The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 24, 1929, Page 1

J 2 r - countless factories in the vicinity, INDEPENDENT SHOE WORKERS’ UNION CALLS MASS MOBILIZATION FOR MAY i RALLY AT COLISEUM Enthusiastic support of the May Day demonstration of the New York workers was pledged at a meeting of shop delegates of the Independent Shoe Workers’ Union of Greater New York. A resolu- tion was adopted for participation | of workers in its industry in the May Day parade and in the denr- onstration at the Bronx Coliseum, E. 177th St. Union Gains Victories. The union has compelled the shoe bosses to incorporate in its agreements, recognition of May s a workers’ holiday, upon cs hall down tools and close < ops. This resolution follows in part: Whereas, the workers of all countries celebrate the first day of May as the workers’ holiday of the year when they demonstrate their solidarity on an international as well as a national scope; and, whereas Our union, the Independent New med The workers’ trade union organ- izations will parade in the city of New York in celebration of May First, be it therefore Resolved, that we, the shop dele- gates of the Independent Shoe Workers’ Union of Greater New Shoe Workers of Greater York and vicinity, has procl the first day of May work- ers’ holiday upon which day all work shall cease and so stipulated same in our agreements with the bosses; and, whereas THE DAILY WORKER FIGHTS For a Workers-Farmers Government To Organize the Unorganized For the 40-Hour Week For a Labor Party = A, F i Entered ss second-class matter at the Post Office at New York, 3, 1879. £ Vol. VI, No. 42 Company, Published daily except Sunday by The Comprodaily Publishing New York City, Inc., 26-28 Union Square, _NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 1929 _ 3SCRIPTION Outside New York, orker York and vicinity, in meeting as- | also in the celebration to be held sembled, call upon all shoe work- | at the Bronx Coliseum at 177th ers to lay down their tools and, | St. at 4 p. m. on May First. be it further | ——_ i Resolved, that we call upon all On May e hail the Chi- shoe workers to participate in the | reyolu Long live the May First workers’ parade and revo! FINAL CITY <= —— =, New York, by mail, $8.00 per year. by_mall, $6.00 per ye Price 3 Cents WIDOW OF KILLED BUILDING WORKER LEFT DESTITUTE Charge Company With Withholding Actual Number er Injured Say Six Others Hart Livesin SqualidHarlem | Tenement House By EDWIN ROLFE. Further and more brutal aspects | of the Western Union Building tragedy which sent four workers to their deaths Saturday morning were uncovered yesterday when a} Daily Worker reporter visited the home of Antonio Coiro, one of the killed workers. The widow, Mrs. Lucrezia Coiro, | and her eight-year-old child live in| a squalid tenement house at 326 | East 118th St., in that section of | Harlem where the vicious exptoita-$~ tion of tenants have been described | by a Daily Worker investigator. | Originally built of white bricks, the | old building is now almost black from the soot and smoke of the and dirty, tumble-down from lack of repair. » Old, Dark Tenement You walk up a flight of rickety | stairs through a hallway smelling 5 é nio Coiro, one of the four | workers hurled to his death by boss negligence and intense speed- up while at work on the new Western Union Building. He was only 87 years old. Elsewhere on this page appears an intertiew with the widow and relatives of the dead worker. of food cooking and piled-up gar- bage. In a four-room “apartment” facing the street lives the widow and her orphaned child. Relatives of the dead man, who had been buried on Monday, were grouped around the large table in the front room when I entered. It was dark and bare but evidently the best room of the apartment, Some one called “Lucrezia,” and a pale woman, Mrs. Otto Coiro, about 35 years old but looking far older as a result of a life of intense strug- gle nodded. Seated at the table with two brothers and other rela- tives of the dead worker, they spoké’| of the tragedy. All the women were dressed in black, the men in their ih best suits; all, however, in mourn- ing. In quiet and awkward voices they spoke of the dead man. In their broken English they told of his life. Sick For Three Months. He had been at work on the West- ern Union Building job for only (Continued on Page Five) IS MORE TH Support May Day Issue with Greetings For the moribund socialist party May Day is only the coming of Spring. That is the very first and principal reason they give for calling a meeting on May Day in their cir- cular letter. For us, the class-conscious work- ers under the leadership of the Com- munist Party, May Day is the oc- * casion for rallying around the living struggles of the working class. Holiday of Labor. May Day is full of life for us— mot simply because the trees ara q» CURRY HEADS Police and Rain Fail to Halt Food Pickets Cafeteria’ strikers in the garment section continued picketing in full force Monday despite rain and police terror. piaketan being arrested by police. Photo shows 16 Restaurants Surrender to Drive of Ca‘eteria Strikers RANK AND FILE OF BRICKLAYERS FOR 5-DAY WEEK Union Officials Gag Demands of Members John Gill, chairman of the Brick- | la$ers Union Executive Committee has joined John McClurg, secretary of the Mason Plasterers’ Associa- tion, in scoffing at the possibilities of a bricklayers’ strike on May 1 when the bricklayers’ agreement with the bosses expires. | The present agreement of the | bricklayers’ union calls for $14 a day, and an eight-hour day, five and one-half day week of 44 hours. The| rank and file of the bricklayers have demanded that the new agreement grant.a wage of $15.40 a day and a 5-day, 40-hour week. The bricklayers’ union constitu- | | tion stipulates that a new agreement | |be reached a month before the ex- | piration of the old one, but, al-| though the old agreement expires in| (Continued on Page Five) jits attack TAMMANY HALL, John F. Curry, “boss of the Fifth! District in New York, is elected the head of Tammany Hall, the politi-| cal machine in charge of patronage | in New York for generations. Curry got twelve and one-sixth votes against ten and one-half cast) for his opponent, Ahern. | He got a majority of those vot- ing, not a majority of the entire general committee, for David H. Knott, former sheriff and head of the county committee, did not vote at all, and neither did Peter J. Hamill, chief of the First District, or Philip Donohue, treasurer of the general committee. Ahern is an advocate of the so- called “new Tammany,” which mere- ly means the Smith faction. Curry is an out and out Walker man, is put into office by the gang*of big business men and contractors sup- porting Mayor Walker’s administra- tion, and rivals of another group lining up behind former Governor Smith. AN SPRING budding—but because we are in the forefront of the class struggle, be- cause May Day in 1929 is an oc- casion for demonstrating our soli- darity and revolutionary aims. The Daily Worker, always sensi- tive to the struggles of the working- class, also uses the occasion to pub- lish a special May Day Edition of | total of $328. 300,000 copies, to broadcast the mes- sage of May Day amony the workers. as A greeting from A” wostemgerm.. . (Contitued on Page Vive) The Sheldon Cafeteria the latest to fall before the organization drive of the Hotel, Restaurant and Cafeteria Workers Union, making a total of 16 restaurants which have| surrendered since the union started a general strike in the garment sec- tion. “What's an Injunction?” “What is an injunction?” asked Jacqueline Chan, 16-year-old Chi- | nese striker, when Magistrate Hy-) man Bushel asked her if she knew| | she was picketing in defiance of an injunction. Bushel explained that the i tion was a court order ae picketing. “Why?” the picket asked, “Ten dollars or ten days,” Bushel replied. The striker took the ten day: The restaurant owner who testified against her told the court |she had torn up a copy of the in- junction served on her and spat in his face. | Thirty strikers arrested yesterday were fined $3 each by Magistrate Bushel, on charges of disorderly | conduct, Sentenced to Workhouse. Three of the four pickets arrested jat Sixth Ave. and 28th Sf. yester- day, when the riot squad was called | out, house. George Thomas, West 28th St. got 20 da Souzis, 27, 1101 65th S and Nick Ecomomous, . 36th St., Brooklyn, will serve ten days in the workhouse. All were| badly injured by a gang of private detectives hired by the Princeton Cafeteria to break up the picket line, | which the strikers were protecting. Sam MacDonald, an American In- | dian, 23, of 212 West 47th St., was too badly injured to appear in court. $328 in Fines. Sixty-eight others were fined a The fines ranged 40, Dominick from $5 to $50. discharged because there was no complaint against them. Magistrate Was A.F.L. Lawyer Magistrate Was A.F.L. Lawyer. Sam Kramberg, secretary of the! (Continued on Page Five) Demonstrate your solidarity with tke striking miners, textile, food and shoe workers on May Day, and against the treacherous socialist party and the capitalist flunkeys of the A. F. of L. On May Day—long live the al- liance of the working class and the poor farmers! Crouch Will Be at | Y. W. L. Convention || Paul Crouch is on his way to the National Convention of the Young Workers (Communist) League with three young strik- ing textile workers as fraternal delegates. The delegation will arrive in time for the mass mecting Fri- day night at Central Opera House, 67th St. and Third Ave. A rousing welcome is being pre- pared for all delegates, who are expected to arrive in time for the opening of the convention. Tickets for the mass meeting Friday night are on sale at the Daily Worker office, 26-28 Union , Sq. and at the National Office of League, 43 BE. 125th St. ™~ on the open shop with} were sentenced to the ‘work-| 101} of 133] BRITTEN ASKS WARSAW POLICE GASTONIA ‘STRIKERS PICKET ON SCENE LARGEST AFLOAT Dissents from Gibson’s , Theory Big Cruisers | Enough Advantage British Chief Asks Wait French Launch Largest | Cruiser So Far | WASHINGTON, April 23.—Ad- | ministration leaders in general |seem to feel satisfied that Ameri- can delegate Gibson’s speech to the | Geneva arms conference allowing} | U. S. to build as many 10,000-ton | eruisers to fight Britain with as it \likes within the limits of the total | tonnage adopted is all that is needed |to give American imperialism the} | necessary advantage over British. Chairman Britten, of the House Naval Committee, dissented today. | Britten characterized Gibson’s state- ment of the American policy as “a complete surrender of the principles agreement proposed by| our delegates to the last Geneva con- | ference and at the same time an- other naval victory fox British! diplomacy.” To Use Merchant Ships He said: “Any proposal which! fails to give serious military value to the many British naval bases seattered around the world is unfair to other leading powers who do not enjoy these valuable facilities. + “If Ambassador Gibson is pro- posing to establish the navy’s value |only of fighting ships and is ignor- ling the great military value of big, fast merchant ships capable of | manning six-inch guns, he is over- looking an American opportunity ‘and playing into the hands of shrewd old-world diplomats to the tremendous disadvantage of his own country.” | * * * (Continued on Page Two) Down with discrimination against the foreign-born, women and youth workers. Demonstrate your solidarity on on: Bey a: Day. ZARITSKY THUGS SLASH WORKERS |Militants Aroused by Brutal Assault At 1:30 p. m., at 38 Sixth Ave.,| yesterday a squad of right wing| thugs led by Sam Blochman, and “Little Sammy,” of Zaritsky’s gang in Local 1, attacked Morris Fein and Sol C, Cohen, well known millinery | workers, while they were standing! in the market waiting for a job. The Twenty-five were | Sangsters used knives and black-| congress, a great demonstration was| Workers among themselves, and that \jacks. Fein, who was a member of| the union for 13 years, lost three teeth. about the same length of time, had his face badly cut. Six stitches were taken in his face and lips. Workers Determined. Mass indignation of the millinery workers is growing against such | tactics, and they are determined to rid the organization of such gang- sters. These gangsters were protecting scabs, and cooperating with the police and bomb squad in| trying to break down left wing re-| sistance at the Princeton Hat strike | and stop the mass support fer the, left wing Local 43 which they have jexpelled from the International, and |which is calling on the membership |at large to put an end to Zaritsky’s misrule. Down with discrimination against the foreign-born, women and youth workers. Demonstrate your solidarity on May Day, FAKE BANKRUPT TESTIFIES OF GRAFT RING. The long-delayed bankruptcy ring investigation supposed to probe th& circles around federal judges in New York yesterday before Federal Judge Thatcher with testimony of} Jacob Mirsky that he followed the) advice of Attorney Nathan Fried- i | basic | “No Hurry.” LONDON, April 23.—England, |against which was aimed the} Gibson-Hoover proposal to offer S. C. Cohen, also a member for! standing | Raid Militant, Labor | , | ovate GHILDREN RALLY tas On TO AID. STRIKE Communist Trials On| Children’s Section of} the W. I. R. Sends Solidarity Letter Pledges Aid| in Fight “Support Left Wing Be Union! Speed Moscow May 1 Preparations (Wireless By “Inprecorr”) WARSAW, April 23.—Wholesale raids and arrests by the police of| |this city have been made upon work- ers’ organizations in an attempt to |stop preparations for May Day. A police spy was killed in a fight on Sunday, which resulted from an |attempt to stop a w orkér from post- jing Communist May Day placards. Over 100 workers were arrested in conhection with this. | | In answer to the brutal attac! of the bosses on the Gastonia strik- Jers the children’s section of the 12 Young Workers Jailed. Workers International Relief has Last Friday 12 young workers|sent the following letter to all} were arrested for distributing Com-|southern strikers’ children. It munist May Day appeals. A wor! igned by Anna Speaker. secretar: er named Myron Chayutin was ar-|W. I. R., children’s section. | jrested at the railway station,| “To all Gastonia strikers’ chil- | jcharged with Communist activity.'cdren: The Workers International | The headquarters of the left wing|Relief has organized a children’s | of the Polish Socialist Party was/section for the purpose of carrying raided, 19 persons arrested, and the|on relief work among the workers’ rooms sealed. The police also raid-| children and for the building of ed the large press where 300,000!camps for workers’ children. eae (Convention Hope, Hive) “The workers’ children in this | country have done much to help the children of strikers. Thousands of dollars have been raised for the IN ANTLFASCIST jst king miners’ children and for | the children of the northern textile | strikers, and for thousands of other | re children, children’s section of the Workers International Relief sends j its greetings of solidarity to the children of the Gastonia textile |strikers, We are proud of the “1: heroic struggle of the Gastonia tex- Militant Workers Show tile strikers. We urge you to be as brave as your parents, your sis- ers and your brothers in the strug- (Continued on Se ECG R Two) | Socialist Treason (Wireless By “Inprecorr”) VIENNA, April 23.——The ant fascist congr at Stroelten w: great success despite the counter- | Baventqeighe Cammanist delezates: [69 social democrats, and 23 non- CLARK KILLING |party delegates were present from | Vienna and the provinces. Koeplenig, Communist Party lead- ler, made the main speech, declaring Segrevation I Is Part of that the victory of the Austrian Landlord System | cists would mean not only the sup- That the forced segregattion of pression of the workers, but the| utilization of Austr base for N attack upon the Soviet Union, He| ear workers into districts espe- condemned the social democratic |1i#l¥ Set aside for them, forced to leaders, who refused to fight fas-|!'ve in the worst houses, suffering cist, but instead expelled those|l! the evils of overcrowding and members who fought fascism, and|the preiudice fostered by the land- | \condemned the abandonment of the|!0rd class, helped make possible the | tenants by the social democratic/™Utder cf Henry Clarke, the Negro leadene: |schoolboy, by a white boy, was one S i he chief points stressed at the | Tomann spoke on the betrayals,°! th on ae ‘pureauerate|mecting held at St. Luke's Hall to protest the murder. by the social democratic bureaucrats of the recent economic struggles of Speaker after speaker pointed out | fe jthat it was the policy of the ex- |the workers. Thirty-five workers| spoke in the discus js The congress adopted an appeal | ploiters to instill and encourage |to the Austrian workers. After the racial hatred in order to divide the held . jone of their chief means of doing The social democratic delegates to| that was to segregate Negro work: the congress issued a declaration) ¢vs in the worst tenement districts | protesting against the attitude of|*nd rob them to the bone. |the social democratic leaders, and| Segregation and Landlords. jdemanding a united front of all) Richard B. Moore, president of | |workers against fascism, irrespec-|the Harlem Tenants League and tive of party affiliation. member of the Communistt Party, On Sunday, there were bloody | Stressed especially the housing phase | lelashes between the fascists and/0f the incident. Both white and Ne- \the workers in this city. The fas-|g%0 landlords, he said, deliberately cists were defeated, and four were | fostered racial prejudice in order to | taken to the hospital. |be able to squeeze out of the Negro | [voce as much rent as_ possible. | (Continued on Page Five) | Celebrate May First at the Coliseum, Four Busted Walls and Leaky Roof Is Mining Camp “Home” Stinking, Germ-Laden Water Is Pumped Into Company-Owned Shacks (This is a letter received from a miner working for the Vesta Coal Company, of Daisytown, Pa., de- scribing the housing conditions in the mining camp. The regular series, exposing the conditions under which workers are forced to live, will be con- tinued tomorrow with a further description of the housing condi- tions in Latin-American Harlem. Workers are asked to write in about their houses. The housing evil, as you can see from the fol- try, in mining and mill towns as well as in the city slums.) Wo ae Dear Comrade Editor: Housing conditions in the mining camps of Western Pennsylvania are the worst conditions that miners have to face. After the union was broken up by the Lewis leadership, the company immediately started to raise the rent of the shacks, or so-| called houses, by two to four dollars | a month. The houses are not fit to live ir. man and managed a fake bank- ruptcy. lowing letter, must be faced by They were built on the old system morkers in all parts of the coun (Continued on Paaa Twas | union into a new stage of |tion of the Greensboro paper and U.S.NAVY BETHE IN TERROR DRE QF 2 BAYONET CHARGES; CHARLOTTE AGAINSTMAYDAY) MILL STRUCK; USE TRUCKS FOR RELIEF pee ae a THUG S occupy | FOOD STATION Relief Director and 42 Others Are Released; Beal Is / Arres ted es Orde rs Gunmen Tells Seabs to Lynch Organizer Pershing BULLETIN. GASTONIA, N. C., Apri mill ers here textile 1 this morning ille-Jenckes representative in eted the Amy Schechter, Gastonia of the Workers’ Interna- mill, from which yesterday tional Relief, of 1 Union Square, 1 and led by New York. The New York office > issued with asks all workers for funds to buy chee k, rifle and bayonet to stab food for the strikers. The Gastonia and beat the ers, many of office has been wrecked by thugs,|Whom today are wounded as and is now occupied by deputies, but @ vesult of the scabs’ bayonet its director, several times arrested Charges. These thugs were called to and released, plans distribution from take the pla = of state militia with- trucks. drawn in order to give the thugs F. e without mbarrass- tate government. Strike in Charlotte. MILL STRIKERS Not only stonia strike standing firm, but the strike today MORE MILITANT took another leap ahead with the i Ly walkout of the workers in the Cal- fake vine mill of the Chadwick-Hoskins ins aw Corporation “in~ Charlotte — twenty Police Terror Increases | miles from Gastonia. The Wenonah is the ( mill of the same company is struck solid in Lexington, and the firm has temporarily Their Determination ee PEVE given up hope of re- _By KARL REEVE opening it with scabs. Organizer GASTONIA, N. C., (By Mail of the National Textile The smashing of the headqu of the National Tex Union, Local Gastonia, entrance of the activities rs’ Union is at the Charlotte forkers | strike. marked the| of the develop- ment. The general reaction among the workers against this act of ter- Armed deputies are of the in possession relief store on West Frank- lin Ave., Gastonia, and refuse to al- low any of the food stored there to be distributed to the starving rorism on the part of the mill strikers their hungry children. ers and the authorities is to give Milk in the relief station intended great impetus to the recruiting of fo» the babies of the strikers is new members into the union from being ‘allowed. to and the mills not yet on s gud to cause |babics went hungry yeaterday a great increase in the size of the oe vil mass meetings, at which there now often 4,000 workers present. | the own- ah sour, Distribute Food. But today the Workers the tional Relief director, Amy released with 40 rom jails where vas taken yes terday arranged f s milk str strikers, At are I will never headquarters job had been without hurry, masked mob part—used forget was smashed. | done syste and thoroughl not 50 but 200 tz sledge hammer: others. tion of in the and other to pickets and crowbars bearing the label of the | Strikers. At the same time every Manville Jenckes Company. They |¢!fort is being made by the relief went around the walls and com-|¢°™mittee to force the city author- pletely demolished them; then /ities to allow the W. I. R. store to when the roof was lying on the | P® Peopened. : ground, they battered that in, after, Late yesterday afternoon 30 dep. which they scattered the records of “Hes appeared at the Workers In- |the union and the belongings of some '!national Relief store with guns Noe itis“ olwaninges or cick! then Bs bayonets and cleared out all hose present, inclu strikers get- One of the deputies KGontsa on Page Two) away. ting food. Then Jail Strikers | The relief store, a brick oe, ould not be torn down so easily, contents were destroyed and va possible damage done. Meanwhile, officers of the national guard and deputies either looked on or took an active part in the work. When the job was Souietes the masked | ist BOSSES APPLAUD sien none’ me HOQVER ON GOPS Sian Acad ehiwralinta: tdtlovain rand ‘Glad to ony then arrested all the strikers they could round up, charging them with| “destruction of property.” When the mill owners saw the great in-! dignation aroused among the work- ers, the newspapers, with the excep- Demand for Kasy Frame-up VASHINGTON April 23.— piles of the administration, big business head: benefitted by the Hoover ¢ tion of jobs, pe- | flooded the Whit e today with rikers had | telegrams of approval for Hoover's speech in New esterday to the he iy Early in the afternoon of the day pape are Whine on which this outrage took place, I walked into Gastonia with Tom Jimi- the Raleigh News and Observer, gan to shriek that the done the work themselves. ers of m son, the lawyer secured by the In-' tiy s | ternational Labor Defense to defend cles arly 1 be hired. in fa nny more dete@= Hoover is large army with the ob- yor service to of their job the strikers, both of us swinging of rather heavy canes. Jimison red necktie on and was wearir red carnation in his button ho Then came the question whether we) [Hog could hold a meeting. Deputies and! not t: guards were everywhere, heavily he wanted | armed, the deputies with the | force of |faces of men always selected for ho ad (Continued on Page Two) fove in h 1 took pains hat kind of “e and deprive e of their jury. But he y implied that he was think- troubles” rather than jon by a remark that “only a smail percentage of the increased ‘amount of erime can be charged, to the 18th amendment.” —fight for social e against unemployment, ‘ness and old age; for the or- ation of the unorganized; for militant, fighting unions. Long live the Cleveland Trade Union \inity Conventions