The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 24, 1929, Page 6

Page Six DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 1929 Baily 3 Worker Central Organ of the Workers (Communist) Party | Published by RIPTION RATES: | 1. (in New. York only): | year $4.50 six months | , hree months | 5 fi side New York): Address The Dai Another Taste of “Socialist” La and Bureaucrats We have before us the latest scandal of yellow socialism -—the robbing of the needle trades workers by Hillquit and Company. The Socialist Party long ago ceased to have any con- nection with the working class except as a strike-breaking organization, as a party of petty-bourgeois adventurers, lawyers, a few “ high-salaried trade union officials engaged in fighting the workers in their own unions or in the remnants of unions they were in the act of destroying in collusion with the police and bos The Socialist Party, being a party of capitalism, con- stantly functioning as a defender and “constructive” force for the capitalist i inevitably develops capitalist “ideals” among it Sworn to defend capitalist “democracy” against Bolshevism both in the trade unions and in the class struggle generally, inevitably the great ex- ponents of the Socialist Party practice the “ideals” of the system it defends. And the “ideal” of capitalism is: Get. rich. The supreme characteristic of its leaders is the feather- ing of their own nests, the enriching of their own careers. Leaders’ of capitalists parties are always careerists, and it is but natural that they should be so. In every country of the world it is universally true that the leaders of the Social- Democratic parties are careerists. But. just as inevitably the parties of capitalism have their. Teapot Dome episodes in the careers of their Hardings, their Goolidges, their Albert B. Falls, their Mellons, and—yes, also their Hillquits! Less ‘than three years ago the press was teeming with Barmat scandal in Germany: “Comrade” Julius Barmat, shady war contractor of foodstuffs ahd member. of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany, together with “Com- rade” Fritz Ebert and a whole galaxy of the leading lights of the German Social-Democratic party, were caught in the colossal swindle that was draining the treasury for the en- richment of the same “comrades.” It was a perfectly natural historical development of the counter-revolutionary party whith had become the staunchest bulwark .of German capi- talism against the working class. So now, when we find our own “Barmat” scandal in the Socialist Party of the United States, we should not be svr- prised: :+ ¢Bhe disgusting scandal.turned up in New York has its own peculiarities, It is essentially, first of all, a monstrous robbery committed against the hard-pressed needle trades workers, the looting of the organized cloak and dress makers by the men they had formerly trusted as their leaders. The manipulation of hundreds of! shares “of ithe stock of the International Union Bank, the shares being the property of the cloak and dress makers, was not solely and simply a means of passing into the hands of Morris Hillquit and others of a tremendous “bargain.” The sale of hundreds of shares of stock worth more than $310 a share to the socialist lawyer leade for $200 a share, providing $41,000 velvet, was only one | phase of the steal. The most interesting aspect is that the monstrous fraud was based upon more than the motive of enrichment of the “comrades.” It was especially and with fiendish ingenuity devised also as a means of impoverishing the organization of the rank and file workers of the needle trades, so as to force from their hands the buildings belong- ing to the union. So now the workers of the entire country can look upon the socialist party in all its glory. The mean, sneaking thievery of renegade-careerists in | the labor movement always appears uglier than even the rot- ten corruption of the big capitalist ‘‘gentlemen” thieves. An honest worker cannot hate anything worse than a professional traitor to the working class—a careerist who worms his way into the workers’ confidence only to betray their cause. The Daily Worker accepts the task of peeling the masks from the faces of the Hillquit, Schlesinger and Sigman traitors, who in the name of socialism smash the organiza- tions of the working class and wipe out working standards bought with working class blood. ' With the greatest joy do we greet the news that the “socialist”: Hillquit plans to bring libel suit against the Daily Worker and against the Jewish language organ of our Party, “The Freiheit.” When the case is heard, we will be able to expose more facts about the scandalous thievery of the ‘workers’ funds. We also recognize that Hillquit’s running to a capital- ist court with a libel suit is not an answer to the charge. Suit ‘will be brought, several years will pass, the socialists hope the workers will forget, and in the mean time the mem- ber. of the~executive committee*of the yellow second inter- National. will have made a gesture of defense. A gesture only, for his statement in the Jewish strike-breaking organ, the “Forward.” is not a denial, because if they had facts sor a denial they would deny and then bring suit. The fifthy job of Hillquit, Sigman and Co. must be laid open fully to the eyes of the workers, not only of the needle trades, but of all the American working class! ’ Workers! Learn what the Socialist Party is! “A party of the bosses, a party of the strike-breaking agencies, a party of the gunman-for-hire, a party of the run- down preachers, a party of the petty court-house sharpers, a party of the police and the union-smashers! '* The workers of the needle trades will unquestionably be stirred to still bolder. and more energetic work ‘in building their great new National Needle Trades Industrial Union. ‘The yellow traitors must be driven from the labor movement! . Kick out the professional strike-breaker party! ‘Build the New Unions! “Drive the traitors out of the Unions everywhere! * Build up the workers’ own class party—the Workers punist). Party! m : , iberal” protestant preachers and a layer of | | FIGHTIN 21RROM i TWQSI14 | ARO, AIVWAY x THE LEFT WING Sonia teeniainetesima By Fred Ellis | By CYRIL BRIGGS. | (Editor, Negro Champion) | ne thousands of Negro workers in| the Florida area visited by the re-| cent West Indian hurricane, the two! | nights of storm terror were followed | |by a Red Cross terror far worse| |than anything in their experience! | during those two awful nights. To} the horrors of a storm which snuf-| |fed out the lives of hundreds of’ re-| Natives and friends and contemptu-| jously crumpled ‘up the miserable, | | match-box shacks in which most. of| |the Southern Negro workers are forced to live, by low pay and inten-| Storm and Red Cross Terror White “Samaritans” Use Murder and Starva- | tion to Keep Negro Workers Under Yoke |* | was conscripted and forced to work) saved the lives of scores of people,) picking up dead bodies for two| white and black, while the storm | weeks without pay. Coot Simpson,| was at its worst, dared to go into a a 35-year-old Negro worker, was shot | Red Cross mess hall in Belle Glade} down by a white guardsman at 8th! one day following his return from| and Division Sts., West Palm Beach, | a hazardous “fishing” expedition. because he did not obey the order; One of the workers in the mess hall, to “climb on that truck, nigger!”)who knew of Brown’s heroic life but insisted on explaining to the) saving exploits, gave him some food, guardsman that he was working for} including a piece of ham. The Red| a white man across the street and| Cross director, catching sight of would have to “get the permission Brown, uttering the vilest oaths, and| | sive exploitation, there was added a/ of my boss.” Simpson started to jbrutal terrorism against Negro! walk ‘across the street to his. place’ | workers and a cynical discrimination | t |in the distribution of food and other ¢y Git gveduasn the bullet qiewe relief by the Red Cross and its local ing his back aid causing. instant | agents. | Negro workers were taken from quently exonerated by a jury of |death. The guardsman was subse-| ) telling him that “ham was not for niggers,” grabbed an 18-inch axe and| made a ferocious assault on him.| This Red Cross director was in| charge at Belle Glade from Septem-| ber 17th to October 28th. In many| eases colored families with children) | the sides of their sick wives, terror | stricken children and unburied dead | |and conscripted for forced labor,| | without ‘pay, at the most arduous! and unpleasant tasks. Negro crews) were sent out to “fish” for dead bodies; others were forced to work white. men. Simpson leaves a wife, | were allowed only two to three dol- too sick to work, and two little chil-| lars worth of groceries a week, while dren, a girl of nine and a boy of white families without children would! ten. Conscription of labor avas’ con-' be given six and seven dollars worth. | Fined. to Negro ewarkers, | ‘This statement is based not only | All the time the Red Cross did|upon the complaints of the Negro! | or had white ‘patrons’ to intercede} for them got a little consideration.} Those lacking such ‘patrons’ had to} get thru in the best way they could! -In all these sections the per-| sons handling relief distribution are the very ones whose attitudes are most marked by prejudice. “I have met every Red Cross di-} rector in Florida and patiently lis- tened to their cant about the broad policies and principles of the Red Cross relative to distribution of re- lief to all persons alike in this time of disaster. And I have gone from them into hundreds of Negro homes and seen first hand evidence of rank discrimination against Negro work- ers. I have listened to bitter com- plaints of discrimination on every hand. I have visited the Red Cross! tent colonies for Negro refugees and I have been through their colonies for white refugees. The difference is marked. In the white colonies the tents have floors, and the sanitary arrangements are perfect. In the Negro tent colonies, most of the tents are without floors and ten and twelve persons are often crowded into one small tent.” | ‘in the kitchens in the white tent! little or nothing for the Negro suf-/ refugees, but upon the findings of a| ‘That the Red Cross functioned in| | colonies. to round up conscript’ labor from among the Negro refugees, and | functioned with the utmost brutality. |Many Negro heads of families in a |desperate hunt for work of some kind |to help their starving families ran | afoul of the state militia. | Edward Tolliver, one of these, was jon his way to Belle Glade to hunt) for work in order to relieve the, tragic plight of his family, when he ted men were left to starve or beg} a few crumbs at the back door of | the more fortunate white refugees. | Scores of Negro refugees were driven| St., New York City, away from Red Cross stations. Many | organization: more were deterred from making ap-| “From my observation the Red} plication for aid after learning how | Cross simply didn’t function in many) others had been driven away. places when it came to colored peo- Even Levi Brown, the hero of the|ple. The food distributed seems to storm, was ill-treated at a Red Cross|be mostly milk and bread. Colored station. This Negro worker, who! people who were working for whites field organizer of the Negro Work- | ers’ Relief Committee, which has na-) tional headquarters at 169 West 133} reported to his| [ see them writhe and twist and squirm in pain, Like: earthworms, after the fresh spring rain; Like earthworms, too, they grovel in the dust, And murk and mire and filth of human rust: | Ah! there one rises—totters on apace, Staggers and falls—another takes his place; | The weak and timid souls, they pray and cry; | Some gnaw each others bones, then curse and die; They spawn in filth—in filth the young are bred; In filth they live until their souls are dead. | °O.arthbound worms, look ‘up! Arise! Arise! | Gaze at the mountain top, the stars, the skies; From your dry bones shall a black champion stand, To'lead a race to the promised land. Strike from black wrists and legs the chains that bind, And conjure up new visions to the mind, -That shall transcend race, color, caste and creed— -The tie that binds shall be the daring deed ;— A vision of'a better world to be, Where every. human soul ‘at last is free. » - *. * ohikompecarvrs Sen isa cone of the * Wor Jommunist) Party, a Negro farner tn the Imperial Vi of California. *% }of home and farm _ rehabilitation, | The state militia was used | ferers. The families of the conscrip-| trained investigator. A. L. Isbell, | Florida din is historic role: ofan ans! strument of prejudice and oppression | against the Negro workers, no one} who reads the reports of the Negro! Workers’ Relief Committee can doubt. This committee has not only undertaken an important and essen- | tial task in attempting to organize, the workers, black and white, for| solidarity with the Florid& Negro storm sufferers to relieve their pres-| ent needs for food and clothing and home rehabilitation, but has done a splendid service in exposing the Red | Cross among the Negro masses. It} has clearly shown the Red Cross as} having functioned in two recent dis-| asters, the Mississippi flood and the) more recent Florida hurricane, to} strengthen the present vicious social | conditions in the South. It is the goai of the Negro Work-| ers’ Relief Committee to organize as a’ permanent Negro relief body; which, after having won the confi- dence of the Negro masses, could mobilize large sections of Negro workers to the support of other workers in strikes and natural ca- tastrophies. The committee is still engaged in Florida relief work and is making an appeal to all organiza- tions of workers, labor unions, fra- ternities, etc., for funds to carry on its relief work among the Florida Negro storm sufferers. The com- mittee points, out that while. relief work among the white storm suffer- ers has reached the secondary stage among the Negro sufferers, the first stage, that of supplying the bare) necessities of life, has not yet been! passed. WorkersFreezeDuring Earthquake in Alaska FAIRBANKS, Alaska, Jan. 22.— Fourgeen earthquakes shook . the city, doing some damage in the) working class sections where the houses are not built as substan- tially as are the homes of the wealthy. The winter cold makes it impossible to sleep outside and workers driven from their sleeping quarters are frost bitten. TULSA’ WORKERS GAIN. TULSA, Okla, (By Mail), — Building trades workers in Tulsa have won the five day week. Copyright, 1929, by International Publishers Co., Inc. , BILL HAYWOOD'S BOOK All rights reserved. Republica- tion forbidden except by permission. Running Car at the Blaine Mine; the Story of the Molly Maguires as Told by the Shift Boss, Matt Mc Lain PART XVII. By WILLIAM D. HAYWOOD. Haywood has previously written of his boyhood among the Mor- mons at Salt Lake City; a miner at nine years of age; scenes of violence in the Wild West when it was still wild; young manhood in a Nevada mine; Haywood a cowboy; learning of trade unions; taking —and losing— a homestead; jobless and discowraged; Coey’s Army; Haywood leaves Nevada for Silver City, Idaho; life in a mine bunk- house, Now go on reading.—EDITOR. fee Sia HERE were six or seven car-men in the Blaine mine. We started work ahead of the miners, Our work was to push the cars in the tunnel back to the chutes where the men were working in the stopes above. When we lifted the gates in the chutes the cars would fill with- out any trouble. It was only from the face of the tunnel, before connections were made with the ad- joining Black Jack mine, that we had any shoveling to do. When the cars were loaded, we would push them out, and going down a place called the short cut we would step on the foot-board behind and the cars would gain such speed that we could ride all the way to the dump. The ore we dumped in « bin and from there it was run to the mill which stood in the canyon a few hundred yards below the tunnel. After a few days I was put to work-in the short cut stopes. In my stope, on the opposite shift, . : worked a man by the name of Matt McLain. When he became shift Boss I was working for him. He came into the stope one day where I had a platform rigged up. Leaning his arms on the staging he began talking about old times in Pennsylvania. He said: “You've heard of the Molly Maguires?” I said that I had; every one had heard of the Molly Maguires. “But,” he went on, “ you never heard how they were trapped. There was a certain Franklin B. Gowen who was manager of one or more of the mines in Shamokin Valley. He decided to wipe out the Molly Maguires, which was a kind of a labor organization that would not stand for a reduction of wages, Gowen employed the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and they sent one of their stool-pigeons whose real name was McParland. “He came into Pottsville as James McKenna. He had a little bundle tied on the end of a stick over his shoulder when he walked into town and inquired for a place to stop. He found a boarding house that suited him. One evening he went as though by chance into Bar- ney Hogle’s saloon and invited everybody in the place to have a drink. When he paid for the drinks, he displayed a roll of bills and incidentally remarked that he had just quit his ship. at Philadelphia; that he had got tired of the sea and was going to get a job on land for awhile if he could. He asked Hogle if he could get work in that neighborhood. * * * “Hogle was ‘one of the bond-masters of the Molly Maguires, that is, he was one of the leaders of this organization that had been trans- planted from Ireland and now in Pennsylvania was made up prin- cipally of coal miners. Hogle was also.a saloon-keeper, and he had seen young McKenna’s wad of money. The young Irishman was a good spender and Hogle wanted to cultivate him as a customer. But not wanting to seem anxious in this regard, he answered McKenna by saying that it took a pretty good man to hold a job there. “McKenna flared up.’ ‘I’m a pretty good man,’ he said, buying another drink, ‘I’ll sing.a song, dance a jig, or fight with any man in the house for the whisky for everybody.’ He sang an Irish song, he danced an Irish jig. Looking about he saw a likely lad sizing him up. Sidling up to the young miner, he said, ‘Is it yez that'll be wanting to try me out?’ ‘I will that,’ was the reply. “Every one adjourned to the handball court in the rear. McKenna played handball a few minutes, then they stripped for the fight, which was to be a ‘fair go.’ The audience was all, Irish, and nothing tickled their fancy more than a good fight: They selected a referee and squared off, The miner cut McKenna on the cheek, but Mac coun- tered to the jaw with his left, and jabbed his right to the. ribs. ‘That’s the b’y,’ shouted a voice, Then with a straight left to the chin the miner drove Mac against the end wall. Mac recovered quickly and with both hands punched the miner about the body, forcing him to a clinch, “The next round the miner feinted with his left and landed a slam on Mac’s nose. The blood spurted as Mac swung and got the young fellow at the point of the jaw, keeling him over. The fight was fin- ished. Every one had been highly pleased. McKenna washed his bloody nose; his right eye was nearly closed. Shaking hands with the young miner, he said, ‘Yez were a better man than I thought ye wuz.’ ack in the bar-room there were more drinking and dancing. It was leclared by all to have been a fine night. “McKenna patronized this place frequently and got work through the influence of Hogle. All his associates were Molly Maguires. This was just what he wanted. Some time later he was asked to become a Molly Maguire, Of course he readily assented, but said that to be a good Molly Maguire perhaps one ought to have had more experience than had fallen to his lot. It was*but a short time after he had joined that he was employed in some kind of official capacity in the organ- ization. “This gave him the opportunity for which he was looking. Through the skulduggery of this detective, a number of young miners "were in- volved in a murder; at least they were mixed up in it to such an extent that they were charged with murder. A warrant was issued for Tom Hurley. McKenna, who by this time was suspected by the miners, saw Hurley on a train, and started after him. Hurley went to the rear of the train. McKenna and the. other dicks who were with him were intercepted here and there in following him, and Hurley had time to drop off the train. “When the young miners appeared for trial, McKenna testified against them and gave his name as James McParland, a Pinkerton de- tective. The price the Molly Maguires paid for trusting their affairs to a saloon-keeper was the lives of ten of their members who were executed, and fourteen who were sentenced to from two to seven years in the penitentiary. McParland would probably have been unable to wriggle his slimy way into the organization without Hogle’s help.” This was the first time I had ever heard of an agent provocateur. I later learned that it was the first time that such a method had been used against the working class in America. McLain’s story made a deep impression on me, * * * In the next instalment Haywood writes of his injury, 8,000 feet underground in the Blaine mine at Silver City, Idaho; he is helped by his fellow workers; Edward Boyce, of the Western Federation of Miners, comes to Silver City to organize; Boyce’s story of the first strike at Cripple Creek, Colorado, in 1894. Me / Readers Like Light Features in “Young Worker” t The “Young: Worker” is continuously improving the entertaining features that it prints for its young readers. Puzzles, songs, jokes, cartoons are becoming more plentiful in its columns. From Chicago it received the following response to these new features: “All the comrades are very much pleased with the last issue of the “Young Worker,” especially the lighter features. The comrades take to the “Young Worker” much more with such material in it. This is the sentiment of dozens of comrades who have said: ‘Write and pat them on the back so they'll keep getting out good issues.’” Help: Build a Weekly “Young Worker.”’. Rush donations and subs to the “Young Worker,” 43. East 125th Street, New York City. t cme aetna eel