The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 24, 1929, Page 6

” i Page sx Central Organ of the Communist Party of the U. S. A. Baily 545 Worker DAIWORK.” $8.00 a year months $6.00 a year )0 three months Adéress and mail ail checks to the New York, N. The Western Union Building Murders. The big fact that stands out today in the slaughter of four workers and the injuries suffered by eleven more when death stalked through the new Western Union Tele- graph Building last Saturday, is the complete silence of the working cla itself. The official regime of both the Building Trades Coun- cil and the Bricklayers’ Union was in fact quite startled, when prodded by the Daily Worker, that anyone should think there was anything for them to do in the matter. They were quite content to allow Police Commissioner Whalen to arrest workers, charge them with “criminal neg- ligence” and thus throw the mantle of innocence over the contractors and the Western Union Telegraph Company, that was urging the erection of the building at the greatest pos- sible speed. The trade union reaction sees no reason for it to act, confronted as it is by four fresh graves, and by eleven work- ers still alive to be sure but who will from now on be handi- capped in the struggle for existence by the injuries they re- +ceived. The toll of death and injuries that does not arouse the official regime of this section of the American Federation of Labor is as follows: THE DEAD. ® “CARDONI, SALVATORE, 43 years old, of 104 5th Queens. COIRO, ANTONIG, 37, of 326 East 113th Street. JONES, SAMUEL, 38, bricklayer, of Baldwin, L. I. ROWNING, 45, bricklayer, of 648 Seventy-second St., Brooklyn. e THE INJURED. CALDWELL, THOMAS, of Ninety-sixth Street, Corona, Queens, lacerations of scalp, four stitches. Beekman Street Hospital. CELLA, AUGUSTINO, 38, of 31 Downing Street, Brooklyn, re- ceived treatment at scene. COMPIGLIA, ANTONY, 54, of 448 Hamilton Avenue, Astoria, L. I, treated at scene for contusions of the back. GERRITZ, THOMAS, 34, of 248 st 135th Street, treated at scene for contusions and abrasions of head. LOWMAN, JOHN, 38, of 2,601 Farragut Road, Brooklyn, treated at scene for shock. LYONS, VICTOR, 33, of 174 East 117th Street, treated at scene for contusions of the back. MARMON, GERONIMO, of 72-21 Forty-eighth Avenue, Winfield, Queens, taken to Beekman Street Hospital with injuries to head and later transferred to Bellevue Hospital, where he remained. MURPHY, ARTHUR, 39, of 319 West Fifty-first Street, treated at scene for contusion of left hip. PALMOTT, CARL, 43, of Cresthill, N. J., treated at scene for lacerations and contusions of face and body. RYAN, JAMES, 58, of 972 Morris Avenue, Bronx, treated at scene for shock. SLATER, WALTER, 45, of 188 Ninth Street, Midland Beach, four stitches in scalp, at Beekman Street Hospital. St., Corona, Investigation has revealed that there were at least six more seriously injured. It is not difficult to understand the attitude of the labor reaction. To fight against the underlying causes of this tragedy would bring them into open conflict with the Tam- many regime that they support, the power in politics that refuses to assure the protection of labor, that helped in kil- ling, for instance, every bit of labor legislation, no matter how weak that came béfore the last session of the state legis- lature. The whole careers of Sam Parks and Robert P. Brindell, who operated their graft regimes in large part directly through the New York building trades council, showed that it was profitable to sell out the workers on every possible occasion to the bosses and the capitalist politicians. The lives of a few members of the rank and file and in- juries to many, do not matter, if the pockets of those high in the official regime are bulging with the bribes of the bosses. This is part of the reward that flows to the traitors from the class collaboration schemes they champion, from the “industrial peace” that they espouse as the ideal relation between the working class and the capitalist class. The Western Union building murders, that leave the fakers in official position cold with indifference, should stir the masses of labor to open and energetic protest. This should not only involve the building trades but the whole working class, all labor suffering under ruthless capitalist exploita- tion that puts a cheap price on workers’ lives, that laughs at demands for social insurance against accidents, death, occupational diseases, unemployment and other ills growing directly out of industry. In every trade union the rank and file, under the leader- ship of the left wing, must not hold back from raising the issue of the Western Union building murders, forcing a defi- nite program of struggle against the reaction that betrays the workers’ interests and seeks to gag every protest; against the employers and against the capitalist politicians, the Tam- many Hall regime in city and state, from which the repub- lican party does not differ one iota. Every obstacle will be put in the path of these efforts. The trade union bureaucracy is even today sabotaging the wage demands of the rank and file in the Bricklayers’ Union, made in connection with the expiration of the present agree- ment May First. The members of this same Bricklayers’ Union, who,saw their cpmrades crushed to déath at the Western Union Tele- graph building last Saturday, have received a communica- tion from William Green, president of the American Federa- tion of Labor, demanding that they give no assistance to striking mill labor,in the Carolinas because they are striking under the banners of the left wing National Textile Workers’ Union. This is open support of the mill owners. The regction in the trade union movement every day offers a multitude of new arguments why it should be com- pletely overthrown. This International May Day season of new struggles is a time for action against the reaction. _ The New York Times, democrat, organ of finance capi- tal, fully endorses the republican president, Hoover, in his on relief for the farmers. The bi-partisan political com- tion of great business works perfectly. On May Day—Rally to the struggle against imperialist 1 All to the defense of the Soviet Union! aS. Daily, except | RE i By ROBERT W. DUNN. Workers are not discharged at the Frigidaire Corp., subsidiary of General Motors. They dis rg themselves. This is the “line” hand- ed to the men and women who make electric refrigerators at Day- ton, O., by Harry Myers, high- salaried Frigidaire superintendent of personnel. In a net 73-page booklet entitled “You and Your Work,” he adve: tises the uSual ar of General Motors welfare devices, designed to keep $20-$25 a week machine-tend- ers in the GMC “family” happy, con- tented, and suspicious of unions. | Glad-Hand Firing. | Frigidaire has a ban on union men and “agitators,” as those who, take a job there find out. It fol- |lows, therefore, that any man who talks unionism in the shop dis- charges himself. Nothing could be simpler or more typical of the firm, | ruthless, glad-hand tyranny Gen- eral Motors displays in all its plants and divisions. The booket is full of obvious mis- statements, shallow economics, and plenty of Big Brother phraseology. One lie is that “one out of every five people in the U.S. has an auto-| show any tendency to sit down) good thing for a worker. A man| with a final quotation from mil- nobile Another is that “good|when the machinery pauses GMC) picks up another job somewhere, | lionaire Pres. Sloan of General Mo- times” and “good wages” may be| will doubtless do like Henry Ford' somehow. “It is somewhat like a, tors on hard work, well. underlined. mobile.” DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, APRIL | “FIGHT THAT SHADOW!” 24, 1929 conn | So General Motors Subsidiary Tells Slaves In | Booklet; Company Union Paradise had by sweating harder at the job,;—take all the seats away. so General Motors can undercut} For those workers who think they other electrie refrigerator concerns} are not making’ enough money the and throw other workers out of | Frigidaire advice is simple—work jobs. This is the boasted General) from whistle to whistle. If you do Motors “open mind.” | this the price of the Frigidaire will “Hit the Ball.” go down, maybe. Indeed, if you loaf ! One of the. Frigidaire rules for|@ minute on the job the results may employes reads, “work well from|be tragic. “It may be the thing | whistle to whistle.” And this means that is keeping a Frigidaire out being busy “All of the time. No|of your home,” or at least if you one should ever be found standing | are not in line for a sale, “you are or sitting around doing nothing.” | keeping the benefit of Frigidaire Should there be some unavoidable | out of many homes.” delay, don’t sit down and rest a Get Another Job. half a minute. No sir, “We should} always use these odd minutes to| there may be steady work. But the clean up our machinery or to put! company warns ‘employes that they our place in order.” | may be laid off now and then. How- As the personnel men lean back| ever “one need not be idle if he in swivel chairs and light a cigar | does good work.” He can get another or phone the wife to see what she} job, This in the face of millions of has ordered for dinner, these in-| unemployed looking for jobs in the structions are laid down for the United States today. Frigidaire, be- underdogs in the plant. If the boys|lieves, in fact, that a layoff is a National Textile Union, Meetings, Applaud Strikers Resolutions of the National Tex- tile Workers Union and of the mass meeting held under the auspices of the N. T. W. U., the Workers In- ternational Relief, the International Labor Defense and the Trade Union Educational League, in New York, have been sent to the striking tex- | tile workers, calling on them to stand fast, for the workers of the north will come to their aid. The National Textile Workers Union of America has issued the foliowing manifesto to its members striking in the south, It is signed |by President James P. Reid and Secretary Albert Weisbord: “Textile workers in the south, de- fend your union; defeat the bosses’ mobs who would smash your strikes! “The destruction of the headquar- ters of our union and of the Work- ers International Relief by a mob |of masked men operating for the |Manville Jencks Company under the | protection of the sheriff and the \militia, and bayoneting the strikers and the many arrests of organizers \and strikers, all show the despera- tion and fear that the bosses of the south have regarding the growing strike wave under the leadership of |the National Textile Workers Union of America. Under this militant leadership the textile slaves of the south are moving in revolt against |the terrible conditions that have pre- yailed for so many years. In spite of starvation, open terroristic acts, jand the contemptible sabotage of | the American Federation of Labor lofficials against them, hold firm and build up a strong union of your own. Defend Yourselves. “Workers in the south, do not let the mobs of the Chamber of Com- merce, inspired by Superintendent |\Baugh of the Manville Jencks Com- |pany, break up our union. Give this \gang of thugs and crooks the treat- |ment they deserve when they attack jyou. Defeat these lynching, strike- breaking mobs. Stand firm. Fight on. Keep the mills closed. Speed the strike, Rally still stronger to your fighting union and leadership. “You have nothing to lose but jyour chains. You have a world to jgain.” | Mass Meeting Resolution. The resolution of the New York imass meeting of April 17 calls on workers everywhere to support Workers Pledge Active Support to Struggle of Mill Strikers in the South these southern strikers, defending themselves against slavery and brutal attack. It is as follows: “A big strike wave is now open- by the southern organizers’ of the National Textile Worker's Union, the southern mill workers are now beginning to strike back, Under the The idea is that if you work hard | ing up in the southern textile mills of utmost importance to the entire working class of this country. Work- ing 10 to 12 hours a day for an average of from $6 to $14 a week, these workers, white and black, have been goaded beyond endurance. On their backs has just been loaded a most ferocious speed-up system, doubling and tripling the work and making life absolutely unbearable. . Strike Extending. “Driven by these conditions and greatly stimulated by the agita- tional and organizational work done leadership of the National Textile Workers Union a strike of 2,500 workers. has taken -place in Gas- tonia, North Carolina, in the Loray Mill of the Manville Jencks Com- pany. This strike has been extended to Pineville, Lexington and South Gastonia, At once workers have been arrested, companies of troops have been sent in, and the whole weight of the state’ machinery is being thrown into the battle to break the strike. The union organizers are carrying on their work under the greatest personal peril. The Hoover Spouts Bunk Over Radio A plea for “law enforcement” and an “attack on crinte” were made by Wall Street's servant in the White House at @ luncheon given by the chief capitalist newspaper agency, the Associated Press. Hoover did not, of course, say that the capitalist stem is the cause of practically all crime. The radio and all other modern technical inventions are always at the service of the capital thelr work of poisoning the minds of the workera, pats By Fred Ellis y vacation,” writes the well-fed per- | sonnel specialist. Then we find that Fri | a closed shop—for a company union. | “The Frigidaire Employes’ Ass’n composedgof all who Work at Frigid- aire, and you become a member im-| mediately when you are employed.” | | What does this little association do? | | Discuss ‘wages, grievances, and jhours? No. It “operates our cafe- terias and stores.” | The company also runs a sugges- tion system, but, unlike other firms | it pays no cash reward for sugges- | tions. Instead it hands the worker | a promise that he will have a steady | job, if he obeys the six rules of} conduct, including the “whistle to| whistle,” sweating, and “following | instructiogs willingly.” On top of} that he will get a raise in pay—! “when you have earned it”; and| | finally a. beautiful piece of paper | reading as follows: “This certifies | | that has made a SUGGES- | TION” (in old English script) “that will improve our products and lower our costs of manufacturing. This | Suggestion is now in operation and | is registered as Number .. .” | The employes’ handbook ends ;employers are now playing their last |eard by calling on the American Federation of Labor officials to |come into the situation to break the strike in their attempt to crush the gvowing movement. These agents of capitalism in the labor movement are playing their historic role of betrayers. But the strikers are holding firm and the strike wave is spreading. Many More Strikes. “Further, in Ware Shoals, Pelzer, Central, Greenville, Buffalo, Union, Woodruff and Anderson, and other places in South Carolina and in Elizabethton, ‘Tennessee, sporadic strikes are breaking out which have already involved 13,000 workers at diffegent times. This is only the beginning. The whole region with ever 150,000 textile workers, is stirring into greater activity, “The terrible conditions existing in the south have been the source of bitter exploitation and robbery, not only of the southern workers, but also menace the standards and yery lives of the workers through- out the United States. The strug- gle of the southern workers for bet- ter conditions is also a struggle for us, for all the workers as well. . Need Relief at Once, “Above all, we understand that the low wages of the workers means that the strikers are destitute im- mediately their pay is cut off, thus emphasizing the urgency of sending financial aid for relief, defense and ‘}general organizational purposes, “In view of all this, therefore, we, the several hundred workers at the mass meeting assembled in New York City, solemnly resolve and pledge our fullest support to the embattled southern strikers and the National @Textile Workers Union leading them. We call on the work- ers everywhere to render their ut- most financial and.material assist- arfce to the Workers International Relief, and the International Labor Defense, the organizations feeding and defending the destitute strikers, so that they can fight on to a vic- torious finish.” “We greet the heroic southern strikers, white and black, as our brothers, and call on them to fight until victory is theirs, with the knowledge that all thé workers are behind them, and will support them j a | whom were under the influence of the great lumber | companies, Frigidaire Workers Fire’ Selves! (2. Iustice departments at Washington to annihilate the I.W.W. Copyright, 1929, Publishers Co., Inc. by International . a ieadbad All rights rese,veq. Republica- tion forbidden except by permissicn. BOOK The Everett Massacre; Tar and Feathers at Tulsa; Stool Pigeons Hover Around; Judge Landis Sentences 150 Men Haywood has told in his own words of the outstanding events of his life, how he was born in the Mormon settlements of Utah, became a miner at the age of nine, followed many trades in the Old West such as ranch laborer, cowboy, assayer, homesteader, etc. He has told how he left his machine drill 4,000 feet underground to go to the most important office in the Western Federation of Miners, He has told of the Cripple Creek, Denver smelter, Telluride and other terrific strikes of the miners, how they fought the company yunmen, how he himself was framed and placed on trial with two cther officers of the union for killing a governor, and acquitted, how he organized the 1.W:W., of tours to speak in Europe, Canada and U.S., much about the leading personalities of the time and the story of the Lawrence, Paterson, Akorn and Mesaba Range strikes. He cescribed the outbreak of war and the Mooney case. Now*read on. ~ e ® By WILLIAM D HAYWOOD. PART 94. Spo lumber was an important war material which the Lumber Trust was supplying to the warring nations, and later to the United States government, at a price increased from $33 a thotsand to $110 a thousand. The lumber workers, members of the I.W.W., felt that they were justly entitled to better working conditions, better living conditions, shorter hours, and an increase in wages. They were making great efforts to organize the lum- ber workers, mill hands, and others’ employed in the production of lumber, But in many places they met with the opposition of the county authorities, all of This was true at Everett, Washington, where the sheriff continued to arrest the organizers and speak- ers of the I.W.W. and disrupted the meetings. The Seattle branches of the organization decided to send a number of their. members to Everett to establish free speech and the right to organize. On Sunday, November 5th, 1916, they chartered the vessel Verona and a sister ship, and started for Everett. When the Verona reached the wharf, the workers aboard the ;| ship were met with a volley of rifle shots fired by deputy sheriffs and gunmen from an ambush. Five members of the I.W.W. were killed and many wounded. Though their fellow members had been cruelly murdered, a large number who were aboard the Verona were arrested and compelled to stand trial for murder, as some of the officers on the land had been killed by volleys returned from the ship, After long imprisonment, when tried, they were released. The work of organizing went on with the lumber workers until a strike was declared and carried on with much energy until, for the lack of funds, it became necessary to strike on the job, The men re- turned to work and quit when they had put in 8 hours. This angered the superintendent and foreman, who repeatedly told the men they would have to work .10 hours, as the place was a 10-hour camp. The workers replied that they knew that when they took the job, but that they were 8-hour men and would work no longer. They compelled the companies to install beds instead of the muzzle-loading bunks that were in use, they got shower-baths, washing facilities, and better grub. On May 1st, 1917, all the lumber workers burned all their vermin- infested lousy blankets. ee ‘HE conditions in the oil fields of Oklahoma, Texas and California were very bad. The Oil Workers’ Industrial Union determined that something must be done for the workers employed around the oil wells and in the camps that were prospecting for oil. Tulsa, Oklahoma, was the place decided upon for a beginning. One night some members of the Commercial Club, with a body of police- men, invaded the I.W.W. hall and arrested all the members that were there, and took them to jail. But they had not thought of a charge to put against the men, so they were taken out of jail afld put into automobiles, driven outside the city limits, where this mob tied them to trees and beat them with blacksnakes until their bodies were drip- ping with blood. They then poured hot tar on their lacerated bodies and sprinkled them with feathers. They turned them loose, and told them to go and never come back to Tulsa again, if they did not want to meet with worse treatment. Charles Kreiger, a member of the I.W.W., a machinist, was ar- rested in Tulsa on some framed up charge and held there many: months before he was finally tried and accquitted. et i: c was during this busy period that I received a telegram from my daughters, then in Denver, telling me that their mother had died. While I felt very badly, I realized that she was released from her Jong sufferings. From the small equity that we owned,in a little home in Denver, my daughters arranged to take their mother’s body back to Nevada where she is buried near her father and mother at McDermitt, which is still a wild frontier country. Pea Baa For a long time there were special agents watching every meeting of the I.W.W. and every action insofar as they could of the mem- bership. In January, 1916, it is said that there were 75 to 100 men detailed to this work. They had the support and assistance of all state, municipal and county officials. There was little for the finks to do as all meetings were open and there was nothing for us to hide in our work. Following the announcement of a state of war by President Wilson in February, 1917, the surveillance by the government of the I.W.W, and of all radicals became more intense, In the monthly bulletin for April, 1917, I wrote: “Since the last Bulletin, President Wilson has proclaimed a state of war against the Imperial Government of Germany. A volunteer army has been called for, and, possibly, conscription measures will be passed by the United States Congress. All class conscious members of the Industrial Workers of the World are conscientiously opposed to spilling the life blood of human beings, not for religious reasons, as are the Quakers and Friendly Societies, but because we believe that the inter- ests and welfare of the working class in all countries are identical, While we are bitterly opposed to the Imperialist Capitalistic Govern- ment of Germany, we are against slaughtering and maiming the work- ers of any country. In many lands, our members are suffering im- prisonment, death and abuse of all kinds in the class war which we are waging for social and industrial justice.” * * # TH I.W.W. had extended its activity to far off Australia, There the members were carrying on a campaign against the war. Twelve were arrested in Sidney, tried, and sentenced to 14 years’ imprison- ment. Our paper, Direct Action, was suppressed, and the editor, Tom Barker, was deported. ve In the July Bulletin, I reported to the Industrial Unions and gen- eral membership as follows: B “At Rockford, Illinois, over 150 men, members of the I.W.W. and socialists, gave themselves up voluntarily to the authorities for evading the Registration Act.. They were treated with unusual brutality. When they objected to being isolated in groups in other jails and determined to stand together, they were clubbed unmercifully by the sheriff of the Rockford jail and his deputies. When their trial came, they were taken before a judge who is notoriously unfair, a judge who in a recent speech before the trials took place, had made a statement that ‘He was sorry he could not go to the war to fight, but since he could not go, he could at least stay at home and fight the men who were fighting the soldiers here.’ This judge, Kenesaw Mountain Landis by name, has a son in the army, so one can imagine how fair he would be to men who were opposed to registration and did not believe in wars or armies. As was expected, the ‘Honorable’ (save the mark) judge, simply ‘kangarooed’ the boys, giving all but a few the limit, and in order to make their sen- tence harder, sentenced them to the Bridewell in Chicago, where, as he said, ‘The work is much harder than in the Federal Prison,’ He also took advantage of their helplessness to deliver an insulting speech to them in which he called them coward and ‘whining, belly-aching puppies’ because they would not register to fight for Morgan and his loans. F * * * In the next chapter Haywood tells of the Spectator mine dis | aster, killing 194 workers, and of Gompers appeal to the war and | Ve,