The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 1, 1929, Page 16

' ~ a ee eee : led by the Communist Party of America. {he revolutionary workers of all countries! ge Worker S. A. Baily r Central Organ of the Communist Party of the U. y, except < s months New York) hs ly Worker, months May Day for Revolutionary Mobilization Against Imperialist War The United States, already now conducting a series of wars against colonial peoples, is preparing for a new world The Communist International has long declared that the post war stabilization achieved through intensifying the ex- ploitation of the toiling masses is a partial, temporary, and decaying stabilization, which can only lead to new world Imperialist United States is now engaged in a des- perate struggle with Great Britain, Japan, and other powers for control of the Far Eastern and Latin American markets. The Dawes Plan, hailed as the stabilizer of war-ruined Eur- ope, is now collapsed. All the imperialist powers are prepar- ing for the inevitable catastrophe. Mechanized armies, air , tremendous navies, and the marvels of modern chem- 1 make this catastrophe so great, that the last World - will pale into insignificance. The American proletariat is today experiencing its forty- third May Day, and the fortieth anniversary of the adoption by the internat of this originally “Amer- ican” institution as the international revolutionary Labor Day. May Day, 1929, must be devoted to a revolutionary mob: il ion of the working class to fight capitalist. conquest. We are better prepared to carry through such a mobil- on than ever before. On the eve of the World War the international proletar- iat had no fatherland. Today we proudly hail as our leader the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, the Socialist Father- land of the workers of the world. In the twelfth year of its existence, the U. S. S. R. has developed its industries far above the pre-war level, and has brought its economy far along the road of the upbuilding of socialism. Today almost 90 per cent of production is socialized production. Electri- fication has been far advanced. The turn towards the social- ization of agriculture has been made. The U.S. S. R. is the pole around which the oppressed toilers of all countries gather for common struggle. This May Day larger masses than ever before will march the streets and meet in demonstration throughout the world in common with the workers of the U. S. S. R. The workers of the world know that in Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov and the other cities of the U. S. S. R., the red workers, soldiers, and sailors, will bear banners which carry not only their own slogans but the slogans and demands of the workers of every country. And the revolutionary workers throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and North and South America, in meetings and parades, will better organize themselves for defense of their Socialist Fatherland, the U.S. S. R. This May Day marks for us progress in relation to cementing our unity with the colonial workers. We better helped the revolutionary workers in China, Mexico, Nicara- gua, etc., and we greet our growing friendship with the workers and peasants of the Philippine Islands where a Com- munist Party is in the process of formation. This May Day will inaugurate a year of stauncher defense of the colonial peoples in their struggles for independence from American imperialism. We hail the growing revolutionary movement in India. a On the scene of struggle in the U. S. there is clearly. noticeable increased resistance by the working class against the bosses and against the corrupt A. F. of L. This is the first May Day on which large masses of striking workers in the South are united closely with the workers of the North against the common enemy. There is generally expressed anew militancy among the large masses of unskilled and semi-skilled workers which is sweeping the old and decrepit A. F. of L. into the background and bringing forth the new trade union center, which will result from the Trade Union Unity Convention in Cleveland on June 1. The Negro workers, whose desertion and betrayal by the A. F. of L. bureaucracy has been both the cause and the ef- fect of the chauvinism prevailing in the ranks of the work- ing class are now coming to the fore, and taking their proper place in the front ranks of the revolutionary working class. In the course of the struggles of the past year new vic- tims have been added to the already long list of class war prisoners. John Porter, arrested for strike activity and anti- militarist work and Tony Minerich, arrested for activity on behalf of the struggling miners, are but isolated examples of many more incarcerated during the needle trades, miners, textile strikes, etc. This May Day must tremendously in- crease the volume of strength which must force open the prison doors and release our comrades. Throughout the whole world the working class is march- ing forward. A wave of radicalization rises to meet the brutal capitalist rationalization. We have been unable to take a single victorious stride without stepping on the rotten bodies of traitors and strike- breakers, the Socialist Party and the A. F. of L. We have only to point to their work in support of the last war, and in their undermining of the struggles of the workers in the textile, coal, food, and needle industries to prove this. It.is necessary that we march over their bodies to achieve our emancipation. We will not hesitate to do so! The most militant struggles of the past year have been On this May Day under the leadership of the Communist International, the workers of the world will achieve better organization for com- mon struggle against world imperialism. The May Day dem- onstrations will better prepare us so that in the event of war we will be better fitted for defeating our “own” imperialist government and turning the war into a struggle for the Dictetorship of the Proletariat. ~ lve the First of May, International Labor Day! Long live the Struggle Against Imperialist War! } ou; live the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics! Support the Revolutionary Movements of the Colonies! Long live the Chinese Revolution, and Soviet India! Free Our Class War Prisoners! Tong Live the Communist International, Leader of the World Revolution. Long Live the First of May—the day of solidarity of Down tools on Mass to May 1 Demonstrations By MOISSAYE J. OLGIN. E toil. We are a far-flung brotherhood of toilers. We bend cur backs in the black coal caverns of Pennsylvania and Illinois. We wound our fingers with the cotton threads of the North Carolina tex- tile mills. We scorch our faces in the lurid fires of the Ruhr steel crucibles. We poison our breath with the jungle vapors of tropical rubber plantations. We freeze the soul out of our hungry bodies in the sullen wastes of Alaska. We toil. We build palaces for our masters to inhabit in luxury, calm and refinement. We build prison-houses to put us into when the sacred property rights of the rulers are trespassed. We make juniforms for the watch-dogs wealth who club us to death in case of revolt. We man the trains that carry the armies of our masters, sent to squeeze the life blood out of ‘innocent peoples. | We quit. claim the day to be our own. We say: May Day is the holiday of the worker. We call: Workers of the world, _put down your tools, Miners of Britain, weavers of Bombay, planta- tion toilers of Malay, coolies of Shanghai, automobile slaves of Michigan, oil slaves of Mexico, shut your plants this one day in the year. Look in the face of your mas- ters, tell them point blank: This is our day of freedom. | THIS IS OUR HOLIDAY! of | Once a year we pro-| Sra hirer, DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 1929 2 muha , Raise the Red Banner of Mass Revolt; Show | Exploiters the Power of Our Class! within our bodies. No day to en- velope our bitterness in the noxious vapors of intoxications. This is the day when we gather our forces. This jis the grand world review of labor's armies, We come from everywhere. We emerge from the bowls of the earth, |from the catacombs of boats, from \the torture-chambers of steel-plant, rubber mill, gas house, dockyard, lumber camp, stockyards. We form |labor battalions. We march. We ery. We realize. We make the guns and cannon, the gasses and |dreadnoughts, the shells and torpe- |does wherewith our masters order us to kill in turn—for the glory, prosperity and power of the rulers. We toil. We build universities for the sons of our enemies to gct jeducated in so they may know how to use our toil to their greatest ad- vantage. We print books for our ‘enemies to read and get stronger. | We print the trash with which the masters feed our own class so that |it may not comprehend its task and its place in life, and it may continue toiling year in and year out. We toil. We are the creators of all things. We are the builders of this earth. We are the builders of | _ We toil—until we lay down tools. Once a year we test our own strenngth. We issue a warning to| our exploiters. This is the day when we muster our forces. We see innumerable masses, millions upon millions of our brothers hardened by toil, mobilized by the processes of labor. We see our exploiters and their henchmen —handfuls amid our vastness. We see the masters holding sway by cunning, by falsehood, by using our own life-blood to stifle our cry of anguish. We see our own masses awakening, grouping, swinging, yearnfhg the light and the clear- ness of day, Ba We form battalions. We close our ranks. We march. We carry defiancce. We declare to the masters of cur destinies. You shall not rule much longer. We, the exploited, have begun to stir. We, the crea- tors of all, haye arisen to demand the fruits of our toil. We, the found- ation and the mainstay of the world, are demanding our birthright. We shall soon come to wrest power from your hands. You are strong by our docility. You are masterful by our ignorance. |You rule by our silence. But the By Jacob Burck | | !taught us resistance. The pain cf our lives has turned into anger. Our sufferings has stiffened into de- termination, | We will raise the red banner of | mass revolt. We will march to the| |battle for our liberation. This May |Day review is only one moment of | training for war of the world—the| final war of the classes. | You, in your greedy lust for loot, |foment new wars to bé fought by us against each other for the greater glory of your fatherlands and your \flags. We declare: This shall not| \pass. We will no more fight your| wars. We are training for the war of the working-class. We are gath- ering forces to crush you with all| your world, that is reared upon our |shattered lives. On the day your drums beat and} your bugles declare a new war, on| the day your preachers bleat, “Our | sacred homeland,” and your patri-| ots shout, “The honor of the flag,”) we shall take hold of the weapons |you have prepared, we shall man the} jcannon, seize the rifles, mount the planes and battleships, ahd we shall |turn them against you, against your| domination, against your system of | slavery, degradation, and blood. | We shall establish a Soviet in our | land. We shall build a Soviet in} every land. There will be a world Federation of Soviets. } | We march to the beat of our jhearts. We march to the tune of our red blood. We march to the /mustering ground of May First. We) Copyright, 1929, by International Publishers Co., Ine. nt BILL HAYWOOD’S All rights rese.ved. Republica- B O OK: tion forbidden except by permissicn. The Prosecution Packs the Jury Box During the Trial of the Chicago Case; Reading “Onward Christian Soldiers” The story so far has been Haywood’s account of his lorg career as strike leader and militant worker, in the mines and on the ranches of the Rocky Mountains, in the office of secretary-treasurer of the Western Federation of Miners, and as one of the founders and the principal leader of the 1.W He has told of his relations with all the other prominent figures of his period, the first quarter of this century, and of the great labor struggles in which he took a leading part, Then he told of the orgy of “preparedness” which he fought, of the entry of the U. S. into the world war, and the wave of arrests and persecutions that followed. He told of being jailed with hundreds of other Wobblies, and of the beginnings of the great Chicago trial. They were just sclecting the jury, in yes- terday’s installment. Now read on. pitaggagerias By WILLIAM D. HAYWOOD. PART 100. [eae jurymen had been accepted by both sides. The defense had used but one of the ten peremptory challenges. The prosecution had exhausted three of their six. At this time things looked a little favorable for the I. W. W., when we were met with the surprising charge that we had been trying to tamper with the prospective jurors. It was said that a member by the name of Russell had held a conversation with a relative of one of the prospective jurymen. The judge took the high-handed method of discharging not only the jurymen that had been selected, but the entire remaining number of the panel, This was not, in my opinion, done on the sole initiative of the judge, but because of a letter from Attorney-General Gregory at Washington giving instructions as to the kind of a jury that must be secured, We were informed that this letter had been received, by one of the secret agents who of- fered to get it for us for the sum of $1,000. But we did not think it would be of any particular use, as the jury had already been discharged. reriliiiit. eg aS. eZ 1 trial proved to be a protracted propaganda meeting lasting nearly six months. Two members of the I.W.W. had gone insane in Cook County jail. One of them was a defendant in this case. Both had to be removed to a hospital for the insane. When the new venire came in, District Attorney Clyne was re- moved, though nothing was said about it in the press. Nebeker took the chief part-as prosecutor. The duel between him and Vanderveer in the examination of the jury was even more keen than it had been with Clyne. Nebeker asked prospective jurymen: “Have you any sympathy with any organization that seeks to over- throw the institutions of this country or to violate its laws? Do you believe that free speech gives any one the right to.advocate the break- ing of the law? Do you believe that free speech gives any one the right to advocate the breaking of the law? Do you believe in the right of individuals to acquire property? Do you believe it right for = any body of men or organization to take that property away by force = or other unlawful means? Do you believe any one has the right to = stir up rebellion or revolution? Do you believe in the wage system = and in the social system as it is organized at present? Were you™ heartily in favor of the declaration of war against the Imperial German = Government? Are you in favor of the various appropriations made to => insure the successful prosecution of this war?” And then Vanderveer, the defense attorney, would come back with = such questions as: = “Do you believe in the right to strike? Do you believe in the right = to peacefully picket? Do you believe in the right of free speech?” * 8 Chetecr ese CPUETEERTEELER BREE ELE a FTER a careful examination in which the class struggle was clearly = portrayed, the responsibility rested upon the jurymen. Nebeker, = the chief prosecutor, took more than five hours to tell what he knew = and what he didn’t know about the Industrial Workers of the World. =; He charged us with offenses that we had never dreamed of, But he = This is May First. No holiday to ,all civilization. We are the founda-|very work we are forced to do for |are millions upon millions over world.| knew the structure of the organization, and told of the. recruiting union, lar waste precious time in amusements. our weary bones sing the ache-song tdom, the space. foolish tion of a world of which we are de-|you has taught us unity, cohesion, | No rest time to hear /nied the light, the beauty, the free- | coordination. The lash that swishes lover our sweat-soaked bodies has We shall win. We have nothing | \to lose but our chains. We shall | gain a whole world. The Blood In Tsarist Russia the workers had (to pay with blood and their free- celebrations, But the revolution cannot be crushed by bullets and back-jacks. Hard labor and execu- tions are powerless and they could not destroy the revolutionary Party of the proletariat; ‘on. the contrary, they only hardened the fighters of the workers’ Party. The May. Day celebrations were converted into a jschool for the proletarian struggle against the armed ‘forces of the tsarist government. The First of years. The history of the May Day is bound up with the history of de- jvelopment of the revolutionary | struggle of the Russian workers and | with the history of their revolution- \ary Party, The May Day banners | of the Russian workers spoke not ‘only of the general tasks in, the struggle, but also of the slogans dealing with the burning questions of the day. These slogans and the general character of the festivals changed accordingly as the nature of the workers’ organizations and |the slogans of the proletariar. par- | ties developed. When in 1889 the First Congress of the Second International decided to celebrate the First of May, it seemed that under the conditions of tsarist Russia it would be impossible to bring that decision into effect. Plekhanov joined the Polish delega- tion on behalf of the Russian dele- gates in declaring that in view of the exceptional conditions in tsarist Russia, they “cannot concentrate all their forces exclusively on this agi- tation and that they cannot sacri- ‘fice the life of their organizations in {order to organize successful May Day demonstrations.” That it was impossible to celebrate May Day un der Russian conditions was, consid ered also by other delegates, The dom for participating in May Day | May was celebrated in tsarist Rus- | sia in cneform or another for 27) > | general reply to this declaration was “naturally.” But already the next year, 1890, May Day demonstrations were or: ganized,in Russia. In the nineties of the 19th cen- tury, the May Day celebrations as- sumed a mass character only in the most industrial districts of the Rus- sia of that time—Poland. The work- ers.of Western Russia who entered on the path of a mass revolutionary movement before the~ workers of Central Russia,--started» also the celebrations of May Day earlier than they did, In 1890, May Day. was celebrated in Warsaw, where ‘two’ proclama- tions were issued beforehand and on May First, from eight to ter thou- sand workers, were out'on strike. In connection ‘with this celebration, the government perpetrated mass ar- rests not only. among workers, but also amongst the intellectuals. The May. Day celebrations of that different nature, Here, during the first years when .the.revolutionary labor organizations existed in’ the form of*simall circles, studying the fundamental problems of the theory of the labor’ movement, the May Day celebrations were limited mere- ly to secret meetings which were of @ propagandist nature at which small groups of ‘organized under- ground workers’ circles participated. In 1892, apart from the St. Peters- burg and Polish workers, the First of May was celebrated in Vilna by the Jewish workers, who organized an underground meeting. The speeches delivered at that meeting were later published in pamphlet form. In 1893 the First of May was cele- brated for the first time in Kazan, y May Days of Tsa Bullets Could Not Prevent Oppressed Workers . From Celebrating May 1st Feriod in Central ‘Russia’ were of a lin ;A May Day gathering was organ-| jized, They secured boats and nu- merous young people and workers left early ‘in the morning for some island under the slogans: “an*eight- hour working day,” “freedom of speech, strikes and _ assembly.” In 1885 Moscow, for the first time, joined in the May Day _ festivals. About 250 people gathered, repre- senting 30 factories and works. Speeches were held dealing with the necessity of organizing the work- ing class, the struggle for political freedom, the eight-hour working day, and the workers’ successes -in Moscow. In 1896 May Day. proclamations were circulated for the first time in Nizhni-Novgorod and.a May Day gathering was held in Saratov. The celebration of May Day was becom- ing more general yearly. ' In 1897, the Jewish and Polish workers distributed May Day_proc- lamations ‘ very ‘extensively. Nu- erous May Day gatherings were held. An attempt was made to or- ganize ‘a demonstration in Vilna, but it failed s the town was occu- pied by arme., forces, , Shortly: before the First of May of 1898, the foundation was laid of the Russian Social Democratic La- bor Party at the First Congress in Minsk. The second period of May Day celebrations in Russia begins with the foundation of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party and énds with the first’ Russian Revolu- tion and is characterized by ‘the rapid development of May Day cele- brations throughout the country, which replaced the hazy slogan of political freedom by more definite ones. One of the clear political de- mands was the slogan “Down with autocracy.” This, accompanied with | celebrations into open political dem- onstrations, often ended in skir- mishes with the police and the mili- tary forces. The tsarist government also intensified its aggressive atti- tude to the May Day celebrations. In addition to the arrests, searches, and beatings, the government was now organizing pogroms and letting loose the black hundreds on the heads of the demonstrators. In 1898, a national May Day Man- ifesto was issued for the first time on behalf of the R. S. D. L. P. In it we find for the first time definite day, the freedom of. strikes, speech, press, assembly, and organization, |the freedom of conscience and faith, equality of nationalities, the con- vocation of a parliament represent- ing the people elected by means of @ general secret and direct equal vete for all. : The year 1899 was the first year in which May Day demonstrations were held on a mass scale. The ex- tensive May Day movement of that | year brought forth increased repres- |sive measures from the government. Prior to and soon after the First of May, close-to 250 people were ar- \vested in St. Petersburg. Numerous searches and arrests were perpe- |trated in Moscow and other towns. \In Kiev, 176 people were arrested end about 500 house searches were |made. In Gomel 15 people were ar- vested, and 3 house searches made. In Odessa, 200 people were detained. In Kiev, 8 people were arrested and a red banner at a meeting discovered was confiscated by the police. The workers were arrested on the eve of May Day in Ufa. Realizing its im- portance in staving off the labor movement by means of arrests, the government attempted that year to organize the “Black Hundreds” as ® means of struggle against the Revolution. In Nikolaev, a Jewish pogrom was organized on April 19, to prevent May Day celebrations. (To Be Continued) ine. eden, demands for an eight-hour working | the shop branches, the branches of industrial unions, how the industrial «- unions were connected with the general administration. He said that. Bill Haywood was the uncrowned king in a swivel chair, backed by the =} Executive Board; that we were striving to build a government within =} | the government. He told how this organization with its 200,000 mem-'= rist Russia ¢the transformation of the May Day | bers had closed down the copper mines of Arizona and Montana, and were contriving to call a strike on the lead and copper mines of Utah.(2! He recited the efforts that were being made to shut down the lumber * industry, and of the efforts of the Finnish workers to close the iron mines, adding that it was our intention to hamper the farmers in thes gathering of the harvest. = = = = /EBEKER read many editorials from the pages of Solidarity. From <=. one, entitled, “We are dissatisfied,” he read, “A revolutionary body =! -testifies to complete dissatisfaction with the existing order of things. And this is the first reason and main reason for the existence of the = I.W.W. We are absolutely and irrevocably dissatisfied with the pres- -= ent system of society. We consider it a useless system, and we mean = to destroy it... .” “ From the I.W.W. Song Book, Nebeker read with vibrant ‘voice the parody on that religious hymn, “Onward Christian Soldiers,” which ends: * 2 «© : “Onward Christian soldiers! Blighting all you meet. Trampling human freedom under pious feet. Praise the Lord whose dollar sign dupes his favored race, Make the foreign trash respect your bullion brand of grace.” GetedNsTTTTH tie This and many other songs read by Debeker were a decided relief ° after the hundreds of routine letters and bulletins that had been read = to the jury. He added that the Finnish miners of the Mesaba range = had declared a strike against conscription. It was true that the Fin- 2. nish miners were making a hard fight against the war and against >. being conscripted as soldiers and later one of.the Finnish workers had £ his eyes scraped out because of his opposition to war. This terrible & punishment was inflicted upon him by a patriotic mob. i Nebeker, a Mormon lawyer, the mouthpiece of capitalism, told the jury what he seemed to think was a remarkable thing. It was that I had had the effrontery to telegraph President Wilson demanding tected from further mob violence. ee ae In the next chapter Haywood tells how a lot of testimony against the capitalist system came out in the Chicago trial. You can get Haywood’s book free with a yearly subscription to the Daily Worker. deviiiaanatiimnanrennnalcemniintaieaioal On May Day—mobilize for the struggle against colonial oppression! Long live the revolutionary struggle for the liberation of the oppressed peoples! Down with discrimination against the foreign-born, women and youth workers. Demonstrate your solidarity on May Daye _ On May Day—long live the Communist International! Join the ranks of the Communist Party! Hail the world revolution,