other officer came, for the same Pete Ralls aut new we have O00 erameey ‘thi Be raet ieee |soft it swarms with worms. Many |times we had to refuse the meat. are a force today and we have on! “unreliable” workers and peasants, | pose; he hit me once, and with a a one nan Agua sia ate pe metre tag peosbetae |from the river. It is abominable. |Linen and clothing is not given by |the government. The political pri- soners sleep in the cell on straw mats. I found myself in the street. “Sensations? ... Do you think that is nothing in itself, that there is no more at your back the sentry |with the bayonet? The sentry is jman 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 | would not be sufficient for the story that I have to tell. All the comrades | ‘are sick. Of the 100 political prison- ers that remain now at Doftana, over 60 of them are sick with tuber- culosis and rheumatism. The others lare suffering of different illnesses. | Stomach, bronchitis, kidney, ete. The | prison’s doctor at the visit found) that 50 comrades need hopspital care.' |gone, and now I have a plainclothes | “The flooring of the cell is of asphalt, and the ceiling is of iron. |The window panes are broken and jduring 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 afraid of. books! The prison guards are very brutal. The present head- guard is a former detective and he hates the political prisoners. The ex- court recorder, Popescu swears at us and sometimes beats us up. For whole days we were punished at sec- tion “H” cells, with chains on hands and on feet. These ‘horrible cells are without beds, lights or heat. Former- Millions Starve; Serfdom Rife, But Sovietism Spreads |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 armed bands 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 entertain 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. There is no cheap credit in the Chinese villages. The peasant therefore has to make his loans with the loci] usurer, but the interest that he is compelled to pay on them is stupendous even for this Asiatic country. Fifty per cent interest 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 (suchas flood or draught) is added to the exploitation and plunder of the militarists the situation becomes so critical that millions of peasants are doomed to hunger and death. 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 prohibit usurers from charging more than 2 per cent interest per / ers from ‘outside. The International Labor Defense which in Rumania is illegal. would be of great help fight- ing against the terror. The workers must fight to legalize the Rumanian I. L. D. that will lead the fight for regime 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- ately. Some of the events are un- known outside. We must without general amnesty and for a political | 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?” Dodan was asked. “Yes, I have seen him, he looks |more like a dead body. More bar- barous a vengeance could not be conceived by the 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 been broken.” Reaction Fails to Halt Chinese Peasant Movement month on loans and to recognize the villages’ self-government on an elective basis. The militarists have to be 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 country-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 a week. Misleaders in | the American | | Labor Unions By WILLIAM Z. FOSTER | During 1918, by pressure fro |outside unions, the antiquated A. A. |was crowded into the general metal |trades federation which carried 0 | 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 th driving force. The A. A. leaders b trayed the movement at every step. | At least one-third of the organizin |committee’s time was devoted |blocking their disruptive activities, | They wanted to get out of the fight, jto retreat from the great Steel Trust, land to go back to their parasitic ex- |istence on the outer 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 jleaders 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 neecssaty 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 berths in the industrial or political service of the enemy. In an article entitled “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 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 2 rich man. Williams, who quit the presidency of the A. A. in 1918, be- came secretary of a steel manufac- turers’ association on the Pacific coast. The present officialdom oi 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 rict plums from the class enemies of th _ workers, are not going to liquidat« 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 the masses of disorganized and exploit- ed steel workers are harvesting the dead sea fruit of its poisonous re- gime. The other, fragmentary meta’ trades unions, the machinists, black. * smiths, etc., are unable, under pres- ent conditions, to defend the inter. ests of the masses of workers in thc, metal industries over which they claim jurisdiction. Except for some hold in the railroad shops, they have been long since driven out oi the great trustified industries, suct as automobiles, agricultural imple. ments, general machinery building ete. Of at least 3,000,000 meta workers, less than 150,000 are or. ganized. The unions vegetate among the weak, competitive sec. tions of the metal industry. Thi: unfitness to cope with modern fn. 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 thc trade unions generally. The officials have their minds set, not upon build. _ ing a great union in the teeth of > the opposition, but primarily ‘upon their own advancement. This they _ refuse to jeopardize by unseemly radicalism. As usual, a steady stream of them graduates from _ their official positions into good jobs in business and politics. to Dead N. Y. Teacher — ALBANY, N. Y., Nov. 27 (UP). —The estate of Frederick W. Mem- mott, a New York City scht ol teacher who died March 16, 1926, 1s not entitled to a $23,000 pension due Memmoti from the retirement fund for which application was not mailed until one hour before he died, the Court of Appeals held this after. noon, their official positions to high-paid 4 ay Courts Deny Pension