The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 15, 1929, Page 6

SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Mail (in New York only): 3 $4.50 six months three months ail (outside of New York): $6.00 a year 50 six months $2.00 three months Published by the Worker Publist Address and mail all Daily Worker Square, Yor! checks to Union Y. Workers! Show Your Colors! : its drive to raise the money necessary to pay 1s, Without the payment of which it would Continui pressing obligatio: cease publication, the Daily Worker has or- Days in New York City for this Saturday 15 and 16. be compelled to ganized the and Sunday, Februz d to car The workers of New York y the drive over the top and place the fighting organ of the American workingclass in a position where it will be able to carry on its work for the emancipa- are expect tion of our class. day drive, “Show Your Color s the spirit of the It express is not an accidental choic s of workers throughout the world. strug In New York, fifteen thousand dr hip of the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union are putting up a valiant fight for union conditions, and gainst the betrayers of the yellow socialist scab company the concerted efforts of Schles- ses to intimidate them into accept- They are showing their color! smakers under the lead They are fightir the police, the be nce of the sweat-shop. ions. i wn ] ile workers, under guidance of ’ Union, are continuing their the brutal police who y murdered Johnny nds of workers fight- They too are show- In New England, the tex the National Textile Worker valiant fight against the mill barons during the Fall River strike vicious Madeiros and brutally clubbed the tho’ ing for better conditions in the industry. ing their color! The National Miners’ Union, continuing the fight of the miners all over the country, is combatting the labor bétrayers, the Greens, Wolls, Lewises, and their henchmen. It is con- tinuing its struggle with the coal and iron police, the company gangsters, and the thugs hired by the betrayers of the work- ingelass and the reactionary American Federation of Labor. ‘These workers are showing their color! In prisons throughout the United States, workers who committed the “crime” of fighting for their class are in- carcerated, brutally treated, beaten, starved, intimidated. But they never lose sight of the cause in which they partici- pated, and which sent them to prison. They defy the brutality and viciousness of the prison authorities even while they are being clubbed. They remember the cause of the workingclass, they never forget, and in the face of their brutal treatment they stick by their class. They show their cevlor! The Daily Worker, as the only English speaking daily organ of the workers of the United States, organized and un- organized, Negro and white, and all races, is in the forefront of every struggle of the workers of the United States. It is the banner and the inspiration behind these struggles; it is the voice to which the workers engaged in these struggles ‘ook for guidance. Inside the prisons and outside, the Daily Worker carries on the campaign to force the capitalist class to free these prisoners of the class-war. It asks no quarters, and unlike the petty-bourgeois, reformist, socialist papers, faces the issues squarely. It does not ask for mercy, for clemency. It puts the issues involved on a square, Leninist basis. It demands the freedom of the class-war victims. And now, when this Daily Worker, the only voice of the American workers is threatened with extinction, when the Daily Worker itself, which has fought in so many struggles in the past, fights for its own life, it is the duty of every revolutionary, class-conscious worker to make that fight his own. The Daily Worker is your voice, you must remember. You must remember what the Daily Worker means to you, what the Daily Worker stands for. You too, workers, must show your color! You too must show that you realize the importance of our fighting organ in this period when the imperialist governments of the world are preparing for war, preparing for an attack upon the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, the Socialist Fatherland of the international working class. You must show that you are ready to do anything to keep the Daily Worker alive, fighting your battles, voicing your struggle against the bosses, the gunmen, the betrayers. Mobilize for the Tag Days this Saturday and Sunday! Make these two days a rallying point in the career of your fighting organ! Strip for action on these two days, and let your clarion call be: “SHOW YOUR COLOR!” a Dangerous Thoughts In the Carpenters Union Frank Kempf, a lesser bureaucrat of the Hutcheson machine writes The Carpenter, journal of the United Brother- hood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, to exult over his success in preventing the membership of Local 298 from hearing the side of the progressive carpenters expelled by the U. B. C. J. of A. Lakeland Convention, recently held. He says: “A motion was made and unanimously carried that we tear up the communication (from Rosen) without reading it! And as it happened that I am recording secretary of our local it gave me keen pleasure to comply with this motion. Drastic measures? No. Just merely self-preservation.” We know all about those unanimous motions, motions passed with Hutcheson’s ukase of disciplinary measures against any who sympathize openly with the progressives. But what fury, what fear, that the membership might find out something about the case! “Self-preservation!” for Kempf. This shows again, farther down in Kempf’s letter, when he warns all members of the union never to listen to anything the progressives say, for fear they will be convinced. “Oratory is one of the chief weapons which the Com- munist wses. Brothers! beware the glib tongue of this ody of Trade Educational Leaguers!” _ This is the voice of a man who knows his cause is weak. se he wishes to keep in ignorance, will find a way to learn, we ave ready to help ther { Me DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, FRIDAY, ——— Mexicans in the United States By ALBERT WEISBORD. (7 is the first of a series of five articles on Mexico by Al- bert Weisbord, who has just re- turned from Mey City, where he went as a delegate from thi T. U. E. L. of the United States to the Unity Conference of W ers and Peasants. The secon ticle, to be published tom will dea! with political conditions in Mexico and its relations te U. S. imperialism.) iS One travelling through the mid- south and Texas on the way to Mex- ico must be impressed with one out- standing fact—the tremendous mis- ery of the masses. As the train whizzes by one can see the shacks, one room, one window, clap-trap boards, unpainted, open toilets, home of pig and chicken, where those who toil from morn to night must live. I was shocked oy the siuiilarity of these cunditions to those of the peas- ants of Poland. They lookcd lixe the same kind of shacks, only here was even more terribly severe exploita- tion. I began to see more clearly than before that truly there was a sort of inner imperialism in the (United States, where the agrarian masses of the mid-south had already been driven down practically to the level of the European peasarr. I am sure that no one knowing this part of the mid-south can claim that condi- tions are better in “this part of American than in Europe. tremendous faci ha: ed at all by the Party. Have we not always taken for granted the fact that the agrarian toilers were better off in America than in |Evrope? Let us turn our spotlight on this part of the country, Texas, | Mississippi, Alabama, ete., and there will be revealed conditions that will act as an electric shock to the whole labor movement and to} the Party, showing to the Party | more clearly than before the basic conditions of the masses and the tasks and opportunities before it. In this connection it should be said that a great deal of material was missed during the last Mississippi | flood. Our Party did something to |expose the conditions, but what a wealth of material could have been revealed! tion? To anyone who scoffs at this, not been} AGAINST THE NEW JUGGERNAUT: BOMBAY, 1929 But the Juggernaut will be destroyed by the Revolution! 3,000,000 Slaves in South; Most Exploited Own Unions ———— By Fred Ellis | | | | | | | the initiative of the traitors, immigration to U. S. from + Mexico has stopped. The “friend- ? ship” of the Mexicans to the U. S. means that the Mexican consuls have become the direct accomplices |of U. S. imperialism in its new and A. F, of L.| And I would ask him further, “What do you know about the south any- way?” The more one sees of the real situation the more one realizes that our Party has done so little in the South, so little smon_ the agrar- ian toilers, so little among the Ne- groes, so little among the most ex- ploited of all! It is in the South that most of the 3,000,000 Mexicans in the United | States live. These Mexicans live! imperialist force is concentrated in'their forces along the border. The, pie Creek at a conference of District Union Number 1, where i even worse than the whites. In all America, with the exception of the Negroes, one cannot find a section | of the population more exploited. rn .,,_|further persecution of the Mexican greasers” as they are. Their fierce within the U. S. Many Mexicans rebellious spirit has broken out are being deported. ‘The A. F. of L. again. They are a potential force js carrying on a bitter war against to be feared in the mid-south and|the Mexicans. In many cities a/ southwest. “Mexican Commission” of a fascist Highly Strategic. bourgeois character is being created | One of the best ways of attack-|to handle the “Mexican Problem.” | ing Wall Street is through the mo-| All the reactionary Mexican poli- bilization of the colonial, semi-col-|ticians and priests, especially those onial and anti-imperialist masses. In | expelled from Mexico for their re-| America the most powerful anti-|actionary policies, are concentrating just those industries most necessary | American politicians and the Amer- for U. S. imperialism (oil, railway,| ican and Mexican papers aid them metal, mines, agriculture, etc.) It|in every way in disintegrating the is this fact that makes the winning |Yanks of the Mexican workers and Copyright, 1929, by Internationai Publishers Co., Inc. BILL HAYWOOD’S BOOK Haywood in an Arbitration Conference; MacNeil, a Hard-boiled Manager; Making a Strike Spread All rights reserved. Republica- tion forbidden except by permission. Haywood has written previously of his boyhood among the Mor- mons; as miner and cowboy in the old wild west; his early years as union man in the Western Federation of Miners; the rise to its o standing leader; the W. F. M, battles for miners and mining-mill- men. in Colorado; he is now telling the vivid story of the strike and martial law at Colorado City, with Governor Peabody actively sup- porting the mill managers. Now go on reading. Pity Toe By WILLIAM D. HAYWOOD. PART XXXVII. hee governor could no longer maintain his pretense that there was nothing to arbitrate. Public sentiment became so strong that he was forced to use his office in bringing together both parties in the controversy. The governor called a meeting of the mill managers and the representatives of the W.F.M. at his office on March fourteenth. W.F.M. was represented by Presi- dent Moyer and myself, with John Murphy. The at- mosphere was heavy with antagonism. There was not a man there who was not bitterly opposed to the W.F.M. MacNeil was a dapper little man, the quin- tessence of the capitalist class, one who had never in his life spoken to a workingman except to give orders. He had the air of having been dragged in by the hair of the head to a meeting to which he was opposed before it started. Fullerton of the Telluride mill was of the same type, but younger and more pliable. Peck was a man of some experience who struck me as having at one time been a worker; with him we had little difficulty in coming to an agreement. The conference lasted from two o'clock Saturday afternoon until three Sunday morning, at which time we had come to terms with Peck and Fullerton. They agreed to the eight- hour day, no discrimination against union-men, reinstatement of the strikers, and that they would meet a committee of the union to dis- cuss a scale of wages. MacNeil assumed a stubborn attitude, forcing himself out of the conference with the Portland and Telluride man- agers, but at the request of the governor he agreed to meet us the following day. We met MacNeil at the appointed time, but he refused to say that he would reinstate the strikers, or that he would meet a committee of the union on a question of wages, or that he would comply with the eight-hour law. Six men had come to an agreement. The governor had told us that he would withdraw the militia at once. One wretched little autocrat was able to strangle our efforts, and his stubbornness was responsible for the strike that followed. He could not have withstood the pressure alone. What powerful backing was pushing him on? The corporations? The church? The Citizens’ Al- liance? He must have come to that conference with definite instruc- tions, By March seventeenth the militia had not yet been withdrawn. We issued a statement of our efforts to arbitrate to the unions and the press. * RIPPLE CREEK District Union-Number 1 had been in closest con- nection with the strike at Colorado City, and knew all about ihe efforts that were being made in Denver with MacNeil and the sett! ments with the Telluride and Portland mills. Moyer had been in C * * been decided to call out the men working in mines furnishing cre to the Standard mill. This decision was not put into execution until four o’clock on the afternoon of March seventeenth, as a committee of business men asked to be given time to talk to MacNeil, to try to Three million Mexicans in the Uni-| of the Mexican masses in the U. S.|in organizing counter-revolutionary| persuade him to accept the terms of settlement. The business me. ted States, but how many in our Party? Yet these Mexican toilers| have a tremendous role to play. | In the first place, in the South| and West they are concentrated in| most important industries, such as) oil, mines, railway, metal, and com-} pose the bulk of the agricultural! workers. The organization of the un-| organized of these industries especi- ally in this region must take in} above all these Mexican masses.| They are ready. to organize, The A. F. of L. officialdom has ruled them out of its unions, and fights hard to prevent them from being organized. Have Formed Own Unions. In spite of that they have formed unions of their own and almost 1,000 | of them subscribe to El Machete, the organ of the Communist Party/| tn Mexico. Unseen and neglected by the revolutionary movement, betray- ed by the reactionary labor bureau- crats, yet the Mexicans in the south-| ern part of the U. S., rightfully) trusting no one, have gone ahead} |undaunted, in spite of their tremen-| dous handicaps. The revolutionary | vement in the U. S. has a huge sin to wipe out. The mobilization of \these masses must become one of }our most important tasks. | Especially must this be so when} |we see that the Mexicans are po- |tentially and directly the greatest, | single anti-imperialist force in the | U.S. Every blow given Latin Amer- lest hatred to the “gringoes.” They | T say to him, go down yourself and | have a double hatred, doubly ex-| ning to realize the menace 3,000,000 try to live under such conditions. | pressed as workers, and despised as| Mexicans means to its power. Upon) of the highest strategic importance | bodies. for our Party. We owe this to our-| Simultaneously with the increased selves and to the movement in oppression and terror against the Latin America. | Mexicans in the U. S., the Mexican | Further it is not beyond the! government promises land to those | realms of possibility that U. Ss. | who return to Mexico driven out troops will invade Mexico in a short | of the U. S. But the land is never time. Should the revolutionary |fortheoming and hundreds of fam- movement in Mexico advance much| ilies are now on the border in Mex- further than it is advancing today,|ico absolutely destitute, whom the,; intervention is a surety. If in New Mexican government has helped the York City we will pass resolutions| U- S. government to despoil. against such intervention, the great) Against this new persecution the mass of Mexicans concentrated along | Mexican masses are beginning to the border will be 1eady to earry | Strike back both against U. S. im- } out those resolutions, Border work, | perialism and its agent the Mexican | frontier work, must occupy the at-| government. tention of our Party far more than before. And for this work the win- ning of the Mexican toilers is of pesameunt importance. 3 Young Workers in Finally I shall vent fi ‘Cleveland Jailed for, inal shal vi ure ur-| © : : thes fienlaato tile zreat importance Distributing Leaflets of the Mexican worker in the U. S.| Ce ee to us, and that is his relationship! CLEVELAND, (By Mail)—Three with the Negro. I would like to| Young workers, members of the} throw out the thought that the Mex-| Young Workers (Communist) | ican worker can help win the Negro | League, were arrested here for dis- masses far more easily than the/ttibuting leaflets exposing the con- white. The deep prejudices that ex-| ditions in the L. A. Young Spring ist between white and black, does 27d Wire Company. They are not exist between the oppressed | Charged with “deceptive advertising” Mexican and Negro masses. They and have received summons to ap-| are bound together economically and | Pear in court for violation of a city | even socially. There is no reason Ordinance. | why the closest revolutionary alli-| Those arrested are Phil Bart, dis-| ance could not be made between Mex-| trict organizer of the League, Leo | ican and Negro. The Mexican there- Orsag and Svante Kalistaja, They | fore becomes a vital link in the chain | ae being defended by the Interna- | Can anyone maintain that masses iea by U. S. imperialism reacts im- of solidarity, binding the entire tional Labor Defense. Leo Orsag! 2 undergoing such terrible oppression mediately and directly on these Mex- American proletarian and agrarian| Was arrested a few days ago for| district by the executive heads of the Western Federation of Miners. are not objectively ready for revolu-|icans. They bear with them the deep- toilers together. distributing the same leaflets, a| part of a campaign to organize the | workers of the plant. At a second distribution to protest the arrest, | the other two workers were arrested. | American imperialism is begin- * Workers to Fight U. S. Imperialism Signing Solidarity Pact of revolutionary workers of the United States with the revolutionary work- crs of Mexico, at the recent National Conference of Workers and Peasants in Mexico City. Weisbord, (center) on behalf of the Trade Union Educational League (of ‘the U. S.), and Juana Diaz, a Mexican woman representative (right) are photographed while signing the pact uniting the loilers of both countries in the struggle against U. S. imperialism. The Young Workers League declares that it will not he intimidated by| jthe police and will continue to or-| ganize the workers in the plant. NO SCHOOLING FOR POOR. HARRISBURG, Pa., (By Mail) Employment certificate reports sub- | mitted to the department of public instruction by the various school dis- | tricts of Pennsylvania show that during last year 27,260 minors be- tween 14 and 16 were forced to ‘leave school by poverty and to seek > work, POLICE FIGHT GYPSIES. | GAMBACH, Germany, (By Mail). _—Special police recruited from the surrounding territory are hounding ‘down about a hundred gypsies who _were forced by starvation and the ‘extreme cold here to break into houses for warmth and shelter. OPEN NEW U.S.S.R. RAILWAY. TASHKENTI, U.S.S.R., (By Mail) ~—The opening of service on the northern section of the Turkestan- Siberian Railway was inaugurated on Dec. 15. Freight transportation has been established between Semi- palatinsk and Sergyopol, a distance of 887 kilometers, Albert failed, and the ultimatum of District Union Number 1 went into effect. On the same day the governor withdrew the troops from Colorado City. Governor Peabody sent a commission to Manager MacNeil at Col- sorado City, and to this MacNeil promised to comply with the eight- hour law and to adjust wages according to the terms of the other mills. While this was not the settlement we had demanded, District Number 1 determined to declare an armistice until May eighteenth, to give MacNeil opportunity to live up to the terms of his agreement with the governor’s commission. When the news of this armistice reached the public of the Cripple Creek district there was a general jubilation and the mines began breaking ore to supply the plants of the United States Reduction and Refining Company. But MacNeil seemed to have forgotten that he had ever made any promises to the commission. The minimum wage for outside work was two dollars, and for inside work two sixty-five, at the Telluride and Portland mills, but MacNeil continued to pay only one seventy-five a day. District Union Number 1 took up the case again with MacNeil. They sent committees and had conferences, trying to induce him to pay the same wages as the other mills. MacNeil admitted that one dollar and seventy-five cents a day was not enough for any man to bring up a family on, but he positively refused to grant the request of the union * ‘HE Mill and Smeltermen’s Union of Colorado City was a part of Cripple Creek District Union Number 1, The miners of the Dis- trict Union saw the necessity of helping the mill workers, whose fight was also theirs, and this call was issued: All members of the Western Federation of Miners and all em- ployees in and about the mines of the Cripple Creek district are hereby requested not to report for work Monday morning, August tenth, 1903, except on property shipping ore to the Economic mill, the Dorcas mill at Florence, and the Cyanide mills of the district. By the twelfth, as rapidly as the committee could issue the order, the mines were closed down, * * * IN the fourteenth, the Mine Owners’ Association issued the following statement: Avgeneral strike has been called on the mines of the Cripple Creek * At the time this strike was called, and, in fact, ever since the settle- ment of the labor difficulties in 1894, the most entire harmony and goodwill had prevailed between the employers and the employed ,in this district. Wages and hours of labor have been satisfactory and accord- ing to union standards, and general labor conditions have been all that could be wished, Notwithstanding this, the heads of the Western Federation of Miners have seen fit to compel the cessation of all labor in the district, not because of any grievance of their own against the Cripple Creek operators, but for reasons entirely beyond our control. A no more ar- bitrary and unjustifiable action mars the annals of organized Jabor, and we denounce it as an outrage against both employers and the employed. The fact that there are no grievances to adjust and no. unsatisfac- tory conditions to remedy, leaves the mine operators but one alter - tive, and that alternative they propose to adopt fearlessly. As fast *° men can be secured, our mining operations will be resumed, uncsz former conditions, preference being given to former employees, and ak men applying for work will be protected to the last degree. In this effort to restore the happy conditions which have existed so long, we ask and confidently count on the cooperation and support of all our former employees who do not approve the methods adopted, as . oy as of the business men of the district who are equal sufferers with us, In the resumption of operations, preference will be given to former employees, as before stated, and those desiring to resume their old posi- tions are requested to furnish their names to their respective mines at an early date. j This article was signed by about thirty managers of mine proper- ties, and also by C. C. Hamlin and A. E. Carlton, a banker who later became chairman of the Citizens’ Alliance, * * In the next instalment Haywood writes of his strike speech at Colorado City; of the W. F. M. convention in 1903; the explosion at Idaho Springs, Colorado—and what followed. 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