The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 25, 1929, Page 6

Page Six Daily 3a: Central Organ of the Communist Party of the U.S. A. \ || puvlisnea by | Suna Daily, except N.Y. ‘CRIPTION RATES y York only onths $2 of New York) $2.00 three months 8 Union Square, =>. $8.00 three months a year $6.00 a year Adéress ani New York, Ny Navy Yard Workers! Get Off Your Knees! Labor plays an abject role in the launching of American imperialism’s new 10,000-ton ship of war, the Pensacola, to- avy at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. While the yankee imperialist ambasador, Hugh S. Gibson, talks armament reduction at Geneva, American navalism grows mightier than ever. The Brooklyn launching has been seized upon by the “class peace” officialdom of the Metal Trades Council, the mere skeleton of trade union organization that exists in “The Yards,” for the holding of a “Harmony Banquet”, to which not only William Green, president of the American Federa- tion of Labor has been invited but also Herbert Hoover’s secretary of the navy, Charles Francis Adams, who comes from Massachusetts, the state that put Sacco and Vanzetti in the electric chair and burned them to death, that turned its guns against the heroic textile strikers of New Bedford and Fall River. Navy yard workers are being assessed $3.00 each for the privilege of attending this “Feast of Industrial Peace”, which will no doubt see the main places occupied by uniformed naval officers, old party politicians and the navy yard bosses. Every possible method of intimidation is being used to force the workers to attend in large numbers, because they are the ones the feast is intended to impress, they are the lambs to be shorn of any desire to wage effective struggle in their own interests in the government’s navy yards. The workers will be told to continue the suicidal A. F. of L. tactics favored by their officials, including loyalty to the capitalist political parties, maintenance of a $5,000 a year lobby at Washington to beg favors from the govern- ment. At the same time no mention will be made of the brutalities suffered by the workers at “The Yards’; especi- ally the 48-hour week, six days per week and the eight-hour day, being forced to contribute 314 per cent of their own wages to an old age pension fund that doesn’t operate until workers are 65 years of age; no unemployment insurance, in fact, no protection at all for workers who have not been in “The Yards” for at least a year, and the government has the full right to “hire and fire” as it pleases. The American Federation of Labor convention at New Orleans completely endorsed the whole naval program of the Wall Street government. It made no preparations to develop a struggle for the organization of the navy yard workers. This effort must be initiated and developed by the workers themselves, who must demand the organization industrially of all shipbuilders, navy yard workers included, on the basis of shop committees, for effective class struggle in support of the effort to remedy their many grievances. ' This will not be effected through “class peace” ban- quets. Navy yard workers, and all labor, in this season of the year, gathers in the huge May Day demonstrations or- ganized in all lands under the leadership of the Communist International. One reply by Brooklyn navy yard workers, and all shipbuilders, to the “peace banquet” arranged for them by their traitor officialdom, is attendance at the May Day demonstrations organized by the Communist Party of the United States, in New York City, and all other great population centers in the land. Navy yard workers! Get off your knees! Join in the celebration of International May Day! Join in the struggle for the emancipation of yourselves and labor the world over! Organize to combat the growing war danger. Prepare to defend the Union of Soviet Republics, the Socialist fatherland of all workers. “The Land of Riches” for the Few. American imperialism carefully spreads through the world the lie that it is the land of the best treatment of work- ers; of high wages, the short workday and good conditions, This propaganda is so intense right here in Wall Street’s own homeland that whole sections of the working class are really led to believe that they are better off than the workers in the rest of the world. The capitalist masters are aided in this effort by the traitor officials of the American Federation of Labor, who never tire of lauding American labor conditions. The Daily Worker publishes the story of Antonio Coiro, one of the workers murdered in the Western Union Telegraph Building disaster last Saturday, to prove the wretched lot of workers who pour their blood, sinew and agony into the mak- ing of New York City’s monster skyscrapers. First coming to the United States, Antonio Coiro was caught in the maelstrom of the industrial crisis that pre- ceded the war. Returning to Europe he was immediately drawn into the vortex of blood, the world slaughter that also enmeshed Italy. Returning to the United States in 1922 he was again caught in another period of unemployment. He had been sick for three months before getting his last job, on which he had worked for only three weeks when he was killed outright with three others, while 17 were badly in- jured in the tragedy brought on by the vicious speed-up precipitated upon the workers by the demand of the Western Union to finish the building as soon as possible. The widow and an eight-year-old son survive, facing the bitter struggle for existence alone, the unequal battle under the wage system that is so difficult even with a breadwinner in the family. With the muscle and brawn of a worker in the prime of life, at 37 years of age, Antonio Coiro was only able to provide a home for his little family in one of Harlem’s tenements where rents are lowest. The lot of Antonio Coiro and his family is not the ex- ception. It is the lot of the great masses of toil who carry the whole structure of American capitalist society upon their bent shoulders. When these millions rise and assert their power, bending no more, then the capitalist social order will crash to earth, even as the tons of steel girders that fell from the twenty-second floor of the Western Union Telegraph Company Building last Saturday carrying death and misery their wake. But the fall of capitalism, the victory of la- will bring liberation for the many, where today America ba e land of riches” for only the few. ‘ 2 ‘@ DAILY WORK ER, NEW YORK, THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 1929 lorker THE LABEL OF THE LABOR OFFICIALDOM nnn By Fred Ellis Mellon Gang Find Communism “Do Pennsylvanians Want a Com- ‘” nunist State? The Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Journal, organ of the most reac- tionary bloc of enemies to the work- | ing class, poses this question in their March issue. And, in almost the same breath, {they fervently reply, “If they do not work against it they will have ite” The organ of Joseph R. Grundy, the labcr-hating president of the Fennsylvania manufacturers, be- comes hysterical in its warning note. “The Communist Party in Phila- delphia is probably 30 times as large as it was four years ago and stages regular meetings,” is the first line of the article which was written by Francis Ralston Welsh. He continues: “It (the Communist | Pennsylvania Manufacturers Wild Because Workers Denounce Coal and Iron Police “Baldwin, in the Liberties’ Union’ definition of free speech, included the right to advo- cate murder.” Defends Murder. "One of the specialties that the | Philadelphia and Pittsburgh branches (of the A. C. L. U.) has taken up the various names and, becoming | which are obtained by the Commun-/ of our military protection until that | Llue in the face with hysteria, says: |ists and their dupes under false | time has come”... American Civil | pretenses.” Mellon Heads Clique. | And now Mr. Grundy and his} blood-fattened cohorts will probably | eagerly bestir themselves to a reign turers of Pennsylvania are the con- losses may be kept at a minimum. If anyone advocated the abolition of all fire fighting apparatus because | fire losses were deplorable such a| person would be a fit psychopathic | subject. There is no wisdom in the} advocacy of the abolition therefore | etc., until nause: He quotes a speech of Ben Gitlow’ delivered in Cleveland, in July, 1925, ihn which Gitlow declared, “China has | 500,000,000 people and when the Kuomintang backed by the Commun- | A beautiful gem of this oracle of {of terror as complete as that of ists in Russia come into power and | |the manufacturers is as follows. |Runfania or Poland. The manufac-| those become | disciplined workers and} 500,000,000 people militant, ‘eentrated essence of bourgeois power | soldiers, then will the rest of the| and brutality. They are composed} world look out, for Communism will | is to get rid of the coal and iron|cf the Mellons, the mine-owners,| rule the world, and we will have a) |police and now that several of the coal and iron police have done the |sort ef things that any police do at | Party) is also boring from within times, they do not advocate discip- in the schools and has enlisted the line of those-members, but the aboli- good offices of a number of school |tion of the whole force.” teachers who write favorably about | Listen to that phrase, “And now Idren’s organization) and their s to Soviet Russia, etc.” Terribly Scared. And then, for three pages, the |beating him to death with a poker ; of the Young Pioneers (the Communist that several of the coal and iron \police have ddne the sort of things |that any police do at times”—kick- | both anthracite and bituminous, the | steel companies, the manufacturing | industries of all types. Pennsyl-| real proletarianism of the workers | of the world. ...” Maxim Litvinoff who made the} | vania has been ruled by the bloody' famous “peace gesture at Geneva,” | fist of the industrialist for, half a} the journal declares, “is the same/ century. The presidency of rundy, | man, sought by the police as a bank political leader, leads the state even| robber and bandit in 1907, etc.” deeper into the fastnesses of brutal-| ity and corruption. In the same issue, (the manufac- | ing in the ribs of a worker and | turers’ must be having nightmares late) is the following article,| writer mouths the familiar alarm,;is probably one of the “sort of| ‘The National Council for the Pre- revealing such a fright of radical- things” this brilliant writer, Francis | vention of War. Foreign Propaganda zation that he includes even such Baldwin, Margaret Sanger, James H. Maurer, ete., with furious blasts against William Z. Foster, Eliza- beth Gurley Flynn, etc. The American Civil Liberties Union is termed “a position in the jcenter and has a committee mem- bership which interlocks with the (Communist) Party and other organizations which carry on all phases of the Commu- ist game.” The writer even quotes from Lenin, “The famous dictum of Lenin must be remembered, ‘We must learn to build Communism with non- Communist hands.’” He runs thru the list of the National Committee \of the A. C. L. U., industriously writing down the war records of ames as A. J. Muste, Roger Nash | | Ralston Welsh is referring to. as childishly as a grammar school boy, with the exhortation, “Bestir yourselves, Pennsylvanians, for Communism is steadily gaining ground in your state. It is boring | is bitterly attacked as that frightful from within among university pro- | objective of the Soviet government fessors and students, school teach-/| of Russia. school children, among the and their women’s clubs, ers, clergy among in |ple discontented with our laws, our Constitution and our form of gov- | ernment, and many people who are |not Communists are contributors to funds of institutions such as the American Civil Liberties Union, He winds up his article, written! fists to Render | congregations, magazine of the strongest associa- labor | tion unions and elsewhere and much that| and perhaps the entire world. The | you do not recognize as Communist | writer with respectful mien, “We all |propaganda is Communist propa- | deplore the loss of life and material | ganda and often meant to make peo-| wealth caused by the ravages of Spread by Alleged Professional Paci- Us Spineless and Impotent to Resist the Enemy in a Possible War of Aggression.” And in it comes a stirring para-| graph in which “internationalism” | Listen to this bit of logic in the of industrialists in America, fire. A national campaign is car- ried on to keep the public advised | as to the best methods of fire pre-| vention, ‘Fire Preventtion Week’ | is a notable instance in that direc- | tion and toward the end that. fire “As for-us,” the journal concludes, | “we will continue to contend for ade- | quate preparedness rather than) trust our country unarmed to the| tender mercies of a Soviet promoted ‘civil insurrection’.” | The moral taught by these articles | is summed up in the journal in these italicized words, “The time for all} believers in our form of government to coordinate their efforts to in-| sure the continuance of our form of | government is now.” And the manu- | facturers call ita day in closing! with this flag-waving paragraph. “T was born An American; I live} An American; I shall die An Amer- | ican; and I intend to perform the} duties incumbent upon me to the end of my career.” Cd Those duties, not mentioned, are well understood to be the brutal ex- ploitation of millions of workers— of destruction of their unions—of an attempt to reduce to actual slavery the millions of workers in the heavy industries of that dark state, Pennsylvania. By HENRY Ch. ROSEMOND. (First Advisor of the Haitian Patriotic Union in the U.S.A.) * It is quite natural that a person of the caliber of F. H. La Guardia, the ex-socialist congressman, should lately have taken a slanderous atti- tude towards the Haitian Republic. His attack is an open alliance with these forces that are seeking to dominate and oppress the Haitians. His attitude is only the continua- tion of his old anti-Negro campaign, of many years standing, which originates from a false ideology of the superiority of the white Spaniard over the Negro in Latin-America. He uses this absurd idea to hide his ignorance of international affairs and to shield the role of imperialism in Haiti. This same ‘insincere and super- ficial attitude was manifested by La Guardia in another instance. Dur- ing the years of 1918-19-20. when the U. S, government was taking measures against the bootleggers, La Guardia was issuing very nice and sympathetic statements of a fundamentally dry character. Now he has suddenly turned liquor-propa- gandist. He wants to have the future title of “wet champion.” He tries to be on the safe side of the ruling powers, This same up-to-date wet con- _gressman in his “I am telling you | confidentially” anti-Haitian articles in the Evening Graphic of March 28, April 6, and April 11, proves again White Chauvinism Rehashed Charge of In- feriority of Black Races. La Guardia, Ex-Socialist, in Attack-on Haiti how superficial and ignorant he is of affairs in Haiti. The American people who are acquainted with the history of Haiti and the Haitian people, with their gallant struggle for liberty and. independence, can readily see that the articles of La Guardia are unfounded and absurd. He again, in these articles, brings forth the theory that the,dark races will always be oppressed because they are an inferior race. In his opinion, Haiti especially must be brought under the subjugation of the U. S. A. because she won her inde- pendence from France thru the ex- termination of the great, heroic army of Napoleon, under the commander- ship of Rochambeau in 1804, in “bloody battles.” And our congress- man mourns the loss of the Na- poleonie army;~ but has he ever stopped to think of the disaster the U.S. marines have brought to the Haitian people thru years of “peace- ful occupation.” I wish to inform him that if men of the type of Toussaint L’Ouverture, Dessaline, Capoie La Mort, King Henri Christophe and the other heroes who were responsible for driving out Napoleon’s army and es- tablishing freedom in Haiti, were alive today, much of the suppression and suffering inflicted on the lives of the Haitian people by General John W. Russel, and his southern marines, who have been fighting there for 14 years, would have been avoided, Of course, John Russell would have done like John Waller did in the Philippines a few years ago, where he set fire to the four corners of the capital. Or as the U.S. is now do- ing in Nicaragua and Mexico, The quastion here is which is the stronger oppressor. Napoleon had only his large army, but the U. 8. imperialists have aeroplanes and bombs and marines to subjugate colonial peoples. If some of the intellectuals, who insist on writing articles about countries they know nothing about, would use some of ‘their time to examine the actual conditions exist-' -os oyj—sorajuN0o snoraeA oy} Ur Sut cial and economic conditions, that produce conditions of slavery and oppression, they would be of more service and would be forced to bring before the people of the United States the heroic battles that are being fought at this time by the op- pressed colonial peoples all over ‘the French governments, and that Latin-America. These intellectuals talk of “voo- doo” magic, but not a word do they say about Augusto Sandino of Nic- aragua and his heroic struggle against the U. S. marines in Nicara- gua; nothing about the growing con- sciousness of the Mexican workers and peasants and the recent organi- zation of the “Workers and Peasants Bloc,” which is putting a revolu- tionary candidate into the field for the next election; nothing about the renewed revolution in China and the organization of workers and peas- ants armies there, nothing about the general, growing reaction on the part of the imperialist nations in every colonial and _ semi-colonial country in the world. They never take notice of the fact that for five consecutive years the African Equa- torial region has been suffering from the increasing enslavement. of the Negroes there are fighting bravely against such oppression, Why does not La Guardia mention a word about the “institution” of Jim-Crowism here: in the United States, where lynching of Negroes is an almost daily occurence, where the Negro workers are constantly faced with starvation because of race discrimination on the job and elsewhere, These are important mat- ters that cannot be overlooked. But what is one to expect from a man who has for years been playing on the side of those who had greater advantages to offer. ee | shipped to the. desert of Hermanas. Copyright, 1929, by International Publishers Co., Inc, we Breas po"y BILL HAYWOOD'’S BOOK Terrible Speculator Disaster; Moyer Kow-tows to Militarists, U. M. W. A. Lawyer Helps; Bisbee Deportations; I. W. W. and War Haywood has told of the Western Federation of Miners’ strikes, which he led ever since he left his mining job to become the W.F.M. secretary-treasurer; he has told of founding the I.W.W., of the Lawrence, Paterson, Akron and Mesaba Range strikes, of the fram- ing up of Ford and Suhr, Mooney and Billings, and Joe Hill; the preparedness orgy and the Everett massacre. .Continue below: | By WILLIAM D HAYWOOD. PART 95. N June, 1917, just three years from the date of the blowing up of the Miners’ Hall in Butte, Montana, a horrible disaster occurred in the Speculator mine of that camp. A fire broke out from some ‘un- known cause on the 2,400 foot level. It caused the death of 194 men, The victims could not get out of the mine, nor could they make their way to the adjoining mines, as concrete bulkheads had been built that could not be dug through with- out blasting. The men, who were without tools, scratched and dug to escape unfil their fingers were worn to the bone, Those who were not actually burned to death were smothered by the smoke. Some frightful stories were told about what was done at the morgue with the charred remains and unidentified bodies. These were sold for $12 apiece, probably for dissecting purposes in the medical college. The fire in the Speculator mine was quickly fol- lowed by a general strike in all the mines of Butte. This strike was conducted by a new union that had been formed called the United Metal Mine Workers. Former members of the Western Federation of Miners and members of the I.W.W. were the officials. I received the information that the government intended to make overtures to the I.W.W., the same. as they had done to the Amer- ican Federation of Labor. But the officials who intended to approach us were apprised of the fact that the I.W.W. would not enter into any contract or agreement with any employer. A lawyer by the name of “Judge” Kerr * employed by the United Mine Workers of Illinois is said to have gone to Washington to inter- cede on behalf of the International Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers’ Union (formerly the Western Federation of Miners). This organiza- tion received the support of the government, the same as all other in- ternationals of the A. F. of L, during the war. The International Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers’ Union made little progress even with the support of the A. F. of L. and the gov- ernment. Moyer paid lip service to Gompers at a Pan American Con- ference. He did the incredible thing of thanking Gompers for what he had done in our behalf when we were on trial in Idaho. The fact was that Gompers did nothing, did not even raise his voice, though unions affiliated to the A. F. of L. helped financially and gave us real All rights rese,ved. Republica- tion forbidden except by permissicn, | earnest support. Debs bitterly criticized Moyer for his lying kowtowing, and he did not forget to lambast Gompers for what he did not do. Moyer was finally remoyed from the presidency of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers’ organization. After the declaration of war in 1917-I was told by Robert Bruere, who was then writing a series of articles called “Following the Trail of the I.W.W.,” that the organization was to be raided. He told me that to this end Sam Gompers had gone to Newton Baker, then secre- tary of war, and had presented to him a plan to annihilate the I.W.W. Baker refused to take the suggestion of Gompers seriously; the latter then went to the Department of Justice, where he met with more suc- cess. An extremely bitter stream of publicity had been started by the press, charging the I.W.W. with receiving vast sums of German. gold, It was said that we intended to poison the canned goods used by the army, and that we were responsible for the spread of the hoof and mouth disease that was raging and had killed great herds of cattle. T= work of organizing by the Mine Workers’ Industrial Union was extending to the different mining regions of the country and was especially strong in the state of Arizona where the membership had determined to demand an increase of wages. The Copper Trust had increased the price of copper from 11 cents a pound to 33 cents a pound without giving a thought to the conditions of the men who pro- duced the ore, The infamous Citizens’ Alliance was resurrected, and under the name of Loyalty League began its inhuman atrocities. Early in the morning of July 10th, 1917, gunmen of the United Verde Copper Company at Jerome, Arizona, belonging to ex-Senator William Clark, rounded up the miners of that. camp, and, selecting 70 militants from among them, loaded these on cattle cars and sent them to California. The California sheriff refused relief, and drove them back across the Arizona line, the group breaking up at Kingman, Arizona. On July 12th, 1917, the miners of Bisbee, Arizona, were taken un- awares by the gunmen of the mining companies, and the business ele- ment, who composed a Vigilance Committee. They went in the small “hours of the morning to the homes and boarding houses where the miners lived, and routed them out of bed. The men were marched to | the baseball park near the depot, and when 1162 of them had been herded together, they were loaded into cattle and freight cars and There they were unloaded and left without food or water. 5 As soon as I got word of this desperate outrage, I telegraphed to President Wilson at Washington, demanding that the miners be re- turned to their homes in Bisbee, and there protected from the fury of the mob. I received no answer to the wire I sent, and a day or two later learned that the men had been moved to Columbus, New Mexico. Again I telegraphed to the president, and received no reply. The members of the I.W.W. were indignant at the outrage im- posed upon their fellow workers, and began to agitate earnestly for a general strike in the industries where they had control or enough influence to cause the desired action by the workers. This agitation brought bitter retaliation on the part of the employing class and the government, Arrests and deportations of the I.W.W. took place in many parts of the country. A‘ a meeting of the General Executive Board held in Chicago in July, 1917, the war was discussed from different points of view, but no definite action was decided upon other than what was being done by the organization, though it was agreed that a statement would be issued to the membership. After the meeting of the Board, Ralph Chaplin, then editor of Solidarity, published the following in the issue of July 28th: “Were You Drafted? “Where the I.W.W. Stands on the Question of War. “The attitude of the Industrial Workers of the World is well known to the people of the United States and is generally recognized by the labor movement throughout the world. “Since its inception our organization has opposed all national and imperialistic wars. We have proved, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that war is a question with which we never have and never intend to compromise. “Members joining the military forces of any nation have always been expelled from the organization, “The I.W.W. has placed itself on record regarding its opposition to war, and also as being bitterly opposed to having its members forced into the bloody and needless quarrels of the ruling class of different { nations. “The principle of the international solidarity of labor to which we have always adhered makes it impossible for us to participate in any and all of the plunder-squabbles of the parasite class, . “Our songs, our literature, the sentiment of the entire membership —the very spirit of our union, give evidence of our unalterable opposi- tion to both capitalism and its wars, “All members of the I.W.W. who have been drafted should mark their claims for exemption, ‘I.W.W., opposed to war’” — * * * * Judge Kerr was a permanent member, of ‘Frank Farrington’s staff for many years. He had his office in the U.M.W.A., District 12 headquarters at Springfield. He directly represented the district ad- ministration as an assistant prosecutor in the framed up prosecution of the Ziegler boys, for murder. He died in 1927, ‘ b * * * % Next Haywood will tell of the murder of Frank Little, and the pes ced bo iy the hi ek of Justice on the I. one copy o; ‘aywood'’s Book free with a yearly sul the Daily Werkem : i a a a