The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 22, 1929, Page 4

Page Four DAILY WORKER, NEW \ ae Bias pamela ae nti YORK, WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 1929 Workers, Jailed in Arizona “Red Raids,” Thrown tnto Filthy Jail, Says Corresp ondent TB PRISONERS 1,500 WORKERS SPEEDED UP IN SOUTHERN PACIFIC BAY SHORE SHOPS INSAME CELL AS THE OTHER MEN 14 Men In Tank Built for Eight pondent) he conditions Tucson, where the “red raids’ I am in is 14 men are our cells with In three of en are forced to d in one cell two cells are about 5 and not out 6 feet wide and d basin| e two men , and one in a cell unt of ften, so ce don’t help 1 is bad stomach, he vo: you can see this pl: the men’s health ar When I was brought here I was ocked up in the bullpen. On March > I was transferred to tank number 6. The food is rotten here and there s little of it. All prisoners take their bath in the pullpen and get only 5 minutes to bathe. On Apri 15, when the jailers took us down to the bullpen for our “baths,” one of the boys called me and told me about three men that were arrested | in Phoenix, Arizona “red raids.” He! told me one of them asked about me, and I asked him where this com- | rade was. He told me tank three,| which is next to the bullpen. I got] acquainted with two comrades right | vay and we spoke to each other. | jailer later stopped us from | speaking to each other. | Today is 29 days since I am in} j Most of the prisoners here are | ican workers arrested for im- migration law “violations.” —ARIZ. WORKER. (By a Worker Correspondent) SAN FRANCISCO, (By Mail). —There are more than 1,500 work- | ers employed in the Bay Shore plant of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Workers of the various departments, builders, machinists, helpers, apprentices, etc., are slav- ing under the worst speedup sys- | tem for wages running as low as | 28 cents an hour. While the profits of the com- pany are piling up higher and higher every year, the workers in the shops are forced to work in torn shoes, without gloves in order to make both ends meet. This is ! especially bad for men who have a family to support. The speedup system is so effec- tively enforced that the workers are like machines. Some of us lately received an increase of 2. cents an hour. Right after this, | the company fired 25 workers and forced the other workers to make up for the work by the worst speedup. | The company employs a large numtber of young workers from 17- | 25 years of age, paying them as | | low as 28 cents an hour, The spy | | system is very bad. The watch- | | men search the men’s pockets to | | see that we don’t steal a million dollars from the company. strike. The union is a tool of the company, is not for the workers, but we are forced to pay it 35 cents a month dues. We have to smash this company union and build up a fighting organization of the workers. Two workers were recently dis- | charged because they smoked while working. The bosses can smoke as much as they want. They always have good cigars in their mouths when visiting the depart- ments. We also have a company unfon which was organized after the —SOUTHERN PACIFIC SLAVE. How Latin Harlem Received ‘ BUILDING F “Daily” Housing Exposure rr yp STRIKE MAY CLERKS IN PHILA, (Something of the results of the Daily Worker exposure of housing conditions in lower Harlem, and the maneuvers and lies of “El Neuvo Mundo,” bourgeois Porto Rican newspaper, are told in the | following letter received by the Daily Worker from a Porto Rican worker in Lower Harlem.) ter rae I have distributed many Daily Workers when your articles have ap- peared, especially those dealing with the housing conditions in lower Har- lem, and the workers, Porto Rican, white and Negro workers all of them \ have been very enthusiastic about them. Some of these were surprised | to know that such a true and frankly revolutionary paper could be pub- | hed in the land of King Dollar. Some of them are already getting the habit of buying it every day. Your articles have made a tremendous impression among the Latin-American workers here, but they have been just like a terrible nightmare tb those intellectuals and| political “has-beens” from Porto} Rico who’ are today trying to build} their political ambitions on the back of the workers—but especially on their votes. Lie for “Error.” I am enclosing herewith a clipping from the Spanish weekly tabloid, The New World, (El Nuevo Mundo), official organ of the Porto Rican Spanish League, (Liga Puertorri- quena e Hispana). The heading of the article reads, Righting Errors, (Rectificando Errores) and it deals | with a. statement made by you that {percentage of Negro workers are’ “60 per cent of the Porto Rican workers were members of the Negro race,” branding this statement Missouri Farms Struck | i ood: " i | “false” and “misleading.” Although inFl ; Workers Fight forced to admit that your articles to Avoid More Disaster | were written in behalf and for the {defense of the exploited Porto MEMPHIS, Tenn., May 22 —/ Rican workers, the editors of the Working hard for several days to|New World violently attack the avoid a crash, several hundred work-| Daily for printing such “grave” and ers here failed to stay the break of | “injurious” statements, perjudicial, the St. Francis River levee, near! so they say, to the Porto Rican race {though unofficially, et ' x0 that the boss can make a ly'at te Kennett, which gave-wayearly to- day. Farmers’ belongings on approx- imately 50,000 acres of land are en- dangered, altho no deaths to date have been reported. No large town is said to be in} the path of the flood. Reports re- ceived here state that all residents of the “danger” area have escaped. | It is believed, however, that a detailed reports later will reveal} some loss of life, especially in the/| Negro sections of the towns. Workers and the poorer farmers | in the Mound Landing neighborhood } feared the break of the dike which} brought such disastrous loss of life issippi floor of 192 3OV- ernor Bilbo of Mississippi has asked for state troops to be prepared to| move in the district in case of emer- gency. | Some 30,000 acres of farm and) are threatened by the possible break | of the Reelfoot levee, ten miles south | of Hickman, Ky. Earthworks were | being raised hurriedly for a distance | of 300 yards to offset the danger threatened by a reported 300 yards’ crumbling of the levee. For a Six-Hour Day for Under- ground Work, in Dangerous Occu- pations, and for the Youth Under 18! in general—(grave and perjudicial, ¥ might add, to their own selfish in- terest). The New World points out that only 25 per cent of the Porto Rican inhabitants in New York and in the| island are Negroes. By making such a statement, the New World substi- tutes a lie for what it claims to be an error. Jobless Come Here. Government statistics in Porto Rico show that 33 per cent of the islanders are members of the colored race, but this figure cannot be ap-! plied to the Porto Rican population | of New York because, as a matter of fact, the majority of the Porto Rican workers that migrate to the U. S. A. are Negroes. The reason that Negro workers| migrate to the U. S. A. in larger numbers than the white workers is due to the following: First, because they are usually to be found in the big industrialized towns and cities where the things are not so rosy as in the farms, where the “jibaros,” who are mostly white workers, are still able to work themselves to death as “farm hands,” or as tenant farmers and “share croppers” at the agrarian fields of the now remaining feudal lords, when not actually slav- NOT AFRAID OF PRISON Injunction Won't S top Cafeteria Strike (By a Worker Correspondent) Well, here I am in the Tombs for the fourth time. It is getting to) seem like home. Well it is not so much worse than “home” at that.| The dirty furnished room full of bedbugs that I call home is just about as bad as the cell, There are} a lot of cafeteria slaves that have learned since this strike what prison life is like. It is all part of the game. If the bosses think that they can scare us by throwing us in jail they have another guess coming. Like the rest of the boys I am will- ing to continue coming to jail before T will go back to that 12-hour slav- ery in the stinking kitchens and cellars, washing dishes or any other work in the cafeteria sweat shops. After all it is a good cause we are fighting for. I want to be respected as a human being, not treated like a dog, kicked around by the boss. I want to eat decent food, not the| swill that comes back from the leav- | ings of some one else. I remember once when I took a baked apple to eat and the boss told me, “We are short of apples and anyway apples are not for dishwashers. There is plenty of good stew if you are hun- gry.” He won't talk like that when we make him sign up with the union.4 But you all know about the de- tails of the dirty work we have to do and the starvation wages w “Money and buy his chorus gir] sw heart a new dress. We can endure the beatings the cops and gangsters give us with their clubs, handcuffs and armtwisters. We must stay on the picket line and fight. The boys here with me are all anxious to hear about how things are going and how many more bosses have signed up. We want to get out as soon as pos- sible to get back on the picket line, So hold everything until we get out. If the bosses think the injunction will stop the strike they are badly fooled. No piece of paper signed by a fat judge will send us back until the bosses recognize the union. I would rather fight on the picket line and go to jail than go back to slave for 12 hours. See you on the picket line. Regards to Comrade Ober- meier. —A DISHWASHER. P. S.: Send us some copies of the Daily Worker so we can find out what is going on. In here we only get a chance to see the lousy capi- talist sheets like the Graphic and Mirror which tell about murders and the doing of the rich parasites but nothing about the struggles of the workers. Since this strike began I have found out that there is one paper which is a worker’s paper. Also I have decided while in jail with lots of time to think, that I will join the Communist Party which ing at the large plantation farms of the huge tobaeco, fruit and sugar trusts which now actually control | three-quarters of the island. Secondly, being that the majority of the Negro workers are city work- ers and the schools are more acces- |sible to them and more numerous than in the rural sections, a larger able to read and write, while the majority of the white peons or jibaros are illiterate. This makes |them more receptive to revolutionary literature, are more militant and re- bellious against the capitalist social order of things and they are the less willing to accept the humiliating conditions systematically imposed upon them by the dollar despots} thruout the island. Third, because of their color, they are discriminated against and repre- sent the most exploited section of} the Porto Rican working class and} are the first to heed the weird and} horrid call of American imperialism that tells the workers of Porto Rico} either to move on or to die from starvation, But who are those “decent” gentle- men of the editorial staff of the New World, who are also members of the governing board of thej League, who are ashamed to admit} the truth about the racial composi- | tion of the Porto Rican people, in| the face of facts? | What They Are. \ Are they workers? Not at all.| They are merchants, lawyers, intel- lectuals and professional politicians |—mind you, politicians who never made good in Porto Rico and who! are trying their luck in New York} where the getting seems to be better. As I said before, The New World| is the official organ of the Porto Rican Spanish League, but it is also, a propa- gandizing sheet for the democratic party. The New World vas founded a few months prior to the November elections,just in time to help the democratic party campaign in lower Harlem. For the first time in history the traditional party of the chattel slavery and the Ku Klux Klan, recog- nizing the importance of the ever- increasing Porto Rican vote, organ- ized a Porto Rican advisory commit- tee, and placed at the head of it Doctor Bocanegra Lopez, brother-in- law to that internationally known Porto Rican labor faker and be- trayer, Santiago Iglesias. The New World was the publicity agent for this committee. How It Betrays. Numerous articles have been writ-| ten and are to be written boosting local democratic candidates for the coming municipal elections. Yet the New World masks itself as a. liberal weekly and pretends to represent the interests of the exploited Porto Rican workers. But no paper that allies itself directly or indirectly with a bour- geois political party and allows la- bor fakers of the type of Pedro San Miguel to write anti-labor articles in its pages can represent the in- terests of the Porto Rican workers. With Legionaires. In the last issue of The New World the sixty-dollar-a-week presi- dent of International Cigar Makers Union (affiliated with the reaction- ary A. F. of L.) hands out an advise to the Porto Rican workers who were lucky to come out unharmed from the last bloody imperialist war to or- ganize a Spanish “post” of that war- mongering, jingoistic and patriotic organization called the American Legion. By telling the workers to join the labor-baiting American Le- gion, P, S. M. has told the Porto) Rican workers to act as strike- breakers for the industrial bosses of America, In the last election campaign about 8,000 tickets for subway construc- tion jobs were given “free” to work- ers thru the league and many other democratic clubs, indirectly manned by the same clique. They are all birds of the same feather. These tickets were good, but they were only good until after the elections when the majority of the workers who happened to receive jobs thru them were fired wholesale, It was a dirty trick- (and believe me, one that the Porto Rican workers will never forget) maneuvered by the corrupt Tammany Hall machine to get Porto Rican votes. Porto Ricans Know Better. But Porto Rican workers are no fools, and if they still read The New World it is because they don’t know that there is a paper that courage- ously champions the cause of the exploited white and Negro workers like the Daily Worker, And if they have not yet joined the Party ef all workers, it’s because they don’t know that there is such a thing as a Com- munist Party, has fought for the workers against the bosses in this strike, nai. —L. N., A PORTO RICAN cee WORKER. ENDANGER GRAFT They Stop Walkouts for This Reason ~ HAVE LONG HRS, Wages As Low As $15 A Week | (By a Worker Correspondent) | (By a Worker Correspondent) As a building trades worker, I can} PHILADELPHIA, (By Mail).—In | tell you that the reactionary offic-/ this city over 5,000 men and women | ials of the American Federation of | slave in the fruit and grocery stores, | Labor building trades unions never} chain stores as well as individual | would permit such a thing as a lock-| stores. These clerks are working ; out to happen. under rotten conditions, slaving as | The calling of a strike would en- | jong as 75 to 95 hours a week. Wages | danger their fat salaries, for they} are as low as $15 a week, and the} are afraid that in a strike they/conditions are unsanitary. There| might have to sacrifice some of| are no washrooms and lavatories. their easy money to help the strike.| The workers are always kept in| During the negotiations for agree-| rear of Josing their miserable jobs. | ments, the rank and file of the In most of the stores the clerks are | building trades unions were kept in) 1o¢ allowed to go out for lunch and ignorance of what was going oM-|a+¢ compelled to eat in the filthy | They were led to believe that they back of the store for 5 or 10 min-| would get what they demanded.) it0. so the clerk will not lose any Then the officials signed without | time in making more profits for the asking the men, as much as to say | poe, | {you don’t want it, then reject! nese workers realize that the| h ions. ‘the foeli only way to abolish these miserable | In one as 8 eae me eh ate | conditions is to organize into a mili- | ran so high among the rank and| tant union, and the General Food file for a strike that the majority | Workers Industrial Union was or- were in favor of a strike. Their | panized, taking into its ranks all wishes were of course ignored, and {men and women employed in hand- the question of accepting the agree- ling and distributing food. | ment called carried. | | —I. D. The rank and file know that the| officials are grafters on a large scale, and the feeling against the: ‘Strange Interlude” Is | grafting officials in my union runs | Now in Final Week at AKERS FRUIT, GROCERY How Soviet Workers Spend Their Holidays Today we publish a letter from a Soviet commercial employee in Kalouga, 2 provincial town. He tells of the holidays enjoyed by the workers of the USSR, and how they are spent. | * * * I want to tell our foreign comrades—workers of the counter—how I shall speak about a provincial town—Kalouga. In Kalouga all the commercial employees have their holiday on Monday, because on Sundays all shops are open. The District Branch of the Soviet and Commercial Employees’ Union takes into account the fact that Monday—free day for commercial employees—is also a free day of workers of art, and therefore on Mondays all cinemas and theatres are closed. Consequently, our union branch organizes evening parties, called “Our Mondays” for the commercial employees and their families. These evening parties take place every Monday. It is neces- sary to note, that our union tries to combine the usefal with the agree- able, and at these evening parties, the workers of the counter always discuss some industrial, political or trade-union questions and then enjoy a concert, movies or a performance staged by the club dramatic circle, As an example I shall quote the programme of “Our Mondays” for the month of March of the current year: A report on the decisions of the All-Union Conference of Com- mercial” Employees; to be given by the delegate of commercial employ- ees of Kalouga; after the report—motion pictures. The results of examination of the city co-operative’s activity. All the workers of the counter have the possibility of expressing their opinions and desires to the administration of the city co-operative. The criticism and the self-criticism of the workers at the counter Felp to solidify and to improve the co-operative trade apparatus. The workers of the counter are interested in the political questions too, because even the non-Party employees understand that only thanks to the Communist Party the toilers of former Russia, now the powerful Soviet Union, attained the possibility of governing their immense country. Thus, one Monday they will listen to the report “Summary of the November Plenary Session of the Central Committee of All-Union Communist Party.” The worker of the counter, together with the whole workers’ class, wants and must know the last decisions of the leading organ of the Communist Party. One of the “Mondays” there is to be discussed the report: “Why it is necessary to make the inventory of goods and how to do it”. The worker of the counter is not a dumb machine, he i$ a consci- the Soviet commercial employee passes his free time and how he rests. | duced the funds of the local from | The way things are handled by the officials is on a “buying and selling” basis. The workers feel they are helpless against this. The International upholds the fak- ers here in New York. The officials of the building trades unions have made the term “union” meaningless. They allow the union men to work $87,002 to $13,000 in a short time. | very high. In a building trades local John Golden Theatre in Brooklyn the officials have re- The Theatre Guild production of | |Eugene O’Neill’s nine act drama/ “Strange Interlude,” will close this | | Saturday evening. It opened on} | January 30, 1928, and has over 400 performances to its credit. Next season the Guild will have two companies of “Strange Inter- | lude” on tour; that now playing jon the Pacific Coast and the New with non-union materials. The of- | York Company, which will be sent ficials always take a stand against | into Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, ous worker, interested in the whole process of production. After such reports there is shown a film or some performances of club circles. So, on his holiday, the worker of the counter combines the useful with the agreeable. E —BORIS MONASTIRIEV. * Tomorrow, a typist of the Soviet Union will tell of the conditions enjoyed by the office workers in the USSR. TRY GRAFTERS. ELIZABETH, N. J., May 21— JERSEY TO SUE N. WASHINGTON, May 21, — The the employes. The A. F. of L. never bothered to organize the makers of building materials, such as the ce- ment workers. From 45 to 50 per cent of the workers in the building trades are out of work. Most building workers are forced to accept any wage they can get—below the union scale. The officials know this violation of the “wage scale,” but care nothing. The real reason, as I said, that | the building trade union fakers will | never allow any strike or lockout is \that the strike would result in-cut- |ting their fat salaries. —BUILDING WORKER. ‘Monroe Lunch Boss Threatens to Blacklist (By a Worker Correspondent) at 859 Broadway, near 18th St., Manhattan, recently called all the workers into the cellar, and told them if anyone tried to go on strike he would lock out all the workers in the place and have them black- listed. He offered to reduce the hours from 12 to 10 a day, but re- fuses to recognize the union, the Cafeteria Workers Union. He said he would rather close the place. But he will soon have to recognize the union, , at Band Concert, New York Coliseum Sunday Eminent soloists under the direc- | tion of Professor A. Parisi will ap- | pear at the band concert given by 600 musicians at a cooperative en- tertainment for the benefit of un- employed musicians. S, L. Rothafel, (Roxy) and other guest conductors will contribute to the program, which will be given at 3 p. m. and 8:30 p. m, Sunday, May 26, at the New York Coliseum, E. 177th St., | Bronx, Urging mass support of the event, sponsors point to the widespread in- troduction of the vitaphone as gqne of the contributory causes of the mass unemployment among musi- cians. Tickets may be obtained in ad- vance at the office of the New York Coliseum, BACHELORS HOLD FETE. ECAUSSINES, Belgium, May 21. -—Bachelors who had grown weary of their independence thronged to this little village on the Senne to- day for the first International Bachelors’ Field Day, which was pro- moted by the unmarried maidens of Ecaussincs, Communists fight o immediate aims an the working cians, present movement they are also fondi of the me alf of the reste but in th de- Those Who Strike The boss of the Monroe Cafeteria, | Aid Jobless Musicians | Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Abroad, the play is now being per- | formed in Stockholm, Budapest, soon |in Berlin and next season maybe in| | London. “The Camel Through the Needle’s | Eye,” now at the Martin Beck | Theatre, will move on May 27th to |the Guild Theatre. “Caprice” which closes at the Guild this Saturday, will be on its way to London. Join the American section of the Communist International, the Communist Party of the U. S. A. Marxism by Lenin Mail you Visiteeeeseeooees Soviet Russia VIA LONDON--KIEL CANAL—HELSINGFORS AND 10 DAYS IN LENINGRAD and MOSCOW TOURS FROM $385. Sailings Every Month Telephone: ALGONQUIN 6656 CHICAGO—See us for your steamship aceommodations—MOSCOW WITH A YEAR’S SUBSCRIPTION TO THE COM- MUNIST YOU HAVE YOUR CHOICE OF EITHER OF THE FOLLOWING TWO SETS Reminiscences of Lenin by Zetkin | Program of Communist International Paris on the Barricades by George Spiro OR Revolutionary Movement in Building Up Socialism by N. Bukharin This special offer will hold good dur- ing the months of April and May only WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS 43 East 125th Street poten New York City Thomas A. Archipley, president of the Linden City Council, and Ed- ward Wallace, a council member, both charged with accepting a bribe, went on trial in quarter sessions here today before Judge Alfred A. Stein and jury. John F. Meakin, an accountant, was convicted last week of giving the $500 bribe. He has -not been sentenced. Witnesses testified that the council had awarded to Meakin’s firm the city’s accounting business. Women Workers and Young Workers! Join the Ranks of the’ Struggling Workers! Supreme Court today granted the State of New Jersey permission to file a suit against New York State and New York City seeking to en- join them from diverting the waters of Delaware River tributaries for the city’s water supply. “An excellent film seen; among the ventures anywher Have you seen INQUIRE: WORLD TOURISTS, INC. hentte Gune Preduetions \75 FIFTH AVENUE (Flatiron Bldg.) NEW YORK, N, Y, Through the T S CAMEL Needle'sEye MARTIN BECK THEA. 45th W. of 8th Ave. vs. Mats., Thurs, & Sat, 2 LAST WEBK! CAPRICE A Comedy by Sil-Vara Th tee st GUILD "es, J 3 and Sat., 2:43 LAST WEEK! Strange Interlude sone’ GOLDEN, een oath EVENINGS ony St & eneee, SL the slenees, it letariat alone is reve! Honary—-Marg. Lis Colonies Ried r sub to in a restaurant it THEODORE DREISER Hails— VILLAGE ? SIN First Sovkino Film Directed by A Woman the best cinema photography I have ever 0 far achieved by the motion picture ad- —(Dreiser Looks at Russia.) Little CARNEGIE PLAYHOUSE, 146 W. 57th St., Circle 7551 atronize our § Advertisers © Don’t forget to mention the “Daily Worker” to the proprietor whenever you purchase clothes, furniture, etc., or eat BLOOMINGDALE “BELT SYSTEM A ~ SAMPLE OF HELL Sometimes Work Until | 38 A. M. | (By a Worker Correspondent) | I wish to say that Henry Ford’: ling system has nothing on Bloom. ix ingdale’s belt in that department |store company’s Long Island City | warehouse. After being out of work since | Christmas I finally secured a posi- | tion as sheet writer in the delivery | department. A belt running from | one block in length with route bins | on both sides where the slaves throw | packages in their respective bins, is a speedup hell. You start at 3 p. m |until you are finished, sometime: until 6 a. m. next day. The pay is $20 a week and over- time of 65 cents an hour afte) | midnight. After two weeks work ] was laid off with the rest and was | told they “will send for me wher they haye another ‘sale’.” —A. B. |A. F. L. Misleader Aids ‘Boss Painters In |Getting A Law Passed (By a Worker Correspondent) SAN DIEGO, Calif., (By Mail) — The Master Painters Associatior | with the help of Brummitto, business agent of the painters’ A. F, of L | local in San Diego, had the city | council pass an ordinance which re | quired every painter contractor tc furnish a $3,000 bond and a license which would cost $10 a year. When the ordinance was before the council, Brummitt was the only one who spoke for it. This ordinance was passed on the charge that the floaters. were getting all the paint- ing jobs here. In reality the master painters wanted to eliminate th« little contractors who live here, s« they could monopolize the painting and then kick the union men in thc pants. They were aided by Brum. mitt in this. The mayor vetoed the ordinance. —CLARK. OIL COMPANY WINS. WASHINGTON, May 21—A Su. preme Court review of a claim of : “league of land,” which now include: 76 oil wells from which $100,000,00( is said to have been taken, wa: denied today to Mrs. Annie De Graf fenreid, New York. Mrs. De Graf fenreid claimed title under an 835 grant of the Mexican government t one William, or Pelham Humphrey Her suit was brought against th: Yount Lee Oil Company and som 50 other Texas persons in federa court at Beaumont, Tex. NOW PLAYING! “MOSCOW TODAY” AS GOOD AS A TRIP TO THE SOVIET CAPITAL—— Presenting the leading Soviet personalities in the Kremlin. FILM GUILD CINEMA, 52 West 8th Stréet. GrandSt Follies with Albert Carroll & Dorothy 8: TH Thea. W. 45th St., Eve. 8. BOO Mats. Wed. & Sat. 2.30 CO THEA, W. 45 MOROSCO FH Mato.Wwed eats: JOHN DRINKWATER’S Comedy Ht BIRD INHAND Chanin's, MAJESTIC. Theatr ea. W. 45 Ev. Mate, Thurs, & Sat. 2,3