The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 20, 1929, Page 6

munist Party of the U. S. A. Central Organ of the Com » Inc. York City, } DAIWORK.”. Daily, except ¥ $8.00 0 three months $6.00 a y Address an a year $2.00 three months 26-28 Union Square. o the Dafly 3 Worker, New York, N. Y. “Down with Walker’s Police Brutality!” The issue of police brutality becomes clearer than ever before the whole working ¢ a result of the police raid against the Workers Center in Union Square Saturday. “Gorgeous Grover” Whalen, police commissioner, not only annov at he needs the bulk of his police army of tho ke-breakers in industrial disputes, but Sat- urday’s raid m it plain that the Walker-Whalen-Tam- ime in the city hall will attempt to suppress all and exposures of its growing terrorization of workers seeking to improve their conditions, win increased wages horter work-day through organization and e weapon. significance attaches to the fact that the the tearing down of the huge sign proclaiming in “DOWN WITH WALKER’S POLICE BRUTAL- rrest of 26 workers, including nine children, came ment that the Metropolitan Area Trade Union Educational League Conference was convening in the imme- diate neighborhood. The Tammany Hall regime of terror and eppression no doubt felt that the best way to strike at the organization of a class struggle trade union center in New York City was to attack the headquarters of the Com- st Party at the same time placing the New York Party nizer, Ben Lifshitz, under arrest with the others, and sing sentence of 30 days’ imprisonment against him. It is certain that New York’s toiling masses will not submit to this growing terrorism. The struggle against in- creasing police brutality will take on new and greater propor- tions. itis Consid police raid, red letters ITY !”, the at the exact n evident that the Communist Party, the leader of the working class in its daily struggles, faces the brunt of police attacks. The Communist Party of the United States came into stence during the historic struggle of the steel workers, in 1919, the first time that the steel industry had witnessed an uprising of its cruelly exploited slaves on a national scale. It carried the banner of militancy into this and other industrial struggles that followed on the heels of the world war. This resulted in the nation-wide “Palmer raids” carried out in January, 1920, under the direction of President Wilson’s department of justice, during which thou- sands of Communists were arrested, and jailed, many being deported. This action was hailed by the capitalists, and by the reformists of the American Federation of Labor and the Socialist Party, as the complete elimination of the Com- munist Party. They greeted its destruction. But their joy was premature. They did not understand the virility of the Communist movement and did not realize that already it was rooted deep in the American working class. They confessed to their mistake in 1922, when the Com- munist Party was denounced by these same capitalist sup- porters as the instigators of the tremendous railroad strike of that year, in spite of the fact that mostly trade unions af- filiated with the American Federation of Labor were in- volved. The underground convention of the Communist Party, held at Bridgeman, Michigan, was raided, 75 leading Party members were indicted, many were placed under ar- rest including the organizer and leader of the Party, C. E. Ruthenberg, who later received a ten year sentence to prison, and the destruction of the Communist movement was again’ broadcasted to the world. Seven years later, however, in 1929, the Communist Par- ty is a more virile force than ever as the militant leadership of the American working masses, a mightier challenge to the powers of exploitation. It has been steeled against mass raids. It has been hardened under conditions of illegality imposed upon it. And it has continued to win an increasing influence among the masses. The Communist Party is fighting today for the organ- ization of the steel workers on a broad industrial basis. In 1919 the 21 A. F. of L. craft unions in this industry fought among themselves for jurisdiction advantages instead of fighting unitedly against the great stecl monopolies, the Garyized 12-hour day United States Steel Corporation and Schwab’s Bethlehem Steel Corporation. This is part of our Party’s broad campaign for the organization of the unor- ganized in all the great industries and the building of new left wing industrial unions, that leads on to the building of a new class struggle trade union center in the United States, against the reactionary fascist regime of the American Fed- eration of Labor. It is exactly because this left wing industrial unionism is making startling headway in New York City and vicinity, in the clothing, food, shoe, rubber, oil, textile and other im- portant industries, that police oppression raises its head as an instrument of the employers in resisting this growing and organized discontent of labor. “DOWN WITH WALKER’S POLICE BRUTALITY!” becomes a vital issue, therefore, before the whole working class. Lifshitz is arrested in the editorial offices of the Daily Worker, from the windows of which the banner con- taining this slogan hung, because he dared protest to the police against its being torn down. The police charge the banner “incites to riot.” It was ever the belief of the master class that its oppression should be graciously accepted by the enslaved class. The ruling class today in New York City, and throughout the United States, is no different. But the very contradictions within the capitalist system itself, which the exploiters seek to overcome through rationaliza- tion—which means the speed-up, the longer work-day, a de- creasing standard of living—meets with increasing and bitter resistance from the working class. The fight-against police brutality, an instrument of capi- talist oppression, becomes an exposure of and a struggle against the capitalist system of the employing class. It enters into the everyday activities of the left wing industrial unionism that is daily taking on greater propor- tions, that is being centralized through the organization of class struggle trade union centers in many sections of the nation: It becomes an issue constantly raised by the Commu- nist Party, a major issue for the forthcoming municipal elec- tion campaign in New York City and elsewhere. Instead of appearing only on the front of the Communist Headquarters in Union Square, New York City, the working class of the whole city takes up the'slogan: “DOWN WITH WALKER’S POLICE BRUTALITY!” Fy ee on eens DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, —— MONDAY, MAY ee 20, 1929 WRITE AS YOU FIGHT! "By Fred Ellis Deaths Profit Buildin By JOSEPH COHEN. ARTICLE II, vies percentage of workmen killed and maimed in the United States is greater than in any other cour try. The primary cause of this i the American “speed-up” system, | From a report of none other than our reactionary secretary of labor, | tate among industrial workers had} one of the many harmful ingredients |is possible, however, to alleviate Davis, we learn that more thau/| een the same as among the rest of handled by painters, for they also/part of the evil. But for this pur- 23,000 workmen are killed and more | te population, says Pedley, 10,000| use wood alcohol, benzol, etce., and|pose we must have powerful in- than two and one-half million crip-| lives would have been saved in that|the painters represent only one |fluential workers’ | of the many injurious trades of the |pled annually, The labor depart- | |ment also admits that if it were jeonvenient for it to get information | jen all accidents this number would be increased to more than three | millions. | This means that, on the average, some seventy people are killed at work daily and more than 8,000 are wounded. One of the delegates to the first “National Labor Health Conference” brought out these facts, jealling them evidence of “silent in- | dustrial war.” Even Worse. As a matter of fact, however, the |number: of accidents is higher than | |Secretary of Davis would have us believe. We can see quite readily the reason for Davis’ underestima- tion of the figures, without further jargument. The “Workers Health |Bureau” sets the number of work- }men killed annually at more than 55,000. The building trades are one of | the most dangerous of ali industries. |About 2,000 building workers are killed every year. Only mining fur- \nishes as large a number of vic- |tims. In New York state, alone, 328 building workers were killed in 1928 and 21,891 were maimed. In 1923 enly 10,230 were injured, so anyone can see that the accident list is growing. L. Hatch, a member of the State Industrial Board of New York says in a report that the increase in the} number of accidents is much greater | in the building trades than in other industries. He points out that for the last five years, the number of accidents in all industries in New) York State has increased 61 per cent | while in the building industry this increase amounts to 118 per cent. Charlotte Todes, the secretary of the Workers Health Bureau brought out at the health conference the fact that in every state she investigated, the number of accidents in the build- ing industry is increasing most rapidly. “Silent War.” Concerning the causes. of this ter- | rible increase, she says: “In the brief span of ten years, |new machinery and mechanical |equipment, as well as speed-up methods have been introduced in | building construction. Skyscrapers land other stupenduous structures are | completed almost overnight to satis- |fy the feverish demands of the in- | vestors. This “building boom” can | be figured in terms of crushed and {maimed bodies. The bones, sinews | and blood of workers have paid the | dividends. Each day newspapers tell | of deaths and injuries to workers ‘from derricks crashing to the ground, from blasting and wrecking | operations, from plunges down ele-| |vators or floor openings, or from ‘scaffolds and ladders, which collapse | under the weight of materials ane | | men,” | | According to Charlotte Todes’ | statement, the life of an unmarried worker in Pennsylvania, for instance, is worth only $100, according to the law. It is cheaper to kill them, from the boss’ point of view, than to pre- vent accidents. | Even this picture, terrible as it is, | does not describe the state of affairs | fully. We must add to it the great \number of deaths from industrial dis- | ease, results of the same cause. | Could Save 10,000. | J. Pedley, professor of industrial hygiene at Columbia University, points out that in 1920 the number |of deaths among industrial workers was 30,766. Of these, 11 per cent were from tuberculosis, Lf the death tp The followi file building 1 industry. Th is the second of « series of articles by a rank and ker on the present situation of the workers in that series is particularly timely because of the present threat of an open-shop drive in New York, and the queer maneuvers of the Building Trades Council there, as well as unemployment and rationalization all over the country. year alone. Dr. Dubin, an authority of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. states that the average life-span 0! an industrial worker is 42° years, that is, eight years less than that of a non-industrial worker. The average is still smaller for building workers. Medical investigations! have shown, for example, that at least 20 per cent of all painters sut- fer from lead poisoning. Lead is only | building industry. All for Profits. The reasons for this great increase in accidents, the cause of this silent industrial war, can be simmed up in one word, “Profits.” It is for the! sake of profits that the various speed-up methods are applied, and they speed-up accidents and deaths too. For what other purpose than the Song for Youth! By EDWIN ROLFE. Row upon row the workers’ shadows pass, Gray on the walls of heaven, sinister. Over the thousand rivers of the land The peasants march. Their eyes are bayonets; Their heads are dead-aimed rifles of revenge, Their voices battle drums and rallying fifes, Not in a perfect line, but from all parts, From brilliant splotches on the maps of lords, Disentangled suddenly, they rise And masters tremble, grow afraid, and hide . . When was the last time that you plunged the knife Deep in the back of Youth? When last Shook the hand of the assassin? When Last did strings grow taut and black knives gleam? Youth with fierce passion, leading his own brothers Out of a slavery they could not see, But felt, walked down a sunny road in Cuba Laughing the joy of a rebel. Youth Strode the new highways, and suddenly it was night— And Youth lay murdered in a pool of blood. The shadows darkened on the sunbright walls That held the havoc of the killers’ knife, And shadows lengthened over all the land Where women wept, and men’s eyes burned with hate. Children walked downcast in the barren fields Sensing what was not whispered, feeling death Stalking the fields they once had trod with joy. Then, suddenly, out of the silence, came the shout That still reverberates in lands of pain. Remember Liebknecht? He also one day Strode the streets of Berlin in the sun, Shouting the selfsame song of revolution Into the ears of those who feared the new. And Rosa the indomitable! She too Breathed new life into the living dead. In German prisons they had starved her flesh, Failing to silence her harbinger of dawn. And Kevin Barry! With head held high He passed beneath the Dublin sun to die! They kill our youth, but Youth forever stays Fresh in the world, eager for newer life. A million old and dried pig-headed fathers Can no more silence Youth Resist the slow compulsion than can the tides of the moon. These are but few: Germany, Ireland, Cuba— In every country of the world the same Suns have been darkened by the selfsame cloud:, But only for the moment. Clouds pass by, Leaving a clearer sun set in a cles ‘Nothing for Tenants Bosses ‘employers’ profits are the ladders, scaffolds, stairs, lifts, temporary passages, etc., made of weak, cheap materials? It must be clear to every worker that the final solution of these prob- |lems will be impossible until the | existing social order is discarded for | one more humane, collectivistic. It organizations to conduct wide-spread campaigns. | We shall not here discuss the So- viet Union, where the worker is in power and legislates as he sees fit. But in capitalist countries, even, out- ‘side of U. S., in France, Belgium and ' England, the rate is much lower be- cause strong building workers’ or- | ganizations have forced a certain degree of inspection and laws mak-| |ing for safety. Here, in the “land of the free” we} see 27 states with no protective laws. In the few states that do have} some measure of legal protection,| |the laws are not enforced because | the workers’ organizations are too} weak or badly led to enforce them. in the “progressive” .state of New York, there are only 12 inspectors |to supervise the safety of 400,000 workers, Workers Must Struggle. The “Workers Health Bureau” has pared a code of workers’ pro- | tective laws, which could really save many lives or injuries. Many work- crs have endorsed it, but we can ex- pect the higher union officials in the | A. F. L. to “diplomatically ignore” this movement, or even hinder it. Every enlightened worker should therefore take an interest in this matter, and bring pressure for such laws, and their enforcement, As for the new industrial unions of | the left wing, they will certainly do all in their power to compel safety | on the job. * | The next article of this series | will be devoted to the largest of the building trades unions, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. Technical Men Chase [Fleeing Commissioners With Letter; Ask Pay Following their one-hour strike Thursday, when 450 workers of the board of transportation, technical division, came in a body to attend an advertised public hearing by the city commissioners and found they had suddenly fled, a letter was mailed yesterday to the board of transportation pointing out to them that the men tried to see them to remind them that four and a half months have gone by since all other city departments put into effect the law for a $3,120 a year wage for draftsmen, architects, surveyors, junior engineers, and plan examin- jers, but that the board of transpor- tation still keeps such employes at a lower wage. The letter demanded a public hearing, and was signed by the men’s committee. Regional Plan for New York Rich Completed; The Regional Plan of New York and its Environs, the result of seven years of ‘study by 150 experts on how best to improve the boulevards, residential sections and bridges for the rich, will be made public May 27 before an audience of mayors and officials of 400 municipalities, It cost $1,000,000 to draw up this plan, and it will be paraded for the benefit of the voters in the coming municipal elections as a measure for improving the slum conditions in the ‘CEMEN city and as a general beautifier for leq by his weight. Pi — a — ee ee ae ee By FEODOR GLADKOY, Translated by A. S. Arthur and C. Ashleigh All Rights Reserved—International Publishers, N. Y. The Red Army Commander, Gleb Chumaloy, returns to his town where he finds the large cement works in ruins, the factory committee rendered ineffective by wrangling, his wife Dasha, the leading spirit in the Women’s Committee of the Communist Party. Wood must be pro- cured from over the hills before the winter sets in, the factory must be set going. Gleb goes about getting things going. At the Party Com- mittee he makes it clear that he will repair the tracks and get the wood. Gleb goes to the Workers’ Club “Comintern.” ee CHAPTER IV, . Workers’ Club “Comintern” bs THE C.P.R. GROUP HE Workers’ Club “Comintern” was housed in. the former Director’s house, a strong, German-built structure in rough stone in three colors; yellow, light blue, and green. The two storeys of the building arose from the ribs of the mountain, which were covered with holly and other bushes. Its plan was severe, sober and puritanical like a church, but lavish in verandas and ornate balconies. There were out-buildings in the courtyard, which were also plainly but solidly constructed, and flower beds and playing grounds. Within, there were innumerable rooms, obscure corridors and staircases, with oak pilasters crowned by stained glass lamps. In each room was silken wall-paper, rich panels and pictures by great painters, gigantic mirrors and furniture of dif- ferent periods. In front of the house, along the mountain slope, lay a flower and fruit garden, dirtied and party devoured by goats. It was surrounded by an iron fence on a stone base, To the right, beyond the mountains, rose the immense blue chimneys of the works; on the left, more chim- neys; and high up were the quarries and the broken-down ropeways. Once there dwelt here a mysterious old man, whom the workers had only seen from a distance and whose all-powerful voice they had never heard. It was strange how this venerable and dignified director could live here without fearing the emptiness of his thirty-roomed palace, without a nightmare terror of the poverty, dirt and stench of the bestial existence of the workers herded in their foul barracks. * * * ‘HEN came war and“revolution—the great catastrophe. Saving him- self from the wreck, the director, helpless and wretched fled for his life. The engineers, technologists and chemists fled with him. Only one remained behind, the engineer Kleist, one of the constructors of the factory. He remained shut up in his study in the main administration building, across the main road, a little lower down, opposite the palace, which was his last: creation. There came a fine spring day, when ardent light played upon the sea, the mountains and the clouds, when the diffused glare of the sun stabbed the eyes. The workers had come together in the repair shop. Amidst shouting, the shuffling of feet and clouds of tobacco smoke, the mechanic, Gromada, proposed: “Let’s take the palace of the director, that old blood-sucker, and turn it into a working-class club, and call it the ‘Comintern.’ ” So the ground floor of the building was used for the club and for the groups of the Party and of the Young Communist League, and the upper part housed the library, recreation rooms and the Cheka. Where once reigned an austere silence, where once no worker was allowed even to walk on the concrete paths around the mansion—now in the evenings, when the window panes glowed in the fire of the sink- ing sun, came the brazen bellowing of the trumpets of the club musi- cians and the explosive thundering of drums. They had carried all the books from the houses of the vanished officials into the director’s library. They were beautiful books, with shining gilt covers, but mysterious: they were written in German. ba aft 2 ie al sg ego ue, ss (SES was elected ciub manager, and when he was reporting on the library, at a meeting of the workers, he said, “Comrades, we have a wonderful library, whose books have been confiscated and na- tionalized from the bourgeoisie and the capitalists—but they’re all of German origin. Now, according to proletarian discipline we must read them, because we must remember that, as workers, we belong to the in- ternational masses and therefore, must command every language. The library is open to all, whether they can read or whether they cannot. I call upon you, Comrades, to come there to achieve culture and not to sabotage... .” So this was the workers’ club “Comintern”; no longer the director's residence, but a Communist centre, The workers contined to live in their tenements. The houses of the officials remained deserted, awesome with their scores of echoing empty rooms, The workers were manufacturing pipe-lighters in the repair shop. In the evening they would go up to the mountain, searching for their goats. The women were walking to the Cossack village, and then to other neighboring villages, buying and selling food as a speculation. And the first floor echoed with the thunder of the trumpets and the crashing of the drums. Meetings of the Party Group were held regularly each Monday. Various questions were discussed such as: (1) The stealing of butter and beans in the communal dining-room; (2) Regarding the feeding of . * | pigs with food for the communal dining-room; (3) The religious prac- tices of the members of the Party; purpose of barter and speculation. Gee opened the Special meeting of the Group in the club. It was a spacious room, with panels of Kareljan birch and hand-made furni- ture of the same wood. The rays of the evening sun gilded the walls and the furniture. They brought in rough benches from the recreation room. Gleb sat at the raised table, from where he could see all their faces; and they all looked alike. It seemed to him that although they were really different, yet there was a common trait in all of them, which made them into one. What was it—this something, living yet vague, that strains one’s gaze and strains one’s mind in an effort to define it? One wanted to find a word for it, but there was no word for it upon his tongue. Then suddenly he understood: it was hunger. Many of them saw Gleb for the first time and greeted him idly and indifferently as though he had never been away. His last time in the village was on that sunset evening when, at the factory gate, the officers had dragged him from the ranks of the passing workers and had unmercifully thrashed him and others of them. There were some of them who shook him heartily by the hand, with a forced smile, guffawed and, hardly knowing what to say, spoke in vague ejaculations, “Well? What then, brother? How are things? How is it—2?” Then they went to their places. Once seated, however, they again stared at him with smiles they could not repress. * * HEN came Gromada—the little man with the big name—laughing and choking in his consumptive voice. “It's a bit different now, Comrade Chumalov—eh? True! Now we'll get a move on! How we Communists have gone all astray over goats and pipe-lighters. ... But don’t allow discussion. Speak plainky and don’t stand for any contradiction!” i He turned towards the workers, his enthusiasm almost suffocatifg: (4) Robbing the factory, for the * * him. “You see, you loafers! Here’s a man, who’s been through death and so on. I declare—. It’s not my turn to speak, of course, but I’m just announcing in advance that it’s he, Comrade Chumalov, who made me what I am—it’s he who got me into the ranks of the C. P. R.” They listened to Gromada, laughing. It was not usual for Gromada tospeak thus. And Chumalov smiled at him as at an impulsive young- : ster. Laughing and coughing, the workers sprawled amidst the dense fumes of tobacco, ! “Go on, Gromada! right!” Loshak sat in the far corner. Black and hump-backed, he was like a block of anthracite among the dusty cement-covered rags of the work- men. He sat silently, the smallest of them all, but visible and oppress- ing them all with the mournful, silent question in his eyes. He gazed far away beyond them all, but at any moment he might come down upon them crushingly with words as black as himself, like his face, stiffened by smoke and metal dust, and then everyone would be ap- Go to it, let it rip! We're going to win, all