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

Central Organ of the Communist Party of the U. S. A. ‘Answer Landlord’s Law With Tenants’ Strike. Fearful of the wave of mass indignation against the miserable housing conditions in working class sections, the Board of Aldermen has passed a law calculated to palliate the workers. This law, far from aiding the. poor tenants, as the capitalist politicians and press would have us believe, in reality gives free reign to the Jandlords to increase rents at their own will. If the tenants are not satisfied with rent increases, they may appeal to the courts for redress. Ignoring for the moment the facts that the courts exist for the purpose of defending the right of the capitalist class to plunder the workers, it is plain to every worker that he could not engage in such a costly proceeding as employing lawyers to contest his claims against exorbitant rents. The political agents of the capitalist class know this only too well, but they, like their masters, hold the workers in the utmost contempt. They think they can deceive the masses of ten- ants by telling them they can appeal to the crooked Tam- many judges. It is not by appealing to capitalist courts, or depending upon capitalist legislation, that the masses will be able to fight against high rents, dark, filthy, disease-breeding, fire- trap tenements, but by organizing against the greedy and avaricious landlords and their courts and legislators and de- claring rent strikes. Let the workers unite by the tens of thousands and re- fuse to pay the prices demanded by the rent-hogs. Let them unitedly fight against evictions. The Harlem Tenants’ League, operating in the iat section of New York, is engaged in intensive organizational work. The parade staged a few days ago in Harlem showed that there is real mass enthusiasm among the Negroes for a fight against the horrible housing conditions there. This movement must be extended to all working class sections of the city and a real tenants’ strike organized against the land- lords, the fake legislation and the courts. A Children’s Delegation to the U.S.S.R. The class struggle scene in the United States during the few years has not been without the participation of child laborers and children of poor workers. The tremendous mass picket lines in the textile strikes, especially, were to a great extent manned by children. The strikes of the coal miners, needle workers, food workers, the struggle against police brutality, all had the active par- ticipation of the proletarian children. The more than three million child laborers in this country have during the past years gradually begun to enter the active struggles of the workers. This is especially evident in the Southern textile strikes. But also the working class children have carried on the class war in a field which the older workers see only occa- sionally. They have intensified their fight against the jingo war teachings in the schools at considerable sacrifices. In the fight against imperialist war preparations the children play a very strategic role. It is in connection with this last that the proposed dele- gation of working class children to visit the Soviet Union | in July takes on considerable importance. There is no better way to dramatize for the children - the identity of interest between themselves and those of the First Workers’ Republic against international imperialism. No better way for them to see the meaning of the prole- tarian revolution than to see what it has done for the masses of children. No better way to win them for the workers’ cause than for their own representatives to see the contrast with their own conditions in the U. S. Several. conferences for the purpose of arranging for the delegation will take place n the coming two weeks. On the twenty-second of this month in New York and Chicago, on the twenty-ninth in Detroit. The experiences of the similar delegations to the U. S. S. R. from England, France, Germany, and many other coun- tries warrant that every worker shall support to the full the proposed American working class children’s delegation. The Latest I. R. T. Subway Murder. ye killed and thirty-four injured is the latest toll of the Interborough Rapid Transit death traps. Ancient, dilapidated, wooden cars crashed on an elevated railroad structure at one of the highest points above Eighth Avenue, early Wednesday night. Hardly a day passes that minor ac- eidents of a like nature do not occur because of worn-out equipment and defective breaks. __ The man who died was a worker, a guard, on the train. ‘Many passengers, Negro and white workers, were injured ‘severely while “riding in comfort”, to use the language of the Tying advertisements carried in all trains of the I. R. T. As is usually the case the city officials and other law- e] bodies completely ignore the guilt of the cor- ‘of which did not work correctly. Instead of charging the heads with murder they have arrested James Gl a worker, who risked his own life sticking to his during the crash. His arrest is his reward for his ge in trying to avert the disaster. Slaving long hours, ir miserable wages, always at the beck and call of the com- r, the workers on the traction lines of the city are al- in constant danger of their lives because the company not invest sufficient money to provide steel cars and devices that will ensure safety at the rapid rate at the trains are driven over the tottering structures of elevated system. When they escape with their lives in frequent accidents, they are then made the goats by charged with murder, manslaughter and other crimes. Every worker on the subway, elevated or surface lines z face this danger of victimization in order to shield ‘culprits—the directors of the companies. is about time this sort of thing were stopped. It can- accomplished by appealing to the courts or the legis- but only by the workers themselves, all of whom face entical danger of being thrown in prison and facing for homicide whenever the decaying equipment, in n to the other hazards of such work, fails to function. ie reply of the workers to such dastardly procedure, “were organized into a militant union, would be to tie up the lines until workers so victimized are ly released. The workers on the traction lines e to defend themselves against this victimizay force the company to abandon the portable death they call cars. For this purpose they must now bye DAILY WORKER, NEW he IN DEFENSE OF HIS HOME! Danish “Socialists” in Power The Danish workers are blessed, | with a social-democratic government | for the second time, although they | are beginning to ask themselves “What is the difference?” The | social-democrat, which is the strong- est party in Denmark, still exercises) a great influence on the Danish |workers, but their betrayal will fi-| nally be exposed by their own acts in the period now beginning. | The 1924 social-democratic gov-| ernment under Stauning can very} well be called the first phase in| EN ig Defend Capitalism Even More Staunchly any child can see that this is part|fices.” He further states “We shall of the preparation for war against |also have to protect our home in- the Soviet Union. With the deepen- ing of the Sound the British fleet will have free entrance to the Baltic \Sea. And having stabilized the Dan- ish kronen, together with American third are already out of work, prac- tically since 1925, will thus again face an increase in unemployment, dustry’ against cheaper products.” | The Danish workers, of which one-} |capitalist stabilization after the end) finance capital, British imperialism jof the war. After the German mark | naturally demands something in re- | was stabilized by American finance! turn, and the Danish social-demo- ‘capital in 1923 the next turn came|crats will be the most enthusiastic | to Denmark and it was the role of|in the fight against the Soviet 22 Se costae es Bae Aad |the social-democratic government to! lead in this stabilization. | The kronen was stabilized by the social-democratic government at the expense of the working class with |the result that the rich doubled their | iortunes while the income of the working class and the poor farmers was cut in half, Especially in the ‘part of the country ceded back to | Denmark from Germany at the end| of the war was this felt by the! workers and poor farmers. The! ‘farmers who had mortgaged their property when the kronen was worth /50, now had to pay back their debts jon the basis of 100. The result was bankruptcy after bankruptcy of these poor farmers. And of course) |the workers who don’t own property and have to face double expenditure in the buying of food and clothing found themselves worse off after! this stabilization carried so success- |fully through by the capitalist} | lackies, the social-democrats. Unemployment Grows. The second achievement of the social-democracy in power was that unemployment increased from 10.7 per cent in 1924 to 22.3 in 1926 and today, on the eve of social-democracy again taking power, one-third of the Danish working class is idle. When the workers began to fight against these int-lerable conditions + and threatened a general strike, the so- cial-democratic government answered with a strike provisorium which for- bid the walkout, or the state power would be used against the workers. Only due to the betrayal by the trade union leaders who called off the strike at the last minute were these social-democratic traitors able to defeat the working class. Just after this betrayal we enter into the second period of capitalist stabilization when the bourgeoisie had utilized social-democray to the limit and decided to take over the offices themselves. This second pe- riod was especially utilized by the capitalists to abolish the social laws won by the workers through many years of struggle, to cut the wages of the state employees and in gen- eral lower the standard of living of the Danish working class, The military program which had already been prepared by the social- |democrats was further developed by the conservative government. The only question they differed about was the amount of money to be spent in certain military adventures. We find thus that the social-demo- crats openly state “Our natural enemy which used to be toward the |South (meaning Germany) is no longer our enemy, For our present jenemy we must look toward the East.” * Path for Britain, |period of government had already Union. At the present time we have en- tered the-third period of capitalist stabilization whieh will be accom- plished under the leadership of the social-democrats at the expense of the working class. The social-demo- | cratic prime minister stated long be- fore he took power, “Our most im- portant problem for the country to- and all this for the furthering of capitalist rationalization. Subordinate Unions. High tariff naturally will only in- |erease the prices of the products |necessa-y to be bought *-- the work- ers, and thus again lower their |standard of living. The social-demo- crats were already exposed in their attitude toward the poorer section of the working class during the so- called “Homeless” demonstration to- wards Copenhagen. Due to the state control of the unemployment relief, although most of the money is paid _ The social-democrats in their 1924): ; Proposed to deepen the Sound, which |day is the intensification of produc-|in by the workers themselves, the jtion in our industry even if the/ | trade unions have become practically | workers shall have to make sacri- | dependent upon the capitalist state. Brickyards at Beacon By EDWIN ROLFE. Here, on the river's shore, the edge of music, Of water flowing melodiously to sea, They work. And the rainbow is obscured; The sun shower seen through smoke-haze seems unreal, repellent ; The west wind rolling across the Berkshires meets inferno heat here And is absorbed into heat, becomes heat. They who work here know no other things: Only heat, and smoke, and the poison fumes of baking bricks: Early in the morning, punctual as the dawn, They leave their hovels after a meagre meal, Follow the dusty paths that lead to the factory gates, The dusty paths that they themselves have made through- out the years. They are stooped and bent and vaguely deathlike, Their chests are tragic parodies of chests. Once, watching them at dawn, a wealthy tourist said: “They seem eropistey broken, ready to fall back into the earth. But he had never seen them returning at nightfall, After twelve hours of toil, over the same dusty paths... Once, at night, I heard them singing; Slow, beautiful and melodious as the river when it is arced with rainbow-color. They were sad, these songs that were outlets for a million + pains, Sad, but surging in the night, and powerful. And many times (most significant of all) T have heard them while at work, Bent under heavy burdens, wet with rivulets of =~ 02! Utter two words, a neaientia’ “Some day . | | | |longer pay his dues to the unemploy- |to march toward the national gov-| | ernment and demand relief, the so- jcial-democrats in the beginning re-| factory; then still lower down was the purple bay, fringed along its By Jacob Burck | | Whenever a trade unionist can no ment fund he is automatically dropped out of the union and be- comes a danger to the very existence of that union. These workers are therefore prevented from getting) any’ relief whatever with the excep- tion of occasional aid from charity | institutions, As a result we see a greater number of these homeless workers wandering around through- out the country begging and looking for a place to sleep. These workers who, due to. the| reactionary policies of the trade} union leaders can neither get work nor public aid, and on top of this lose all civil rights, such as the vote, etc., are therefore completely aban- doned by the social-democratic party. When these workers began to revolt and apply for help to the social- democratic party they were told, “Well, we sympathize with you, but since you cannot vote you have therefore very little interest for the social-democratic party.” Where to Attack Workers? And the editor of the “Social- Democrat” in Copenhagen, trying to explain to the readers what a prole- tarian means, finally found in this army of homeless workers his actual conception of a proletarian, When due to the initiative of the Commun- | ist Party a movement was started) ceived the demonstrators from the various cities controlled by social- democratic’ mayors, but as the de- monstration grew they soon began to expose their real policy, which was to break up the demonstration but have it broken up in a con- servative controlled city. The gov- ernment controlled by the conserva- tives wanted to break it up in a social-democratic controlled city, as they were also pursuing a policy of “blaming the other.” The‘ conservative government suc- ceeded in having the demonstration broken up in a social-democratic con- trolled city, But under the leader- ship of the Communist Party the workers were reassembled and final- ly arrived in the city of Copenhagen where they were received and strengthened by a demonstration of 50,000 unemployed workers. The government was armed to the teeth and refused to even consider their demands, which were very modest, only the right to live and a place to sleep. The workers then marched to the municipal government con- trolled by the social-democrats, and demanded relief. The mayor, who in 1908 issued a proclamation to the Danish soldiers to turn their guns the right way in time of war, in 1927 told. his police to club and jail these homeless workers and refused even to feed 1,200 homeless persons’ for the time their negotiations would last. with the government in Copen- hagen. Only two weeks later he helped to grant 30,000 kronen to re- ceive the Belgian King and Queen and rink to the health of this “dem- ocratic” pair. Thus social-dema- eracy has been exposed’ time and again as nothing but a lackey of the capitalist class. The only party leading the workers in the everyday economic struggles, and which also took up the eaten in the fight for these renin ee our class was the Communist Party. And although very weak numerically, in this strug- gle and in the coming struggles it ‘will show itself as the only Party ‘capable of leading the Danish work- ing class to their final emancipa- | Had she divined their secret bond? By FEODOR GLADKOV Translated by A. 8. Arthur and C. Ashleigh All Rights Reserved—International Publishers, N. Y. CEMEN Gleb Chumalov, Red Army Commissar, returns to his town on the Black Sea after the Civil Wars to find the great cement works, where he had formerly worked as a mechanic, in ruins and the life of the town disorganized, He discovers a great change in his wife, Dasha, whom he has not seen for three years. She is no longer the conventional wife, dependent on him, but has become a woman with a life of her own, a leader among the women of the town together with Polia Mekhova, secretary of the Women’s Section of the Com- munist Party. Gleb wins over the leading Party workers to the task of ree constructing the factory and work is started. After a hard day's work Gleb and Dasha are returning home and are joined by Polia, Ca coat? | LEB remained silent as though he had not heard what Polia had sat@ Dasha was walking a little in front, breaking off a black twig here and there. “What lovely air, Comrades, green and in flower.” Why did Dasha walk on ahead of them? Was it on purpose? Perhaps she just wanted to bathe alone in this twilight softness, intoxicated with spring. “You said well, Dasha; we’re only near each other when we are like honey! Soon everything will be | working; but as human beings we are apart, strangers to each other. € That is one of our painful contradictions. We are only workers in the movement. If we just dare to touch each other, quite simply, like human beings, we become panic-stricken and retire into ourselves, Nothing frightens us so much as our own feelings, If you just look into any one’s eyes, they are cold, dead, metallic. We are always under lock and key; in the daytime we lock up our feelings, and at night our rooms.” “Yes, many talk like that. But the bulk of them are suffering from loneliness which they are afraid to acknowledge. They’re afraid people will make fun of them; they are afraid of a contemptuous look; they fear that they will be reproached with ‘idealogical inconsistency.’ But still they suffer—that is certain.” . * « ASHA was walking further ahead of them, snapping off the ends of twigs which broke with a little creaking cry like the cry of a bird. With a clumsy caress Gleb ruffled Polia’s curls. “You sing your serenade in vain, Comrade Mekhova. I’ve been attacking Dasha from all sides, but she still keeps me in my place.” Dasha gurgled with laughter, and from the distance you could see her teeth flashing. “Gleb is like you, Comrade Mekhova: he’s as tender as you are and always ready to play the bridegroom.” They were going up a path to the roadway. Above the distant ranges the sun was like blood and the big-toothed black mountains gnawed it as at a fiery pancake. Under the mountain the town stood out with rectangular distinctness: the straight blue streets running from the docks to the slopes, and then leading down into the valley. Beween the quays and the breakwater the sea foamed up like mother- of-pearl, throwing up black and red waves. The cubes and towers of the factory were piled up in a profound silence like rectangular eternal ice-bregs. “T’ve been asking myself some worrying questions recently, Com- rade, The New Economic Policy—we’re coming to a period of big contradictions, and we’re all pretending not to see them. I’m always worrying and expecting something dreadful to happen.” “What’s wrong then, Comrade Mekhova? You must pull your- self together. Come, I’ll give you a nice glass of hot water and saccharine, and then Gleb will see you home.” Polia looked at Dasha with frightened bewildered eyes, and then hurried along the path to a gap in the wall. * * . UI sorties looked after her for a long time, her face smiling with caress- ing mockery. “A good girl—and intelligent. where. What can it be? made a big hit with her.” “Dasha. . . . Don’t let’s go into our room. Let’s take a walk up the mountain and sit down and breathe for a while.” “Not a bad idea! Right, let’s go to the reservoir.” Gleb was ‘astonished. For the first time, Dasha had taken him by the hand and was walking-close to him like a good friend. She But she’s broken a spring some- Why don’t you see her off, Gleb? You’ve | was silent and Gleb felt that she was agitated. He felt that she wished to say something, but he could not guess what. Perhaps the kind of word that had been said in the early days of their love, or perhaps one that had never before been said by them, And Gleb was silent, waiting for that word from Dasha. Past the gardens and little houses they went; up the slope, over pebbles and gravel, past ledges of rock. The reservoir was high above Pleasant Colony. From here the water was brought down through conduits to the workers’ settlement and from there on to the labora- " tories, workshops, and other factory buildings. They skirted a pile of fallen rocks and passed a gallery which had been hollowed in the mountain-side, now closed by a padlocked rusty door; and this door, entrance into the depths of the mountain, en- cumbered. with heaps of stones, seemed ominous, like the mystery of an ancient heathen shrine. They arrived at a wide long concrete platform. It was pleasant and easy for walking, sonorously re-echoing one’s footsteps. * * * T their feet the red roofs of the barracks were piled around their chimneys. Behind these came the buildings and towers of the shore with locks of foam. Beyond the breakwaters rose the sea, an immense globe. The horizon dominated the chimneys and the moun- tain tops; and it was no longer possible to distinguish this distant horizon from the sky. Workers, solitary or in small groups, walked along the paths be- tween the factory and Pleasant Colony. And far behind the factory walls they could see a girl running, swinging her arms, in the light which was dying under the brown slope of the mountain. Dasha sat down on the smooth concrete, and about her knees she laced her hands, grained and scarred with work. “That’s Comrade Mekhova taking a walk. She’s a strange girl— sometimes as hard as iron, at others shaking like a twig. I’m afraid something may happen to her. Don’t you notice how she clings to you? You won’t repel her if she takes you to her heart?” Gleb, dumbfounded, was lying close to Dasha, He saw nothing in her face but a slight smile. What was the matter with her? Was she testing him? Was there a special meaning hidden in her words? He*did not know what to answer, whether to be angry or to laugh. She had divined his emotion, had caught in his sudden glances, in his sthiles and gestures, the reflection of Polia—the reflection of the ever- dancing sparkle of her eyes and expressive play of her brows. Two ‘waves were meeting and crossed each other in his heart. p 7 8 *@ WELL, little Dasha. . . . You're looking into all kinds of little corners. You're casting your line wide into deep waters.” Dasha lifted her head and smiled—ah, what a woman’s smile it was!—without looking at him. “Did you think I was talking riddles? I was only speaking straight out. It’s entirely your business. You know you've been quite free with regard to women? And, Mekhova and I, haven’t we equal rights, as two women?” “Oh, to the devil with you. You've simply got me! I don’t know how to answer that.” “Oh, Gleb, you're not very sly! You're not sly but you're a close one. You're weak and not straight enough. - Have I thrown any re- proaches at you for your affairs with women? And do you think I’m going to ask your permission for following my. own instincts os woman if I so desire?” Her words hurt him to the heart; she was so iereaintiblas be) » tra and firmly set in her truthfulness, that he was defenseless; he had no words with which to answer. And then, for the first hg (tat damned ravine!), he began to feel that he also had changed: Sr it he was not the same Gleb that he was yesterday; the old blood of him had been burned away; his mind had completely changed, In almost unbearable ‘pain, his soul rushed out to Dasha in boundless love—not . for a woman, but for a human being who stood nearer to him than any other. What would have happened to him had she Er the tee on that day when he was not thinking of her, but lived only tory, the engines and the workshop? anes ye was: the arse had sprung out of the Dasha of yesterday, Well, yes, there been something of the present Dasha hidden in her old self, but he had been blind to it; he desirous male in those days. sy vouyatal snd. starnty Af had: beens be ime had not dragged her to. his Berita ES had come of her own will, like ‘a little innocent girl that strong embrace. . . . ee