The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 8, 1929, Page 6

Page Six SUBSCRIPTION By Mail (in New York only) $4.50 six months 1 (outside of New York): 50 six months to the Dail New York, N. Y. 2.50 three months $8.00 $6.00 a year Address and mail all chec a year 2.00 three months 28 Union Square, =: Phe “New Civil War” In the South. The strike wave in the textile mills of the South con- tinues to spread. New strikes are declared almost daily in the 100 mile strip of land, the war area, that runs along the western sections of the Carolinas, near the Blue Ridge Moun- tains. This is the scene of the “New Civil War” in the South, the war against the most modern methods of oppression im- posed upon the working class. It is clear that these strikes in the South demonstrate the beginnings of a new wave of mass struggles against ra- tionalization, the speed-up, with its accompanying worsening of conditions, lowering of wages and continuation of the long workday. In the present period the southern workers are leading textile labor in the north in the fight against ra- tionalization. The Manville-Jenckes Co., that is combatting the revolt of its 3,000 workers at Gastonia, North Carolina, also has a large mill in Rhode Island, where the workers sullenly remain at their tasks after their last defeat before the bayonets of the state militia. The developing strike struggles in the South are draw- ing into the labor movement a new and important section of the working class. entirely neglected by the American Federation of Labor. There are some local unions of the building trades in the big cities, also some organizations on the railroads. But that is all. Every attempt to organize the textile workers, the coal miners or other sections of the working class in the South, bythe A. F. of L. has only become the basis for brazen be- trayals. Here is a tremendous field, therefore, for the left wing industrial unions. The National Textile Workers’ Union, especially, is facing and taking advantage of a great op- portunity in the Carolinas. Success in the South will strengthen its efforts to organize the mill workers in the North, and really bring into existence a militant, mass or- ganization of textile workers. It is precisely in the South, where the Communist Party and the new unions have had but little foothold in the past, that. they are today finding tremendous opportunities in the extension and sharpening of the class struggle. The Open Letter of the Communist International to the Sixth Congress of our Party reviewed these prospects very clearly. It is pointed out that “the development of productive forces on the basis of the technical transformation and of the new forms of organization of labor, leads to increasing antagonisms between them and the limited horse markets and, consequently, to a further deepening and sharpening of the general crisis of capitalism and not a diminution or liquidation of that crisis, as the apologists of American imperalism pretend.” Recent developments in the Southern mills bear out that | tivities, however, which were direct- waymen,” which is under the in-| section of the Open Letter that says: “The fact is that the great intensification of labor arising from technical development and capitalist rationalization ex- pressed in the speeding up of the conveyor and the movement of machinery, in an extreme crowding of the working day, in a ter- rific speeding up of the workers by means of the bonus system which leads to the wearing out of the workers and their being thrown out of the factory sooner than was the case hitherto and, finally, the absolute diminution of the number of workers in some industries, which gives rise to a tremendous growth of unem- ployment, are truly becoming the central problems of the entire American working class and thus acquiring the greatest political significance.” The present Southern experience shows that “huge masses of American workers can be rallied to a struggle against the overstrain of labor and the monstrous growth of exploitation.” It is in this situation that the enthusiastic and overwhelming demand is made for the 40-hour week in place of the 60 and the 72-hour week that has hitherto pre- vailed. .The Party as a whole, on the basis of these concrete developments in the South, will better realize that “the fail- ure to understand the significance of the development of technique and capitalist rationalization entails an underesti- mation of the revolutionary perspectives and particularly an underestimation of the further prospects of the radicaliza- tion of the working class.” The first successes of the Party in leading mass con- flicts, in the mining, textile and needle trades situations, especially, are convincing indications that it will go to greater | successes in the future, if it understands and correctly in- terprets the basic features of the present situation. The ‘New Civil War” in the South indicates the rich possibilities for the rapid growth of a mass Communist Party in the United States of America. A Wall Street Broker Falls on Fifth Avenue. The make-up of the Army Day Parade in New York City on the 12th Anniversary of the World War was start- lingly revealed when one of the marchers fell in his tracks on Fifth Avenue and died soon after. He proved to be none other than J. Philip Benkard,. wealthy Wall Street broker, head of the brokerage firm of J. P. Benkard & Co., and closely connected with the great money bandits of the financial dis- trict. All the politicians were there, including Mayor Walker, U.S.Senator Wagner and Police Commissioner Whalen, con- stituting in its entirety a choice collection of labor's enemies. Major General Proctor, of the Military Order of the World War, one of the prosecutors of the Daily Worker, who ap- peared in court in an effort to send its editors to prison for anti-militarist propaganda, was also conspicuous. There was not a single worker from the factories in the whole proces- sion. These were at the counter-demonstration held by the Communist Party near the end of the line of march. The mil- itarists glory in displaying themselves on parade on Fifth Avenue, now. When war comes, however, they will direct, from their swivel chairs far in the rear, “The Great Parade” of the workers and poor farmers, massed in huge armies, into the trenches. Labor should be as absent from that capitalist parade as it was from the militarist demonstration last Saturday. Let the capitalists fall fighting alone in the trenches in war times as well as marching alone on fashion- _able Fifth Avenue, New York City, in peace time. When labor turns its guns against its class enemies then there can be no doubt of the outcome. “Getting members for the Party and “subs” for the Daily Worker is always on the order of the day for every Communist. 2 Labor in the South has been almost | «. Were willing to accept the 40-hour DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, MONDAY, APRIL 8, 1929 THE STRIKE Cuban Reign por E error Grows | By F. ] ‘HE ATTEMPTS of the revolution- ary labor movement of Cuba to| unite and weld the split and scatter- ed trade union organizations into a |single national trade union center |commenced in February, 1925. The| first congress of labor organizations | then held advocated the formation of | a National Labor Confederation of Cuba. This was effected at the con-| stitutional congress of these organ-| izations (held in August, 1925, in the town of Kamague) with a mem- | bership of over 150,000. | | From the very outset of its ac- |ed towards the unification of its en-| | tire trade union movement, to free- ing it from the influence of the reformists and the reorganization of the craft federations into more pow- | erful industrial unions, the National | Labor Confederation of Cuba met | with ‘the most ruthless terror and government persecutions. | Attacks Communists. | The reactionary government, com- | prised of big magnates, closely connected with U. S. imperialism, directed its attacks first of all upon the young but very active Commun-| ist Party of Cuba and the organ- ization of the League Against Im-| perialism. | The Communist Party, like all revolutionary labor organizations | was declared illegal. Any activities | directed against the government, or protests against the cruel persecu- tions, are punished by long terms of imprisonment. The Communist papers are closed down, their editors arrested and kept in 1 for long | periods without any trial. | The election campaign in Aus-| ltralia is going on at full swing and} ‘the Communist Party of Australia jis putting up a sharp fight in all the |states against the Nationalist Party, | the open representatives of the bour- |geoisie, and the Labor Party, the) | bourgeois party active in the ranks |of the workingcless. In the state of Queensland especially, where — the \ Australian Labor Party has been |in power continuously for the last) 14 years, the Communists are wag-} ing a strong campaign. Elections | are expected to take place there | May 17. The campaign literature of the, Communist Party, widely distrib- uted, exposes the role of the Labor Party as an ally of the capitalists. One leaflet, printed in many colors |and pasted in conspicuous places, is headed, “Workers! Capitalism has two Parties!—Fight Both!” A sub- head reads: “Parliament is of lit- | tle use—the campaign is very use- | ful.” Laborite Role Exposed. Another leaflet addressed to the | building workers shows how the labor government cooperated with the capitalists when the 40-hour week campaign was inaugurated by the Bricklayers, Builders’, Laborers, | Carpenters and Painters in January 1927, when they decided to refrain from work on Saturdays. The em- ployers replied with a lock-out and the Works Department of the Queensland Labor Government car- ried out the example of their cap- italist masters. The builders de- clared themselves to be the van- guard of the employers in the fight against the workers’ demands for shorter hours and the McCormack government of Queensland helped them out by refusing supplies of} lof the | meetings and trades councils con- OF THE FOOD WORKERS. Reformists Are Allied With Machado In Repressing Militants | spirit of | |class-collaboration will be formed.” Not satisfied with these persecu-|ization imbued with the tions against the revolutionary labor movement the government of Cuba, ra * ‘a in the person of Machada, the Pres-| 3 ident-dictator, attempts to earry | 17 TS ea TURES, ae ak out the will of U. S. imperialists and| 4, - "a tater of Cuhe to U.S. cam. to justify their confidence by form-| ;, ot te this Hel eGo Oe aR | ing yellow labor organizations. For| vy iar his is easily understood, this purpose the government utilizes|** We Dear In mind that the real the “National Federation of Rail-| ruler of Cuba is ‘the U. S. A. .One- |third of all the capital invested in the enterprises of Cuba belongs to} - i |Americans. Two of the largest) membership of 40-45,000 workers, | +7" if eenlerkesy and the smaller “Union of Electrie- | Usts, the ‘Cuba Cane Sugar Sop Sane of Havana.” cee and the General sugar 3 2 ¥ o.”, in reality direct the political Reformists Allied With Machada. land economic life of the Island. Arevallo, the leader of the Cuban) Upon their insistence the cultivation | reformists, attempted to form a/ of one of the best sorts of tobacco} Federation of Labor of Cuba, but|/of the world has been practically in view of the sharp protest by the | brought to a stop, the output of the} workers, he was forced to give up| well-known Havana cigars is con- for a time this idea, At the begin-| stantly falling, and the production| ning of 1927, in connection with the| of coffee is being cut down to a min- | presidential elections and Machado’s|imum. The foreign debt of Cuba) desire to once more occupy the post} grows year by year, and in 1927) of President, the idea of forming a|it was already more than 90 mil-| reformist trade union center was lion dollars. once more revived. As is known.| Terror Grows. Machado visited the United States} After his re-election Machado did) and conducted negotiations both|not calm down. The growth of the} with Santiago Iglecias, one of the|labor movement insistently reminds Secretaries of the Pan-American|him of the promises he made to the | Federation of Labor and his patrons} American capitalists. His idea of! American Federation of | “class collaboration,” based on the} Labor, and with the U. S. capital- | formation of a reformist labor| ists. As a result, Machado promised | center, completely subject to the re- that “no workers’ strike in Cuba will | actionaries, unchangingly meets with | last longer than 48 hours and that| the protest and resistance of th a new national trade union organ-' revolutionary workers, which forces | fluence of the reformists, and has a} Communists Put Up a Sharp Fight in Australia Expose Laborite Rule As Aid to the Bosses; Great Election Campaign week. The leaflet then lists a num-|been used by Labor’s Tammany ex- ber of resolutions passed at that! perts—one alleging that the. Com- time by various unions, workers’| munist Party is in leafwe with the Nationalist party to defeat the labor politicians in the elections. One, George Lawson, State Secre- tary of the Amalgamated Road Transport Workers’ Union, agent of imperialism, 1925 delegate to Geneva Labor Conference, recognized re- actionary and defeated senate can- didate in the last federal elections is the tool used by the politicians to put it over. Lawson read the letter during a debate at the Local Trades and Labor Council when the ques- tion of the Brisbane Group of the Communist Party’s tenancy in the Trades Hall was being discussed. The “democrats” would not allow any of the opposition speakers (Left wing and Communist) who were present as delegates from their Unions to speak in opposition to the motion to evict or reply to the lying allegation that funds were be- ing received by the Communist Party to fight the elections from our class-enemies. Naturally the evic- tion was carried—the decent dele- gates retired and refused to vote in the mecting. First Meeting. “The first meeting held by the Left-wing Labor candidates ‘was well attended—the biggest public hall in the city was taken—and be- lieve me the “grafters” have the wind-up! As a result of the success of the opening meeting of the cam- paign, we are to get a little bit of demning the role of the govern- ment, Immediate Demands. The immediate program for the workers put out by the Communist Party are: Repudiate the McCor- mick Government; oppose state in- terference in union struggles; ob- ject to the use of police against strikers; real social insurance, sick pay, unemployment pay, ,etc; a forty-hour week (thirty hours under- ground); an increased basic wage; holidays without loss of wages; better educational facilities for all workers’ children; relief from inter- est burdens for working farmers. The main demand, of course, is “Organize the working class to overthrow capitalism.” Moxon Unity to “Daily.” In a letter to the Daily Worker, H. J. Moxon, secretary of the! Queensland State Elections Cam- paign Committee of the Communist Party, elaborates further on the elections and gives some interesting news. The letter says in part: “The fight against the Australian Labor Party, which * olds office in this state, and has done so continu- ously for the past 14 years, is be- coming very bitter. The Labor leaders vie with the Nationalist (Bourgeois) party for the place of “honor” as the attackers on the ecnditions of the workers, material to those employers who A “Zinoviev” Letter. Yankee Democracy—threats are , “Already a ‘Zinoviev’ letter has coming to hand that our next meet- : Pp Sobisin 7 "oo \ s |placable terror and to struggle de- | terminedly against the real \are exiled in groups, no explanation By Fred Ellis. | Machado to introduce still more im-| labor movement. The entire labor press of Latin America is full of information as to the repressio-s and persecutions. The leader of the revolutionary rail- waymen, Varonna, was killed in the street; the secretary of the Federa- tion of Labor of Havana, Lopes, “disappeared”; likewise one of the leaders of the tobacco workers dis- appeared, etc. Law-suits are put up against the delegates of the Fourth Red Int’l of Labor Unions Congress and a whole number of active labor lead-} ers, accused of “plotting against the life of President and preparing for} a government coup.” Murder Agents. | The arrested are housed in the military prison in Cabana. There} they are subjected to the most cruel | torture and will be tried by the Mili- tary Tribunal. The foreign workers and no warning given them. Such is a description of the situation in which the Communist Party. the revolutionary labor and anti-imper- ialist organizations of Cuba, have | to work. Not satisfied with underhand as-| sassinations in the streets of Cuba) the Machado government sends} agents into the Latin’ American} countries in order to catch the revo- | lutionary leaders who have taken re- fuge there from his persecutions, The assassination of Julio Antonio Mella, a Communist of Cuba, who was killed in the streets in Mexico y by an armed agent of the Dic- tator of Cuba, is an example. jing will be broken up by thugs— |a Defence Corps is formed, . « - Christ help the thuc: The Candidates. “J. B. Miles and E. Tripp are the | ;Communist candidates that have} been selected by the Party to con-| test the Brisbane and Mundingburra (Townville, N. Q.) seats against the labor nominees, and J. M. Durkin, F, W. Paterson and C. J. Walbank are the Left-wing labor candidates so far selected to contest the Val- ley, Paddington and Kelvin Grove (all Metropolitan, Brisbane) against the Labor and Nationalist nom- inees.” Washington Iron Workers on Strike for 5-Day Week WASHINGTON, (By Mail).—Or- ganized structural iron workers here have gone cn strike for ‘a five-day week and a wage increase. Work has halted on the new Bureau of In- ternal Revenue building, and an ad- dition to the government printing office. Many private building proj- ects were also affected. Bulgar Students on | Strike Against Law SOFIA, Bulgaria, (By Mail).— Students at Sofia University de- clared a strike, and pickets were ar- rested, following ‘>> arrest of a number of students who demon- strated against a new law requiring graduates to enter state service for a year without pay. | tion forbidden except by permission, v \" was no blacklist. . » ..” Copyright, 1929, by Is u Publishers Co., Ine. BILL HAYWOOD’s BOOK The Mill Bosses Plant Dynamite But Fail in the Frame-up; Lawrence Strike Won; Ettor-Giovanitti Protest Meeting All rights rese.ved. Republica- Thus far Haywood has told of his experiences as a laborer, and how the facts of the class struggle in the Rocky Mountain region, where pitched battles with revolvers and dynamite had to be fought with scabs and company police, made him a revolutionist. He tells of leading hard-fought strikes for the Western Federation of Miners, of organizing the I. W. W., and of fighting misleaders within both organizations. He gives the history of the Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone trial, reports on his attending the International Socialist Congress in Denmark, tells of the great Lawrence strike, and in the last issue, of the counter parades there of mill owners and strikers, Now read on. re ae By WILLIAM D HAYWOOD. PART 80, HE mill owners were becoming desperate, and they resorted to the trick of planting dynamite where it would be found and charged to the strikers. But being on the alert, the workers discovered that the dynamite had been planted by the coroner of the county. This coroner, tool of the textile trust, was arrested, convicted, and fined five hundred dollars. Later a high official of the American Woolen Company committed suicide. It was rumored that he, too, had had something to do with the planted dynamite. There were many hundreds of workers arrested during the strike. The United States Commission of Labor, in his report on the strike, cites three hun- dred and fifty-five arrests, but this makes no men- tion of the many hundreds thrown into jail and held for a time, and then released without a hearing or record. A man by the name of Caruso had been ar- rested later, on the same charge as Ettor and Giovanitti. The United Textile Workers which belonged to the A. F. of L., and the Loom Fixers, most of them having no work on account of the strike, decided to go on strike themselves. They started a relief fund and sent out appeals, It has always been my opinicn that most of the money, clothes and other supplies that they gathered in were intended by the donors for the “great mass of the strikers. These skilled workers received the same proportional increase in pay, in the settlement, notwithstanding the fact that they had been scabbing during the early part of the strike, and grafting during the latter. The I.W.W. was active in every textile center that we could reach. The blaze in Lawrence had spread, and when the strike was settled two hundred and fifty thousand other textile workers received a smal increase in wages. Ge The strike committee had its last meeting after a sub-committee had gone to Boston and made a settlement with William Wood of the American Woolen Company. The report of the sub-committee was received with long cheers. The strike was off, if the settlement should prove satisfactory to the majority of the workers of all the mills involved, and there was no reason to suppose they would not be satisfied. I appealed to the. committee and the strikers that filled the hall, to hold their union together, as there would be a time when they would have to strike again, if Ettor and Giovanitti were not released from prison. I helped twenty-three members of the strike committee to climb up on the platform. They were all of different nationalities, and we sang the International in as many different tongues as were represented on the strike committee. When the strike was settled, early in March, it was a sweeping victory for the workers. Hours of labor were reduced, wages were increased from five to twenty per cent, with increased compensation for overtime, and there was to be no discrimination against any person who had taken part in the strike, The strike had been a magnificent demonstration of solidarity, and of what solidarity can do for the workers. * * * IM THOMPSON, Grover Perry, Gurley Flynn, Bill Trautmann, and other I.W.W. organizers, including myself, went on the road to rais funds for the approaching murder trial of Ettor, Giovanitti, and Caruso There was thunderous applause at the protest meeting in Coope Union in New York, on behalf of Ettor and Giovanitti. “It was the rumble of just such applause,” I said in my speech, “that gave me courage and strength when I was in the same position as the men in whose behalf we are appealing to you tonight. I feel that my life must have been preserved by you for such occasions as this, and I feel now that it is not me to whom you are giving this magnificent reception, but the principles for which I stand. Your ap- plause is but an echo of your hearts, but an echo of your own desires, and you realize that the men who are in jail in Lawrence are in jail because they are fighting your battles. I felt that when I was in jail in Boise. And I know that without the united action of the working men and women of New York City, of the state of New York, of the United States of America and of the world, instead of appealing to you here tonight on behalf of Ettor and Giovanitti, my comrades and I would have been judicially murdered by the authorities of the state of Idaho. The mine owners of Colorado had determined to bring about our death, even as these vultures of capitalism intend to make hor- rible examples of Ettor and Giovanitti. . .. “The police killed Anna LaPiza. The picket line was out that morning, 23,000 strong, an endless chain of pickets. And the police began to crowd them, crowded them up Common street, up Union street, down Broadway, until they were massed in so thick they could not move back any further. Then the policemen began“to club them. Some of the sympathizers threw coal from the windows. -The strikers themselves threw snowballs and chunks of ice at the policemen. And one of the policemen was hit with a chunk of coal or a chunk of ice on the leg. It was the sergeant. He ordered the policemen to pull out the guns. And as they did, they fired, And officer Benoit is said to have fired the shot that killed Anna LaPiza. Nineteen witnesses saw him fire the shot. Anna LaPiza died, the second martyr to the Lawrence strike. “The second day after she was killed, Joseph J. Ettor and Arturo Giovanitti were arrested for being accessories to her murder. Ettor or, Giovanitti would willingly have laid down their lives to have saved the life of Anna LaPiza. It. was they who shed tears when they learned that Anna LaPiza had been killed. They were two miles away at the time, speaking at the German meeting. Today they are in jail.” Of the management of the strike, I said: en was a wonderful strike, the most significant strike, the greatest strike that has ever been carried on in this country or any other country. Not because it was so large numerically, but because we were able to bring together so many different nationalities. And the most significant. part of that strike was that it was a democracy. The strikers handled their own affairs. There was no president of the organization who looked in and said, “Howdydo.” There were no members of an executive board. There was no one the boss could see except the strikers, The strikers had a committee of 56, representing 27 different languages. The boss would have to see all the committe to do any business with them. And immediately behind that com mittee was a substitute committee of another 56 prepared in the event of the original committee’s being arrested. Every official in touch with affairs at Lawrence had a substitute selected to take his place inthe event of being thrown in jail. “You will remember now that when the strike was declared, it was to prevent a reduction ‘of wages of 30 cents. When the strike was organized the strikers demanded the reduction of hours, a reinstates ment of the 30 cents, and a general increase of 15 per cent.’ In the course of the negotiations the adjustment was finally made on the basis ‘of five per cent for the highest paid, and 25 per cent for the lowest paid, those who needed it most, time and a quarter for over- time, readjustment of the premium system, and no discrimination against any man or woman or kid for the part that they took in the strike. You know, at the time of the great anthracite strike of 1902, John Mitchell, ‘the greatest labor leader that the world has ever known,’ said that in all great battles there are some soldiers that must fall. That is, he said, in effect, that there can be a limited blacklist established. But the Lawrence strikers, the ‘ignorant work. ers,’ said, ‘We will have no fallen soldiers, not in this battle.’ Out of their own wisdom they said there would be no blacklist. And there Bi be GS i i ee