The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 20, 1929, Page 6

DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY Central Organ’ of the Communist Party of the U. S. A. x The Enemies of the Textile Strikers. The Nation, New York weekly org: ism, in its issue (April 24), develops i munist influence in the Southern teiitile strikes vocating the violence that actually took place in the earl hours of Thursday when a masked mob destroyed the head- quarters of the National Textile Workers’ Union and the food station of the Workers’ International Relief at Gastonia, North Carolina. The Nation has sent a certain Paul Blanshard to the Carolinas and Tennessee “to write the story of the mill strikes there.” This Blanshard is quite shocked to witness Communist spokesmen finding favor with the textile wor ers as opposed to an aggregation that is described as “the Federal Council of Churches, the Nation, the New Repub- lic and the American Federation of Labor”, that confines itself to a charity-attitude investigation of the miseries of the Southern mill slaves. It will be remembered that the “American Federationist” even had a special edition on “The an of pale pink reform- attack against Com- South,” mostly written by southern bourgeois intellectuals. @ | In its previous ue (April 17th), the Nation, that numbers among its contributing editors, Norman Thomas, the late socialist ‘party candidate for president, gave its warning to the Southern mill barons to be nice to the Amer- ican Federation of Labor, since “the gravest possibilities of disorder exist because Communist leaders have organized branches of the National Textile Workers’ Union, the Na- tional Guard has been mobilized, the feeling is growing more bitter.” The Blanshard article clearly indicates disappointment because the “disorder” did not materialize as soon as expect- ed. It contains in full the advertisement appearing in the Gastonia Daily Gazette under the title, “Mob Rule vs. Law and Order.” In this editorial the masked mob of axmen that destroyed the union and relief headquarters was appealed to in this fashion: “Men and women of Gaston County, are you willing to permit the men of the type of Beal and his associates to continue to preach the doctrines of Bolshevism anywhere in America and especially here in your midst?” The Nation utters its surprise that, “no strikers were tarred and feathered as a result of this.” So Blanshard con- tinues his story by republishing another broadside of. the manufacturers under the heading, “Red Russianism Lifts Its Gory Hands Right Here In Gastonia.” Blanshard had to confess that, “the answer of most of the strikers to this advertisement was to tear up copies of the paper and scat- ter them through the streets.” Next Blanshard reviews the leaflet campaign carried on by the mill owners denouncing the Soviet Union, raising the issues of race, religion and nationality differences, concluding that: “When this barrage failed to move the strikers, the company issued eviction notices which, at this writing, have not been en- forced because of the fear that eviction would create much outside sympathy for the strikers.” Blanshard seems to be in the confidence of the mill owners, acquainted with their innermost thoughts. Blan- shard is no free lance writer. He is one of the associate editors of*the liberal-socialist Musteite ‘‘Nation,” that sup- ported Al Smith for president last November. Honorable mention is given to the editorials and advertisements appear- ing in Gastonia and Charlotte papers “denouncing the new union (National Textile Workers’ Union) for breaking the color line and quoting a story from the Daily Worker .. . which described with approval a dance of Negroes and whites.” The Nation concludes: “As for the Negro strikers, there are only a handful of them because so small a proportion of the mill workers are colored. The iron tradition of the South is that no white man will work in the same factor room’ with a Negro.” Here the Nation gives full acquiescence to the prej- udices and hatreds the mill owners are seeking to arouse un- der the cry of “white supremacy”, in order to maintain their supremacy. “The Nation thus shows clearly to which class capitalist class supremacy. The Nation thus shows clearly to which class it belongs. Blanshard professes himself quite surprised at the “sub- lime sang-froid” displayed by the militants in distributing the Daily Worker, and “spread the most highly colored des- criptions of the sins of the American Federation of Labor.” Blanshard, the preacher, with his theories of industrial peace through the agency of the Federal Council of Churches, is almost paralyzed at the sight of strikers appealing to the soldiery sent against them to, “Help us win the strike... Refuse to shoot or bayonet your fathers or brothers on the picket lines . . . Fight with your class, the striking workers.” Blanshard calls these “dangerous remarks”. In such a crisis, he points out, the employers and the editors of the region could do nothing else but fall back “with touching solicitude upon the American Federation of Labor”. He de- clares: “Although no organizer of the United Textile Workerrs’ Union (representing the federation) is in the Carolinas at this writing, the newspapers have hailed with large headlines the statements emanating from New York that the regular union is to enter the field.” Still the threatened “disorders” did not materialize and Blanchard came to the conclusion that: “The workers in the strike only know that they are fighting for a better life. They do not know the difference between one union and another, and for them ‘Communism’ is simply a general epithet. The employers have shouted ‘Wolf! Wolf!’ so often that now their paroxysms have little effect upon the workers.” The facts give the lie to Blanchard and the Nation. The disorders came. The solidarity of the strikers was too great for the national militia, and so the masked mob of “best citizens”, that may well have included some “lily- white” subscribers of the Nation, took into its own hands the task of destroying the strikers’ headquarters. Blanchard declared that the mill workers “are tired, undernourished, and uneducated, but even the employers ad- mit that they are becoming aware of their own degradation.” Even the employers, the Federal Council of Churches, the Nation, the New Republic and the American Federation of Labor” admit this. ‘ The fact is that the mill workers are becoming aware of their own strength through the right kind of organization, under the left wing industrial union leadership offered by the National Textile Workers’ Union. This they clearly showed when they rallied on Thursday as never before for a huge demonstration at the scene of the ruins of their strike headquarters. This is the solidarity that marches triumph- antly against the capitalist state, the militia, the police, the employers and their masked axmen, the American Federation of Labor, the socialists and Musteites, with all their Blan- shards, Thomases and other yellow reformists that fight always in every class battle on the side of profits and oppres- sion. All that is necessary in the South, as in the East, North and West is the unity of the working class to battle sfully against all the myriad enemies of labor. That y grows and Communists are its standard bearers . * , openly pro- | legal development. jand labor sprouted forth luxuriantly |emong the ranks of the socialists. | Proposals to hold out “the open hand | | perceptible, “gradual evolution” into |socialism marked their end. |wars, and revolutions were consid- |democracy in the state and democ- |the gates to a new and better or- | der, jmost violent, extreme sharpening of |very foundations of society. The “BUT PM NOT SO DOCILE ANY MORE! | } Send funds to re-stock the relief station in Gastonia to Workers International Relief, No. 1 Union Square, New York. The relief a9 stom in Gastonia was smashed by the millowners’ thugs, but it’s open again. May Day demonstrations were held for the first time, the vanguard of the International, the ; German working class, was just at the point of breaking the chains éf a disgraceful Exception Law and of entering upon the path of a. free, The period of prolonged depression in the world \market, since the crash of the sev- | enties, had been overcome and cap- italist economy had entered directly | upon an era of resplendent develop-| ment that was to last almost a | cecade. Likewise the world had recovered, | after twenty years of uninterrupted peace, from recollections of that war | period in which the modern Euro- | pean state system had received its bloody christening. The path ap- |peared free for a quiet cultural de- | velopment. Illusions, hopes for a peaceful settlement between capital to good will” marked the beginning | of thé nineties; promises of an im- Crises, ered outworn theories, mere swad- aling clothes of modern society; par- liamentarism and trade unionism, racy in the industry were to open The actual course of events played frightful havoc with all these illusions. In place of the promised mild social-reformist development of culture there has set in since the end of the nineties a period of the capitalist conflicts, a period of storm and stress, of crashes and turmoil, of tottering and trembling in the ten-year period of the economic up- ward curve of development was compensated for in the following decade by two world-convulsing crises, After two decades of world peace there followed in the last decade of last century six bloody wars and in the first decade of the new century four bloody revolutions. Instead of social reforms—sedition bills, imprisonment bills and jail- ings; instead of industrial democ- racy—the powerful concentration of capital in cartels and employers’ as- sociations and the» international practice of giant lockouts. And in- stead of the new upward develop- ment of democracy in the state a miserable collapse of the Jast rem- nants of: bourgeois liberalism» and bourgeois democracy. In Germany alone the destinies of the bourgeois parties since the nine- ties have brought: the rise and im- mediate hopeless dissolution of the National Social Party, the break-up of the liberal opposition and the re- uniting of its fragments in the morass ‘of reaction, and finally the transformation of the Center from a radical people’s party to a con- servative government party. And the shifting in party development in other capitalist countries has been similar. Everywhere the revolu- tionary working class today sees it- self alone confronted by the com- pact, hostile reaction of the ruling classes and by. their energetic at- tacks, which - are aimed at them alone. The “sign” under which this whole development on the cconomic and Down with Reformist Illusions! Hail Revolutionary Class Struggle! | By ROSA LUXEMBURG | | WHEN The May Day Article printed below was written by Rosa Lux- emburg for May Day, 1913, a year before the outbreak of the World War. It shows the combination of sensitiveness to coming events and concern with the methods of meeting them which is characteris- tic of the highest kind of revolutionary leadership. Its scornful analysis of class collaboration illusions and portrayal of the nature of the imperialist epoch and the war danger lend its words a timely ring today, when the war danger is greater than it has ever been since the World War. The latest evidence of its nearness is the rejection by the im- perialist powers of the Soviet disarmament proposals—a fact which again exposes their carefully-laid preparations for the next world slaughter of the masses. The hundreds of thousands of militant workers who will attend | the May Day meetings and demonstrations which the Communist Party and organizations sympathetic to it are arranging will be demonstratng against the war danger, against rationalization and militarization, and showing the imperialist rulers of the country that ‘a revolutionary organizing force is already mobilizing the masses for these struggles.—Editor. political field has been carried out,; flicts and colonial policies have ac- | the formula according to which its| companied the history of capital results may be traced back is: IM-| from its cradle. It is the extreme PERIALISM. This is not a new)! augmentation of these elements, | element, not an unexpected veering | the concentration and gigantic out- in the general historical course of| bursts of these conflicts, which} capitalist society. Military prepara-| have resulted in a new epoch in the| tions and wars, international con-| development of present-day society. COPPER By JOSEPH MARRON Men underground chipping out the guts of the earth Toiling, cursing, oozing sweat Men from the north Men from the south Men from the east Men from the west Digging, digging, digging Copper, copper, copper 4 Veins of ore are little pieces of dreams Men have dreamed underground A thousand men and a thousand dreams in a bucket of ore Men underground digging, drilling, shooting Eight, nine and ten hours For four-six-bits Overhead are cactus, birds and flowers All saying, always saying What beauty is this, Getting Ready for War; Plan Alaska Air Bases In preparation for the imperialist war, which may be centered in the Pacific, the Wall Street government is undertaking an aerial survey of the islands of Kuiu, Baranoj, and Chichagof, off Alaska, and part of the Alaskan mainland. At right, Lieut. Commander m and left, Licut. Burkett, who will conduct jean give i day, world peace, and Socialism. yIn dialectic reciprocal action—at| the same time result and cause of | the powerful accumulation of cap-| ital and of the consequent sharpen- | ing and intensifying of the contra- diction between capital and labor within and between the capitalist | states without—has imperialism entered upon its final phase, the vio- lent division of the world by the as- sault of capital. A chain of continual, unprecedent- ed competitive military preparations on land and sea in all capitalist countries, a chain of bloody wars, which have spread from Africa to Europe and which any moment may} fan the glowing sparks to a world conflagration; in addition, for years the phantom of the high cost of living, of mass hunger throughout | the whole capitalist world, which | can no longer be banished—these are the “signs” under which labor’s world holiday will soon celebrate the | twenty-fifth anniversary of its ex-| istence. And each of these “signs” is a flaming testimonial to the liv- ing truth and power of the ideas of the May Day celebration. The brilliant main idea of the May Day celebration is the independent action of the proletarian masses, is the political mass action of the| millions of workers, who otherwise expression to their own will only through petty parliament- ary action, separated by State bound- aries and consisting for the most part only in voting for represent- atives. The excellent proposal of the Frenchman Lavigne at the in- ternational congress in Paris com- bined this indirect parliamentary manifestation of the will of the pro- letariat with a direct international mass manifestation, the laying down of tools as a demonstration and fighting tactie for the eight-hour No wonder the whole development, the aggregate tendency of imperial- ism in the last decade has been to bring ever plainer and more tangi- bly before the eyes of the interna- tional working class that only the independent action of the broadest masses, their own political action, mass demonstrations, mass strikes which must sooner or later break forth into a period of revolutionary struggles for state power, can give the correct answer of the proletariat to the unprecedented pressure of im- perialist politics. At this moment of frenzied mili- tary preparations and of war orgies it is only the resolute fighting stand of the working masses, their ability and readiness for powerful mass ac- tion, which still: maintains world peace, which can still postpone the threatening world conflagration. And the more the May Day idea, | the idea of resolute mass action as demonstrations of international soli- darity and as a fighting tactic for peace and for Socialism even in the strongest section of the Interna- tional, the German working class, strikes root, the greater guaranty we shall have that from the world war, which will inevitably take place sooner or later, there will result an ultimately victorious settlement be- tween the world of labor and that of capital, Leipzig, April 30, 1913. Bring the Workers of Your Shop to} ers May Day j ° PRIL 20, 1929 2 > ee Sele 2 — Serres * | By Fred Ellis | Copyright, 1929, by International Publishers Co., Inc. Ry HAYWOOD’S BOOK Haywood Tells Commission He Always Violates Injunctions; the Industrial State; Women, Negroes and Foreign Born to Vote All rights resc.ved. Republica- tion forbidden except by permissicn, Haywood has told of his leading strikes for the Western Fed- cration of Miners, organizing the I.W.W., being thrown out of the socialist party for advocating direct action, touring Europe and America to speak for organization and defense of workers framed up by employers. He has told of the Moyer-Haywood-Pettibone trial, and of the Moyer maneuvers inside the W.F.M. and of the Patterson pageant. Just now, as the leader of the I.W.W., he is testifying before the Industrial Relations Commission of 1916, and being cross- examined by Commissioner Weinstock. Read his answers below. 05 le: By WILLIAM D HAYWOOD. PART 91. FTER I had answered Commissioner Weinstock’s other questions regarding the teachings of the I.W.W., he submitted the last: “(i) Strikers are to disobey and treat with contempt all judicial injunction.” I answered, “I have been plastered up with injunctions until I did not need a suit of clothes, and I have treated them with contempt. . 7.” Commissioner Weinstock: If I was to come in and take possession of your property and throw you out, would I be robbing you? Answer: You have a mistaken idea that property is yours. T hold that property does not belong to you—that what you as a capitalist have piled up as property is merely unpaid labor, surplus value. You have no vested right in that property. Commissioner Weinstock: You believe in the adoption of the meth- ods advocated by the I.W.W.? Answer: Can you conceive of anything that workers cannot do if they are organized in one big union? If labor was organized and self-disciplined it could stop every wheel in the United States to- night—every one—and sweep off your capitalists and state legislatures and politicians into the sea. Labor is what runs this country, and if the workers were organized, scientifically organized—if they were class conscious, if they recognized that one worker’s interest was every worker’s interest, there is noth- ing they could not do... . Commissioner Weinstock: I have been asked to submit this question to you if you care to answer it:®*What would you do with the lazy man and those that would decide which job each man should take, and what each particular man should do under your sys- tem?” ° Answer: I would give the lazy man the kind of work he would like to do. I don’t believe any man is lazy... . Commissioner Weinstock: Let me make sure, Mr. Haywood, that I certainly understand the objective of I.W.W.ism. I have assumed— I will admit that I have assumed in my presentation to you—that I.W.W.ism was socialism with a plus—that is, that I.W.W.ism in— I interrupted at this point, declaring that: I would very much pre- fer that you would eliminate the reference to socialism in referring to I.W.W.ism, because from the examples we have, for instance, in Germany, socialism has, or at least the social democratic party, has been very much discredited in the minds of workers of other countries. They have gone in for war, and those of us who believe we are so- cialists are opposed to war. So if you don’t mind we will discuss in- dustrialism on its own basis. Commissioner Weinstock: There is a radical difference between the I.W.W.s and the social democrats, Mr. Haywood? Answer: Yes. Commissioner Weinstock: The social democrat wants the state to own all the industries? Answer: Yes, Commissioner Weinstock: And the I.W.W., then, as you now ex- plain it, proposes to have those industries not owned by the state but by the workers. ° By the workers, I repeated. Commissioner Weinstock (continuing): Independent of the state? Answer: Independent of the state. There will be no such thing as the state or states. The industries will take the place of what are now existing states. Can you see any necessity for the states of Rhode Island and Connecticut, and two capitols in the smallest states in the Union? Commissioner Weinstock: Except that of home rule. Answer: Well, you have home rule, anyhow, when you place it in the people who are interested, and that is in the industries. Commissioner Weinstock: Well, then, will you briefly outline to us, Mr. Haywood, how you would govern and direct the affairs under your proposed system of a hundred million people, as we are in this country today? Answer: How are the affairs of the hundred million people con- ducted at the present time? The workers have no interest, have no voice in anything except the shops. Many of the workers are children. They certainly have no interest and no voice in the franchise. They are employed in the shops, and, of course, my idea is that chil- dren who work should have a voice in the way they work, in the wages they should receive—that is, under the present conditions children who labor should have that voice. The same is true of women. The political state, the government, says that women are not entitled to vote—that is, except in the ten free states in the West—but they are industrial units—they are pro- ductive units. My idea is that they should have a voice in the control or disposition of their labor power, and the only place where they can express themselves is in their labor union halls, and there they express themselves to the fullest as citizens of industry, if you will, as to the purpose of their work and the conditions under which they labor. Now, you recognize that in conjunction with women and children. The black men of the South are on the same footing. They are all citizens of this country, but they have no voice in its government. Mil- lions of black men are disfranchised, who if organized would have a voice in saying how they should work and how the conditions of labor should be regulated. But unorganized they are helpless and in the same condition of slavery as they were before the war. This is not only true of women and children and black men, but it extends to the foreigner who comes to this country and is certainly a useful member of society. Most of them at once go into industries, but for five years they are not citizens. They plod along at their work and have no voice in the control ‘or use of their labor power. And as you have learned through this commission there are corporations who direct the manner in which these foreigners shall vote. Certainly you have heard something of that in connection with the Rockefeller in- terests in the southern part of Colorado. You know that the elections there and in many oher places were never carried on straight. These foreigners were directed as to how their ballot should be placed. They are not the only ones disfranchised, but there is also the workingman who is born in this country, who is shifted about from place to place by industrial depressions—their homes are broken up and they are compelled to go from one city to another, and each state requires a certain period of residence before a man has the right to vote. Some states say he must be a resident one year, others say two years—he must live a certain length of time in the country—he must live for 30 days or such a matter in the precinct before he has any voice in the conduct of government. Now, if a man who not a subject of a state or nation, but a citizen of industry, moving from place to place, belonging to his union, where- ever he went he would step in the union hall, show his card, register, and he at once would have a voice in the conduct of the affairs per- taining to his welfare. That is the form of society I want to see. Un- derstand me, Mr. Weinstock, I think that the workingman, even doing the meanest kind of work, is a more important member of society than any judge on the supreme bench or any other useless member of so- ciety, I am speaking for the working class. I am a partisan of the workers, iat j # * * @ mer ¥6} In the next chapter Haywood tells of the Mesaba Iron Range | strike, and the shooting of a striker. You can get Bill Haywood'e to the Daily Workers