The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 15, 1929, Page 1

THE DAILY WORKER FIGHTS For a Workers-Farmers Government To Organize the Unorganized For the 40-. Hour Week For a Labor Party Vol. VI, Ne Published daily except Sunday by The National Dail Be Asi NEW. YORK, MC ND: AY, APRIL 15, 1929 SUBSCRIPTION RATES Ontslde New York, by mail, $6.00 per year. tin New York, i mail, FINAL EDITION CITY Price 3 $ Cents MASS PICKET DEMONSTRATION TODAY IN FOOD STRIKE Mobilize’ Workers to Read “Cement” BY FEODOR GLADKOV (Famous Soviet Novelist) Adolph Wolff, the prole- tarian sculptor and director of the pageants produced in New York at International May Day and November Seventh demonstrations, has read “Cement.” He has the following to say about it: a ee AN APPRECIATION. AMERICA is still waiting for the ** great American novel. But the Soviet Union, hardly 11 years old, already produced the great viet novel. Dreiser, Lewis, Sin- ir have all made heroic efforts to attain the great American novel, but they have all failed; they have failed not because they are not at novelists, but because Amer- is not great. America is big, lwt it is not great. There are big politicians in America, big finan- cicrs, big manufacturers, big cities, lig crowds, everything is big, but nothing is great. The American nov 1 is concerned with the big in- In the Soviet Union, the of the novel is the great And “Cement” is the novel the great mass, where the in- idual is of, and for the mass, 1 those individuals that are out- anding are so as the raisins in a raisin cake are outstanding. “Cement” is et the same time the inferno and the song of ‘songs of the Soviet Union, The cold, gray cement is mixed with the hot life- blood of the Russian masses, it is riixed with their sweat and their tears. The pages of this book throb with stirring, horrifying and inspir- ing events that move along like a great pageant of revolutionary struggle, bitter and crushing, tri- vmphant and exalting. The author, like a giant master, paints frescoes of moving, howling masses, and the next moment, like a skilful surgeon, thrusts thé scalpel into the living, quivering flesh of his chatacters and probes the deep- est and most secret recesses of their being. Without resorting to flour- ishes ov artifices whatsoever, he| moulds his leading characters from | the Communist proletarian clay into titans of courage, devotion and power. What reader wiil ever for- get Gleb or Dasha, the technician Kleist cr Serge the intellectual? And the cement plant? Who will} not see in this huge group of con- crete structures fallen into ruins and disuse, then, rising phoenix- like from their ashes, the vary image of at Red Republic? More Than a Novel. In this novel, which is infinitely than a novel, one can see every I e of the birth of not only anew nation, but the birth of a new world | on before one’s very eyes— white terror, bandit 1 defense of the Soviet Union, famine front, r reconstruction, new y, fight against bu- cleansing, infantile everything is there, every- the gr reaucrac} Leftism, thing that is sordid, everything that is glorious. The odor of decay d the perfume of promise, but , stands out like a blazing sun in the early eastern sky is the in- domitable courage of the proletarian masses, their undying devotion to the cause and their conviction of ultimate triumph. Russia has her great cause and/| therefore her great novel. The same cause will impregnate America, and then only will she give | birth to the great American novel. In the meantime, read “Cement,” some of its greatness will stick. / +e # Send in the Subs! NOTE:—But we need new thou- sands of readers, to give them all | an opportunity to read this novel airect from the Soviet Union. These must be secured through the Daily Worker Subscription Drive, 133 Organizations Are | Holiday; Engdal yesterday gathered in Irving P| lay plans for the biggest May’ Day demonstration and cele- bration that New York has ever known. Proposals for the mobilization and} activization of the complete mem-| berships of these organizations were adopted unanimously in order to} make the celebration a rallying point |g in the struggles of the working class for full social, economic and volit- ical equality for the oppressed Negro race and for the defense of the So- viet Union against imperialist at- tack. In opening the conference, Ben Lifshitz, acting district organizer of District 2, Communist Party, stressed the fact that capitalism is failing in its efforts toward stabili-| zation and that the entire drift is to-| ward another imperialist world war. “Realizing this,” said Lifshitz,” viet Union. gather our forces |sharpening working class.” in the ever- struggle between the class and the capitalist ie ere International Struggles. Lifshitz declared that May Day this year will tie up not only the great national struggles of the! | American workers, but will be an} elagzient expression of the militant spirit that is characterizing the struggles of the working class in- ternationally, such as the recent strikes in Lodz and the Ruhr re- | gion and the struggles of the col-| |onial peoples against their imper-| | ialist oppressors. This international working class | holiday, said Lifshitz, will lay the basis for a more determined fight | of the workers of New York City | and workers throughout the country! |for a seven-hour day and five- day | | week in industry. Workers of New Paid City will be mobilized to lay| ‘down tools, working class children \in the schools will discard their pen-} leils and pens and working class housewives will leave their homes to gather in Union Square preparatory | to a huge parade through the work- | ing class districts of the city. The parade will continue for two hours, after which it will disband to enable} workers to gather in the evening at| the New York Coliseum, 177th St. and Tremont Ave., for the huge mass meeting, concert and demon-| stration, Engdahl Speaks. J. Louis Engdahl greeted the con-/| | ference in the name of the Commu-| nist Party and the Daily Worker, | declaring it to be one of the most inspiring tasks of the revolutionary movement in the days ahead to ize for mass demonstrations on May | Day. Engdahl reviewed the develop-| |ments since the last May Day, es-| | pecially the organization of the new trade unions, the National Miners’ Union, the Needle Trades Workers’ | Industrial Union and the National Textile Workers’ Union. He compared the eight-hour day | promise made immediately follow- |ing the war and betrayed by the | Second Socialist International and the International Trade Union Con- gress, collaborating with the League of Nations, and the seven-hour day (Continued on Page Five) Plumber Describes the Terrible Conditions in Workers’ Homes In response to the housing cam- paign now being carried on by the Daily Worker with the help of the Harlem Tenants League and to the request that workers write in about housing conditions, the following is} one of the letters we received: How is the worker housed? As a plumber for 15 years in New York City, I work every day in different houses. Most of the old houses the workers live in are not fit to live ts in the « halls breed germs, ‘here are two tenants for every toilet, no lights in the toilets, and the toilet seats are defective, Many are without toilet seats at all. There is just a toilet bowl. Always Out of Order. | The water apparatus is always out of order, and does not flush. Since there is no light, the ten- _ants have'to step in dirt, and thus carry the filth thru their homes. The floor is always wet. I werked in a house on Avenue D near 8ist Street. There are four toilets in the hall. The tenants who jlive on the first floor have to use’ | the toilets on the second floor, and those on the second have to walk up to the third floor. The house is BIG UNITED FRONT MEETING'" LAYS PLANS FOR HUGE N.Y. MAY DAY DEMONSTRATION Meeting in Coliseum Lifshitz Points Out Significance, Tasks of the Two hundred and three delegates, representing 133 labor and fraternal organizations, lal “May Day must be made the rally- | ing point for the defense of the So- | On this day we must | rouse workers everywhere to mobil-| Represented; Plan Big hl, Miller Speak or unions and workers clubs, laza, 15th St. and Irving Pl. to! WORKING WOMEN TO JOIN PICKETS. ‘Support Food Strikers, ‘Asks Communist Party Vigorous participation and. full | support to the mass picketing dem- | onstration for the striking food workers today at noon is urged in| |a statement issued by the District Women’s Department of the Com-} | munjst Party. The call appeals especially to the | militant needle trades workers who have recently been engaged in in- tense and bitter struggle. The state- ment follows: “Women workers of New York: The recent dressmakers’ struggle, supported and fought to its success- |ful conclusion by many workers of other trades, standing solidly be- |hind the militant fighting dress- |makers, by milliners, capmakers, furriers and many other workers \from every kind of industry, showed |the value of a solid class front. “First Call.” “Now the. food workers, for the splendid start to organize into the Amalgamated Foodworkers Union. |The workers in this most important industry, who can be of invaluable importance in times of the strikes jof all other workers, call on the working women and working men everywhere, especially in the most militant section of workers, the needle workers, to back them with the utmost energy and activity. |, (Continued on Page Kive) NEW C. P. NUGLEI IN BIG PLANTS Organization Drive Makes 13 New Units New Communist Party nuclei have; been established or are in process of being established in shops employ- jing over 50,000 workers. These are in airplane, munition, chemical, auto, textile, steel, railroad, ete., shops in |the New York district 2, and in the Buffalo (4) and New Haven (i5) \districts, although reports from the latter two districts are incomplete. With this inspiring start, the Build-the Party drive, which begins today and will last until June 15, | will go ahead at full steam to ac- jcomplish its tasks. The nuclei in the New York dis- trict (which covers Northern New \Jersey and Southern New York State) are in the following indus- tries and employ the following num- ber of workers: Textile mills in Pas-} saic, 6,200 workers; carpet shops, Yonkers, 6,000; elevator plant, Yonkers, 2,000; auto plant, Newark, 2,000; chemical plant, New Bruns- wick, 2,000; electrical company, New York City, 2,300; airplane and muni- tion plants in the district, 6,900; metal shops, New York City, 4,000; Textile mills in central New York State, 7,000, together with tile (150), copper (1,000) plants. Steel, Camera, Shoe Nuclei. In the Buffalo district, which covers Western New York, nuclei have been established in steel, camera and shoe plants with 16- 17,000 workers. In the New Haven district, covering Connecticut, Win- chester Arms plant nucleus is build- a shop committee, which is holding weekly factory gate meetings every Tuesday to organize a union, with an average attendance of 500 work-; ers at these meetings, At many of these plants shop papers are being issued or being first time, have gone out with a|° The striped object is the coffin of Ambassador Herrick, U. S. ambassador to France. It is being slung on board.a warshi ip, fitting carriage, to return it to America. Even a dead ambassa- dor is serviceable to whip up the war spirit and g get over some im- perialist propaganda. \HERRICK’S CORPSE JUST PUBLICITY STUNTINN.Y. oe as HARLEM TENANTS body of yion T. Herrick ahve here tonight in the city of the late ambassador’s youth, and banking in- tre TQ MEET TONIGHT Wie, * a Extraordinary efforts to con- eats vince American workers that the j late Ambassador Herrick was a House Committees to great and good man, the main bul-| wark for his country, and that the} only way to save it now he is dead is, to build a bigger army and navy and extend_the American Empire, iously did not convince any of the! hired men of the police force, or! the army and navy. As cogs in the propaganda machine of Wall Street, they did the job of honoring Her- rick, when his corpse arrived in New York City yesterday, as they would any other dirty job in the day’s work, Be Organized Negto workers liying in gated Harlem, suffefing from un- heard-of rent-raises and -evictions, | Will meet tonight, under the auspices of the Harlem Tenants League. to start an intensive campaign against these conditions. At the meeting, which will take place in the lecture room of the pub- \lic library, 103 W. 135th Street, |plans will be discussed for immediate resistance to rent raises and dis- possesses. “As has been stressed by the Daily Worker in its exposure of housing conditions in Harlem, direct tion on the part of organized ten- ants is the only course of action for the tenants to follow,” declared Richard Moore, president of the Har- lem Tenants League, to a Daily Worker reporter yesterday. “The program which has been suggested,” he continued, “and which (Cantinued on Pace Two) Arrest N.T.W. Textile Organizers at Plymouth. WILKES-BARRE, April 14.—Clarina Michelson and_ several othe Jeational Textile Union organizers were in jail at Plymouth tonight and held on $2,500 bonds each because of an attempt to crganize strikers at the Hess-Goldsmith mill in that city, it was reported here at the union offices. Details were lacking at a late hour fast night. Conflict of Tunes. To begin with, the French slung Herrick’s coffin aboard a cruiser with a winch, like so much coal. When the parade started in New York, the police band of 60 piec groaned out a ponderous funeral march: your cop is a bloody-mind- ed individual, and likes funeral marches. But the National Guard band that followed 240 mounted po- lice and led a regiment of infan- try, jazzed things up a little with (Continued on Page Five) | & British Trade Delegation Knows U. S. S. R. Possibilities. MOSCOW, April 14.—“The delegation leaves the Soviet with the certainty that realization of economic possibilities rests en- tirely with the British government,” said the newspaper Isvestia, today, and continued, “The solution of questions of further trade development now is fully dependent upon the positien the govern- ment takes on the question of resumption of normal diplomatic relations.” Marine Aviators Killed Mapping Nicaragua Canal. MANAGUA, Nicaragua, April 14.—A U. 8. marine officer and two non-commissioned officers were killed today when their plane crashed near Lake Nicaragua. They were mapping a route for the proposed Nicaraguan canal. Peru and Chile Confer on Tacna-Arica. SANTIAGO, Chile, April 14 (U.P).—A meeting ef the presi- dents of Peru and Chile in an effort to reach a final lement of the long-standing Tacna-Arica province contrel yw forecast in usually well-informed circles here today. * Switalski Premier of Poland. WARSAW, Poland, April 14 (U.P).—President Ignacy icki today signed an official decree appointing Col. Casimir Sw alski as premier to succeed Dr. Kazimierz Bartel, who resigned because of his failure to reach a working compromise with the Sejm on financial affairs. Switalski previously was minister of education. Negroes in New York Rally to Aid of Mill Strikers at Gastonia | At a meeting of the Harlem Educational Forum, an organ of the American Negro Labor Con- | gress, yesterday the strike situa- | tion in Gastonia, N. C., was dis- | cussed and a collection was taken | up for relief, as a beginning of Harlem Tenants Meet Tonight to Plan Fight on Robber-Landlords || Protests against the housing conditions in Harlem, together with the organization of a fight against these conditions and the expiration of the Emergency worked on for issuance soon. At |the Endicott-Johnson plant in Bing-| hamton a shop paper is being issued, | a shop committee has been organ-, (Continued on Page Five) (Continued on Page Two) | Rent Laws, will be leading points of interest at the meeting of the || Harlem Tenants’ League in the |] lecture hall of the Public Library a campaign among Negroes in Harlem to help the workers and an expression of tho solidarity of the Negroes with the’ Negro and white striking textile workers. at 103 W. 185th St. tonight. segre-| RELIEF SQUADS | - SCOUR COUNTRY gee, ‘Stand Solid; Will Win If Food | Comes in Time Guns in Pineville Fight Attempt to Intimidate Meets Resistance t GASTONIA, N. C. Is was spent by 14.— April Sunday the striking |textile workers here in furthering | their o: tion of relief work. | Squads of strikers are scouring the surrounding country, where the jfarmers are friendly to the strikers, jusking for small amounts of food from each. They cannot get much for the farmers themselves are poor. | The strikers are determined to stand out until real gains can be| |secured for all the textile workers jhere, Attempts were made by the |bosses yesterday to break up strik- |ers’ meetings by sending in small groups of hired agents to throw rot- ten eggs, stones and other m Ss lat the speakers, but this program did not accomplish anything. Relief will win this strike, if re- ceived in time. ae: PINEVILLE, April 14.—The| Chadwick-Haskins mill here is still jclosed down tight. a scab tc carry a gun with him to work was one of the immediate | causes of the shutdown. The strik- ers demanded that the sheriff take the gun away from him, and were refused. They considered that what | |was fair for one side was fair for another, and part of the pickets ran | to their hqmes for shotguns and rifles. The deputy sheriffs fled. | The workers here will fight for their right to organize, but they |must have food soon, Relief is \badiy needed. With wages of only $9 to $12 a week, starvation begins £8 soon as ponies oe strike starts. AFL, OFFERS AID TO MILL OWNERS How the American Federation of Labor “organizes” the workers may be seen from the action of the Photo Engravers’ Union in a strike now going on. This is the union of which Matthew Woll, vice-president of the A. F. of L., acting president of the open-shop National Civic Federa- tion and arch-hater of the Soviet Union, is president. The photo engravers in four open shops, 35 W. 19th St., 64 Lafayette St., 224 W. 42nd St. and 143 W. 20th St, recently went out on i strike demanding union conditions. Most of the workers are Armenians. When they applied to the Photo En- gravers’ Union for aid in conduct- ing their strike, they were told by the henchmen of Woll that when they win their strike and the bosses agree to union conditions, the A. F. of L. will admit them to the union. All immediate aid was refused in accordance with the policy of the union bureaucrats of opposing all strikes and working hand-in-glove | with the bosses. On Tuesday two of the strikers, John Savarin and Harry Badhzam, were arrested for trying to persuade a scab not to go to work. Yesterday a committee of the strikers came to the office of the New York District of the International Labor Defense and appealed for aid. The I. L. D. immediately furnished $500 bail each for the arrested workers and | secured their release from the As- ‘toria, L. 1, county jail. They will ‘be defended by Jacques Buitenkant, I. L. D. attorney, when they come up for a hearing. Negro Hero in Rescue of 60 Show Girls in Burning Apartments Charles Val-Verdi, Negro elevator |cperator at Corn 11 Apartments, ;No. 114 West 47th St., was the hero jof a rescue of 60 showgirls from | the burning apartment building yes- jterday. A short circuit in the tele-|j |Phone | switch-board started the fire, early in the morning, Val-Verdi awakened Peggy Rut- ledge, a vaudeville actress, first, and | she placed a wet towel over her fac land assisted him to rouse the rest. |The girl was finally overcome by |smoke and had to be carried out. Due to the quick work and heroism’ of these two, no lives were lost. | y jously be An attempt by| ” Hoist } Herrick Coffin on Warship: ¢ to Cleveland GASTONIA. WALL | Slug siti Striker | JUNCTION OF Steve Stevenson, a striking mem- ber of the Hotel, Restaurant |Cafeteria Workers Union, vici- ten up by two private de- the owner of the Blos Cafeteria, 116 W. 27th St ceting in the garment dis- and was | tecti som Cag while pic | trict in w h the union is conduc- ting a s Arrested, Stevenson was again attacked and arraigned before Magistrate Gottlieb for felonious assault. He was release’ on $5,000 bail for trial Thursday. counter of the The union charges against nesccun nts bringing the owner is HUNDREDS OUT ON WIR TAG DAY ManyOrganizationsAid Textile, Mine Relief w York workers |, yesterday and Saturday collected funds for the Southern textile strik ers and the destitute coal miners as Hundreds of } part of the national relief campaign | of the Workers’ International Relief, by participating in the tag day ac- | tivities of the New York local of | the W. 1. R. All working class sections of the five borou were covered by the volunteer collectors, who obtained donations in the streets, subwa: and restaurants, al: in front of theatres. Committees in the working ¢! from door to doo Up to a late had been no a Cont Due to the threatening weather yesterday, which slightly interfered ith the collections, the W. I. R. ast night urged its supporters to continue the tag da tivities until Wednesday, when a mass meeting will be held which will be addre by the delegation of four hour yesterday there e to Wi eine ey last V Ye of J BOSS WILL BE DEFIED BY MEN 1.L.G.W. Lawyer Aids Frameup of Strikers in Boss | Court Clerks Behind Struggle Mass Rallies to Raise Funds Plan "Toe members of i Workers Indus he United Council of Wor ing Women and the New York district of the Commu ty will be largely represented at the mass picket demonstration at noon t Jay in the gar section ca against which the Hotel, d Cafete Jorkers’ Union has been conducting a strike for improv- ed conditions. The demonstration will be primarily in protest against |pending injunctions through which cafeteria owners hi to force the strikers back to the open shop. Strikers Continue Picketing. {iso of the injunctions y striker in the e zone Satur , in defiance of the court edicts, they continued picketing of their own volition. Hear- ing on the injunctions will take place tomorrow before Judge Henry Sherman of the Supreme Court of |the New York State. The business of the Wil-low Corporation and the United Restaurant Owners Associa- tion has been cut considerably since the strike started, both companies in the affidavits attached to straining order served on the ted copie tved on | & wing interference with the S y when five ruck. Four strik- at Gingolds Mar- 176th St. and Jerome Ave, Bronx, Saturday. At the 57th St. Night Court, they were dismissed on of contempt of court, for picketing in defiance of an injunc- tion. ‘Three strikers courageously resisted the attacks of thugs in Brooklyn till they were later ar- rested. Picketing coni more shops ers were arreste tinues at every store in the strike zone, union organizers report, Open-air meetings will be held at Wolpon’s Market, 20th Ave. g and 65th St., Brooklyn; Riverdale Ave. and Hinsdale St., Brooklyn, be- tween 5 and 6 p. m. today. Heavy Sentences. s were imposed on arraigned before Magis- tate Gottlieh Satinday, Sau Mite Donald, an American-Indian active in the strike since its inception, was sentenced to ten da James Demetrius we ten days, and Morris Topper an Harry Milton were both given five days in The vigorous protest ‘Buitenkamp, union ues C., . torney, who offered to produced wit- Other speakers at the Zn to prove that the strikers had will be Albert Weisbord, s been attacked, forced Gottlieb to re- National Textile Workers Union; J. Louis Engdahl, acting editor of the Daily Worker; Juliet Stuart Poyntz, national secretary International La- bor Defense; Harriet Silverman, secretary, Local Y. Workers In- ternational Relief E lam, acting secretary, Trade Union Educational League. The meeting will be held at Irving Plaza, Irving Place and 15th St. Jewelry Workers Give. The meeting will be held under jthe joint auspices of the Workers’ International Relief, International Labor Defense, National Textile Workers’ Union and the Trade Union Educational League. At a banquet held by the Jewelry Workers Club Saturday night, $61 (Continued on Page Five) consider his original sentence of 30 days each. IL. G Aids Bo “Professional gangste sheviks who had been a strike,” was the strikers by Reiss, assistant characterization agains used in testimo to Sam Markov L. G. W. U. company union attorney. if charge of disorderly conduct ;against Albert Rescigne, 19-year-old Italian worker who was violently at- tacked on Monday and Thursday last week, wi djourned until Thursday. Rescigne’s se was postponed, it is believed to enable the policeman who clubbed him into unconsciousness for 20 hours to b: witnesses to build a frame-up ¢ Three o} | (Co rs were fined $5 each, tinued on Page Five) Those Who Saw Them Before Ave Certain to Come Again When the cers appear Isadora Duncan Dan- for their farewell per- formances in this city on Thursde y, Friday, Saturday and Sunday there are sure to be many old faces in the audience. In fact, it seem: likely that any worker v these omparable young Soviet dancers when they were here before | will miss their farewell appearances in this country. Manhattan Opera House, 24th St end Eighth Aveé., will be the scene of the Duncan farewell. Following their performances, they will turn to the famous ‘Isadora Duncan School i. cow, which is under the supervision of the Commissariat of Education. The Duncan program will include several numbers never performed re- | before. Tho s “Impressions of Revolutior Russia,” whieh have been the “hit” of all their programs, will have two additions: “Young fe ’ and “Pioneer March,” | will also be new numbers from Beethoven and bert. The Daily Worker made ar- rangements hy which workers who attend the last Duncan perform- ances will not only say farewell to these Seviet dancers, but can help |the Daily Worker, "too. Alli you k to do is to buy your tickets at the Daily Worker Office, 26 Union Square, Ths “Daily” receives a per- centage on all tickets sold in this Way The time is short. If you swale until the last minute, you're [sure to get stuck, Act now!