The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 28, 1929, Page 6

get a bite to eat. ys Central Organ of thé Communist Party of the U. S. A. Published by the Comprodaily Publishing Co. Inc,. Daily, except Sungey, at 26-28 Union Square, New ity, ON. ¥. ‘ciephone Stuyvesant 1696-7-8, Cable: “DAIWORK.* SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By Mail (in New York only): $4.50 six months $2.50 three months By Mail (outside of New York): $3.50 six months $2.00 three months 98.00 a year 36.00 a year Adéress and mai! all checks to the Dally Worker, 26-28 Union Square. New York, N. ¥. Science in the Soviet Union THE New York Times’ editorial writers never miss an op- portunity to concoct agd publish slanders against the Soviet Union. One of the most absurd of its attacks occurred Tuesday in an editorial on the international congress of psychologists assembled at Boston. In a paltry attempt to pay tribute to the work of the scientists, the Times labor- jously contrives to utiliZe the presence of Professor Pavlov as the basis for an attack on the Soviet government: “One of them (the gcientists), who comes from a country where scientists have suffered from political persecution, Pro- fe Pavlov, has been too valuable for even a Bolshevist gov- ernment to sacrifice him to its political and economic ends.” The above is either the result of astonishing ignorance or malicious dishonesty. No one can honestly impute to Bolsheviks a campaign against unhampered scientific inves- tigation. Science has been and is one of the most formidable weapons in the hands of revolutionists. Marx and Engels were always alert to familiarize themselves with any new development in the field of science, organic or inorganic, and to draw revolutionary conclusions therefrom. The revolu- tionary Marxists have always been able to prove that, in spite of the fact that the capitalist system is compelled to develop and utilize scientific investigation, it dare not draw the inevitable revolutionary conclusions from even such sciences as biology or ethnology, say nothing of sociology. In, capitalist countries scientific facts are emasculated in order to perpetuate certain illusions—religion, the great man theory, the illusion of superior and inferior races, ete.— that are useful in maintaining the domination of the capital- ist class over the working class. Not only does the Soviet Union not suppress scientific work, as the Times’ scribbler insinuates, but it is the only country in the whole world where such work is systematically encouraged and where all scientists are enabled to pursue their work free of financial worries. It was one of the mar- vels of the age that Lenin, at a time when he and all other leading members of the Soviet government were facing slow starvation during the worst period of the famine, demanded that ample provision be made to guarantee plenty of health- ful, nourishing food to those engaged in conducting scientific work. Professor Pavlov, himself, although not a Commu- nist, paid the highest tribute to Lenin and the Bolsheviks for thus aiding scientific york even in the darkest days of the revolution. To be sure, if any alleged scientist in the Soviet Union should try to follow the footsteps of Henry Fairfield Osborn, head of the so-called Museum of Natural History in New York City, and prostitute science to religion by claiming these antagonistic elements can be reconciled, he would get short shrift or be sent to school where he could learn some- thing about the subject he professes to teach. Nor could a Rey. John Roach Straton or a Bill Bryan thrive in the Soviet Union and bring young men into court for teaching the ele- mentary facts of evolution in grade schools as did these apostles of light and freedom in the Scopes trial in Tennessee. Just as the Soviet Union protects its citizens from capi- talist military intervention, so it protects its children from those who would pollute their minds with the learned ignor- ance and superstition emanating from the cesspools of capi- talist universities. Whalen’s Police Report for Tammany Political Purposes eee police commissioner, Grover C. Whalen, stopped long enough in his campaign of issuing bulletins proclaiming the impending capture of desperate criminals to issue what he describes as a semi-annual report of the police department. Heretofore reports have been issued yearly, but since the last report the Rothstein murder scandal forced a shake-up in the police department because of the exposure of the elose alliance between the murdered dope king and Tammany. The late Joseph E. Warren was kicked out as the scapegoat, and the Wannamaker executive, Mr. Whalen, en- tered the office of police commissioner with a blare of trum- pets announcing that HE would capture the murderers who were known. Nine months have passed and the case stands exactly as it did the night Rothstein was shot at the fash- jonable Park Central dive. Meanwhile another Tammany gang leader, Frank Marlow, was bumped off by rival gang- sters. Again Whalen’s hippodroming produced nothing in the way of “solution” of the “mystery.” But no such facts are of no importance when Tammany needs a fake report to the effect that the police department has “cleaned up” the city. In spite of admitted gang mur- ders the report declares the gangs have been wiped out. While the white light district continues to function and the dance- hall dives known as “schools” run openly adjacent houses of assignation and the ladies of the evening parade the corri- dors of the hotels, Whalen says there is no commercialized vice in the city. / Mr. Whalen also-boasts of “unravelling the traffic tangle.” Just what he means by this is not quite clear, in view of the fact that during the first seven months of last year deaths in the city in street accidents were 589, while this year for the identical period they were 698, an increase of 109. During the month of July alone the number rose from 79 to 112 under Whalen’s efficiency. The Whalen Tammany police force has beeen active and exceedingly vigilant, however, against workers and workers’ organizations. But Whalen omits to mention their strike- breaking activities and only mentions strikes in connection with the police emergency service. Nor is there any mention in Whalen’s report of the attempt to Tammany police to break up picket lines and demonstrations. To be sure he is silent on the policy of breaking up meetings of Tammany’s working class political opponents. There is no reference to the threats of Harlem police to murder Communist candi- dates for speaking on the streets in this campaign. Such admissions would not make good material for Jimmy Walker’s campaign for re-election*this fall. Tammany police are alert always against workers. They are even exgeedingly competent when it comes to jailing poor people driven to desperation who steal some trivial thing to But the organized criminal elements are an indispensable part of the Temmazy mechine and pursue heir ways unmolested. WAITING! OS By A, PETERSON. The rosy period during which the | carpenters as all the other building |trades workers were considered the | | aristocrats of the labor, is a matter | |of the past. The carpenters as well | as the other building trades workers | are now subject to the same process of capitalist rationalizationgas all |the other wage earners in the U. S.| and throughout the capitalist world, | | and are involved in the same general process, facing the same evils and |have the same perspective before |them as other sections of the work- | ing class, though there are also spe- cific problems and evils that con- front the carpenters. | The Building Boom. | Soon after the world war, due to jthe shortage in dvgllings, we had a great building boom. In this great | | Speculation gamble, when builders | made big profits, bosses were forced | |to pay more than the union scale |to good mechanics. Work on the buildings was plentiful, the weekly wage income was satisfactory to the carpenter and when he proved \ to be a good boy, putting in a great amount of work. during the day, thereby setting an example to the other carpenters and spurring them on, the boss was not opposed to adding a dollar '» his daily wages. }In this way an extensive speed-up system developed. During this building boom, the bosses were also in need of addi- tional mechanics in the building trades and they therefore boomed the “great opportunities.” The press and the union officials came to their aid and trade schools pro- duced quickly made buiging trades mechanics, At the same time, divi- sions and sub-divisions in carpenter work was introduced, also piece work and lumping system (some- |thing which is against our union |rules). Skilled labor began to be eliminated, In this building speculation boom, finance capital played a great role. Standardization. Row dwelling houses were intro- duced with standard styles, stand- ard sizes, mostly cut in the mills or ready made for the assembly party, with the best modern machinery. Mail order houses such as Sears- Roebuck and others, expanded their business. The big mills in Washing- ton and other western states began to pour into the building market enormous quantities of stock sized doors, windows and other kinds of trim. This trim was made under open shop. conditions where the most miserable rate of wages pre- vailed, This stock, open shop trim, by the way, was permitted in the big union- ized cities to be stamped with the union label and used as union made material. In the eastern trim fac- tories easings bégan to be ready for the carpenter on the building just to drive in a few ~~‘Is and be done with it. Labor saving, and the speeding up of the completion of the building became the issues for the builder contractor and sub-contrac- tor. The speed with which a build- ing was completed in the U. S. be- came the marvel of the entire world. “The Carpenter,” the union monthly, was full of advertisements and articles about petty matters but ;nothing on trade problems. Our !union officials were satisfied with itheir good salaries and graft in- Most of the carpenters, as comes. KES JUST Situation and Problems Confronting the | Carpenters 1 | Were all the other building trades | workers, were content with having good wages. They were not much concerned about their corrupt offi- cials and about Brindelism in the building trades. The bosses i building trades were surely with the situation. They not only harvested the profit from the build- ing boom, but in addition to that they prepared a well organized cen- tralized machinery. The Employ Association in the building trades acquired an inter-building trades character and was well prepared for an attack on the workers at the proper time. A Fight the Prog However, there were progr elements among the carpenters well as in the other building trades, | who were not content with the situ- ation, With great far-sightedness they saw the new problems and ev Time and time again they | |pointed out to the carpenters, that | their union officials were neglecting to utilize the building boom in order to build up a real militant union with a clear program of class strug- gle and to be ready to meet the coming onslaught of the boss when the building boom would be over. The progressive carpenters in their program which they prepared |for the carpenters’ convention of 1924, did not only expose the unfit- ness of the corrupt offices of the | brotherhood of carpenters, but they |also brought concrete proposals as {to how to safeguard and improve | conditions on the jobs and in the | shops and to make the organization strong. Morris Rosen from the progres- |Sive local No. 376, who ran on the |to the reactionary General President Hutcheson, carried about votes. Corrupt union misleaders |the growine progressive sentiment. |They began to fear that it would endanger their reactionary machine |rule, and an extensive campaign ‘against anything progressive was begun. The most unscrupulous | methods were used. A hunt against | progressive local unions, especially \the Local No. 376, expulsions of progressive members in the local unions, a campaign against the Trade Union Educational League, began. General President Hutche- son went even so far as to create openly in the monthly carpenters’ magazine a sentiment against for- eigners, A method was also initi- ated to scare the membership about the Communist Party which was said to “take its orders from Mos- cow in order to destroy the Amer- ican Labor Movement.” These labor fakers ought surely to know the facts in the history of the American Labor movement, that it was the foreigners from the rev- olutionary upheavals in Europe that contributed the greatest share in building up and consolidating the carpenters’ organization, and that it was under the influence of the First International that our national and international unions in America were strengthened. The third, the Communist International, which is a) is making its great % | vention of 1 | progressive program in opposition | 10,000 | | nationally and locally began to fear | continuing the work of the First) contribution not to destroy Ameri- can labor as our fakers are scaring us, but to build, educate and pre- pare American labor for a real class struggle. To the general carpenters’ con- the progressive car- national committee did penters’ | Something that our union misleaders failed to do. This progressive na- tional carpenters’ committee made an anal: of the revolution that took place in the building industry, and how we carpenters are affected it. The national carpenters’ de Union Education League pro- grame stressed the importance of amalgamation of all building trades unions. This program was also the vanguard of the 5 days, 40 hours week, but when our progressive del- egates cams to the convention of 1928, they were attacked and ex- pelled. troduced in the local unions. However, these autocratic meth- eds did not work in the interest of the union and did not help to solve our problems. It only helped to bring more demoralization among the membership, more apathy, and the method of depriving the pro- gressive members from taking the | floor at the local union meetings, which in the conservative and reac- tionary local unions usually take place from 8 p. m. to 9:30 p. m., |merely turned these meetings into cemeteries. The Present Situation. other branches of industries, bank- jing capital is directly or indirectly |the dominating factor in the situa- | tion. \tor or the general contractor is | operating his business with loan capital from the banks and credit houses. Not only that, but the very | structures that are being eretted, be they office buildings, or dwellings, are directly or indirectly owned or controlled by finance capital. This |means that the “Labor Policy” in the building industry is dictated and |decided upon by the ruling finance capitalist of this country. Even when cash is offered for building material it is not obtainable if a said contractor “violates” the man- dates of the big employers, as in the case of the open shop drive against the building trades in San Francisco in 1921. Unfitness of So-called Leaders. When we go into the problem and evils with which we carpenters are confronted now, and take them up in reality we had no union leaders at all, We have the evil of the | sped-up system that makes us unfit and undesirable for the boss on the job at an early age—40 is the “dead line.” What steps did our union officials take for the aged, except maybe our old age home in Florida. I will repeat what a conservative union member said about this old age home: “I would rather jump off Brooklyn bridge than go there.” The fear of being laid off at any hour that the boss thinks fit, cre- \ates demoralization. The prevail- ing rates of union wages are a mat- ter of “try and get it” and if you do not get it, you are forced to work below the union scale, which A reign of terror was in- In the building industry, as in all | The individual craft contrac- | from the building material supply | one by one we can clearly see that} By Fred Ellis | | lis true for the absolute majority of | union members, Metal Trim. | | The revolution in the building in- dustry confront the carpenter with the problems not only of speed-up, |hire and fire, general rationaliza- tion, ete., but also with the problem of metal trim instead of wood. Due to the shifting from small dwell- ings to big apartments and heavy |construction work, we are more af- fected by this change of material. This adds an additional cause to the ever growing army of unemployed carpenters. Unemployment in the | building trades is becoming chronic. Where formerly unemployment }among the carpenters was seasonal, |now we have a standing army of all year ’round unemployed. Did our junion officials bring before the ‘union membership concrete propos- als, as a solution to the question of unemployment? Not at all, Dur- ing the building boom, very few of us realized what such a proportion ‘of unorganized would mean for us. Now it is not hard to realize the evil of it. Due to elimination of skill, to the division and simplifica- tion of the carpenters’ work, it is not hard to take any wood worker, even a furniture worker, and put him on a building job in order to undermine our union conditions. The | failure to organize the great mass} of unorganized, gives the bosses the opportunity of using these unorgan- ized workers against us in times of strikes or lockouts. What steps have our union officials taken to organize the many thousands of un- organized building carpenters, al- teration carpenters, store and office \fixture workers, furniture workers and all the big Western mills? Nothing at all. In fact, our union officials are the greatest obstacle in the way of organizing the unorgan- ized. They hold fast to the high \initiation fee, the great masses of unorganized have no confidence in the Brotherhood of Carpenters union which is autocratically ruled by a bunch of corrupt bureaucrats. The negotiation of new agree- ments is made behind closed doors, | without discussing them at the local junion. In the collaboration of our union officials with the bosses, we have already lost the point of en- forcing union made material on the job. Due to the threatening lockout by the Employers’ Association in New York our officials are going to \lose the right of sympathetic strikes, our traditional right to report non- union men on the job immediately. Due to the rushing system, and by neglecting to take the proper care for safety devices, accidents: occur frequently on the building and in the shops, Out state compensation laws are inadequate, to say the least. Our labor c"ficials are lob- bying with the politicians of the capitalist parties, In whose inter- est? : The progressive carpenters, as the progressives in the whole building trades as well as the progressive workers in all the other industries in the U. S., had already by their experience learned the fact that it was the “Trade Union Educational League” which was their real guide on trade union problems. Our hope, faith and attention is now directed toward the, Trade Union Unity Convention which will be held in Cleveland, Ohio, on Aug- ust 31, September 1 and 2. - (To be Continued) all es | ny : by Tr | 4 AW | I HENRI BARBUSSE Translated by Brian Rhys MY 4 L F from “I Saw It Myself” by Henri Barbusse, ‘a by BE. P. Dutton & Co. Inc, New York, Reprinted, by permission, published and copyrighte BUTOIRE . SCONCERTED by these enigmatic and paradoxical words, hie friends returned to the charge: “Just a drop, eh?” & Butoire flew into a temper. “Now then, get off it! Who d’yer take me for?” And not another word, not another inch, could they get out of him. At first he blushed, but at length grew quite sporting about taking water with his meals. It wasn’t easy to begin with. When he said that he would never thirst after wine again he had lied, not without feeling the secret smart of pleasure, but he had lied all the same. 2 Later on, in civilian life, he went a little further. as ‘At first, his habit was to carry his Military Medal in his pocket, | and one day, while talk about the gallant deed was going on around him, he stammered out bravely: su “He was a man, when all’s said and done.” > “A man! No, but I say, you’re not one of these pacifist rotters, , are you? I say, you fellows, did you hear what he said?” , ‘And Butoire, who no longer felt a hero, stopped being anyone A else’s hero. TWO ACCOUNTS HE was off to Morocco as a volunteer, by boat. And on that day, which happened to be October 1, 1925, many others went off with him too, and many more have gone since—attracted by the fine promises of official fishers of men, publicists and army procurers and lawyer- journalists employed in boosting up French civilization throughout the world, and in Morocco in particular: This soldier boy, Oliver Bonnoron, was of no more importance than all the other soldier boys that swarmed like ants on the transport. But as our eyes have singled him out from the rest, our sympathy is for him and we like him most of all. And as he was young, straightforward, attractive and happy-go- lucky, we can take him for the type of soldier boy who goes off to the wars on his own because he hasn’t yet come to understand the meaning of life and death, or seen the power of the Father of Lies. The army transport Haiti, of the Transatlantic Line, had just left the shore of France, then, with a cargo of brand new human freight. But amongst the crowd there were one or two army specimens of the terrible old school; in particular, a sergeant of the 3rd Colonial Infantry. This sergeant was one of that breed of swine which our staff officers and civil servants have the modesty to describe by the words: “Smart N. C. 0.” He was a brute and a drunkard who always kept the tanks well filled. We all know that colonial infantry regi+ ments are chiefly run by shaky-handed luntaics of this class. . . . ‘HE sergeant in question was walking up and down the deck of the ship, which we may call a cargo ship. The French coast was turning to grey, in the distance and the twilight—it was 8.30.p.m. Numbers of men had come up on deck to enjoy the sea air and watch the fading light, and the last scrap of the vision of France which was fainting away between sky and sea. Bonnoron had also come up from below, and with face to the wind, was gazing over the sea with that thought- ful look which overlays outward things and mingles them curiously. The sergeant was staggering about from group to group. He was glaringly drunk; his cap was bashed down over one eye, his features were twisted up, and his eyes were watery. One after another, he clutched hold of the men, questioned them, stared at them, growling like a mad dog. “Are you the feller?” The madman was looking for someone. He had had a quarrel that morning with a Martinique ser- geant, and a few glasses had given birth to an idée fixe in that sclerotic brain: kill the Martinique fellow. When you’ve had a quarrel with someone ,that’s the only way out, eh? And he fumbled along after | the black sergeant, staggering, persistent, pouring out threats, re volver in hand. ae aT NGe were dancing before his eyes; the madman thought he saw ; his abhorrent messmate. He straightened his arm and fired, Oliver Bonnoron, shot in the stomach, fell back groaning: a “Y’m done for. Poor mother.” e And those were the last words of our soldier boy. He immediately be passed into the world of unconsciousness. Suffering alone lived on within him, and having thus spoken, he was already as good as dead, although his heart went on beating for one whole day. ‘ The Haiti hove to. She was off the little port called Royan. The wireless instruments on board were summoning assistance, and a launch came out to take off that young bullet-pierced body, which life was leaving slowly, which would have groaned aloud if it had had the power. But all that was left to do was to die, and death took place in Royan Hospital, after thirty hours’ agony. i Many can testify to all this, and in particular certain young men who gave formal evidence and are called—to cross our t’s and ' dot our i’s—Bourdeau, Rolland and Rocheteau, | Now when “poor mother,” who lived at Angouleme, heard of the | death of her son, she wrote to the War Minister, distracted with ror- ] row, to ask for an explanation, What terms would this exalted pere | sonage employ, what heartfelt words of condolence, what excuses, to ! atone in the name of the army for the crime of the brutal N. C. 0.2} . s . i ERE is the letter which Mme. Bonnoron received from the War | Office, which took her boy of twenty-one away, only to give back | his dead body, a few hours after his boat sailed. 4 “Madam, 7” “In reply to your request, I have the honor to communicate to you | hereunder the report of the inquiry which I instituted to ascertain | the circumstances surrounding the death of Private Bonnoron (Oliver)! of the 107th Infantry Regiment, wounded on board the transport | Haiti, on the 1st of October, during the voyage from Bordeaux to | Morocco. } “While he was being taken to the hospital, Private Bonnoron made * the following statement: i “While I was down on the lower decks on the Haiti Transatlanite | Line, a dispute began between a sergeant and a black. The latter struck tke sergeant, who thereupon went to fetch his service revolver | from his mess and threatened the black soldier with it. I thereupon J 1 { bg dashed at the sergeant to disarm him and just as I seized his arm, he pulled the trigger and the pistol went off, wounding me in the stomach.” “Private Bonnoron died in Royan Hospital at 2 in the morning in spite of the care bestowed upon him. “Although this deplorable accident was entirely involuntary, the sergeant responsible was sent to prison on arriving at Capablanca and | handed over to the military authorities to be tried before court martial. | “Declaration of decease was signed by the Mayor of Royan on , October 2nd. = C08 ie fel us ignore the air of detached indifference, and (to speak plainly) * the underbred manner in which the Great Panjandrum of thé Armies set forth, in the style of a county clerk, what he calls the Teport of an inquiry. : Here we have two accounts of the same affair. One true, the oth the military version, 2 The truth is that the War Minister’s declarations are nothing buf a tissue of lies. Profiting by the fact that there was—doutbless, by. mere chance—no attempt to investigate, to make a formal charge, to cross-examine witnesses after the “accident”; profiting by the dis- persal of the witnesses or potential accusers in the inferno of the Riff country, where soldiers go without much chance of return; hoping, too, that the waves of the sea and the four winds of heaven had borne away. that fatal evening’s work, the grand master of the French army, who had every reason to know the truth, writes a scandalous travesty of | the facts to safeguard the prestige of the non-commissioned rank. This newspaper serial story is a wholesale concoction. Not one thing hap- paned as this chiffon de papier from Rue St. Dominique says it hap- | pened. Bonnoron made no statement while on his way to hospital; at the time, he was already a corpsé. The three witnesses I have mentioned, all of the same regiment, the 107th, who set out with him from Limoges Barracks, made three separate statements which corre- spond so closely and exactly that the governmental imposture is sim ; ply swept clean away. (To Be Continued) * ‘set, FO Ne Seat lth 4 “T remain your obedient Servant...”