The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 8, 1929, Page 1

THE DAILY WORKER FIGHTS For a Workers-Farmers Government To Organize the Unorganized For the 40-Hour Week For a Labor Party Published daily except Sunday by The Comprodaily Publishing Pasco tall Inc. Union Square, New York City, N. ¥. NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1929 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: In New York, by mail, 88,00 per year. “Outside New York, by mail, $6.00 per year. FINAL CITY EDITION Price 3) Cents MEXICAN COMMUNISTS RESIST DISARMING OF PEASANTS Evicted Gastonia Sirtkers Dety Orders, Return to Boss- Owned Hom WORKERS SCORE BERLIN TERROR BEFORE CONSUL Demonstration Assails} ‘Socialist’ Murderers of May Day Mass Meeting Saturday Called by Communists; | Unions Represented Carrying placards with slogans de- nouncing the bloody police attack on German May Day demonstrations and cheering loudly the speech pledging solidarity to the hero’ Red Front Fighters, defenders of the barricades in Berlin, several hun- dred workers who had first assem- bled yesterday before the Interna- tional Seamen’s Club, 28 South St., demonstrated in a body before the German Consulate in New York. Gastonia Striker Leads. They were led by Viola Hampton, a Gastonia mill striker, who carried a placard reading: “Southern Tex- tile Strikers Declare Solidarity with German Workers.” Other placards stated: “Zoergeibel—Bloodhound of Berlin,” “Down with the Socialist Murderer of German Workers,” “Down with Police Brutality Against the ted German Workers,” “Hail the May Day of the German Work- ’ “Hail the German Red Front s,” “Hail the Solidarity of ing Class.” hree Negro workers, Harold Williams, John H. Owens and W. A. Jones, marched in a protest demon- ti ©, before the German consualte. The crowds of worl who wit- nessed the demonstrators marching to the consulate, and the ae cia ting in the Seamen’: Club, | ed. 2 cheer when they saw thcir | gro fellow-workers fighting toilers over in Berlin, Another Meeting ‘Saturday. The demonstration yesterday is preliminary to a larger one called by District 2 of Party, for 1:30 p. m. Saturday, in Union Square, at which prominent speakers from the Teft wing unions and the Communist Party will speak. Among them will be Robert Minor, | J. Louis Engdahl, George Pershing, Paul Crouch, Ben Gold, Rose Wor- tis, Fred Biedenkapp, John Owens, on, together with’ white work-| wright, Henrietta Cooper, d demonstrat- | ing solidarity for the striking and | the Communist | _ [Socialists Order German Troops to Drive | Workers to pita on May ee ar * Part of the clasped back oe their heads. The with order: r s with a hand grenade. socialist chief of police, They are Zoergiebel, forced to march 3.000 arrested on May 1, most of them before the fighting started. Notice one helmet- ed guard threatening the workers with their hands sent these troops and police out “kill without warning any workers appearing in windows.” ‘Shop ‘Papers on May 1 Rouse. ENTIRE CREWS Ive of Yonkers’ Exploiters yyw eqgy STRIKE YONKERS, N. Y., ee 1 2,800 workers who slave for the huge Otis Elevator Co., one of the powerful open shops controlling the Yonkers city officials, will rally be- hind the three workers jailed fol- lowing their attempt to hold an open air May Day meeting here last Saturday night, a meeting which to be for and by the Otis work- and near the Otis plant. he workers arrested, The] § Edward | and Max| Sint members of the Commu- nist Party, will come up for hear- ing next Monday, on charges of “disorderly conduct.” A permit had been obtained from city officials to hold the meting, but when the Otis officials learned that a May Day meeting was to be held, and that copies of the Otis workers’ fighting shop paper, the “Otis Lift,” were to be distributed, they immediately got their puppet police force busy (Continued on Page Two) A Century of Fake Housing (This is the twenty-third in clusively in the Daily Worker, ex the workers are forced to live. ditions in the tenement. dist bluffs put across by the exploit tion in New York state. This ser By SOL A in the housing situation from le; that ever since 1835 there has been Previous articles des Measures in New York State a series of articles, appearing ex- posing the conditions under which i ibed the con- The present article deals with in the form of housing legisla- ies will conclude this week.) UERBACH,. XXIII. F any workers feels inclined to hold out the least bit of hope for relief let him remember ns and reformers of gislative quar talk by polit John Ballam and others. There will | relieving the housing situation in New York City and that even today be speakers and representatives as violations of the first tenement law passed in 1867 are rampant, well as masses of the membership to represent the striking cafeteria | workers, the Needle Trades Work- ers Industrial Union, the National From 1835 to 1929. Let him remember that the Tene- | ment House Law of 1901, hailed as Textile Workers Union, the Inde-|an achievement in reform by some Shoe Workers New York, pendent Union Greater of| people, was so much scrap paper the Window |that might just as well have been Cleaners Union, the Trade Union| thrown into the waste-basket stand- Educational League, the Interna-|ing beside the governor when he tional Labor Defense, the Anti-Im- | signde it. perialist League and others. to deceive tenants, but the real pur- pose of which is to make apartment house building for the rich easier. The First Fake. In 1835 the health commissioner of New York City came to the sur- prising conclusion that there was a) direct relationship between slum con- ditions and disease. The various in- Let him also remember that the vestigating commissions appointed | W.LR. to ‘Take Chdipe| of Union Restaurant When the Hotel, Cafeteria Workers Union declared strikes yesterday against two tafe- terias—the Garden, 23d St. and Seventh Ave., and the R. and H.,| 30 St.—the workers in both | 263 W. shops walked out 100 per cent. With 21 strikers dragged from the picket | line into court yesterday, the ar- rests to date total 1,045 since the | strike began on April 4. Heavy Fines, Many Jailed. Of the arrested, 150 have been jailed, and fines totaling over $6,000 hare been imposed. There are now 1,500 strikers in 75 shops. | | Albert Resigne, 2361 First Ave.,! held by Magistrate Adolph Stern at Jefferson Market Court yes- terday for the grand jury in $2,500 bail on framed charges of assault. ; He is also held on $500 bail on a second charge of “disorderly con- duct.” A nearly fatal slugging from) |police and private detectives when the strike first began in the gar- ment district failed to cow Re who altogether has been a and beaten up five times during the strike, Napoleon Moratis, 35, 341 W. St., and Salvatore Aiolo, 24, 475 Third Ave., strikers arrested on Tuesday at the Paramount, Delancey! and Essex Sts., when police drew guns on a sympathetic crowd when ‘it defended a strike committee from police attack, took three days in | jail rather than pay a fine of ten | dollars. Both were slugged so viciously was 41st This meeting, like the meeting! new Multiple Dwellings Bill, which | by the state and city could not help| that. the 57th St. night court au- yesterday, chief, Zoergiebel, and Grzesinski, Prussian minister of the interior. (Continued on Page Two) | | Louis Hyman to Expose Yesterday, the police, taken by Company Unionism at! surprise by the appearance of the | workers before the consulate, failing | to break it ap themselves, did their | best to rally German Consulate of-| ficials and other elements from steamship companies Street offices to attack the demon- stration. These fascist rowdies tore up the signs and under police supervision | and protection attacked the crowd, which stood fast, however, and gave a rousing reception to the speech of Bert Miller, organization secretary of District 2 of the Communist (Continued on Page Two) and Wall | ‘Cloak Meeting Tonight | “Company unionism and how to ‘fight it” will be discussed by Louis! Hyman, president of the Needle Trades Workers’ Industrial Union, at the cloakmakers open forum at Bryant Hall, 42nd St. and Ave., directly after work tonight. The recently appointed committee of 100 will begin preparations for | leading the coming fur strike at the first committee meeting at the needle union offices at 131 W. 28th St. tomorrow night. Dunn Tells of Effect of Rationalization on Office Workers; Speaks Tomorrow Night By AN OFFICE WORKER. “In organizing any group of work- ers in New York, where about two million industrial workers are en- gaged, the organization of the oftice workers is very nearly indispensable if we are to have a unionized New York.” Robert W. Dunn, secretary of the Labor Research Association, and au- thor of numerous books on labor and industry, the latest of which is “La- bor and Automobiles,” emphasized the need of a powerfyl union of of- fice workers. Intensive Speed-up. “Like factory workers, the office | speed-up and rationalization. General Electric Company in Schen- | ectady, for instance, has introduced 650 dictating machines, and have! centralized all the typists in one room to increase the efficiency. They use three transcribers who are familiar with the work of each executive and in this way continuity of the work is secured.” Continuing, Dunn said: “Hundreds of workers have been disposed ot from this new scheme. They also have adopted piece work and the bonus system with the introduction | (Continued on Page Five) Sixth | MAY PUT ACROSS HOUSING FRAUD Mayor Sees Chance to. Use It in Elections The Chrystie-Forsythe Sts, hous- |ing fake, which has been resusci- |tated by Mayor Walker and other Tammany politicians to use as a/ smoke screen in the coming muni- | cipal elections, may again be put on |the city calendar following the an- /nouncement that Peter B. Cappel real estate dealer on the East Side, has induced 112 out of 191 property jowners in the blocks to agree to sell | \thé property to the city at 25 per! workers are equally subjected to| The | cent above the assessment value. Realtors Fight. The Chrystie-Forsythe aNcoal tions! vis being used by the Cappel group (Continued on Page Two) DRUG CLERKS MEET. A special membership meeting of .the New York Drug Clerks’ Asso- joeton will be held at Hunts Point | Palace, 168d St. and Southern Blvd., | Bronx, at 8:30 tonight. Struggle | War! | perialis Against Imperialist Get Ready to Turn an Im- st War Into a Class War! will have speakers to has just been signed by Roosevelt, to| but be struck by the connection be- | thor ities were forced to send for the | point out the part played by the so- take the place of the 1901 law, is tween bad housing and contagious | Bellevue ambulance to treat them at 8 o'clock, arranged by the Work- | cialist servants of capitalist oppres- | nothing but a brazen fake, intended | sion in Berlin, the bloody police | while waiting trial before Magistrate Henry Goodman. | Lack of evidence forced Magis- | trate Adolph Stern to discharge 11} jot the 21 arrested strikers at the| Jefferson Market Court yesterday. Two were adjourned till Monday. Strikers Refuse to Pay Fines. Strikers arraigned before Magis- | trate Alexander Brough were each | sentenced to five days in jail on) their refusal to pay $25 fines. They | | (Continued on Page Five) ~ ELIZABETHTON, Tenn., Ma American Bemberg and Glanzstof: rain, in answer to the company’s ready to return to work. The mills are “open” with 200 scabs in a | company union trying to do the work of 6,000 strikers. machine guns are around the plant: | Youth Held On $5,000 Bail For “Sedition.” | Another Bankruptey Samuel Rose, attorney in 111 pearing in the courts of Federal Judges Winslow and Moskowitz, who have been investigated by grand juries and congressional committees for bankruptcy frauds, resigned from the bar because of these in- vestigations yesterday. Court Shields Si .—An official order barring news- WASHINGTON, May 7 paper men from visiting the distri | Harry F, Sinclair, multi-millionaire, serving 90 days for contempt | of the Senate, was issued tonight ector of puble welfare, ‘Mass Meets in Paris, Restaurant and jvictims of the socialist led Berlin jcusly the wave of protest op _ Elizabethton Strikers Parade. BETHLEHEM, Pa., May 7.—Fourteen of the workers arrested | May Day are held today on charges of sedition, under $5,000 bond. Among them are Michael Bulak, aged 14, and his sister, Anna, 19. They were jailed at the insistence of Lloyd F. Hess, principal of the South Side High School because of Michael’s distribution of the Young Workers May Day call at the school, QVER GERMANY; SICK DESPITE ITS PROTEST KILLING FORMER‘PROMISE’ “ Death List Now 27; All| Workers Relief Locals to Be Buried Today to Be Organized in in Mass Funeral Every Mill Many Demonstrations Parmers ee Meeting Some Scabs Brought from Texas GASTONIA, N. C., May 7.—The strike committee of the textile ,mill strikers here has voted for mass re- sistance of the evictions of 63 mill Prague and Basle BULLETIN. BERLIN, May 7.—Post mortem examinations on 17 ef the 23 victims revealed that they were shot by police, many of them in | families. The evictions have beer the back, This substantiates the | going on all day today, and as the| charge that most of those killed | strikers are moved out of their were shot on May Day during the unarmed mass meetings before the = a them back in again. barricades were built. The evictions are conducted by Several victims were killed out- | deputy sheriffs acting on the or- side the district where police had (ders of the Manville-Jenckes Co., established warlike regulaticns. which owns the Loray factory on ‘The public prosecutor has opened, Strike here. proceedings against 45 of those arrested in connection with the rio They are charged with breaking the peace. A number of ethers haye been sentenced to Many Shelterless. By night dozens of families wil! be without shelter. The Loray mill is offering trucks to assist the evicted strikers out of the houses, short terms in jail on minor (on the pretense of kindness toward charges. A majerity of those ar- | the sick, but the strikers scorn this rested were released. charity. The company had prom-| Minister of Interior Kari Sever- | ised not to throw the sick out of ing, speaking before the Reich- | their houses, but is breaking the stag Budgetary Commission to- promise. day said that the government was | ‘The first evictions were those of not considering dissolution of the | strike committeeman Valentine, an Communist Party, because such | Will ‘Truett, secretary of the Gas- action would be “political folly.” | tonia local of the National Textile| | ig | Workers’ Union. | BERLIN, Germany, May reparations rapidly proceed to hold an imposing mass funeral for the C. J. Cox, picket captain, was also among the first evicted, showing an attempt to dis- integrate the strike leadership, an attempt which is failing. W. I. R. in Drive for Tents, The Workers International Re- All the Berlin building trades lief, however, is conducting a vigor- workers are out on strike as ajous campaign for tents with which protest against the police brutality /to house the strikers, during the May Day demonstrations,| The Gastonia Gazette, the bosses’ (Continued on Page Five) |jcurnal here, continues its fake re- hef order, but it is now exposed com. pletely as a strikebreaking move. The Gazette’s funds are being used only to move strikers away from the struggle, and are given to those who promise to quit the union. The Workers International Re- lief campaign in North Carolina, the scene of the struggle, is being im- proved. W. I. R, committees are be- ing organized in each textile mill, and collections of relief for strikers simultane- police murders, while ‘ows stronger. French SeamenStrike to Secure Pay When Between Voyages ST. NAZAIRE, France, May 7. —Eight hundred seamen em- ployed by the Companie Generale Transatlantique declared a strike today after the employers had failed to agree to wages hetween See. workers who are in mills not struck, large number of farmers who : are contributing food to the strik- Harlem Mass Meeting ers through the W. I. R. are eager for Textile Strike for mass meetings in which they shall be informed of the progress of the strike. The railroad shopmen Relief at 8 Tonight |have shown themselves sympethetie. The latest developments of the |The workers of the Salisbury shops North Carolina textile strike will be have invited a committee of the | told to Harlem workers tonight at aj strikers io come to them and ex- mass meeting at 1800 Seventh Ave.,| plain the need for funds to buy food | (Continued on Page Five) HOOVER BLUFFS ON ARMS MEET ers International Relief, 1 Union Square. George Pershing, Gastonia, N. C., {union organizer, and five strikers \will address the meeting. These are | Viola Hampton, Raymond Clark, W. M. Bledsoe, Kermit Hardin, and C. E. Hallaway. Other speakers will be Harriet Silverman, secretary, Lo- cal New York, Workers Interna- tional Relief and A. Fishman. Harlem section of the W. I. R. will} be organized at the meeting. Actual Facts | e | WASHINGTON, May 7.—In a | statement to newspapermen, Presi- y 7—The rayon strikers in the f mills here paraded today in the statement that they were nearly | the failure of the Disarmament Con- principal naval powers Militia with pressed adherence to the principles | Ss. tation’ of naval strength.” | cision of the conference, which re- exactly this substitution. jection being supported by Hugh (Continued on Page Three) Oil Trusts of U.S.S.R. Place Huge Order Here | MOSCOW, U.S.S.R., (By Mail).— | Orders for the Soviet oil industry | fi | worth two million dollars have re- _cently been placed in America, ac- cording to a statement by Oparin, representative of the Soviet Oi! Trusts in America who has just re- turned from New York. Ring Lawyer Quits. cases in bankruptcy and often ap- inclair Privacy. ict jail during the incarceration of by George S. Wilson, district dir- houses, the strike committee moves| are to be taken up among textile | A Statement t Falsifies the | dent Hoover today tried to cover up * | ference by pretending that “all the | have ex-| This statement is made in clear} | contradiction to the fact of the de-| ‘STRIKES SPREAD COMPANY EJECTS Sinclair Gets a Jail Job s ‘Dispenser’ BULLETIN. WICHITA, Kansas, May 7 (UP). —With Harry Sinclair serving the first day of his three-months sen- tence for contempt of the Senate, a moye to secure his freedom al- ready has been started. A group of former friends at In- dependence, Kansas, are circulating petitions asking President Hoover to pardon the oil magnate, and plan to circulate the petitions here and in other Kansas cities within the next few days, sw Le WASHINGTON, May 17.—Harry F, Sinclair, millionaire oil baron and leading figure in the Teapot Dome swindle, began his second day of a three months’ sentence for contempt of the senate as a Washington jail yesterday. Anxious for the welfare of the new guest, prison authorities decided to give Sinclair light, congenial oc-| cupation in the drug room, where he will have sole charge. Aided by Mary Wright, a 24-year-old win- some assistant, the oil grafter will be able to while away pleasant hours (Continued on Page Two) ZARITSKY GANG FOR LONG WEEK | His Convention Votes Fake Five-Day Plan The machine-packed convention of the Cloth Hat, Cap and Millinery Workers International Union yester- day continued its work of attacking all progressive proposals and me- |chanically voting through the ma- lchine measures. The convention, hich opened May 1, is holding its sions in Beethoven Hall. | Following the line of the previous day when a resolution on a fake “amalgamation” scheme was intro- duced, the corrupt henchmen of Pres- lident Zaritsky went a step further in “progressiveness.” They actually proposed the introduction of the 40- heur, five-day week and the estab- lishment of an unemployment fund in the millinery trade. The joker attached to this resolution provides that all this is to be done “at an opportune time.” Which means that the millinery workers can kiss the 40-Hour, five-day week and unem- (Continued on Page Five) os GALL ON ALL TO = FIGHT GALLES SEIZURE OF GUNS Government Turns on Farm League Which Fought Catholics Rulers Won't Give Land Clerical Reaction Still Is Strong TEXICO ( Ir Y, May 7—The Communist “El Machete” publishes an appeal of the Communist Party to peasants of Mexico to resist all mpts of the government to dis- them. After having crushed revolt of the reactionary mili- ts, who have lost the last strong- Id in the North, and either fled to the United States or surrendered, the Portes Gil government turns against the peasants and the workers, who, with arms in hand, have helped to defeat the militarists and the clerical arm the this the Gil In work follows faithfully in the footsteps of Calles who appealed to the help of attempt and pe to disarm Porte: sant the peasants during the previous re- volts of the militarists in 1929 and 1927 and of the catholics in the last months of 1926, and when the revolt was crushed, sent his soldiers to the villages to take away their arms. Calles feared that the armed peas- ants would not be satisfied with the vi tion, slow system of land distribu- but would take by force the land which had been promised to them by all the “revolutionary” governments of Mexico. What Is a Promise? The Mexican government found it necessary to announce recently, when the milita: volt was near- ing its end, that it would proceed ‘with all speed” with the distribution of land to the landless peasants. The government recognizes that behind any revolt in which peasants partici- pate, even under religious slogans, there must be economic reasons, the principal of which is the unrest due to the lack of land, and the govern- ment must promise to satisfy the land hunger of the peasants to avoid further revolts—under whatever slogans. Persecution. At the same time, however, Portes Gil shows his strong hand. Every- where in the different states the military is proceeding uainst the Communists and the Communist “National Peasant League.” The reaction began in the State of Jaliseo, from where four Commun were deported; several Communists (Continued en Page Two) Ever; lers’ Union will send a delegate to the May 18 Metropolitan Area Con- ference for the June 1st Cieveland Trade Union Convention. The shop chairmen will receive instructions from the Joint Council of the shoe | union, instructing him to call shop meetings before May 16 for the election of delegates. Every shop will elect one delegate for each hun- dred workers employed, fraction thereof. Four thousand shoe workers are expected to attend a general mem- bership meeting of the Independent Shoe Workers’ Union tomorrow at 6 p. m., at the Irving Plaza Hall, 15th St. and Irving Place, to dis- cuss strikes the union is engaged in, Continue Strike. White, Lipp, and Morgan & Gross |of the American delegation which |shops, and Wolfelt Shoe Co., which |includes ‘reduction’ instead of ‘limi-|are now in their 7th week, will be carried into the next season, if nec- general manager of the union, said today. shops are de- | jected the Soviet proposals to make| termined to stay out until the union The re-| is recognized and the union scale of essary, Fred Biedenkapp, The strikers of thes wages and hours established. | The Progressive Group ot the | Cleaners and Dyers, at their last meeting, elected a delegate to the Metropolitan Area Conference of New York, to be held May 18 and |19. In the discussion on the call at a recent meeting the need for a hting center of all militant in- uals, groups and unions at the present moment was brought out. It is pointed out the cleaners and dyers trade is infested with the jWorst racketeering and grafting gang in the whole A. F. of L. or major) NOE Only Only | Shoe Workers Delegates trom Shops to Unity Conterence shoe shop controlled by the|ubout a thousand of a possible five Left wing Independent Shoe Work-|or six thousand workers ave organ- ized. With the aid of a few organe ized workers, some of whom, such key men, foremen and _ skilled craftsmen, are bribed at the expense of the rest of the workers, they man- age to keep the t of the workers unorganized and at the mercy of the bosses, The bosses naturally give them full support in maintaining a blacklist of all workers opposed to the ng and their gangsterism. lately a number of workers were fined for attending an open meeting called by the Progressive Group. A Negro worker was beaten up by the officials and their hired gangster when leaving his place of work, the Sunshine Cleaning & Dye- ing Co Recognize Need of Center. Progressive Cleaners and Dyers The strikes agcinst the Griffin &\at the meeting declared: “The reed for a center of all revo- lutionary groups and unions is em- phasized by the close connection of all the cliques in the right wing unions. Our company union offi- s did not fail to help the hlesinger gang by buying their bonds nugh the medium of the Hebrew Trade Union, with which they affiliated. “Recently, the officials helped the socialist party by contributing $25 for their Mi Day celebration, though all the cleaning shops were open on May Day, and any worker who would have dared not to work would have been fired at the de- mand of the very same officials probably. “How much the eight-hour day slogan ed by the socialist party means can be seen by the fact that these officials force the workers to (Continued on Page Five) saa i a