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

‘ Page Six “*~ Wr DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, Baily Sic Worker Central Organ of the Communist Party of the U.S, A. Published by the Comprodaily Publishing Co., Inc., Sunday, at 26-28 Union Square, New York City, N. Telephone Stuyvesant 1696: Cable: “DAIWORK.” SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By Mai! (in New York only): Daily, except $8.00 a year $4.50 six months $2.50 three months By Mail (outside of New York): $6.00 a year $3.50 six months $2.00 three months Square. Adéress and mail all checks to the Daily Worker, 26- ey New York, N The Soviet Union and Peace HE provocative, insolent and murderous attacks now being made against the Soviet Union by the Chinese hirelings of imperialism at the head of the detestable Kou- mintang government, renders exceedingly timely the pub- lication of the official documents and treaties of the Soviet government on the question of peace. The publication at this time of a book containing an authoritative collection of official documents, decrees, treat- ies and appeals comprising the peace and disarmament pro- posals of the Soviet government to the peoples and govern- ments of Europe, Asia and America cannot be overestimated. Under the title, tional Publishers have brought out this volume of unim- peachable documentary evidence that proves that from the first day of its existence, November 7th, 1917, down to date, the policy of the Soviet government has been consistently directed toward peace. Beginning with the decree of peace, adopted unanimously at a meeting of the All-Russian Convention of Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies, on November 8th, 1917, and concluding with series relating to the Kellogg pact, these documents from the official archives of the Soviet government eloquently and convincingly refute the slanders of the social democrats and other agents of im- perialism to the effect that the “existence of the Soviet Union is the greatest menace to the peace of the world.” The International Publishers are to be congratulated on bringing out such a volume at this opportune time. Every Communist and every class-conscious worker who must daily answer questions of his shopmates regarding the momentous events taking place in the world should have this volume for reference. Not that it is a reference book in the narrow sense of compiling dull documents. It is much more than that. It is a guide to the history of world diplomacy over a period of twelve years. Of particular inter at this moment is the section deal- ing with the Kellogg pact, inasmuch as that pact is being utilized by the imperialist government of the United States to mobilize world reaction against the workers’ and peasants’ government. Not only did the Soviet government blast the old con- ceptions of diplomacy by breaking open the secret archieves of the czarist government and the Kerensky government and exposing to the world the murderous duplicity of the states- men of old Russia, but they have proved to the world that their revolutionary break with the past is today and will re- main one of its mightiest weapons against its foes, which are the enemies of the working class of the whole world. No other government on the face of the earth would dare pub- lish to the world its treaties with other powers, because the mere publication of such documents would reveal the cynical hypocrisy of such governments and arouse storms of mass fury that would further shatter their much vaunted capitalist stabilization. Yankees in the South oo of the favorite arguments of Southern newspapers that represent the interests of Northern mill owners is that some of the organizers of the National Textile Workers’ Union are Yankees. The Gastonia Gazette and the Charlotte News speak disdainfully of “Northern agitators” in an ef- fort to fan into flame the dying embers of the hatreds of a by-gone age when the great conflict of the period appeared, superficially, as a struggle between the North and the South. These organs of the mill owners try to invoke the bitterness of the past in an effort to split and defeat the working class of the present; a working class bound together by the ties of” a common wage-slavery. The industrialization of the South has been achieved through the process of herding the masses of that part of the country—men, women and children—into the slave pens, where they are forced to work long hours under the most life-destroying speed-up for a mere pittance as a wage. The very lifeblood of thousands of families is distilled into profits to satisfy the greed and avarice of such concerns as Man- ville-Jenckes. It is for these Northern exploiters of labor that the Gastonia Gazette speaks, and not for the Southern workers. But while the prostitute press of Gastonia and Charlotte talk a great deal about the workers from the Northern tex- tile mills that help organize the workers in Southern mills, they are very careful to conceal the fact that the principal expleiters of Southern labor are Northern capitalists. The Manville-Jenckes company, with headquarters at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, sends special agents into Gastonia for the pur- pose of exploiting Southern men, women and children to the limit. The Daily Worker on Saturday published a facsimile of a letter from F. L, Jenckes addressed to one of his Southern slave-drivers, Mr. G. A. Johnstone, at Gastonia, compliment- ing Johnstone upon his achievement in reducing the payroll by a half million dollars a year, while increasing production, and suggesting that he could squeeze workers still more and reduce it a cool million while further increasing production. What has the miserable pen valet of the Gastonia Gazette to say to this? Will the Charlotte News screech to the skies about Northern plutocrats conspiring to reduce the Southern workers to a condition of abject slavery? Not by a damn sight! They do not want the masses to know that the same identical parasites that exploit the wage-slaves of Rhode Island also beat down the wages, introduce the speed-up and lengthen the hours of workers’ in the South. Such facts would reveal in clear light, so that all could understand it that the class interests of the workers in the South and in the North are identical as opposed to the class interests of the employers in the North and in the South. It.is not a question of geography, but one of class. Recognizing this fact the workers throughout the whole country are watching the proceedings in the trial at Charlotte and will defend with all their might and with every weapon at their command the right to organize in the South as in the North and to wage a fight for the elementary demands of the wage workers whether they slave for Manville-Jenckes in Gastonia or for Manville-Jenckes in Rhode Island. During those ten days, collections are being made for the Gastonia victims of capitalist class justice and workers ery where will rally to the defense of the Gastonia prisoners, * ‘ 8 am encmenmamanpe, he The Soviet Union and Peace,” Interna- | | THE SMOKE SCREEN! | | | By GEORGE PADMORE. The forthcoming Trade Union Trade Union Educational League of Unity Convention sponsored by the America, to be held in Cleveland, Ohio, August 31st to September 2nd, will mark a turning point in the history of the labor movement of America, and will be a tremendous | step forward in the struggle for the By Jacob Burck The Trade Unity Convention and the _ Negro Masses | They simply play. with “left”* |phrases in order to cover up their |dirty deeds. The brazen betrayal of the textile and rayon strikers in Elizabethton, Tennessee, under the Mustie-A. F. jemancipation of the working class./of L. leadership of McGrady and Among those terribly exploited |Hoffman, will go down in the his- slaves of capitalism are millions of|tory of American labor as one of | Negro workers. These black toil-|the most treacherous acts of sur- |ers, most of whom are stifl in the;render. The Negro workers must South, where industrialization is|learn to draw lessons from these |rapidly tr’<ing place, are the victinis |events, and be aware of these fel- of the most brutal aspects of the|lows, for if they could betray the | present social order. white workers so openly,: one can They are not only exposed to the easily imagine what attitude they |exploitation of the bosses, but are | will assume towards the Negroes. |the targets of the most vicious at-| The left unions led by the Trade |tacks of race prejudice which as-| Union Educational Li sumes the form of police terrorism, | fight for the admission of Negro lynching, jim-crowism, segregation, | workers into the ting unions, disfranchisement and peonage. |but also advocate full equality for A. F. of L. Enemy of Negroes. | Negro as well as white. They de- To these evils has been added the |™and equal pay for equal work for open betrayal of organized labor|the Negro. They demand the right under the influence of the American|°f Negroes holding office in the Federation of Labor. gue not only the Federation pursues a conscious | policy of jim-crowism in the unions. | Again, the A, F. of L. has never made a serious attempt to organize the Negroes, but has done every- thing possible to impede and ham- Despite its | Unions, thereby helping to shape the | declaration of non-discrimination, | Policies of the organizations and ' Union raising the slogan of equality | ~The National Guard per the development and growth of unionism among Negroes. A classic example is the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. When these men expressed by an almost unani- himself sabotaged the strike by re- fusing to grant the organization a national charter. After months of filibustering, he, traitor, A. Philip Randolph, former member of the socialist party, purged the organization of all its militant members as a guarantee that the rank and file would not take the situation in its own hands. This act of Randolph so pleased Green and Woll that in “apprecia- tion” they granted the Brotherhood a local instead of a national char- ter. The whole history of the A. F. of L. shows that these bureau- crats have one use for Negro workers. Left Wing; Champion of Negroes. In view of the present situation the Negro workers who have become a factor in industry since the war and are destined to play a strategic role in the south will find it neces- sary to turn to the left wing of the labor movement for leadership. These leaders, unlike the A. F. of L, traitors, are the only ones who expose the corrupt policies of those who call themselves champions of the working class, like the socialists and the Musties, who behind high ning im phrases are doing every- thing in their power to enable men like Green, Woll, and John L. Lewis to continue to mislead the workers. These Musties are arch-hypocrits. mous vote to go on strike, William! Green, President of the A. F. of L.| and the ~ Negro! BY JOHN STEELE As the class struggle sharpens the National Guard together with all cf the armed forces of the capitalist class will play an ever increasing role, Due to the fact that in the past the National Guard has seldom | proven a trustworthy (for the cap- | italists) weapon and has refused to turn its guns upon the workers as in New Bedford and in Gastonia, the military czars are making strenu- ous efforts to convert the Guard into a more reliable machine of sup- pression. They do this by bringing econ- omie pressure to bear upon the in- dividual members of the guard forc- ing the most exploited sections of the working youth out and filling their places with peti-bourgeoisie students and workers from the ranks of the labor aristocracy who have a few dollars pocket money and are able to buy tailor-made uniforms and otherwise meet the outrogeous demands put upon their pocket books by the officers. From time to time the Daily Worker has published accounts of such robberies where the Guardsmen are being deprived of their pay as guardsmen and often a portion of their earnings as workers. ’ The Communist Party ha sa tre- mendous role to play in exposing these robberies and organizing the guardsmen against them. This must be done by a careful and systematic study of the condi- tions in the different units and us- ing them as an approach to the men to lead up to political demands. protecting the rights of the Negro members. They fight against separate unions for Negro and w realizing that this jim-er policy pursued by the A. F. weakens the united front of the| working class. | The sincerity of this left wing | leadership has already been tested. } For example, when the new left | wing industrial unions were organ- | ized they immediately put into ef- fect what they advocate, by electing a Negro miner, William Boyce, as vice-president of the National Miners Union, which has taken the place of the defunct United Mine Workers Union of America. This is not an isolated case. In the needle trade itdustry we have two Negroes, Henry Rosemond and Virginia Al- len, members of the General Exec- utive Board of the newly organized Needle Trades Workers Industrial | Union. In the South that stinks of | race prejudice, the left wing con- trolled National Textile Workers Many splendid leaflets have been issued by the New York District to the guard units leaving for camp and returning. So effective have been these units that cne fat paunched captain, froathing st the mouth whined, “These God damned things make my men discontented and hard to man- age.” Such an approach antagonizes the average soldier, for it must be borne in mind that these men would not be in the guard if they did not have an excessive dose of that poison call- ed patriotism. Our approach must be upon the specific troubles of the individual battery or company and progress from this to an explanation of what the Soviet Union is and a call for its defense, Especially applicable are excerpts on the Red army and the fact that factories sponsor the regiments and that the factory workers. are the members of the regiments. These things are understandable to the’ average soldier while DE- FEND THE SOVIET UNION is a dash of cold water upon a sleeping mind, and only rouses antagonism against not only the Soviet Union but the Communist Party which is after all the Guardman’s only friend. When the proper approach is made to the National Guardsman it is a very easy matter to find recruitd for the league or party and to com- pletely demoralize the organization and we MUST GUARANTEE THAT THE NATIONAL GUARD KNOWS _{ tion of organizing the Negroes for | | southern ruling class who look upon | in the union for Negro and white | alike. As against this. policy we find the United Textile Workers Union controlled by the A. F. of L. and the socialists, openly refused to admit the Negro textile workers, Both Green and McGrady have pub- licly promised the white business men of Dixie not to raise the ques- fear that it would offend the! the Negro, even more so than the | poor whites, as their special prop- erty to be exploited without inter- ference. In every A. F. of L. union where the left wingers have dared to raise their voices in protest against the volicy of racial discrimination, they have been expelled as “Reds” “Nig- ger lovers.” It is important that the Negro workers note this; for expulsion for advocating equality and fair play for the Negro workers is one of the best testimonies of | the sincerity and militaney of the| left wing leadership. In view of this situation, it is little wonder that the American | workers are today finding their) standard of living getting worse and The Cleveland Convention pledges itself to take steps to fight against this shameful state of affairs, and calls upon all the workers, especially the Negroes, the most oppressed section of the working class to join in creating new unions and a Trade Union Center, under a genuine revolutionary and fighting left wing leadership. In the struggles of the working class there will be several obstacles to overcome, especially on the part of the Negroes. On the one hand, they will have to unite with the class conscious white workers to wage a mercielss fight against white chauvinism, remnants of which will try to assert itself even in the left wing unions; and on the | No Man’s Land, volunteers for patrol duty. T SAW IT ve eos Reprinted, by permission, from “I Saw It Myself” by Henri Barbuase, published and copyrighted by E. P. Dutton & Co. Inc. New York. BUTOIRE 13 The French soldier, Butoire, stationed in a trench somewhere tw Unfortunately, he drinks tov liberally of wine before starting out with three comrades, and while all but unconscious, kills a French soldier in the belief that he is © German. i eee jek: that moment until the coming of dawn, Butoire, overwhelmed, appalled, stayed there on the slope, beside the corpse. He sobbed, with his head resting in his hands, he struck himself on the chest, on the belly, he threw up his arms on high. Blear-eyed, he . muttered, over and over again: “J killed him because I was drunk. If I hadn’t been drunk, I wouldn’t have killed him.” God damn and blast him! Whatever could have told him that it was a German? Nothing, nothing whatever. He had assumed it wtihout thinking, because the climber came up from the Aisne side and he had fired point blank when it was impos- sible to recognize a man, even a man climb- ing in the dark. But there it was, he was drunk! He sat down on the ground. As the minutes went by, he sank lower and lower into the depth of terror and despair . He struggled against it all, he lifted his hands to heaven. He was cold, he was hot. He didn’t know what to do. He thought of setting off for the outpost at a run to denounce himself. He got up, took three steps forward. The words that he would blurt forth were already on the tip of his tongue: “Sergeant, I’m just a dirty swob!” Then, willy-nilly, he came back to the corpse, tumbled down beside it, touched it, moved it, lifted it, kissed it. He made frantic efforts to warm it back into life in his arms. He tried to set it up on knees, facing him. But the man was already as stiff as a tree-trunk. % 8,3. € Ee Butoire groaned more loudly still, struck with the sudden thought that he would never see Adele any more, He took her photo- graph out of his pocket, tore it up, threw it away, that they two might be separated forever—the unhappy woman and the monster that was himself. Then he impetuously cursed the man who was to blame— Gideon, the ration party man who had sold him the wine that had made him drunk. Then he stopped cursing, and quietly began to cry. The next moment, a thought surged up in him; an attack of rage against something definite was upon him: he tore his drinking canister away from his body, threw it to the ground, pierced it with his bayonet, trampled on it as if it had been his own heart, and from that half- emptied can a blood-red pool dripped forth. Then, once again, he moved away, came back, went round in a circle; at every turn horrible thoughts assailed him, like some damned creature, that nothing—no, nothing could save. Out of the heavenly dome the blue black faded. The expanse grew chalk-colored. The whitening dust of the sky shone terribly bright on the identity disc that swung at his wrist: ““Butoire Adolph 1905.” Then, as an unending shudder ran through the very depths of his vitals, he thought: “A murderer wears that name and year.” For the last time, again he saw his house, bereft. eh Ne HE sky grew clearer yet; long lines of trees descended the slope towards the accursed place. Then, with the finger of day pointing at him across endless space, on the top of the dyke, he rose to his fullest height, immensely tall, and stood still, Soon a bullet came, whack! onto the cloth of his great-coat. He gave an umph! as if eased of life, and fell to his knees, then ‘onto his back. . i It was a bright little schoolroom, turned hospital ward, that he woke up, buried in white. One of the wounded, more lively on his feet than the rest was busy in the room slopping about in his old slippers over the floor. Passing by on his way to the kitchen with the tin dishes, he saw that Butoire’s eyes were opening; he went up to him and said: “You're blinking your eyes a bit. Shows you're better. You know, they’ve done you up with the Military Medal ’anging at the foot of your bunk; they planked it on double quick time, the very morning after the five o’clock brought yer; afraid of you buzzin’ off, they were, For that ‘Un dressed up as a Frenchie what you you poor blighter. But I must be _ a delightful face, offered a new taste. killed, ’e was carrying maps of hutmost himportance. off to the kitchen with this stuff. Lending a hand like to the ’ospital staff, I am, seeing there’s only one of ’em. Oh, I know I could do a bit more if I liked; but the more you do in this world, the less thanks you get!” “Ah!” Butoire muttered. He went off to sleep again, unable to understand. + 8 « LONG story like that couldn’t penetrate all at once, take up lodging in his brain as quick as all that! Gradually, bit by bit, that night, next morning, he began to understand. A new and dazzling fact was changing the look of the world, and this cosmic upheaval found voice in him in these laconic words: “A swob I was, and now I’m a hero.” A hero! Beans. Life returned to him in bliss. Each thing turned In his eyes, these mortal sur- roundings of ours wore their Sunday best. He felt there was no need to tell his story about the wine, even to the nurse, who was gentle as a sister to the brotherhood of men. For after all, it was because of the drop he had taken that he had played the hero, and one couldn’t help feeling just a bit proud, But the tragedy of it was that Butoire was a simple, honest soul and that he was forced to do a deal of thinking while his convalescence slowly progressed. All these things together had fatal effect upon him. And so one night, looking out on the asphalt garden of the “orspittle,” after thoughts of his house and Adele, bless me if he didn’t begin think- ing of the young fellow whose head he had messed up, lying out there under the wide spaces threshed with shell fire, rotting day after day, other hand, the treacherous, syco- phantic role of the petty-bourgeois, “Uncle Tom” Negroes who will at- tempt to discourage the colored workers from joining in the soli- darity with the left wing trade unionists, These Negro lickspittles are to be found largety in the ranks of preachers who prey upon the toil of the workers in return for doses of religious bunk about “pie in the sky by and by”; republican and democratic politicians, lawyers and newspaper editors, who with hat in hand are never tired selling their race to the political bosses in re- turn for small favors; college pro- fessors and. other so-called “high- brow” Negroes, who barter and compromise the fundamental politi- cal and social rights of the Negro masses to the white capitalist op- pressors in order that they might maintain their servile middle-class position in society. Negro workers must begin to ex- pose these Judases, and fight against their leadership as reso- lutely as we will have to do against WHICH DIRECTION TO TURN ITS GUNS. “i me the A. F. of L., the Musties, the so- (cialists and other labor fakers. Our by the night after night, while he lay basking there in comfort and glory. And so it was that he began muttering to himself: “That blighter, ’e might have been a Frenchman! ” * . e HONEST folk are the prey of things much greater than themselves, which have a remarkable way o: f thwarting them. Poor Butoire, it was no use! Names such as “German,” “Frenchman,” and the various definitions of “heroism” became mere words, fluttering in the air above one solid fact—and that was the body of a fellow-being, owning, like him, a heart, like him and others, eyes and touched with his hand. a brain, that he had seen with his So true was this, that even before his bodily repairs were complete. Butoire made this observation: “Me, the hero,—I’m a dirty swob.” This discovery was kept confidential, but he punished himself by taking a vow not to drink again, abetted heroism. since drunkenness had aided and When he returned to his squad, after being patched up, renewed and recolored in the South, his co: He refused. “Thanks, lads, no! I shan’t feel thirsty any more,” he said, (To be Continued) mrades . offered him wine to drink, @ fight will therefore have to be con-/| ducted on several fronts,— against the bosses, the labor betrayers, and. the Negro misleaders who can al- ways be bought out with a hand shake and a few dollars. Allies for the Struggle. The quegtion is, who will be our allies in the struggle? These will be.found among the advanced white as the workingclass is divided into Jew and gentile, Negro and white, native and foreign-born. catholic and protestant, the employers will always get the. better of the gle by playing one group against the other. Prejudices have ‘to be abolished if success is to be attained ers. ; Let us not forget that the eman- cipation of the working class— | black, white, yellow, and brown—is the struggle of the workers them- selves and cany-nly be attained by unity among all workers irrespec- tive of race, color or creed. Negro workers of America wake up! Organize your labor power, the most effective weapon for freedom. ‘It is the only thing that the capi- talist class is afraid of. Let us be- gin to organize at once by forming shop commit’-es right on the jobs, and from these groups send dele- gates to present our grievances and voice our aspirations along with the white workers ‘at the Trade Union Unity Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, August 31 to )— yan c™ bs wenwre ( CLE eee