The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 18, 1929, Page 1

| , THE DAILY WORKER FIGHTS For a Workers-Farmers Government To Organize the Unorganized Against Imperialist War For the 40-Hour Week Baily Entered as serond-clasa matter at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. ‘DEMONSTRATE AGAINST THE MURDER OF ELLA MAY WIGGINS AT SEVEN HUGE MEETINGS FRIDAY Worker FINAL CITY EDITION » Ine, 26-28 Unton Square, hed daily except Sanday by ‘The Comprodaily Publishing New York City, N. ¥, > SUBSCRIPTION RA’ jew York, by mail, $6.00 per year. TES: In New York, by mail, $8.00 per year. Vol. VI., No. 166 The eyes of the conscious working class of the whole world were fixed yesterday upon the grave-yard at Bessemer City, North Carolina, where the bullet-torn body of our working- class sister, Ella May Wiggins, was buried. The long pro- cession of men, women. and. children of our class who fol- lowed her body to the grave was accompanied in spirit by millions of working people in all parts of this country and all countries of the world. The Cause that she died for is the same Cause for which every class-conscious honorable working man and woman in the whole world must be as ready to give his or her life as was Ella May Wiggins. But the working class has no time or leisure for idle mourning. The horror that was shown by the mass funeral yesterday must not be allowed to waste itself in sentimental tears and inactivity. Men and women of our class cannot afford to be soft while we still remain in slavery. That horror, that mourning, that loyalty that was shown in the @lassed ranks of the workers marching to the funeral yesteMday must be crystallized into the hard, iron form of organization. We did not bury with Ella May Wiggins the Cause for which she fought, and this Cause must be fought for with ten hundred times more energy, courage and resourcefulness than ever before. Throughout the Piedmont section, spread the call for the organiza- tion of Workers Defense Committees in every mill, every shop, every factory. The struggle for the right to organize must be pushel ahead | on the entire front. The National Textile Workers’ Union must be made to grow by tens of thousands. The demand for the disarming of the mill bosses’ fascist bands must resound in every mill. The fas- cist murderers must be disarmed; the Workers Defense Committees must be brought to life in every mill. This is the way the workers must show that our dead do not die in vain. . . . But the lessons of the Gastonia struggles are not for the North Carolina mill workers alone. The same organizational needs that are shown so sharply there are shown with equal emphasis elsewhere. New York needle workers! It is not only in the past week that you have had to face the need for organizing your own Workers’ Defense Committees. Shoe workers of New York and New England! You as well as any are face to face with the same elementary needs that are shown in the mill towns of North and South Carolina. Organize your Workers Defense Committees! The sharp, merciless and brutal offensive of the bosses against the workers’ right to. organize is a common phenomenon not. alone throughout this-country, but throughout the world. With a vengeance the capitalist class is proving that the Communist International is cor- ° rect in pointing out to the working class in all countries that in this, the third period of post-war capitalism, the sharpness of the struggle between our class and the enemy exploiting class is accentuated to an extreme degree. Capitalist rationalization, the stretch-out system, the merging of trustified industry with the capitalist government, the growing social-fascism of the reformist agents of the capitalist class, the feverish preparations for imperialist war especially against the pes of Socialist Soviet Republics—all of these on a national and international scale merge with the “local” lessons of Gastonia. Carry the message of Gastonia to every worker in every factory, mine, mill and workshop! ¥ | C.6.T.UBLASTS ¥.M.U, INVADING RIGHT MINORITY INGO COUNTY Fifth Congress Lauds Miners’ Slogan | | | | | | | | Communist Party | | (Wireless By “Inpr ) PITTSBURGH, Pa., Sept PARIS, France, Sept. 17.—The The great drive in the Southern coal second session yesterday of the/ fields, demanded unanimously by fifth congress of the Confederation | the Miners’ Conference at the Trade Generale de Travaille Unitaire, the Union Unity Convention early this militant national trade union center’ month, is on, the Resident Execu- of France, adopted a_ resolution} tive Board of the National Miners against capitalist persecution of the Union announced today. workers in the shops and the con- Logan, Mingo and + Mciowell tinuous series of arrests of militant counties, scenes of intense, bloody workers. : ete class conflicts, and where no sem- | The right wing minority, under blance of organization has existed the leadership of Schumann, Weber <ince. the infamous betrayal by the and Hermann, continued their of-| Lewis machine of the historical 1921 fensive against the C.G.T.U. and the| strike, are already penetrated by Communist Party and denied the militant left wing organizers sent radicalization of the workers. by the Board. Sectional mectings, Majority Demonstration. s The majority. of the delegates| (Continued on Page Threc) emonstrated in favor of the Com-| | munist Party. | Build Up the United Front of The minority arguments were) the Working Class. refuted by two great speeches by | Morning Telegraph said: “The total |Opera House, New | the | the Working Class From the Bot- a NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1929 Outside N. The Funeral Over -- Organize FRANCE DEMANDS. Organize and ARMED Workers’ Defense Committees! SUPERIOR NAVY Fight as Ella pe ap Wiggins would Her Last Command to Workers “Orgonize and fight,” the slogan of the class war in thg South, can be used by the workers fighting to| save the 23 Gastonia strikers from | the electric chair, or imprisonment, and to save the workers of Gaston end Mecklenburg Counties from the present fascist black rule. Jim Reid, president of the Na- tional Textile Workers Union, de- clared the above today. He said, “This battle ery of the class war is rolling across the Southlands. It should be heard all over the United States where workers are assem- bling for the Gastonia Defense and Relief campaign, and for the mass collection days, Sept. 2i and 22. “Organize and fight” is the simple | language expressing the dying wish of Ella May Wiggins, that deter-| mined, undaunted, earnest union fighter. It is obvious that the Man- | ville-Jenckes thugs were acting on instructions when they killed Ella May in true Southern chivalrous style. From the assembled multitude of! her grave, in the thousands of mills of the country, from thousands of miserable shacks they occupy. will come in the clarion call of an TO ONE OF ITALY British Press Anxious For Abolition of Submarines Continent Will Refuse Dawes-MacDonald Still Deadlocked on Parity LONDON, England, Sept. 17.— The fight looms fiercer over sub- marines, as the French and Italian governments propagandize through the official and semi-official press against the reported U. S.-British agreement to fight for the abolition of submarines at the forthcoming five-power conference. On the other hand, British papers enthusiastically approve the aboli- tion of submarines. England almost lost the last world war because of the effectiveness of the German submarine blockade, and under-sea craft have been enormously~ im- proved since then. France, England’s “loyal ally” in the last war, is already more or less of a potential enemy, with disputes raging over the distribution | reparations, French troops occupy-| aroused working class, the answer ing German territory evacuated by|{) flla May Wiggins’ dying call, British troops, and arguments over «we Will Organize and Fight.” inter-allied debts. | = Discussing this phase of the sit- uation today, the Conservative 1 BIG MEETS TO abolition of submarines’ would be a! | (Continued on Page Two) | PROTEST TERROR Melvin to Speak in 9) ; Cities: Conference in | Toilers Here to Throng | New York City Tonite Demonstrations Sophie Me the 19-year-old ist Great mass mobilization in eight tonia, meetings for struggle of the New cran of the class war in N. York workers against the persecu-| tions against the murder of Ella May. Wiggins are being organized iby the New York district of the| Communist Party together with the| (Joint Defense Committee for Fri |day night throughout New York, and in Central Opera House. The meetings will take place a the following sections of the city: |Manhattan: 10th St. and 2nd Ave., 110th St. and Fifth Ave, Needle! N. C., which increases in intensity daily, will speak in nine cities thru- out the country before she returns to Charlotte, N. C., to stand trial with the 16 Gastonia strikers in danger of the electric chair. She will speak in New York, Sept. 20; in Boston, Sept. 21; in New Bed- ford, the afternoon of Sept. 2 i Boston, the night of Sept. Pittsburgh, Sept. in Philadel- Pi 9 hia, Sept. in Baltimore, and Sept. 27. Tentative meetings will | Trades Market at 12 noon; Bronx:} be held in Buffalo the 19th end in Intervale and Wilkins Ave.; Brook- onst=~d, the 28rd or 24th, lyn:’Grand St. Extension; Queens: will speak Steinway and Jamaica Aves. All at the Central York, Friday, when Bill Dunne, Ben Wells. and others from the front line of the class-war in Gastonia will be pre ent to honor Ella May Wiegin«. kill- ed by the Manville-Jenckes gang- sters. A. joint Workers (Continued on Page Two) NITY CENTER MEET SATURDAY. To Act On Plans For, Metropolitan Area | | The Metropolitan Area Trade | Union Unity Center will hold a con- ference Saturday at Irving Plaza, are being made |Irving Place and 15th St. at one land for the mass | o'clock at which a report of the Sept. 21 and 22. | Cleveland conference will be given. ee oe |Plans for trade union work in the) Build Up the United Front of | metropolitan area will be acted, | upon, it was announced last night. The conference will review the| mass meeting of the International Relief and International Labor Defense | will be held in New York at Irving ! Plaza, Irving Place and 15th St., | tonight, when mobilization for the relief and defense of the workers and organizers in Gastonia will be completed. Preparations throughout the collection days, tom Up—at the Enterprises! Thiebaud and Neulade who declared | the opposition hindered the fighting force of the workers. The Communist leader Monmous- seau was arrested and taken to the, Sante prison yesterday, adding to ii considerable list already there. Pack Meet to Defeat Lefts at I. L. G. W. Form Negro Defense Corps to Fight Police and Thug Terror Communist Party Alone Leads Negro Masses in Struggle Against Class, Race Enemies — | recent struggles of the workers in New York and vicinity, also the strikes of the workers in other parts of the country. A special report ‘will be given on the present activi- ties in Gastonia, N. C., and the heroic struggle of the Southern tex- tile workers who are organizing into sthe National Textile Workers’ Union | lin spite of the faseist activities of | the mill owners and their agents. The conference, it was also an- Packing Bryant Hall with mem- hers of the union who had no right to vote, the right wing administra-| tion of Local 38, International La-) dies’ Garment Workers’ Union last | By HAROLD WILLIAMS The Negro workers of America | must realize that the time to strug- | gle as never before against the combined reactionary forces of night by a few Votes defeated aj| American imperialism has now ar- motion to reconsider the- expulsion rived. For years, Negro and white selves from the brutal police forces who viciously attack the Negroes in their homes by destroying their furniture and throwing hundreds into jail. Durir the past four months va \ the reactionary machine knew that ‘eving worker ) No Meeting Held. No meeting of the local has been neld for weeks until last night, as, the membership would repudiate | their action. Harry Greenberg, a vice-president of the I. L. G. W., who was at the meeting to help the rightwingers, admitted that the voting hy the lien members was illegal, an? ad/'od that if the motion to produc? | th utes wes passed, he would close the meeting. ee there have becn several mob and | | their lackeys, such as the American | the most brutal oppression at the hands of a handful of capitalists and Federation of Labor bureaveracy | and the yellow, treacherous socialist party. The time has come when | we must be prepared to join ihe | ranks of Communism with the class-conscious white workers, and wage a relentless campaign against our class enemies, such as the Ku Klux Klan, the American Legion | end the defcatist and reactionavy lerdorship of the N. A. A. ©. P, and also be prepared to defend our- Platte, Nebragka, over 200 Ne~: from the local of V. Abraham, a left) workers have been suffering from/|lynch terrors against the Negro workers. In the latter part of May, Joe Boxley, 19-year-old Negro farm hand, was brutally lynched in Almo, | Tennessee. In the latter part of June, Willie MeDaniels, 22-year-old Negro farm hand, was lynched near Charlotte, ie Oe In the same month, at North mm thei. (Continued on Page Two) workers werq drive: nouncea, will be followed by a num- | | ber of industrial mass meetings of Trade Union Unity Leagues and shop ccmmittees where plans for future activities of the workers will be taken up, especially the organiza- ‘tion of the unorganized workers. ‘Austrian Glanzstoff | Rayon Workers Strike Against the Fascists | VIENNA, (By Mail).—In connec- | tion with the collision which oc- |curred last Sunday between work- \ers and Heimwehr fascists in St. |Poelten on Monday there was a political strike in the local Glanz- toff rayon works, the workers de- manding the dismissal of two fas- jcists. When this demand was re- fused they went on strike, ELLA MAY TO HER GRAVE Requiem Sung Is Mill Mothers’ Song She | Composed Thugs Hunt Speakers |Hundreds of Workers Wait Hours at Grave Qthers Guard Body; Huge Throng in the Procession in ELLA MAY WIGGINS FUNERAL MADE MASS PROTES? WORKERS NATIONAL {EXTILE UNION SPEAKERS DEFYING GANGSTERS, CHARGE MURDER TO MANVILLE-JENCKES AND THE STATE Driving Rain While Grave Between Mill! Bosses Gangsters in Mill Windows Jeer Dead But Dare Not Attack; and Union Hall . By BILL DUNNE. CHARNOTTE, N. C., Sept. 17.—{ Elle May is buried. Her body was | borne to its resting place in the! red clay soil of Gaston County | while the gangs of the Manville- | Jenckes gunmen ranged the road | looking for National Textile Work- | ers Union organizers who might be careless enough to travel alone. rs of N.T.W. organizers, hearing of 14 of them, to rest, and flogging. the Loray mill; Dewey Carver, flogge BULLETIN. Wells, Lell and Saylors. order seven held on $7. * * * Union Mambers Pledge Renewed Activity as Monument >, Sept. 17.—The mass of testimony against the identified kidnappers and forced Judge Shaw, conducting the prelim- 00 bail for trial on charges of kidnapping, They are 0. G. Moorhead and William Pickering, both superintendents in m Carver, Smiley Lewis and Carl Holloway, all Loray mill hire- lings, and Horace Lane, superintendent of Myers Mill in South Gastonia. BESSEMER CITY, N. C., Sept. 17.—Ella May Wiggins, martyred member of the Na- Ella May pallbearers were armed‘ tional Textile Workers’ Union, murdered in cold blood by the fascist gang of the Manville- mill workers. Her requiem ‘vas the | Jenckes Company last Saturday, was lowered into her grave this morning in Bessemer City mill moth sung in the croning minor key of , the Southern folk melodies. Ella May’s song echoes through | mill workers. song she had composed, Where she had been a militant fighter for the rights of labor and better conditions for the As her body, riddled with the bullets of mill owners’ hirelings, was lowered by her the rain-soaked laurel leaves as fellow workers, Katie Barnet sang one of Ella May’s union songs. The members of the Ella May’s body went back to the | National Textile Workers’ Union stood with bowed heads in honor of their,comrade who gaye red earth her blood had dyed a deep- er crimson. This was a stern funeral. Misery | Picket and hold union meetings. and death are commonplace in the | mill villages of the South. Murder is nothing new, but even the machine : cruelty of Southern industrialization | black hundreds that has ever has not yet made the murder of |in the windows of the American mills, the workers defied women a commonplace. Gaunt, tight-lipped men (Continued on Page Two) jattend the funeral. and) tem which she and her fellow A. F. L. Agent Sent t0|piinked their eyes rapidly to k Orleans Strike Shocked | their undernourished bodies were wracked with sobs. By Increased Militancy | Balainbie ’ NEW ORLEANS, La., Sept. 17.—| Marking the “arrival of J. B. Law-| son, an official sent by the Amer-| iean Federation of Labor to arrange | another balloting to jam through| the proposed sell-out, dynamite was | thrown before a scab-manned street ear, It missed by several feet. indows in a neighboring building} were broken by the shock. Militant picketing and determined fusal to allow the betrayal which irtually accepts the blacklist and| open shop is the reply of the New Orleans strikers to their aiisjendiea| GASTON DEFENSE | jWEETING TONIGHT Melvin and Wells Will Sveak Friday Dae arene | The new reign of terror against | Lyncher-in-chief, hired by the the Gastonia textile worl the | Manville-Jenckes bosces to Jefend cold blooded murder of Ella May | the murderers of Wiggins by the millowners commit- tee of 100 on Saturday afternoon, will be taken up at the emergency meeting of the Joint Action Com- mittee of the International Labor Defense and the Workers Interna- tional Relief, today at 8 p. m. at) Trving Plaza, Irving Place and 15th | St. Hundreds of telegrams have been sent the delegates and organisations that attended the last meeting of the Joint Action Committee urging them to be present. Other working la May W Suspended Sentence Is Given Minor and Others Jailed Near Consulate Robert Minor, editor of the Daily Worker and four others arrested Friday noon during a demonstra- tion at the Mexican consulate, were convicted and released with suspend- ed sentence when arraigned before class organizations. are asked to Magistrate Louis B. Brodsky in have representatives at this meet- Jefferson Market Court y erday ing. heute: gainst 14 ers arrested at the samo Mass Meet Friday. Direct from the Gastonia hattie front, Sophie Melvin, one of the de- time were dismissed while the trial lof Nick Aconomos was postponed |working class solidarity, of militant mass prot: been seen in the South. workers received in the mi eep the tears back. But when her life in the fight for the right to strike for better wages and conditions, the right to The mass funeral of Ella May was one of the most impressive demonstrations of against the murderous terror of the bosses’ Amid jeers from the mill boss gang the terror, risking their lives to The leaders of the fascists were there but dared not attack today. Five little children stood around the grave of their | the starvation wages of nine dollars a week for 60 hours heroic mother who fought against under the vicious stretch-out sys- 1, bravely swallowed their sobs and Ella May’s body was lowered, > “I want the children to live a decenter life than what I did,” she told a Daily Wor to get some educating an cer reporter some weeks ago. fighting for better conditions for my children. “Pm I want them have a better chance than I ever got, and I want to learn them to be good union leaders and stick to their fellow workers. The Union, the Workers International Re International Labor Defense and the ief are cooperating, and will see that Ella May’s wishes for her children are carried out. They will be sent to the Young Pioneers School where they will be We LS EVIDENCE & bh Barred Since He “Does Not Believe in God” CH ARLOTTE, N. ~ y night last week by hireli mill bosses, after being rapped by of the same led lbr Solicitor Carpenter of Gastoni appeared in court to testify, h |dence was ruled out because he ad- mitted he did not believe Wells just able yester leave bed, where h confined since his beat teen of the Manville-Jenckes and other mill bosses’ henchmen were identified by the victims as being in the gang that did the raiding and kidnapping. Textile 1 were defending them, (Continued on Page Thre?) roughly handled by the police. Abra a Cher- nen were other pended senten kant, of the Internatio \fense, represented the fendants’ in the murder trial that |UNt! Oct. 1. Several had been starts again Sept. 30, Ben Wells, | National Textile Workers Union or. 66 ganizer, flogged by a mob of mill owners’ agents last week, and Bil! Dunne, Communist Party organizer in the South, will speak at a huge mass ineeting to be held Friday at & p. m. at Central Opera House, Forward from This Grave to New Struggle” : Engdahl 2: c | ULED OUT 67th St. and Third Ave., under the “We've Buried Our Dead,” He Says, at Funeral |developments of the reign of terror auspices of the International Labor Defense and the Workers Interna. tivnal Relief. i Reign of Terror. The meeting will hear the latest of Ella May Wiggins is in against the Carolina textile work- today on the illustrious roll of crs from those who have heen ac-| labor’s martyrs. tive participants in the struggle.| With these words, J. Louis Eng- The meeting will also mark the! dahl, national secretary of the In- opening of a two-day tag drive for| ternational Labor Defense, spoke the defense of the Gastonia work- today at the grave of Ella May ers, which will be held Saturday and | Wiggins. He continued: Sunday. It is expected tha¢ thou-! The oppressed of all cavitalist sands of New York workers will col-|lands and liberated labor in the (Continued on Page Two)! ‘of Ella Wiggins: Must Defeat Class Enemies -|of her heroie sacrifice and are in- »|spired by her courageous example to greater efforts for the libe ion jef their class. Workers of the So- viet Union, of Great Britain and India, of France and. China, of Ger- many and Mexico, of South America and Africa, today stood shouider to shoulder with the mill workers of Gaston county with all North Caro by the reign of terror and thalbdg- \lina and American labor beside the ned for leadership struggle. The relatives of Ella May in Bessemer City—members of the union—have been assured that the children will be taken care of, in the S Many had plodded their way through the red clay and in the drenching rain to the cemetery early in the day. Others had stood for hours, huddled together in the rain in front of the house where the body had lain since the shooting. For hours, mill workers who had come from miles around, waited im the graveyard, their clothing sod dened, their grim faces moist. the undertaker, in- calling for the minister of the First Baptist Church, Rev. C. J. Black, before he sent the hearse over, and the procession be- gan. Automobiles ploughed through , the muddy roads ani great num- bers followed on foot. One auto- mobile became mired in the clay near the center of the cemetery. “ Textile workers lifted it bodily and ® placed it aside, The workers who left the mills to protest against the black terror e » and to pay honor to sister, heard Wes f the N. T. W. lors and Dewey izers of the I, y., tell about the a Mey took in the class peing waged here, charged Manville-Jenckes te of North Carolina for of their dead comrade. Support Union. On eve: popular hand one sees proof that timent is swinging more and more to the support of the Na- tional Textile Workers Union and the I. L. D. as militant. indignation on the part of the workers mounts higher. Far from crushing the growing vevolt of the mill workers, the atros s of the Manville- Jenckes fascists who have taken over control of the local courts and police, the determination of the masses is steeled to fight harder than before against the ruthless ex- ploitation and oppression of the mill barons. Their task made doubly difficult stant menace of murder hi first workers renublic today. know | si, (Continued om Pane Two) u». | ssa (Continued om Pane I