The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 27, 1929, Page 6

Published by the Comprodaily Publishing Co. Bunday, at 26-28 Union Square, New ‘Telephone Stuyvesant 1696-7-8. Cab SUBSCRIPTION RAT By Mai! (in New York ozly): $4.50 six months $2.50 By Mail (outside of New York): $6.00 a year $3.50 six months $200 three mon.he Addrese and mail all checks to the Daily Worker, 26-28 Union Square New York, . ¥. ey >-- Inc... Daily, except k City, N.Y. IRK.” ce AIWC $3.00 a year three months The British-American Cruiser Fake. The Hoover-MacDonald announcements of the stoppage of cruiser building are hailed by the capitalist press of both countries as evidence of the pacifist desires of their particu- lat governments. Jt is noteworthy, however, that the British press refers to the proclamation of Hoover as a gesture, while the American press uses the identical word to describe the MacDonald announcement. Thus, the London Daily Mail says: The president of the United States in peace gesture an- nounces that work will stop on three cruisers ‘until there has been an opportunity for full consideration of their effect upon the final agreement *for parity which we expect to reach.’” Tt is not accidental that the London publication deliber- ately quoted only that part of the Hoover statement which gives the lie to the claim that the United States has aban- doned is cruiser-building program. The New York Herald-Tribune, speaking for the Hoover administration, is equally as explicit as the London paper, and Says: “That jt (Hoover's statement) will halt the British tendenty to have a bigger cruiser force than ours cannot be predicted, but that Mr. MacDonald’s gesture is a most happy one no one can deny. Neither action is final; the significance of the episode must rest upon subsequent developments.” The very term “gesture”, clearly implies a lack of prin- ciple, indicates diplomatic trickery, which it is. The British press wants the British workers to take MacDonald seriously while impunging the Hoover motive, the American. press wants us to believe Hoover, while viewing the MacDonald proposals with suspicion. We are convinced that we are on the right track when we believe what the Bri- tish press says about the gesture of Hoover and what the American press says about MacDonald’s gesture. If there should be any slackening of the cruiser build- ing program of either nation it would not be on account of a desire to scrap the instruments of naval warfare, but for quite other reasons. No imperialist power will ever make a’ move to weaken its own armed forces. On the contrary, every move of any nature is always directed toward strength- ening the military machine. Perhaps there will be some de- lay in laying the keels of the new cruisers because of certain impending mechanical changes that affect their effectiveness. New technical improvements are in process of being per- fected according to the United States Daily that will make possible the production of a smaller Deisel oil-burning marine engine that will consume less fuel than the present ones, and yet be far more powerful because of higher compression. That means that cruisers of a certain tonnage (say the American 10,000 ton battle cruisers or the British 8,000 ton cruisers) will, by utilizing the smaller and more powerful engines, have more room for fuel so that ships will attain a greater cruising radius, and more room for ammunition. In addition to the im- pending introduction of the new Diesel engines for ships, there is also taking place experiments under the supervision of the United States army calculated to secure longer range for guns of precisely the type (8-inch) used on cruisers. Thus a delay of any sort in cruiser building would only be in effect until such time as machinery had been perfected to make them cheaper, more speedy, more powerful and more deadly. It will be notéd in connection with the gestures toward a slowing up of cruiser construction that every other branch of ‘national defense” is driving ahead full blast, in both of the imperialist countries. Wars are not fought with cruisers alone. . Both of these powers, along with the whole world, had an opportunity to show how enthusiastic they were for disarm- ament when the Soviet Upion proposed that the nations aban- DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1929 EER By Fred Ellis | By LISTON M. OAK. | Only a few hours remain before | twenty-three strikers and union or- | ganizers will go on trial in Gastonia, \fifteen charged with murder and jeight with assault with intent to kill and conspiracy in murder, Already reporters from leadin ' ion | publications in the north are. be. |*ttike on April 2, 1929, 2,500 work ginning to swarm in,—this indicates |@TS quit their jobs and flocked to | that the eyes of the nation will be | the banner of the N. T. W. U. The | focused upon Gastonia, every move | Sttike was on—a strike destined to | | will be scrutinized, and much more | Pecome historic. |than twenty-three workers will be| Bosses Hated “Noise.” | on trial. | Picket lines, indispensible in a | Alarmed by the growth of the Na-| strike, were organized. On the pre- | tional,Textile Workers Union, which | text of the noise made by the picket |is considered the strongest defense | lines, trying to get more workers to | of its imprisoned members, the mill] join their - ranks, the Manville- | owners continue to attempt to ter-|Jenckes Company asked for the| jrorize the workers,—unsuccessfully. | “protection” of the local police. On Strikers Correctly Resisted Brutal Attack By | Police; For This They Face Trial Review and Forecast of the Gastonia Case mill owners became more and more| crush the union at all costs, and by any means, legal or illegal. The Workers International Relief was on the job _ providing food, | tents, and other necessities for the | evicted destitute strikers, They live | at the subsistence level, never able | to save any money, and immediately after a strike begins must have aid. The I. L. D. was also there protect- | ing the strikers who suffered from various forms of legal persecution. Jalarmed, and more determined to | eted. |for the Loray mill. Buch and other speakers. The squabble that arose at this was qui- Then the picket line started It was met by | Police and the Committee of 100 and | broken up, with considerable bru- |tality that did not discriminate be- | tween sexes, Aderholt’s Raid. This was followed by the fatal raid upon the union headquarters. The men who accompanied Ader- holt were heard to express them- |selves as follows: “Now we might as well finish the job. Let’s go down and clean them bastards out. | We've got to do it sooner or later. |May as well do it now,” and simi- |lar expressions, What Is This Case? | This is an opportute time to re- |view the events leading up to the |shooting, and subsequent to the fatal raid, Fred Beal, well known in New England as one of the most cour- ageous of the leaders of the textile don all armaments. Certainly the trivial and hypocritical |Wrkers in their struggles, went to proclamations of Hoover and MacDonald cannot conceal their own warlike acts. It is not what statesmen say, but what they do that indicates their policies. And both these powers are at this moment aiding in an underhanded, contemptible manner, the drive for armed intervention against the work- ers’ ‘and peasants’ government of the Soviet, Union. ' Their pacifist gestures on the question of cruisers is a part of the general pacifist offensive of imperialism against ie rising tide of working class fury that will culminate in world-wide demonstrations and strikes on August 1st against imperialist war and in defense of the Soviet Union. The reply of the workers of America to the hypocrisy of Hoover must be more intensive mobilization for August ist. The Dannemora Prison Revolt. ryRE revolt of the prisoners in Dannemora penitentiary is not a new phenomena. It is only the latest of many Outbreaks that have occurred during the past few days in American prisons. The butchery of the Florida prisoners last fall was followed by the bloody massacre of Louisiana prisoners at Baton Rouge (Sept. 10, 1928). Within a week there occurred the riots in the Baltimore, Maryland, prison. ___ Time and again there have been outbreaks at Dannemora ihupper New York State. Constructed in 1845, always over- crowded, with no sanitary provisions whatever except the most primitive sort, the victims of capitalist justice are forced to rot away their lives amidst the most bestial sur- roundings. The terror ‘regime always in vogue, the dark celis, the tortures that are-remnants of the Spanish inquisi- tion, have, for years been notorious in that prison. ‘When unarmed men, shut up in a vile jail behind ‘steel bars and stone walls, are goaded to such desperation that they revolt. against well-armed guards. no further progf is necessary that conditions are so horrible that the prisoners would rather risk death than exist one day longer in such an ‘nvironment. Such revolts are a terrific indictment of the Penal system and of the sqciety which creates such conditions. Many of those who avere killed and wounded were to life as fourth offenders... This vicious law, placed upon the “statute books of New York state and copied by many other “States, ‘s as scientifically unsound as it is vile. It is besed “upon the illusion that crime is an individual phenomenon. In- stend of endeavoring to seck the cause of crime in the social Sonditions the policé, the courts and the jailors proceed upon £ “Baumes law’ prisoners, that is men who had been sentenced © work in the Loray mill in Gastonia in February, 1929. This mill, owned by the Manville-Jenckes Company, is the center of anti-unionism in |Gaston county, the center of the |cotton textile industry of the south. | The conditions in that mill are too well known to be repeated here, Be- sides it would take one whole issue | Tuesday evening the police attempt- | ed to break up the picket line by | stretching a rope across the street. | The strikers grabbed one end of it |and a tug-of-war ensued, Although |the result was not more than a |Scuffle won by the strikers, the |local authorities were forced by the | Manville-Jenckes Company to use |this 2s an excuse for calling in the militia to “quell the riot and pro-| teet the mill property.” | The militia immediately began to | clear the streets and prevent pick-| eting. The strikers refused to al-| low their right to picket to be trod under the heels of the soldiers. | Women who resisted the efforts of | Tom Jimison was engaged as the} When they arrived at the union I. L, D. attorney. | headquarters, they found an armed First Raid. | strikers’ guard. He asked them if On April 18, about 2 am., after|they had a warrant. The reply the police had cleared the way ‘by | was, “We don’t need no god damned arresting the strikers there, a mask-| warrant.” One of them grappled ed band wrecked the union head-|with the guard, trying to take his| quarters and raided the W. I, R.| gun away. The strikers from. the store, throwing all supplies out into | headquarters warned them to let| The reply of the Aderholt | the street. This, was done under | him go. the noses of the militia. raiding party was a fussilade of Amy Schechter and Ellan Daw-| shots. The strikers’ guard answer- son were arrested. Police were sent |ed with return fire and Aderholt to arrest Fred Beal, on framed-up | was fatally wounded. Gilbert, Fer- | charges, which were later dropped. | guson and Roach were also wound- “Investigators” from the gover-| ed, and a striker, Joseph Harrison, nor’s office were “unable” to find| was wounded, but all recovered ex- any clues as to who was in the | cept Aderholt. | the soldiers to drive them away of this publication to do justice to ‘were! beaten: |the ruthless open-shop exploitation, | 5 |the low wages, the long hours, the | Mill Thugs. jinhuman treatment, the stretch-out | The Manville-Jenckes Company | system, against which Beal began| organized its Committee of 100,| jto organize a struggle. Suffice it composed of superintendents, petty | jto say that while the Manville-|hosses, a few favored workers,— jJenckes Company now claims that “bosses’ pets” as the strikers called the average wage is $18.60, the fact, | them—and hired thugs and. spies. | quarters. |to indict anyone, gang who wrecked the union head- The Grand Jury failed It. became more and more evident to the strikers that they could not expect any pro- tection from the forces of “law and order,” all of whom were on the side of the mill owners, Picketing June 7, |as the workers or even the business | men of the city will tell you, is that | | the average wage was around $12 to $14 per week for 60 hours’ work. | *U. T. W. Betrayed Them. The rfill workers, betrayed in 1921 by the United Textile Work- This gang began an offensive | Meantime agitation, organization, against the workers, stopping at|mass meetings, went on with in- nothing in their attempt to break/|creasing energy. By June 7 over the strike. On April 10th, one troop of cay- jand a howitzer battery in the 50 per cent of the workers still at work in the Loray mill, who had jalry, out of the cavalry, infantry | been hesitant and suspicious, were Aderholt Admits Fault. On his dying bed, Aderholt is re- | ported to have said to the clergy- | man who attended him that “DON’T |PROSECUTE ANYONE FOR | THIS. I WAS WHERE I HADN’T | OUGHT TO BF.” They were all where they had no business to be, doing the dirty work of the Manville-Jenckes Company. The strikers were ‘right to defend their lives, the lives of their wives and children, their union and their property from the murderous at- tack of this gang. of Manville- ers Union, and because of the ex-| strike area, was removed. This was tensive spy system maintained by | replaced by a deputized “home the bosses, were at first suspicious | guard,” of hirelings of the mill own- | |of any union. But gradually Beal | ers, and members of the American built up, secretly at first, a strong | Legion. 6 local of the N. T. W, U. in spite| Despite all this the strike contin- of the threats of the employers to|ued to spread, and there were discharge anyone joining the union. | strikes in Forest City, Pineville, Finally the discharge of several Lexington, Greenville, Union, An- union members - precipitated «& derson, and Woodruff, 8S. C. The the exploded assumption that certain individuals are born criminals and must be tortured all the days of their lives. Such outbreaks should again remind every worker that the Baumes Law was passed at the instigation of the em- ployers and is calculated to imprison for life working class fighters whom the capitalists want to get rid of. These massacres of prisoners should lend a tremendous impetus to the agitation against such laws. In our comment upon the Louisiana and Baltimore prison revolts last fall the Daily Worker compared the American | prison system to the Soviet prison system. What we said then can be repeated in relation to the Dannemora outbreak: Contr#t the American torture system—the gallows, the elegtric chair, the lethal chamber, the ¢ark cells, solitary confine- ment—with the Soviet system. Instead of iron bars and small stinking cells, the prisoners of the Soviet state live in well- furnished, light, airy rooms. There are no iron bars and no re- strictions regarding their talking with other prisoners. Instead of won over and were ready to go out on strike at the signal from the union. On June 7, it was decided to send a strong picket line to the Loray mill as a signal for the night shift to walk out on strike, In the afternoon a mass meeting was held. While Fred Beal was speaking, the ewe provocateur of the Loray mill threw rotten eggs and stones at him, ‘and later at Vera een “During their terms of imprisonment they are taught some trade or profession that will make them useful mem- bers of society and enable them once and for all to abandon lives of crimes. They are granted vacations every six months during which time they may visit any place in the Soviet Union they choose. The Soviet prisons are in reality rehabilitation in- stitutions for human beings who have not been able to function mate private vis’ in a given social enviroment. Instead of being compelled to listen to the fatuous impreca- tions of priests and the imbecile bellowing of salvation army captains, the prisoners of the Soviet government are under care- ful observation of specialists in soner is a spegial problem and developing him to a stage where citizen of the country and of the world, instead of an outcast. This contrast is only one of tens of thousands that distinguish a Communist government from a capitalist government. Only the abolition of capitalism will end the fiendish tortures of prisoners the Florida, Louisiana and Balti- Only a society that exists for the benefit of the that provoke such outbreaks more affairs. being isolated from their families they are permitted long, inti- * masses will diseases. ~ beable. co iepely. eeleatis, Temeales ise, elt wocsal Jenckes hirelings, some of them with criminal records, and three of them now under indictment for as- sault and drunkenness. Uphold the right of workers to defend themselves against the at- tacks: of such vicious hirelings of the mill owners, Demand the re- turn to the ranks of labor of every one of the twenty-three strikers and union organizers. . criminal psychology. Each pri- every effort is directed toward he will consider himself a useful CEMEN By FEODOR GLADKOY, Translated by A. S. Arthur and C. Ashleigh All Rights Reserved—International Publishers, N. ¥. Gleb Chumalv, Red Army Commissar, returns to his home on the” Black Sea after the Civil Wars to find the great cement worke, where he had formerly worked, in ruins and the life of the town disorganized, He discovers a great change tn his wife, Dasha, whom he has not seen for three years. She is no longer the conventional wife, dependent om him, but 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 Communist Party. Under the direction of Gleb and with the support of Badin, chairman of the District Executive of the Soviet, the reconstruction of the factory is started. Nurka, Dasha’s little daughter, is in the Children’s Home where + she begins to waste away. « URKA was melting away like a burning candle—Nurka, the only, only Nurka. And no one could say why she was wasting away. What was the good of doctors if they couldn’t give you a single plain word and had no power to cure the illness which was consuming the child. This little one, after all, needed such little help from the adults, Yes, it was true: the doctors could not help in this affair. Dasha knew better than all the doctors in the world why Nurka was fading out like a little star at dawn. It is not only the mother’s milk which a child needs; it is nourished also by the heart and the tenderness of its mother. The child fades and withers if the mother does not breathe upon its little head, if she does not warm it with her blood, and does not surround its sleep with her care and presence. A child is like | spring apple blossom; Nurka was a blossom torn from the branclt and thrown upon the highway. The fault lay only in her, Dasha, and she would never be able” to throw it off. It was not the fault of her own volition, it had come from somewhere outside, from life, from that strength in whose power she was herself, to which she could not give the appropriate name. The words—revolution, struggle, work, Party—resounded like empty barrels. But the essential content of these words was something im- measurable, unavoidable, which she carried within herself; that was all: there, there was no death, and she herself was an unseen grain of dust. But Nurka was wasting, Nurka was going out like a spark. Nurka was there now—and then there would be no Nurka. Once, she had kicked joyously in her arms, pressed to her breast; then she had begun to crawl, learning to walk and to lisp her first words. Then she ran about and played. She grew. And even when death was grinning in Dasha’s face, Dasha could not forget her child. Then Nurka dis- appeared, dissolved into her blood with the rest of the past; and when one day Dasha was being marched up to the noose of death, it was without thinking of Nurka, who appeared at the last moment only like a far-away ghost. 5 OW she saw Nurka alive, with the face of an old woman and with sunken eyes made sad by death; and once again, as long before, she felt not strong enough to step over her body. And she saw: Nurka was her life’s sacrifice; and this sacrifice was unbearable for her. And this was a conversation which took place between Dasha and Nurka one morning: “Nurka, do you feel any pain, little daughter—yes?” Nurka shook her head. “No.” “What do you want? Tell me!” “I don’t want anything.” “Perhaps you'd like to see daddy?” “I would like some grapes, mummie!” “It’s still too early, my dove; the grapes aren’t ripe yet.” “I want to stay with you, so that .you’d never go away—and al- ways be near. . . - And some grapes... near you, and grapes... .” She was sitting on Dasha’s knees, the warmth of her body melting into Dasha’s warmth. And when Dasha put her to bed, Nurka lay looking at her for some time with her deep eyes; she was withdrawn into herself, Then, responding to Dasha’s silent fearful look, she said: “Dear mummie! mummie!” “What, my sweet?” “Nothing, mummie. Mummie, darling. . . .” * Po, ASHA left the Children’s Home. She did not go as usual down the high road to the Women’s Section, but walked into a thicket where she flung herself down on the grass. And here, in this lonely and unobserved corner, smelling of earth and vegetation, while the sun showered tiny flecks of light through the foliage, she lay crying for a long time, digging with her fingers into the mould. i 5 One night, during Gleb’s absence, Badin drove up to her house in an automobile. She heard the car panting outside the window and walked out of her room. On the shadowy porch they collided, breast. against breast. Badin wanted to embrace her, there, at once, but she sternly pushed him away. ' “Comrade Badin, that will never happen again.” Badin let his arms: fall, and became heavy and motionless. ““Dasha—I want to be alone with you... I hoped you'd re- ceive me a little more warmly.” “Comrade Badin, go away at once, please, and don’t chatter here im vain. He went away. She went in, closed the door firmly and shot the \ * * bolt, * * . 3. NIGHTMARE. - the morning, when Polia went to the Women’s Section, or when she returned home after four o’clock, she ran along the streets as though blown by the wind. With long strides she hurried over the pavement, the cobbled streets, the quays, neither looking round nor distinctly seeing the people before her. People walked by her side, met her, followed her, passed her, were reflected in her eyes as faded shadows. But she saw no faces; she saw*only feet: feet in boots, bare ‘feet, or feet in ragged ‘wrappings; trousers, skirts, and women’s socks, fallen down about the ankles, Just a lot of dusty feet unweariedly moving backwards and forwards. She did not look around her; she saw only the feet, her own and those of strangers. She could not raise her head to look calmly and steadily at the shop windows or through the open doors or at the people who appeared so different from what they used to be. She did not look, yet, somehow, knew that the women were not the same as they had been, a short time ago, in the spring: their clothes were smarter, flower-trimmed hats, transparent muslin, fashionable French heels. The mén also had changed: cuffs and ties and patent leather boots. Again there was a smell of perfume; voices sounded loud and joyful like those of birds. Through the open doors, in the cafes, one saw phantoms crowded in and out of the blue tobacco sfnoke, amidst the dull uproar of conversation; china was rattling, dice clattering in some game of chance, and from the depths of the tobacco-filled den issued the tones of stringed instruments. ‘ Where did all this come from ? And why did it come so quickly, so impudently and abundantly? And why did this all pass over her, Polia, oppressing her and filling her mind with trouble and melancholy? . c was as though she had strayed into a strange land, where she was lost; as though something had disappeared which was precious and irreplaceable, something without which she could not live, And also she felt shame, dishonor and an indefinable anxiety. She was afraid that some workman, or one of those ragged creatures, eaten up with hunger, with bleared eyes, would come up to her suddenly and ask: “Well? Is'this what you’ve come to? Is this then what you wanted? Strike them down, these rascals and hypocrites!” Anq this constant fear filled her with hallucinations, One day, in the beginning of August, she saw on the quay, on the car-lines, in the coal-dust of the wharves, she saw a great crowd * . .of ragged, hairy, wild-looking people. They lay in heaps or sat, or moved about jostling each other. Men, women, children. Babies cried, choked and sobbed. Someone was groaning dully. The women were picking lice out of each other’s hair. The men were searching for vermin in their shirts and the seams of their trousers. The faces of all of them were bloated. Busy passers-by would stop, curious, and would sniff the alr, as- tonished. “What's this? Starving? Famine?” And from the dirty, stinking, ragged mass, hoarse voices would “Starving! God has brought us here to punish us... . Perhaps we can get better. . . . We come from the Volga—from the fawiine country. . » » Starving!” he ae v (To Be Continued) Ne 4 ay