The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 4, 1929, Page 4

DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WE NESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1929 President MEN IN MARINE WORKERS LEAGUE: MEET ON HATCH Many of Crew, Tired of Slavery, Join (By a Seamen Correspondent) The S. S. President Harrison, of the Dollar line, recently completed a round the world voyage. On that trip I was 4 member of the Presi- dent Harrison’s crew. I wish to tell of the terrible conditions for the men on the crew of the Dol- lar liners, and I will illustrate their rotten conditions by telling about the trip. . | Men Join Marine Workers’ League. We left Manila around July 5. Between vila and Singapore I held a meeting on Number Nine hatch, in which I talked to the men, who were Cissatisfied with the slave Harriso n, Like All Dollar Liners, Is a Floating Hell-Hole fo v the Crew DOLLAR LINERS CAN’T BE | | | conditions on the Harrison. I spoke| of the Marine Workers League, and| of organizing into the League to} BEAT F OR DOWNRIGH a mw A seaman on the Dollar Liner President Harrison tells of the slavery on the boats of that line, At left, the President Harrison, which the seaman correspondent calls a floating hell-hole. All Dollar tiners are hell-holes as these photos prove. At right, the President Johnson, another Dollar liner, ablaze at her dock, In center, passengers on the Dollar liner President Roosevelt after that ship sprung a leak at sea. Inset, President Roos It seaman afloat after that boat ran into difficulties. T FLOATING HELL-HOL ES FORD ST, PAUL! PLANT IS ALSO A HELL-HOLE Henry’s High Rate Talk is Bunk | (By a Worker Correspondent) | ST. PAUL, Minn. (By Mail). —I am one of the slaves in the Ford |plant here in St. Paul. I want to |tell other Ford workers in other |parts of the country how we are treated, | They are paying us $5 a day, if we are there less than two months. | After that the rate is $6. You have | to slave like 1 ~Il to get this. Most of the men that came in with me failed to last two months, and after slaving nearly that long for $5 a day they had to quit; they couldn’t stand the speed-up, even though they were strong men. We often have to work overtime several times a week, and we get no better the seamen’s conditions. | About 60 of the crew attended the} meeting, and 21 joined the League. ; The rest would have joined had I} not run short of dues stamps. Hold Weekly Meetings. We held weekly meetings thereaf- ter for the rest of the voyage, and | they were all well attended, Even) the old boatswain, who had been a member of the International Sea- men’s Union for 12 years, finally joined the Marine Workers League at Marseilles. Mate Browbeats Crew. Now for conditions on the ship. | There is a crew of 120 men, of whom 68 are Chinese, the rest Americans. MISLEADERS _ OF CARPENTER Have Brought Condi- tions Low (By a Worker Correspondent) The carpenters’ trade at the pres- UNION BETRAY Fight tor Gastonia Workers Class War Prisoners Write Dear Fellow Workers:— My main motive for writing this letter is not the reaffirming of my appreciation of the LL.D. and assistance rendered in my behalf, but to go on record a: of the Gastonia victims. All I can do is affirm my clas them and warn the workers that unless they back the I. L. D., the Gas- tonia victims are doomed. With best wishes I remain yours fraternally, GUS. C. MADSIN, Bx. 44461, San Quentin Prison. * Walla Walla, Wash., Aug. 13, 1929. SHUTTLES FLY IN BOYLSTON MILL SPEED-UP Heat Fells Girls In Spinning Dept. the workers for the many acts of a supporter interest with re | (By a Worker Correspondent) EASTHAMPTON, Mass. Life Backstage Is Seen | in “Broadway Babies” INA YORK gamblers, bootleggers, Broadway rack- | eteers, night club entertainers and musical comedy chorus girls—all pass in review in ‘Broadway Babies’ | |with Alice White and Charles De-| |laney, now at the Cameo Theatre.| - \It is a First National Vitaphone, all \talking film directed by Mervyn Le- | | Roy. | é Detroit | The mate is a tyrant who frequent- ly beats up the sailors. The men work nine hours a day, and have to get up at 6 a. m. on Sundays to scrub ent time is on.a downward grade; the present trend in building is to build industrial buildings such as large office buildings, factory build-| Fellow Workers:— I have a few words to say regarding the Gastonia workers who are facing the electric chair and I know of what I speak for it was only ten years ago that I faced the hangman’s noose myself. It is up (By| Those who like the type of film, Mail).—I am writing to tell of con-/ now in vogue, which concerns life ditions in some of the departments | backstage and in the night clubs, of the West Boylston Mill here. will like this well directed and amus- the decks. There is no time off for the crew while the ship is in port. No overtime is paid. Low Wages. The wages are as follows: Firemen—$65 a month, Oilers—$72.50 a month, Ordinary seaman — $47.50 month. ings and hotels where less carpen- ters are required because of the use of wire steel forms in making foun- dations and ready-made trim where no skilled mechanics are required. With the general speed-up and unemployment union conditions are a} becoming a thing of the past and jespecially on small speculative to the body conducting their defense to do everything that is humanly possible, for should the defense fail to do their utmost and a verdict cf guilty rendered, in any degree, court in these United States that rendered against labor. Everything that labor posseses lives of these striking Gastonia workers. only be losing the lives of those who are fighting our fight for us but | would be a blow to labor that throughout the ages to come could never No, 4 Weave Room. This department has pace set- ters, who earn a little more. When the weavers complain on small pay, the boss points out the ones making more, ing, “Look she makes more.” Not my fault you can’t |make the same.” then all is lost for there is not a would reverse a decision that was must be put into this fight for the To lose this fight would not One weaver eived $2.50 pay for Able seaman—$62.50 a month. Chinese kitchen workers—$23 in Mexican, or $11 U.S. money a month. Speaking cf these Chinese work- ers, they are very class conscious. They are nearly all absolutely j buildings where wages and condi-| jtions even in the time of the so-| called building boom were rever | good. Now conditions are unbear- | able. electric chair or even to a prison sentence, no worker is safe. may be the next to fall a victim to such dastardly greed. be wiped out. As long as the industrial lords can frame and railroad to the Anyone I speak this | evening from a prison cell and I say, workers, arise in all your might | The carpenters do not get the pre- | vailing rate of wages and on the and stop this contemplated murder of the innocent. If such brazen a week’s work at one time. She! went to complain to the boss and he promised to see, “what I can do| for you.” After waiting a week and not getting any correction had to| complain again. Finally after sev-| eral weeks he added to her $2 for! Jing comedy which will go over big in the great open spaces, where | Broadway is known only by name. | | However, even many New Yorkers | | will find it satisfying entertainment. | ;In other words, it is no better or| |worse than a dozen films with a similar theme, which has been shown in the last few months. And while \it may be sad to admit, it is what | a great mass of film fans want at| the present time. | The film starts off with a fairly good story of life backstage and holds its own near the very end when it becomes oversentimental. It follows out the old formula of a} against the Kuomintang. All favor | slightest attempt on the part of the |happy ending that is foretold in the! a Soviet Repzblie of China. The head of these Chinese work- ers is the “Number One man,” who gets ten per cent of all the Chinese workers’ tips. He is the official bootlegger on the ship, with the full knowledge of the company and offi- cers. Vecitimize Chinese Workers. These Chinese are not only vic- timized as far as making them work like slaves is concerned, but they must also give ‘“cumshaw” or bribes to the chief steward and the ship’s captain. They -ve -fte: punished ‘for the least little thing, and their tips are stopped on them. The food served the crew is rot- fen. Rotten stew is served three times a day, and one orange every Sunday. The quarters are hell holes, for they are located on top of the boil- ers and it is too hot for the crew to sleep in them, so the crew men| have to go on the hatch to sleep. All Floating Slave-Pens. I have worked on other Dollar lin-| ers, and on every one of them the| conditions are the same for the crew. The only way for the crew to get human conditions and wages is to organize into an honest union, _ based on ship committees, and that’s the Marine Workers League. —Seaman. —SEAMAN. FARMERS FACE RUIN ALBANY, N. Y., Sept. 3.—Dry rot has attacked potatoes in the nor- thern part of Chautauqua county and farmers estimate that the yield this season will be considerably less than 60 per cent of the 1928 crop. No rain has fallen in this part of the state for the last two months. jcarpenter to enforce union condi- |tions he is fired from the job and he has no place to complain, as the union officials of the carpenters’ junion cannot do anything for the carpenter because of their agree- of the boss to hire and fire and they do not want to, as they are in the union for business and not for the linterests of the carpenters. The descendants of Brindel, who |went to prison for overstepping the | bounds of the business of taking graft and selling the workers to the bosses in the carpenters’ union do not only follow his line of trade) unionism but go a few steps fur-| ther in taking away the right of a |local union to try its members. The | workers cannot get rank and file justice as all charges must be made| to the district council and tried there. | I cannot enumerate all the mis- deeds and betrayals by the mislead- {ers of the carpenters’ union in this one article. I just wanted to point out the main abuses from which the carpenters suffer today, It is the duty of every progres- sive carpenter to get on the job and| show the carpenters the real cause| of their conditions and build a} strong opposition against the mis-| leaders and in due time take over, the leadership of the carpenters’ un-| ion. Under the leadership of the) Trade Union Educational League! |this can be done. | It is also the duty of the progres-| sive carpenters under the leadership | of the T. U. E. L. to organize the unorganized carpenters and the workers into an industrial union. Wi BRIGGS IS A HELL-HOL Tesus-Men Send Workers to Slave There (By a Worker Correspondent, Letters from Briggs Auto Plant of Detroit appears in the Daily from time to time. Well I remember this place, if it is worse today than it was then, and due to increased ra- tionalization it probably is, then pity the poor devils that work there. In 1925 a charitable institute sent me to the Briggs for work. The sleek haired Jesus singer pictured the place as a bad one. “We send men there” he said “to test whether they want to work. It isn’t nice because they work rather long hours and the place is dirty, men seldom stay over 1 couple of weeks, stake hunters.” Was the place dirty? At dinner time a half inch of oily scum ate thru the paper on which I set my lunch, the toilets swam with an inch of water, in which floating like half stranded logs, the refuse of the bowls lay uncleaned from one day to the next. No fire escape except a narrow ty unssfe stairway and a diplapi- serice tet sled tke 8 ship in a storm every time one trundled a truck load onto it. The hours were from seven o’clock in the morning until. six, seven, eight, nine, and I have worked until ten and ten-thirty at night. No overtime pay, just constant slave \ driving with one of the damnest foul | mouthed slave drive: I have ever seen standing over one constantly. I worked as a millwright’s helper |and where other plants were paying fifty-five cents and hour, Briggs paid forty, Millwrights usually have a pretty decent time in most auto plants, but when we were not busy shifting machinery, we were put to| making body trucks and when they | could find nothing else for us, even | for fifteen minutes, they put us on production for that short time and |made us slave in the lines. Yes, Briggs like every other auto lant needs a union and it was riggs that helped to push me along on the path to Communism, Long Live the Auto Workers —J. HS. ama Billy Buvanny (Charles Delaney) have to watch out not to get hurt.|stages the dances for a Broadway | Weavers often have to fix their own | musical comedy. Those in the chorus frame-ups are allowed to continue then no one is safe, any one of our | that shertuge. How grand, | loved ones may be put on the altar of sacrifice to greed. Act before | i, i e coli ‘ love ‘ ooms on our work are speeded | beginning of the picture. it is too late. Tomorrow is too late, lan, Shuttles uftenety oakcand ee iam, yours for a square deal, BERT BLAND. . * 8 Walla Walla, Wash., Aug. 17, 1929. ment with the bosses for the right! : ‘ ; are up against as they have had their experience too. Fellow Workers:— The Centralia defendants know exactly what the Gastonia strikers We are sending you our greetings and best wishes and we are hoping you an immediate tonia defendants are at stake and this is no time for factional dispute Roumanian Fascists acquital of your case. We know that you are brave and true fellow-workers and we know that your friends will stand by you through thick and thin until your release is an established fact. Fellow workers: the lives of the Gas- and we are truly hoping that such will not arise. When the Centralia defendants’ lives were at stake there were no factional disputes of any kind; all labor organizations came to our rescue and they all worked in perfect harmony with each other on our case and you can rest assured that said action was all in our favor. Fellow workers and friends and all true lovers of justice, now is the time to get interested in the case of the Gastonia defendants otherwise the Gastonia defendants will have a tough break fighting for justice. Best wishes to you all. Yours for industrial freedom, JOHN LAMB. N. Andover, Mass., Aug. 22, 1929. Dear Comrades:— The Gastonia strikers and their cause have our heartiest sympathy and their staunch courage in facing the heavy battle of the class war deserves the highest praise. It is just such leaders that carry on the fight to ultimate victory and make working class history. We realize the seriousness of their position as we have also faced a capitalist court, but their loyalty and bravery in the struggle is a cheering sign of solidarity, Hoping to see the time when the south will be free of boss rule and wishing the strikers success, sincerely yours, MRS. JOHN E. MERRICK and JOHN E. MERRICK. No. Prison Pallor for Sinclair; Rides Autos on “Special Duties” Prepare to Throw 58 Workers Into Jail looms, because loom fixer is too busy | include Dee Foster (Alice White) to come. We have to put own warp who is his sweetheart. Bill manages on and take off the cloth rolls. Doj|to secure Dee a small part in the our own cleaning, as cleaners are|show which takes her out of the taken ff, We are often fined for oil |yanks of the chorus.’ She puts her lother unorganized building trades) BUKAREST (By Mail).— The trial of the 58 workers of Timisoara began on August 29th. In order to frighten the lawyers defending Muller and his comrades, Dr. Nagy, one of the counsels for the defense «as arrested after a search in his house and released only on **> following day. There is no doubt about the fact that the objective of these police measures was the removal of im- portant documents relating to the jcase from Dr. Nagy’s office, thus |paralyzing the defense. . Build Up the United Front of the Working Class. —————_——— Workers Asked to |/Send Their Gastonia ||Petitions in at Once In order to send the mass pro- WASHINGTON, Sept. 3.—Harry | F. Sinclair oil magnate who is spending a soft holiday in jail, has| | escapéd from the pallor that usually | ‘t am afraid to ask to go home for fear of losing | my wo! In these spinning rooms and other | departments the floors with the ex- ception of main alley, have not been washed since the mill has been built and the soaked oil and dirt in this hot weather makes the air so heavy, that many get overcome. The floors are very slippery and running jaround the machinery there is | danger of falling and hurting your- | self. | There are no rest rooms and in \ease of fainting or other injury, the workers have to be taken thru other just as filthy departments to the hospital, which takes fully a quarter jof an hour in many cases. By: the | time such workers get first aid, they jean pass out. That is why our union demands rest rooms in each | department and more sanitary con- ditions and proper ventilation which is so essential to the healt of the) workers, | Watch Out for Squealers. | Some workers spinning nights, cut | or double picks. Working here for | part over big and is an immediate several years I have noticed that my eyesight is failing me. Such are | the conditions in my department. The weavers are getting organized and is it a wonder, Spinning Department. | During this warm spell, a girl was ‘overcome by heat in the spinning room. She was reeling at her work and complaining, | success. Pere Gessant (Louis Natheux), | Detroit bootlegger, falls in love with 'Dee and manages to win her away | |from Billy. She then secures a posi- tion with a notorious night club and \shortly afterwards in the biggest! |sensation on the main stem. | Dee finally consents to marry the |bootlegger, but on the last moment | comes’ the conclusion that she does | jnot love him. Gessant is shot by} gunmen of a rival gang on the wed- ding night, the wound is not fatal. When Dee decides that she loves | Billy, in fact, had loved him all the |time, the bootlegger gives Billy a |large bankroll, he had stolen from |some rival racketeers, and tells him | |to make Dee happy. Thus the film | ends. | | There are some nice shots of a jnight club, also backstage of a New York theatre in the picture, Pretty chorus girls give the film flavor, while several popular songs have plenty of pep. | The members of the cast are well | placed. Alice White is superb as| Dee, the ambitious entertainer; | |Charles Delaney is true to life as) |the dance director, while Louis | Natheux as the bootlegger gives one of the finest characterizations seen | in a long time. Even George Bran- croft would not have played the part more effectively. Natheux is worth while watching, for if given the right kind of roles, should be a i i «| ends duri ir 15 mi 5 accompanies long confi: ement Sa seek cae eee rate prison by taking short automobile| who act like suckers. Fifteen min- rides to and from the Disticrt of{utes is not enough for lunch, I Columbia Jail v.iere he is serving a) asked one of them why he does it, six-months sentence for contempt of| he answered that the boss will be jthe senate. The pampered prisoner better to him and let him hold the feels none of the brutality accorded | job (some job). He doesn’t under- to “ordinary” prisoners who have) stand that he is making it bad for |no millions. Superintendent Wil-|himself and all other workers, A jliam Peak, to excuse the pampering | sucker and a squealer are twin of Sinclair, said the wealthy oil brothers. Those that seek to do operator has been assigned to favors for the boss, and those that “special duties” which make the whisper into the ears of the boss automobile rides outside the prison | about his fellow workers, looking walls necessary. |for some personal advantage (a job) Several times since Sinclair was are to be treated as enemies and incarcerated last May 5 charges|scabs. Give the boss a finger and have been made that he was being| he will want a hand, They will soon favored over ‘’.c other prisoners. | be making it a rule. We who spin by night want short- er hours, no overtime, an hour in the fresh air for lunch and rest. We BOSS GREED KILLS MINER | test petition, with the hundreds of thousands of workers’ names attached, to the state authorities of North Carolina, demanding | ‘Henry Coneby, a eoal digger, was killed yesterday as he was walking out of the Arthur mine after finish- | WASHINGTON, Pa., Sept. 3.—| can only get this by organizing and |getting together. Let us get to- (gether and form a committee, get | in touch with the union, The union star within a year. Those who are interested in see- ing the Al Singer-Kid Chocolate bout round by round can do so by visiting the Cameo this week. You can then decide for yourself whether the much disputed verdict of award- ing the fight to the “Keed” was correct or not. Course of Chamber Concerts for Workers and Students, ve | The Auxiliary Club of the People’s | Symphony Concerts announces for the season of 1929-30 a series of six chamber music concerts on Friday evenings at the Washington Irving | High School, Irving Place and 16th | t. The series includes: Musical Art Quartet, Nov. 15; The Old World Trio, Dec. 27; The Stardivarius | Quartet, Jan, 24; Tollefsen Trio, | Feb. 14; Stringwood Ensemble, March 21; Martha Graham and extra pay — only ordinary rates. After standing on your feet keeping pace with the belt that keeps com- ing and coming, with its chassis af- ter chassis, you feel like killing the foreman that comes along and tells you to work overtime. You have to work overtime or you arc fired. The high wages Ford tells about in the capitalist newspapers is a lie. Last year, all I made for the year was $1,500. We didn’t work over 200 days all year. When Ford introduced the 5 day | week, which } : was praised so much |for, I was working in ‘he Detroit | plant, Highland Park. I lost out in wages, getting $5.50 a week less |than I did when we slaved the six |day week. Why? Because we were |only paid for 5 days a week under |the 5 day week, being paid by the |day, and we did six days work in |five days. So that was Ford’s good- |ness to his employees. When I applied for work in a Fisher Body plant in Cleveland, 0. after I left Detroit, they asked me |where I worked before. “In Ford’s, |at Detroit,” I said. “You won't do,” they told me. I |found out later that Fisher Body \was making a practice of refusing to hire ex-Ford help because they said that anyone that had worked in Ford’s plant was too worn out to USON ELSIE FERG AES Who will be seen here shortly in pede Fe AN een a eld the pace in Fisher's. They ; et end wanted their slaves fresh. Shipman and John B. Hymer. —FORD SLAVE. TWO DIE IN PLANE CRASH WESTERLY, R. I., Sept. 3.—Two Henri Bernstein's new play “Melo” Women were killed and a jingo pilot has been acquired by Charles L./Was critically injured when the Wagner for production here this | Plane in which they were flying was fall. The play has been very suc- thrown out of control while attempt- cessful in Paris and was highly |i"& @ swoop. The dead women were praised. The opus calls for three|Pumed beyond recognition | when roles of stellar importance. Wagner Hic aude areobager aha fee is also planning to star Madge Ken- . i ‘ . i x] ive, nedy in a new play. This, however, is not expected to li is not settled as yet. Henri Bernstein Play to Be Imported by Wagner | 2 DEAD IN CEMETERY Our we, the bourgeois age, | LOS ANGELES, Sept. 3.—A fly- distinguished by this—that ft |ing instructor and his pupil were has almplificd class antagonisms. |{illed instantly today when the bi- Into two great nnd directly contra- |°Ver Burbank went into a nose dive posed clas: bourgeoisie and pro- |and plunged 1,500 feet to the Val- |halla cemetery. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday Bazaa MADISON SQUARE GARDEN October 3—-4—-5—6 GASTONIA Citadel of the Class Struggle in the New South By WM. F. DUNNE w4 HISTORICAL PHASE in the struggle of the American working class analyzed and described by a veteran of the class struggle. To place this pamphlet in the hands of American workers is the duty of every class-conscious worker who realizes that the struggle in the South is bound up with the fundamental interests of the whole American working class, (plus Se. postage) 1§ cents per copy Place your order today with the the freedom of the Gastonia! textile workers, all petition lists | are asked to be returned at once to the national office of the Gas- tonia Joint Defense and Relief Campaign Committee, at 80 E. 1ith St, room 402, New York City. oy power.—Mi ing his day’s work when a mine car crashed into him at the mouth of the \pit. He leaves a wife and five chil- will put up demands and lead you in the fight for better working con- ditions, more pay. Now is the time. The mills are busy, the bosses find it hard to get people out of town. | United we will win. Join the Na- tional Textile Workers Union. —BOYLSTON SLAVE. wn new Commune (Paris Commune) breaks the modern state jarx, group of dancers, April 11. Those | interested in the above concerts can send their names in for circulars to the office of the People’s Symphony Concerts, 32 Union Square. | Build Up the United Front of the Working Class From the Bot- tom Up—at the Enterprises! WORKERS [LIBRARY PUBLISHERS and all Workers Book Shops 43 EAST 125TH STREET NEW YORK CITY ————