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

DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, MONDAY, MARCH 11, 1929 Published by the National Worker Publishing Ass Daily, E ROBERT MINOR WM. F, DUNNE ... ION RATES: w York only): $4.50 six months three months (outside of New York): six months nths B sy Mail 56.00 a Addres: checks to The I 8 nion Arvo Vaara, Communist Editor, Class War Prisoner By WILLIAM MORLARITY. The Yea! Y erier on Feb: tention in Sudk f the col brought e crowded court . And then, a of seeking tc ing home to the inter- ested workers that though ancient and wor 1 ita Justice that silence must prev alty of imprisonment. One was subsequently en whisper to his companion and was pr. ordered to be put outside by judge. with! Arvo V Vapaus, w libel. He found guilty a trial which ed all day, was imposed of six months’ impri- sonment, with a fine of one thous- and dollars additional, non-payment of which would mean further im- prisonment for two years, commenc- ing with the expiration of the six months’ prison term. The jury was out for nearly three hours before they brought down a decision. There were none of the high spots in the trial which were a feature of the preliminary hearing. No de- fiance of the judge, or threats of commitment for deliberate contempt of court unl we record a display of testiness when his lordship ruled out a question by defense lawyer Roebuck, directed at A. T. Hill. witness must not persist in his wer, when I have ruled the question improper, or. he will have to be placed in custody.” Roebuck Asks for Particulars. A. W. Roebuck early called for a motion of dismissal of his client. He objected to the form and sub- room * though ° . error in stating The law is not to be trifled |! “jin the case 1 his pocket; which brought the from the bench of a commit- The Crown rested its case the s submitted. R seeking to ha torney McKes: first, ordered to proceed. Crown would have tke las The retired and claimed the judge had be: his instructions that Vaara was responsible. Judge Wright insisted that this had been in the evidence and it was ry to recall the ck, At- k address the jury Crown The e twelve good men and true re- red three hours, less five min- to bring in their verdict of This finding w a blow to the |} of the workers interested | ep. It was confidently ex-| pected that after being out so long,| a disagreement at least would have| resulted. The judge discharged the! jury and addressed himself to Com- rade Vaara. “Your crime is of a most unusual character.” He was exceedingly glad that it was so. Vaara had come to this country to become a citizen, not to write like this to stir things up. It was a peculiarly heartless piece of writing. “You do not deserve the slightest i consideration, The sentence will be| (Editor, Labor Defender.) six months imprisonment, with a| The United States government, at fine of one thousand dollars addi-|the present time, is conducting a tional. In default of the payment] wide-spread campaign for further of the fine an additional two years | restriction of immigration. The 70th must be served, commencing from|Session of congress has now ad- pei By KARL REEVE UP WITH THE UNION Purpose of Restrictive Immigration Move Big Bosses to Protect the Capitalist System of Exploitation the time of the expiration of the journed, and one of its last acts|¥S hope we shall always have about) you know that there are 66 foreigh sentence of six months.” was to refuse a senate vote on a/US that natural safeguard. I do not|language newspaper publications in Comrade Vaara listened to the Tesolution to postpone from July 1,|™ea" that all evils can be traced to|the city of New York alone? tirade from the bench quitely and|1929 to July 1, 1930, the day when | left the prisoner’s box with the same|the “National Origins” method of calmness as he had entered it. The|determining immigration quotas races different from*those of the parent stock, I do mean they are bringing different customs and Attacks Y. W. C. L. “Do you know that we have in this country an organization call- defense is strong for an appeal,|Would go into effect. In refusing to| ideals and endeavoring ‘to implant|ing itself the American Young Roebuck declares that McKessock’s |postpone this method whereby the | them within our body politic. Neither} Workers (Communist) League and stance of the indictment. “The heir apparent is a private citizen,” said the defense; “it is not sedition to refer to the Prince of Wales.” Roe- buck desired that the objectionable| parts of the charge be located. The judge, overruling the motion, a plea of “not guilty” was entered. Comrade Hill Gets in Wrong. | Of the whole string of witnesses subpoenaed by the Crown, only a few were called. Saarimaki, vice-| consul for Finland, testified that} the translation was a good one. A significant question was that of the} + Crown asking was Vapaus “sent to Creighton Mine? International Nickel has a mine there.” J. V, Ahl-) quist, president, and A. T. Hill, sec-| retary of the Finnish Organization| of Canada, had been brought from Toronto by the Crown. The chartér of the Finnish Organization was) examined. There was no share capi- tal issued: for Vapaus. None con-! cerned made a cent out of the oper. ations of the paper or its plant. Th ‘charter was filed as an exhibit by the defense, although Judge Wright ruled it was not to be acceptable as evidence. A resolution of the Finnish Or- ganization convention was produced by Hill on question by the defense. |the class struggle, which stood for | University last month in stating the| crack to the jury about the defense quotas are based on the population not placing Vaara in the witness|@% it was in 1790, the senate was} box is a violation of a prisoner's |Cdified by a speech of Senator Reed, | “rights.” |who said that the basis which has/| |do I believe in race prejudice or in|that it is teaching small children \the superiority of one race over|distegard and hatred of our form another, but I hold that as a ma- jority of, our people believe in our ef government?” The stand of the government to- The reply of some of the Sudbury |NOw been changed, that it, the 1g90 | form of government, our social law,|whrd the race question is also very comrades to this class war convic-|e"Sus basis, 5 | tion has already been made. Before |¢f revolutionary days and is wholly | noon of the day following the sen-| unfair to us born in America,” and | tence, a collection sheet with but 22| out of this need had come the Na-{ names recorded, has a total of $51,-|tional Origins clause of 1790. 75. Comrades throughout the coun-| In its propaganda for further re-| try must show that same spirit as|striction of immigration and for a the local workers. x | tightening up of the deportation It is not possible for all to get laws; propaganda accompanying the the atmosphere of the court room. | bills now before congress which have | The sleek, satisfied judge; the ner- either been passed or are being fa- vous and anxious crown, attorney; |vorably discussed by government of-| the Finnish vice-consul; the host of |ficials, the real purpose of the fur- crown witnesses, including the ubi-|ther restriction of immigration is quitous Rey, Jones, all marshalled | revealed. Of course the intentions | in the interests‘of reaction and class|0f the government are not openly | justice. While the victory may be a revealed in the newspapers, but the hollow one, we cannot afford to/admission is made in speeches before leave the matter stand. The strug- capitalists as to the real reason for gle must go on until Comrade Vaara|the attack on the foreign-born} is released. * workers. | Officially, Vaara is in prison for| More Restriction. sediitous libel. Actually, it is be-| ‘This is clearly seen in a speech by cause he was senior editor of ajthe “Honorable”: Rose Carl White, workingclass paper which preached |assistant secretary of labor, at Yale the organization of the workers in official position of the government. | the metal mines and other industries.|She makes a plea for a far greater} Our answer must be a more deter-| restriction of immigration, for the our forefathers, then we have not only a right, but a duty to fight for the maintenance of same. We must be cautious as to the quality and quantity of immigrants whom we permit to enter. Restrictive im- migration is now the established policy of our government and it was fixed none too soon.” “Undesirable Reds.” Speaking of the necessity to de- port all “undesirable aliens,” this agent of U. S. imperialism declares: | “It is important to our welfare that this problem be solved, The offi- cials of the Department of Labor have for the past several years, ad- vocated the 1egistration or enroll- mens of all aliens as the only prac- tical esolvtion of the problem con- fronting us. But the alien groups in this country are almost a unit against the enactment of such a law. They say it is czarist in char- acter and will amount to police es- pionage. Such a fear is groundless. It would be a protection to the hon- est, law-abiding alien, and at the |same time, it would enable our gov- It was here that the judge inter- vened and ruled the matter out. The witness, not understanding clearly the procedure, took the resolution 4 By ELSIE PULTOR. The bureaucratic officials of the American Federation of Labor do not care to organize the working women. The United Textile Work- ers, 21 A. F. of L. union, has been in New Bedford for thirty years and , the A. F. T. O. over ten years. Dur- ing all this time they never tried to organize the women workers, The reactionary misleaders of labor find all kinds of excuses: that women are backward, they are unskilled, they are foreigners and they are not militant. Women Workers Militant. The facts prove the contrary. As soon as a real militant, fighting union came into the field, hundreds ‘of women immediately joined it. * The women of New Bedford he- came builders and militant fighters for the Netional Textile Workers Union, Women marched the picket lines “every morning and night, many with babies in their arms. Women were clubbed and thrown into jail. Some of them were arrested more than a dozen times. But the brutality of _ the police could not scare them. In Epite of police terror women be- came militant picket line leaders and regular participators at mass meetings. Many of them joined the Communist Party. Join Militant Organizations. _ Hundreds of women joined the union. Women joined the I. L. D. me an important factor in defense funds and _ bail Hundreds of textile work- wives joined the -Women’s of the union. reactionary labor bureaucrats, a 4 mined effort to carry through to a successful conclusion the program of the militant section of the work- |ing class. Working Women Active | in the New Bedford Strike together with the yellow “social- ists,” could not break the organiza- \tion, in spite of all their efforts to do so. The men and women stood \firm in their organization, The workers had learned their les- son. After Batty and Binns sold out the strike, workers became con- scious of the terrible exploitation into which they had been betrayed. The women are the worst sufferers from this exploitation. They have gone through much, discrimination, | prejudice, bad conditions, wage cuts and long hours. Now they are toil- ing for starvation wages, piece-work under the intolerable speed-up sys- tem, the most murderous health- breaking: methods of work. Fight Imperialist War. The women who are militant fight- ers in every struggle can and must be organized. The working women \are slaving their lives away for the | bosses. Meanwhile the bourgeois women’s organizations in Washing- ton and elsewhere are helping to prepare the coming imperialist war, to draw in the working women for the support of the war. Millions of workers will be drafted, to give their lives for the interests of the imper- ialist state, to secure new world markets, which means more profits for the boss and more exploitation for the working class. Women will be forced into giving their husbands, brothers and sons to be murdered for the capitalist system, and be drawn into the production of guns and powder in. ammunition factories. But women must fight imperialist wars. Our slogan must be, “Not a man, not a penny—down with im- perialist waral registration and finger-printing of foreign-born workers and for other |measures against the foreign-born. | Why does she make this plea? Let us hear her own words, “We have the ever present problem of ridding the country of the undesirable alien. . . Many of our people forget’ that this country was settled, the land reclaimed, and that our form of gov- \ernment, educational system and so- {cial laws were established while our | people remained a homogeneous peo- |ple. Granted they were immigrants, |but keep in mind they were immi- |grants with the same racial back- \ground. The attacks upon our es- \tablished customs, ideals and ethics, |came in the main after the influx of different races. By this I do’ not mean that our forefathers did not disagree—they did, and at times vio- lently—but not for the destruction of government because it is govern- ment, but for the sake of safeguard- ing liberties and for better govern- ment. The parlor pink, the ultra- radical, the Bolshevik, the Commu- nist, were products of foreign soil and for years were confined to for- eign soil.” Attack on Rebels. _ The essence of this speech, which is the statement of the official pol- iey of the United States government, is that the foreign-born is undesir- able because he is in favor of a new system of society and that the gov- ernment must restrict immigration \further and attack the foreign-born workers because this is necessary to protect and perpetuate the capital- ist system. That there may be no nfisunder- standing of the position of the United States government, let us quote further: “Natural though these theories may be in the coun-. tries whence these immigrants come, they have no reason for being in America, On the contrary, because they are hostile to our principles and national philosophy, we owe it as a duty to our country to keep them out. We are too prosperous and contented to listen to the wild social theories of other lands. Let ernment to locate and deport the undesirable aliens, the anarchist, the Red, the criminal, the immoral, and the mentally deficient now in our midst. Among these, there are thousands who must be regarded as moral lepers, for they, have come here for ¢.!1 purposes, they are de- structivists, and thousands of them are playing their nefarious game within our gates planning and la- boring for the destruction of other governments, and hoping, ultimate- ly, to destroy this great republic of ours. The need for’an enrollment Jaw is immediate.” Now comes the crashing finale. We arg confronted with a number of oratorical questions which are in- tended to strike fear and horror into our hearts and to make us burn with hate against the aliens, “who are of a mental standard wholly be- low the one decreed by our law. Do ‘ignored the sentiment | Customs and ideals, established by|illumineting. We are made to feel, in ‘his speech, that every immi- grant belongs to another race, that this country of ours is the cham- pion of the white race and that those within this country belonging |to other races are not Americans. The 12 million Negroes, the hun- dreds and thousands of Mexicans, Japanese and Chinese, etc., are not considered Americans. Those who |have a legal status, we are led to believe, are solely native white Americans, and these 12 million Ne- groes, to all practical purposes, do not exist before the law. For ex- ample, we are told by the assistant secretary of labor that restriction of immigration became necessary because of the great influx of+im- | migrants. Our country “was fast becoming heterogenous in charac- ter, that is, made up of different races. This brought racial ques- tions to the fore. And as one writer has said, “we are beginning to realize that racial factors lie be- hind most of the world problems of today.” This lackey of imperialism then goes into an analysis of the “racial problem” and tells us that the mixture of races does the white American harm because “certain mixtures tend to upset standards, in- crease lower types and thus even- tually compromise national futures.” . Depert Negroes. If we follow out this line of the a move soon for the deportation of the 12 million Negroes of this coun- try, as we are told by this govern- ment spokesman that the native born white American is the highest type, and all other races are a lower ty ,e. This is a revelation of the rea- sons why the government is at- tempting to further restrict immi- gration and to deport foreign born workers. It is just at this time when American imperialism is en- gaged: in a fierce struggle with \English* imperialism on the world . ‘Class Conciousness” By ROSE BARON. I met her at a meeting of the Women’s Union. Amongst a gath- ering of five hundred women I had noticed her leaning against a wall, a baby in her arms and three more children sitting near her. She was listening attentively to all the speeches, seeming to breathe in every word uttered. At the question, “Who wants to become a member of tha Women’s Union?” she was the first to volun- teer and when the meeting ended and the hall began to empty she still lingered, afraid that she would per- haps miss some further discussion. An Aim in Life. A few months later I attended a celebration given for the Daily Worker. Walking thru the hall I came face to face with the same woman. She recognized me immedi- ately and greeted me very cordially, “Well,” I asked, “how do you feel amongst us?” “My entire life is changed,” she answered. “A new world has un- folded before me, full of hope for a better future for my children and myself. Here is my daughter.” (Pointing to a young girl of about fifteen.) “She and my older boy joined the Young Workers League. Our home is full of interest. The children sing revolutionary songs, read, discuss and attcnd nieetings. Before, we were forsaken in our pov- erty. My husband’s earnings are barely enough for bread but”—and her eyes glowed with militant pride, “now we have an AIM in life!” Awakened! She is one of the awakened mass of women who understand the needs of their class. To her and to the working women of the world, on this International Women’s Day I send my warmest revolutionary greetings. The day will come when such devotion of time and energy as they display in the building up of the labor movement will result in freedom for the masses of workers the world over from the yoke of capi- talist oppression, government, we may expect to have | By Fred Ellis market, when a new world war is the ptospect for the immediate fu- ture, that*the government is inten- fying» its attack on the working s of this country. The govern- ment fears that the foreign born ‘workers, who have behind them a \history of revolutionary struggle, who are class conscious and who are opposed to the capitalist sys- tem of exploitation, will play an in- creasing role in the American class’ struggle. The government is attacking the | Negro workers and the workers of other races than the white for the same reason that it attacks the for- Jeign born. The 12 million Negro| | workers of this country are the most | | exploited of any section of the work- ing class, and are discriminated against socially, politically and economically. The imperialist gov- ernment uses this discrimination against the Negro as one means of exploitation of the entire American working class. The government} spreads fake stories of the “lower| standards” of other races than the white and’ attempts in all ways to divide the Negro, the foreign born and the white worker. This vicious lying propaganda against the Negro | worker must be fought. The Work- | ers (Communist) Party demands | political, social and economic equal- ity for the Negroes, and exposes such vicious falsehoods and such imperialist attacks, Would Split Workers. The government is at the present | time attacking the entire working class by attempting to split and di- |vide its ranks. The Negro is set joff against the white worker. The |foreign born worker is degraded | and placed in a separate category | apart from the native born worker. | |The government is tightening its lines and preparing in case of war | |to attempt to split up the working class, and to get rid of one of its |most militant and class conscious and epxerienced sections, the foreign born workers, by the methods of restriction and deportation. This is a blow aimed at the en- tire working class. This attack on |the foreign born worker, which is directly connected up with the in- creased war preparations which can be observed in many phases of gov- ernment activity, must be answered | not only by the foreign born work- ers, but by the entire working class. | We must not allow one of the most | oppressed and one of the most im- portant sections of the working class to be attacked without a strong and militant answer on the part of the entire working class. The for- eign born workers are experienced in revolutionary struggles, The for- eign born workers are found in the basic industries in large numbers. The foreign born workers are dis- criminated against by the employ- ers and by the government. They receive lower wages for the same work, and are given the hardest and dirtiest work to perform. ' We see from the above quotations that the Negroes and the foreign born workers are two sections of the working class which are most exploited in the United States. We must present a united working class front against these attacks on the most oppressed sections of the American working class, We must answer this attack not only by or- ganized protest but by uniting the entire working class under the ban- ner of the Workers (Communist) Party in the struggle for the over- throw of the entire system and for the establishment of a socialist state. The exploitation of the working class and the discrimina- tion against the foreign born and Negro workers in this country will not cease until imperialism is over- thrown by the workers under the leadership of the Workers (Commu- rist) Turty, and until a Workers’ and Farmers’ Government is created in this country. el; Copyright, 1929, by Internationat Publishers Co., Inc BILL HAYWOOD’S BOOK All rights reserved. Republica- tion forbidden except by permission. ''The First Convention of the I.W.W. in Chicago, June, 1905; Haywood’s Speech to the Convention In previous chapters Haywood told of his carly life in the Old West as miner, cowboy and homesteader; of his activity in the West- crn Federation of Miners; his election to head of the union; its strug- gles in Idaho and Colorad6; of the conference at Chicago in January, 1905 that called the first convention of the IL.W.W. Now go on reading. Ce a By WILLIAM D. HAYWOOD. PART 56. bts twelfth convention of the W.F.M., in 1905, was in Salt Lake City. In spite of the many strikes and the tremendous expense in- volved, it was the finest convention that we ever had held. There had been an increase of three thousand members during the previous year. There were delegates from the new camps in Nevada -Tonopah, Goldfield, Rhyolite and Bullfrog. Albert Ryan was a delegate from Arizona; the W. F. M. elected him to the first I. W. W. convention. Later he got mixed up in a shooting scrape and killed two gunmen who had been strikebreakers, and was sent- enced to life imprisonment in San Quentin, Cali- fornia, where he served fifteen years before he was pardoned! The other delegates to the June convention myself. The W. F, M. had adopted the Manifesto and myself. The W. F. M. had adopetd the Manifesto and instructed us to install the Federation in the new organization. * FTER we returned to Denver from Salt Lake, it was only a matter of a few days until we went to Chicago for the first convention of what was to be the Industrial Workers of the World. Buand’s Hall on June 27, 1905, was packed with spectators an dover two hundred delegates. Many of the delegates had come up on the platform, among them two old veterans, Mother Jones, the only woman who had taken part in the initial conference, and Gene Debs, As I exchanged ‘greet- ings with them, I turned over in my mind how I should open the con- vention. I recalled that during the French Commune the workers had addressed each other as “fellow citizens,” but here there were many workers who were not citizens of the country, so that would not do. I didn’t want to use the old trade union form, “brothers and sisters,” so, picking up a piece of board that lay on the platform and using it for a gavel, I opened the convention with “fellow workers:” * * * * * N calling this convention to order I do so with a sense of the respon- sibility that rests upon me and rests upon every delegate that is here. This is the Continental Congress of the working class. We are | here to confederate the workers of this country into a working class movement that shall have for its purpose the emancipation of the work- ing class from the’slave bondage of capitalism. There is no orga ization, or there seems to be no labor organization, that has for its purpose the same objet as that for which you are called together to- day. The aims and objects of this organization shall be to put the working class in possession of production and distribution, without re- gard to capitalist masters. The American Federation of Labor, which presumes to be the labor movement of this country, is not a workingclass movement. It does not represent the working class. There are organizations that are affili- ated, but loosely affiliated, with the A, F. of L. which in their constitu- tion and by-laws prohibit the initiation of, or conferring the obligation on, a colored man; that prohibit the conferring of the obligation on foreigners. What we want to establish at this time is a labor organiza- tion that will open wide its doors to every man that earns his Tivelihood either by his brain or his muscle. There is a great work to be accom- plished at this convention, and every one of you must recognize the responsibility that rests upon you. +e HEN the corporations and the capitalists understand that you are organized for the express purpose of placing the supervision of in- dustry in the hands of those who do the work, you are going to be subjected to every indignity and cruelty that their minds can invent. You are also going to be confronted with the so-called labor leader, the man who will tell you and other workers that the interests of the capitalist and the workingman are identical. I want to say that a man who makes that assertion is a worse foe to the working class than is D., M. Parry or August Belmont. There is not a man who has an ounce of honesty in his make-up but recognizes the fact that there is a continuous struggle between the two classes, and this organization will be formed, based and founded on the class struggle, having in view no compromise and no surrender, and but one subject and one purpose, and that is to bring the workers of this country into the possession of the full value of the product of their toil. * * * * * CS were read from many foreign countries; Pouget of the Confederation of Labor of France, Carl Legien of the Ger- man labor movement, and the secretaries of other countries had written, wishing success to the convention. There were letters from many in the United States. Ed Boyce sent his excuses for not attending, and there was a letter from Vincent St. John, later to become one of the leaders of the new organization, who signed his letter with an assumed name. The convention was composed of several groups, the Western Federation of Miners being the dominant factor. Moyer, O’Neill and myself, with the other delegates that represented the W.F.M. as well as the individual miners and smelter men, were acting under the instruc- tjons of previous conventions and came to Chicago with clear-cut ideas as to the necessity of an industrial union of the working class. The American Labor Union delegates were as definite in their purpose, though they had not had the same active experience in the strikes of the West as had the delegates of the W.F.M. * Ee socialists who were in the convention with Debs realized that industrial unionism was the foundation of the socialist movement. None of the politicians of the socialist party. such as Berger, Hillquit, Spargo or Hayes, took part. ° The Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, DeLeon’s organization, might be described as a sect which came to the convention not on account of its activity among’ the working class, but because of having read and absorbed the Manifesto that called the convention, while the few anarchists present felt that the organization was a rejuvenation of the early days of the labor movement. There were, besides these, metal workers and railroad workers representing small bodies which had been disillusioned by the A. F. of L, and the Railroad Brotherhoods. The individual’ delegates were people who were actively interested in industrial unionism. About 300,000 workers were represented at this first convention. I ‘was elected permanent chairman, * oe In the next instalment Haywood writes more of the first I.W.W. convention; of Debs and DeLeon and himself and their ideas of what the unions should be. Readers should not neglect the chance to get Haywood’s book free in bound: volume with each yearly subscription, renewal on eatansion sont ta My Rsily Worker.