The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 17, 1929, Page 1

Ay THE DAILY WORKER FIGHTS For a Workers-Farmers Government To Organize the Unorganized Against Imperialist War For the 40-Mlour Week Entered Published daily except Sunday by The Company. Inc.. 26-28 Unton Square. Vol. Comprodaily Publishing New York City, N.Y. <2: VI, No. 165 aily FINAL CITY EDITION ’ ER Outside Ni SUBSCRIPTION RATES: In New York, by mail, $8.00 per year. Cents ew York, by mail, 86.00 per year. SEPTEMBER 17, 1929 NE DAY STRIKE FOR FUNERAL OF ELLA MAY WIGGINS! Build Workers Defense Com- mittees---Disarm the Fascist Thugs Who Murdered Ella May Wiggins! | The gunmen arrested for the deliberately planned mur- der of Ella May Wiggins will not be punished by the law. This is already indicated by the charge placed against them —not of murder, but of second degree murder or man- slaughter. Note the difference: When Fred Beal and the others of the sixteen mill workers and union organizers de- fended themselves, the charge was murder, carrying with it auto- matically the death penalty and permitting no bail. On the other hand, Ella May Wiggins was murdered by mill superintendents and their gunmen who went out in automobiles heavily armed for the purpose of running down and murdering mill workers on their way to a peace- ful unarmed meeting. But the guilty mill agents and gunmen—who beyond the slightest doubt committed deliberate, premeditated mur- der, are charged with a lighter offense and are released on bail of $1,000, ridiculously easy for the mill owners to produce. Add this to the fact that Governor Gardener, a rich textile mill owner, appointed Solicitor Carpenter to mvestigate the previous mob rampage after the victims had declared that Carpenter was one of the instigators and leaders of the mob. Add the arrest of the victims of the mob for “conspiracy to overthrow the state” with a few puny little shot guns, while everyone knows that the mill owners’ superin- tendents and gunmen are freely roaming the streets and organizing murder expeditions armed with high powered rifles and automatic pistols. Everybody knows that the mob that flogged Wells and mur- dered Ella May Wiggins is still armed and still exists as a standing organization which is now only divided into smaller groups as active as ever in roaming the streets and country, trying to terrorize the mill workers. The law does not operate to stop the arming of the fascist bands. On the contrary, the whole machinery of the law helps to organize these mill owners’ bands, and protects them in their crimes as shown by the fact that policemen and state prosecutors participated in the mob that flogged Wells. The machinery of the law does not: restrain the criminal acts of the fascist bands, but on the contrary protects them as shown by the light treatment of the murderers of Ella May Wiggins, and as shown by the failure even to record on the police blotter the fact of the violence of the mob of last week, and as shown b. the horde of “alibis” that are produced for every criminal agent of theomill owners cancht in crime. No matter what temporary gestures of “fairness” may be made —such as the momentary arrest of some of the gunmen for the murder of Ella May Wiggins, followed by the shameful release on a ridiculous bond signed by the mill bossess—-the workers must firmly keep in mind that the aim of the mill bosses’ rovernment is to crush the union ana to railroad the defendants of Gastonia to death on the electric chair. The state legal apparatus will do nothing to punish the murderers of Ella May Wiggins, but will seek and find some sort of false “alibis” or other excuses to realese them. The mill owners’ state government will proceed to use every de- vice to burn to death on the electric chair Fred Beal and the other heroic mill workers who threaten the swollen protits of the mill owners who also own the state government, the courts, the police, ete. The object of the entire state a atu’ remains today just the same: The drowning of the union movement in blood, so as to proceed unhindered in sque: g profits out of the mill workers with still more terrible pressure of the stretc tem and starvation wages. Why then did the police a a handful vf the mill agents for the “slaying” (they do not even call it murder) of Ella May Wiggins? It was enly an arrest “among fr ” Tt was made only out of fear 6f the mass anger of the hundreds of thousanas of mill workers. Why did they release the eight workers who were under arr for “conspiring to overthrow the state” with a half-dozen shotgun They released these eight workers after the 1urder of Ella May Wiggins only because of fear of the anger of the n.ill workers aro by the murder. They had not intended to do so. Such charges were not made merely to prevent these workers from attending a meetins, es were made with the intention of carrying them through yicn men from the charge of “:on- the recvlt of mass pressure In the release of these cizht 1 spiracy to overthrow the state, of the working class. Mass pressure is the only foree that has done anything for the _ mill workers in this struggle. And mass ssure, mass action, is the only thing that will do anything for them in the future, The workers should remember that “we are many, they are few.” But our numbers will count only if we are mobilized. From the defense of the sixteen workers on trial in the Gastonia case, there has grown a tremendous struggle of class against class. From the economic struggle in the North Carolina mills has arisen with startling rapidity a major political struggle. With equal rap- idity the mill owners’ government has thrown oft the mask of “de- mocracy” and has come out with open fascist violence. The speed of these developments proves the :rtensifying sharpness of the class struggle in the United States at tnis time and the neec of mobilizations. Every worker in every mill, factory, shop and mine must be reached with the ghastly facts of the murder of Fila May Wiggins— with the call to organize!—with the call to defend the right of our class to organize and to defend itself—with the call to their working class duty of building in the mills and shops their Workers’ Defense Committees! can be ce ‘Shalkan reported, about 25 non- DE W RKERS union laboratories have signed More agreements with the union. than 300 workers are affected, he added, by these agreements. Many of the employers who have /not as yet signed, requested that the union give them several more days, as they were out of town on their vacations and just returned. VOTE TO STRIKE Give Employers Few The membership agreed to give the More Days bosses several more days before The Strike Committee of the | uthorizing the Strike Committee to call the strike. Workers in shops that have not gaed expressed their willingness to strike when the time comes, and Dental Laboratory Workers’ Union | was authorized by the membership at a meeting held last night at) Irving Plaza, Irving Place and 15th) St., to call.a strike in several days Stated that they would wage a if those laboratory owners who have ‘Bae Sets! Hea i ee eee? not signed an agreement with the sPacnge ak the union, is chairman union refuse to do so by that time. of the Strike Committee. Those at the meeting, which was es 3 well attended, was informed that 80 Greek Needle Workers The Greek Executive Board of per cent of the laboratories whose agreement with the union expired on Sunday, have renewed them. the Needle Trades Workers Indus- They include many laboratories trial Union will meet tomorrow, which are members of the Dental right after work at 131 W. 28th St. Laboratory Owners’ Association. to take up important | questions. Sign Non-Union Shops. Leaders of the Joint Board will be addition, Organizer Maxi present, In ! | | | ing of the mill wo in South cer NO AGREEMENT — BY FIVE POWERS E 2 The five small children of Ella May Wiggins, the textile worker, active member of the Na- tional Textile Workers Union, whom mill thugs murdered as she was on her way to the mass meet- Gastonia. Mill Thugs Mourn Ella M. Wiggins; Fight METAL STRIKERS URGED ORGANIZE Fight Develops onSubs Move Defiantly Read TUUL Leaflets Hit at French Army From various capitals continued, nervous commentary on the arma- ment question is gradually exposing | ‘the forthcoming five-power confer- ence as anything but a harmonious | gathering. Despite the British press’ almost hysterical reiteration that “ace on parity has almost been reached | between U. S. and Britain,” it is now revealed that all of Dawes’ and| MacDonald’s talk served merely to expose a discrepancy of 15,000 tons { in naval strength and armaments of | three 10,000-ton cruisers, which they were unable to overcome. MacDonald Delay | Britain demands 50 cruisers, of! which 35 will be armed with six- inch guns, and 15 with eight. U.S. demands 21 cruisers carrying eight- inch guns. | Britain ims she must have, >39,000 cruiser tonnage, and U will have 300,000. The empire will not be satis ess than 315,000 tons of The MacDonald v postponed until January, from London state, n American fied with! been reports Scrap Over Subs. The only thing U. S. and E d have really agreed upon, according to authoritative reports from Ton- \don, is a decision to face the con-, |ference with a, joint statement in| jfavor of absolute abolition of sub-| marines. ! This will never be accepted By either France, Italy, or Japan, and | the argument will then begin over, {reduction of these countries’ subma- ‘rine tonnage. Here the three coun-} tries which, because of their posi- | tion find subs most useful, espe-| cially against Britain or U. S., will] split, as Italy claims absolute par- jity with France, and France will |not readily accept this. Japan is said by British and/ American naval officers to have the} largest fleet of seagoing subma-| rines in the world, and as U. S. fears for the Philippine and Ha- | waiian connections, so does England fer her routes to Australia and the East Indies. Continued on Page Three) | Build Up the United Front of the Working Class From the Bot- | tom Up—at ihe Enterprises! Statement of the ILD, on Mass Funeral The International Labor Defense | lowers its banners in mourning be-| side the grave of one of its bravest fighters—Ella May Wiggins—t tile mill worker of Bessemer City, North Carolina, murdered by . the gunmen of the Manville-Jenckes Corporation of Gastonia. Among the first to join the Na- tional Textile Workers’ Union and to come forward as an energetic leader and organizer of the mill strikers, she nevertheless found time to earry on her work also as a mem-} ber of the International Labor De-| fense. Mother of Five. Endless, excruciating toil had always been her lot. Widowed, the mother of ‘ive children, she strug- | -|gled through the 12-hour day in the! mill only to find endless duties at home, Such courage proved dynamic in he strike struggle. She was, there- signalled out for special per- ion by the mill barons and their hired assessi © The water in her| well was poisoned. Death threats Page Two) MOORE RELEASED SERVED 3 DAYS. Rickard B. Moore, Communist Party candidate for Congress in the 21st district, acrested with seven other workers Friday night, when police broke up an open air meet- ing arranged by the party at Sev-| enth Ave. and 137th St., has been released from jail after serving a threc days’ sentence. He was con- vieted Magistrate Richard F. McKiniry in che West 54th St. night court. Rebecca Grecht, Communist Party campaign manager and candidate | for assembly in the Fifth district, | tke Bronx; Ruth Shipman, Paul Rymorko and Steve Mesaroski were also convicted and released with (Continued on Page Two) | Workers Here to Meet Friday to Honor Ella May Wiggins at Carteret, N. J. “Organize your own union, keep the labor fakers, out, get the sup- port of the militant workers throughout the country!” were slo- gans emphasized in leaflets distrib- uted to the 2,500 strikers of the U. S. Smelting & Refining Company at Carterest, N. J., yesterday morning by the Metal Workers Industrial League, an organization affiliated with the Trade Union Unity League. Enthusiastically received by the strikers, who hold meetings every morning and throughout the day on the lot opposite the plant, the leaf- lets urged a continued fight for abo- | lition of the bonus system; ten cent increase in wages per hour; an eight hour day and 44 hour week, with no pay decreases time and one half for overtime for all workers; pay every week; no discrimination strikers, and recognition of factory committees. The strikers are urged to attend the Metropolitan Area Trade Union Unity Conference at. Irving Plaza Hall, 15th St. and Irving Place, Sat- urday, 1 p. m., Sept. 21. A review of the strike will be a feature of the conference, at which workers will also report on the New Jersey car struggle and other fights in New Jersey and New York. The official report on the Cleveland Trade Union Unity League conven-/ More Mass Arrests of Swate tion will also be given, KILL 16 ARABS NEAR GALILEE British Call It Fight; May Be Massacre Sixteen Bedouin tribesmen, part of a larger force, revolting against the British mandate government of Palestine were killed in battle at Hattin, near the Sea of Galilee, ac- cording to press reports reaching here today. The British news censor permits no réal details of the fighting to reach Jerusalem of the outside world, but confines itself to the statement that the Bedouin “raid- ers” were encountered by British military patrols, with the result stated. There is no announcement of Brit- ish casualties, May Be Merely Massacre. While it has been known for sev- eral weeks that the desert tribes from over the Jordan were march- ing on Palestine, and that several against | —_—__—— - COMMUNIST PARTY AND UNION CALL ~ FOR MASS PROTEST, WORKERS’ DEFENSE COMMITTEES, DISARMING OF FASCISTS Wave of Indignation Against Mill Bosses’ Murderers Forces Judge to Dismiss Sedition Indictments Against Eight Organizers | Evidence of Eye Witnesses Shows Murder of Woman Organizer Was Premeditated, Planned and Carried CHARLOTTE, N. C., Sept. Out by Mill Bosses BULLETIN. 16.—Ben Wells, just able to leave his bed after being flogged last Monday night by mill owners’ thugs, appeared in court today to identify his assailants and | GASTONIA, N. C., Sept. occasion of such a mass protest as has been seldom seen anywhere agai | Judge Shaw ruled out his testimony because Wells said he did not believe in god. 16.—The funeral tomorrow of Ella May Wiggins will be the t the murderous cam- paign of the mill owners who try to stop the National Textile Workers’ Union from organizing, and who resort to attempts at | | and to deliberate and planned ass lynching, to court trials with electrocution of the workers in view, sination, like the murder of this woman textile organizer on the road from Bessemer City to Gastonia, when mill thugs broke up the union mass meeting. Ten thousand leaflets calling for a one-day protest strike against the murderous mill owners’ campaign of terror, calling for mass protest at the funeral of Ella Ma y against the | murder-terror of the Manville-Jenckes company and its state authorities, demanding the dis- armament of the fascist terror bands, and calling on the workers to organize their own defense units in all mills, have been issued. A new drive of the Nati onal Textile Workers’ Union is beginning. It is an intensive campaign for 100 per cent organization of the textile industry of the South. “Every mill worker into the National Textile Workers’ Union,” and ‘‘Every class con- scious worker into the Communist Party,” are slogans of the leaflet, which is signed by Hugo Oehler, southern organizer of the N. T. W., and by Bill Dunne, organizer for the | Victim of Mill Thugs es | of the Ella May Wiggins, one most active. members of the Na- | tional Textile Workers Union in | Bessemer City, murdered by Man- Ville-Jenckes mill thugs Saturday | while she was on her way to at-| tend a mass demonstration of mill workers in South Gastonia. PRAVDA SCORES CHIANG POLICY Workers in Manchuria | (Wireless by Inprecorr) MOSCOW, U. S. S. R., Sept. 16. —Commenting on the Chiang Kai- shek government’s answer to the Soviet Union’s proposed alterations in the text of the joint declarations |proposed by Chiang in regard to ithe seizure of the Chinese Eastern) ; Railway and the Manchuria situa. |tion, Pravda declares that the N |king militarists are engaged in | cardsharping. : Nanking refuses to recognize Article VI of the Peking agreement concerning the non-toleration of or- ganizations making hostile propa- ganda against the parties to the agreement (China and the U. S. S. R.). The Chinese militarist gov- ernments are deliberately intensi- fying the conflict, says Pravda, hoping for the promised interfer- ence of the powers of the League of Nations, Pravda points out the political (Continued on Page Two) —Communist Party. eas. CHARLOTTE, N. C., Sept. 16.—Facing the indignation of thousands of textile workers, who see in the disarmament and arrest of eight N.T.W.U. organizers last Thursday on charges of conspiring to overthrow the government of North Carolina merely a campaign of the state and county authorities to make easier such murders of unarmed workers as that of Ella May Wiggins Saturday, or such lynching outrages as that against Wells, Saylor and Lell Monday of the same week, = ®the city solicitor today asked WORKERS ASSAI for the case against the eight organizers to be nolle prossed, j ‘and charges against them were WIGGINS MURDER °"' No Charge At First. BY MILL GUNMEN o=: with sedition, all released The men arrested last week and Demonstration In Chicago Streets | CHICAGO, Ill., Sept. 16.—A mass murder * demonstration against the of Ella May Wiggins, active fighter | for the National Textile Workers’ | battlefront killed by mill thugs Sunday, rallied hun- of to the slogans of the Gastonia Defense and Relief Committee at Washington yesterday. Union on the Gastonia where she was trapped and dreds Chicago workers Under banners denouncing the savage murder and the organized |terrorism against the strikers and union members, the workers par- aded through the streets to the scene of the demonstration. | Taking advantage of the mass re- Cc. M. LELL, today are: C. M. Lell, C. D. Saylor (two of those attacked by the lynch- ers Monday night), Dewey Martin, sponse to the intensified fight Tom Gibson, Taylor Shytle, Edward against the Gastonia railroading, /Rich, Paul Shepard, and George the local defense committee is mob- Saul. Their boarding house had been entered and they were taken to jail, the police having found some shotguns in the house. Judge izing for another protest meeting to be held tomorrow at the People’s | Auditorium, 2457 W. Chicago Ave. | athens \ Y. C. L. Demonstrates. MONESSON, Pa, Sept. 16.— |Denouncing mill boss terror against the Gastonia textile strikers, hun- dreds of young workers demon- strated for the immediate release of the prisoners at Donner and Fifth Ave. yesterday. | Police arrested Joe Tash, national Continued on Page Three) | Build Up the United Front of the Working Class From the Bot- | tom Up—at the Enterprises! “We're Behind Union, ILD,” ‘Bill Dunne, Ben Wells, Sophie Melvin Will Address Masses; Gasten Defense Meet Also Ella’ May is dead but her memory | International Labor Defense will -bc will not be forgotten by the work-|held in Irving Plaza, at Fifteenth ing class of New York, which will! St.’ and Irving Place, Wednesday meet Friday night in| night, when further mobilization for Central Opera House,| Gastonia defense and ‘relief will at Third Ave. and) take place. Sixty-seventh St. to The needle trades conference, revere this martyr for which was to be held Wednesday the cause of organized night, has been called off not to E. Wiggins labor. conflict with the joint mass meet- Prior to that. meet- ing. ing, a mass joint meeting of the! The joint defense and relief com- Workers International Relief andj) (Continued on Page Two) ‘ bodies had slipped through the Brit- “sh cordon along the borders, it is considered here that this story of, vue may be merely the British! command’s:.y * telling of another | (Continued on Page Three) Mountain People Rap The mountaineers of North Caro- ' REWARDING FRIENDS. the furious class war being waged | WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 (UP).—|at Gastonia, wrote to the Interna- |The nominations of Clarence M.|tional Labor Defense today and, Young of Towa to be Assistant Sec- with hundreds of thousands of other retary of Commerce and William L.| workers expressed their solidarity Cooper of New York to be Director ; with the textile workers . of .the Bureau of Foreign and “The. general talk here in the Domestic Commerce were sent to | mountains is all about Gastonia and j the senate today by President |the whole of the moyntain people is P Hoover, ‘ n backing the National Textile W or! Writes Carolina Mountaineer Bitter Class War in Carolina lina, rapidly learning the lessons of Cc. D. SAYLOR. Shaw the next day informed the city solicitor that they would have to be dismissed unless a charge was made against them. Possessions is not il- legal in North Caroina. | Thereupon the solicitor produced the famous warrant, charging them with attempting the overthrow of the government by conspiring to hold the South Gastonia meeting Saturday, for the purpose of dis- seminating “ommunists, # ober he Press reports from Gastonia de- scribe the thugs identified and ar- (Continued on Page Three) : ' idly Learn Lessons of yers Union and the International La- bor Defense to the limit,” the moun- taineer writes. “The Manville-Jenckes Company |has agents here trying to get us \to scab for the mill and not a man would go, and let me tell you there lis some sure that jeeds work up here.” “Let me know,” this mountaineer, a former Loray mill employe, writes, (Continued on Page Two) wil i