The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 31, 1929, Page 6

Published by the Comprodaily Publishing Co., Inc,. Daily, except unday, at 26-28 Union Square, New York City, N.Y. ie Telephone Stuyvesant 1696-7-8. Cable: “DAIWORK” $8.00 a year SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By Mail (in New York only): 34.50 six months $2.50 three months By Mail (outside of New York): $6.00 a year $3.50 six months $2.00 three months Adéress and mail all checks to the Daily Worker, 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Se: Death for Workers F the masses of workers can be made to believe that the trial at Charlotte is a “fair trial”—then the only obstacle to the railroading of the workers’ organizers. to the electric chair will be removed. Think it over. The effort now. being made to give the court proceedings an atmosphere of “fairness” to the de- fendants is clearly the result of the fact that an increasing mass of the working class there and elsewhere is beginning to understand that the prosecution is an act of class vengeance in a court in which the defendants have not the slightest chance. The big business owners and rulers of North Caro- lina (in this case the head of the. State government is not, as usual, a mere servant of the big-capitalists, but is himself one of the big exploiters of textile labor)—realize that if large masses of working people begin. to understand the nature of the struggle in the courtroom -at Charlotte, it may become inexpedient for them to proceed. with the program of “electrocuting unionism” out of ; their, textile mills,. and great losses to them (in increased wages) may result. Yet there is no such thing possible as a “fair trial’’.in that court at Charlotte. The whole machinery of ‘justice’ is built for a purpose. Would the whole organization of the mill. workers result in compelling the mill owners to ease up to some slight extent in the exploitation of workers-twelvye hours a day at $10 and $12 a week, and thus diminish the profits of the owners? This is the only question which really:concerns the machinery of the law constructed by and for. the ruling class. who organize the mill wage-slaves would normally be found “guilty” by the machinery of law which is made and admin- | “Prepare to Strike’--The Battle istered by and for the mill owners... “Guilty”—of what? It does not matter what, as long as it is something that inter- feres with the squeezing of profits from starvation wages. In the second bill of particulars introduced by the State it is made clear that the underlying principle of the prosecution is the principle of the old English Common Law: that a combination of working people for the purpose of extracting more wages out of an employer is a crime. This underlying principle was applied in simple form a hundred or more years ago in England in the first textile factories, when the custom was to work children, as young as.six years old, from two o’clock in the morning until as late the next, night as it was possible to keep them awake with a stick. This same under- lying principle is the “justice” of the law that is being admin- istered in the cases of the 16 labor organizers in North Carolina today. That is the meaning of the statement of a cotton salesman in Charlotte: “If I were on that jury I would pay no attention to the evidence or the law and vote on the first ballot to electrocute every damn one of them.” What could prevent the cotton mill capitalists from burning to death on the electric chair those courageous men and women who threatened to make it necessary for them to pay a little more wages to their wage slaves, is the waking up of thousands and tens of thousands of other wage-slaves to understand the nature of such a proceeding, The mass awakening might make it inexpedient to proceed with the vengeance of the mill owners against the organizers of their wage-slaves. In this case in North Carolina we have two innocent babies paraded as the “fair” drawers of the names of jury- men—jurymen who, however, must be property holders to try the property-less workers. We have a change of venue— to another identical court administering the same capitalist law. to the same inherent capitalist purpose... And we have a court order compelling the prosecutor to re-write the bill of particulars in new words enveloping the same principle— that any combination of working people for the purpose of making employers pay them more wages is criminal conspir- acy and must receive the vengeance of the capitalist law. Shysters, professional betrayers of. the working class (such as the Rev. Norman Thomas, leader of the socialist party) are trying their best to help the mill owners to create the illusion of a “fair trial.” ieee 4 But we recall the lessons of many other struggies of the workers with the “justice” of the capitalist class. In-every important labor case, so far as we recall, where the program was sure conviction for the labor defendant, the first gesture always was a decision “in favor” of the defendant. .In the Mooney cases the first act in the trial of the first defendant, Warren Billings, was a denunciation of the prosecutor by old Judge Dunn whose connection with the chamber of commerce, which was managing the conviction,-is now.so well. known. If there was no such gesture at the beginning. of the Sacco- Vanzetti case, it was only because. there. was no wide mass interest at the beginning; it was toward.the end, when the mass movement was at white heat and world-wide, that the heartlessly criminal farce of a ‘‘fair. investigation’, (by, pre- viously-fixed prominent citizens) was.the-prelude-to the legal murder of the organizers of wage.slaves against the .Massa- chusetts mill owners. be : -At all costs the workers everywhere must be stirred up to understand this case so thoroughly that the. ruling: class will be compelled to decide that it is more expedient not to proceed this time to the bloody crime against the working class which they propose. t i It is a case of the class struggle, a case of the struggle of the mill owners to crush their wage-slaves down into re- submission to unbearable exploitation; a struggle of, the harrassed men and women and children of the textile mills to win a little relief from the killing pace of the stretch-out | system and starvation wages. The charge of “murder” of Aderholt has nothing to do with. it ‘except as a convenient pretext. Any acts committed by any of the defendants were in self-defence after they had been--the victims:of repeated violent assaults intended to force them to crawl baiek” as beaten slaves into the mills of the bosses. . ho pli _ It is not a “fair trial.” , f It is a case of the wealthy mill-owners, through the state legal machinery owned and controlled’ by themselves, at- tempting to quiet the minds of ‘tens..of thousands’ of mill workers with theatrical stuff in order to go‘ahead with the application of grim death ‘on the electric chair as a depressing, influence upon wages. Sach i, awe zz It is for the working men and women to make their protest and their actions so Joudand-strong greedy capitalist class dare not: proceed ‘in’ t! murder of our class brothers and sisters. elite: tm . moa Wee a his cold-blooded Those | that the profit- | | GASTONIA— : D AILY WORKER, 1929; PREPARING F OR THE NEW YORK ATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 192 STRUGGLE By Fred Ellis. AD By N. B. HARDY. Thousands of New Jersey carmen| and bus operators, the overwhelm- jing majority of the Amalgamated} |Association of Street and Electric | |Railway Employees, have defeated |the efforts of their officials to sell | |them out through arbitration or the | {renewal of the old contract. The men are standing by their demands for the 25 per cent wage increase | and the eight-hour day. Because| the men completely defeated the| | sell-out vote, by boycotting the polls | set up by the union officials, the| | New Jersey capitalist press has |launched a vicious anti-Red cam- |paign which aims ‘to. divide the jxanks of the workers and to curb (their militant spirit. Every em- |ployee of the Public Service utility | |trust who is not “yellow,” who| fights for his rights, is immediately dubbed a “Red” by the P. S., by its |“kept” press and its “kept” union | officials, Large numbers of trac- | tion workers will understand that | being a “Red” ip the present fight, means. fighting for the rank-and- file demands, means fighting | against betrayals, means being for the workers against the exploiters. | Thousands of traction workers will see that the Trade Union Education- |al League has championed their de- }mands while their reactionary State Conference Board has sold them out. Conditions of Traction Workers. A review of the present condi- tions of the P. S, employees in New |Jersey will clearly show that the |demand for the 8 hour day and the | 25 per cent wage increase is a cry- ing necessity for the workers. At ,|the present, in those places where ;| the. union agreement is enforced, bus and car operators get as low as | 61 cents per hour for the first three months and a maximum ‘of 65 cents |per hour after 12 months of opera-| | tion. “‘Switchmen, flagmen and car | cleaners get as low as 40 to 45 cents | per hour. Low wages is the rule for the workers in the repair shops, car houses and garage shops. Even*the | skilled P. S. workers get a low rela- tive wage, as for example, 75 cents per hour for carpenters. The following schedule of runs shows ‘the long hours of nerve bus and car operators: 50 per cent of the runs are 9 in 10 hours; 20‘per cent of the runs are 9 in 11 hours; 20 per cent of the runs are 9 in 12. hours; 10per ‘cent of the runs are 9 in 18 hours. Besides the long runs the opera- tors are forced to put in extra time without pay, such as, reporting’ be- fore the run, while turning’ in re- ceipts to the .company, etc. The workers realize that, only by putting up asolid fighting front can these | poor conditions be changed. “ The Trinity of Reaction,’ . | The Public Service, theAmalga- |mated officials and the capitalist government are the united trinity of reaction lined up against the |men. The New Jersey carmen are bound to<Jearn from the ‘New Or- leans car strike where the workers had to storm the City Hall as a demonstration against capitalist government which was breaking profits for the company. The same capitalist government in N. J. is lined up with the P. S. and*the un- ion officials against the men. This is clearly brought out in an editor- jial in the Sunday Ledger of New- lark, which declereat “Director Brennen is a thor- ough-going trade unionist, in hearty sympathy with every legit- (, } straining work prevailing for the | their strike in the name of greater | Traction imate aspiration (!) of organized going patriotic American, and he will protect the people (read Pub- (Continued) All of these campaigns while based on the elementary concrete demands of the workers must be connected with the living questions of the day: Gastonia, the war dan- ger, the defence of the Soviet Union, rationalization, speed-up, etc. These are the everyday problems of the workers, and are also part of war danger. The united front between | President Atterbury of the Pennsyl- vania railroad and Wharton, presi- dent of the Machinists’ Union, to} compel all-the workers on that road, is understood by thousands of the workers as a sellout but it is also a part of the war preparation in line with the proposals before con- gress to organize industries in times of peace so it can be placed on a new basis without the confusions caused in the last world war, with the workers enrolled in an organiza- |tion that is a part of the war chinery. It is this political analysis and class understanding that makes all the difference between the old and the new unions. Class war and imperialist war are on the order of the day. Both spring from unsolv- able capitalist contradiction, They | are linked up in the most elementary | demands of the workers and the workers can and will understand this fundamental if it is placed before them in” connection: with their de- mands_in industrial language. New Unions Gaining. In these campaigns for the organ- | unions, the N. T. W. U., the N.M.W. portant role, not merely in the cam- paign to organize their particular industry or as an incentive to work- ers of other industries but because \of their pioneer cxpczience which the new unions that will follow. Al- though only a little more than a year in existance they are becoming steeled in the struggle. However, the question that is not yet understood is the question of shop comm‘‘teés, Experience has proven to us that the only way to organize a class conscious union is' to base it on the factory unit basis, but the difficulty is to break from the old craft and resident basis and learn to build and understand the functions of a shop committee. In this way we are yet in the experi- mental stage. Shop Committees. We cannot call evérything we or- ganize in a factory a shop commit- tee. This error we fall into quite frequently. We organize, let us say, 30 workérs in. the packing houses with no two workers in the same shop and we call it a shop committee, This is merely an ele- mentary organizational committee. ganize, say, five workers in Armour & Co. scattered all over the plant, no contact with each other in a different shop or department, know- ing little, if aything, about each other’s work. This is not a shop committee. It is merely an elemen- tary organizational committee. They cannot carry out the function of a | lic Service trust. labor, but he is also a thorough- | ization of the unorganized into new} and the N. T! W. I. U. play an im-+ | will be an invaluable experience for | 4 Or, in a more narrow sense we or-| Workers N. B, H.) of Newark from “Red” outrages. Moreover, all other police heads | throughout New Jersey will take Unorganized---Main Problem |shop committee although they are the basis from which shop commit- tees can be built. In conducting campaigns to organ- ize the unorganized, having shop committees as the basic units of the new unions, we must also have a perspective of the ta of shop committees, their role and their function, The shop committee is the highest form of trade union organ- ization and we must not confuse it | with the ‘first steps, with the ele- mentary and temporarily formed committees. The organizing of shop committees may require a number of preliminary steps. The function- ing of a shop committee mar the end of these preliminary steps, ex- presses the. confiden: and the will of the workers and is their organ- ized voice. We can also have shop committees in elementary form. By that I mean a number of workers in one department in a big factory, carr ing on a campaign for the work demands, with the large m 3 the workers still apathe and not participating in the formulation of these demands. The ultimate aim, however, is the forming of shop committees which include the ma- | jority of the workers and whose |leaders and spokesmen have been elected by the workers, who will fight for the everyday demands of \the workers at their instruction and with the support of the workers in- jvolved. The perfection of shop com- |mittees during this period will un- doubtedly only* take place during strike struggle, because the employ- ers will never allow us to make elaborate ornagizational strike prep- arations. However, it is within the realm of possibility that in some | cases we will be able to build a num- |ber of functioning shop committees in their initial stages before lock. |outs or strike struggles take place and we must have a fairly good con- ception of what we mean when we start to organize shop committees and must not confuse them with the crude organizational first steps of the workers. he The basic local union, or shop committee, is the factory commit- tee, which includes all the workers in the auto factory, or group of factories in a given locality, be- longing to the same corporation and building the same model car, Ford, {for example. However, 100,000 workers cannot meet and function as a unit so the necessary subdivision | department committees and sub- department committees. These com- mittees are the real membership committees, all the other committees being elected delegate bodies. All departments in a given building should have elected factory commit- tees, which would be a fepresenta- tive body elected by the membership in each sub-department or depart- ment committee. The same process would be followed in a general fac- tory committee which would take in all the factories of a given company. The same process would be followed in linking up city and nation-wide units into avcity cou-cil of auto fac- tories committees and a general na- tional auto industrial council. of the N. J. | the same stand and they will be | backed by the full powers of the state | The mean and its -ag officials, w g is clear. The P. S. the Amalgamated the full powers of ate to break any en by the workers and the 25 per . Wepner will the police in its s eaking efforts among the P. S. workers. The strike breaking role of the capitalist government, which world war for the cent wage be on the side o: now preparing another for ma: is clearly alist press it- is wails the fa a s fol- lowed the fighting advice of the T. |U. E. L. and defeated the arbitra- |tion sell-out “. . . in preference to the wise council of the 100 per cent ” The “wise cent Ameri- consisted of a 100 per of the workers’ de- In the state-wide. balloting d by the reactionary State nce Board of the union, the called upon to vote for ternative: “Are you bitration, or do you council” of th can leade: cent bet the follow in favor of desire to renew the present agree-| Not even a mention of in-| ment?” creased wages and shorter hours. The 100 per cent American leaders gave the work e old contract. men to hell with bet and by our de- ds. The few ballots which were voted had to be burned in Newark. There was not even sufficient bal- lots to take a chance on “faking” the vote. The men saw clearly the meaning {of arbitration, that it means two P. |S. agents picking a third P. S. agent to decide their fate. In a statement |to the press William Wepner, presi- dent of the State Conference Board, was forced to admit: “Of course, ar- bitration is a gamble.” gamble with the against the workers. which the P. S, has game. The Challenge of the P. S. | The Public Service utility trust ‘commenced by refusing to give seri- |ous consideration to the demands of the workers. But seeing the devel- oping rank and file struggle the P. S, soon gave in to arbitration. They gave into arbitration not because they wanted to consider a wage in- crease, but because they wanted to consider a wage cut. The “poor” P. S. eried that it was losing money under the old agreement, when the facts are that the P. S. of N. J. made $14,334,316 profit in 1927 and $22,972,189 profit in 1928, according to the figures of the U. S. Depart- ment of Commerce, The P. S. in a number of statements has threat- ened a wage cut, the revocation of pass-book privilege for employees and has even hinted at the smashing of thé union and the institution of an open shop. As a means of divid- ing the working class the P, S. has threatened to boost the 5 cent fare upwards. This challenge of the Public Ser- vice, which is part of the American super-power trust, had to be an- swered with a struggle. This fight |has already been started by the mil- jitant tank and file of the Amalga- mated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employeés. It must now be brought to a successful conclusion, despite the reactionary officials, the utility trust and its agency—the capitalist government, Only an organized rank-and-file . cards stacked “fixed” the Yes, it is a] A gamble in| | | | | | Reprinted, by permission, from “I Saw It Myself” by Henri Barbuage, published and copyrighted by E. P. Dutton & Co, Inc, New York. ry WHOLESALE MURDER AR-TALK? No one wants it now, And'they have been saying so | for years. And yet, so long as the old Jaw, which wills that same | causes be followed by same effects, holds good, our interest in war } must be, not a thing of the past, but of the present and future, Unless, 4 of course, we turn round and begin attacking the causes themselvest Be that as it may, and coming to my story, the subject of War ° had its interest for a group of officers sitting that day in the peaceful ‘ atmosphere of a café, that well-known heavy atmosphere, woven of coffee and tobacco fumes. 4 This was in Antibes, a few years ago, when the town—one of the ! loveliest and most picturesque of all towns on Mediterranean shores—« had not yet been disfigured by the demolition. of the old ramparts, ‘ by builder’s plots in the central square, and was not then visibly { smeared over with speculator’s blight. One of the officers sitting there, by name Li¢utenant Béranger, “ of the 3rd Antibes Infantry, was waxing sentimental about his fighting days, talking about them to his companions, two majors. Lieutenant Béranger’s recollections were tinged with a certain pride. And well they might be—for he was boasting how he had finished off some wounded Germans with the butt end of a rifle. et . . * UT Battalion Commander Mathis, in charge of Cagnes Camp, had two more stripes on his sleeve than the lieutenant. only right, his story went one better. And so, as was It was the other major—he belonged to a very different class of man—who treasured up his noble confessions: “I was captain then,” said Mathis, “commanding a battalion during the February offensive round Fleury. Two hundred German prisoners were captured in the Powder Gully. When the scrap was over, I had the prisoners lined up without arms in two files; I picked out twenty and sent the remaining 180 back into the trenches. Then I had them done in. My men hesitated, of course, to begin with, but when I repeated the order they went for the prisoners. .. .” I will interrupt the monologue at this point to think a little and te allow you to think of the real meaning of these words which were caught up into the air of this café in Antibes, round the marble- topped tables, in the corner of a room where the door opened but rarely and where one or two country figures formed the background, while an obliging waiter hurried to and fro with cups and glasses clinking on his well-loaded tray. The slang expression “doing them in,” a kind of pirouette in words, was used by Major Mathis to avoid a clear description of the butcher’s work he was taking about. What it really means is this: men—one hundred and eighty of them, an endless line—standing up in a trench, without arms, trembling, scare-eyed, guilty, by all accounts, of nothing more than obedience to their leaders; and at these young victims other men armed with bayonets and knives were to rush, slit throats and stomachs in cold blood, without any “flying start,” as runners say, 4 Looe the scene. The bloodthirsty command is given. The sol- diers hesitate. Kill all these young fellows, never seen before, standing a few yards away? It was too much; their limbs are para- lyzed. The major, remembers how they hesitated—a point very much in his favor, since he overcame it triumphantly. They must obey. Promises, threats. What were his gesticulations in that moment? What did he yell? Then, no doubt, a push, and he sends off one reluctant soldier down the hill: one of them summons up enough deter- mination to lay hold of a living body standing before him, slits his throat or runs him through the belly. Then off starts another, and another, and another, seized with black and hideous frenzy, goaded on by the screams, by the fresh blood streaming from these hacked and mangled bodies. Major Mathis went on in these words: “They massacred the lot. When I brought back the twenty sur- vivors, the Colonel said to me: ‘I thought you had captured a battalion of them.’ I answered: ‘I made two hundred prisoners, but one hundred and eighty of them stayed in the trenches, and won't leave them in a hurry.’ The Colonel looked annoyed and said: ‘Don’t you go boasting about it, or your Cross might easily go west.’ ‘I wouldn’t lose my decoration for a thing like that,’ said I. And sure enough, I got the Cross soon afterwards.” . While awaiting better things Captain Mathis has become battalion commander, and since then, has proudly paraded his Legion of Honor ribbon, if one may so call it, in various garrisons. For such is the way with Civilization, which marches over the globe, wherever it may, mas- sacring unarmed races on the pea that they are savages. Po I CALLED attention to this affair—one of the vilest in our vile times —in the newspapers. The Progres Civique was concerned about it and the Lique des Droits de Homme raised hands to heaven. “This is intolerable,” said the Progres Civique and the League, “We must have a ruthless inquiry, those responsible must pay the penalty: either Major Mathis shall be punished, or else the writer of this libellous article. And the League took up the question. I had never hoped for as much. Some years after, I asked the League how matters stood: The reply was that the League would be only too glad to look into the question if I produced more witnesses, for I had only quoted one, and a time-honored Latin proverb had fuled that one witness is not enough: testis unus, testis nullus. In vain did I reply that the witness was one of peculiar importance, in view of the fact that he was an officer of equal rank, who gave the very words that the culprit had uttered in public, and further, that the words had been made public and had created something of a stir, without drawing forth any denial what- ever. The League’s only reply was dignified silence, That is the League’s own business. But how much | murderers of the Mathis type find whole rows of murderers‘ their hand? will te i ASSET Wea 4 | (Tomorrow: The Dastard Trai.) leadership can carry through this fight, fused to vote for the sell-out, in your car-barn, garage or shop. Arrange a meeting of these workers at some neighborhood hall, or in the home of one of the workers, or come to the addresses enumerated below. At this meeting elect your barn, ga: or shop committee. Keep out of meeting P. S, stool pigeons and all aie of the reactionary of- ‘icials. “Immediately get in touch with the Traction Workers Section of the T. U. E. L. at the following halls: 205 Paterson St., Paterson; 95 Mer- cer St., Newark; 25 Dayton Ave., Passaic; and 308 Elm St., Perth Am- boy. The Traction Workers Section of the T. U, E. L. will be the means of connecting up our rank and file committees on a state wide scale. This would mean that the militant rank and file would act as one man in all locals.” It would mean that the P. S. workers prepare to steike for their demands, ‘ Prepare to Strike! . Organize Rank-and-File Commit- tees! The next step for the P. S, em- ployees has been clearly pointed out by the Traction Workers Section of the Trade Union Educational League. In its last call to all the workers it declares: Brothers and fellow workers! The splendid fighting spirit which we have shown must now be crystalliz- ed into organized action. We must immediately organize Rank and File Committees in every car-barn, ga- rage and shop of the P. S. and take the situation in our own hands. Only by organizing these committees can we start real preparations for an effective strike that would win us cur demands, How to Organize Rank-and- Committees. “Get together all the militant traction workers, all those who re- rw |