The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 20, 1928, Page 6

Mes Page Six ——=as DAI Daily Ss Worker Central Organ of the Workers (Communist) Party Published by National Daily W. As'’n., Inc. Daily Union Square, New York Cal Exc Stuyvesant 1696-7-8 | ROBERT MINOR.. Boulder Dam Both the House of Representativ: Swing-Johnson Boulder Dam bill, authorizing United States an appropriation of $165.000,000 construction of a dam at Boulder or Black Canyon on the Colorado River ada and Arizona. Only the sign idge is now necessary to end t gle over this bill. Originally sponsored by Senator Hiram Jo fornia in the interest of indu wanted to obtain cheap power that wanted to electrify their lines in the Southwest. The development of the project would enormously cheapen the cost of over thousands of miles of territory. and towns could obtain power dustries and traction lines much cheaper than from power plants generating electricity. The power and public utility trust began a fierce fight against the Boulder Dam bill, | establishing an expensive high-powered lobby at Washington. Samuel Insull public utilities magnate immediately began maneuvering to get political lackeys in the senate to fight for his special interests against the bill. So open and the bribery and corruption in to elect his tool, Frank L. Smith, to the senate that it was possible for. of the bill to prevent Smith Millions of dollars invested in California and the Southwest power plants and structures and the profits therefrom wer the bill passed as original After a fight through t gress the bill finally pa ments and riders that w the power trust. The-bi idge provides for a power pla structed and operated eit ment or by private enterprise tion of the secretary of th present secretary of the appointment of Coolidge, dawyer for the power trus Insull. So, even though Wo se ssed, 1 now is Ro nsull one of his lackeys in as senator, he gets his . Assistant Editor Senate and have passed the y proposed. ere satisfactory to er by e interior. And the interior, by recess { magnate, Samuel orker Publishing SU nday, at 26-28 Telephone $8 a year ss “Daiwork” Editor $6 a year aad JBSCRIPTION 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 | lawyer in the 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. cabinet of the president of the United States with control over precisely the struction and for the between Ney- ature of Cool- he long strug- the bill was hnson of Cali- strialists who and railroads power trust. S for the tri Boulder Dam trust in such a pronounced tion of the Sou electric power Cities for their in- means under t and Commerci: ing liberalism, , the Chicago flagrant was | business. the campaign recess appoint - the sponsors being seated. interior that h e at stake, if ssions of con- | 88 Dwight W. with amend- eat sonification of y before Cool- nt to be con- y the govern- in. the discre- dustrialization c oy O. West, a s of great ma: failed to get | Prom “The 1928 December Yo one can overestimate the importance of the i r issue of ‘ that department that will supervise the con- the operation of the super- power plant at Boulder Dam. In plain words, the Boulder Dam bill is devised so that the government builds the dam at an expenditure of $165,000,000, and then turns it over to the uch a present makes it possible st to scrap its small plants in the region affected and, with the operation of under its control, places the a favored position that it will have a complete monopoly of electric powér. The development of Boulder Dam will have effect upon the industrializa- thwest. But instead of the west coast industrialists for whom Hiram John- son speaks: this development will take place under domination of the power trust, which he influence of the Continental ial and other banks that dom- inate Insull’s power trust. Certainly those capitalist papers, profess- | who see in the passage of the | Boulder Dam bill a defeat of the power trust | are either stupid or deliberately lying. The | passage of the bill in its amended form is an example of the merging of government with Now that the bill is passed some of the senators are beginning a fight on the ment of Insull’s man, Roy O. West. They may succeed in bringing to light so many shady deals of the secretary of the e will have to get out. In that case Hoover would probably appoint as his secretary of the interior, not a tool of Insull, not a hireling lawyer, but Insull himself, just Morrow replaced Sheffield in Mexico and as millionaire, Hoover, the per- imperialist aggr m and in- tensified exploitation of the working class, replaces the puppet, Cal Coolidge. the south for the United States. It means, for instance, a further tremendous prole- tarianization of hith It means a further proletarianization of additional rto rural and semi-rural masses. the Negroes. Elections” by Jay Lovestone in the The Communist.” New White Terror Wave in Bulgaria The Central Committee jof the Independent Trade Unions of Bul- garia has appealed to the workers of the world in its fight against the new wave of fascist terrorism sweeping the country. The appeal follows: A waye of Terror in Bulgaria. Appeal. of the Independent Trade} Unions of Bulgaria to the Interna- tional Proletaria Dear Comrade The five year ‘sof raging white terror which the Bul; an govern-| nient has exercised against the Bul- garian proletariat has not been able, in spite of the numerous vic- tims which have fallen under this terror, tither to crush the working lass or to cause it to abandon the struggle. In spite of everything the proletariat of Bulgaria stands firm as a part of the front of the Inter- national Proletariat. Im recent times, and especially after the conclusion of the loan from the capitalist states, the Bulgarian government—in fulfillment of the | will of these imperialist powers— has Commenced a campaign of an- mihilation against the working cl as and e&pecially against the indepen- deht. trade unions. ~ der the more easily to use the Bul- arian workers as cannon fodder in the war which is being against Soviet Russia and in which Bulgaria is to serve as a military base. We meniion only a few of the miost characteristic facts as illustra- tion of the’ cruel terror of recent times. “24.5 A‘month ago, two members | ‘of the Central Committee of our in- ependent trade unions, Comrades Jordau Miley, general secretary, and Ayram Stolyanov, workers deputy, tvere arrested on the charge of hav- | ing infringed the law for the de- fense of the state. While in prison these comrades have heen subjected | to such a murderous regime that | they have been converted into com-| plete physical wrecks. | 7g. aig with these comrades ére ave also sixteen other 1 ‘vades, charged (under the same bar- Testis tae for the defense of the state) with being members and or- nizers of the Communist Party. in order to extort the desired “con- ssions” from them all the arrested comrades are subjected to the most horrible tortures, with the result that nearly all of them are ill, some of them being in danger of death. ~ 3. In Sliven forty young work- ‘ers were brought to trial solely for i members of a legal young workers’ league. ‘4 «The organ of our i jit | confiscated This also in or-|§ prepared | / “Edinstvo,” is subjected to a cen- hip, although such a thing is y the defense of tional law (law f the state). The censoring of each number |] seven or eight days. frequently happens that the paper, even when it has previousiy passed the double censorship of the police and the public prosecutor, is by the provinciai cen- who subject it to a fresh cen- hip. and confiscation, The rest of the newspapers of the workers have to suffer under the same censorship and confiscation. The “Rabotnitschesko Delo,” the or- gan of the Workers’ Party, was re- cently confiscated three times run- ning; the organ of the youth, “Mla- deshka Duma,” eight tin run- ning! The independent daily paper “Novini,” as a result of this censor- ship and the constant confiscations, is .prevented from appearing, apart from this the chief editor has been thrown into prison. 5: The editor of our organ, Com- vade Assen Boyadchev, who has just seryed two and a half months’ im- prisonment, was twice charged un- der the law for the defense of the e solely on account of articles n the paper. He is now again be- ing pr ted, this time also solely cles in the paper. On Oct rs, 22. 6. last, in Ru 28 bootmak onl ose erir "had that they met at the trade union premises in order to hold an organization conference. were ar. rested and detained by the poiice for over ten days. 7. In the whole country the tr union clubs have again been closed and the trade union archives confis- d, On Oct. 9, last, during a po- search in the offices of the “Ed- instvo,” even the manuscripts of the old numbers of the paper were con- fiecated. 8. Many workers are interned solely because they are members of ade unions; among them are Com- rade Stoil Markov, a seller of the | paper in the town of Jambol; Com- rade Yotto Milanov, secretary of the bake union in Russe; Comrade Angel Valev, the manager of the “Novini”; Comrade Radensky, the proofreader of the “Nakovalnea,” to mention only a few. 9.* Comrade Nikola Raikov, the vender of the organ in the town of Tchirpan, as a result of cruel mis- handlings by the police, especially of the injuries ne received in the head, wes rendered insane and died shortly afterwards. Comrade Al Achlaniev, member of the local com- | mittee of the shoemakers union in trade unions, ' Plovdiv, was likewise driven insane | Paraguay, Jas a t provided for even in the excep-| sult of the uninterrupted ar- rests and tortures. 10. All open, and even members’ meetings are broken up by the po- lice, who make use of whips and pistols. These are only a few samples of | the innumerable terrorist arbitri acts of the fascist. government. But the government is not satis- fied with all this, The governmen- jtal and the rest of the bourgeois | pr is eagerly working up public lopinion, awd at the same time de- |manding that the independent trade janions be placed. outside the law. The police are endeavoring to pro- cure the necessary evidence to back up this demand by bestially tortur- ing the arrested members and func- |tionaries of the independent trade unions. In this fight against the working |class and its class-conscious, inde- pendent trade unions the govern- |ment has faithful allies in the social |demoeratie party and the “free trade unions,” which are nothing more than mere nameplates. Our trade unions and the whole of the working class are conducting |a determined struggle against this | savage white terror, In this fight the Bulgarian prole- | tariat reckons on the brotherly sup- port of the international proletariat, | and is convinced that this will be forthcoming just as it has always been forthcoming hitherto. Long live the international soli- BLOOD AND OIL LY WORKER, NEW YORK, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1928 = By Fred Ellis |Misleaders in 'the American Labor Unions By WILLIAM Z. FOSTER After going nine years without a wage increase the 17,000 New York carpenters, on November 17, 1915, voted four to one to fight for a 50 cents per day raise in wages. The movement was specifically author- ized by the national office of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. The local officials signed contracts covering 14,000 men at the new rates, and made all preparations to strike the remain- ing 3,000 workers on May Ast, 1916. All was legal and regular. Then, like a bolt from the blue, President Wm. L. Hutcheson demanded that the strike be held off. This was manifestly impossible, it being al- ready too late, so the 3,000 men went out. Conditions were good and victory was certain. Hutcheson thereupon went to New York and after a couple of secret conferences with the employers, together with Brindell and Halkett, illegally signed an agreement that the men continue at the old rates, with the increases to go into effect several months later. Then, calling a meeting of 800 workers, which lasted exactly 40 minutes, Hutcheson told them what he had done and rushed to catch a train west. Then the storm of resentment burst. To accept Hutcheson’s agree- ment meant a cut of 50 cents per day in the wages of the 14,000 who were at work. Hence they revolted, On a referendum they rejected Hut- | cheson’s proposition 12,000 to 104, | The New York State Council of Car- |penters condemned Hutcheson’s un- The Rebellion of the Oil Slaves By N. HONIG. Gold buttons, even when set with an array of microscopic diamonds, cannot dam the rising tide of dis- content df the Bayonne oil workers. Some of the slaves of Rockefeller Strikers Sniped at From Roofs; Rout Rocke- feller Thugs; Win Control of Bayonne rose in rebellion this year. Without leadership, betrayal was their lot. But they will rise again. Fire smoulders in the eyes of the old timers at the Standard plants, and even in the eyes of the younger workers when they talk over their grieva: remember ers, was completely shut down. One of the main cogs in the Allies’ war machine had slipped. The Stand- ard Oil was forced to pump in oil from its Philadelphia works, but this was not sufficient. The Standard 1915, the re _in the lives appealed to the United States gov- of the feller, ernment, claiming an emergency. | In 2 exploited “We received no warning,” the workers ro nd rising, made! posses whined, the bosses it the United eaekabellave ai States, glutted with war time super- BOCES upee naee under contract for the Allied pow-|then gave indisputable and final proof once and for all that it con- trolled Bayonne—the Tidewater, Gulf, Ber- genport, scabs were brought in thru the yards of these companies. every other oil firm in Vacuum, ete. For the The 2,000 workers of the Tide- water immediately struck when they saw the scabs being passed thru the | yards in which they worked. | oil bosses then brought in an army! New York Times on Thursday, July !of gunmen from New York, Buf- 22, spoke volumes. falo, and other gang centers, The and armed the thugs to the teeth. The | warranted and tyrannical interfer- |ence “as a betrayal of the interests | of the carpenters of New York and | @ violation of the principles of the labor rgovement.” Only the Dock lpatiees, Brindell’s local, accepted | the agreement, i |. Hutcheson immediately expelled workers and a little boy. Bricks,/ the 65 New York carpenters’ locale cobblestones, anything, were picked| with their, 17,000 members, and up by the infuriated workers, who/ opened an office, with the employ- drove the thugs back into the stock-/ ers, to recruit scabs to break the ades. | strike. But in spite of him the strike jie night, Constable = Hook| was won, and he eventually had to | seethed. | The strikers’ ranks were| reinstate the outlawed locals. After- }swelled by thousands of workers|wards employers claimed that this from Bayonne and neighboring in-| “agreement” had cost them $85,000 | dustrial cities in Jersey. Police and) in bribes. 4 thugs sniped from the housetops,| This treachery was a fair intro- | picking off a worker here and there. | duction to the policy of Hutcheson |Chalked on the sidewalks thruout! freshly arrived at the presidency of | the city were the signs, “Our broth-| the Brotherhood. His later conduct ‘ers have been killed by the bosses! was on a par with his start. One and the police. Do your work now.” | of his many treasons was the sign- Strikers Rule City. hires cent agreement in eee e . 24. at time Hutcheson, to- A headline se fib arch tea MODRED cia rearhaeonen (coin te eatee Chicago Carpenters’ District Coun- cil, met with the five leading con- tractors. The newspapers next day announced that the carpenters had “Bayonne in hands of oil strikers.” | It was now a life and death fight | profits, tremble. For several days! ,, The strikers were 90 per cent Po- durir ‘that famous strike, the city lish, Russian or Hungarian. They |of B:. onne was in the hands of the Were entirely unorganized. ‘Thanks oil strikers. The offi is and|to the Gompers treachery, not a business men of the city, admitting | Sign of a union existed among the | the power of the strikers, bellowed) | for federal troops, In 1915, the profits of the oosses | in every industry in the United| States sky-rocketed to heights un-| dreamed of in those days. Ev plant was working a donble shift, producing clothing, coal, munitions, | \foodstuffs, and oil for the Allied | larmies. The oil ind most of all industries, excluding the munition makers, but the wages | |of the oil slaves remained at the| same low level, 98 cents to $3 for a 10 to 12 hour day. | doubled, tripled. Sam Gompers, his eyes roaming} jaround for new graft, seized on| |Bayonne as a fertile field. “The| oil workers must be organized,” | said he. “The A. F. of L, will be-| |gin an intensive campaign.” | | The first shot in the Gompers| |“campaign” was a conference with| |the officials of the Standard, the| es y-High Profits. | try profited | ~ 18,000 Bayonne oil worke: ing began immediately— ass picketing, daughters and school childre® on the lines. The Standard imported scabs from out of town. The pickets made it hot for the scabs. The Standard, which had persistently denied that it controlled any other oil company, = TR PARIS, (Inprecorr).+-On the 26th of November the trial of the Italian worker Sergio Di Modugno who shot dead the fascist vice-consul in Paris on the 12th of December, 1927, took place before a jury in Paris. The accused, who was a political with wives, | ITALIAN REFUGEE mens“ Di Modugno Faces Extradition to Italy thugs and police were posted on the for the oil workers, and they real- | rooftops of the workers’ houses on jzed that they must arm to protect | E. 22nd St., the center of the picket-| themselves and their families from| ing. the merciless thugs and police of Slaughter of Pickets. | Rockefeller; the same Rockefeller | The picketing was peaceful until thugs who had proved their disdain |the second day of the strike, when | {or workers’ lives a year before in| |the army of thugs and company the Ludlow, Colorado, coal “mines. guards suddenly sallied out of the Over 1,000 workers at the Vacuum company stockades, charged into Téfineries joined the men of the the defenseless crowd of men,| Standard and the Tidewater. women and children, and killed two| | Another fight was precipitated by u the oil bosses the nexf day, when the city firemen turned their hoses on the pickets, following which the company thugs on the housetops| killed 2 more workers and a little boy, and wounded a score. The strikers tore up the embankment around the stockades of the Stand- ard Oil, and charged the guards, but worker, husband and father, but up-| Police brought in from neighboring Jon his persecutors, Di Modugno ‘ities drove them back. State troops was a land worker from Cerignola, C@™e and martial law existed. _ in the Italian province of Apulia, 1" order to discredit the strik- |The land workers of that district TS fires were set by the company |were strongly organized in gheir guards we same of fhe, oil sheds, and| trade union and the district had a -°utside agitators acting as German) won a “closed shov.” This news elected Jensen the day following in the union election. Tt was not until weeks afterwards that the rank end file got to see the acreement. Then to their amazement they learned that it was practically identical with the infamous Landis Award. to defest which two years before the carnen- ters had led one of the hitterest strikes in the history of Chicago. Hutcheson did this in the midst of a great building boom, when the workers easily could have insisted on a real agreement. Hutcheson is one of the very blackest reaction- aries in the labor movement. Robert P. Brindell. Brindell was the most energetic and ovtstanding labor grafter in New York since the days of Sam Parks, He was exposed in 1920, just at the beginning of the great national drive against the trade unions in all industries. The expos- ure was made by the Lockwood Committee, created by the N. Y. Tidewater, and the Gulf Refining | {ugitive, had visited the Italian Gen- |Companies. ‘The second shot was|¢tal Consulate in order to obtain’ from the oil bosses—a bribe to Sam,| Permission for his wife and child, | Exactly how much the Standard Qil| Who had remained in Italy, to join |parted with to keep the A. F. of|him in France. Di Modugno had L. out-of Constable Hook is not|#!veady made countless fruitless at-| known. But the A. F. of L. “or-| tempts to obtain permission for his} ganization” of the oil workers never| Wife and child to leave Italy. He! took place. asked to speak with the vice-consul, The Slaves Strike. | Natdini. The latter gr The oil workers waited patiently | “duest in a still more insolent and for the A, F. of +L. to. organize | them. Meanwhile the speed-up grew lgreater. The’ Standard Oil effi- ciency experts devised new: back- breaking methods every day. Finally, the oil slaves decided to wait for the A. F. of L. no longer. On Tuesday, July 20, 1915, the Standard ‘Oil bosses were astounded when 300 men downed tools, de- ment would not permit the families | of political fugitives to cross the frontier. The wife and child of Di Modugno were thus held by the fas- cists as hostages. In a burst of fury embittered and iespairing, Di Modugno drew a re-| volver and shot down the repre-| sentative of the government which | large socialist majority in the muni- cipal council. The fascists there- |fore concentrated their attacks here| ‘he strike. from the year 1921 onwards and bloody collisions frequently occurred costing numerous dead and wound- ed. Sergio Di Modugno was ar- rested and ‘manhandled on numerous occasions. Twice he was compelled The latter answered his|t® flee the neighborhood and go to| got it. Rome. The first time h2 was ar- overbearing fashion thi ; |rested.in Rome and taken back to| increase by the Rockefellers, but de- aatacea: euaseenier Tellan newenn | Cerignola on foot by two gendarms, | cided to stay out. until. the Standard this journey lasting days. His future wife who left Rome to follow him to Cerignola was arrested in Cerignola and jtak- en on foot by gendarms back to Rome, During his second stey in. Rome he was also arrested and the twenty-one spies” were declared by the com-| State Legislature to investigate the panies and the police to be leading | high cost of building in New York. | Samuel Untermyer was chairman of Ba committee, But the Standard was weakening.|_ Brindell was president of the [when the 60 mockore at the Nex | Building Trades Council and of the |genport and General Chemical| D0ck Builders’ Union, affiliated to (Works, a Standard subsidiary, de-|the Carpenters. A dozen years be- manded.a 15 per cent increase, they |f0Te he had been a soda clerk im | The 1,000 Vacuum oil work-| Providence. He became the right- |hand man of Gompers and Hutche- son in New York. Peter Brady, James P. Holland, and Hugh Frayne were his close pals. He was deep jin Tammany Hall politics, and held |various political jobs. He was a rabid 100 per cent patriot, at one |time proposing to the “American” unions that they should quit the | United Hebrew Trades because it j harbored “disloyal” unions. Brindell conducted his graft op- Victory. ers were granted their 15 per cent \and Tidewaters workers got their \inerease. The strike spread to the | 1,500 workers in the Eagle Oil Co., another Rockefeller concern, ‘in |Caven Point, Jersey City. Troops | surroufded the Standard Oil plants |in Long Island City, when the | workers there indicated their inten- tion to strike, and delegates from manding a 15 per cent increase. By |the next day, the ‘ranks. of the| | strikers had swelled to over 1,000, | Then 1,000 coopers walked out. On/ darity of the working clas: Sofia, Nov. 15, 1928, The C. C. of the Independent Trade Unions of Bulgaria. | had imposed such suffering upon the toiling people of Italy. The killing of Nardini was a poli- authorities suggested to him that he should become: their spy, a sug- | gestion which he rejected with the | Wednesday, the Standard Oil Com-| tical act the responsibility of which| Pride and scorn of an organized pany plant in Bayonne, working|does not rest upon the distracted | worker. ie |Workers Will Protest Oil S ‘Bolivia-Paraguay War in Harlem on Sunday A protest meeting against Amer- | ican imnerialism’s latest act of vio- lence, the provoking of the Bolivian- Paraguayan war, is announced for Sunday, Dec. 23, at 2 p. m. at the Lexington Hall, 109 E. 116th St., by |the New York branch of the All- | America Anti-Imperialist League, | the Harlem section of the Workers (Communist) Party of America, and the Spanish section of the New York Bureau, | Speakers will be H. M. Wicks, Al- berto Moreau, Ernesto Silba, and a Bolivian representative who does not believe in fighting for Wall Street against his fellow-workers in > trikers Rout Thugs; Take Control of City the house-tops, fired into the picket lines, killin: many. In the July 1915 uprising of the Bayonne oil slaves, Rockefeller imported thugs who, stationed on The strikers defended themselves and chased the thugs back into the company stockades. Photo shows pickets pursuing the thugs. |the Bayonne strikers were impris- joned. But the Rockefellers knew | they were beaten, and granted a 10 |per cent increase on Tuesday, July 27, a little over a week after one of the greatest American labor | struggles had begun, On that day, John E. Roach, gen- eral organizer of the A..F. of L., a bosom friend of ’Gompers, said to the sheriff, “I want to thank you for your fair behavior during the strike. We have every confidence in the Standard Oil Go.” 'He then announced that “a campaign will be ganize the oil workers of Bayonne.” It never was, needless to say. The 1915 oil strike was a splendid example of several things, It illus- trated what a determined solidarity could accomplish for the workers, even against a power as strong as | that of the Rockefellers, It brought into the spotlight the treachery of the reactionary Gompers machine. The aftermath of the strike, the gradual stripping of all the advan- tages won by the workers in the strike, illustrated the effects of jlack of organization into a militant union, waged by the A. F, of L, to or-| erations on a grand scale. Beside | him Sam Parks appeared a “piker.” Where the latter would get $250, Brindell took $5,000. He was bold and domineering, but his methods lacked the extreme violence chat» acteristic of Chicago “burglars! His council, 115,000 strong, had a “closed shop” agreement with the Building Trades Employers’ Asso- ciation, each agreeing to work for or to employ only members of the other’s organization. This agree ment, which gave the contractor: almost a monopoly, laid the basis also for Brindell’s operations. It was a_ typical building trades “closed corporation” agreement be- tween the union leaders and the employers to divide the spoils of the industry. The “cost-plus” jobs of the period provided rich pickings. Every known form of graft: and extortion was used by Brindell. He sold “strike insurance,” ete He work- ed with the building material men to force the contractors to pay their | bills, striking jobs when they re- fused. He_once offered that the Building Trades Council would sup- port Hylan for mayor if the job of building the new court house were given to a certain contractor, | i t pra a SPIES BAUS ART aE TR A Oe ND rae XN