The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 12, 1929, Page 4

Page Four West Virgin BOAL DIGGERS ARE RIPE FOR A 12 MMLITANT UNION | Robbery of Men Thru Check System (By a Worker Correspondent) FAIRMONT, W. Va. (By Mail).— In the vicinity of Scotts Run, Reeves ville and Arnettsville, West Virginia, ure many mines. Some were once nes and some have never union mi belonged to a union. Ripe For Good Union. Conditions are ripe for the build- ing of the National Miners Union in this part of West Virginia. Many miners are working from ten t teen hours a day and are only get- ting $2 to 38 cents a ton. On my way to a meeting at Liberty, I stopped to look at the tonnage sheet and on one side wes this notice: “Motormen $4.75 per day, brakemen $4.25 per day, drivers $4.25 per day, bradishmen $4.50 per day, pumper | $4.20 per day, pushers $3.60 per day, cutside labor $3.50” — and many | other itemized labor rates. None of the mines have the same rates. | Some of them pay as low as $2.60 per day and these people pay $12.00 a month house rent and extra for light. __ DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, M AY, AUGUST 12, 1929 nt 1a Miners Suffer tro ee Workers Die in Constructing This The bridge shown above, to span the Hudson River from Fort Lee to Manhat- tan, is nearing com- get the eredit ‘for building the bridge? The workers took the risks, and as a work- er correspondent of the Daily Worker writes “There have been over @ score of workers killed on the job of building the bridge over the Hud- son. These are con- cealed in the capital- ist press. Injuries happened nearly eve- ry day. These were due to company ne- glect. Many sandhogs were overcome by the bends.” pletion, But who took | the risks? And who'll G0 TO JAIL OR ~ WASH DISHES,” JOBLESS TOLD Cleveland Boss Pays Only a Meal | (By a Worker Correspondent) | CLEVELAND, Ohio (By Mail).— | Directly opposite the newly built Union Depot is a restaurant which bears the name of “Emporium.” Here, there exists an example par | excellence of bossism. There one} ean readily see that no difference | exists between the big boss and his small fry brother. In that place I went to work as a cook. | My pay for 84 hours a week is the munificent sum of $20 per week with an additional reward of a few | hours off once in a while, providing |I do not ask for a leave of absence | toa often. Conditions such as this are general |here in Cleveland, with the workers {in the food industry entirely unor- ganized as yet into a strong union such as exists in New York. But enly begins now. Shortly after midnight there en- | ters into that establishment an_of- |ficer, eats to his heart’s content, | m Wage Cuts and Rotten Conditions, Says Worker MARIN HERE TO “FOOL WORKERS OF PORTO RICO Political Quacks in Wall Street Service We publish below the first of a series of letters from a Porto Rican worker now in New York telling of the conditions of the workers and peasants of that isl- and under*Wall Street bondage; he tells also of the quacks who serve as the tools of Wall Street in keeping the Porto Rican work- ers enslaved, particularly those of the socialist party. The first let- ter below. deals with one of these misleaders who has come to New York to mislead the Porto Rican workers here. * * * since the coming to New of Luis Munos Marin, the last cf a long line of political “has beens” in Porto Rico, a movement has been on foot in Lower Harlem to organize all Porto Rican fraternal, benefit | wait, the main part of my story jand political organization into what three, is the one who is chosen to is termed by Mr. Marin as “a strong and powerful fraternal body.” This movement was carefully, and cunningly planned long before our |has a cigar on the hotse, and then | friend Marin junketed to New York | his life, gets drunk and has an ar- ‘a most surprising question is asked | by the seek-power-and-influence di- ‘William A. Brady Presents RAIN GOMES TOO: First New To William A. Brady goes the honor of presenting the first new |play of the season, A drama of life in a college town, entitled “Now- | A-Days,” it was written by Arthur |B. Brash, a newcomer in the ranks jof playwri-hts. I+ is at the For- rest Theatre, Those who like their drama raw, even though it seems impossible at times, will like this little play of contemporary life among the sons and daughters of the rich who re-| ceive a college “education.” Accord- | |ing to this play, sex and drink are the major elements of college life, |the girls even drawing lots as to | who will seduce a male virgin. The |talk is plain and unvarnished and |will bring many a smile and per-| haps a laugh from those who are | \in a merry mood. Three girls who live in the col- ‘lege town, bored over their past affairs with the college boys, decide that one of fhem will try to add to their list, Boyd Butler, football jhero. Boyd does not drink and \cares less for women. He is mostly jinterested in winning a scholarship | |for Oxford. Paula Newhall, the wildest of the | get” Boyd, She takes him in her jfast car to a questionable rooming | house run by a certain Mrs. Fisher. | There, Boyd, for the first time in| | gument with a bootlegger, who also New Play of Season | ate 10 HELP THE bootlegger draws a gun to shoot Boyd, but Paula hits him on the head with a bottle of whiskey and kills him. Panic-stricken, Paula leaves Boyd in the rooming hou with the dead man and_ hurries home. Boyd, unconscious from the bootleg whiskey, is later rescued | by two friends who manage to get him back to his room at the col-| lege. Police get on the trail of the mur- derer and find Boyd’s fraternity ing near the dead man. Boyd confesses to the crime, not knowing N. DAK. FARMERS Farm Board Not Wor- ried About Farmers (By Farmer Correspondent.) RAY, N. D., (By mail).—Rain has finally come here but too late to be of much help for the present. crop. The hot winds of a few days 5 ‘ jago have shriveled the grain con- that he did not do it. Just as he |siterably and the yield will not is being led off to jail, Paula tells \nearly be what was expected some the true story of what happened weeks ago, and takes poison. She then drops | . 5 fe dead, It is a fitting climax to a| AS Soon as rain was reported on play that is crammed full of ex- | the grain exchanges of the | citing epinoden, |wheat took a tumble of several Of course, Boyd. mects the right | cents, despite the fact that mois- girl after all, and when the final ture now is of very little benefit in curtain falls he is in the arms of making for * heavier yield, but Barbara Herford, daughter of a then, this is something that doesn’t leading physician of the town, Could | Worry the food speculators. anyone desire a more happy end-| A very few farmers have wheat ing to the play than that? left from last year and these will Mayo Methot portrays Paula, and|make some mone; at present prices, gives a powerful characterization of |but this does not, of course, assist a girl of that type. Melvin Doug-|the vast masses of small farmers las does well as Boyd, and Edward , who have no carry-overs. The Pawley is true to life as the boot-|small farmer is going to be up legger. Others in the cast include | against it this coming winter. The Allen Davis. Jessie Bonstelle, director of’ the Irene Blair, Peggy f&hannon and | wheat yield is so low in most places in the Northwest that after expenses have been deducted for cutting and Civie Theatre, Detroit, staged thelthreshing, there will be very little |by the boss: “How does the park | rectors of the bourgeois fraternal or- | Drink Mine Water. left for the farmer and his family, ‘ _ became a renegade, joined the cath- we Sanitation throughout this vicinity js very poor. The people drink wa- ter drawn from the-mines. Garbage eans go for months without being emptied. The toilet pits are running over, drawing flies, giving off a very cfiensive odor. e The companies post aotices that they will pay at 2 o'clock and then report that there will be no y-day until a month later. "Then again another report will be stuck up “Pay at 2 o’clock”—and then keep them waiting until 5 o'clock and later, roasting in the summer and freezing in the winter, as they usually pay at the mine and thé miners are usually out in the epen, the bookkeeper paying from a little window in the mine office. The companies usually pay by the check system, then most of the time won't cash them, thereby forcing the miner to spend what few dollars he gets (if he has any left) in the ee eal company stores. When You go to town you have to spend | two fo three dollars to get a check "cashed. More Wage Cuts. Pureglove Mine No. 1 posted no- tices of a wage-cut.. Immediately jeeciterward, the National. Miners Union handed out leaflets urging no wage cuts, and in a short time the €ompany tore down the wage- cut sign. While the Union is still young, not a year old, it is already ‘ showing signs of strength. ****In Liberty there are three Na- —tional Miners Union charters hang- ing on the wall Many miners in this vicinity have belonged to a union before and many are right from the cotton fields of Georgia and Ala- bama. The men load from four to five ton cars and only get on the same cars two and a half to three tons’ weight. A moticn was put before the house to place a check-weighman on the tipple, which was carried. A check-weighman was put on the tip- ple and many men have already voiced their sentiment as to better weights. Since the check-weighman was put on, the company is trying to discourage the men by giving them slow turn and holding them in the mine all day to get that, but the men say they are better satisfied as ~ they are not half so tired and are getting correct weights for what they load. The National Miners Union has approximately 80 per cent. of Scotts Run and surrounding territory, but owing to conditions there much edu- cational work is needed. The situa- tion in West Virginia gives rise to greater courage for a strong and militant union. Martha Moore Avery, Red Baiter, Is Dead BOSTON, Aug. 11.—Mrs. Martha Moore Avery died here Friday at the age of 78 years. She was one time active in the socialist move- ment, but some twenty years ago olic church and devoted the rest of her life to slandering revolution- ists. Her favorite topic was “so- cialism and free love.” She trav- eled over the country with another apostate, one David Goldstein, noted _ a3 the only catholic who wi _ tized” by a rabbi. Goldstei vorite subject was “Socialism— a ion of fatherless children.” las * ” * Martha Moore Avery died two days after Victor L. Berger, The difference between her and Victor | was that she left the socialist move- it-and attacked it from the out- ‘side, while Victor aided the capi- ' talist class fight the working class ‘by remaining inside the movement. Press Carnival at Pleasant Bay rk Sunday, August 18th, Meke this Carnival a mass sons: tion for th> revolu- - Uonery press. | Sell tickets fer the Daily j ; _ Wor’ > Press Carnivah 4 Chicago Food Fakers Use Autocrat Methods in Union The worker%correspondent who wrote the following letter wrote a letter which was in the Daily Worker about two months ago, telling of the situation among the Chicago food workers brought about by the misleadership of the International Hotel and Res- taurant Employees Union, run by the McDevitt machine. He now presents further developments. + * 8 (By a Worker Correspondent) CHICAGO (By Mail). — In con- junction with my prev corres- pondence, I am now in a position to| give you further information of the | situation that now exists in the city of Chicago among the food work- ers, In Kansas City, Mo., in the week of Aug. 12, will be held the Inter- national Convention. Of course, as in all conventions there must be delegates elected. be accomplished?” “How it should be accomplished” is provided for in the International by-laws. “how it was accomplished.” There was an executive board ap- pointed by the International organ- izer shortly after he arrived in Chi- cago, little less than a year ago. This executive board was known as the ways and means committee. Needless to say, the most of these members were strong for the “yes” or “no” kind, as the organizer de- sired them to be. Two in particular, the one who was appointed as chair- man, Lovelace, and Secretary derson. The former has comple passed out of the ur The situation has eady been presented in a former article. How- ever, it must be mentioned that the control of the delegates to the con- vention is a very important factor. Now, the great} question arises: “How should this | It is another thing again | |to the convention, that it was neces- sary for them to take this hurry up course. Certain members, who objected to this procedure, got up a petition and had it signed by about 25 mem- jbers and read it the evening of the meeting for the installation of of- ficers. According to the Interna- tional by-laws, this must be done, Then the secretary must attach the seal and sign it and also the pres-| ident must do the same. This they declined, at the advice of the gen- eral-president, in spite of the fact that we called to their attention the clause in the International by-laws. During the meeting some one of |the worthy members got up and made a motion that the “seal of the union should be denied.” The funny part of this was that the motion was defeated by a standing jvote of 24 to 18, Still the secre- |tary declined to put the seal there- in, This is one more proof of the lack of a desire on the part of our {International officers to really. or- _ganize the workers. Their game of | politics and their soft jobs and good \salaries are the important things in their lives, So we appéal to the class con- scious workers to join the progres- sive groups that exist in a great many of the major cities and put a stop to these labor fakers and also build up an industrial union in our crafts, —CHICAGO FOOD WORKER. “STRIKE AGAINST 0% WAGE CUT At first it was the desire of the |, 4 . organizer to appoint the required |300 Auto Workers in number, and needless to say, they would have been easily instructed. A couple of the members of the aforementioned ways and means committee, who happened to be members who would not “yes” and “no,” objected to this manner of doing something that rested with the membership at large. So at the lact meeting of the ways and means committee, one of these members made a_ motion, which was duly seconded by the other member, that the member- ship should be noti‘ied by mail that there would be a nomination of del- egates on a certain day the follow- ing week. This of course, did not fit in at all with the idea of the Hon. Bro. MecDevitt’s plans, so lo and; behold, what did he do? Nothing less than immediately circulate a petition, which he claimed was signed by fifty members of the choicest, to have the nomination two days after the petition was signel; they also must have requested secrecy, as there weren’t any members up there who might object to these tactics. They also made the motion that was made by the member who was not on the inside, read “election,” instead of “nomination,” * which would of course, be unconstitutional, Revolt KALAMAZOO, Mich., Aug, 11.— | Three hundred men have struck here | against the brazen announcement of the Limousine Body Company of a 50 per cent wage cut. In the hope that a corps of mechanics would re- |main to break in scabs, workers de- clare that concessions were prom- ised to many. However, only three men remained in the shop. Prominent advertisements offer- | ing “good pay and steady work” for | all types of auto body mechanics are appearing daily in the Toledo pa- \pers. No mention. of course, is made jof the strike. Obviously the body | company hopes to trick some of the 8,000 unémployed in Toledo into seabbing. Under the leadership of. the left | wing Auto Workers Union, which is calling a preliminary conference Au- gust 24 to organize a national union, a series of strikes in automobile and |body plants have occurred during | recent months. The most recent of | these was the militant struggle of the Murray Body Plant workers | which enlisted in the picket line over |a thousand unemployed auto me- |chanies who refused to scab. Sporadic strikes are spreading }look tonight?” “O. K.,” answers the minion of | the law with a grin. What? Said| I to myself, is it possible that aj slave driver such as my boss is a| lover of nature. And I listened fur- | ther but could get no more of their conversation, as work took me out of ear-shot. But what the little na- ture talk meant, we shall soon find out. About ten or fifteen minutes later in comes a man, asks for the boss and then tells him that the police- jman told him that he might get | something to eat and a little change if he would help clean up the place. | After an exceedingly strict investi- | gation as to “willingness and abil- | ity,” he is told that he will do. Well, | so he does. For about five hours he does nothing but clean and scrub | the place from the front door to the | kitchen, not to forget the cellar. In the meanwhile the dishes and pots have piled up and he must do that | too. Then there are a couple of cans of garbage to take out, and just be- fore he is considered finished he washes with lye the. icebox. Not Knowing, he is told nothing of the harmful effects of the lye on the hands. Finished at last, he is granted per- mission to eat. Food that has been left over is piled by the boss on a| plate and given to him. The boss | told me that even that unsalable | food is much too good for the “likes of that.” Done with his regal feast, he is given 25 cents and because he was quite satisfactory he is told that | at the same time, and damned if he | don’t. | Later I learned how the boss got | his help, from the walking delegate | himself. Yes, it is no other than the | |cop, better known in our circles as |@ strike breaker. This is how he |does the trick. He enters the park | where the poor unfortunate down- and-outers, forced by the system of | speed-up into unemployment, picks jon the most shabbily dressed work- er, threatens him with a vagrancy charge, doles out a lecture, wants to know why he does not go to work like every good American citizen should and winds up with the fol- lowing remarks: “Now, if I were to tell you where you could get food and a few cents would you go to work or shall I run you in.” The tool of the bosses then told! me he does that to about three or | four in order to be sure that one shows up. In fact, he does not bar even women from’his list. For the other day a woman about forty did the same work, for the same food and pay as the men got. The moral of this tale (not a fairy tale) is workers in the food indus- try as well as every industry must unite under the red banner of the workers (The Communist Party) | and stay organized. 5 | —A FOOD WORKER. der known as the Liga Puertorri- | quena e Hispana, otherwise the Porto | Rican Spanish League. The Porto Rican Spanish League had made other moves towards “am- gamation” at different intervals of its career, but to no avail, they need- ed a “professional” politician of the | type of Luis Munos Marin to turn} (B: Worker Correspondent , the trick for them. Marin is weli| “¥ % Cae aie known to us Porto Rican workers as|, CHICAGO, (By mail).—Accord- one of the island’s outstanding po-|ing to the capitalist papers, Chi- eal Gee: © Po cago is the home of the best boot- " \leggers and gunmen in America On one occasion he was a member | 7)°° . ¢ of the defunct Unionist Party, later He is he the een bd ba cheered he jumped into the political ‘band- |PTasite known as the employment wagon of the yellow socialist party, jagent. Let us visit some of these and in the feverish and heated po- | gentlemen and see how they do busi- litical days of 1920, when the tra- |°SS- re ditional party of labor betrayers be-| First, let us visit some of the gan to show some signs of strength, | West. Madison St. slave markets, | you could hear that bozo in my own | and iy | little town of Naranjito and in most |have to say. The sign in the win- | every hamlet and city of Porto Rico |dow reads, “Laborers, 50 cents an} holler cut his lungs in behalf of the |hour.” Inquiry discloses that the| working masses and energetically men must be six feet tall, weigh 200 | pronounce himself against tke pounds and not be over 35 years wretched system of feudal and capi- | old. | talist exploitation against the bloody | He must be a resident of Chicago. imperialist plunderbund and the ca- | Why all these fancy requirements pitalist system in general and jfor a laborer? It keeps out those for a workers and farmers govern- the boss thinks are “undesirable.” | ment. Incidentally, the employment But the electoral results of that |shark’s fee is only five dollars, year were not gratifying for the so-| Pass on and find a sign that reads, cialist party, and naturally there |“Dishwasher, $10 a week and were no sinecures forthcoming, Glee (No colored help need ap- he decided to quit, having digested, | ply.)” | I believe, Aristotle’s old adage: “A! Gant a Negro wash dishes as well man cannot speak virtue with an | jhas drank too much moonshine. The! production. ‘Chicago Is a Paradise of Employment Agency Gyps |We make inquiry and a moon-faced |The farmer who needs relief is al- see what the bosses flunkies | - | two dollars, he may return on the following day, \« empty stomach.” In other words, he just did like all “socialists” sooner or later do, stab the cause of the workers in the back for the sake of his own material well- being. A few years later, when it was well understood that Marin was no longer a “red,” the Porto Rican Al- liance, the newly acquired dress of the old and dilapidated republican and unionist parties, manned by Tous Soto, a corporation lawyer, and Don Antonio R. Barcelo, a_ patriotic quack of 4 superb magnitude, decid- as a white man? Certainly he can) }and does in many places, | | Next, a sign reading, “Railroad | jcrossing flagman. ight hour | |shift.”. We make inquiry and are| told at great length that all one is| |required to do on this job can be} done in 15 minutes a day. The \shark gets very enthusiastic over | \the virtues of this particular job. ' |Apparently it is a piece of capital- | ist heaven transplanted to earth for | jthe special benefit of some worker. \In reply to a question, the job shark |admits that the wages are only $2 |and with hardly any credit at the | banks and the stores, he faces a bad |situation, indeed. The Farm Board is not worried about how the small farmer gets along. He must shift for himself and if he has no security to give for loans and no financial standing laborer at $3 a day of 10 hours, |in the community, he is out of luck. clerk informs us that he does not | ready aware that Hoover and the need any more men today. | Farm Board won't help him, We start to leave and the clerk | Combines and tractors have been calls us back and confidentially in-| shipped into this section by the hun- forms us that ,he thinks we are|dreds and thousands this season good men and that it will be to the | but it is difficult to find a market} advantage of all concerned that we |for them and we find, therefore, that go to this job tonight. The only this machinery is stacked up in drawback is that two of the men | railroad yards and _ warehouses. formerly engaged will have to be|Harvest workers coming into this dropped from the list. This, we are section complain it is not easy to informed, can be easily arranged | get work because of the combine dis- if we will 2ach give the clerk two | placing.so many workers. dollars. This, we are told, is to| I came across a copy of the July feed the men who remain behind |issue of the United Farmer and am I am of the opinion that the clerk |glad to sce there is such a farm are of the opinion that the clerk paper in existence in the U.. S. intended to put the two dollars in| Farmers are being fed up on capi- his jeans. But he didn’t get the|talist farm papers and as long as they read this stuff we cannotzex- pect much progress among them. Note, too, there is a drive on to {make this paper a weekly and I be- Come to the Press lieve this is a good thing. N. D. FARMER. —JUST A WORKER. Keep the date of Sunday Aug. 18th open, Carnival, acd “HOUSE PARTY” SET FOR THE § KNICKERBOCKER A. L, Erlanger and George .C. Ty- |a day. He demands a fee of $7.50 |for his “services.” We wander on and visit some of ed to take him into their bosom again end made him the editor of the most corrupt and perverse paper ever published in the island, La De- mocracia, official organ of the so- called “patriotic” Porto Rican Al- liance. Whether he quit or got fired from the editorship of that organ I do not know and I do not care to guess, but one thing, I am sure of, he was not the editor of La Democracia dur- ing the political campaign culminat. ing in the last November elections, when the Alliance just barely won by a small, dingy margin. FIREMEN STRIKE. WASHINGTON, D. C. (By Mail). ; Firemen of the Abner-Drury Com- pany here are on strike demanding that a 50 cent wage cut made in 1924 be rescinded now. the employment sharps’ places on Canal St. The inevitable signs are in evidence. One of them reads: “Laborers, railroad, 40 cents an jhour.” We make inquiry and find |that the place ,of employment is |twenty miles hours ride on a train and that there is no provision for meal en route. The long-winded clerk recommends this job Highly. Apparently the foreman is an angel just imported from “heaven.” And the board! It is on a par with the best hotels, so the clerk says. But we know better. He is merely an- other grafter and trying to make his racket go. The next and last place we visit displays a large sign, reading, “Free employment agen¢y.” There is only one job on the board, railroad ===SPEND YOUR VACATION IN CAMP NITGEDAIGET THE FIRST WORKINGCLASS CAMP — ENTIRELY REBUILT 175 New Bungalows - - Electric Light as a week must elapse between among auto workers who are forced nominations and elections. All of|to work under unbearable speed- the members present at the instal-| up conditions. In strikes where the lation of officers got up and said | A. F. of L. stepped in, workers were “yes,” excepting one and he “no | sent back with promises of “arbitra- speak Englishovery good.” | tion” which never developed. The Then after the nominations of all| Limousine Body Company getrikers officers were held, there was a spe- | will be represente dat’ the ‘National cial meeting called and a motion| Automobile Workers Conference and made to hold the elections one week | together with thousands of other Director of Dramatics JACOB MASTEL THIS WILL BE THE BIGGEST OF ALL SEASONS to the day later and that all mem- bers should be notified to that ef- fect. The membership was not no- tified of the special meeting or of the nominations. Who then should pop into town to supervise this illegal procedure but the International president, Flore. They hid behind the sereen, the time was so pr ng because of the credentials for the delegates | | atito workers will participate in the |Trade Union Unity Convention in Cleveland, Aug. 31. * Don't forget Sunday, August 18th, Pleasant Bey Park. Tickets for the Press Carnival enly 35 cents. | See the Party battle with the | League in a game of baseball. Come to the Press Carnival, J Educational Activities Under the Direction of _ JACOB SHAEFFER BEACON, N. Y. Telephone Bezcon 731 DIRECTIONS: Take the Hudson River Day Line Boat—twice daily— 75 cents. Take car direct to Camp—20 cents. CAMP NITGEDAIGET New York Telephone Esterbrook 1400 Director of Sports, Athletics and Dancing EDITH SEGAL ller have completed the company | which will appear in “House Partyy’ | the play by Kenneth Phillips Britten | |and Roy Hargrave, which will have its try-out performance at Fox’s | Playhouse, Great Neck, Saturday | evening, Aug. 31, | The cast will include Mr. Har-| grave, Penelope Hubbard, Edward Woods, Harriet MacGibbon, Betty | Lawrence, Anne Sutherland, Julia) Hay, Louise MacIntosh and Charles |} Cromer, | After the opening at Great Neck, | the company will go to the Broad | Street Theatre, Philadelphia, for |f two weeks and then begin an en-| gagement at the Knickerbocker) Theatre here on Sept, 16, | WATCH This Space for Further Announcements On The Road To -Bolshevization with an introduction by the Central Committee, CPUSA A handbook for every American ; Communist 10c. WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS, 43 East 125th St. ‘NEW YORK CITY ~— (1) Important excerpts from the Sixth C. I. Congress (2) The Open Letter to the Sixth Convention | (3) The Address to the Membership