The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 16, 1929, Page 6

ar Page Six VATLY WORKER, NEW YORK, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1929 Daily 3ae Worker ‘entral Organ of the Communist Party of the U.S. A. Published by the Comprodaily Publishing Co., Inc. » except Sunday, at 26-28 Union Square, New York City, Telephone Stuyvesant 1696-7-8. Cable: “DAIWORK. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: i Gin New York only): $8.00 a year months 2 months |]| tside of New York) | $6.00 a year months months Address and mail all checks to the D: Square. ||! New York, Broach and the New York Times Agree. One of the most prominent leaders in the New York building trades, Howell H. Broach, vice-president of the In- ternational Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and The Times, the outstanding capitalist newspaper in the metropolis, find a basis of agreement in declaring that the issues in- | volved in the lockout movement of the employers against the workers are unimportant. Declaring “there is not enough at stake,” Broach breaks the solidarity of the workers, surrenders under the pressure of the employers, and perpetrates one of the most brazen sell- outs in the whole unsavory history of the New York build- ing trades council. The Times, spokesman of the bosses, gladly acquiesces in this attitude, cheerfully declaring that there can be no excuse for “a prolonged conflict.” While the Times encourages Broach to keep on looking at the building situation through the goggles of the bosses, the Building Trades Employers’ Association is going right | ahead preparing for an even greater onslaught against the | workers. The question of the sympathetic strike waged against three electrical contractors does not stand alone. The employers are making a multitude of demands against the workers’ organizations, chiefly among these being a vicious broadside against labor’s refusal to install fixtures that do not bear the union label. Here is the crux of the present sit- uation. The bosses are driving for the unchallenged right to use all building material coming from the highly rationalized mills and shops, where the workers are unorganized and vic- tims of the worst oppression. Christian G. Norman, chairman of the Board of Governors of the employers’ organization, announces that Samuel Unter- meyer, who masks his strike-breaking under the mantle of “the law,” will not only be called into the situation for an- other “investigation,” but may actually serve the bosses as their official counsel. In the face of official treason in their own ranks, against the employers’ threats, and Untermeyer’s interference in the fraudulent name of “the public,” the militant workers must proceed not only with the organization of the unorganized in the industry itself, but also in the workshops where build- ing material is being prepared on an ever increasing scale, so that construction work becomes more and more merely an assembling process. This is the big issue involved and it merits the most in- tensive struggle. Tee employers, by their every act, know this is the issue. In every move the bosses press for the weakening and the disruption of the workers’ organization. Postponement of the lockout until after the injunction hear- ing Friday gives them additional time for maneuvering and war preparations. ‘ The Daily Worker as the central organ of the Communist Party emphasizes that the rank‘ and file of labor can only make progress against their class enemies by waging their struggle on a militant class program. This fight must be waged against Broach and The Times, so fondly embracing each other; against the traitor leadership of the Building Trades Department of the American Federation of Labor, and against the Building Trade Employers’ Association, one of the most active sections of the capitalist class. It is class against class in the building trades, as in every other phase of the class struggle. The Purpose of Negro Week. The object of Negro Week, which extends to May 20, is to agitate for and organize the unity of Negro and white workers. It is, therefore, a mobilization effort that concerns the militant workers of both races in every industry, not for- getting the building of the solidarity of Negro and white farmers and agricultural workers. Thus a broad field opens before Negro Week. Wherever the exploiter draws profit from labor, no matter in what in- dustry, or in whatever section of the country, there Negro workers are to be found among those exploited. It does not matter whether it is in the highly aristocratic building trades, in the great basic industries of coal, steel and transportation, or in the new industry of automobiles. The Negro worker is there, an ever-present factor in the class war. Negro Week comes at an especially appropriate moment ; when every effort in the revolutionary movement in this country is being directed toward developing the unity of Negro and white labor under the banners of the Trade Union Unity Conference at Cleveland, June 1. The big drive during Negro Week should be to acquaint every Negro worker with the aim and purposes of the Cleveland Conference, and every~ white worker should be thoroughly schooled in the absolute necessity of thorough unity as between the races upon every battlefield of the class struggle. It is not an accident that nearly all the main articles ap- pearing in this Special Edition of the Daily Worker for Negro Week should deal with the role of the Negro in industry. That is exactly as it should be. These articles should be brought to the attention of every possible worker, Negro and white. Thorough study and discussion of this material will help tfemendously toward an acceptance by both Negro aad white workers of their joint basis of struggle against their common oppressor—the capitalist social order. The Communist Party is the leader of that struggle and Negro Week should find Negro and white workers in large numbers joining the only Party of working class emanci- pation. The “Hoover experts” have discovered an “era of pros- perity.” This is not difficult; “prosperity” for the owners of industry, for the powerful financial overlords. The tex- tile strike wave sweeping the South, the shoe workers’ strikes raging in several cities, the unrest in the automobile industry, as well as general discontent rising among all un- derpaid, overworked toilers, shows that workers are begin- ning to fully realize that this “prosperity” is not for them, that they must wage the most bitter resistance in order to prevent their present low standard of living from being fur- ther degraded. Hoover's experts will not deal with the mis- wry of the workers. This they seek to hide. f on | ticles on the Cleveland T. U. E. L. | 9 FORWARD! TOGETHER! By Fred Ellis ICONGRESS AE iy | Organize the Negro Workers! | The last of a series of four ar- | Convention to be held June 1 and * * By WM. Z. FOSTER. ARTICLE IV. One of the most important fea- tures of the Trade Union Educa. tional League convention to be held in Cleveland on June 1st and 2nd} will be the large delegation of Ne- gro workers present. To organize the Negro proletarians, to draw them into the main stream of new revolutionary industrial union move- ment will be a major objective of the T. U. E. L. convention. Of all the shameful treason to the working class committed by the mis- leaders who stand at the old trade unions, none has been more disas- trous than their systematic betrayal | of the Negro workers. It has long} been the policy of the employers to| draw a line between white and black | workers, to set one group against | the other in order to better exploit! them, to cultivate the worst forms | of race prejudice among the whites. | They have deliberately and system- | atically discriminated against the Negroes, giving them the worst) work, the lowest wages, and sub- jecting them to the most brutal re- pression. A. F. L. Won't Organize. Were the A. F. of L. leaders im- bued with even a semblance of real working class spirit they would take | it upon themselves as a first and basic task to defeat the plans of} the employers by organizing the Ne-| groes and by mobilizing the whole labor movement behind their ele- raentary demands. But they refuse. utterly to do this, On the contrary, true to their role as agents of the bourgeoisie in the ranks of the work- ers, they fall in line with the pro- gram of the employers and join| “Thirty per cent of the labor force By CYRIL BRIGGS. | | NE method of defeating the im-| he secretly encouraged these insur- perialist ideology of white! superiority and its concommitant 0 Negro inferiority which, by playing | to the vanity of the undeveloped} | white workers enables the United| States imperialists to carry out their policy of imperialist aggression ana | oppression in Haiti, Central Ameri- ‘ca, ete. and working class disrup- _tion at home, is to acquaint the workers ;with the truth about the race question, the achievements of | the Negro race, their revolutionary | traditions, and, finally the thorough repudiation given the imperialist | ideology of racial superiority and in- | feriority by. science. This article is concerned with the} historical ‘angle. The imperialist ‘ideology of white superiority is over- | whelmingly refuted in history. Per- haps nowhere more strikingly than | in the Haitian revolution, which was a successful rebellion of Negro slaves against the "might and power ‘of the French bourgeoisie. The first and only successful slave revolt in ‘history! Where Spartacus and his | brave legions had failed, the Negro ‘slaves of Haiti succeeded! To quote from the Boston, December 1861 + speech of the abolitionist, Wendell | Philips, “there never was a race that, weakened and degraded by such chattel slavery, tore off its own fet- ters, forged them into swords, and won its liberty on the battle field, | but one, and that was the black race | of St. Domingo.” | “The Opening.” » The principal leader of the Haitian | Revolution was Toussaint L’Ouver- ture — named by his soldiers “L’Ouverture,” the opening. Tous- aint L’ Ouverture was fifty years old when first he saw an army. He appeared on the scene of struggle jand draw them into all the shop committees, T. U. E. L. groups, and} other organizations formed as a/ basis for the convention. In every) delegation from every industry} where Negroes are employed, there must be a heavy percentage of these workers included. Fight Against Inequality hands with them to oppress the Ne- groes. They cultivate race chauvin- ism among the whites, they pro- hibit Negroes from joining the unions, they cooperate with the em- ployers to kzep the Negroes at the poorest paid jobs. tutes one of the most shameful pages in American labor history. Class Brothers. But the T. U. E. L. convention represents the revolutionary forces that will stop this historic treachery. The convention will be made up of | a body of workers of both sexes and all nationalities, of Negroes who un- derstand and dare to strike a blow in behalf of themselves and their class, and of whites eliminating all white chauvinism from their ranks, recognize the Negro workers as class brothers and who will fight with! and for them all the way to the end for complete social emancipation. The T. U. E. L. convention will have more significance to Negro workers than any other trade union gather- ing ever held in this country. © Negroes constantly take on more importance as a force in industry and as a potential factor in the trade union movement. During the past dozen years hundreds of thousands of them have poured: into the mills and factories. For the most part they are going into the key and basic industries, coal, railroads, steel, meat packing, ete., exactly those indus- tries that play the most decisive role in the class struggle. In a recent All this consti-| e jin the Chicago packing industry is There especially } colored; the Corn Products Com-|must be a large delegation of Negro| pany, which employed only one Ne-| workers from the coal and iron} |gro eight years ago, today employs| mines, the steel mills, fertilizer |350, or twenty per cent of its work- works, railroads, the cotton and to- ling force. Beavers Products—65 per bacco plantations, and other indus-) cent. The American Hide and tries of the South. The real mass Leather Co. was the first tannery | character of the T. U. E. L. conven- to use Negro workers; now all the | tion will ke measured pretty much |tanneries use large numbers of them. | by the number of representative Ne- The foundries and laundries are | gro workers present. heavy employers of Negroes. Eleven} 2 per cent of the employes of the Pull-| Good Fighters. man Car shops are Negroes. Negro| The Negro workers are good fight-| |women compose forty per cent of ers. This they have proved in in- |the workers in the lamp shade in-| numerable strikes in the coal, steel, dustry. About twenty per cent of| packing, building and other indus- the 14,000 postal workers of Chicago | tries, despite systematic betrayal by are Negroes,” etc., etc., |white trade union leaders and the| The great importance to industry presence of an all, too prevalent race | ‘and the class struggle of this con-| chauvinism among the masses of stantly increasing body of Negro White workers. They are a tremend- | workers cannot be too much stressed. | us source of potential revolutionary | It is the special task of the T. U.| strength and vigor. They have a E. L. to organize them as part of | double oppression as workers and as | its general work of organizing the Negroes, to fill them with fighting unorganized. This can only be done | spirit and resentment against capi- in the face of stifdied opposition of | talism. It has been one 6 the most the A. F. of L. leaders working hand | serious errors of the left wing to in glove with the employers. | underestimate and to neglect the de- |veloprrent of this great proletarian 3 fighting force. But in order that the necessary; Let the T. U. E. L. convention | progress shall be registered by the | therefore be a great mobilization |T. U. E. L. convention in the or-| center for the Negro workers. There ganization of the Negro workers| must be present Negroes from all) real work must be done by the left| the important plants and localities. forces between now and the conven-| Such a delegation, upon which the| tion. Special committees must be|success of the convention depends, established in the various important | can and will be assembled. The T. | | Special Committees. number of the R. I. L. U. bulletin} industrial centers to prosecute this|U. E. L. convention will be a revo- occurs the following statement quot- ing Carroll Binder regarding Ne- particular task. These committees, |lutionary signal and inspiration to together with the general organizing the masses of Negro workers, ex- je f\self in the background until the é forces of the T. U. E. L. must es-| ploited and oppressed in the mills, tablish contacts with the Negroes in| mines and factories of American im-! all the important industrial plants | perialism. | groes in the industries of Chicago in 1929: bourgeois reaction. Napoleon hadystrife began anew. Bloodier than risen to power. Victorious in Europe| ever. New tortures, new cruelties and determined to crown himself em-| devised by the French, new fortitude peror of France, Napoleon, deemed | and outstanding daring and courage it necessary to send some of the best | by the Negroes of Haiti. Napoleon | after there had already been several slaye insurrections. It is believed rections but preferred to hold him- republican troops outside of France. rushed another thirty thousand) In Haiti he saw his opportunity.| troops; The Napoleonic prestige Thirty thousand French troops, “who | must be upheld. But the new forces | had never known defeat,” were sent| suffered the fate of the old. As) to re-enslave the Haitians. The| Toussaint L’Ouverture had told his whole imperialist world joined whole-| captors he had planted the seeds of heartedly in the movement. Holland | freedom so deeply that not the whole lent sixty ships of the line for the) of the imperialist world could de- enterprise. England by special mes-| stroy ‘them. sage offered her neutrality. The| May Twentieth is the birthday of United States maintained acquiescent ¢pig site Haitian ravonibigeaey silence. The self-emancipated|jeader, and on that day throughout Negroes looked out on a hostile} the country Negro and white work- world arrayed against them. ers will join, under the auspices of The French Armada. the American Negro Labor Con- gress, in commemorating the fee French Armada Spottt The | memory of Toussaint L’Ouverture. aitians withdrew their families to) p.., uti ee atioul the bill ‘Wouasnint< Upded - Hik| Tye evolntionary,_ worker, should 4. |attend these memorial meetings, famous order to “burn the. cities, destroy the harvest, tear up the roads with cannon, poison the wells, show ‘the white man the hell he comes to make.” The Haitians met the attempt to re-enslave them with war to the hilt. They met the tyrants with a vengeance in every way as terrible as their own. They attacked the French forces as. they were effecting a landing, fought them hand to hand in the streets of the city for hours, and finally drove them back to their boats. The French finally effected a landing, but they could not conquer the self- emancipated Negroes. They there- fore resorted to treachery. They of- fered peace with liberty. Toussaint believed them and accepted a peace for his ragged, hungry .army, they tricked him and shipped him off to France where by Napoleon’s orders _ he was murderéd in the dungeon of| For a Six-Hour Day for Under- a chateau in the Alps. <) ground Work, in Dangerous Occu- With the betrayal of Toussaint,| pations, and for the Youth Under the Haitians rushed to arms and the| 18! r movement had gathered sufficient momentum. * At the time of his appearance on the scene as a revolutionary leader the island was torn with strife be- tween various groups and classes. The revolutionary slaves, numbering some five hundred thousand, were | opposed to and opposed by all the other groups. Thirty thousand white planters, grimly determined to maintain their rights to hold human | beings as chattel property; twenty- five thousand mulattoes, owning one- | third of the real estate of the island and aspiring to social equality and quite willing to collaborate in the oppression of the slaves; a triumph- ant Spanish army on the east, a British force entrenched on the north, These were the factors in the revolutiom -y se Defeat British. Within seven years, the blacks had defeated the mulattoes and forced their co-operation (the more willingly given because of the reali- zation that the white planters would never recognize their claims to so- cial equality) and the joint forces, under the leadership of Toussaint, Christophe, Dessalines, Francois, and others, had smashed the Span- ish army and consolidated the island for the first time in its history. They had defeated the British and sent them skulking back to their base at Jamaica. Still holding the island in the name of France, they set about constructing a prosperous and happy community. “In the meantime, however, the French revolution, which’ had given its first: inspiration to the Haitian Revolution had definitely turned into Misleader Boasts of Friendly Relations with Elevator Boss SAN FRANCISCO (By Mail).— Frank Feeney, reactionary president of the International Union of Eleva- tor Constructors, boasted at the union’s convention here that: “the union has been free of strikes and lockouts.” “We have always maintained friendly relations with the employ- ers,” the misleader stated. This con- dition has resulted in static wages for the builders, and was brought about, it is charged, by Feeney’s re- lations with the bosses. Ahaha Waal A bets EMENT cisoxov & GLADKOV Translated by A. S. Arthur and C. Ashleigh All Rights Reserved—International Publishers, NPY; Gleb Chumalov, Communist and Red Army commander, returns to his town on the Black Sea to find that the great cement works are in ruins, the factory committee busy quarreling, and his wife, Dasha, an active Communist, greeting him with a new independence, Their child, Nurka, is in the children’s home. Gleb goes to report to the Party Committee in the Palace of Labor where he meets his old friend, Shuk, who gives vent to his impatience at the slowness and inefficiency of the work. He also meets Serge, an intellectual who has joined the revolution. Gleb passes thru the room where the Women’s Section of the Party is meeting. ee) me to and not Serge entered the room first. And because the room was small, or because there were only women in it, Gleb felt that he filled it and had not room to move. It seemed to him that his helmet touched the, ceiling and was scraping against the plaster. Comrade Mekhova, Secretary of the Women’s Section of the Party, sat near the window, with a pencil in her hand, dressed in a blue smock. Her hair curled from under her red headscarf like wood shav- ings arid glistened in the sun. On her upper lip was a light down like a boy’s, and her eyebrows moved expressively. She lifted her round eyes with long lashes quickly to Gleb and her eyebrows quivered like dragon-fly’s wings. Her dimpled cheeks were plump and rosy as | a school girl’s. Dasha was standing near the table speaking loudly and energetical- ly. She cast a rapid glance at Gleb but showed no recognition of him. Her face was like a stranger’s, businesslike, inaccessible. Near her and along the walls women were sitting. They all wore headscarfs and were listening to Dasha’s report. ie * (Come MEKHOVA was looking away, as though she were not listening, warming herself in the sun like a cat. Shuk started to laugh and took hold of Gleb’s sleeve. “A dangerous place, friend Gleb. The women’s front! They'll | bite us to death, hack us to pieces and deafen us with screeching, | Look out for yourself!” Serge smiled confusedly, Gleb raised his hand to his helmet. , The women at once broke out shouting at Shuk, and in the @m it was impossible to understand whether they wege in a rage or just pretending for a joke. “Here, look! A committee of devils. any more children as long as she lives. them is going to boycott us—the bitches!” Dasha threw up her head, stopped speaking and clasped her hands on her chest. She was waiting for the men to go away. She again flashed a glance at Gleb. In it Gleb could see nothing but stern aloofness. Comrade Mekhova banged the table with her fist. “Enough! Take your places, delegates. Order! Pass along, you men comrades there—don’t interrupt us. Go on, Dasha.” Dasha had begun to speak again when Mekhova interrupted: “Comrade Chumalov, on your way back will you call in on me? I want to speak to you.” “All right.” The sunlight danced on her eyebrows. Her eyes were round and ee like a child’s, but in their depths were signs of an indefinable grief, “It’s not about business matters. tance.” “All right.” Dasha was reporting about the children’s creches in the town. 2. Not one of them will bear The whole blasted gang of I want to make your acquain- A CONCRETE PROPOSAL soon as the door of Shidky’s room opened, there issued a blast of sweaty stuffiness and tobacco fumes. In this room the sun did not shine in golden patches as in Mek- hova’s, but came through the window in thin green threads the tips of which touched the table. The spirals of light burned; the dust danced. \ This room was also small and the people were bathed in the smoke- filled sunlight. Shidky and Shibis, the President of the Cheka, wore their leather jackets unbuttoned, They were both clean shaven. Shibis’ face had a light coating of dust; behind white eyelashes his eyes glinted metallically. He was seated at the table opposite Shidky and seemed to be resting. His cheeks were cut by deep vertical wrinkles; his nose was decidedly Asiatic with sensitive nostrils. When he raised his eyes, he pierced you with his gaze, while at the same time those sensitive nostrils twitched. } On the window-sill, his feet planted against the jamb, sat a bony, lanky youth. It was Lukhava, President of the local Council of Trade Unions. His shirt was black as was his bushy hair and his face was coffee-colored. His eyes were feverish. He listened silently, leaning his chin on his knees. : Gleb Swung his hand to his helmit in a wide salute, but Shidky paid no attention. So many Party members came to him, there was no time to welcome them all. He merely looked at him, surprised, and sniffed. “All right, then. We've got some woodcutters.... And there’s the District Forestry Department. We've got supplies.” He punctuated each phrase with a fist banged on the table. “Now, what’s next? The main thing is the delivery of the wood. The stuff is beyond the mountains along the shore. Our wood supply is going to bits. We must find dependable and rapid means’ of deliver- ing fuel before the winter is here. To hell with tinkering and make- shifts, we must take the bull by the horns and do the job on a hig scale. We must put all our energies into this, it will be an enormous con- centration of effort. The District Forestry Department hasn’t carried out its job; all kinds of swine are there—each one looking after Num- ber One—carrion who ought to be shot. The workers will be rioting | soon; they’re already starving. We must have firewood: or are we Toussaint L’Ouverture, Negro Revolutionary Hero cing to make bonfires of our own workmen and children? There'll be a meeting of the Economic Council in a week’s time, and we must be ready. Speak up, Lukhava. You’re usually suth a firebrand, but to- day you’re mute.” The young man at the window did not hear Shidky’s words. A. fever burned in him. Shibis looked at no one, and it was impossible to tell from his face, under its mask of dirt, whether he was thinking or merely rest- ing, bored with it all. * * * GHIDKY banged his fist upon the table. “To hell with it! We all ought to be shot as fools and muddlers! | We’re up a blind alley, lads.” Lukhava hugged his knees to his chest with his bony hands, and by this movement turned so that he could face them. He burst out into a boyish broken laughter, which he endeavored to restrain. 4 “Have you lost your head, Shidkey? What blind alley are you talk- ing about? _ Hell, if you're in a blind alley you’ve got to break your way out, using your head, Otherwise you ought to be shot, and Shibis would take on the job without any trouble. There’s no blind alley. There are only problems, and I’ve solved this one for you.” “Your concrete proposal?” Shidky’s nostrils quivered as he greedily sniffed the air, giving him an expression of joyous ecstasy. “We shall have to use the power from the factory.” Serge raised his hand, asking for the floor. “By the way, I wanted. ... About the proposal of Lukhava. .. .” The hard lines on Shidky’s cheeks broke into a smile of indulgent and affectionate raillery. “Serge has a practical proposal, Comrades. State it!” “With regard to the proposal made by Comrade Lukhava, I wanted to draw your attention to our Comrade Chumalov’s presence. Our dis- cussion of this question might be shortened if Comrade Chumalov, as a workman in the factory, gave us his opinion. At this moment, I *must——” : * * * ws a quick gesture, Shidky stopped him in the middle of a phrase. “Whoa, there! Serge, you’re beginning to froth as usual and getting red all over your bald patch.” “I must go at once to the meeting of the Agitprop and then sub- sequently to the Department of Education.” Shibis smiled and said.drawlingly, looking piercingly at Serge: “Intellectual! That ‘then subsequently’ in his mouth sounded like achant. At night he can’t sleep because of so many damned problems. The intellectuals are always the donkeys in the Party; they always feel themselves guilty and oppressed. It’s a good’ thing that we keep them on a string, well in sight.” Serge blushed deeper and became confused; tears glittered in his eyes. “But you also are an intellectual, Comrade Shibis.” “Yes, I’m an intellectual, too.” Shidky still smiled with affectionate irony. “Well, Comrade Chumalov, step nearer. You'll have are no chairs.” fi, (To Be Continued) | \tt rsa Il s igh niot « heer lare ay esp oT nd on tive ito. ecle zer ‘afe rs, ‘art obs ient nan leds sruy or itio gail He ‘oic ood inet ras oss ibit 1g, ad 1e rs.’ I (s ues Iva ty, ext