The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 27, 1929, Page 6

Daily 35 Worker Central Organ of the Communist Party of the U. S. A. n ap York only): x months ide of New York) x months to the Daily Worker, New York, N. 2.50 three months 9 three months 28 Union Square, <>. $6.00 a ye Adéress and The Socialists Desecrate May Day. The Socialist Party, the publications that wear a socialist mask in order to further betray the workers, like the New York Daily Forward, and socialist misleaders of labor, of the type of Hillman, Schlossberg, Shiplacoff, Schlesinger, are go- ing through their usual motions or “celebrating” International May Day. This celebration, however, is the worst desecration. The Socialists in the United States, in common with the social-democratic reaction the world over, utilize this day to their full ability to handicap and betray the militant struggles of the workers. They have urged the Wall Street government to enter the “Black Capitalist International,” the League of Nations, that helps breed war, and so the slogan for struggle against the capitalist war danger is missing from the demands for the socialist May Day meeting in New York City, as pub- lished in that Party’s official organ, the New Leader, April 27th. Norman Thomas, socialist presidential candidate last year, announces in his column in the New Leader that, “I hate to write messages for particular days,” as if May Day could be separated by one second from the year around strug- gle of the working class. Thomas means in reality that May Day and its real significance doesn’t fit in with his ideas of what the third petty bourgeois party of American capitalism should beg for on a platform from which all class issues have been deleted. The current issue of the New Leader weeps copious tears over the fact that the American Federation of Labor, which it serves energetically as a pink reformist fig leaf, should brazenly and openly turn its back on International May Day, and give its support to the fake National Child Health Day, proclaimed by the imperialist president, Hoover, for May First, as a counter move against the Workers’ May Day. Although it was American workers, affiliated with the A. F. of L., who first urged May Day as a day of struggle for labor, in the eight-hour day movement of the 80’s of the last century, the last convention of the A. F. of L., at New Orleans, completely repudiated May Day, endorsed again the first Monday in September as its day, legalized by the capi- talist government, declaring that, “The Communists still maintain May 1 as Labor Day.” All the facts show that May First this year will be cele- brated everywhere under the leadership of the Communist Party. While all the so-called May Day meetings of the so- cialists will be held indoors, many of them will not take place until Sunday, May 5th, while others will be held on the Sunday before May Day. The socialists disown entirely the slogan of “Down Tools on May Day!” the effort to develop May Day into a real holiday of the American working class, as it is observed by revolutionary labor in other countries. The whole temper of the yellow socialist trade union officialdom toward May Day is shown by the various “cir- cuses” arranged by the Hillman regime of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers in various sections of the country. The May Day leaflet of the Hillman followers in Cleveland, Ohio, for instance, is headed, “Whoopee!” the favorite exclama- tion of the New York night clubs, and advertises a banquet, etc., etc., to be held on May Day, all members being urged to get their tickets from the shop chairman “and bring your wife, sweetheart and friends to celebrate, as a good time is guaranteed.” The leaflet includes an elaborate bill of fare for the banquet. It is with this optlook that the editor of the New Leader, James Oneal, writes his May Day article, stating that in the present period of the development of the imperialist era con- ditions are changing so rapidly “that we find it difficult to comprehend what is happening.” The working class mass, however, knows exactly what has happened to the socialist party, that it is playing an out- standing role as a counter-revolutionary agent of American imperialism. This will be clearly apparent at all the so- cialist May Day meetings. “Down with the socialist rene- gades and counter-revolutionaries!” should be on the lips of every militant worker in this May Day season. “Down with the Second Socialist International!’ “Long live the Com- munist International!’ “Long live the World Revolution!” Berry—Strikebreaker—On the Job. : The working alliance between the American Federation of Labor and the capitalist government is again clearly dis- played in the appointment of Major George L. Berry, presi- | dent of the International Pressmen’s Union, as personal | representative of Governor Horton in the strike of 5,000 workers in the American Glanzstoff and American Bemberg textile mills at Elizabethton, Tennessee. Major Berry, who takes pride in his military title and his membership ‘in the fascist American Legion, is one of the most efficient strikebreakers in the official ranks of the A. F. of L., as the members of his own union, especially in New York City, have learned on many occasions to their great loss. In Tennessee he now appears openly as the rep- resentative of the state government that sends militia to bayonet and shoot down the workers. Major Berry is a democrat, but he has the full endorse- ment of President Hoover’s agent on the ground, Charles G. Wood, department of labor “conciliator,” republican, who refers to Berry as “a splendid addition” to the agencies now seeking to win the strike for the bosses. The major will also be acceptable to Thomas McMahon, head of the United Textile Workers’ Union, the A. F. of L. strikebreaking or- ganization in the textile industry. Major Berry’s appointment will act as warning to all mill workers on strike in the struck textile mills in the Carolinas; a warning they have already received through the open invitation of the local capitalist press to the A. F. of L. to come into the field and join hands with the employers to ombat the & sine unity achieved under the banners of the | wing industrial organization of mill labor, the National Workers’ Union. The face of the A. F. of L, strikebreaking officialdom | the Southern mill areas, and elsewhere, is also the face of strikebreaking government. Workers will recognize the likeness. _ On May Day—rally to the struggle against imperialist r! All to the defense of the Soviet Union! RATHER DISTURBID MAY DAY EDITION ING By Fred Ellis TONG" mnunst! May Day for Detroit Workers By JOHN SCHMIES. International May Day is fee May First has been recognized the world over as the international holi-| day of the working class of all ages, color and nationalities, and of both sexes, Today, twelve years after the en- try of the United States into the last World War, we see on all sides preparations for a new imperialist war. Increased armaments, more and bigger warships, new and big- ger airplanes equipped for bombing and machine- and navies— hese are the storm- signals warning us that we, the workers of the United States, will soon again be drafted to fight for Wall Street’s dollars, to kill our | brother workers of other lands and | to be killed by them. New Attacks Upon U. S. S. R. The Soviet Union, first Workers and Farmers Republic, is the only) country jn the world which is/ pledged against imperialist war. Be- cause of this, and because the) Soviet Union stands as an example and inspiration to workers of other | lands, the imperialist nations are now preparing ney attacks against | the fatherland of the workers, the Soviet Union. We must close our ranks and stand united against the danger of war. We must rally for the defense of the Soviet Union. Detroit is the center, the heart of the speed-up system. Detroit’s me-, chanical industries are a model for | the capitalists of the United States and of the world. The bosses of England, Germany, France; Italy and all other capitalist countries, | | Unity Convention called by the’ look to the bosses of the United guns, increased armies | 2 | workers | onstration. Center of Speed-Up System Must Renew Fight Against Exploitation | States to teach them how to make their own workers more willing to work upon, for the protection of their in- | tere: rkers, must demonstrate rther speed-up and ration- unorganized. We need trial union to help lay, increased wages, insurance, old-age insurance, accident insurance. Detroit must send a large repre- sentation to the Trade Union Unity Convention, which will be held in Cleveland on June 1st, where steps | will be taken for the organization ' of industrial unions in all the unor- ganized industries. The automobile need an industrial union. We must fight for a powerful indus. trial union of all auto workers. All these demands and slogans must be raised in the May Day dem- must be a proof that the workers are willing to rally in masses to raise these demands and to begin| | to organize to put the minto prac- tice. Auto Workers Must be at Cleveland. | On June 1st, in the city of Cleve- | land, there will-be held a mass Con- vention of militant workers, repre- | | senting the basic industries in the country. This is the Trade Union r and to die when called | utomobile workers | better conditions, the | Detroit’s demonstration | ) Trade Union Educational League. | The purpose of the Convention is to create a militant trade union zenter which will be a powerful weapon in the hands of the trade |union movement. At this Conven- tign, workers of all industries will | ization and a working basis will be \laid for the organization of all un- | organized workers into revolution- | ary unions. from all over the country will meet and will work out a fighting pro- gram, in order to stop the bosses | from cutting wages and from further speeding-up the workers. This will make it possible for the working class to have a fighting instrument in their hands against the opgn shoppers, that is, against the millionaires and billionaires, as well as against their agents, the misleaders of labor in the old Amer- ican Federation of Labor. It has been made more clear than at any other time in the past, that the of- ficials, such as the Greens and Mar- tells, are nothing else but tools in the hands of the United States gov- ernment, which in turn is the agent and defender of Wall Street. The workers in the auto industry, | which is the biggest and most highly | rationalized industry in the country, certainly *nust be represented in the front ranks at this historical gather- ing. The .Communist workers who are be united into one fighting organ- | Class conscious workers | organized into shop nuclei in the auto plants, call upon all the work- ers tp get together now and organ- ize into shop committees, so as to be represented also at this Conven- tion, which is called by the Trade Union Educational League, in order to. express the rotten conditions, the miserable speed-up and the huge profits made by the auto companies thru the sweat and blood of the workers, By organizing shop committees in the factories, we will be in a position to send representatives to this his- torical gathering and to help in | working out a policy which will | make it possible for us to organize a Union, embracing all workers in the motor and auto industry. Al- ready a beginning has been made on the part of the Auto Workers Union, which in the past, and much more so in the future, will be in the forefront, leading and directing the battles of the auto workers against our enemies, the employing class. At the Fisher Body plant No. 21, under the leadership of the Auto Workers Union, the trimmers suc- ceeded in stopping the wage cut and therefore, realizing the importance of organization, lined themselves up and became part of the Auto Work- ers Union. All other workers in the auto industry must do likewise, and follow the“lead of the Auto Workers Union. We must welcome the call of the Trade Union Educational League for organizing a revolu- tionary trade union center, in or- der to fight effectively against our enemies, the enemies of the working class. Organization: Necessity for Auto Workers By P. A. RAYMOND | On Saturday, April 6th, the Fisher | | Body (Pontiac plant) virtually sus- |pended operation while the plant | was fumigated against an outbreak | of spinal’ meningitis. Full operation |was not resumed until Monday, April 8th. Seventeen critical cases were being treated in the Oakland County Tuberculosis Hospital and |two more patients wére under ob- servation. Fatalities up to that} |date were 11 for the previous two | weeks, A réluctance to discuss the spread every’ hand. While some Fisher Body officials denied that the sev- eral cases of this dread disease was the reason for closing the plant, Henry P. Blow, general manager of the Fisher Body Division of General Motors, said in answer to rumors of the shut-down that the plant was working “full blast.” However, on April 6, many workers were idle that only one unit was in full oper- | ation, _been in consultation with health of- | ficers at the Fisher Body plant rela- tive to the fumigation program. While fumigation has no effect against meningitis it can do no harm, he said, and added that Fisher | Body officials had decided to pro- eeed with it for the peace of mind of their employers. Many of them | became panicky when one or two men in the plant were stricken, the | officers said.” (Detroit “Times,” April 6.) +. On Monday, April 8, the Detroit “Times,” in a small item on the front page, announced that the Fisher Body Pontiac plant had re- sumed full-time operation in every unit. Officials of the company ex- Necessary for Labor to Intensify Fight Against Capitalist Rationalization of spinal meningitis was found on! |and inquiry at the plant disclosed | “Dr. C. A. Neafie, city health dir- | ector of Pontiac, said that he had) | plained that the shut-down was due to lack of materials which were now on hand. Speed-up Takes Its Toll. The vicious speed-up system is | taking its toll of the life and health | of thousands of automobile workers. These many workers are victims of tuberculosis and other diseases be- jeause they have become weakened by excessive fatigue and strain. The automotive industry has one of the worst accident records, and accord- ing to W. H. Cameron, managing | director of the National Safety Con- gress, this is chiefly due to the “speed-up of production.” Robert W. Dunn iin his book, |“Labor and Automobiles,” says: “The automobile companies ‘do not worry’, as one safety director of a \certain General Motors plant put it to the writer, about industrial dis- eases or the steady weakening of the workers’ health, arising out of months or years of work in the fac- tory and the consequent exposure to poisons that slowly break down his health. These diseases are “non- compensable’ in the state of Mich- \igan and hence do not entail pay- ments by the employers as do acci- dents,” Two Chevrolet Victims. The workers in the Chevrolet Motor Co. pay $2.00 per month to a sickness insurance fund. Recently two workers, one in the grinding department, the other on the as- sembly line, contracted tuberculosis. These workers are entitled to $15 per week for 13 weeks. The doctor declares that the assembly man will not be able to work for a year or @ v | year and a half. All workers receive a thorough medical examination be- fore being employed and undoubted- ly these two workers contracted the disease while working for the Chev- rolet Motor Co. Thousands of workers are being sacrificed for the greater glory of the automobile magnates. But, one of the most dreadful consequences of the constant wage-cutting and speeding-up is, that the vitality of automobile workers will be so much drained that they will not have suf- ficient reserve energy to resist the ravages of a terrible epidemic, Auto Manufacturers Only Interested In Profits. Reports from all factories speak of an ever-increasing speeding up. Ford’s Canadian factory boasts that with 2,000 fewer workers they are turning out 100 cars a day more than last August. Hudson Motor Co. reports the largest first quarter earnings in its history, $4,400,000. Chevrolet broke all monthly records in March with an output of 147,274 cars and trucks. Yet the Chevrolet Co. has plans to speed the workers up 20 per cent. What this will mean to the workers can be illustrated by H. A. Coffin, of the Cadillac Motor Co., who cites an instance where, under a fiercing system, production was increased 30 per cent at the ex- pense of a 100 per cent increase in accidents, All the companies, with few exceptions, report andncrease in production by the workers, Workers Must Organize. The organization of the automobile industry has become a life and death matter for thousands of automobile workers. The growing competition in the auto industry means a fur- ther intensification of the speed-up mania. The employers are prepared to throw overboard every consider- ation for the safety and health of the workers. The workers must build up an industrial union for their own protection. They must fight to abolish the bonus and peace work systems. Now that workers are get- ting wise to the gang bonus schemes, the bosses are preparing new rack- ets to fool the workers. One of these schemes is aptly named the “Kilo- Man-Hour Basis.” The workers must fight fora minimum wage of $40 a week, a six- hour day, five-day week and double time for overtime. Special consider- ation must be given to sprayers, sanders and other operations danger- ous to the health of the workers. Only a strong union can insure the establishment and enforcement of safety and sanitary regulations. The workers must have something to say about the speed on the line and along the belt. These are only some of the most vital demands for which automobile workers should or- ganize and fight. TRENCH DIGGERS KILLED. PLMOUTH, Eng., (By Mail).— Five workers employed by the Plymouth Corporation :were killed and one seriously injured when a high wall collapsed at Mannamead, a residential section of the city. The men, “who were nearly due to quit work were digging a trench in prepa- ration of cable laying. REJECT “ARBITRATION.” LONDON, Eng., (By Mail).—A proposed “arbitration” agreement with the shipyard employers has been rejected by the Boilermakers Society here. The vote was 2008 to 2,500, # a ‘. Copyright, 1929, by International Publishers Co., Ine. cS BILL HAYWOOD’S, ‘ BOOK J Haywood has told of his childhood of toil, of working at all the | usual trades tn the Old West, messenger boy, miner, cowboy, ranch laborer, prospector, assayer, homesteader, ete. | i} t All rights rese,ved. Republica- tion forbidden except by permissicn. He has told of his joining the Western Federation of Miners, becoming a revolutionist by study of the conditions of labor under which he lived, becoming a strike leader. He has told of the Telluride, Cripple Creek, Denver Smelter, and Coer d’Alene strikes, He has told of joining the socialist party and being expelled for being a revolutionist. He has told of organizing the I.W.W., of its strikes at Lawrence and Pa n, of the frame-up and wave of are vests that followed the outbreak of war. In the last chapter he told of the nation-wide raid on the I.W.W. and of his own imprison- ment along with many others in the Cook County Jail in Chicago, waiting trial under the sedition act. + * # By WILLIAM D. HAYWOOD. PART 97, (Ee jail is In the heart of Chicago on the corner of Austin Avenue and Dearborn Street. It is a forbidding and filthy old structure built of gray granite. The cell houses are in a quadrangle. Long barred windows, like gashes in a cliff, face the street. The bottom of the windows are high up from the street. The glass had long lost its transparency because of years of accumulation of dust» and cobwebs. The cells were built in tiers, back to back, barred doors face the outside walls. The cells were painted black and were dirty with dust and tobacco spit. A rusty iron basin and toilet stood in the corner behind the bynks. The heat and water pines were slimy and rusted red. Three narrow bunks, one over the other, occupied more than one-half the space. In each bunk were old papers and a dirty mattress of straw, old and lumpy. The scanty bedding was filthy, reeking with vermin and disease. It was three paces from the rear wall to the door. To take these steps one had to put all the furniture, which consisted of one stool, on the bed. I had the lower bunk. In looking up at the old newspapers on the bottom of the bunk above me, I saw a picture of myself. I got the paper out. It was an old issue of one of the Chicago dailies. There were no lights in the cells except the little that trickled through the bars from the screened electric globe outside the door. All the prisoners were kept locked in these cells for twenty hours a day. To read was difficult on account of the dim light. Two hours in the forenoon and two hours in the afternoon, the prisoners were let out for. exercise, and walked in a slow measured pace around and around the “corridor, called the bull-pen. It was always gloomy, and the floor upon which the sun had never shone was wet and slippery with spit and slime. The laws of the country made no distinction between criminal and political prisoners, In the morning we were aroused by the raucous voice of the run- ner, calling “Cups out, cups out.” We held our cups through the bars, one trusty filled them with a noxious fluid, a substitute for coffee, another gave us some chunks of bread. For dinner and sup- per the meals were more substantial, but often the food was unfit to eat. One day they brought in corned beef and cabbage. The beef was rotten and filled the prison with a vile stench. All the men shoved their plates off the galleries onto the floor below, the air was filled with cabbage and strips of beef. ae eka ipa this terrible prison over one hundred members of the I.W.W. were held over a year until their trial was finished. A newspaper was started among us called “The Can-Opener” which afforded some of the men an opportunity to pass away the time. A man whose father had been hanged in this prison by mistake had a concession of a little store. He had two cells and sold pie, tobacco, cigarettes, newspapers, and other things that the prisoners needed. Visiting days were Tuesdays and Fridays. We were separated from those who came to see us by two half-inch screens, two feet apart. This place was a disease distributor, if ever there was one, as every one stood against the screen talking to those who had come to see us who were behind the other screen. One got no satisfaction out of a visit at this screen, as the medley of many voices made it almost impossible to hear what was being said to one. The hospital and bathroom were a disgrace to a civilized com- munity. This prison had many times beeri condemned, but it is still filled with the unfortunates of society. *_ * * ByEe= week we held a meeting, at which members selected by a Program Committee would make speeches, recite original poems, or tell stories, One Sunday I told a story which I called “The Mon- key Strike in California.’ It was to give an idea of the ends to which the exploiting class would resort. I began: “The fruit-growing landowners of the golden state had determined to rid themselves of members of the I.W.W. The first move on their part was to introduce Japanese workers in the orchards and vineyards. “Some of the little yellow men joined the I.W.W. which, unlike many labor unions of America, admitted them the same as white or men of any other color, “But the Jananese were not satisfied to work for small wages under the miserable conditions imposed by the members of the Fruit- growers’ Association, so they formed cooperatives, saved their money, and began purchasing land for themselves, becoming serious com- petitors of their former employers. “Fearful that the Japanese would buy the entire fruit-growing * section of California, having already bought most of the land in the Vaca Valley, laws wefe passed by the legislature forbidding the sale of land to Japanese, and a Federal law was passed at Washington restricting their immigration to the United States. There was already a law restricting the immigration of the Chinese. “The fruitgrowers wefe again compelled to employ migratory white labor, until a wonderful idea developed at one of the conventions of the Fruitgrowers’ Association. One of the delegates got up and sug- gested that it would be possible to train monkeys to pick and pack fruit. This was decided upon without hesitation, and steps were taken at once to get a lot of monkey fruit pickers, “The Chimpanzee breed was decided upon as the most intelligent. “Splendid little houses, all nicely painted, were built and equipped for the monkeys. They were actually fed and taught what they were to do. “When the fruit got ripe, the owners brought their friends from the city to see how ingeniously they were solving the labor problem. “The monkeys were restless in their houses, as the air was are; matic with the ripened fruit. When they were turned loose, they hur- riedly climbed the trees. But instead of doing as they had been taught—to bring the fruifown and put it in a box, the mischievous little rascals would dart about, selecting the choicest fruit, take a bite cr two, throw the rest away, and go after more. “Before the day was gone, and the monkeys with paunches full had gone back to their houses, much damage was done. “The wise fruitgrowers had to seek another method. The next day each monkey had a muzzle put on. “They went up into the trees rapidly enough, but none of them , would pick any fruit. They were busily engaged in trying to rid themselves of the frightful contrivance that prevented them from eating and enjoying themselves. “The fruitgrowers were in an awful predicament with so many monkeys to feed which would do no work in return. They appealed to the governor of the state, who regretfully replied that as the offenders were not men, they were not, amenable to the law. If they were I.W.W.’s, he could have them imprisoned and perhaps have the leaders shot, but over monkeys he had no jurisdiction.” * 2 6 In the next issue Haywood tells of the arrival of the news of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and its reception in .Cook County Jail, A copy of Haywood's book is given free with ‘each new or renewal subscription for one year to the Daily Worker. On May Day—mobilize for the struggle against colonial ° oppression! Long live the revolutionary struggle for the liberation of the oppressed peoples! -- eine |