The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 11, 1929, Page 6

Page Six DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK RY 11, 1929 Daily S@c W: lorker | AFTER MELLA—MONTENEGRO! Central Organ of the Workers (Communist) Party rION RATES: w York only): 50 six months months New York): © six months Published by Mail (outsi a year $2.00 thre Baito Address and The Daily Square, } ROBERT M WM. F. Ass, Editor “Re-Organizing” Into a Company Union The Lewis machine of the remnant of the United Mine Workers calls for miners to support it on the basis of a “re- organization of the union,” and hints at a new president, Lewis to step out. There is considerable evidence that Lewis will step out indeed, and step into office on the mediation board of the latest Watson Parker bill, now before congress, providing for the application to the coal industry of similar “arbitration” machinery to what the same two congressmen worked out for the railroad industry. Lewis could serve well there. The Watson-Parker media- tion machinery is an effective anti-strike apparatus. It works by prohibiting strikes except after such elaborate and time wasting tactics that both the opportunity and the en- thusiasm for fight have been worn away, and provides for the buying off of sections of the workers by slight increases in pay, if need for that arises. The warning often expressed thru these columns that the Lewis gang of misleaders of labor in the United Mine Workers of America would seek, without regard to the fact that the miners as a mass have repudiated and left them, to continue as a company union for the coal operators, is prov- ing to have been only too true. Even faster than could have been anticipated several months ago, the Lewis gang openly unites with the em- ployers, openly assists them in crushing the workers down to a lower standard of living. In Illinois, where the Fishwick district administration of the U. M. W., a worthy successor of the Farrington admin- istration which came to an end only when it was discovered that Farrington had sold out to the Peabody Coal Company for a yearly bribe of $25,000, has tied up the whole state of Illinois in a contract with the operators association, in which a general wage cut is provided, and all miners forced to show U. M: W. A. (company-union) cards and pay dues to Fishwick. In the anthracite parts of Ohio and Indiana, wherever the owners think the U. M. W. A. outfit has enough influence to be worth the trouble, the same sort of a deal is made. In every case there is a clear cut and public bargain. The mine owners agree to give check-off to the United Mine Workers officials, a self elected group, maintained in power not thru the ballot but thru control of the ballot boxes, by their power to count as votes for themselves any votes that are cast and as many as they wish that are not cast at all but exist only in imagination, Or the owners in some cases do not bother about the check-off, but merely refuse to hire any miners who do not show a U. M. W. A. card, with dues paid to the misleaders of labor. ; In return for these very substantial benefits, the con- tracts made between the employers and the U. M. W. A. guarantee the operators the use of miners at from one-fourth to one-half reduction in the Jacksonville scale, and with total disregard of safety regulations and any guarantee that the men will not be cheated in the weight of the coal they mine. To call this kind of an organization a labor union is sheer misuse of the term. It is a new kind of company union, and nothing more. The United Mine Workers of America plays the same role in the mining field that the International Ladies Gar- ment Workers, and the International Fur Workers Union as- pire to play in the needle trades, the same role that the United Textile Workers try to play in the mills. In each case the answer of the workers is the same, to organize in their own union, and to wage a heroic, ceaseless struggle for the estab- lishment of wages, conditions and hours that will make life worth living. All workers everywhere must see these things: the fight of The National Miners’ Union against Lewis’ check-off and the Lewis union’s wage cutting contracts, for better hours and wages, is not a struggle between two factions of organized Jabor. The fight of the needle trades workers in New York, on strike for the 40-hour week and a living wage is not mere- ly a “right wing-left wing” fight. The organization campaign | of the National Textile Workers’ Union is not a dual move- Polish White Terrorists Torture Workers ment to some “other” labor union in the field. These strug- gles are struggles of organized labor, of class conscious mili- tant industrial unionism, against company unionism. And no real worker should have any doubt which side he is for. There can be no neutrals in this fight. You are for the right of workers to organize their own unions and fight for their de- mands, or you are for labor lieutenants of capitalism, com- pany unions, wage cuts and degradation. The “Spiritual Gendarmerie” Again The details of the bargain between the Mussolini regime in Italy and Pope Pius XI are gradually leaking” out. Here is a real united front of the darkest forces, the Blackshirt state and the Black International of the Catholic church. The amount of land parted with to re-establish the papal states is negligible. The right given the pope to coin the money is nonsense that ,will not much affect the lives of workers who happen to be paid in that kind of wages. But the fact that the entire international organization of the papacy, with all of its subsidiary organizations, such as the League of the Cross Cadets, and the Knights of Colum- pus, are now openly rallied to the aid of Mussolini and fas- cism, is important. And the increasing’rigor of life for the Italian workers, who will now have fascist militiamen enforc- ing canon law, corapulsory observance of the catholic holi- days, and perhaps compulsory church going, is real. ‘Religion as the corrupting arm of ‘capitalist rule, even it was the spiritual gendarmerie of Napoleon and of the of the middle —_ is now recognized. Who will . | By THOMAS MYERSCOUGH PITTSBURGH (By Mail). — Spreading around the mine fields, | worse than the “flu” ever did, is an} epidemic of bunk that the U. M. W. | A. is going to be reorganized and that it will be stronger than ever. Of course every miner, like all) \cther human beings, possesses two ears and he opens both to let the message of poison bunk go straight through, in one and cut of the other. They then open their mouths and what they tell the fakers and |their poll-parrot henchmen cannot | |be recorded in the columns of this lor any other newspaper. Duping Days Are Over. That the miners have been duped | Miners Reject Lewis Scheme. Denounce Scheme to Lead Them Into Ambush | Constructed of New Watson Parker Law the fakers in their attempt to sell | the scheme to the miners for dues let is be known that Lewis is going out and that the great “Clown Prince,” Philip Murray, will succeed to the throne. To the miners, how- tver, the name “Lewis” is synony- mous for all that is rotten and this includes everyone connected offi- cially with the U. M. W. A., Murray, | Kennedy and all the rest, down to | the office cat. The miners are in no mood to and kidded long enough by Lewis jgo to a circus and could not afford meee pees oe aie ae jit even if they were, which means | : ‘4 ” i | that they are not going to pay $1.50 | Genced. ‘ ps Seige A | a month to see “Clown Prince” Mur- |M. W. A. will be reorganized and| Jt is Wall Street’s excuse for the |made bigger and better than ever. | continued use of the police and the courts against the miners whenever | they deem it necessary and is in- |tended to create a “government |agency” for this very purpose. Tt will allow the oppressors of the | working class, in this instance the |mine owners, to serve notice, through this agency, that strikes will not be tolerated and that violation of this |notice will be equivalent to treason to the government. It means that no matter what the operator pays the miner for wages or what conditions of work he im- By Fred Ellis, | | }does it deny employment to union | men and this, the miners know, | means “open shop.” However, the thing is that Mur-)| |ray did not make any radio speeches for Herbert Hoover and conse- |cuently Hoover is under no obliga- |lion to find him a job. He did, how- | ever, campaign for Al Smith, and | thus helped to keep the workers | divided, and for this he can expect the aid of Lewis who, as a member cf the coal commission, will see to lit that he is permitted to solicit alms |from the miners in the form of dues. |It means that someone must pretend |to be the stalwart leader of the U. M, W. A. and thus have a reason for \collecting dues with which to pay | | salaries. Pay for Slavery. In shoxt, the miners are asked to |pay for the privilege of slaving un- bilge | While the thing. that prompts this new invasion of the sold-out" mine \fields by Lewis’ men appears to be | \their need for funds, it is much | |ceeper than that. True, the large army of officials and organizers, not to mention the many hangers-on, cost a tidy sum to keep up and can enly be continued at the’ sufferance and expense of the men who dig coal, yet this is the case only for outward appearances. It must be understood, however, ray elevated to czardom as a means of their own further ensiavement. | Besides, they ask, “Why didn’t |Murray save the miners’ union dur- ling the strike if he is going to be | able to re-establish it so easily,” and |that is the Intch. The plot begins to stink and Wall-| Street shows its face in Washing- ton, D. C., where its faithful poli- ticians, aided by their faithful tool, | John L. Lewis, are maneuvering to poses, the downtrodden miner is}. te * supposed to accept it as a manifes- jie OVENS control, nae ie eer of good citizenship on we “To hell with you, Murray, we are \building our own union so that we The Watson-Parker bill is, in sub- }can fight for the things that we stance, a “mine-slave bill” and the |want and which we need so badly. |miners will fight against it regard-| “We are building the new, mili- liess of the consequences. It is|tant and class-conscious National Ne collaboration” and company | Miners Union, to take its rightful |place in the everyday struggles of \all who work in the mines. This new snion will be our weapon and our instrument of expression in the in- cvitable clash of the forces engaged Political Reward. And when, as the politicians and the Lewis fakers promise, the Wat- [that without the aid of those who | Put over the Watson-Parker coal lare to be victimized, this “deeper | Something” cannot be put over as easily as it can with it. Besides it The Watson-Parker bill is a Wall | will cost the operators more of their | Street-coal-operator-Lewis scheme own profits to finance the move if to gather more profits for the op- they show their own faces more in | crators. the scheme. Hence, this first at- It in keeping with the ration- tempt to get the miners to pay dues jalization and trustification plan of is bill. | Watson-Parker Bill? | coal commission is created, |great change of leadership of the U. M. W. A. will take place, Lewis will be appointed to the coal commission and not to the post of secretary of labor, as predicted, jand the “Clown Prince,” Philip Mur- son-Parker bill is passed and the | this | in the class struggle and with which we will do away with the abomin- able capitalist system of which you land Lewis and all of your kind are a part. “The miners will not pay dues to you for the privilege of scabbing, land that is all you can offer them. lvay, will begin to do his stuff. It | They refuse to join your Wall Street _Anique.and_ culture to the U. M. W. A. by means of open soliciting by the organizers. To back up the story that the U. (Red Aid Press Service) | BERLIN, (By Mail).—A letter |from proletarian political prisoners | in the prison in Drohobyoz (Western | Ukrainia, Poland) has been received | by the International Red Aid. The | letter follows: | “To the Toiling Masses of All Countries! “OQur:prison has the official name | of ‘Institute for Punishment.’ The political prisoners,. whose sentences run over 4 years, were transported here a few months ago. Altogether there are 39 comrades here. All are organized into a Commune. Besides the Commune there'are a few com- rades who are treated as criminal prisoners and are sentenced-to long ‘terms, as, for instance, one’ for tak- ling part in an unemployed demon- stration, one on account of the kill- ing of a spy, another because of desertion from the white’ Polish army and going over to the Red Army of the Soviet Union. (At first he was sentenced to death but, later the sentence was changed’ to 10 years hard labor.) : Iron Cages. “The prison consists of a few buildings in which as many as 1,500 prisoners can be accommodated. Judging from its construction, it is the latest expression of the tech- of the ‘Austrian tit |finance capital. | It is the “speed-up system” inten- | ' sified. Commune; Ap’ | Iron. Cages; No Vii is frankly admitted that the Watson- | company union, the ‘Amalgamated Parker bill does not provide for em- | Association of Operators and Union Fakers,’ formerly the U. M. W. A.” ployment of union labor, neither ner. Always and continually are we jready for resistance. For a much longer period we cannot stand this |tremendous nerve-racking experi- ‘ence, without completely ruining our peal to Toilers | health, | tors; Organize Into | kingdom. Besides a few hundred | single cells there are also some gen- | off with iron bars so that a narrow |corridor results, to both sides of | which are built small cages, in which the prisoners are locked one by one baric prison conditions which it has inherited from the Hapsburg mon- archy. Separation into these small homo-sexuality in the Polish prisons. “In order to ward off the atten- tion in Poland and Europe from this barbaric method, the Polish social- democrats have assumed the rele of fig-leaves, with which to cover up these refined conditions ruling in the 20th century in Poland. With this purpose in view, the social-demo- crat deputy Posner, who wears a pseudo “no mask” (the workers of Poland should examine him closely to determine if he is really without a mask) pu:tished an article in the “Robotnik,” official organ of the Polish Socialist Party, under the “One Day After Leaving the eral cells, The latter are partitioned | Prisons,” in which this capitalist] “We appeal to the whole working lackey states: “Today there is no | class to join us in our fight, for our country in Europe which locks its' worth as revolutionary vanguard prisoners in iron cages.” For the| fighters of the Polish proletariat. In every night. That is the way we! are treated. In this way the fas-| | working masses of Poland this ir |turther proof of how brazenly the social traitors mislead and betray them. No Visitors. spite of the fact that for some months a few of our comrades have been sick, we will not retreat before a struggle and allow ourselves to be seared away either by suppression cist regime makes use of the bar-| cells is based on the practice of| or terror. With unshattered hope we watch the progress of the work- ing class and look into the future and wait impatiently for the day of the adyance of the Communist revolution.” ae “Polish fascism does not content | | itself only with that in order to ter-| rorize us by keeping us like wild beasts in these cages, but it makes | it impossible for us to speak in al | human way with our relatives who! jcome to visit us, so that for many | | weeks we have been without visitors. Letters which we receive from home are not given to us so that we are without news’ of our families. Be- sides that they practise such a series of chicaneries that we are continu- ally annoyed and irritated, as for example: every day before we go to sleep we must carry our clothes out: into the. corridor, a, few times ‘@ day we must answer roll call. Dur- |mented by the guards and at the slightest occasion we are rebuked in the worst and most severe man- ing our walking period we are tor-/ Thirty-Six Lithuanian Communists Are Faced With Death Sentences BERLIN, (By Mail).—According to a report from Kovno, the trial of 36 Lithuanian Communists was fixed to commence before a court martial there on Jan. 4. The accused are charged with at- tempted high treason and the police | if | allege that arms were found in the possession of the arrested men, i é } Copyright, 1929, by Internation Publishers Co., Inc. HAYWOOD'S BOOK Deportations from Telluride; Troops Ignore Injunction; Victory After 15 Months of Battling In previous parts Haywood told of his boyhood among the Mor- mons of Utah in the early days; of his years as cowboy and miner in Nevada and Idaho; his initial work as trade union official and rise to the head of the Western Federation of Miners; the carly strikes in the Coeur @Alenes and in Colorado; the problem of making the Colorado eight-hour day law effective by direct action on the Job. —Now go on reading. All rights resecved. Republica- tion forbidden except by permission. * * By WILLIAM D. HAYWOOD. PART XXXIII, NE evening a literary entertainment was being held at the unfon ha’ when a detachment of soldiers marched into the hall and read th martial law proclamation. That night, General Engley and J. C. Wi liams were deported with thirty-one men to the town of Ridgewa) Among them was Guy Miller, then president of Tellurdei Miners’ Unior When they arrived in Ridgeway they were lined up on the sidewalk and told that they had been taken out of San Miguel county because they were not wanted there. A peculiar thing about many of the men who were deported was that they would not stay deported, but returned to Telluride to be run out again, When Williams came to headquarters in Denver, he told us how Joe Barnes had had himself shipped back to Telluride in a barrel. Williams told us about the deportations. “At eight o’clock Captain Scholes came with a bunch of soldiers to get us. They took us to the court house, lined us up to march to the station, It was bitter cold, and a lot of th men were worried leaving their families like that without any one t Jook after them. I saw one of the wives coming along nearly at a rur carrying a little kid and crying as she came. She tried to fall in lin with us beside her husband, but one of the dirty yellow-legs shoved he pack on the sidewalk. We got down to the depot and they herded u onto the train, and just before we pulled out I saw the same woman 0 the platform, all in with hurrying, and her face twisted up with misery She climbed on to the train. She couldn’t afford to get left behinc She looked too sick to look after the baby, let alone work. They were mad clear through, being forced to leave their house and families like that. They had lived there for years, and here the were being kicked out, ‘not wanted,’ by a punch that thought it cwne the town. A lot of them made up their minds to go back on the nex train they could get.” * * * * Williams told us that the union had demanded of County Attorne Howe that the gambling joints should be closed during the strike. The knew that the miners would blow in a lot of their money, and the knew the union would be stronger if the money was in the men’s pocket instead of in the pockets of the gamblers. A. H. Floaten, manager of the cooverative store in Telluride, wa with another batch of deportees. He came to Denver. ‘When he ar peared at the office, his clothes were torn and the front of his shir was covered with blood. He told me that soldiers and gunmen ha broken into his house one night when he was undressing for bed, the they dragged him out half dressed with his shoes in his hand. He ha a gash an inch long on one side of his head, where he had been struc by a gun in the hands of Walter Kinley. “Why don’t you change your shirt?” I asked him. “Well, I want people to see what happened to me.” “Every. one will believe you just as well with a clean shirt on,” told him. * * * From the time ofthe deportations following the declaration of ma) tial law, on January third, nothing of special interest occurred unt the first of March, when thirty-four men were arrested on charge vagrancy. Twenty-seven of them were fined $25.00 and costs and give until two o’clock the next day to pay their fines, leave the county, « go to work. Sixteen went to work on the sewers of the city. One « the men, Harry Maki, a Finn, refused to work. He was handcuffe to a telephone pole and left standing in the cold for many hours. Lat« he was kept in the county jail for thirty-six hours without food. .We had sent Attorney Edmund H. Richardson from Denver 1 Telluride after they had deported Engley, to help Murphy in the leg: work. He didn’t have as high an opinion of the law when he returne although he had secured a reversal of the decision in the vagrancy case He said the miners had eleven hundred and forty-eight dollars in cas in their pockets between them when he brought them into court, ar beside this they had the union back of them, The prisoners were di charged. Richardson’s front teeth were loose. Walter Kinley, the gu: man, had assaulted him when he was leaving the courtroom, in reveng for his sevete cross-examination, Our attorney, John Murphy, applied to District Judge Stephens fc an injunction to protect the miners returning home from the membe) of the Citizens’ Alliance. It was granted, but the military officers pa’ no attention to the order of the court. Murphy said it was a remarkab court order that was delivered by Judge Stephens the day he decide to adjourn the May term of court on account of the contempt of t! Citizens’ Alliance and the military who had invaded the district. Tr judge said: “It would simply be a farce to attempt to enforce the civ Jaw in this country.” On August twenty-first a gang of mine-managers and gunmen Ic by John Herron, manager of the Tomboy mine, rode over the range / the Black Bear mine, a cooperative claim that was being worked by group of Finns. The invaders rolled rocks against the shaft hou: until the men inside rushed out. They were lined up by Herron an his men and driven over the range. Some of these managers were tt same men whom I had met jin Attorney Murphy’s office in Denver n much more than a year before. Then they had seemed amenable 1 reason. Now they were a mob of desperadoes, doing the dirty work ¢ the Citizens’ Alliance. Shortly afterward the militia was recalled and the settlement ¢ the strike followed, In the latter part of November the mines poste notices that the eight-hour day would be put into effect on the fir: of December, with a scale of wages identical with that demanded *by tt union fifteen months previously. The scale included the cooks, baker waitresses and dishwashers. During the long period of this strike only seventeen members « the union had deserted, of the many hundreds of members in Sa Juan District. After the settlement of the strike, the Citizens’ Allian continued to keep in their employ gunmen such as Runnels, Meidiu and Kinley. These continued to threaten and intimidate the mine: and they drove many men out of the district, telling them that any 01 who spoke against Governor Peabody could not remain in San Migu county. ° * * In the next instalment Haywood writes of the W. F. M. conven tion of 1902; how Victor Berger belittled the great battles of th: Colorado miners as “border. feuds”; of Haywood's plans, never real ized, of the union entering the mining business; his later understand ing of this as a mistaken policy for a labor union; the W. F. M fights the Pinkerton Detective Agency hired by the open shop meta mill owners of Colorado City. ;