The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 27, 1929, Page 4

_ Four DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1929 Profits First, ‘Safety Last in 2 Detroit Pressed Steel Products Co., Correspondent Say FALLING CHUNKS BACK BROKEN, BRAIN FOGGY, AFTER DAY OF SLAVERY AT FORD BELT BRIGCS AUTO OF WOOD BRING DEATH MENACE Operate Cranes With- out Warning Bells (By a Worker Correspondent) DETROIT (By Mail)—With the (By «a Worker Correspondent) CH R, Pa. (By Mail)—Mr, Mitchell of the Ford plant boasts he is employing 4,600 men, He is fill- ing two ships full of automobile parts every day to take to every corner of the globe. He has as- sembled 60,000 automobiles here since they opened up in March last year, He is aiming at 90,000 for next year. “Chester has marvelous possi li- |ties” he told a group of real estate| poor whites coming up from Mary-| feel. men. on Ch Marvelous possibilities—for speed- up by 33 per cent of the terrible belt. As it is now there is no time to do anything but hammer, bolt, duck-hammer, bolt, duck, Think? Not with the belt moving—always keeping on moving—quick, quick. Mr. Mitchell did not tell of laying off 500 men as the whim takes him. | He did not tell of the thousands of “The eyes of the world are land, from Delaware, from “down} home” glutting the city’s labor mar- kets. He did not tell of hundreds of | men quitting daily, unable to stand the gaff. He says, “If you think I work my men hard, come and look through the plant.” What can you tell by walk- ing through a plant, whether men are working hard or not?” You can’t tell how eight hours of rushing along the belt makes a man| Eight hours, with twenty min- utes off for lunch. Some of the |men who work there don’t walk right home after work. They sit down jand take a few minutes rest, “I don’t want my men to work| harder than I do myself” Mr. Mit- chell said. His desk don’t move all day long, nor must he get so much! His | | work done every few minutes. | back don’t hurt, his brain don't get foggy with the monotony of eight long, crazy hours. He don’t tell of the big majority of the 4,600 men who make just enough to keep from starving—who have to send their wives out to work |to make enough for the family. He’s big-hearted—generous. And if Henry Ford or Mr. Mitchell are so humanitarian, why don’t they put up a roof—a wooden shelter for the hundreds of men looking for work every morning. There they stand shivering, in rain, in snow, day 1 in day out, waiting to be hired. The turnover’s terrific. There’s always | somebody else ready to take the job. | A little thing like a few dollars/ to build a shack where the men could be protected from the winter might mean a little. Henry Ford |don’t think of that, even. It isn’t | efficient. Production! Production! Men? Millions of them out there| peeping between the gates—-wait- ing to get hired. -~-FORD SLAVE, object of increasing the output as well as their present exorbitant profits, many new alterations are being made at the plant of the De troit Pressed Steel Products Co Included among the alterations arr the addition of two big factory build ings entirely embracing the old wooden structures which have for many years housed the steel press production lines. During the course af erection of these new departments, work went r the frail roofs of gs, the flimsy co ing barely able to resist the impac’ of the numerous falling rivets, apart from the badly slung girders which occasionally crashed upon the mouldy and worm-eaten rafters. The new buildings finally finished, the wreck- ing of the old wooden structures was begun, but even then it was not thought necessary in the interests of safety to remove the workmen to other departments. Safety? No, Profits. Safety? Hell, the work must go on. The entire roofing was removed | while the punchpress operators, half | blinded by falling dust, were in con- stant danger of being seriously in-| jured by splinters and nails which | showered around them. One Negro worker narrowly escaped death from a huge chunk of wood which fell onto the machine he was working on. Among the many other labor sav- ing devices, both departments will | be equipped with ten-ton overhead cranes, and the men in the shop are afraid the cranes will be operated | without the warning bell the same as | the other cranes in the shop. A total disregard for the safety of the men is not the only dirty deal dispensed by this outfit. The toilets are in such an unsanitary | condition that optical aid is not re-| quired to locate their presence, Starvation Wages. In spite of the dangerous and | hard work, wages are at starvation | level. stantly quitting and new ones are stroyed that great movement by sur- |riched our experience with being put in their places. One Negro worker supporting a | ¢racy when the decisive moment of | supplement the above characteriza- sick wife received a lousy $35.60 for | the struggle came. two weeks work. A Polish worker, | also married, received. $37.25 in the| sion to describe the role of these | all times—sometimes they stand and | same period. Another Negro worker, | supporting his mother, wife and two children, ovisbic acae $36.75. MORE CASH FOR BOOZE HUNTING. in the House WASHINGTON, Feb. 26.—House | administration leaders today forced | thru the second deficiency appro- priation bill, carrying $2,988,144 for. prohibition enforcement instead of $24,000,000 as advocated by the democrats. The additional appro priation had been opposed by Secre- tary of the Treasury Mellon, charged with enforcement, but said to be a} big whiskey manufacturer himself. The measure, carrying appropria- tions of $194,500,000, was sent to the senate without a record vote. A test ballot on a motion to send it back to committee so as to include| the $24,000,000 resulted 145 for and | 239 against the extra dry funds. Altho less money than was orig-| inally voted will be available to hunt | down the members of the bootleg) trust, small violators will be faced with heavier penalties, and forced to| pay correspondingly heavily for pro- | tection, thru contemplated action by the house. The Jones bill, which would pro- vide maximum penalties of five years imprisonment and $10,000 fine for prohibition violators, was reported favorably by the House Judiciary Committee today. Chairman Graham, republican, Pennsylvania, announced the com- mittee had instructed him to have the measure brought up in the House this week. NEGRO WORKER KILLED. NATCHITOCHES, La., (By Mail) —Charles Williams, 80-year-old Ne- gro odd-job worker, was killed when | struck by a railroad train. “ One Dies and Many Are Seriously Injured in Bus Fire One man died and four passengers are dying as a result of the five on this bus bound from Boston to New York. are not properly examined and t The bus burst into flamés near Westerly, R, I. The con aken care of. mpany used worn-out busses which The New “Progressives” American Federation of Labor (This is the concluding portion of Comrade Browder’s article, the first and second sections of which were published in the Daily yes- terday and the previous day.) * * * By EARL BROWDER, | The Background of the Progressives The “new” progressives are new only in their dress. They have a long history in American labor. Many of them participated in the great| Left wing campaigns in 1922-1923 for amalgamation and a labor party, | which gained the support of two mil- | lion organized workers. And it was | As a result, men are con-| precisely these progressives who de- | |than four years ago, we have en- polling. They 3 They Sine ae not pay any price for it. In fact, they become as indignant at a suggestion of risking anything in a fight, as they do at a suggestion that they are not genuine progressives, But sadly it must be recorded that these timid progressives are not progressives at all. Always, when | they come up squarely against a situation that calls for decision and action, the only real test of pro- gressivism, they halt, waver, and | run away - Their progres- sivism is a fake.” | Since the above was written, more these | | | has stood staunchly for amalga- | mostly echoes of the official pro- $2,988,144 Bill Passed | rendering to the A. F. of L. bureau- | ‘ “progressives.” Today we must |tion. No longer do these “progres- At that time the writer had occa- | Sives” halt, waver, and run away at} “progressives” in an article in “The | fight with a bitterness, relentless- | Labor Herald” (later included in the SS, unscrupulousness, and disre- | pamphlet, “Class Struggle vs. Class | 87d for consequences, which can be | Collaboration”). The description of |matched only by examples from {them and their role then written is Modern military warfare. Such so apt and timely today, that it jus-| times are when they are fighting ber several quotations: We then {against the Communists and the Left wing! yf would be hardly worth while New Unions and the Progressives. to give special attention to Labor | Characteristic of the present} Age, the arguments of which are period is the fact that the process jof radi lization of the workers has | reached such a point, and on the} other hand, the amalgamation with the capitalist state of the old trade} union officialdom has gone so far, | mation. Now he has swallowed that the struggles of the masses | the collaboration bait, but is busy burst through the limits of the old} trying to reconcile it with a ‘mil- (“trade union legality” and is now itant program’ . Corruption is finding a new channel in the forma- paganda, but for the article there- in by E. J. Lever. Brother Lever is a progressive who, in the past, in the ‘RANK AND FILE SEAMEN BARRED | Furuseth “& Co. Meets Behind Closed Doors (By a Worker Correspondent) During the convention of the In- | ternational Seamen’s Union conclud in Washington, I tried to get in as ja member of the union in good standing. were not allowed and the door was |slammed in my face. I did not have any false hopes |before going to Washington. I this example of bureaucracy. The delegation was composed of | officials, some of whom have been which we love even as all its other citizens . . . We ask only a chance to cooperate with you un- der wise, far-sighted leadership and competent, trustworthy man- agement to bring back prosperity to the mills from which we all derive our living, whether in divi- dends or in wages.” Before the Left wing elements in| | the Trade Union Educational League | had succeeded in reorientating them- selves to the necessity for the forma- tion of new unions, this “progres-| sive” element was distributing its energies between the reactionaries | ; and the Left wing. To the extent that they entered into joint activities with us, the Left wing, however, | they contributed only confusion and! jlast 80 and 40 years. | Mest of them, including the presi- jdent, Andrew Furuseth, have never | jeeiled on a ship in their lives. | Needless to say there were no rep-| \resentatives from the forecastle at| |this convention of fakers. They showed they were determined to keep out even an observer from a ship’s forecastle, lest he should know in what manner they were preparing |to stab the seamen in the back. I jlearned that even the press was barred from this convention, The re- |porters were told by Furuseth that |tney might have a private inter- view with him. That is how these canes of the Seamen’s Union filter the news that the seamen might jread about them. I then insisted by sending a note! into the convention which was an-| |Swered by the president of the Fish-| BY UNION FAKER j}ed last week in the National Hotel | i I was told that seamen | By MICHAEL GOLD HERE are several hy John Dos Passos which was pre- the Grove St. Theatre. Firstly, this play, “Airways, Inc.,” is to my mind the most important piece of writing John Dos Passos | has done, I know that many of his friends ill disagree with my opinion. It is possible that Dos Passos will dis- agree with me, Dos Passos has written at least Soldiers” and “Manhattan Transfer.” He has won an international reputa- tion with these books. They are | masterly works, and yet I think the | therefore was not disappointed at/ play overtops them. Why? Because the play deals with the most important theme in America jon the payroll of the union for the|and the world. That theme is the | class struggle. “Manhattan Transfer” was a pic- ture of New York, It was a cross section of life, a gorgeous moving picture. It was a great piece of master-reporting, but it had one weakness in proletarian eyes—its point of view was merely that of the reporter. “Three Soldiers” had more p: sion in it. and senselessness of patriotism and war. than in “Manhattan Transfer,” yet wags that go to sea today? don’t know their jobs anyway.” To this I answered that never Lefore had the seamen made so much profits for the ship owners as today. He launched a slanderous attack tis union to mislead them. My/pur- things that | ought to be said about the play | |sented by the New Playwrights at | two classic American novels, “Three | It shows the brutality | The rebellion in it was clearer | They | against those who refuse to permit) ‘ermen’s Union of the Pacific Coast | pose in going to Washington was to coming out and telling me that An- jdrew Furuseth will see me after the ‘session. The old faker was rather | One of the greatest mistakes nervous when he met me in the lob-| which we must criticize ourselves | iby. In the tone of a bucko mate, he for in the past three years, is the/asked me, “What the hell is biting great extent to which we allowed! |you?” this to happen. It is not too much | I gave him a good description of to say, that one of the reasons|the unbearable conditions on board these “progressives” did not need |ship today, the fink hall system on before to establish themselves as|the Pacific Coast, the coming back a “buffer organization” to stem the lot the two watch system, the rotten peas of radicalization of the |grub, starvation wages and speed- paralysis. expose this company union, which is interested in whether or not the;sea- men know their jobs, and which plays the role of stool pigeon for the shipowners and the government. Today every ship’s forecastle is calling out for a new union, and the Marine Workers’ League is under- taking the task. The Marine Work- ers’ League says that only thru struggle, thru strike action, will we get decent conditions, —J, HORN. masses, was because they were suc-|up, and the misery on the beach ceeding in making use of the Left|where tens of thousands of seamen wing organizations for that purjare unemployed, and said that it was pose. These mistakes on our part all this which had prompted me to must not only be acknowledged, but pay my fare to Washington. He! |we must root out of our ranks all asked me if I was an American, to} tendencies to reconciliation with|which I answered that ship owners | such fake progressive elements, never built different mess rooms a Co whose only role is confusion andjthe different nationalities, and that sabotage. \the question of nationality is of no [interest to the seamen. I then asked him if the conven- | the only word that describes a process that transforms Brother er, militant progressive, into apologist for the poisonous col- | laboration scheme of Wm. H. tion of new unions. With this gdes a shifting of the center of activity more completely to the unskilled and semi-skilled workers. In the light of this fundamental fact, what is the role of the “new “The so-called progressives have progressive” movement of the Muste- 'Bacha Sakao Can’t | Last Month as ‘King’ of the Afghanistans LONDON, Feb. 26.—German engi. tion was taking up the question of | | organizing the ninety per cent of the seamen who are unorganized. At this question the old faker near- jly took a fit as he shouted, “What |in hell could be done with the scali- | run to cover of the official oligar- chy. They have frantically broken } away from all commitments not one hundred percent ‘official.’ Some of them have even gone Wm. J. Burns a point better in denounc- ing the Left wing . . . They are frightened of reality, the first peep at which was given them when they saw the Left wing mil- itants actually fighting for the | things the ‘progressives’ had talked for. Suddenly it was ap- parent that mmalgamation, and other mild measures of progress, could easily be achieved by those who said they were for them, pro- vided only a little fighting spirit was displayed, with a willingness to accept a leading and responsible part by the progressives. But it meant a real break, not the old platonic sham-battle, with the Gompers bureaucracy. The glimpse of reality was too much for the progressives; they ran shrieking in fear back to the maternal shelter . . . They could not bear to be taken seriously.” “There is one fundamental trouble with these progressive friends of ours—they want pro- gress only’ if they can get it for | Johnston.” | | CORN ROAST A FAILURE Mill Workers Don’t Fall for Boss Plan (By a Worker Correspondent) NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (By Mail).—In reference to your letter I will write you about the conditions in our mill. They have nine hours a day and there is no union. I am supposed to be 2 machinist helper but they make me dig ditches, put in floors and all ether kinds of work. The boss had a corn roast and by this I think he tried to make the workers forget about the long hours and low wages, and make us believe that he is kind to us, I would like to inform you that the Select Furniture Store, Inc., has made the hours of the workers one half hour longer and on the same pay. | I close with best wishes and hope jthet the National Textile Workers’ i Union will gzow big and stvong. ‘| are not radicals aiming to destroy Brookwood-Thomas group? Its role | is to check the disillusionment with | |the A. F. of L., to hold thé dissatis- | fied masses under its control, to pre- vent the growth of the new unions, to hold out renewed hopes of chang- ing the A. F. of L. into something |different from what it is, the servant of capital. Its role is to be) |the “loyal opposition” to Woll, Green | |& Co., draining off into ineffective jchannels the discontent of the mas- ses. Recall their role in recent strike struggles! Among the miners a member of this group, John Brophy, even participated in a united front with the Left wing against Lewis, in the Save-the-Union Committees, for almost two years. What was his contribution? It was to prevent |those committees from acting, to | paralyze them, even to stop all \ criticism of Lewis’ betrayal of the | strike. And when finally the break | was forced by an outraged rank |and file, and the new union was | launched, Brophy quit the movement cold and retired to teach school, Consider Alex Howat, who, while not strictly of the “Labor Age” group, is yet a typical “progressive” of the old sort. He quit the fight even before Brophy, and has now} sold his “progressive” reputation to the service of the discredited Lewis. Another member of this group, Powers Hapgood, spoke from the same platform with the official of the U. T. W., Campos, when that worthy boasted of breaking the Fall River textile workérs’ strike because it was led by the Left wing. The same group fought against the new textile workers union in New Bedford, and supported the re- actionary officials who, collaborat- | ing with the socialists, produced a) manifesto to the millowners which declared: “We workers of New Bedford neers arriving at Lahore from Ka- bul, state that acho Sakao will not last another month as self-proclaim- ed king, due to his corruption of the government and excessive banditry carried on by his force. Five British airplanes arriving at) Peshawar, India, brought with them | the whole staffs of the Italian and | French legations and some members | of the British legation. | SOVIET RUSSIA Lowest Rates The Soviet government welcomes its friends and will put all facilities at your disposal to see everything— go everywhere — form your own opinion of the greatest social experi- ment in the History of Mankind at first hand. World Tourists Inc. offer you @ choice of tours which will ex- actly fit your desires and purse, Don’t dream of going to Russia-- make it a reality! | Write immediately to | WORLD TOURISTS, Inc. 175-5th Avenue, New York, N.Y. | Tel. ALGonquin 6656 | the great industry of our city, A i SEE ecto 80 g RETURN nin RUSSIAN VISAS; STOPOVER PRIVILEGES; Sympathetic Companions. Ask your steamship agent or AMERICAN-RUSSIAN TRAVEL AGENCY, INC. (Succeeding American European Travel Bureau). Albert F. Coyle, Pres, 100 FIFTH AVENUE, N.Y.C. Chelsea 4477-5124. Mass Opening of the 6TH NATIONAL CON\ ENTION of the WORKERS (Communist) PARTY OF AMERICA Friday Eve. March 1 NEW STAR CASINO East 107th St., near Park Ave, SECOND MEMORIAL OF THE DEATH OF C. E. RUTHENBERG (July 9, 1882—March 2, 1927) First Showing of New Russian Film “RUSSIA IN 1928” Nationally Known Communist Leaders Will Speak —ADMISSION 50c Buy Your Tickets at District Office; Workers Center, or at National Office, 48 FE. 125th St. a} | revolution, “Airways,” Most Important Work of John Dos Passos H, W. L, DANA, Aca will give his sec. evening. The subject on this occa- sion will be “The Theatre Interna- | tional,” and will be given at the New School of Research. was the rebellion of a bourgeois pa- cifist, not of the proletarian. In his play, “Airways, Inc.,” John writing injects a clear Marxian note | into his social analysis. | He has a dozen characters or so, in- |dividual, but the representative of a social type, as definitely so as were the characters of Gorky or, Tchekov for Russia. | Some of our plays at the New ) Playwrights Theatre have had their |and each is not a vague, erratic jsoft, bourgeois and foggy. One can’t help such accidents when the outside pressure is so great, when even among the revolutionary work- ers one finds right wing tendencies. The orly claim to attention this theatre has is that it has not been entirely destroyed by such tenden- cies, but has battled on. Instead of swinging more and more to the right, it has been ging left. Upton Sinclair’s play this season was one symptom ef this new pol- icy. The play by Dos Passos will preve another. To my mind, it is remarkable evi- dence of the way in which Dog Pas- sos has been growing into class- |consciousness. His trip to Kussia has helped him to understand the In this play he shows jthat he understands it, He has created, for instance, a | portrait of a Jewish labor leader |who is framed up by the capitalists. |This portrait is as solid as rock—| jit has not a trace of sentimentality ond lecture in his series on the | Revolutionary Russian Drama this Dos Passos for the first time in his | |moments when the authors went | WORKERS WAL OUT ON SLA. \Slaves Begin to Re Against Bosses | (By a Worker Corresponder DETROIT, Mich, (By Mai Molders in the Briggs Mack Ay plant were getting $5.20 for 9 h: | Their wage was cut once to and then again to $3.85. Wher men on the night shift heard o; latest cut, 14 men promptly w: jout, and a half hour later all o: 75 men on the night shift follo All the men on the day shift jlowed also. The back hangers on Fords turn out 500 jobs a day which t \from 10 to 10% hours. They just 14 cents per job. The men were unorganized, thus could not present a united f |for long. Thus they were hel) jbefore the bosses. The whole dent proves the need for buil up a strong Auto Workers’ U that will make it possible for the men to stick together. It is only way to stop these wage cu ETHEL BARRYMORE TO 0) IN “THE LOVE DUEL” APRI Following the plan for a re tory season, as announced by |Shubert at the opening of the F Rarrymore Theatre, Miss Barry: appear in her next play, ‘ | Love Due,” by Lili Hatvini, on } day (Apiil ist.) This is the | which was announced to suc |“The Kingdom of God,” in w |she is appearing now. It is a I garian piece, and has already | great success in Hungary, Vii {and Berlin, The Sierra play wi!l end its o1 Saturday evening, March |Louis Calhern will have the lea ale role, and Dorothy Hall have a prominent part GYPSIES FREEZE TO DEA’ VIENNA, Feb. 26 (UP). — | bodies of 12 gypsies who were fr |to death in the recent cold w | were found in a forest near the manian village of Seaca. SILK WAGES DROP. SCRANTON, Pa., (By Mail Maximum wages in most silk 1 in the Scranton district have dro} to an average of $9 to $13 aw or fustian. It is real. It is he It is as good as anything that heen done. In other characters, Dos Pa gives us the decaying and bewild types of the lower middle class. shows how they are caught bety the cross-fires of the class war, how they waver from side to sid There are few writers of the rank in America who have a M ian basis for their work. The : is virginal. When a great w like Dos Passos turns to this of thinking, it is a phenomeno: |social importance. It shows a |tide setting in, and thus it was ognized by the literary critic: Soviet Russia. Let us be as cl leyed and recognize it here. ‘Thentre Guild Productions EUGENE O'NEILI’S DYNAMO MARTIN BECK THEA. 45th W. of 8th Are. tke ite Aad Mats., Thurs. & Sat. SIL-VARA’S COMEDY CAPRICE GUILD tH, Wings Over Eun By Robert Nichols and Maurice Browne ALVIN THEATRE 52nd Ww. of erga ar: Eves. Mat: .& Sat EUGENE Strange Interlude John GOLDEN. Pe 58th B' wa: EVENINGS ONLY AT 330 We CAMEO sic 4OW Germany's Side of the Great ¥ “BEHIND TH GERMAN LINES Actually Photographed on Battlefields Most Remarkable Official Wart “Sp 7 ARTHUR HOPKINS — HOPKINS presents Horiba) Comedy Hit by PHILIP BAR) PLYMOUTH 4 ‘Thea. W. 45 St. Ev. | ‘hurs. & Sat. Chanin’s ESTIC The 44th St, West of Broadway Eves, 8:30; Mats: Wed. & Sat. The Greatest and Funniest I ‘Pleasure Bour fIVIC REPERTORY 145 60c; $1 00: $1.50, Mats. Gone t EVA LE GALLIENNE, Direct: ‘The proletarian movement in the nelf-connecl lependent movement of the immense majority—Karl Marx (Communist Manifesto). To All Labor and Fraternal Organizations, Workers Party Sections and Affiliated Organizations! 3CHEDULE A PERFORMANCE AT [Aewey s, Inc. JOHN DOS PASSOS PLAY OF A GREAT MILL STRIKE t ” Make | sii for the Daily Trades Si Call Paxton or Napoli at WATKINS 0588 for Arrangements. rrr} “Im AIRWAYS, INC. John Dos Passos attacks boldly the major problem bong our Age and our America—namely, Sy class war, of. the leam werkers awakening to -New Playwrights Theatre, 133 W. 14th St., New York City Today Mat. “The Cherry Orcha Tonight, “Katerina,” Thurs. Ev Ma from Alfa and “On High Road. ONCE OF— Worker and the Needle ‘This is the play,