The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 31, 1929, Page 6

DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, FRIDAY, MAY 31, 1929 Bas Worker Central Organ of the Communist Party of the U. S. A. Demand Release of Canter and Lifshitz Hie A ‘ ola Reman . e > AP convictions invoked a en Lifshitz and Harry J. N S Canter, in the courts of New York City and Boston, con- stitute a new form of “lynch law” justice that is becoming ever more common against workers in capitalist America. Lifshitz, organizer of the Communist Party in the New York District, was arrested on a Saturday afternoon, convicted on the following Sunday morning and sentenced to 30 days in prison, and after ten days’ delay three solemn judges with- out giving any reasons for their action bluntly reject the de- mand for release on bail, pending appeal. Lifshitz remains in prison. Meanwhile, the worst criminals, usually important cogs in the underworld machinery of Tammany Hall, are at liberty on bail. Even those charged with murder .are often so freed. rn Canter, the Boston Communist printer, carried a placard: “Fuller—Murderer of Sacco and Vanzetti,” in the Communist Party’s election campaign demonstration last November and was immediately charged with “criminally libelling’”’ the ex- Governor Alvan T. Fuller of Massachusetts. He was put on trial and a conviction railroaded through with the same cyn- ical methods that made a brutal farce out of the prejudiced hearings granted Sacco and Vanzetti. The judge openly displayed his prejudice, all testimony regarding the Sacco- Vanzetti case, which was the issue, was ruled out, while Ful- ler, who gave the final word that sent Sacco and Vanzetti to burn in the eleetric chair at the Charleston prison, was excused from appearing on the witness stand where he might be effectively cross-questioned. This mockery of “justice” in the capitalist courts should be clear to all workers, in spite of the intensive propaganda continually carried on about the “fairness” of “high-minded” judges. Capitalism tries to cloak its lackey judiciary with a respectability that the ordinarily crooked lawyer is not sup- posed to possess. The lawyer turned judge, however, de- generates more than ever into a fawning lackey of the capital- ist social order he has taken an oath to uphold. This servil- ity is ony emphasized by the hangman’s black gown he usu- ally wears while on duty. Capitalism in the United States in the present period has special needs. It calls frantfeally for vicious attacks against the Communists, the leaders in the growing struggles of American labor. This is especially true in New York and Boston. In the pre-world war days, during the comparatively “peaceful” development of American imperialism, the courts sought usually to give a semblance of “justice” in their pro- ceedings. Even in the midst of war in 1917 and 1918, long trials were granted to indicted members of the Industrial Workers of the World and the socialist party. It has been made clear, even in the interim between the first and second world wars, that short shrift is to be made of the court trials of revolutionary workers, as in the cases of Canter and Lifshitz. This is but another phase of the im- perialist war preparations, one method of fighting the most militant section of the working class during these days of the growing radicalization of labor. The actual opening of hostilities for the next war will certainly find the worst ter- ror invoked against the workers. The answer of labor must be an immediate and growing demand for the release of Lifshitz, Canter,and all the class war prisoners, with increasing emphasis on the continued brutal incarceration of Mooney and Billings. This means a rapid and effective strengthening of the International Labor Defense, the strong arm of the working class in fighting capitalism in its own courts. The new outrages committed against Canter and Lifshitz should be a fresh warning to the whole working class to intensify its exposure of and struggle against capitalist “justice”. Six “Sandhogs” Smothered in Mud. “CANDHOGS”’ is the name applied to workers who go down into the silt and mud of river beds tg tunnel for sub- ways or excavate for huge piers. The use of this cynical ex- pression itself grows out of the utter indifference with which the profit-taking capitalist social order looks upon the lives of workers condemned to the most dangerous kind of toil. The callousness with which workers are murdered out- right on their jobs was revealed again Wednesday in the kil- ling of six “sandhogs”, toiling 80 feet below the bed of the Hackensack river under twenty-five pound air pressure, ex- cavating for the third pier of the joint Pennsylvania railroad and state highway bridge, in Jersey City. Worker correspondents on this job had already written in to the Daily Worker and described in detail the dangers and the agonies of their toil. This showed that the “sand- hogs” themselves were keenly alive to the dangers threaten- ing them. But they were powerless to remedy this condi- tion. The Compressed Air Workers’ Union, like other trade unions of its kind, is a mere job trust and does not wage a class fight for real protection for the lives of its members. The Tammany Hall-controlled Central Labor Union is just as immune to any such effort. The explanations advanced for the disaster show the carelessness éxercised in protecting the workers. These are as, follows: 3 First:—That the bucket into which the “sandhogs” shovel muck to be hoisted to the surface might have caught on the air valye and broken it. Why was the air valve so exposed? Second:—That a mixture of oakum and mud had been used in some instances to stop air leaks instead of a special rubber cement generally used on such jobs. A few pennies were thus saved by substituting mud for rubber cement, but at the cost of murdering and maiming more than a dozen workers. Third:—Another opinion was that the severe electrical storm which hit Jersey City at the time had caused the air “to blow”. Surely, modern science could even overcome this>jf true, other- wise work should cease during a thunder storm until everything was found again to be in order. The indifference revealed by these futile efforts to offer an acceptable excuse for the death of these workers, shows that the caisson in which they toiled was but an executioner’s chamber that awaited only the fatal hour when death would rush in to snuff out the lives of the condemned. Capitalism itself is the executioner that numbers its victims in industry by the hundreds of thousands. The Em- ployers’ demands for increasing rofits, for the speed- up, resulting in the worsening of the conditions of labor and the standard of living, is the driving cause of evils inflicted on labor, including the death sentence invoked against the six workers whose remains now lie buried in 25 feet of mud in the Hackensack river. Labor must struggle against this murder by wholesale through developing the broadest demand for all forms of protection against accident, death, unemployment, occupational diseases, industry to bear the entire expense. This latest disaster should create trem- | cash from the miserably exploited workers. | | By PENMAN SLAVE. | } WASHINGTON, May 30.— Stone | walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage. So sang the ancient bard. The sentiment is more than} apt in reference to one Harry F. Sin- clair, multi-millionaire oil grafter and modest democrat, detained here temporarily in the district jail. The poet, as you know, had reference to the supposed ability of the spirit to transcend its material confines. But Harry has modernized the ancient truth. Behind the spirit everywhere according to Sir Harry is the cold cash, and it all depends on Who’s| So. Harry has a private room. Who In th Hooseow! | Probably not as lavish as his Fifth Of the more than five hundred Avenue Mansion apartment, but iff wretches entombed here, running | YoU live in the average shack. in against time, cursing against fate, | Montana or in a workers’ tenement miserable products of a vicious social 0% the East Side of New York, you order, none can boast of any special | Will agree that Harry's room is not accomplishment, A few have broken | 8° bad. safes, some have blackjacked silk-| Food! There is another important ‘hatted money bags, others shave so item. Harry has been placed with smelling. Why the private room for Harry? “No special reason what- ever,” the Major assures us. “Mr. Sinclair’s room is just handy to the infirmary where he works. That’s all.” |far forgotten their identity as to the detail staff, a group consisting | write the names of lesser men on Of office workers and others. This jbank checks—robbers of the rich, small number receives a special you will note. Only Harry Sinclair grade of food. The regular law- ‘has plundered the poor. Why should breakers, when well behaved, eat in |this fact not entitle Ha-ry Sinclair a large mess hall which contains the |to first place among the five hun- ¢lectric chair among other objects of |dred of the hoosegow. Among the encouragement to the appetite. |four hundred the procedure is the In the matter of visitors, Sinclair |same. Turn to t'> regular Who's is again more than fortunate. Other bifttered by being nice to the old Man | A Mist Over America By C. E. | Who—the same forms are observed. With a private room to romp in, with a pleasant and pretty nurse to gaze upon, with a safe full of liquor ‘to draw from, with his wife pro- hibited by the rules of the prison) from calling upon him more than) once a week—why shouldn’t the | master of Tea Pot Dome exult! Jail | is for the poor, like lice and religion, j starvation and virtue. | Harry is the jail pharmacist. What | use has a jail for a pharmacist, you |may have wondered, That shows how dumb you are! No use, of course, but it’s Harry Sinclair and what's a’ | mere office more or less between a jail superintendent and a multi- millionaire customer who is to board with him at most for only ninety days? ~“It’s true, we never had a) ‘pharmacist before,” Major W. |L. Peak, head of the jail affirmed in reply to a pointed question by your low brow correspondent, “but the ‘ jail has always needed one.” Fair The long low ery of You can hear them Carries with it The dry rat-tat-tat Of machine guns, Steel Oil | THE FACE OF MR. SCHLESINGER AND THE VOICE OF THE‘BOSS —By Wm. Gropper | SS a SS oS 5S SS bianca SEERA, | Benjamin Schlesinger, president of the company union, International Ladies Garment Workers, is having “stormy” conferences with the manufacturers about grievances for which the scab union is also largely responsible. maneuvers preliminary to a threatened “stoppage” whose only purpose is the strengthening of the boss union and the mulcting of some . sinclair Has a Gay Time in Jail Private Room to Sleep in; Soft Job; Special Food, Special Rules a room low-ceilinged, stuffy and vile, inmates must talk to their friends |have only the testimony of some! | and relatives from behind iron bars jin their cells or across a long table with a guard looking on from either | end. Sinclair may receive his friends |in private in the medical office. His |first visitor was: permitted to stay |overtime. Then he may have his | attorneys visit him at almost any time and such a long line of counsel as has trooped in to consult with the |oil grafter has never before lightened the day of any “jail bird.” No one, |not even his wife, is supposed to visit Harry except on Sunday even- |ing. It can be recorded that the rule |has been scrupulously observed in | the case of his wife, a privation | which Harry seems to be thriving under in view of the fact that work- ing beside him every day, is a pretty nurse assigned to the, medical office, The pharmacy is a sunny neat room in charge of a cheerful, young physician who understands evidently that his bread may be fairly well children Rises like a mist over America. from Happy Vs Past the brick towers of the east . To the Golden Gate. The low cry of children See the great American words |enough! So Harry was made a phar- Railways _macist, Motors | Then Harry was provided with a. Prosperity private room to sleep in. “Why the! discrimirfation, Major?” The others, the safe blowers, pick-pockets kid-| nappers, check artists, those of the | profession generally, are packed in together in one huge dormitory, with | cots almost piled on one another, in! Sky-high words Crumble and cave in When the low cry of children aw Rises mist over America, Much sound and fury accompanies these fake Jof Tea Pot Dome. No one is saying that the ambitious young doctor is |taking any graft, but who would not |pave his way to --omotion as the |physician of some rich ‘man later. Both the doctor and the nurse say |that Sinclair is “a nice man,” and |so he is. Against their word you hundred thousand workers employed by the oil grafter whose average pay is about $26.00 a week. Some receive less than $20.00. In the pharmacy safe is a large} supply of liquor held in readiness for ;emergency such as_ snake bites,| | poison ivy infection and similar mis- |haps. No one is saying that Harry | | would violate the Volstead Law by |convoying liquor from the safe to} his stomach. Harry is now a law- abiding citizen. But under doctor’s orders and in the event of being bit- ten by a cobra, surely the law may be winked-at. In this case Harry’s | long experience in society will stand | him in good stead, You will recall that Harry was not |}sent to the local workhouse by means of the popular conveyance em- ployed for other so-called law breakers, namely, the patrol wagon. They sent Harry an invitation which he had some sixty days to answer and when he chose to come, it was | by means of his own automobile, It is true he is not allowed out at night —so far. But no one will regard this as a great hardship. He does {not need to wear a prison uniform. | does is hardly a strenuous task. No sweeping, no cleaning, no menial | tasks. Newspaper men may not visit |him except as he chooses and only irecently the bar was removed | against preventing them even into the prison headquarters, And this they call “the retribution of society, visited equally on the rich as well as on the poor.” Some may insist that Sinclair, nevertheless was \sent to jail, is being punished, at jleast in principle. “What a farce! | Something had to be done to cover up the scandalous shame of Lady \Justice else these who run and |read might have begun too widely |to question the virtue of the hussy. | If you have any doubt ot this, and \if perchance seeing that the gay life jof Sir Harry is considerably more ‘desirable as a prison pharmaciet than your own, let us say, as an unemployed oil worker, and if, further you should venture to test |“even-handed justice” by helping | yourself to a loaf of bread to revive an empty stomach—Most surely you will learn Who’ ‘ho itt the Ho gowl The occasional pill rolling which he| ». MIEN By FEODOR CE GLADKOYV, Translated by A. S. Arthur and C. Ashleigh All Rights Reserved—International Publishers, N. Y. Back in his town which is in a state of disorganization, Gleb Chumaloy, Red Army Commander, by the force of his proletarian de- termination gets the Communist Group, the factory committee of the great cement plant, now in ruins, and the engineer of the factory when it was under capitalist control, to agree to rebuilding the fac- tory and the track over the mountains so as to haul wood into the town before the winter sets in. He breaks thru the long line at the office of Badin, chairman of the Soviet Executive, and forces his way into his office. There he finds Borchi and Badin in a heated argument. i +. ee ITHOUT awaiting his turn, Gleb broke through the crowd to Peplo, the crowd booing and murmuring at him. “Comrade Secretary, will you please send in my name to the Chair- man of the Executive « e Peplo regarded Gleb with a broad smile, “First get into the queue here, and then you will join that one over there.” “To hell with your queue, Comrade Secretary. business. Will you announce me without delay?” : Peplo, pink-cheeked and amazed, shook his curls. a “Urgent? What business? About what?” * Cries were raised among the crowd: “I’ve urgent business too—! Important business—! D’you call that fair?” Peplo was looking at Gleb with a smile in which there was a glint. He was not listening to him but to the others. Gleb drew himself up and his eyes began to look like Shuk’s. He raised his fist and jostled his way rapidly to the door. In the corridor, he pushed the hirsute guardian on one side and broke into the office of the Chairman of the I have very urgent Executive. The fiery sunshine bathed him ina red light. The dazzling rays were painful to his eyes. The walls of the room shimmered white. “What’s the matter, Comrade? Why do you rush in here when I’m not seeing anybody? I am busy.” ‘ kT eee could not see who it was speaking behind the curtain of sunrays, but it was clear that here was no fool. The Chairman had a loud, metallic voice. Gleb moved out of the sun’s glare and everything re- solved itself into the ordinary and familiar. The writing-table, and a man dressed in black leather who leant with his chest against the desk; his face was deeply sunburnt as though it were of bronze. Another in Circassian dress, with dagger and revolver, was standing near the table, his hand on'the back of a chair. His hand was clenched so tightly upon the chair back that the fingers were dead white and quivering. The muscles of his face were twitching and his eyes protruded. His nose was Caucasian, aquiline. He was one of those young heroes of the “Devil’s Hundred” who during the war performed such wanders, and upon whose swords the blood was never dry. Gleb saluted and sat down near the table, opposite the Chairman. They regarded each other with a silent stare. The Chairman’s forehead projected vertically over his eyes like a spade. He did not look at the man in Circassian dress and he momentarily forgot Gleb. He spoke distinctly and monotonously into his dark hairy hands that rested on the table before him, * * * “PORCHI, don’t forget: if within a month from now you haven’t ob- tained the supplementary deliveries of grain and in September don’t obtain the return from the peasants of the seed-grain advanced to them, I'll have you shot. I’m not talking at random, you know that'very well. As Chairman of the Executive Committee of your district you're responsible to me for everything. Remember that.” E Borchi endeavored to answer, rolling his eyes and clenching his teeth. “Comrade Badin. ... I’m also a Communts& I protest!” 3 His voice was steady at first, but broke hoagsly. The Chairman continued coldly and heavily: “Yes, it’s precisely because you are a Communist thet I'll stand you up to be shot if this plan is not carried out. In your distriet of Kurkal you're bickering and wrangling and giving in to the influence of the Klaks.” “Comrade Badin, you must listen to me... . It’s only a question of putting off the repgyment of seed-corn until next year. You must understand the situation. Forced requisitions of produce have taken place four times since last Autumn. The peasants will die of starvation. And by such measures we’re increasing the numbers of the White-Green bands. They'll cut our throats to the last man. We'll be chopped up like mince-meat.” ; “All right, then. Be chopped up into minee-meat. But the task set you must be carried out exactly and to date.” “Comrade Badin! I demand that this be put on the agenda—. I shall prove to the Executive-——” . Badin sat straight up. The folds of his leather tunic glistened. “Borchi!” del ei He rose and slowly turned his head to the Cossack, Mh “Chairman of the District Executive Borchi!” He smiled, and it seemed that from his iron smile his would crack. 4 i . * * j 1 jawbones A BORCcHI recoiled a step and drew himself up. His moist eyes gleamed. His voice was hoarse. “Comrade Badin, the campaign will be carried out. everything. But it will be a butchery, Comrade Badin.” “Don’t be afraid, we’ll send you Saltanov, the chief of the local militia, as assistant.” He re-seated himself. In a moment he had already forgotten the Chairman of the District Executive Committee, Borchi. And Borchi, dauntless swordsman of the Devil’s Hundred, crushed and tamed, threw him a final glance, in which was the last note of his opposition, and walked rapidly from the room, defeated. Badin supported the weight of his heavy brow upon his hairy hands., “What do you wish, Comrade? Be brief.” “For a working man to get to see you, Comrade Chairman, is more difficult than to capture a trench.” “What do you want? Speak to the point.” I shall do (ue gaze of the two men met, hostile, each measuring the other’s strength. The stone-cold immobility of the Chairman depressed Gleb, and he doggedly and truculently broke the calm of the admin- istrative routine with words hard as cobble stones. “The next time I’ll grab that bewhiskered guard of yours by the. legs and chuck him out of the window. Such high-faluting ceremony is not becoming to us.” “Comrade, I shall have you arrested at once, for threats and rowdy- ism. Who are you?” R He got up and leaned with his hands upon the table, making it creak under his fists. Scarcely had the Chairman uttered these words than Gleb, his face working, shoved away his chair and bent over to Badin; grasping him by the shoulders he filled the room with his voice: “Comrade Chairman of the Soviet Executive, a workman of the factory is speaking to you! Have the kindness to be seated! You have no right to chase workmen out of your office!” Badin’s thick lips stretched in a smile, displaying his glittering teeth. He sat down again; taking out a packet of cigarettes he lit one and offered the packet to Gleb. “Ym listening. Tell me shortly and precisely what you want. What is your name?” 8 Gs sat down too. He rejected the cigarettes, but took out his own Red Army man’s pipe. “Both the Group and a General Meeting of the workers have de- cided to bring the wood by mechanical traction—the ropeway—over from the forest. The factory technologist will provide the drawings and the working plans. Two or three Sunday’s voluntary work from each of the unions and we'll have loads of wood for the trucks. Just reckon up how much wood we shall be able to get down here between. now and next Autumn! Forced requisitions of wood are no use; the peasants run away and join the bandits’ gangs. The lighters are rotten —let them go to the Devil!—they’ve been broken by heavy seas. There -—my name is Chumalov, the mechanic, commissar of a regiment.” Badin stretched out his hand to him and smiled. % “Yes, this is a serious business that we shall have to go into care- fully. Tell me, isn’t Dasha Chifmalova your wife?” Gleb, who was busy with his pipe, glanced sharply at Badin’s face; his eyes then travelled to his hand. With a sweeping, rounded gesture ee nearly caused the seams of his tunic to split, he gave Badin his hand. “That’s not the question, Comrade Chairman. What do you think about getting the mien to work again, if we can get the question on agenda of the di : “ (To Be Continued) a *