The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 19, 1929, Page 1

THE DAILY WORKER FIGHTS For a Workers-Farmers Government To Organize the Unorganized ainst Imperialist War ‘or the 40-Hour Week er at the Post Office sige ee New York, N. ¥., ander the act of March 3, Published y except Company. Ine. 26-28 U: Tol. VI, No. 167 y by The Comprodaily Publishing New York City, N. Y¥. <a orker 1879. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: In Outside New York, by mail, $6.00 per year. FINAL CITY EDITION New York, by mail, $8.00 per year, Price 3 Cents NEW YORK, THURSDA Y, SEPTEMBER 19, 1929 MILL BOSS LYNCHERS FLOG ORGANIZER, USE DYNAMITE The Meaning of the Manifesto of the Communist Party of the U.S. A. Struggle at Gaston la TO ALL WORKING MEN AND WORKING WOMEN! Events in Gastonia are moving with the greatest rapidity. Out of the efforts of the workers to organize trade unions came the bosses’ most brutal attacks upon the workers and their organizations and the charge of murder against sixteen strikers and their leaders whose only crime was to have defended themselves and their organization against the attacks of the thugs and the police. From an economic struggle, from the defénse of these sixteen workers on trial, there has developed a tremendous struggle of class against class. Gastonia has become the signal fér the whole working class of the United States to mobilise not only on behalf of a section of the workers in North Carolina but on its own behalf against the offensive of the capitalists. With equal rapidity, the mill owners’ government in Gastonia has thrown off the mask of “democracy” and has come out with open Fas- cist violence. The speed of these developments proves the intensifying sharpness of the class struggle in the United States at the present time. The heroic struggle of the textile workers of Gastonia for the past six months marked the ascending wave of resistance of the workers, not only in the newly industrialised South, but also of the workers of the whole United States, especially of the unorganized, semi-skilled and unskilled workers against the increasing exploitation of the bosses. Through a program of rationalisation, speed-up, wage-cuts, unemploy- ment, etc., the bosses try to overcome the ever-sharpening contradic- tion between the expanding productive powers of American imperial- ism and the shrinking markets. At the same time the sharpening inner and outer contradictions of capitalism drive on to a series of imperialist wars. As the imperigl- ists intensify every day their feverish war preparations, they seek by every means to break and destroy the working class resistance so that “their rear” may be secure when tHey enter upon a new world slaughter. Wi. THE TERROR AT GASTONIA. day, September 9, a band of 500 mill owners omobiles terrorized the textile town of North to torture or kill all the union organizers. The ‘of the victims of the all but successful lynching were fy some dozen of the capitalist mob leaders, including » attorney for the prosecution, and Bulwinkle, a leader of R rs. On Monday, the Governor of North Carolina, a mill owner himself, actually charged this same Carpenter to “inquire” into Wgsoutrare of which he has been formally accused. On Thursday, two of the victims of the outrage and six other mill workers were ar- “rested without warrant and charged with sedition and attempt to over- throw the government.of North Carolina—with a half dozen shotguns. On Saturday, September 14, the workers thronging to a mass trade union meeting in Gastonia, were forced back by detachments of auto- mobiles full of gunmen who pursued one truckload and fired upon the passengers with deadly effect. Ella May Wiggins, a woman textile worger ana organizer, mother of five children, they killed outright. The murderers of Ella May Wiggins have been released so that they can rejoin the armed fascist thugs who have now broken up into smaller groups going from house to house and terrorising the mill workers. On the night after the funeral of Ella M. Wiggins the fascist bands kidnapped and tortured Cleo Tessner, local union organize., and dyna- mited the union property. Not only does the government not take any serious measures against these armed thugs; but they participate in organizing these fascist bands. The workers must not’ be fooled by some of the gestures of “fair- ness” of the bosses government. This is due to their fear of the masses, and is an attempt to demobilise the workers for a renewed at- tack against them. Fred Beal and the fifteen other workers will only be re'eased by the mass pressure of the workers. Il. RADICALIZATION OF THE SOUTH. Castonia is the bol of the growing struggles and r of the ma: to capitalist rationalization and violence. T! stem, the ce cf the textile workers in Gastonia to the stretch-out sy ‘ speed-cp and most inhuman exploitation is taking place in a period ef the development of capitalism when all the fundamental contra- dictions of ‘capitalism are becoming sharpened, when more and more the capitalists hope to evercome these contradictions through the still more ruthless exploitation of the workers at home, through plunder of the colonial peoples and\through a new world slaughter. For all these reasons, the bosses and their government try by every means to break the resistance of the workers, Gastonia, symbol of the newly indus- trialized South, has a working class that is comparatively new—largely recruited from the mountaincers. These workers who come into in- dustry are at once confronted with the most brutal rationalization- drive, against which they ‘rebel. The attack against the workers in astonia is so fierce because, in the present period of capitalist de- velopment, the bosses’ government has become more and more concen- trated and controlled by the trustifiel capital and in the face of the growing resistance of the workers which charaeterizes the present per- ied, is acting more and more openly as an instrument for the sup- pression of every movement of the workers directed against the rule of the capitalists. The attack against the workers in Gastonia is so fierce because of the effectiveness of the militant National Textile Workers’ Union, affiliated to the Trade Union Unity League, because of the effective leadership and consequent growth of the influence of the Communist Party. The bosses’ terror is so sharp because the or- ganization of Negro workers together with white workers on the basis of complete equality by the National Textile Workers’ Union and the Communist Party brings the unity of the Negro and white workers in the South which is a growing menace to the rule of the capitalists. Similarly, the women and young workers who are a very large sec- tion of industry today and are playing an increasing’role in ration- alized and mechanized industry, are being organized by the Trade Union Unity League, and the ‘National Textile Workers’ Union. The American Federation of Labor, which is nothing but an organiza- tion of the most highly skilled workers and whose efforts are directed against organizing the bulk of the semi-skilled and unskilled workers, : never attempted to organize the Negro workers and the young work- ers. The struggle in Gastonia is so sharp today also because of the policy of the National Textile Workers’ Union of organizing all the workers of the industry into powerful industrial unions. Finally, the capitalist terror in Gastonia is so sharp because Gas- tonia gives the lie to the capitalist propaganda of “docile, cheap, 100 per cent labor” in the South. These workers, natives of the old stock who have been advertised as “docile,” “contented,” “free” and “unchangeable” have demonstrated that the workers of the South, the native American workers, are not docile but militant, not contented but rebellious, fast learning that they are not free but enslaved, not unchangeable but changing rapidly into conscious proletarians carry- ing on a heroic struggle against their exploiters. the lie to boss propaganda about ‘Communism” being only effective among the foreign born workers. Gastonia has demonstrated that the influence and leadership of the Communist Party grows with the class striggle and is more and more embracing the most exploited workers, be they foreign or native, Negro or white. The sham union called the United Textile Workers has betrayed the workers in Elizabethton and Marion. These workers are learning anv hv dav from their brothers in Gastonia, an] it is to stop the Gastonia has given — ! growth of the organization of the textile workers of the South into the National Textile Workers’ Union that the bosses are directing their attacks against the workers in Gastonia. The textile conference held in September at which tens of thou- sands of textile workers were represented, the coming conference of October 12 at Charlotte at which workers from all important states and centers in the textile industry will be resented and the action that the workers will decide upon in the drive to organize the hun- dreds of thousands of textile workers in the South, these are the rea- sons for the open fascist terror in Gastonia. It is an effort to stem the rising tide of struggle of the textile workers of the South: It is an attempt to stop the spread of this movement to other industries in the South: It is the fear that this movement if not stopped will stimu- late still further the present radicalization process throughout the country. IV. RISING TIDE OF STRUGGLE. Gastonia is the sector of the working class front where the strug- gle is now the sharpest and where it has reached a high phase of political struggle. The workers are engaged in a struggle not only against the mill bosses, but also against the government which has exposed itself as a naked class government. But the Gastonia events are but part of a situation which is be- coming more and more national in character, embracing ever larger sections of the most exploited workers, The heroic struggle of the New Orleans carmen, the strikes of the textile workers in more than a score of cities in North Carolina, South Carolina, the Elizabethton strike, the beginnings in the auto industry—where the belt system is sapping the blood of che workers—as witnessed by the recent strike in the Murray Plant in Detroit, the movement among the miners in West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, the strike of 4,000 miners in the anthracite, the increasing number of spontaneou> and partial strikes in the basic trustified industries, the recent strikes in the food and shoe industries, the creation of shop committees in largest plants in the country—all this is part of the radicalization of the masses, all this displays the rising tide of struggle of the masses against the economic offensive of the bosses. The enemies of the workers, from Hoover down to the renegade Lovestone, who talk about American “prosperity” are talking about the prosperity of the bosses. The workers of the United States are living under conditions of in- creasing impoverishment and severest exploitation. The successful convention of the Trade Union Unity League at Cleveland, August 31, the establishment of a new center coordinating the struggles of the workers in all industries, the mass mobilization of over 100,000 workers on International Red Day (August 1) in the | struggle against imperialist war and for the defense of the Soviet Union shows the increasing tempo of this radicalization process. Gastonia isa symbol of the rising tide of the resistance of the masses of the workers of the United States. These struggles of the workers of the United States, this mood of the masses is part of the revolutionary struggle of the working masses on an international scale. Just as American imperialism which is playing an increasingly important role in world polities, is involved more and more with and becoming part of the general crisis of world capitalism, so the rising tide of the mass resistance of the workers of the United States is part of the new rising tide of struggle of the toilers of the world as shown by the enormous strikes in India, the strikes in Germany, France, Great Britain, the strikes of the to- bacco workers of Bulgaria, the strikes in Poland, the May Day events | in Germany, the International Demonstration on Red Day. | Simultaneously the present period is marked by growing resistance | of the colonial and semi-colonial peoples against their imperialist op- pressors as shown by the recent events in India and Egypt, the Arab revolt in Palestine and the growing anti-imperialist movement in Latin America. i The war preparations of American imperialism are part of the growing danger of imperialist war, principally between the United | some of the | |tween United States and Britain. | believe is strictly necessary for the |will be respected we cannot appear CALLED FOR JAN, THEN RESCINDED | London Denies Sending | | Call; Hostility of | French Develops Hostile Encirclement Italy Told Must Take Subordinate Place Prirhe Minister MacDonald noti- Mass Rallies CHARLOTTE, N. C., Tessner. ers’ Union. Italy. and Japan yesterday, capital- | list press services report from Lon-} don, that the Five-power conference on armaments would be held in |London in the third week of Janu- ary, | United States is sending a similar | invitation. As soon as the reaction lof France and Italy was known, the by the same millmen’s posse. “I was in bed. the invitation. “It is too soon to in- |vite France and Italy,” it said. | The French press is highly skep- |tical of the whole plan, and French {naval experts and political leaders ‘Get up, you damned bastard.’ their car in my underwear. jan encirclement campaign against | France. | Fight For Three Points. | The Journal de Debats Tuesday carried a leading article saying: “But what interests us is that we should not have to pay the costs of the combination reported be- = 6 RAIDS ON USSR |have to pay for it with the loss of | jour independence. “There are three things which we cannot renounce. First, we wish to keep our submarine fleet which we Capitalist pr reports from Moscow tell of official information that white guard Russians in the jpay of the Mukden government, aided by reguar troops have raided jduring Tuesday and yesterday into defense of our she and our|the Soviet Union territory in six colonial empire, _Cecond, we» must.| different places, assure the protection of our colonial! Four miles ‘west of the Soviet routes, otherwise our colonial em-| Union village of Manchuria, a bor- jPire will ciscopear. Third, we can- der town opposite Manchuli. |not forget that o-+ needs must be calculated r‘ter account has been| town of Manchuli Chinese mercen- taken of the f- that France has {ary infantry and artillery kept up a ecacts in two widely separated seas. | furious borbardment of U. S. S. R. Refuse Itely Parity. territory for four hours, and under “Tn consequence we cannot sub-| cover of this barrage, sent forward seribe to naval parity with any/|invading forces who attempted to oth ean Continental power! capture Soviet patrols. such as would in our Modi-| Red Army forces repulsed them. terranean fleet b ; in a position! Fifty of Chang Hsuch-liang’s of infer!-~‘ty in that cea. |cavalrymen attacked the town of “Without assurance t on | Staro-Churukhatueysky, sixty miles these { -¢ - ‘ial points our program !north of Manchuli, on Saturday. Similar attacks, |made Thursda day at Spa: also repulsed, were at Lubbay, Satur- Sunday and Mon- at the naval conference “Not Reduction” States and Great Britain; while the main danger is that of the com- | bined attack of the imperialists of the world against the Soviet Union | in which the imperialists of the world correctly see their deadly | enemy ard the inspiration of the workers of the world. The recent Donald to the United States, the —all of the: y part of the war prey so-called “inve far trom being stance of the workers to exploitatioi and , the capital the world over are dropping the mask of “bourgeois demoe: and are instituting a fascist rule of térror | against the workers and their organizations. In this the so-called “socialists,” who have become openly social-fascists, are everywhere ing the capitalists, and in a number of countries (England, Germany) have been charged with carrying through the demobiliza- | tion of the workers, and the destruction of their organizations. | Throughout the whole United States and not only in Gastonia the | capitalist class meets every strike, every movement to organize the | unorganized, every propaganda of resistance, of turning the resistance | into a proletarian offensive. with the most brutal and bloody repres- sion, in New Orleans, against the striking carmen; in Marion and | Elizabethton, state troops are used against the revolting textile work- | ers; in Kansas, scores are arrested and the Communist Party declared illegal; in Detroit, Boston, Pittsburgh, scores are arrested and hun- dreds slugged by the organized thugs of the bosses’ governmnt; in Chicago, 26 workers are held on the charge of sedition because of their meeting of solidarity with the Gastonia strikers. In New York, in only three days in September, nearly 100 workers are arrested. Workers are arrested merely for distributing handbills near the factories. Everywhere, the terror of the bosses and their government is used against the workers. Where the struggle of the workers is rising, the most ruthless and repressive measures of fascist terror are used. The registration of workers in the shops controlled by the Independent Shoe Workers’ Union, a militant industrial union, the attempt to de- port nine workers active among the Paterson Dye workers—all this is part of the national campaign of terror of the employers in answer | to the growing resistance of the masses of workers against capitalist 4 rationalization. It is no accident that 300 workers were arrested August 1 for demonstrating against imperialist war and for the defense of the Soviet Union and dozens of meetings were broken up. The acts of | repression and terror of the government combined with the outrages of the bosses’ gunmen express the fascization of the state power. But by their very acts of terror and reprossion the capitalists help educate the workers as to the class character of the state and thus help to mobilize them not merely against individual capitalists but as class against class. ‘ The;American Federation of Labor officialdom, the so-called social-| ist party and the “p ive” Musteitessare more and more in al- | liance with the bosses and zit, bosses gacumient. Everywhere they | enter the struggle im order. ‘demoralize betray the workers, They act openly as the agents of employers (New Orleans, Marion, etc.). | They single out the-milit workers for the attention of the police | and the fascist thugs. “Sgmetimes, as in the case of Musteites, they use radical phrases “mn “gain-the confidence of the workers and so betray them Wher the bosses-and their government cannot win by direct attack. Phey ‘are’ the" agents of the employers in the labor | movement, They ‘are. the Ameriean brothers of the MacDonalds in | England Sho’ shoot down .woykers and peasants In India, Egypt and Palestine, . They are the American brothers of the German social- ced with th The naval spokesman of the/day at Volynka, and in the region French delegation to the Lague of | northwest of Blagovestchensk. Nations Assembly at Geneva is; Pravda stat quoted as saying: “It is a ni “We cannot d uss peace terms parity conference, a naval re- with inese Generals until they luction conference top ng with marked cards other French naval The Soviet Government cannot re- castic over the disa) ¢ om its demand t “yardstick” for measuring | manager and as: r strength supposed to be the Chinese Ea (Continued on Page Three) The workers of the United States must re: struggie against their combined enemies,-—the boss and their agents in the ranks of the workers,—will in their struggle. e that only in the es, the government they be victerious Vv. MOBILIZE POR STRUGGLE! Only the mass mobilisation of the workers of the country can de- feat the growing terror of the employers and their government. To withstand this general capitalist onslaught, a real mass mobilisation of the workers is needed. Such a mobilisation must proceed by build- ing a united front below on the basis of steady energetic work inside | the shops and factories, Only the mobilisation of the workers through- out the country can defeat the fascist terror in Gastonia, can save the sixteen heroic Gastonia fighters from the electric chair and check the -offensive of the bosses which is now being directed against the working class of the United States, The working class of the United States under the leadership of the Communist Party takes up the challenge of the American capitalist class, The campaign to organize the unorganized into powerful industrial unions affiliated with the Trade Union Unity League must be the an- swer to the attempts of the bosses to stop the organization of the un- organized millions. Workers everywhere must form shop committees, and organize into unions. Special efforts must be directed towards the organization of the Negro workers on the basis of full equality in the same unions with the white workers, Special attention must be paid to the organization of the women workers and young workers. The program of rationalisation of the bosses must be answered by a real struggle for the seven-hour day, for unemployment insurance, against capitalist rationalisation, for higher wages and for the right to organize. The economic offensive of the bosses must be answered with a struggle against every attempt to reduce the standards of the workers, the going over to the offensive of the workers. The Trade Union Unity Convention showed the mood of the masses. Workers everywhere, transform this mood of struggle into real effec- tive organization in the shops, mills and mines. Stand solid in united ranks against the capitalist offensive. Support the Conference of textile workers in Charlotte on October 12. Support the National Textile Workers Union in its efforts to or- ganize the millions of exploited textile workers. Miners, steel workers, needle workers, auto workers! Workers in all industries! Build your unions! Organize and affiliate to the Trade Union Unity League. democra' bel, shét_down militant workers of Berlin on May First.” } Fight for the existence of the workefs’ organizations, for the right oft the workers to organize and to defend themselves and their orgap- WHITE GUARD IN Sept. 18 other hideous crime to their bloody record. Tessner is the 24-year-old Kings Mountain organizer of the National Textile Work- At one o’clock this morning he was kidnapped from his home there, taken at fied the ambassadors of France, the point of guns into the woods of South Carolina and viciously beaten with clubs. A half hour before Tessner was captured, the speakers’ stand, from which union lead- lers spoke every Saturday night to great crowds of mill workers, was dynamited, presumably “T tried to holler, and they choked and smothered me,’ he continued. |are worried at what they see as|tg my head and told me that if I yelled, they would kill me. | | Four miles west of the border of E. L. Smith, a farmer, who FIVEPOWER MEET KINGS MOUNTAIN NATIONAL TEXTILE UNION ORGANIZER KIDNAPPED FROM BED: IS TORTURED, NEARLY KILLED ‘votesting Vicious Attacks Upon N. T. W. Organizers to be Held Throughout Steel Regions The fascist gangs of the mill barons have added an- The latest victim of the mill owners is Cleo His body a mass of wounds and lacerations, in words forced through a throat made It_was understood that the sore hy vicious choking, in a hoarse whisper, Tassner haltingly recounted how he had been kidnapped by thugs who claimed to have a warrant for his arrest, dragged away, and flogged. About one o’clock, three men pounded on the door,” he said. “My wife British foreign office calmly denied went to the door and they told her they were officers and had a warrant for my arrest. They knocked her down, and rushed in. I demanded that they show me a warrant. They said, They pulled me out of bed, blackjacked me and forced me to “They put a gun They were from Gastomia,” the organizer said, declaring that he will be able to identify his assailants. % “They said, ‘We’re going to clean out this goddam union.’ They drove for about an hour and stopped at the end of the bridge. It was a lonely place on a dirt road. They took me into the woods and knocked me down. Then they took clubs and beat me. “GET A ROPE.” “One of them looked up a tree and said, ‘There’s a good limb to hang him from, get a rope.’ They couldn’t find a rope, and one said, ‘Let’s hang him with the inner tube.’ Another said, ‘We can’t do that.’ So they beat me again and, cursing me, told me to hit it for the woods and never come back to Kings Mountain, or we'll kill you like Ella May. PROTEST MURDER minutes, then went up the road a quarter of a mile to the home gave me overalls, and went with me to the scene of the beating,” he ans, : : The murder of Ella May Wiggins, “I was in Buffalo Creek section the new raids on our headquarters and the beatings of organizers, sig- nalize the extent of the sharpening s struggle in the United States. Just as the trial of the sixteen tex- tile strikers in Gastonia represents not merely the case of a few in- dividuals but is the struggle of the whole we g class for its element- ary rights, so the murder of Ella May Wiggins, following on the mur- der of the New Orleans street car strikers and the imprisonment of of South Carolina. Then I went to another house, got shoes, and tele- phoned the rural chief of police at Blacksburg, who refused to, come out. I telephoned the sheriff at Gaffney and he took me to Blacks- burg where I caught a ride with two Negroes on a truck to Char- lotte. The union got a doctor and took care of me.” Threats that all active members will be given the same brutal treat- ment that was inflicted upon Wells | hundreds of workers throughout the and ssner, and that all leaders | country, represents the attempts of will be lynched, continue. Every | the bosses to cow the whole working organizer, Northener and South-/ calss into submission to its program erner, is now being hunted through- | cf cutting wages, increasing hours, out three counties ike wild: beasts. speed-up, and war preparations. Tessner has been subjested to) The heroic fight of the Southern continual legal persecution’ for the | textile workers is therefore the (Continued on Page Tivo) (Continued on Page Two) zations! Fight against the offensive of the bosses’ rationalisation, low wages and unemployment. The workers of the entire. country must give the fullest support to the victims of the class struggle in Gastonia. The death of Ella May Wiggins must be avenged by the greatest possible mobilization of mass support for the sixteen workers facing electrocution at the hands of the bosses’ government in North Carolina. The death of Ella May Wiggins must be avenged by. the-mass mobilisation of the workers of the country in the struggle against the bosses and their bosses’ gov- ernment, The Communist Party calls upon the workers everywhere to create in the factories Workers’ Defense Committees which shall not only energetically carry on the struggle for the defense of the Gastonia victims but committees that will carry on a struggle against the fas- cist attacks upon the workers, and, will organize the workers in the factories and guide their struggles. Committees that will defend the workers’ gatherings against the attacks of the police and the fascist thugs of the bosse: Disarm the Fascist thugs of the mill bosses! Workers everywhere, hold mass demonstrations factory gate meet- ings, in protest against the reign of terror in Gastonia and the grow- ing terror against the workers and their organizations everywhere, Prepare for a strike of protest and sympathy for the heroic fighters in Gastonia who are fighting your battles. Only the organized strength of the workers will defeat the bosses’ offensive. Organize united front conferences of representatives of the shops, mills, mines and trade unions and all workers organizations. Elect at these conferences action committees against the offensive of the bosses. Support the defense of the Gastonia victims. Wrest them from the electric chair prepared by the bosses! Build the International Labor Defense and the Workers International Relief! The Communist Party which is leading the struggle of the Ameri- can masses against the bosses and the capitalist government calls up- on all workers to rally behind it in the struggle, Convert the offensive of the bosses into an offensive against the bosses. Fight against the murderous attacks of the bosses’ fascist thugs! Fight against the bosses’ police, the bo * “justice” and the government,—instruments of the bosses in their attacks against the workers! Join the Communist Party in the struggle for the overthrow of the capitalist system and for the establishment of a workers’ government! All revolutionary workers! Become members of the Communist Party of the United States, a section of the Communist International— the leader of the revolutionary struggle of the toiling masses the world over. COMMUNIST PARTY OF U.S. A. CENTRAL COMMITTEE,