The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 16, 1929, Page 6

aime NN Ss : = Worker Central Organ of the Communist Party of the U. S. A. Worker Publishing Associatio’ 28 Union Square, New Yor t 1696-7-8. ble: “DAIWORK, IPTION RATE New York only): , Inc. ¥. 8 yea ) six months $2.50 three months (outside of New York): year 0 six nths $2.00 three months cks to the Daily Worker, Union Square, ew York, N. Y. British Imperialism’s War Propaganda The United Press, the second largest American capitalist news agency, has telegraphed to the many newspapers it serves throughout the United States, under a London date line, the latest Anti-Soviet news fake issued by the so-called rgian Press Bureau,” that originally appeared in the London Daily Mail. This canard includes the following: eorgian Press Bureau reports from Batum, printed in the y Mail today, said a serious revolt had broken out a Soviet Government in Georgia as a result of dis- content which grew out of the recent Soviet edicts forbidding women to wear veils. “The population, the report said, disobeyed the authorities, who arrested all the influential leaders in the Georgian villages. It was reported that an army of rebels was encamped near the Turkish border and that they had already inflicted losses on the Russ . who nevertheless refrained from firing on them. Soviet authorities arrived at Batum to negotiate, it was reported.” First of all, there are no Soviet edicts against women wearing veils. This is a cruel fact that takes the whole basis from under the deliberate lie spread by this propaganda organization of the emigre counter-revolutionary mensheviks, who saw their anti-Soviet activities defeated and liquidated many years back. The wearing of face coverings, denoting the degraded social position of women through centuries past in the East, is being fought in the Soviet Union with propaganda and educational activities carried on by the Communist Party, especially by Communist women. International Women’s Day, March 8th, is especially devoted to this purpose in the Near East and Middle Eastern sections of the Soviet Union. And quite successfully, as the results achieved clearly show, not only in Soviet Georgia, but also throughout the Middle Asia Soviet Republics of Kasakstan, Uzbekistan and Turk- menistan. The policy on this question pursued by the Soviet Power is the same as its very successful attitude toward religion, the winning of the masses through education. It is clear that British imperialism is trying to use the malicious falsehood contained in this newspaper dispatch for its own war purposes, just as it developed the counter-revolu- tionary action against Amanullah, in Afghanistan, from the Indian frontier, on the basis of “reforms” that had beer: brought about since this country had thrown off the yoke of British tyranny. J. Ramsay MacDonald and the British “Labor Party” have been active in their support of the emigre Georgian counter-revolutionists, and British imperialism and _ its hireling press gladly makes common cause with these social- democratic enemies of the Soviet Revolution. The Trans-Caucasian Soviet Republics of Georgia, Ar- menia and Azerbaidjan, with the development of the oil fields and other natural resources, are giant pillars of strength in the whole structure of the Soviet Union. Imperialism and its counter-revolutionary allies eye them with a glutton’s appetite for spoils and plunder. American labor must re- member all this as it reads the latest propaganda lies of those who would make war on the Union of Soviet Republics. Get Ready for May Day. May Day Conferences are now being organized in all sections of the nation. The success registered by these gather- ings, in the number of delegates present and in the enthusiasm shown especially by workers coming directly from the fac- tories, mills and workshops, augurs well for mighty and mili- tant demonstrations in this country on the International Holiday of Labor, May First. There are many reasons for this encouraging develop- ment. The radicalization of the working class generally, as the result of increasing oppression under the various rationali- zation schemes of the exploiters, grows continually. This May Day witnesses the rising of the Southern mill workers from slavery’s depths, under the leadership of the National Textile Workers’ Union. It is precisely during the past year, since the last May Day, that left wing industrial unions have come into existence in the three great industries, mining, clothing and textiles. May Day for these organizations will be a celebration of triumphs already achieved and a planning for new and greater struggles. The memberships of these organizations should constitute tremendous hosts calling on the workers generally to “Down Tools!” and to join in raising the mighty fist of Labor’s Holiday before the face of the arrogant capitalist rulers who now dominate the land. The New York May Day Conference held Sunday regis- tered especial achievements, enhanced by the growing spirit of struggle among the workers in the metropolis, the food and shoe workers joining with the needle workers in establishing upon a firm basis the principles of Left wing unionism. But the same efforts exerted in New York City, put forth else- where, will bring the same encouraging results. Prepare for International May Day. Make this year’s May Day the most significant in all the 40 years’ history of Labor’s Holiday. The national “shell game” has again opened under the dome of the capitol at Washington with the reconvening of congress. It is quite appsopriate that Senator James E. Wat- son, Indiana, should be the republican floor leader in the senate. His loyalty to big business over a long period of years qualifies him completely for the job of manipulating the legis- lative peas under the congressional shells. This “shell game” session of congress ought to open the eyes of a good section of the nation’s working population, especially the dirt farmers, who are going to be relieved of a greater share of their toil under the promise of “farm relief.” The remains of Myron T. Herrick, late ambassador to France, who died in Paris, have finally been placed under- ground at Cleveland, and the imperialist war mongers will have to look around for another publicity stunt to keep alive 2 flames of jingoism, F rt HAILY WORKER, EW YORK, TUESDAY CLD BRICK A ass War and Tea Slavery By A. N. PESTJUCHIN. A hot day. The yellow tableland ' glowed under the burning sun: Be- low, the road to Canton was buried in grey-golden dust. And further on, on the other side of the road, the slow, yellow river, which the Chi- nese call Hwanhe. The road is never empty. On it people are always in motion, wagons, rickshaws, and the always present soldiers. Soldiers are seen more than any others. Lao-Tschan glanced through the tea-plants to see the passing sol- diers. The general’s troops marched in long slow columns. Perhaps Tao- Tschan’s husband, Ti-Wan was also among them. The recruiting force of the general’s. army had taken him a long time ago and he had not written to her for the last year. The plantation of the British com- pany stretched over four hills. Like in a rose garden stood the exact rows of the tea-plants. wide | must work carefully in order not to injure the young bodies. The pluck- ed tea-leaves were dried in straw baskets and then roasted in copper pans, broken up, packed and brought to the market. The English firm was rich, its plantations large and labor in China cost little. But the work of the women and children was even cheaper and the company took many peasant women | from the impoverished farms for work on the plantations. Many wo- men came, for the plantations are neutral territory and no government dared to touch them; foreigners in China are untouchable and supreme. The working women received a fil- thy hole for a dwelling and just enough money to keep from utter starvation. In the evening hours when the golden sun covered itself in purple before vanishing into*the river, the! ripe leaves could no longer be rec-| | ognized and work came to an end. | Weary from 15 hou-s of work, the | women went home. Their scratched | hands and legs pained ‘1em. They | lived in small huts at the foot of |the hill which formed an half-circle. | Lao-Tschan washed her hands in |a wooden bowl and sat down at the |table. She ate two times a day, lerarly in the morning and late in | the evening, always the same: bone- soup and some rice. During the meal her friend Wan-Tschi visited her. ‘She was prettier than Lao- | Tschan for she came from the north. Her brown eyes spoke of pain and sorrow. Her husband, a Communist who worked in the Canton harbor, | was executed a short time ago. She ‘could not think of it without clench- ing her small fists. Wan-Tschi | drank some tea and then suddenly | cried: F “T will not go today and what's more I will never go again.” © The over-seer, Williams, forced Wan-Tschi to live with him, This happens to all pretty Chinese wom- en and when they refuse they are \fired. It is almost impossible to find other work. The war had al- ready lasted three years, rice had | become dear*- id for the Chinese | working women there remained no other way than to submit to the over-seer, “You don’t want to go?” Lao- Tschan asked with surprise. “Good, and if they chase you out, then we both go together.” | They sat down on the side of a |lonely road on an earthbank and Nooked into the distance, where they _ Saw the large city of Canton re- They were) and many-forked so that one{ A Story of A Woman Worker’s Persecution and | Courage In the Chinese Revolution | fletced in the skies. Slowly, in whis- pers, they spoke to each other. It soon became dark. The Chi- nese earth exhaled blood and sweat collected for thousands of years. At jhome Wan-Tschi and Lao-Tschin threw off their scarce clothes and. their wooden shoes, prayed old un- understandable prayers before a figure of Buddha, in which they stil! believed. a little bit, and went to bed. One sleeps badly on hard:rice- | straw and the black rats also dis- turb sleep; but they must sleep, for | early in the morning they would again have to go to work. Tschi drew a straw mat in place of a bed cover over herself and closed | her eyes. | Ce Canton has a large harbor in which there are always hundreds of ships from all parts of the world and thousands of junks and other | Across the water lies the | vessels. British island of Hongkong like a huge block of ice. From there comes |all the misfortunes for the poor city of Canton. When a Chinese hears the word Hongkong his eyes shine with hate and passion. In the small streets of the old city rules the terror. Many thou- sands of workers and peasants from near-by towns sat in the iron- bound prison cells. On the main|Here and there could be heard pa-| helped her cut her burnt hair with} square are stakes from which the| trols marching. When Ti-Wan heard! a knife. jheads of the executed. glare with | frightful smiles. And on the other side of the square, behind iron gates, stretch thes business steets of the foreign settlement. After his flight from the army, Ti-Wan, Lao-Tschan’s husband, hid himself in the huts on the fisher- men’s barks. In spite of his youth, he had passed through a hard life. He remembered vividly the gruesome blood-courts, to which, after the raid on the Soviet consul, all suspicioys revolutionary Chinese fell victim. His life was also in danger. But when they were ready to chop off his Soviet Government Plans Many Large Concessions MOSCOW, U.S. S. R., (By Mail). —A list of the most important con- cession objects contained in the latest. governmental concession plan has recently been published by the press. ‘The list includes copper deposits jin the Zangezour district of Ar- menia, with reserves of copper esti- mated at 160,000 tons, copper, gold, sitver and zinc mines in the Tan- alyko-Baimak district of Altay, ag- gregating from 100,000 to 200,000 ton# of ore, silver deposits in the Nerchinsk district of the Far East, ete. In addition to the Lena Gold- fields concession it is proposed to lease out to foreign capitalists gold mines near Sverdlovsk, the Urals, with rich supplies of gold. It is also intended to let out coal mines in the Donetz and Kuznetzk basins and oilfields in Emba, the Urals, on the Caspian coast, etc. The concession plan also provides for the leasing out of one great metallurgical plant to be built during the next five years, a choice being allowed between the Magnitogorsky, Wan | | the blow and turned his head in such | | head also he could only seek service | in the general’s army. To shoot hit own class brothers, peasants and| workers,—never, never would he do} ; that. Ti-Wan would rather live as/| ‘a deserter than to fight for the | British. When they are to fight} against the foreign ir Jerialists that | will be something different. For the poor people, only the partisans fought, the “Red Lances.” Ti-Wan had decided a long time ago to go over to the Partisans, but it was very hard to break his way thru the surrounded city. The fishermen kept | him hidden for many weeks, bring- | ing him water-worms and bones | |from their own meals. The fisher-| men did not have rice, it was too| dear. ! This was not the first evening in | which Ti-Wan prepared to fly to} | the Partisans, but the patrols wers all about and if they sighted him) then he would have to bid good-bye to his poor head. So he glanced fearfully about him when he ven-| tured from a bark to the docks, |ing the night. He beat her so wild- so late an hour? Don’t you know! that afier sunset no one must re- main on the streets?” And the tall soldier emphasized his words with a blow of a whip. Ti-Wan protected himself from} a way that one of the soldiers rec- ognized him. “Oh, we take him along, this is a| deserter from our battalion.” | His hands were tied behind his} back and Ti-Wan ran along tied to} the tail of one of the horses. On the square burned the camp-fire and around stood the soldiers with their horses. Ti-Wan was half dead when he was handed over to a prison keeper. The cold cellar was filled) with prisoners. Into the midst of these crowded people, in this hole! stinking from sweat and excrement they thrust Ti-Wan. The iron door} closed behind him. From here the path leads directly to the square where the public exe- cutions take place. oe The over-seer of the plantation, Williams, rained down fearful blows and kicks upon Wan-Tschi for some | small fault. That was hie revenge because she did not come to him dur- It was dark. In such a dark night! ly on the breast that she fell, strik- hundreds of Chinese would certainly | ing her head on the fire pan of the} attempt to escape from Canton.| drying room, and burned her beau- | Dead silence reigned in the crooked | tiful black hair. Wan-Tschi bewail-| | streets. The inhabitants of Canton} ed the loss of her hair and she felt | were still impressed by the past} pain in the head, but she did not) | terror and remained in their. houses. | ery. In the evening Lao-Tschan | them coming he would press himself into the shadows of a wall and when} they had passed he would again go| on his way. He saw the last houses of the city and the city boundary. | But at the last small street he did not succeed in hiding himself quick- ly enough. A tall Chinese, an under- officer with silver epaulettes, stop- ped him. “Where are you going, you red} dog?” | “Why am I a red dog?” asked Ti-Wan boldly. “Perhaps I am no dog but. an honest fisherman?” “And where are you running at Urals, Krivorojsky, Ukraine, and Telbess, Urals, factories. A bid is also made for foreign capital to par- ticipate in the construction of big regional. power stations, including the Svir station, near Leningrad, the erection of which has already begun, Among the other objects to be leased to concessionaries are an clec- trical machinery factory, and fac- tories for the production of electri- cal heating appliances, lighting ar- mature, ete, 5 The government also announces its readiness to invite foreign capi- tal to construct and exploit a trac- tor plant (in addition to the Stalin- grad tractor works to be launched this year), a tool factory, a car- building factory, a drill and thrash- ing machine plant, a river shipyard, a typewriter factory and a number of mills in the cellulose and paper industry, Bring the Workers of Your Shi the Coliseum May First, ice Celebrate the Internati “You look like a Communist now. Williams says that only Communist women have short hair and all re- spectable women and girls have long hair,” said Lao-Tschan. But Wan- Tschi only laughed bitterly. The! next day when they again went to work, she said softly: “Tonight I am going to the city, I cannot remain here any longer. Williams will only kill me. Let us both fly together!” Lao-Tschan thought about the flight the whole day. In her plight she threw a kettle over and the hot liquid spilled down on her. This only strengthened her. In Canton she could perhaps discover where Ti- Wan was. In the evening they both slid to the road ang ran in the direction of the city. Soon after their flight they met a mounted division. When the leader of the patrol saw the shorn hair of Wan-Tschi, he suddenly shouted: “Ah, Bolsheviks, the short hair! In Canton you would be killed and you dare to show your head on the public road!” » In vain did Lao-Tschan ery. ‘They chased them with the ends of their guns and dragged Wan-Tschi back to the plantation. : ‘The red dawn already shone in the skies when Lao-Tschan reached the town alone. At the watch house the soldiers joked over her impoverished and sad appearance and the worn out shoes which she wore, but they let her pass, Hungry, she wandered through the empty streets. On the public square she stopped before a stake, She looked up and saw... oh... the staring, greu- some eyes of her husband Ti-Wan, whose head was fastened on the stake with its tongue hanging out. Then Lao-Tschan did what her husband had planned to do—she exw Miny Day at the Coliseum, ""'*"| joined the ranks of the Partisans, 4 Copyright, 1929, by International Publishers Co., Inc. vy BILL HAYWOOD’S BOOK Speaking to Release Jim Larkin; Hyndman A Munitions Making Profiteer; Teaching Irish Labor “Boo”; Ford and Suhr é Installments so far printed have told of Haywood’s.early life in the mining camps, cow ranches, homesteads and strike fields of the Rocky Mountains, where Haywood began his career as a prole- tarian when he worked in a mine at the age of nine. He gives a vivid picture of early U. S. imperialism killing the Indians, and of the gradual development of big business, which waged a fight to the death with rebellious workmen's organizations. He tells how he felt when he heard of the hanging of the Chicago martyrs, and of becoming general secretary of the Western Federation of Miners at the age of 29. After that his life was a melee of strikes, argan- ization tours, arrests and frame-ups. He stood in the shadow of the gallows during the Moyer-Haywood-Pettibone trial, but was ac- quitted to participate in great strikes at Lawrence, Mesaba Range, and other places for the I. W. W., which he helped to organize in All rights rese.ved. Republica- tion forbidden except by permissicn, 1905. In the last installment Haywood was touring Europe as a speaker. Now read on. a ay Coe j By WILLIAM D HAYWOOD. At PART 87. I HAD been in Paris not more than a week when I got a telegram from the Daily Herald in London asking me to come and speak in behalf of Jim Larkin, who was then in Mountjoy Prison. I went to see the officials of the Confederation of Labor and told them I was going to England in behalf of Jim Larkin and the Dublin Trans- port Workers’ strike, and that I would like a testimonial from France to the Dublin strikers—something that the strikers could use. They gave me a check for a thousand francs, a large contribution con- sidering the condition of the workers of France at that time. When I arrived in London a meeting was arranged in Albert Hall. Larkin was released from prison in time to speak at what proved to be a wonderful meeting. Twenty-five or thirty thousand people, more than could get in the hall, had gathered. Some students attempted to disrupt the meeting but the stewards or ushers were well organized and ejected the noisy bunch in quick order. A son of George Lansbury came over the railing of the first baleony and dropped into a struggling group which was fighting to get into the aisle, ' The speakers were Lansbury, Cunningham-Gra- ham, Dyson, Larkin, myself and others, Jim Larkin is a big bony man with a shock of iron-gray hair and marked features such as are appreciated by the sculp- tor or cartoonist. He is a vigorous speaker and this meeting was tHe beginning of a crusade that he called the “Fiery Cross.” I have never spoken in any meeting with more satisfaction than in this auditorium. On the stage sat Hyndman, the man who had spoken with me at Burnley in 1910. He was very much put out with the things I said in Albert Hall, and remarked that he won- dered the people were not angry enough to pull me limb from limb. I had strongly condemned war and was not choice in my remarks about the army and navy. The things I said met with much applause. I learned later that Hyndman was living on the dividends of stock that he owned in an arms and ammunition factory. we * * * I WENT to Dublin where I met Jim Connolly, the martyr who was taken in 1916 from his sick bed and executed, after being court- martialed by the British for his leadership in the Easter uprising. I had known him in the United States. We reviewed the Citizens’ Army on a piece of land that had been purchased by the Transport Workers’ Union. There was a splendid meeting of the strikers in front of Liberty Hall. A cordon of police had been formed on one side, In the course of my speech I referred to the then recent strikes in America and told what the workers could do with solidarity among themselves. I described how the workers booed the police and asked the Irish workers to try it with me once, saying: “Now altogether, as loud as you can, ‘Boo, boo, boo.’” It was but a few minutes afterwards that-the police formed in ranks and marched away. © Connolly asked me to go to Belfast where he said a big meeting could be arranged. Peter Larkin, a brother of Jim, was there at the time. But I was already billed for Liverpool and returned there to speak to an enthusiastic crowd. After the meeting with Larkin I visited the Clarion and Anarchist clubs. The next day on the train Jim spent much of his time reading Rabelais. At Manchester we had a fine meeting in Free Trade Hall, After the meeting we went to the Clarion Club. There I described the Paterson pageant to some of the people who had gathered. This description seemed to interest the hearers as much as my speech of the evening. After speaking in several other cities in behalf of the Dublin Transport Workers I returned to London, where Larkin spoke at the Trade Union Congress, addressing the delegates as “Human beings.” Lae, Se Ngai my return to America I devoted considerable time in behalf of Ford and Suhr, who had been arrested in California in connection with the hop pickers’ strike of 1913, on the Durst ranch at Wheat- land. The Durst Brothers’ hop ranch was the biggest in the state of California, Twenty-eight hundred men, women and children had been engaged there to pick hops. These workers had been gathered together by lying advertisements from the unemployed of the cities and mining camps, as well as some people from mountain towns. The Dursts, through this advertising all over California, and parts of Ore- gon and Nevada, brought more pickers to their ranch than they could possibly employ. There was no shelter for the workers excepting a motley collection of tents, lumber stockades and gunny-sack stretched over fences. The tents were rented by the Dursts at 75 cents a week. A great many | had no blankets and slept on piles of straw thrown on the ground under the tents. One group of 45 men, women and children slept packed close together on a single pile of straw. Among the workers were many groups: Syrian, Mexican, Japanese, Spanist, Lithuanian, Italian, Greek, Polish, Cuban, Porto Rican, Swedish ané American. For the accommodation of all these people Durst had built eight rough toilets which soon became too filthy for use. These vile toilets, the manure piles and garbage of the camp were the breeding places for millions of flies that carried intestinal microbes that poisoned the camp. This, added to the lack of water for the workers in the fields, caused epidemics of diarrhea, dysentery, malaria and typhoid fever. on ie ESE were the accumulated grievances when the workers met in protest meeting to demand better conditions. Richard Ford and Herman Suhr, members of the I.W.W., were the leaders of this move- ment. “Blackie” Ford had just taken a baby from its mother’s arms and was holding it before the eyes of the workers, saying: “It is these children that we want to save.” At this moment automobiles loaded with armed county officials drove up and fired.into the meeting. A Porto Rican Negro and an English boy were shot and killed, and many of the strikers were seriously wounded. Some of the strikers replied with bullets, killing District Attorney Manwell and Deputy Sheriff Riordan. When he attempted to arrest “Blackie” Ford, the sheriff of. the county was kicked into insensibility by the workers and the rest of the posse fled. The militia was ordered to the hop ranch the fol- lowing day by the governor of the state. The facts recited here were all testified to by the hop pickers them- setves at the trial of Ford, Suhr, Beck and Bagan at Marysville. Ford and Suhr were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in Folsom penitentiary. They had been there more than 12 years when Richard Ford was pardoned, and when he was released he was met at the gate by a sheriff with a warrant sworn out against him by the son of Attorney Manwell. Ford was again brought to trial but through the activities of the General Defense Committee of the I,W.W. and the Internatinoal Labor Defense he was acquitted. While the silk workers were on strike in Paterson, Jack Reed left for Mexico, He was with General Villa as a correspondent and wrote some articles for the Metropolitan Magazine. About the same time most of the members of the I.W.W., belonging to the Brawley and Imperial locals of Southern California, crossed the line and joined forces with the Mexican revolutionists. os * * ‘In the next chapter Haywood: takes up the famous Industrial Relations Commission of 1916, before which he gave most revolu- tionary testimony,. Why not get a permanent record of this thrilling history of American labor struggles, covering a quarter of a cen tury? A copy of Bill Haywood’s Book will be sent you free with d rh to the Daily Worker, ~~