The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 30, 1929, Page 6

ie Daily Ss Worker Central Organ of the Communist Party of the U. S. A. Publ except SUBSCRIPTION RATES: York only) s $8.00 a year 2.50 three months hs New York) 0 three months Union § $6.00 a year Address and mail all ch cks to the Daily Worker, New York, N. Y. The Socialist Call For May Day. The socialist party is stirred by springtime. At least that is the excuse they offer for holding a May Day cele- bration. We quote the opening lines of the letter issued by them under date of April 22: “May Day, the return of Spring, is marked as you know as International Labor Day. With the return of the quickening life im Nature, Labor bestirs itself to the work of building its organi- gation and dedicating its forces to the realization of its aims and program to make life fuller, more meaningful, more satisfactory.” As inducement to attend they speak no word for struggle to defend the workers’ interests, but they do offer a “marvel- our program of operatic and symphonic music of real artistic merit . . . to intrigue the senses.” But should you believe that they have only this disgust- ing anemia to offer, consider another “socialist” May Day document. The anemia is only when they face capitalism, but when they face the militant workers their backs stiffen. Read the following from their May Day call issued in the name of the right wing International Ladies Garment Workers Union: “In recent years an insidious enemy broke into our ranks by deceitful practices. The meeting . will be a challenge to the Communist disruptionists and a sign that our ranks now present a solid front against future splits and dissensions.” Their failing to call the workers to militant struggle is not an oversight of a poor circular writer. It is part of the creed of the socialist party. It finds full bloom, for example, in the speech of the Rev. Norman Thomas before the Academy of Political and Social Science, where he praised the reactionary Hoover government. May Day, 1929, marks for the socialist party an anniversary of desertion of class struggle. In the face of the tremendously growing preparations for a new imperialist war, in the face of the increased ag- gression of American imperialism in China, Nicaragua and other colonies, in face of the attacks on the workers at home, these sycophants chant the praises of capitalism and attack the struggles of the workers. Thus they go from degeneracy to degeneracy! But the working class will live and remember and fight all the harder to crush them and to wipe out the shame of having once had such traitors in its ranks. The meetings of thousands of militant workers at the New York Coliseum and in other places throughout the country tomorrow, May Day, will be a fitting, living answer! Demonstrate against the traitorous socialist party on labor’s international holiday! Demonstrate on May Day your solidarity with the op- pressed Negro race. Long live political, social and racial equality for the Negro masses. More Blood Upon the Coal. There is more blood upon the coal mined in the United States this year than last. Death stalks more often this year for every million tons of coal brought to the surface than in 1928. The exact figures show that 178 workers were slaughtered in the coal pits of the nation last month (March). The department of commerce, formerly presided over by Herbert Hoover, now president, announces with its usual ad- ding machine indifference that the death rate per million tons of coal produced during last month was 4.01, compared with 3.07 for March, 1928. The first three months of 1929 have seen the massacre of 530 workers in the coal mines, an average of more than six workers murdered every day the mines were operated. Here is the murderous aftermath following in the wake of rationalization (the speed-up) in the coal industry, the betrayal of the mine workers and the wrecking of their or- ganization, the United Mine Workers of America, in the in- terests of the mine owners, by the Lewis regime in the U. M. W. A., by the Green-Woll bureaucracy in the American Federation of Labor. It is the task of the left wing National Miners’ Union, by overcoming and defeating the trade unionism of treason, _ to bring about conditions that will safeguard the lives and promote the interests of the workers in the coal fields. It must completely rout the Lewis-Green unionism that serves only the interests of the mine owners. Slogan for May Day—fight against the speed-up and for the winning of the eight-hour day. Long live the 7-hour day, and the 6-hour day for young workers! - Jim Connolly's “Red Flag” By JAMES A. MILLER This is a song about a song and about the man who wrote the song; a song for workers in the fields and shops, for comrades in the lonely places on nights when the moon is cool and still. A song for singers on the ramparts of rebellion, for slaves beneath the lash of tyrants; a lullaby for workers’ cradles on nights when the moon is cool and still. A song for May Days, for Red Days by one who stained its scarlet cloth with red still redder than the fires that swept through Dublin Town the night he died. Teach it to the young that they may know the magic of its words to cheer them on their barricades and in the shops and fields. In bitter days, fighting days and quiet nights vie the moon is cool and still. DOWN TOOLS: By D. UCHIDA (Japanese Workers’ Association of | America.) May Day!—labor’s only holiday—| yet one that is celebrated in an in-| ternational scale. Down with tools and into the street! Militant work- ers all over the world join, on this day, in mass demonstration to show the capitalist class their determin-| ation to fight to the last. Just as it is celebrated in the United States, France and Germany, not to speak of the U.S. S. R., so in Japan, too, this day is celebrated as labor’s day by the Japanese work- ers. To glance over its history in Japan. The first May Day celebration in| | Japan was held in a small upstairs room of a certain comrades’ home twenty-four years ago, in 1905—the year the Japanese militarists emerged victorious from the strug- gle against the giant tsarist Rus- sia, at the expense of the lives of tens of thousands of Japanese work- | ers and peasants. It was a quiet May Day, nevertheless a significant beginning. The intervening years from 1906 to 1920 saw almost no celebrations | or mass demonstrations on the streets of Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, etc., on May first. This, however, did not mean that the Japanese workers| were indifferent to this day. It was! only because the strong hand of the rising Japanese bourgeoisie which, together with the rich land-owning class— the remnant of feudalism— practically controlled political power, suppressed every effort of the class-| conscious workers to make this day the day of international labor solid- May Day and DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 1929 ? io = Slaves Are Determined to Revenge Wrongs Against Them By Fred Ellis Japanese Workers | affiliated with the Red International | of Labor Unions and is the fighting organ of the working class of these countries. The ex-Communist group, headed by Yamakawa and Inomata is worse, lor peasant arrested—these are only|ests of the laboring masses to the a few of the many brutal incidents that have taken place and still are taking place in Japan today. The enemies of the Japanese | working class, however, are not to} labor faker, and with his aid planned be sought among the capitalist class alone. There are the social-demo- crats, and the renegade Marx’ The former, headed by Abe, Suzuki & Co., and closely connected with the International Labor Office at Gen- eva, are trying to sell out the inter- | VAY 7, 290T"’ (The Obukhov Affair) By SULIMOV The work in the factory proceeded in the usual way—the same weari- some call of the syren in the morn- ing, at dinner-time and in the eve- ning. After work, crowds of work- ers filled the whole Schluesselberg Road for a few minutes and grad- ually disappeared in the lanes where they lived. Outwardly everything was quiet. Out on May Day. A small group of us, about ten people, arranged not to work on May ist. Under all sorts of pre- texes we got leave from our man- agement and spent this day together | in the fields. The next day it was rumored that in some workshops many workers |for this group, though not affiliated International capitalist block. | nay, they even dared to send out an Thus, these social-democrats last | open letter against the Comintern— December invited to Japan Albert | uses the most high-sounding phrases Thomas, the notorious internationa! | from Marxian literature in their at- empts to fool the masses although the formation of the Pan-Asiatic| in action they were so mild as to be non-militant labor conference among | content with the government-given | countries surrounding the Pacifie.| legality for their political party. The unpardonable character of the} These people call their monthly scheme is that they deliberately ne-| Publication “Rono,” a theoretical glected the existence of the “Pan-| magazine for the militant Marxists. | Pacific Labor Conference, which is| They boast of their legal political party and claim that the interests of the masses can only be attained through that party. However, the Japanese workers and peasants say, “The only party that truly represents the interests of | then disappeared again. The whole | workers and peasants is the Com- mass of the workers opened noisily | munist Party. We don’t need any the gates of the works and streamed | other. We want to make the exist- into the streets. ence of the Communist Party legal.” Workers Strike. “The legal status of the Communist The strike had broken out. From | Party,” they say, “is to be granted the opposite side of the Schluessel-| by the capitalist government, but it berg Road appeared the workers of | is not to be wrested by the constant the adjoining Alexander Works and! fighting on the part of the masses.” | the women workers from the card| factory. A detachment of officers | and gendarmes cut through the This year May Day will be cele- crowd which rushed to the side. .| brated by the Japanese workers and The mood of the workers had sud-| peasants with a still denly changed. Everyone was angry. | Stones are rapidly picked out of! done upon them by the reactionary the pavement and are thrown to|Tanaka government. It is highly some purpose. The gendarmes open| probable that the government will fire from ’*eir revolvers and some-| use the military forces against the |one is wounded. An officer has been| demonstrations by labor. In fact pulled off his horse, and the fright- | they did use them last fall during ened animal is dashing along the|the coronation ceremony of the fighting toward this end. with the Communist International— | And the Japanese masses today are | more deter- | mined spirit to revenge the wrongs , | had not turned up, and that the gun aA arity. Another factor was the pros- perity prevalent. With the close of the World War, however, a great crisis came over Japanese industrialism, as over the industries of the nations of the rest of the world. Wage-cut followe> _wage-cut. Unemployment increased. | At the same time, the small tenant farmers, who number some three million in all, were pushed down to extreme poverty, However, combatting the strong suppressing hand of the bourgeoisie, | \the workers and peasants of Japan rose up once again, determined to re- new their old fight against the cap- italist class. Thus, in 1920, a mass May Day celebration was resumed. Thousands of workers participated in the demonstrations held in big in- dustrial cities like Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, etc. Among the slogans then carried were the “Hight-hour day,” and “immediate recognition of Soviet Russia,” not to speak of some more specific demands of Japanese work- ers. Of these demands the first has not yet been realized. However, the second, recognition of Soviet Russia, was achieved not long afterward. The class struggle in Japan to- day is very acute. And the history of the fight of the Japanese work- ers and peasants against the bour- geoisie in the past few years is one of the’ most valiant in the history of the modern world. It is full of | sacrifice and bloodshed on the part |of the workers and peasants. The | arrest of 1,000 most militant fight- (ers, both Communists and non-Com- munists, in a single night’s raid, last spring; the murder of Comrade Watanabe by police in Formosa summer; and the political assassin- | ation of Comrade Yamamoto, the |only labor member of the Japanese |parliament who belonged to the “Labor-Farmer Party,” dissolved last month, on the very day of the pass- ing of an important Dill against which he fought to his last minute and which provided the worst for capital punishment or life imprison- ment for every Communist worker a and lock workshops did not work at all. On Saturday, I believe on the 4th | of May, it became known that twelve workers had been dismissed for \staying away without permission on May Ist. On Monday, May 7th, everything was as usual in the morning. Before | going off to dinner, S. P. Medvedyev asked me to return from lunch earlier as the workers wanted to speak to Vlassyev, the director of the works and to demand the rein- statement of the dismissed comrades. The second call of the syren... the workers go past the windows in single file and small groups and re- main in the yard. ... At last the whole huge yard of the works is full of them. Demand Reinstatement. Someone shouted: “Let Vlassyev come here!” The others took up the cry: “We want Vlassyev,” “We want. to speak for our comrades,” “We will demand. . . .” The door of the office opened and an old man, General Vlassyev, came jout in his full-dress uniform, with decorations on his breast... A tall worker from the gun workshop was | talking to the General, but nothing could be heard... After this talk, Vlassyev entered the works and he was followed by the mass of the workers who were rapidly disappear- ing in their workshops. It became known that Vlassyev had gone im- mediately on a cutter to Petersburg to speak to the administration, hav- ing promised to do his best for the reinstatement of the dismissed work- ers and to give an answer by three o'clock. The yard was empty. The factory was alive again and at work, About four o’clock everyone was startled by the shrill sound of the syren—the fire alarm of the works. +.» The workers were running out of the workshops and shouting: “We want Ivanov, we want Ivanov.” (Vlassyev’s much hated assistant). The crowd was growing. Ivanov arrived on the scene, he was shout- ing something, was threatening and Fight Military. A detachment of sailors (the naval | training detachment which was then | the assistance of the defeated gen- darmes. They drew up in line. . . Another detachment of policemen could be seen in the distance, it was coming on for the attack. There was another scuffle, and the victory was once more ours. I heard the sharp sound of shots. +.» I saw smoke over the heads of the sailors. ... The front row shot ‘kneeling down,’ the back row ‘stand- ing,’ they are shooting in our direc- tion. There is a burning sensation in my right arm... . I see blood... I am wounded, everything swims be- fore my eyes.... Demonstration Will Have Many Featurés SAN FRANCISCO, Cal., April 29.—The special features of the huge May Day demonstrations of the Communist Party in San Fran- cisco, which have been announced by the district organizer, Emil Gardos, include the famous chorus of ‘the revolutionary workers of the city, accompanied by the South Slav String Orchestra. New songs have been prepared by the chorus, ‘The international character of the demonstration can be seen from the speakers, among whom are oriental, Negro and Latin American work- ers. The chief speakers will be E. Gardos, Anita Whitney, D. Ettlin- ger and M. Martin. The meeting will be at Eagles Hall, 273 Golden Gate Ave. ‘lickets can be obtained at the district head- quarters of the Party, Demonstrate for the defense of the Soviet Union May First at the Coliseum. Ps | prived of their swords and nagaikas. | in the works for practice) came to) .|ers here in the United States. San Francisco May Day | |street. As a result of the scuffle, | Emperor. |the gendarmes were driven into a] The workers are determined to lane, and several of them were de-|fight. They are demanding the eight-hour day. Bouzai for the mili- tant Japanese proletariat! Down with the Tanaka government! At this juncture I would like to say a few words about the activities |and attitude of the Japanese work- The | Japanese Workers’ Association of America, which is in a fraternal re- lationship to the Communist Party, has branches in New York, San Francisco and in Los Angeles. Their membership is not large, but | they are militant. At the last meet- ing of the New York branch before May Day a declaration was read in which a basie principle for future activities was laid down, The de- \claration stated that “hereafter, be- ginning from this coming May Day, | the New York branch of the Japan- ese Workers’ Association will put forth every effort toward organiz- ing the Japanese workers, who have | been practically unorganized hereto- ‘ fore.” “The fight of the workers,” | it said, “should not be fragmental or temperamental, uproar today and calmness tomorrow. It must be the fight carried on incessantly through the unions, and not on a craft but an international scale. Organize the Japanese workers in America into industrial unions.” Thus they are preparing for the big task set be- fore them. The Japanese Workers’ Associa- tion also voted, at its last meeting, to participate both in the May Day parade and the celebration at the New York Coliseum. The Japanese Workers’ Association and the Chinese comrades will join hands in both the parade and the celebration of the American workers to show the international solidarity of labor. Celebrate the May Day! Show the international solidarity of labor! Down with the Tanaka govern- ment! Fight the Chang-Kai-Shek bureau- cracy! eh, Long live the Soviet Republic! _ broughe én, on instructions from the Department of Justice, a é * Copyright, 1929, by International Publishers Co., Ine. thot BILL HAY WOOD'S BOOK All rights rese,ved. Republica- tion forbidden except by permission. i Tho Wichita Cases; Superior Workers Refuse To Be Intimidated; the Great Chicago Trial; “Social System On Trial”. Haywood has told in previous installments of his being a mine worker at the age of 9, of his early boyhood in the Rocky Moun- tains, of toiling at many trades connected with mining and ranch- ing. He has told of the terrific battles put up by the miners of the West, of their.organization, the Western Federation of Miners, of his becoming the W.F.M. secretary-treasurer, and of the founding of the I.W.W. He has described the struggles of the I.W.W., and his part in Lawrence, Paterson, Akron, Masaba Range and other struggles. He has told of the wave of persecution and nation-wide “Red Raids” that followed and accompanied the U. S. entry into the world war. In the last chapter, he told of the I.W.W.’s awaiting trial in Chicago. By WILLIAM D. HAYWOOD. PART. 99. At Wichita, Kansas, one jail in which the prisoners were held awaiting trial, is what is called a Paula revolving jail, a terrible contrivance that can be compared to a gigantic squirrel cage. One of the members went crazy while in prison there and cut his throat, another went in- sane while being held in the Newton County jail. In the state of Kansas over thirty men had been imprisoned for nearly two years in some of what are reported to be the worst jails in the United States. I issued a statement on their behalf, beginning: “IN JAIL TWO YERS—FOR WHAT? “Workers of America! Do you know that twen- ty or more innocent workingmen are now being slow- ly tortured to death in the Bastilles of Kansas? The men in question are those that have been held for two years without trial, on what is known as the Wichita indictment. The charges of conspiracy against these victims are so vague that to the aver- age fair-minded individual it seems incredible that such an injustice can be imposed. But the fact of the matter is that this group is under- going the most vindictive persecution known in the history of American labor. Never before has a group of men undergone such a rigid ordeal. “The despicable forces back of this damnable outrage, are deter- mined to have the blood of these men. The scurrilous sheets, called newspapers, spout their venom with fury. The oligarchy of Kansas | and Oklahoma are set upon crushing out every semblance of unionism. That is the reason why they are so intolerably insisting in slowly mur- dering these men, so as to hold them up as examples in frightening other workers into submission and keep them from organizing, The | Right to Organize belongs to every man! Keep it! .. +” “ * WHEN the Kansas prisoners were finally convicted, it was a relief to them, and every man was. glad because they were being re- leased from the hellish places known as county jails, though they were going to serve long terms in the Federal prisons. The government was not content with its bitter persecution for alleged violation of war measures, but everything possible was done to prevent us from raising funds for our defense. Appeals that we sent through the post office or the express companies were confiscated | and destroyed. Our speakers were arrested. Meetings were broken | UP. After speaking in Sioux City and Minneapolis, under threats from the Legion, I went to Superior where the Lumber Workers and Iron Miners had a defense picnic outside the city. The rostrum was here the rear end of a truck. I was just getting warmed up to the occa- sion when the sheriff and some deputies came up and said that the meeting could not proceed as they were afraid of bloodshed. The lumberjacks and miners circled around him and asked, “What’s that you say?” Some of them adding: “We've got guns, appoint us { as deputies. We'll prevent any trouble.” The sheriff turned on his | heel and walked away, saying, “We've done all we can, let ’em go to hell with their meeting.” I recall that at the time of the inter- ruption I was speaking about the Russian Revolution, | *. | * jibe preliminary hearing in the Chicago case came up on December 15th, 1917. We all gathered in the Federal Building, those from the county jail as well as those of us who were out on bail. Ettor, Flynn and Tresca came on from New York City, but the cases against them were dismissed. They were never tried. When Arturo Giovan- itti demanded to know why his name had not been read by the clerk, he was informed that the case against him was dismissed. He entered | a protest and demanded that he be tried with the rest of the defendants. | But this was not allowed. All the rest of us pleaded “Not Guilty.” The big trial began on April 1st, 1918. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was the umpire of the District Court of the U. S., Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, There was a strong array of legal talent against us consisting of Charles F. Clyne, district attor- ney of Chicago, Frank N. Nebeker, formerly attorney for the Utah Machinery Co. at Salt Lake City, and Claude R. Porter of Iowa. We had for counsel George F, Vanderveer of Seattle, who had ably and successfully conducted the defense of the Everett case, Otto Christensen of Chicago, William B. Cleary of Bisbee, Arizona, and Caroline Lowe, who was also one of the counsel in the Wichita case. The court room in which we were tried was white marble decorated with gilt. The judge’s bench was on an elevated platform at the right of the door which we entered. There was a big desk behind which Judge Landis sat, At his left were the witness stand and the jurors. The prosecutors sat at a table near the judge, the attorneys for the defense had a table immediately back of them. There was a long press table inside the railing that separated the spectators from the arena. At this sat newspaper and magazine reporters from different parts of the country as well as a few from foreign lands, At the end of the table nearest the prosecutors sat a person named Karm, supposedly a labor reporter, who enthusiastically played the role of informer by prompting our prosecutors with suggestions and docu- nients. The prisoners sat behind the press table along the railing, and some of us at the table with our lawyers. A panel of 200 venire- men had been called. Attorneys for the defense questioned the veniremen on socialism, social science, industrial unionism, and industrial conditions. Then a question would be asked: “Is the industrial system involving the exploitation of society by a few individuals, the best possiblé scheme of things?” “Can you conceive of a society owning and controlling the means of production, communication and exchange, and the co- operative carrying on of production for use instead of profit?” Vanderveer challenged the government when he said, “It is the social system that is on trial.” He asked: ( “Are you aware that 2 per cent of the population of the United , States owns 60 per cent of the wealth? Do you know that prostituticn is caused because women in industry do not get living wages? Do you know the number of children under 16 years of age now employed in the industries of this country? Do you believe in slavery—whether it be chattel slavery where the master owns the worker body and soul or whether it be industrial slavery? Have you never read in school about the American Revolution of 1776 or the French Revolution that deposed a king and made France a republic, or the Russian Revolution that over- threw the autocracy and the Czar? Do you recognize the right of people to revolt? Do you recognize the idea of revolution as one of the principles of the Declaration of Independence upon which this nation is founded? Do you believe in the right of people to govern them- selves and to have a voice in this government? Do you believe this applies to industry as well as politics? Would it prejudice you if it should appear that these defendants believe that all industrics should be owned by the people and operated for the benefit of the people?” _ * ® - In the next installment Haywood tells how “he first cenire jurymen was discharged and one more suitable to the Ca om ashi