The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 2, 1929, Page 6

Page Six DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1929 s > Baily Central Organ of the Workers (Communist) Party y York only): $4.50 six months months New York): six months nths checks to 26-28 Union ¥. mail all Worker, , New York, N. The Coming Needle Strike The unanimous decision of more than 4,000 needle work- ers filling every inch of space in Manhattan Opera House, while other thousands were unable to enter the hall, to launch a general strike in the dress trade, is significant in more ways than one. It indicates that the new Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union, organized a little over a month ago on the ruins of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and the International Fur Workers’ Union, is ready to fight not with words, but with deeds for the interests of the needle trades workers. It indicates that the new Needle Trades Workers’ Industrial Union, far from being a “paper” union as the yellow Forward has been frantically insisting, has be- hind it the support of a fighting rank and file that will rally those other thousands of needle trades workers whom the corruption and betrayal of the officials of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and the International Fur Workers’ Union have cast into the slough of apathy and pessimism. “We are ready!” shouted the thousands with one voice Wednesday night. The dressmakers stand ready—and the cloakmakers, furriers and all other needle workers with them—to fight against all their enemies, whether those enemies carry the gold watch and chain of the boss, the club of the police or the torch of the socialist party. As in 1909, when the revolt of 20,000 dressmakers paved the way for the great strike of 1910 which to a large extent broke down the sweatshop and marked the rise of the I. L. G. W. U., so now in 1929 these workers have been cast in the role of the vanguard of the struggles of the needle trades, fighting against an even more merciless sweatshop system, fighting against the treachery which has converted the once-powerful International into a company union and subjected thousands of workers to a slavery more widespread and intense than any they knew before the 1909 strike. . The frantic efforts of the scab International, its ‘‘so- cialist” president, Benjamin Schlesinger, and the yellow Jewish Daily Forward to stave off the dress strike by threats, lies and even closer cooperation with the bosses and the police department, show how real is the consternation in the camp of these conscious tools of the employers.. Simultaneously with this campaign of filthy slander, Schlesinger has at- tempted to confuse the workers by launching another of his periodic “organization” drives (organization for the bosses, of course) and has begun peddling bonds to rehabilitate his bankrupt company union. Since the election campaign is over, Tammany bankers are no longer so ready to turn over huge sums of money to their friends for fighting the left wing and so Schlesinger and his “socialist” gang now hope to mulct additional thousands out of poverty-stricken workers. But the workers myst not be fooled. Every penny turned over to the Schlesinger bond campaign goes to swell a strike- breaking fund that will be used against the dressmakers in the coming strike. The campaign of intimidation and slander reached its height with the publication in the Forward of one of the vilest pieces of open provocation that has ever emanated from even that prostitute sheet. On the front page of the Forward of Jan. 25 appeared a box signed by Schlesinger which stated: “Tt will go hard with the Communist scoundrels and with their ‘boys’ and ‘heroes’ if they dare to do it” (i.e. call a dress strike). “The mayor of New York and the police commissioner are not yet Communists.” No detective agency or open-shop corporation head could have voiced the threat of capitalist government violence against the workers more brazenly than this! And in ad- dition to acting as agents provocateurs, it is evident from statements appearing in Women’s Wear, organ of the manu- facturers, that the Schlesinger clique also have an “under- standing” with the bosses. Women’s Wear of Jan. 30 states: _ “The Association” (i.e. the Wholesale Dress Manufacturers’ Association) “has recently entered into contractual relations with the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, and it is be- lieved that by concentrating work in shops affiliated with that or- ganization most of the troubles can be avoided.” Thus we have the Holy Trinity: the “socialist” union officials, the employers, the Tammany police—a united front of workers’ enemies. A frantic appeal issued on the-eve of the great Man- hattan Opera House demonstration by the newly created so- called “International Dress Council” (with the strikebreaker, Julius Hochman as head) urged: “Dressmakers, remember the glorious achievements of the past! Remember the heroic strikes of 1909, 1913 and 1919!” Yes, Mr. Hochman, Mr. Schlesinger and all your strike- breaking crew, the dressmakers will remember. They will remember their glorious achievements of the past—and they will also remember the part you played to destroy them; they will remember the heroic strikes they waged—and your own miserable treachery. The needle workers will forget nothing. When the Joint Board of the new industrial union issues the - call for the general strike, every dressmaker must come out. Every worker must see to it that his shopmates and the workers in the other shops in his building come down 100 per cent. This is a strike not merely for the improving of working conditions, but in every sense of the word for the organiza- tion of the unorganized—against the open shop, against the scab betrayers, and for the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union. It contains a lesson for all workers in this, that the clearly expressed unity we see here between the government, - the socialist party, and the old line misleaders of labor is a thing that must be expected in all the approaching struggles of the new unions, miners, textile, needle trades, and others. enemies. _ The workers of the entire needle trades and of all sections of industry must not forget that the basic principles of in- unionism, as contrasted with the old, futile craft- nionism, and of conscious class struggle as against class collaboration, are the adopted principles of the new union which conducts this fights. These principles must be put into practice. If this is done the struggle will mark a long stride ard, not merely for a single branch of light industry, but the whole working © 3 oh» Workers must be prepared for this combination of their | The Daily Worker is unable to resume, as yet, the publication of Fred Ellis’ cartoons. The crisis which threatens the life of the Daily Worker, the only working class daily paper in the English language in the world, can be overcome only by the workers who read and depend uponit, as the central organ of the Workers (Communist) P. Send help arty, to lead their struggles. QUICK to The DAILY WORKER, 26-28 Union Square, New York. Working Women and Next War (Continued) Not the least important of the activities of the Women’s Commit- tee was a “patriotic education” campaign carried on chiefly among foreign-born women. In this the Women’s Committee cooperated with the Division of Immigration Educa- tion of the U. S. Dept. of Educa- tion in a_ gigantic nation-wide “America First” campaign begun on Sept. 1, 1917. Mrs, Carrie Chapman Catt was the chairman of the wom- en’s committee on education. “We propose,” she stated, “to begin a vast educational move- ment with lantern slides, movies, lectures and literature which will carry to the women of the nation the graphic story of the war. ‘When the women understand, all | will be fervently enlisted to push the war to victory as rapidly as possible.” Women’s Bodies’ Special Work. Besides the national apparatus built up by the Women’s Committee of the National Council of Defense, there were other organizations of women created especially for the war. .In January, 1917 (three months before war was declared), there took place in Washington a Congress for Constructive Patriots. A women’s session was held in which 500 women from all parts of the country took part. Here was organ- ized the National League for Women’s Service with the jingoistic slogan, “For God, for Country, for Home.” This organization became a part of the general women’s war apparatus, its president being a member of the National Women’s Committee. The Red Cross had its Women’s Bureau organized in July, 1917, with Miss Florence Marshall as its director, This Women’s Bu- reau divided the country for work into 13 fields, with a 14th field for the American Red Cross in China, South America, Alaska and Persia. The Red Cross mobilized the women so well for its work that in six weeks in the fall of 1917 women furnished 3,681,895 surgical dress- ings, 1,517,076 pieces of hospital linen, 424,550 articles of patients’ clothing, 301,563 articles of miscel- laneous supplies and 240,621 knitted articles. The American Red Cross also formed a Women’s War Relief struggle to compete with American | who will lead them to the overthiow | Corps in France. In April, 1917, was organized the National Con- gress of Mothers to do work among order to hold back its coming dis- |qualified independence fo Cyprus. the soldiers in camps, later the Women’s Auxiliary of the Army and Navy League, which established a/jish preparations of the imperialist perialism! |nations for the coming world war, | service school, and the Women’s Naval Auxiliary of the Red Cross. Bourgeois Women’s Activities. | The apparatus of the Women’s |Committee was a federated one, | based chiefly on the existing wom- j}en’s organizations, and also draw- ing into its local activities the un- organized women. The bourgeois women’s organizations were also active on their own account through special war-time committees or bu- reaus, Their activities were all di rected by the central clearing hous of the Women’s Committee, In |called a conference, inviting heads of 200 women’s organizations. Over 50 responded to the call and took part in the conference. These or- ganizations had already been active in relief work for the war in Eur- ope and were now drawn into work for the American imperialists, The General Federation of Women’ Clubs (claiming a membership 0! 3,000,000) opened a Service Offic jn Washington and flung itself full force into the war. The Daughters |of the American Revolution (claim- ing 1,000,000 members) had their | War Relief Service Commission, the |YMCA had its War Work Council, |the National Women’s Christian Temperance Union had its Commit- tee on Patriotic Service, the League of American Pen Women had its | National Aid and Defense Commit- tee, the Woodcraft Girls had their “Potato Clubs” with the motto “The Hoe Behind the Flag,” the Asso- ciate Collegiate Alumnae had their War Service Commission and so on. Besides all these organizations, there were relief organizations too numerous to mention, formed for different sorts of relief, many of them directed by women and all of them depending upon women for their chief support. Drew In Working Women. Let us be clear just how the work- ing women were drawn into all these organized activities. The mem- bers of the Women’s Committee and most cf the membership of the women’s organizations mentioned /class women. But they drew in with | Must Fight Jingoist Women’s Plan to | Mobilize Them for Imperialism was carried to the working class League of Women Voters, and the women in the shops and in the|National Women’s Trade Union homes. They were drawn into work| League, and others. These have in the village, ward and town com-| banded themselves together in a fed- mittees. To put the thing in a nut-| eration called the National Commit- | shell, the government used the bour-| tee for the Cause and Cure of War. geois women to rally the working class women, annual conference in Washington, under the chairmanship of Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, and this year it endorsed the Kellogg Peace Pact. Jingo Groups, The preparedness groups includ- ing thirty or more national women’s organizations are united in the | Women’s Patriotic Conference, also holding its annual conference in Washington this January. This | group is supporting the twin broth- jer in disguise of the Kellogg Pact, |namely the Cruiser Bill. This con- | ference consists of the rankest jin- | goistic, ultra-patriotic outfits such Let us be clear also, that the| bourgeois women’s organizations by | no means finished their activities with the close of the last war, but are, on the contrary, a permanent means for winning the working| | class women for the~support of im- perialism. These organizations have | actively supported the government within recent years in its war prep- arations. They have been lined up either for preparedness, that is, for direct support of war, or for paci- fism, the disguised and even more dangerous means by which the war policy is being developed. The pa- cifist groups include ten important women’s organizations with a mem- bership of millions, among them the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, the National Board of the| Sons of Veterans of the Civil War, YWCA, the Women’s Christian|of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Temperance Union, the National'the National Society of Founders HIT CYPRUS OPPRESSION | American Legion, the Ladies of the GAR, the Daughters of the Amer- iean Revolution, the Auxiliaries of Cypriotes Denounce Vicious Penal Code At a meeting in Bryant Hall ad-| “We send our warmest anti-im- \dressed by George Powers, D. | perialist greetings to the labor or- Benjamin, Adamides, Comodikes and | ganizations of Lemessus that took Pappas, the Cypriotes of New York |the initiative in holding the demon- | City, assembled under the auspices|strations at Cyprus in protest of the All-America Anti-Imperialist | against the cruel imperialist yoke of League, unanimously passed a reso- the English lords and to the entire lution denouncing the vicious stat-|Cypriote people whom we caution utes passed against the inhabitants not to entrust their struggle to de- of Cyprus by the British imperialist |ceitful traitors, but to take it up | ferences, the national federated ap- This group has just held its fourth} |as the Women’s Auxiliary of the} the Spanish War Veterans, of the} | June, 1917, the Women’s Committee | above are wealthy or lower middle) |government. In the resolution, the facts are recognized: | 1. “That English imperialism, in |passing its last stage and in its imperialism, exploits and oppresses \its colonies more systematically in | solution. | 2. “That, in line with the fever- | British imperialism seeks by its im- |position upon the colonies of such |laws and royal decrees, to secure it~ |self against the indignance and the uprising of the nattve people that {groan beneath its cruel yoke in or- der to insure its sources for the |materials necessary for its war | preparations. 8. “That Cyprus, aside from its value to British imperialism as a |field of exploitation, is a valuable rategic position from a naval | point of view, and is destined to play |an important role in the Mediter- |ranean in the coming world conflict |between England and America or between the Soviet Union on the one hand and all the imperialist powers on the other. 4, “That Cyprus for a period of fifty years has been groaning under \the yoke of British imperialism, | whose agents have been forging a ‘enal Code that abolishes the lib- rties of the people, and we demand |its immediate repeal. We express \our indignation against and demand |the immediate cessation of the white | terror let loose upon the workers and | peasants of Cyprus to whom we | pledge our unfailing support in their | struggles. Breaking His Chains! jthem also the fraternal and reli-| gious orders which have a working | class as well as a middle class mem-! bership. Besides, all propaganda | themselves and to place its direction \in the hands of honest and courage- jous leaders who represent che in-| jterests of the working people and | of the foreign and imperialist yoke | _and to the securing of the full and | “Down with the brutal Penal |Code! Down with British im-| | of | “Long live the Cyprus!” Autonomy ‘Young Worker League ‘Will Hold Liebknecht |Memorial Next Friday | The struggle against the danger} of a new imperialist war will be the main theme running thru the en- tire program of the big Liebknecht demonstration organized by the Young Workers (Communist) League for Friday, Feb, 8, at Man- hattan Lyceum, 66 East 4th St. The great traditions of Liebknecht in his struggle against capitalist mili- tarism and imperialist war will be recalled, and made the inspiration of the revolutionary struggle of today, . The program of the Liebknecht Demonstration will contain a num- ber of well known speakers, drama- tics, singing, ete. Every revolution- ary young worker is expected to be present at this demonstration. The history of all hitherto ex- isting society is the history of class struggles.—Karl Marx (Com- Mai sto). and Patriots and many others of similar character. By means of these annual con- paratus of the bourgeois women’s organizations is kept closely togeth- er and in good working order, so that when war is again declared, they will be ready with all speed to jump into the fray. In fact, we can say that for all practical pur- poses these conferences constitute a continuation of the apparatus cre- ated during the last war for mob- ilizing the women. Certainly we can feel sure that when the next war breaks out these organizations will be used again in a very similar way to tha tof 1917. We are interested in the attitude and the activities of these organiza- tions because they are linked up with the working class through a part of their membership and still | more through the daily activities which they carry out in the shape | of social and charitable work among |the “poor’—that is, among the workers—and through persistent |“Americanization” work. We are interested because it is of the great- est importance for the working class | to combat their influence on the | working class women through its own propaganda and its own organ- izations. In the last war, the working class | was organizationally unprepared to stem the tide. Of opposition to the war there was plenty, both in in- stinctive proletarian revolt against the imperialist slaughter and in Marxian understanding of the true character of the war. But insofar as the women were concerned there was little if any effectual organ- izational resistance. Such organiza- tions as supposedly represented the working women in reality betrayed them. The Women’s Trade Union League participated with the bour- geois women’s organizations in sup- | port of the war. Not a peep of) protest came from them; they were content merely with raising a few | feeble whining pleas directed at the | government to protect the working | women’s conditions. The jingoes in} the last war had a clean sweep. So) \ little stood in their way that they | were able to mop up the whole | country in one hysterital patriotic | landslide. | Advance of Proletarian Women. Since then, the working class has greatly advanced. New factors are to be met with today. The strength of the Soviet Union, the broad radi- | calization of the European masses, | the beginnings of radicalization among the American workers, are significant developments. The existence of Communist Par- ties, some of them very strong, in) all important capitalist countries is an organizational factor of the high- est importance. There is an in- creased understanding and apprecia- tion of the role and importance of the women in all working class movements. There is in addition, even in America, the beginning of a working cias: women’s movement. There are women’s organizations of working class aims and character which certainiy are going to put up a resistance to the next world war. Very ‘significant was the protest or- ganized in Weshington the week of January 14 by representatives of ten working women’s organizations, with a membership totallnig nearly 100,000, directed particularly against the Conference on the Cause and Cure of War. So well was this protest conducted that two of the women workers there very nearly broke up entirely the first meeting of this conference. Present Tasks. It must be fully realized, however, that the organized forces of the American working class are yet small. All the greater is the need for maximum energy and exertion on tie part of those who have to combut the war danger. All the mor? necessary for each and every working women's organization, whether union, federation or club, to throw itself into the most active campaign, protesting by mass meet- ing and demonstration each new step in the imperialist war program. Especially must agitation be car- ried on among factory women by means cf delegate meetings and factory circles so that the campaign will reach the masses of unorgan- ized women upon whom the ruling class will depend to produce the ma- terials of war. The coming celebration of Inter- national Women’s Day must be used this year as the focus of the fight against the war danger to rally the working women on a national scale. | The Workers (Communist) Party and all working women’s organiza- tions must realize the need for this fight and must prepare themselves for this major task of today. 1 Copyright, 1929, by International Publishers Co., Inc. BILL HAYWOOD'S BOOK In previous chapters Haywood wrote of his adventurous early life in Utah and Nevada as miner and cowboy; hardships with family in poverty; mining at Silver City, Idaho; in the Western Federation of Miners; a delegate to its 1898 convention; encounter with Gompers; Haywood’s life inspired by the Haymarket martyrs; he again attends the W. F. M. convention in 1899; the strike in the Coeur d’Alenes. He is telling of conditions there. Now go on reading. All rights reserved. Republica- tion forbidden except by permission. * * * Martial Law in the Coeur D’Alenes in 1899; Haywood on the W. F. M. Executive; Off to Butte, Montana By WILLIAM D. HAYWOOD. PART XXV. HE Bunker Hill and Sullivan Company, and the Last Chance were paying fifty cents a day less than all the other mines of the Coeur d’Alenes. The mines paying three and a half a day had posted notices that they would reduce wages. The miners determined that this should not happen, and they directed their energies to bring- ing the lower paid mines up to the higher paid standard. This was stubbornly resisted by the com- panies that were trying to rob the miners of one- seventh of their pay. When the power drills were introduced the work of the miners was changed. The men did not object to the installation of the machines, but many. skill- ful miners were not physically capable of he iling one of the big sluggers. No consideration was shown to them; they were put to running cars, shoveling ore, or as roust-abouts at fifty cents a day less than the miners had been receiving. This would make a corre- sponding reduction in their standard of living, Fifteen dollars a month less for all miners, thirty dollars a month less for miners who could not handle the big drills. It could be summed up as less food, less clothes, less house-room, less schooling for the children, less amuse- ments, less everything that made life worth living. The situation was discussed in all its different phases at all the meetings of the union. There was no means of escape from the gigantic force that was relent- lessly crushing all of them beneath its cruel heel. The people of these dreadful mining camps were in a fever of revolt. There was no method of appeal; strike was their only weapan. On April 29, 1899, a big demonstration was held at Wardner. All the members of all the unions in the district were there. The last warn- ing had been sounded. The fuses were lit. Three thousand pounds of dynamite exploded. The Bunker Hill and Sullivan mill was blown up, ripped and smashed, a mass of twisted steel, iron and splintered timbers, The miners had released their pent-up resentment. There may have been some who regretted the destruction of that which workers had built, but the constraint of the entire population was for the time-being relieved. * * The managers and superintendents, who had found no words of encouragment for the despairing miners, now became voluble in their demands for state assistance. ‘They could wreck a whole population, but no , they raised a maudlin ery because a mill had been destroyed. Governor Frank Steunenberg, a sheep rancher, appeared to President McKinley for Federal soldiers, which were dispatched immediately to the Coeur d’Alenes mining district. Armed force was imposed upon & peaceful people without inquiry or investigation on the part of either the governor of the state or the president of the United States, at the first request of the mining companies. When the soldiers arrived martial law was declared. More than twelve hufidred men were arrested without warrant and held for months in prison without any charge be- ing preferred against them, There was no insurrection in the Coeur d’Alenes, there was no interference in the function of the courts, yet hundreds of men were punished with months of imprisonment in the bull-pen, a structure unfit to house cattle, enclosed in a high barbed- wire fence. The miners of the West became embittered at the vicious treatment imposed upon their brothers in the lead mines of Idaho. Money was raised in every mining camp, in every smelter town and in many other places, and sent to the suffering women and children. It was shown that the mining company was responsible for the damage Indignant resolutions condemning the outrages flooded Congress. At Salt Lake City I found the shadow of the Coeur d’Alenes per. vading the convention. The delegates could think or talk of little else Twelve hundred members were in prison, nine of them indicted foi murder, women and children were living under the dark menace of martial law. The legislature, the courts and the army were against us. Every man brought the question home to himself. If this dreadful thing happened in Leadville in the Coeur d’Alenes, how long beforé it happens in Butte, in the Black Hills, in Nevada? What is to stop if happening in the camp where I live? Must wages and hours and the conditions under which we live and work always be subject to the will and whim of the boss? The only answer I could find in my own mind was to organize, t¢ multiply our strength. As long as we were scattered and disjointed we could be victimized. At this convention I had a suggestion to offer about changing the design of the lapel button that we wore. The emblem upon it was then a machine-drill on a tripod. This was unsuitable because it did not include all the workers in the industry, and because these dangerous machine drills had come to be known as “widow.makers.” The design was changed, and later changed again, to the symbol of three stars, signifying education, organization, and independence, with a pen, & hammer, and a drill between the stars, This remained the emblem of the W. F. M. I was elected to the executive board of the W. F. M. at this convention. In the fall a meeting of the board was held at head« quarters in Butte, Montana. * * * In approaching Butte I marveled at the desolation of the country, There was no verdure of any kind; it had all been killed by the fumes and smoke of the piles of burning ore. The noxious gases came from the sulphur that was allowed to burn out of the ore before it was sent to the smelter. It was so poisonous that it not only killed trees, shrubs, grass and flowers, but cats and dogs could not live in the city of Butte, and the housewives complained that the fumes settling on the clothes rotted the fiber, ‘ The city with the copper soul was Built around the mines of Butte, The people of this mining camp breathed copper, at copper, wore ¢op- per, and were thoroughly saturated with copper. The smoke, fumes and dust penetrated everywhere and settled on everything. Many of the miners were suffering from rankling copper sores, caused by the poison- ous water. The old iron and tin cans were gathered up and dumped into a pool where the water from the miners percolated and precipitated copper on the scrap iron, eating out the iron and converting the cans into copper, The toll of death in Butte was abnormal. The sick benefits paid to the members of Butte Miners’ Union aggregated hundreds of thou- sands of dollars. The funeral benefits were frightfully large. Thé city of the dead, mostly young miners, was almost as large as the living population, even in this very young city. Human life was the cheapest by-product of this great copper camp. The mines had been discovered by prospectors who had drifted up from Utah. Marcus Daly and W, A. Clark were both miners who had bene in’ Tintic and Ophir Canyon. They were pioneers in Butte, perk had a brother, Buckskin Clark, who lived at Ophir while I was ere. The main building of Butte was called the Big Ship; it had a copper keel, it was founded on copper. It was a company store, with offices on the sixth floor where schemes of copper were hatched. Dublin Gulch was the home of the “Paddy-come-latelies,” the Irish “big- wheelers” direct from the old sod. * *. * In the next instalment Haywood writes more of the Butte Miners’ Union of the W. F. of M., the biggest single union in America; of his mission as union executive member into the strike zone of the Coeur d’Alenes in Idaho; the rule of the soldiery; the present Senator Borah a prosecytor; the miners imprisoned in “bull-pens.*