The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 6, 1929, Page 6

= a : Page Six {) °F DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 1929 wry “TET, wary | « a olthist ee —= | Daily Sa Worker Central Organ of the Communist Party of the U. S, A. | BEFO Published by the Comprodaily Publishing Co., » except Sunday, at $ Union Square, New ¥. Telephone vesant 1696-7-8. Cal RIPTION RAT: (in New York only): $8.00 a year six months $2.50 three months By (outside of New York): $6.00 a year six months $2.00 three months Adéress and mail all checks to the Daily Worker, Union Square. New York, N. ¥. * —— « Commissioner Wood Warns Employers Against Shop Papers OMMISSIONER CHARLES G. WOOD of the conciliation 4 service of the United States Department of Labor, who has been trying his hand at strikebreaking in the Southern textile area one of the government’s most adroit fighters against organized labor. His talents were developed over a period of years in a similar capacity in Massachusetts under Strikebreaker Coolidge and Murderer Fuller. In fact he made such a hit with Coolidge that he was the federal appointee selected by that worthy when the late Harding conveniently died in San Francisco in order to evade the Teapot Dome scandals. In an interview with one Anabel Parker McCann, scrib- bling for the New York Evening Post, Commissioner Wood warns employers against the disastrous effects of Communist shop papers. That these factory bulletins, edited by the Communist workers in various enterprises, are effective is fonclusively proved by the comment of Wood on these publi- eations: “They have appeared since 1927 (this is an error, they ap- peared much earlier.—H. M. W.) and some of them are still ap- pearing in all industries (the fact is MORE of them appear) widely separated, but they are confined mostly to the Northern section of the United States, extending from coast to coast. They take their names from the mill and factory where they are cir- culated. In Detroit a dozen or so have been issued in several of the automobile factories, such as the Buick Worker, Packard Worker, Ford Worker, Fischer Body Worker, etc. Similar pub- lications distributed in shoe factories, silk mills, textile mills, ma- chine shops, all carry the name of the company operating the industry. “Such publications appear suddenly among the workers in ® factory, few knowing where they come from. A worker may find one on his bench or in his coat pocket or in the pocket of his working clothes. It may be tucked under the door of his - home. I have seen many plans promoted by representatives of workers in many parts of the country, some good and some bad; but this method of attack against an employer is one of the most effective weapons brought into use. It invites immediate in- terest. It conta in print, matters which the workers them- selves are familiar with. The employer—victim of.this method of attack—is pretty sure to have a fight on his hands.” 1 Wood concludes his observations by advising executives of industries to “make their plants impregnable against this \form of attack.” He does not perceive that, under the wage system, where workers are exploited to the limit, there can be no such thing as making an industry impregnable against Communist attacks against the employer. As long as capital- ism exists, the very conditions of the working class will fur- nish a fruitful field for our agitation and propaganda. The comrade editors of the factory bulletins (shop papers) throughout the country will be highly complimented by this tribute to the effectiveness of their work by one eminently qualified to judge. This recognition of the power of the shop papers by one of the luminaries of the strike- breaking government apparatus should spur Party factory nuclei everywhere to pay much more attention to the shop papers, to establish them where none exist and to strengthen ‘and make more effective those now being published. Closely connected with the shop papers.is also the question of worker correspondents for the Party press. Every district committee should see to it that every shop nucleus in its jurisdiction has an active, energetic worker correspondent reporting to the Daily Worker and the rest of the Party press so that in the last sense of the word we can function as the collective agitator and collective organizer of the working class. Pacifist Masks Discarded for Open Offensive Against Soviet Union E MacDonald government of Britain, that a few days *4 ago was raising its voice in the international chorus of pacifist hypocrisy in an effort to fool the masses into in- activity on International Red Day against imperialist war and for the defense of the Soviet Union, has dropped its pacifist mask and is today openly traducing the workers and peasants government in the most shameful manner. The MacDonald government, afraid to force a break in the conversations on the question of recognition with the rep- resentative of the Soviet government before the Red Day demonstrations, immediately forced the break on August 2, less than twenty-four hours after the world-wide demonstra- tions, by making insulting and provocative demands that the Soviet Union cease Communist propaganda in Britain and agree to pay the czarist debts to British imperialists before further conversations can be held. Directly connected with the attack of the MacDonald agents of imperialism upon the Soviet Union is the growing arrogance of the Chinese bandit government that refuses to establish the status quo preliminary to negotiations over the Chinese Eastern Railway. . These two events, the breaking of conversations on rec- ognition by Britain and the impudence of the Chiang Kai- shek hirelings of imperialism, not merely met with the ap- proval but had the active support of the United States gov- ernment. One of the first acts of the MacDonald government when it came into office was to evade its pre-election promise to instantly re-open relations with the Soviet Union, and in- stead to enter into conversations with Ambassador Dawes for joint action against the Soviet Union. The provocations on the Manchurian border are deliberate attempts to foment a war of imperialist invasion against the Soviet Union, an attempt to withdraw forces from the western border to the Siberian frontier so that the armies massed on the borders of Finland, Poland and Roumania might invade Soviet ter- ritory on that front. The demonstrations of the masses led by the Communist Parties of the world on last Thursday, August First, was, as Moscow Pravda said, “a war test of future fighters behind the barricades and showed clearly that-an important part of the working class realized the war danger, and means that “at the moment of mobilization the Communist Parties will rise full-armed to meet the capitalist declaration of war.” August First was not the climax of a movement, but an nportant stage in the fight against imperialist war. We drive forward from August First to ever greater strug- against the imperialists and their social democratic RE THE BATTLE By VERN SMITH one. All the loggers in the Pacific Northwest were on strike. Some of the saw mills were struck. Police persecution, murder of workers by lumbers barons’ gunmen, widespread arrests, the use of militia and regu- lar slodiers throughout the distriet— all of this became a commonplace. Just as, later, in the southern tex- fighting for shorter hours, and in the company houses (in the lumber industry, bunkhouses). In tia and gunmen, they were winning. | And in the end, they did win, though {during the war their organization |was outlawed, and _ considerably smashed. |as soon as the war ended. The summer of 1917 was a wild} tile mills, the lumber workers were | more | wages and better conditions at work | spite of every use of police and mili- | It began to reassert itself | Article 11—The Central the Present Gastonia Struggle and Trial By William Gropper I ia Case; Similarities to against the strikers were distributed | broadeasst. “Suppress the agita- tors”, “Hang the Bolshevists”, “If the agitators were taken care of we would have very little trouble”, “De- port the radicals or use the rope”, ete., were the slogans used by the Centralia bosses. The “Citizens’ Protective League” was organized in Centralia composed of the chamber of commerce and the mill baron’s crowd—just as Gas- | tonia had its organized gunmen, the “Committee of One Hurdred,” the | chamber of commerce crowd and the mill crowd. | Centralia lies in the heart of the | lumber country. The Lumber Work- ers Industrial Union of the I. W. W. established headquarters there, a regular lumber workers’ union hall ings, lectures, ete., were held. It was not such a different union head- quarters from the first office of the National Textile Workers Union in Gastonia. Boss Organizes Attack | In May, 1918, under the direction |of F. B. Hubbard, president of the | Employers’ Association of the State | Eastern Railway and Lumber Co., a Red Cross parade was organized in Centralia. This parade left the main streets of the town, went down a side street where the union hall was located; it was following a route arranged by the Chamber of Com- merce. At a word of command, the lumber baron’s gangsters at the rear of the procession broke ranks, raided and practically destroyed the union headquarters, beating and clubbing the union men inside. A victrola was stolen by James Churchil!, own- er of a glove factory. Hubbard him- self got the secretary’s roll-top desk. No one was ever punished for it. And the unionists decided that the next time an arson mob came, de- stroying and looting, they would fight. It will be remembered that in Gas- tonia, too, the first union headquar- ters and relief station was wrecked and all inside smashed or stolen, by a masked mob of mill owners’ agents, who also abused a union man found therein, and that a grand jury white- washed all participants in the raid. Also that the unionists plainly warned everybody, in telegrams to the governor and messages to the press, that a second such outrage would be resisted. The Second Raid. In each case there was a second outrage, and the unionists fired in self defense. The fatal attack in Centralia came November 11, 1919. This was after the war, and the Lumber Workers Industrial Union was growing fast. A criminal syndicalism law failed to smash them, for juries started to ac- quit defendants. The Employers’ Association issued much written propaganda in the form of leaflets, letters, etc., just as |where union and educational meet- | of Washington, and owner of the) The Conspirators. On October 20 a meeting of these good business men was held in the Elks Club, at which lawyers admit- ted there was no legal way to get rid }of the union hall. William Scales, | commander of the American Legion | Post in Centralia and chairman of | the Elks Club meeting, then stated: “I'm not in favor of raiding the hall myself, but I’m certain that if any- body else wants to raid the I.W.W. hall, there is no jury in the land who will ever convict them.” This is typical boss lynch talk. The Southern employers’ press after the Gastonia raids was full of just such statements about lynching. Al- ways a saving clause. “We advocate legal methods,” but “if the outraged community did something, nobody could blame it.” Plain provocation, very slightly disguised. Decision for Self Defense. A plot was made to raid the hall and lynch the unionists in it during the Centralia celebration of Ar- istice Day. The news got out, as he plan to raid the tent colony in Gastonia leaked out, and the 1.W.W. issued a warning in the form of a leaflet, as the Gastonia textile strik- ers wired a similar warning to the governor of the state, saying in each case, in substance: “We will defend ourselves if necessary.” The American Legion headed the parade on Armistice Day, in Centra- lia, the parade turned around and marched back past the union hall. Lieutendnt Cormier gave a signal and the legionnaires rushed the hall. Some carried ropes for the lynching. Notice should be taken here of the fact that the American Legion in Gastonia, aftet the raid and shoot- ing, voted at a meeting of some 600 of its members to assist the legal lynching of the Gastonia strikers, and gave its blanket approval to the | Driven into the Chehalis river, Ev- | jail, until one man came to the ha- Casagranda, died in the hospital of wounds, In the hall were Wesley Everest, Bert Faulkner, Ray Becker, Britt Smith, Mike Sheehan, James McIn- erney and Tom Morgan, all lumber workers and union members. All but Everest remained in the hall guietly until the authorities came to arrest them. Everest slipped out the back door; the mob caught sight of him and pursued, firing at him. erest turned, came out, and on its bank shot Dale Hubbard, nephew of the jumber kind, as waving a pis- tol given him on the way by Ben Coleman, Hubbard led the Legion- naires in their rush. Lynching. That night Everest was taken from his cell in the county jail, hor- ribly beaten, loaded into an automo- bile, mutilated with a razor, hanged from the Chehalis river bridge, pulled up, alive, hanged again with a longer rope, and still again, until his head was nearly jerked from his body. He was left hanging, dead. Centralia business men did it. Lum. ber lords did it. The lynchers cut up the rope used the first time they dropped Everest over the bridge, and each lyneher carried home a piece an inch long for a souvenir. All the prisoners were tortured, beaten, kicked and threatened with death. ,Torture. In Gastonia, too, after the first raiders were driven away from their work of destruction by gunfire, the police and deputies came back, seiz- ed prisoners, and tortured them in beas corpus hearings days later with the blood stains from his beating showing red through his shirt. In Gastonia, too, every effort was made to incite a lynching, which failed only because there were not enough lynchers. Then came the Centralia case’s trial, with every agency of the bosses used to prejudice the case, and with the lumber barons paying for six of the best known lawyers in the state as special prosecutors, the prosecu- tion being headed by W. H. Abel and C. D. Cunningham, both attorneys for the lumber trust. So, too, in Gastonia, the mill bar- ens have hired a battery of special prosecutors, including the son-in-law Self Deferise in a Lumber Town tale of shots fired before the attack started, with small success. It brought several witnesses to give a shadowy identification of Eugene Barnett, which they did after much prompting. Barnett was not in the hall, and was arrested at his home, miles away. He was a well known leader of the lumber workers. The men who lynched Everest came down to swear falsely to the prosecution’s theory. The jury did not believe them. One juror, Harry Sellers, ac- cording to affidavit of Jurors In- man, Sweitzer and Hulton, bulldozed the majority of the jury into the be- lief that they dared not acquit the defendants, though most of the ju- rors thought them innocent. The judge allowed the jury to think that if they brought in a verdict of sec- ond degree murder there would be a light sentence, just long enough to keep the men safe in prison until the mob hysteria had died down. How the Jurors Saw It. Juror Torpen describes the situa- tion in the jury room as follows: “I| felt that I ought to have voted for an acquittal. On the other hand, I was afraid that a hung jury would mean a new trial with a worse jury, and the innocent men would be put to death, so I voted for a second degree verdict against seven, with acquittal for two. It seemed better that way.” “T remember,” says Torpen now, “when we went to the window and got the first sight of the soldiers. ‘My God!’ one of the jurors remark- ed to me, ‘they are there to keep us from being shot.’ I couldn’t see why we should worry. But some of them did. A man had to be plain onery to do any thinking. Some, I’ll always figure, had their thinking all done ‘and out of the way when they took their seats in the jury.” Jury Admits Innocence. Nine of the twelve jurors have signed, after the trial, statements that they do not believe the men con. vieted had a fair trial, and most of them say that had they heard evi- dence barred by tHe judge on tech- nicalities, they would have acquitted them. But Judge Wilson got his verdict of “guilty” for the lumber trust and kept his promise of leniency by giv- ing sentences of “from 25 to 40 years” to Bert Smith, O.*C. Bland, James McInerney, Bert Bland, Ray Becker, Eugene Barnett and John Lamb. Elmer Smith, the union at- torney ,tried because he told the men they had a legal right to defend their hall, and Mike Sheehan were found not guilty. Loren Roberts, not in the hall, was adjudged in- of the governor, and placed the Man- ville-Jenckes “attorney at the head of their prosecution. police officers who did the raiding and were shot during their attack on the tent colony. In Centralia the union men in the hall shot back as the door crashed in, just as the Gastonia strikers shot back when they were fired upon by police—-mere trespassers as far as. the law goes—attacking them on their own grounds without warrants. Attackers Shot. Two of the mob, Warren 0. Grimm and Arthur McElfresh, were ___later,. in Gastonia, little handbills | killed in the attack, and another, Ben The Centralia case was tried in Montesano, seat of Grays Harbor County, by Judge Wilson, in a court room crowded with soldiers, the jury being told the soldiers were to keep them safe from I. W. W. violence. Evidence for Defense There was plenty of evidence that the Legion was the aggressor, as there will be plenty of evidence available that the police shot first in Gastonia, The prosecution tried to tell a sane, but is serving the same life sentence as the others, in the same penitentiary at Walla Walla, Wash- ington. The Centralia case shows what can be done in ‘utter defiance of the evidence, by a prosecution which cleverly uses mass hysteria and mob hatred to influence a trial. These same tactics will be attempted at the Gastonia trial, are being employed already, in fact. Huge masses of workers must be mobilized to offset this mass hys- teria being worked up by the em- ployers, bent on 4 legalized mugder. By FEODOR CEMEN GLADKOV| Translated by A. S. Arthur and C. Ashleigh All Rights Reserved—International Publishers, N. Y. i A SHUDDERING sigh passed through the hall; there was a low mur- mur, “You must speak more precisely, Comrade Savchuk. There are many different kinds of heads; certainly there are some which ought to be broken, but some should be better guarded even than your own, For instance, what about our heads—are they among those which ought to be smashed?” “How the devil do I know what’s inside them? You’ve got the people together here, and you’ve got them all worried. . - . We've got enough masters and commanders already, enough to pave the streets with!” The thin man was blind and deaf. He did not look onee at Savchuly Gleb rose behind the table, his teeth clenched. Comrade Savchuk, stop this bullying and swearing! know how to behave?” Savehuk pressed his stomach up against the table, muscles crawled under his blouse; ti burst. “Shut your jaw, you swine! are you all worked up about?” He drowned all voices in the hall with his roaring. “Don’t stop his mouth, Comrade Chumalov. He’s doing the job all right!” A woman was shouting loudly and walking quickly down the aisle between the seats, “Savchuk doesn’t tell how he’s been lapping up home-made vodka and how he’s been breaking the bones of his wife Motia. He’s such a swine to his wife; I could strangle him with my own hands!” “Yes, all the men are like that—a dirty lot! The women have to be here and there, with a pot and a bag, ready for a blow, or ready for bed, or ready to feed him; they must be quiet and bear children every year. The men want to be bosses and play the grand! They’re all the same—the wretches!” Don’t yoru shoulder veins in his neck were ready to I’m no loafer, you bastard! What (ES women began to scream and riot and wave their hands. 4 The baited Savchuk turned to the crowd; under his matted hale his eyes glistened like those of a wolf. | “Fools, you stink, you rotten swine!” 4 Laughter. The walls trembled and the chandelier seemed tay wink and resound. Motia ran down the gangway to the thick of the crowd. was shouting and snarling. “It’s not true! Not true! It’s a lie! I've beaten him too.” (Laughter.) “The whole lot of you are not worth the sole of Savchuk’s shoe. We all have to be beaten, chat~ tering hens that we are—all, without exception! We have lost our kids, ruined our homes—fools that we are! We've become a lot of female loafers! None of us are worth the sole of Savchuk’s shoe!” The people had suddenly become quiet, shocked and bewildered. They were deafened by Motia’s shrieks; and the women and men stared at her with eyes getting larger and larger. “And where is Savchuk’s sole; he’s barefooted!” Motia shrieked angrily, standing and stamping her foot. “Don’t you dare to touch Savchuk! Yes, Savchuk’s the best of She If Savchuk has beaten me, you all! Don’t let them get you, Savchuk! Savchuk’s afraid of no- body! He’s the best and strongest is Savchuk!” . * Pee shivered and shrank together as though with the ague. She sat close to Serge and never took her eyes from the table, Fas- cinated, she was looking at the gaunt member of the Commission, and her lips were parted in a smile. But only her lips: her face was marbled with dark shadows, like that of a sick person. Serge was in a confused state of joy and excitement. Wasn't it all the same whether this joy came to him from within himself or whether it came from the crowd which sat there bathed in light? Joy sang and laughed with a child’s laughter in every cell of his being, and everything—this sweating crowd, the laughing whispers Ce him, the chandeliers with their clusters of fiery grapes—seemed un- usually new, filled with a deep significance and importance. Every- thing was reduced to the primitive, the simple and naked. And the laughing and whispering, the curiosity of the crowd, and this curious sort of trial at the table where traps seemed to be set in play—it was all human and simple, arising from a series of uncomplicated move- ments. He need only seize isolated sounds and gestures, or sometimes the long wave of sighing—and everything became so clear and divert- ing! Isolated instants—torn from life—so full of lively animal play! But why did this game, through the relating together of these iso- lated instants, become such a great and complicated process? This complex process was the great destiny of mankind; and is not the destiny of mankind tragedy? Father says differently. Perhaps there are single moments which contain within themselves a whole his« torical cycle? Perhaps the most important is not time—but the mo< ment; not humanity, but man? wey did Polia’s ears seem superfluous? They bloomed like open petals. When she breathed, her nostrils distended and became pale at the edges. Her blood pulsated in red drops, pouring through the veins; and in that blood was pain and anguish. And in that blood is the whole sense and solution of human life, all its joy and all its simplicity. ’ “Comrade Serge Ivagin?” He got up. Took one step, two, three. . . . He stood still. was all so simple and meaningless almost to absurdity. He spoke without the least effort. He heard his own voice and saw the crooked nose, hard as a beak, before him. It did not lools like skin, but clay mixed with water. “Was it your brother, the Colonel, who was shot a short while ago? Did you see him often before he was shot?” “I met him twice before; once at the bedside of my dying mother, and the other time when, with Comrade Chumalov, we caught him while he was signalling.” “Why did you not try to have him arrested after the first meet~ ing?” “Obviously there was no reason for it.” “Why didn’t you leave the town with the Red Army in 1918? Why did you prefer to stay here with the Whites? Were you so certain you would not be shot?” “No, how could I b. certain? I saw no reason to run away; it was possible to work here!” “Ah, you were not a Communist then at that time? Well, then it’s quite understandable.” “What’s understandable? standable’?” “Comrade, I am not obliged to answer questions. debate. You are free.” This ‘What do you mean by your ‘under- This is not a . ° . ' ee did not go back to his place, but walked between the rows of workmen down the middle of the hall, and it seemed that, side by side, with him and walking towards him, were several other Serges, all with bald patches and misty eyes, looking attentively at him. It seemed he was walking along a moving narrow plank, always down, down. And he could not control his steps, as if it were not he who was walking, but the narrow plank sliding under his feet, giving him scarcely time to keep stepping. Countless faces, rough hands, swim- ming in smoke and fiery mist, piling up on all sides in a suffocating stuffy heap... . Then suddenly it all disappeared like a vision. \He ran out through the open door. There was the marble staircase, with its massive carved balustrade, and the two oak columns on top of which burned the mother-of-pearl lamps. The corridor was empty, full of a singing silence, From somewhere, behind shut doors, came fresh young voices —the Young Communist League. The Party Cleansing Commission. The gaunt man blind in face and blind in movement, inaccessible in thought, neither smiling nor feeling pain—he seemed to have no lines on his face. Gromada and Savchuk were in his power and Polia, Gleb and Dasha will be the same. They all looked at him anxiously. They all have this terror in their hearts, and he also; it was twisting in his heart like a worm. Do questions ever reveal the soul of man? Are answers to them ever convincing or true? There are no right questions and no true answers. Truth is that- which questions do not invoke, and it cuts right across all answers, having its own direction. -4Sfe Be Continued) a nt § ( : 3 " i | 1 c