The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 1, 1929, Page 1

THE DAILY WORKER FIGHTS For a Workers-Farmers Government To Organize the Unorganized Against Imperialist War For the 40-Hour Week Entered as ¥., ander the act of March 3, 1879. Company. Inc.. Vol. VL, No. 177 Published daily except Sunde~ by The Comprod: 26-28 Union Square. ly Publishing New York City. N. ¥. 1 NEW YORK, TUESDAY, OCT OBER 1, 1929 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: In New York, by mail, $8.00 Outside New York, by mail, $6.00 per year. Cents STATE CONCENTRAT ES TO CONVICT 7 MILL WOR ® The Mill Bosses’ ‘Strategic Soviet Flyers Safe in Sitka 1000 BISCUIT After Alaskan Hop Retreat’ Calls for Workers’ Advance The latest move in the campaign to crush the mill workers and @estroy their organizers was decided in the recent conference between the mill owners and Governor Gardner, also a millionaire mill owner, in the capitol at Raleigh. The dismissal of the cases against three women and six men and the reduction of the charge against the other seven to “second degree murder” is a strategic move of the mill capitalists, and its purpose is, of course, intended to make easier their object—vengeance against the leaders of the mill workers and th ashing up of the union organiza- tion movement in the newly industrialized South. It is a retreat—but a retreat in order to advance more effectively against the mill workers and the seven defendants selected for vengeance. It is a retreat made in order to get a more savage punishment of the workers than could well be chtained otherwise. The strategy of the retreat is in its purpose to isolate the leaders, especially the Communists, from the masses of the workers, the mill barons knowing that this is the first and main condition for the de- feat of the workers. One of the main purposes of the strategic re- treat of the mill owners is to enable the framing up of the next jury. By reducing the charge to “second degree” the prosecutors are able under the law to deprive the defendants of two-thirds of their peremr- tory challenges—the one little hope that they had in the last case to escape being tried by a jury entirely under the influence of the mill barons. The dismissal of nine defendants and the increased drive for the conviction of the other seven is a question of major policy of the mill owners who own and control the courts, the prosecutors and the whole state government, and who can do exactly as they please with this machinery. Such questions of maj in the matter of crushing ai! vnion organization out of North Carolina and the South are never left to subordinate bodies, such as a local court, but are decided at “the top.” There is no doubt whatever that Governor Gardner’s con- ference with his fellow millionaire mill owners issued the instruction for the move that was made in the court room Monday at Charlotte, but that the Washington government was not without knowledge of the decision that was to be made and was in full accord with it. The Northern financial interests directly involved, which are among the famous “business elements” so close to Hoover, did not fail to co- ordinate policy on this question with the general policy that Hoover directs throughout the country for the capitalist “rationalization” of industry. class, Governor Gardner's simultaneous public attack on the Communist Party was of course as much a part of the strategy as was the move in court. Why was the retreat of the mill barons necessary? The’ retreat was compelled by the mass pressure of the working For instance, no one would imagine that the mill owners’ prosecutors would have failed | Fears for Safety of U S.S.R. Plane Dispelled; Entire Population Greets Fliers Fog Causes Change of Course; Radio Calls for | Bearings Mistaken for SOS SEATTLE, Wash., Sept. 30.— The entire population of Sitka, which was the capitol of Alaska | during the czarist occupation, turn- ed out to greet Semyon Shestakov | a... his three companions upon their | arrival here from Seward, 600 miles jaway, in the Soviet-built amphibian {monoplane Land of the Soviets yes- jterday evening, dispelling fears ; which had been felt for their safety | throughout the afternoon. The dis- |tance was covered in seven and one- |half hours. | Apprehensio: was caused by radio messages sent out from the |plane earlier in the day, the United Press reporting that the Land of the Soviets had been forced down jin the Pacific Ocean 70 miles off |Yatuk, Alaska, because of motor | trouble. terviewed at Sitka, denied that there had been any trouble with the mo- |tors during the flight, and said that the wireless messages, misinterpret- |ed as SOS signals, were merely calls (Continued on Page Two) International Labor Detense | Calls National Conference | 400 Delegates Will Attend Big Gathering in The International Labor Defense, |conducting the defense of the seven jGastonia strikers, whose trial re- jopened Monday in Charlotte, N. C., has issued a call for its fourth na- tional conference Dec. 29, 30 and 31 in Pittsburgh, Pa. More than 400 delegates will come from every part of the land to plan further cam- paigns against the increasing gov- | Pittsburgh from December 29 to 31. jernmental drive against the workers of America. At present in the midst of a cam- paign to save the Gastonia defend- ants, who are threatened with the first degree penalty for having pro- First Pilot Shestakov, in- WORKERS STRIKE IN KANSAS CITY Are Fighting Speedup; Refuse to be Argued Back by Manager Bosses Use N. Y. Shops x DISMISS 9 DEFENDANTS: T0 KERS RAILROAD OTHERS FOR “SECOND DEGREE MURDER”; REDUCE CHARGE TO HELP P we : Prosecution’s Move Is to Abolish Most of Defen ‘ Challenges; Men Held for Trial Are ‘Active Organizers a ACK THE JURY se’s Peremptory ssues Call for Mill Bosses’ Lawyers in Strategic Retreat Before Mass Pressure ees a Plan Heavy Sentences for Beal and Other Unionists | Solidarity KANSAS CITY, Mo., Sept. 30. More .than 1000 workers in the Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company plant | here spontaneuou: went out on strike Friday against new methods of efficiency and speed-up that have recently been introduced in the plant. More than 80 per cent of the strikers are young girls. The work. ers went out without a leader and 30 unorganized but were unanimous in! their denunciation of the speed-up and the new system. The manager, James McQueeney, tried to talk to the workers on why they should go back to work but the workers answered his proposals with jeers and yells. Then he threatened to open the plant with all new em- ployes. He ended by asking all who |were willing to go back to work to |raise their hands. Not a hand went |up but the girls yelled out as one, | “razzberries.” | McQueeney in a statement to the “ape CHARLOTTE, N. C., Sept. 30.—Forced by mass pressure and the workers’ resentment of its plot to murder 13 active unionists and organizers, the s'! the Gastonia trial here, tate today, at the opening of announced dismissal of charges against nine of the defendants held on murder charges, and against the seven held for assault, whose trial was to come later in G a penalty of 30 years in prison, for the remaining seven, c! stenia. The mill owners’ prosecutors will ask a verdict of second degree murder, which car- harges against whom are to be reduced in this trial from the original first degree charges, carrying a penalty of electrocution. m The state by this act recognizes the class nature of its case and the lack of any but prejudiced evidence, and apparently has given up hope of killing the defendants, but is deter- ned and is moving strategically to secure a conviction of these the mill bosses regard as the principal union leaders that will eliminate them from the class struggle for years, or forever, LINKED WITH CONFERENCE, It is easily seen here that the change of tactics on the part of the prosecution is in line with Governor Gardner’s recent conference with the heads of the cotton mill owners’ as- sociations, after which, in spite of much secrecy, it was admitted that plans for a more sys- ‘tematic, and legalistic warfare against unionism and against Ci It is a strategic retreat, a policy not made in the court of the mill owners’ state (Gardner is also a big mill owner) a ‘communism were to be waged. room, but adopted by the heads nd is accompanied by a news- —— paper barrage about the kindliness of the Southern mill com- | panies, and a statement in today’s papers by Gardner, that tected their tent colony during &! press said that the New York plants raid by drunken police, and striving | would ship products here to fill or- SCORE BARKOSKI | everything is all right in North Carolina, whatever minor dif- ‘to halt the terroristic attacks of (Continued cn Page Two) TUNNEL WORKERS VITAL BARBERS — to go ahead and burn the sixteen workers to death on the electric chair if there had been no agitation and pressure among the working cdass outside of the court-room. The ‘RESENT | SELLOUT MEET TONIGHT /Express Confidence in TUUL Urges Removal | ders which shows the necessity of | spreading the strike to other cities. The local Trade Union Unity Lea- gue will issue a leaflet to the work- ers at which the ywill call for the | setting up of strike committees and organized picketing of the place. | Shortly after the workers went | | out MeQueeney called the police but! ‘More Details of Brutal Murder of Miner the workers were not intimidated in the least. TRIAL AT MASS _ MEETIN ficulties exist can be solved by “cooperation of workers and ©employers and the state’ and lin any event Communism and junionism must be stamped out, ete. 3 Only 28 Chalenges. 9m G TODAY METROPOLITAN The reduction of charges and dis- |missal of part of the defendants retreat was compelled by a series of partial victories of the workers: The msas demand caused the change fo venue (which was made in order to soften the mass anger fith a gesture of “fairness). The same wide-spread agitation and pressure of the workers compelled the release on bail of the three women (anothr gsture of “chivalry” intended to quiet the masses of workers). The various rulings in the court such as the order for a restatement of charges and the elimination of the monstrous “conspiracy” aspect would never have been made if there had been no attention from the working class to the case. The first jury would have been entirely (instad of partly) framed up against the defendants if the eyes of the working class had not been fixed upon its selection; it would have been a hand- picked “prosecutor’s jury” if the poisoning of the community by the capitalist press had not been counteracted by the courageous campaign of the defense among the masses of workers. The object of the prosecution remains cseentially the same after the lat ove as hefere, Do they prefer to give the workers 2 death sentence? could be n, through and e She is in hb ) ell sati process of rotting their live terms in p: ecuted one death sentence— r grave where the mill owners ¢ to kill seven more by the slower out of thom in fifteen or twenty year As for the workers of North Carolina mills and of the whole United States and the whole world (for the wi s in all countries are now beginning to give attention)—the thing to do now is to defeat the latest strategic move of the blood-thirsty mill bosses! The agitation must be widened! More tens and hundreds of thou- s@nds and millions of workers must be aroused throughout’ America and the World! Let the mill owners and the capitalist class know that the workers will accept no beastly bosses’ “charity” in the form of a dead Bila May «nd seven more dying slowly in prison! No smashing of the Union ard closer fastening of the chain sof slavery behin dthe mask of hypo- critical “leniency.” No acceptance of the “stretch-out” system and perpetual starvation conditions of ourselves, our wives and children, in the guise of “reducing” the sentences of our organizers to slow death in prison. Workers! More activity! Bigger mass demonstrations! Organize the hundreds of thousands of unorganized mill workers in your fight- ing Union—the National Textile Workers Union! Nothing but pressure of the masses of workers has done anything for your cuase so far, and nothing but more mass pressure will help your cause now! See that the outcome of this monstrous trial shall be decided, not by private conference of mill bosses at Raleigh, but by the masses of workers outside! Disarm the facist thugs of the mill owners! Build your Workers Defense Committees in every Southern Textile mill! Prepare for a mass strike of protest to stop the crime that is about to be consummated in the GaGstonia trial! Save your fellow workers! organization that will. smash the ‘bosses’ attack, increase the wages CHARLOTTE MEET of the workers, establish the eight- ‘hour day and abolish the stretch- out and child labor,” said Hugo Oehler, southern organizer of the National Textile Workers Union to day. He continued: “In July the Southern Textile As- sociation of mill bosses met in Ashe- | (Continued on Page Two) EXPOSES PLANS Human Interest Stunt ens Speed Up CHARLOTTE, N. C., Sept. 30,— | POLITICAL PRISONERS ESCAPE “The Asheville convention of the, WARSAW (By Mail).—Twenty- bosses offers the workers greater four proletarian political prisoners speed-up and worse conditions. The have escaped from the Volomierz Charlotte conference of the N.T.W. prison. Here many communists and offers the textile workers of the other militant workers are im- South a chance to join a fighting | prisoned, + “ nll Sl a Nile A T. U. U. L. Program Deep resentment against their sellout by the American Federation | of Labor officialdom, who wroked |hand in hand with Tammany Hall | politicians, was expressed yesterday | by scores of tunnel workers betray- jed Sunday at a union meeting held at Manhattan Lyceum. Instead of | winning their original demands, | which the workers were willing to | continue to figh tfor, they were sent {back to work with a $1.50 a week increase, which is below the union ale, Negro and white workers, inter- |viewer yesterday by the Daily | Worker, stated that they have confi- | dence in the program of the Trade | Union Unity League. The chairman | | of the strike meeting on Saturday | refused to allow the T. U. U. L. | progra mto be put to a vote, as plans had been made to sell out the strike the next day. Henry Carrington, a member of the executive board of the local, and at 133rd St. and Seventh Ave., were | discharged by Magistrate Mcttuade |in the Washington Heights Court yesterday morning when Carring- ton informed the judge that the | strike is “settled.” PAINTERS. Painters and show card writers are needed at once for the Daily Worker-Freiheit Bazaar. They are asked to report to the Bezaar office, room 603, 28 Union Square, The four-day Daily Worker and Morning Freiheit Bazaar, which opens in Madison Square Garden this Thursday, will offer to the workers of Ne wYork an amazing variety of clothing, millinery, house- hold goods, etc., equal to the stock of the largest department stores, and all at amazingly low prices, made possible by the cooperation of the militant workers organizations. The Amalgamated Clothing Work- ers will have a booth at the bazaar, and there will be booths stocked with gcoods, shoes and slippers, shirts and leather goods, caps, army and navy underwear, neckties, suspenders, cloaks, furs, dresses, white goods | of Committee All militant and. progressive bar- ; bers are urged to attend the meet- ing of Local 900, Barbers Union, to be held at 8:30 o’clock tonight at New Harlem Casino, 100 W. 116th St. The Trade Union Unity League, Barbers Section, urges that at: to- night’s meeting the members of the local remove the investigation com- ‘mittee which has not followed out the instructions of the membership and elect a committee of workers interested in the welfare of the bar- bers, The committee that was elect- ed, instead of representing the Is Big Concern. The Loose-Wiles, second largest biscuit company in the | States, has over 15,000 workers in | branch plants, the principal ones be- ing in Kansas City, where the strike | was called, and in Long Island, N. |Y., “Sunchine Biscuits” are the best known of the 350 varieties made. Abolition of the speed-up! The five-day week and eight-hour day! |Shop committees to control working |conditions! Time-and-one-half for overtime! These are some of the demands the workers are asking for. UTW GONFERENCE United | wishes of the membership, removed ; President ‘Daniels from office and d him $5500 because he has been fighting the reactionary group in the | union, | The statement further points out} PLAYS TO BOSSES Luke Whych, arrested Sunday night | that the reactionary Epstein-La- |mote clique is responsible for non- junion barbers working in union shops, while members of the organi-| zation are walking the streets look- ing for a job. It also urges the membership to ignore the threats of the clique that they will remove from the job those voting against them, also their threat that they will beat up the militant members. It adds that the T. U. U. L. will pro- tect the left wing and progressive members of the union, JEWELRY WORKERS. Jewelry workers must come to |work for the Daily Worker-Freiheit Bazaar tonight right after work at the Esterson and Feldman shop, 71) Nassau St., tenth floor. ‘Great Variety of Commodities at Daily and | Freiheit Bazaar Affair Opens in Madison Square Garden This Thursday; 100;000 Workers Attend umbrellas, knit goods, furniture, dry goods, lamps, novelties and jewelry. A special booth displaying goods made in the U, S. S. R. will be one of the features of the affair. Commodities for brightening the interior of proletarian homes, such as radios, flowers, books, Indian goods, chess and cheker sets, will be there in plenty, A model bakery, candy and tobacco store, barber shop, grocery store and photomaton are being installed, So that the workers can refresh themselves after strenuou: shopping, three restaurants will be provided, an Italian, a Japanese and an A=teri: can chop house, Dancing, enter- tainment and music will help to fill Oother booths and millinery. * P sell pocket-books, Meda out a busy and Has No Textile Toilers Wars on Militants CHARLOTTE, N. C., Sept. 30.— Dewey Martin, member of the Na- tional Textile Workers Union, re- |turned to Charlotte today from | Rock Hill, where he was thrown out by United Textile Workers mis- leaders and the police, from the fake U.T.W. conference yesterday. | He reports: “It wasn’t a conference of the tex- tile workers at all. Most of the | textile workers that were there were long to either the N.T.W.U. or the U.T.W. It was a conference of of- ficials and organizers of the U.T.W. jand A.F.L. with liberals, teachers, | preachers, public officials and rep- resentatives of the bosses. Alto- gether there were only about eight | present. | Good for Bosses. “Tt certainly was a flat failure so) far as textile workers are concerned although maybe it was a success for the bosses. I saw six A.F.L. qbureaucrats, three delegates from 'Georgia, one from Maryland, and |six from Tennessee. Only eight dele- gates came from Greenville where the U.T.W. had been organizing for six months. There were none from Ware Shoals, where the U.T.W. led a strike. which ended in a sell-out) | two months ago. As soon as they | |saw me, they sent the police to throw me out. Later they did the |same thing with Sam Phifer and Howard.” | Appeals to Conscience. | Francis Gorman, vice president of |the U.T.W., is reported making a heroic effort to camouflage the real | purpose of the conference with mili- | tant phrases. Some of them though | strike a curious note, for instance, Gorman’s statement that U.T.W. of- |ficials have not succeeded in their 3 01 [J ir Ee NN local Rock Hill people who don’t be-| | MEET TONIGHT | ‘Foster To Report At TUUL Conference Hundreds of delegates are ex-| pected to attend the Metropolitan | | Area Trade Union Unity Conference | to be held tonight at 7 o'clock at | Irving Plaza, Irving Place and 15th | St. William Z. Foster, general | secretary of the T. U. U. L., will de-| liver a detailed report on the recent Cleveland Trade Union Unity Con- | BULLETIN. The Barkoski jury was dis- charged today as “without moral stamina” by Judge Gray in a vain attempt to save himself and the prosecution from country-wide condemnation. While there is widespread talk of the jury being “fixed,” cooperation between Mel- lon’s company very usual. * and the courts is eet (Special to the Daily Worker.) PITTSBURGH, Pa., Sept. 30.— | ference. So brazen was the acquittal of the| The conference will open a cam- Pittsburgh Coal Co.’s three coal and| paign for the organization of the | iron police of the murder of the unorganized workers, and will take| miner, John Barkoski, and so great up the question of activities in the was the outery following the verdict,, American Federation of Labor} that the jury was today discharged | Unions, The organization of Work- | from any further duty in criminal |ers Defense Committees to protect court as an “incompetent panel”— | working class meetings and institu- after the three Mellon thugs had | tions will also be on the agenda. been freed of the murder charge. | Local T.U.U.L. Tasks. Henry Sazer, secretary of the} Pat Devine, district organizer of the Communist Party, will expose New York delegation to the Cleve- the mockery of the case nad discuss | land conference, will discuss the its class significance at an open air tasks of the T.U.U.L. in the New| mass meeting tomorrow night at the York and New Jersey area, and will| corner of Boggs and Buhl, in the | present a program of work for the} north side of Pittsburgh. | delegates to act upon. * Otto Hall, Negro T.U.U.L. organ- izer, will report on the problems of the Negro workers in relation to _ The men who, eye-witnesses tes-| the T.U.U.L. conference; Rose Wor- | tified, had kicked the already help- tis will take up the question of the| less Barkoski “all around the room;” | organization of women workers and | hac beaten him over the hands and Harry Yaris will discuss the prob- arms and over the back of the neck 2 : |lems of the young workers, with a blackjack; had clubbed him with an iron fire poker until the poker was so badly bent that they! Carpenters are asked to report to had to stop and straighten it out! the office of the Daily Worker- before they could continue; had vi-|Freiheit Bazaar Committee, Room ciously twisted his already fractured | 693 98 Union Square, at once. nose until the bone burst through 4 AT SAS | the skin; had kicked him so hard in KNIT GOODS WORKERS. | the eye that at the inquest one eye] Knit goods workers are asked to was nearly out; had broken two of| make articles for their booth at the his ribs and caused the splintered Daiyy Worker-Freiheit Bazaar, The ends to penetrate the chest cavity | hooth is still incomplete and only (Continued on Page Three) two days remain. Labor Must Act! Combat New Mill Boss Tricks, I.L.D. Urges Brutal Murder. CARPENTERS. Statement of the International Labor Defense Warns of Danger, Calls for Action ; | _ The southern textile mill owners,|three times. But the seven remain- the murderers of Ella May, the kid-|ing are now to be tried for murder napers and floggers of Wells, Tess- in the second degree, which means nair, Saylor and Lell, have changed |life imprisonment. \their tactics in the Charlotte court,| American labor will not, must | where they had put 16 of the lead- | not be duped by this latest man- jing strikers and organizers on trial|euver of the textile profiteers of! jfor their lives, planning to burn|North Carolina, which must be |reduces the number of peremptory | challenges of the defense from 168 | to 28. It wa sonly the large number of peremptory challenges that en- abled the Defense to obtain a jury of workers and farmers in the pre- vious attempt at conviction in Char- lotte, which nded in a mistrial. It will now be very difficult to elimi- nate prejudiced business men from the jury. An attempt was made by Judge Barnhill, trying the case this time, as he did the previous Charlotte trial, and the proceedings which ended in a ruling for a change of venue in Gastonia before that, to eliminate all Charlotte workers from the special venire of 100 which will be called and from which jurors will be selected. The judge proposed to eliminate citizens of Charlotte township from the venire. The rea- son for this is the number of work- ers in Charlotte who are sympathetic with the defendants. Since the Na- tional Textile Workers Union and the International Labor Defense have carried on so much agitional and organizational work there, the state wante dto keep them off the jury. Outside of Charlotte there are few industrial towns in Mecklenburg ae! county. aha Sheriff to Pick Venire, The alternative offered by Barn- hill was t ohave the sheriff go out and pick up a venire at his disere- tion, of course only of the middle class citizens prejudiced against the unionists on trial. The Defense ob- jected vigorously, and after a sharp argument ,the judge backed down-on this point, as it was so flagrantly unfair and contradictory to his pre- vious pretense of impartiality, ‘ Not Really Free. ‘All the cases dismissed aré “with leave,” which means that the prose- cution ha sthe right to re-open the case against them at any time. Those held for trial are active organizers, whom the mill bosses’ prosecution seews thus to isolate from the | masses of workers. The workers held for trial in this case are now: Fred Erwin Beal, Louis McLaughlin, William McGin- nis, George Carter, Joseph Harrison, K. Y, Hendricks, and Clarence Mil- ‘ler. The workers held on murder charges whose cases are now dis- missed are: K, 0, Byers, C, Heff- ner, Amy Schechter, Robert Allen, Russell Knight, Vera Buch, N. F, Gibbons, Sophie Melvin and Delmar. Hampton, i Dismiss 7 Assault Cases, Solicitor Carpenter of Gastonia, nominally in charge of the prosecu- tion, announced the state would not press the charges of “secret assault” against seven others arrested after ~ | them to death in the electric chair. |\linked up with the fraudulent state-| | Nine of the prisoners have been re-|ment issued by Governor 0. Max| lane and the charges dismissed, Gardner, himself a mill owner, in after they had been held in jail for which he declares himself to be in early four months, and faced trial | ge (Continued gn, Page, Three) sds bit the Aderholt raid June 7, and held for trial in Gastonia, October 2e~ These are: Ernest Martin, Walter Lloyd, Clarence Townsend, D, E. {Continued on Page Three, 4