The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 14, 1929, Page 6

Published by the Coen, Ra paid Square, New York City, Page Four ¥. Telephone Stuyvesant '1696-7-8. Cabie: Ins, Mally, except Sunday, at 26-28 Union “DAIWORK.” Addrees and mail all siehies to the Daily Worker, 26-28 Union Square. New York, N, Y. Central Organ of the Communist Party of the { By Ma By Mail (outside of New York) SUBSCRIPTION, RATES! SH00 a vear (n New York only six months: six months; $2.50 three months $2.00 three months BUILD THE DAILY WORKER INTO A MASS ORGAN “Elect Your Daily Worker Representatives. AILY WORKER district representatives must fulfill two functions until such time when, in the larger cities, these tasks can be divided between two comrades. They must keep the Daily Worker informed of the con- dition of the workers in the industries, the un- employment situation, strikes etc. And they must efficiently plan the work of building mass circulation. 1, We must categorically insist that Daily Worker district representatives be elected im- mediately in every district. Representing the Daily Worker in a district is a major political task. District representatives who have been proven incapable or who can not give all their time to this work must be replaced by capable comrades, selected from among the leading and authoritative comrades in the district. 2. At all unit and section meetings, called to consider and organize the Party Recruiting and Daily Worker Building Drive, unit and secaion Daily Worker representatives must be elected from among the most capable comrades Present, In every smaller city where the Party has membership, a Daily Worker rep- resentative for the city must be named. 3. There is a tendency to look upon the Daily Worker as an extraneous adjunct. The Daily Worker is part and parcel of the Party, participates in every phase of Party and work- ing class life. The Daily Worker representa- tives must demand that the Party official organ be placed upon the agenda of every unit, section and district meeting; that the Daily Worker remains in the forefront of this Party Recruiting campaign. 4. Meeting of Daily Worker representa- tives shall -be called for the purpose of plan- ning and broadening the campaign for 5,000 new readers. Meetings of Daily Worker read- ers must be held to enlist their support of the campaign. Daily Worker supporting groups (Daily Worker Builders; Daily Worker Read- ers Circles) shall be organized, to which work- ers out of the industries or engaged in strug- gle, must be invited. The purpose of such groups shall be to increase the influence of the Daily Worker and broaden its circulation. Sixth Anniversary Edition. 1. The Sixth Anniversary Edition of the Daily Worker will be issued in January. Ar- ticles having application to the industries and workers in your district can be inserted. It will be a splendid issue for mass circulation among the workers in the heavy industries. “2, In this special issue all comrades, sym+ pathizers, Party subdivisions, Party papers, militant unions, sympathetic organizations, must greet the Daily Worker upon the pro- letarian tasks accomplished and the tasks we are now engaged in, namely, the fight against speed-up, wage cuts, unemployment, social re- formism and fascism, the right danger and the | renegades; the war the defense of the | ganization of the | build a mass Party | the Daily Worker. | A special printing of this edition in the | Russian language will be sent to the workers | of the Soviet Union. This special printing will contain all greetings and, among other’ | things, congratulate the workers of the Soviet Union upon the wonderful success of the Five- Year Plan. 3. Every city where we have Party mem- | bership must arrange a meeting or other affair in celebration of the sixth anniversary of the Daily Worker and send the proceeds to the Daily Worker to help build it into a mass organ. % danger; and the fight for Soviet Union, for the or- unorganized workers; and a mass circulation for Revolutionary Competition. Revolutionary competition as inaugurated be- tween districts and the Party still is too gen- | eral and abstract. Into these proletarian con- | tests there must be drawn, not only militant workers, but as large a mass of non-Party workers as possible. Revolutienary competi- ; tion must constitute a new form of united front tactics, actually proletarian, organized from below. It must lead to the establishment of new united front bodies, fighting for the econ- omic demands of the workers, fighting against imperialist war, reformism, for the defense of the Soviet Union. In this light, it is not sufficient for district to challenge district, or section to compete with section. The steel workers of Chicago must challenge the steel workers of Pittsburgh; the miners of Illinois must challenge those of Ohio; automobile workers of Detroit must challenge those of another auto center, the stockyard workers of Kansas City must challenge those of Chicago; the transport workers of Phila- | In this way we will establish and make se- cure our mass contacts and more firmly es- tablish the leadership of the Party and the in- fluence of the Daily Worker. In conclusion we must reiterate—recruit for the Party, build the Daily Worker, but upon the basis of the everyday demands of the work- ers, by participation in their struggles—Gas- tonia, Illinois miners capitalist terror and per- secution. The workers are ready for struggle. Reach them, give leadership. Win them for our campaign and slogans. This is hoiw to build the Party and the Daily Worker into | our campaign and slogans. This is how to | multiply our shop nuclei, shop papers, strength- en our fractions, and our Negro, youth, wo- men’s and Pioneer work, help organize the T.U.ULL. Speed the day when the Party will influence and direct decisive sections of the unskilled and semi-skilled workers in the basic industries, the day of general and political strikes, the day of the revolution. Changing Our Party Dues System ee of dues in our Communist Party has up till 1930 been based upon monthly dues. The Central Committee has decided to insti- tute a system of weekly payment, and at the same time taken steps to guarantee higher dues for such Party members who receive higher wages. This system will lower the aetual dues paid by some Party members, but all Party mem- bers with wages above a certain minimum will have te pay larger dues than before to the Party. This new dues system will enable the Party to place its finances on a sound basis, to nor- malize them—and that means to enable the Party to carry on its work, which now under the pressure of the sharpening situation is growing on every field. Greater tasks de- mand greater activity, more money—and the Party has only one source from which to get all that it needs: the members of the Party. Every Communist Party demands the utmost sacrifices of its members, the demand of ap- proximately 2 per cent of their wages is not a too heavy demand. During times of struggle the Party demands more than money of its members—and Communists never hesitate to give all that they can to the Party. Further- more the Party in organizing this new system of dues payment has seen to it that the poorer naid Party members actually will have to pay less than before. : The monthly dues up to now have been 50 cents as a minimum. With the new system a very large part of our members will have to pay only forty cents a month, that is 10 cents a week, which will make it still easier for them to come across. aie ee The Daily Worker has already contained ar- ticles explaining the necessity of this change, the great advantages of such a system for the Party, etc. Evtry one agrees upon the neces- sity of the change, every member can see the advantags of it—but from many sources there are complaints that it will be a too heavy bur- den upon many of the Party members. We have to remember that the un-systematic, sometimes almost chaotic way of securing fi- nances for the Party in the past, and in many instances still today, in fact demand greater financial sacrifices than the new system. Sel- dom—if ever can a Party member leave a nu- cleus meeting without at least having to pay one dollar or two extra assessment for tickets, different contributions, etc. The new system will do away with this bleeding of the mem- bership. Not so that no extra assessments will take place. That is impossible and is not to be recommended, but at any rate to such an extent that the sums paid to the Party by the members will be in ‘general smaller and the use of them by the Party more efficient. At the same time the Membership Drive opens for the Party the best perspectives of a financial sanitation. The daaained of the districts, of the sections by the Central Committee or the District Com- mittees. It has been pointed out that the Party will take its every member to task for his activity in this campaign; the nuclei will demand re- ports from every member, the sections from every nucleus, and the district from every sec- tion. And when once quotas are accepted by the organs of the Party, every member, every unit, every section, every district will be taken to task if not his or their part is cargied out. With 5,000 new members in the Party, with 5,000 new subscribers on the Daily Worker, no doubt the financial situation in the Party will not remain such a difficult problem to solve as now, shortly after the financial debacle of Lovestone & Co., when they-piled the debts of the Central Committee up to more than $40,000. A successful membership drive means a guarantee for financial sanitation of the Party. * * * The Central Committee has taken up the question of the different categories of dues to be paid by the members, and in the Organiza- tion Department together with the Secretariat of the Party it was recommended and decided to change the categories for the first three “classes” paying respectively 10 cents, 25 cents and 50 cents, in the following way: Every Party member receiving wages of $15 a week or under has to pay 10 cents weekly dues to the Party. Poor working farmers and housewives with no income have to pay the same weekly amount (below 1 per cent). Every Party member receiving wages of $16 to $25 a week has to pay weekly dues of 25 cents. (Below 2 per cent, or precisely 1 per cent.) Every Party member receiving wages of $26 to $30 a week has to pay weekly dues of 50 cents. (Below 2 per cent.) Party members with wages from $31 to $40 have to pay 75 cents weekly. Party members with wages from $41 to $50 have to pay $1 per week. (Mostly above 2 per cent.) Every Party member with wages above $50 a week have to pay, in addition to $1 per week, extra dues, the amount of which will be spe fied separately, and for which he will receive written receipts by the Party. Bi Re file Every member pays his dues according to real earnings during the week he is paying for. E. g., a carpenter earning $60 one week, but $10 next week pays $1 plus extra dues for the first week, and 10 cents for the second. The Party has introduced this new dues sys- tem during the time of a membership drive. This has been done to accentuate the higher de- mands put upon every member-of our Party. The decision to make the dues proportionate- ly smaller for comrades with lower wages, will make it an easy task for us to recruit into the Party masses of workers from the heavy indus- tries; especially since the reports from all over the country stress the fact that the response of the workers to the Party and its policies is the best. sf tak ptrengthening our Party organ- Forward in making our membership drive a success? to | delphia must challenge those of New York. ‘| ‘ STRIKE! By ALBERT MOREAU. TE arch-enemy of the Mexican workers and * peasants, the strike-breaker Ortiz Rubio, was elected president *of Mexico by the will of Lamont-Morrow-United States Government. His “victory” was prepared by Portes Gil and the consort of counter-revolutionary bourg- eoisie at the service of Wall Street finance capital. The fact that Vasconcelos, the anti- xeelectionist candidate was allowed to run for the presidential ticket is not and cannot be an indication of the “democratic” way the elec- tions were handled. For Vanconcelos is another tool of American imperialism and has, during the election campaign, promised full support to Yankee capital in Mexico. Mr. Morrow and Portes Gil prepared the ground for this “victory” many months in ad- vance. The systematic attack upon ‘\e Com- munist Party of Mexico and the revolutionary trade unions, the plundering of the offices and printing shop of El Machete, official or- gan of the Communist Party, the series of murders, jailings and deportations, constituted the first steps of the election campaign initiated by the government and its bourgeoisie with Ambassador Morrow at the head. Further- more, in order to secure the complete an- nihilation of the Communist movement and the revolutionary trade unions, Portes Gil intro- duced the project of labor laws which is now railroaded through the Mexican congress. Some of the anti-labor provisions embodied in the fascist Labor Code have already been put into practice before being approved by the congress. This, of course, was necessary in order to pave the way for a successful election which was to put in power Pascual Ortiz Rubio who is today meeting. with Mr. Lamont on United States soil. In spite of the terror of the Mexican govern- ment, in spite of the methods used by the bour- geoisie to keep out of the polls the workers and peasants who stood for their candidate. Triana, the 25,000 votes found in the urns that escaped the robbers’ hands, prove conclusively the unpopularity of the two bourgeois candi- dates, The problems before the American imperial- ists in Mexico found their expression in the well known question which their firfancial ex- perts have of late discussed under the caption: “Mexico’s Capacity to Pay.” It is estimated that-the national public debt of Mexico amounts to approximately $825,000,000 or a per capita debt of $66.00 The blessings of the revolu- tionary leaders who betrayed the masses since their advent to power in 1910 can be shown by the following comparison in per capita fed- eral tax: In 1910, 7.53 pesos and in 1926 this tax was raised to 21.02 pesos. The promised distribution of land among the peasants was always a myth. Obregon, Calles and Portes Gil never fulfilled their promises by which they secured their victory. Only 4%% of the land was distributed among the peasants and the remainder went to American imperialists and their Mexican lackeys. WALL STREET RECONSTRUCTION. . The so-called “National Reconstruction” of Mexico is to be brought about by American imperialism on concrete and definite conditions proposed by it. The adoption of the Fascist Labor Code is particularly essential for the carrying out of-the new policy on Mexican financial “stabilization” and the payment of its international debts. The working class is called upon to pay Uncle Shylock whose official executor is Lamont. But this working class is accustomed to use its traditional wéapon, now in a more virulent form, to fight exploitation and oppression: the strike. i .e The Labor Code gives the wor! the “right” to strike but the amendments virtually outlaw it. The fascization of the unions consists in their subordination to the government special By Fred Ellis NEW WALL ST. PRESIDENT- . BOSS OF MEXICO apparatus and the registration of the members before this high authority. Let a financial expert of American imperial- ism put the conditions for the “reconstruction” of Mexico: My. G. Butler Sherwell says: “First, a new loan to consolidate the debts of the country and upbuild the fiscal machin- ery; second, the sale of assets now owned or controlled by the government; third, the ad- justment of the budget to meet debt require- ments out of ordinary revenues.” + The first condition gives an opportunity to the rapacious Wall Street bankers to make a new loan and thus bind more of Mexico’s riches, especially those which are in the hands of the British. The sgcond condition is still more magranimous and not ambitious at all; the sale of assets now controlled by the govern ment means the passing over of all railroads to the benevolent Mr. Lamont & Co. The control exercised by the government over these assets only exists on paper. Ne heless British railroad interests must be ousted. This ex- plains the support of Portes Gil to the strike of railroad workers of the British owned Mexico City-Vera Cruz line. As to the third condition, debts out of ordinary‘ rev s still another burden upon the oppressed masses to pay taxes on every commodity they consume. It also means to alleviate the burden of the im- perialists to pay their own: taxes and to espe- cially finance the government in order to quench the uprisings of the militarists support- ed by British imperialism. The sum of $23,- 000,000 which Mexico was to pay as interest to its debts for 1929, was used to crush Escobar’s Marth uprising and this with the consent of its A “erican creditors. We :n now see that Mexico is w-ll on the road to “recovery.” Mexico, once the country whose peons fought the Colossus of the North for their independence, is now given over to the Wall Street sharks by the bourgeoisie. TOWARDS FASCISM. Ortiz Rubio is called upon to inaugurate a new regime with a distinct mark of fascism, In orde. to put through Mr. Morrow’s program he will have ¢o0 use the repressive methods of his labor hater colleague, General Machado of Cuba. Portes Gil has began the job, not so very .ccessfully. For since he entered the presidential palace the counter-revolutionary government has openly exposed itself before the toiling masses as their class enemy. The Mexican bourgeoisie has definitely dropped its hypocritical slogans as the “friend of labor and against foreign imperialism,” Its surrender to the White House is an accomplished fact. American imperialism applies different meth- ods of oppression in the Caribbean countries according to the specific conditions and the revolutionary reaction to this oppression by the masses. The reign of terror in Cuba under General Machado has the approval of the State Department and the Foreign Relations Com- mittee. During this fascist regime the Cuban profetariat has been constantly bleeding. Its best fighters are being mntirdered by the agents of Machado. Mexico is going through the process of fas- cization. The starving peasants and workers of Haiti are now up in arms defying American military rule. Mr. Hoover sends marines that brutally murder them. The Negro masses de- mand the independence of Haiti; shooting is the imperialist answer. Nicaragua is being “paci- fied” with the help of marines, the National Guard and the puppet President Moncada, WORKERS AND PEASANTS ANSWER. In the face of the speedy preparations for an imperialist war and the intensified exploi- tation and suppression of the masses of the Caribbean countries, a realignment of class a budget to pay the ues, | this | ing joverlooked the fact that the slaves were even | | more Send in your orders now for “Southern Cot- , ton Mills and Labor.” With its 1 portrayal of the conditions of the Southern textile work- ers, “Southern Cotton Mills and Labor” should | have a wide distribution. By MYRA PAGE. (Continued) Yet the White Trash have confused the facts concerning their conditions as small farmers with the reasons for it. Believing the main cause of their difficulties to have been the unequal competition to which they were sub- jected by large-scale agriculture based upon slave labor, they carried over their hatred for stem to the Negro, even illogically hold- 2 responsible for their hardships! They the victims of this system, and that it was the plantation-owners who exploited both white and colored. The Negroes, for their part, despised and mistrusted the Poor Whites. For 4 these mutual prejudices and suspicions, both white and colored labor in the south are still | paying a heavy penalty. Slave-holders and em- ployers, on the contrary, have greatly profited by race prejudice. The most powerful factors retarding this peo- ple’s social development have been their isola- tion, their extreme poverty and their necessary absorpition in the cruder aspects of the struggle for existence. Poor roads and forbidding moun- tain trails made social contacts outside of the family very rare, indeed. Wide-spread illiter- acy has prohibited contact through the written world. There has been no time nor money for | books, for those few who could read. In the past, there were no regular, free schools with- in reach of the children, and the poor farmers could not afford, in any case, to take their | children out of the field and place thém in the class room. In consequence, illiteracy and child labor became a customary though disliked part of their life. Stunted bodies, undeveloped minds and high rates of illness and death in south- ern rural regios are some of the results. All aspects of the tenants’ and farm laborers’ standard of living have been equally low. They have always been in debt, always seeking cre- dit from or trying to meet their accounts with the landlords, village merchant, and sometimes in ‘recent years, with the bankers. This con- tinual indebtedness to townsmen, coupled with townsmen’s scorn for these “No ’Counts” has bred in the latter a strong dislike and distrust of city people. The average farming incomes in the cotton states are extremely low, ranging from a gross yearly income of $153.00 for croppers to $251.00 for renters, and $626.00 for owners. Farm owners among the whites are less than one- half of those farming, and among the Negroes, less than one-fifth. When the production ex- penses, which are estimated at the minimum to be $115.00, are subtracted from the gross income, the farm family has very little cash left with which to meet its many needs! Agri- cultural labor is paid around twenty to twenty- five cents a day, or approximately $6.50 a month. Assuming eight months’ steady work, a laborer can earn only $52.00 a year. The conditions of life have caused the southern tenant class to become a migrating people. Not all have migratory habits, but the major- ity of them are continually “movin’ on,” as they term it, from one farm to another in a rather hopeless and aimless search for “some- thun better’n we-uns hed.” But to whatever farm they go, the facts and conditions of their life remain the same—a poor plot of ground, worked with few and primitive tools and for a hard taskmaster, by men and their “wimmen folks ’n chillen,” who farm in the manner of the eighteenth century. In the center of their barren stretch stands the log or board cabin, often without windows and on an earthen floor. Perhaps window openings would be superfluous, for there is no lack of ventilation. Wind and rain enter through numerous chinks, followed by many of nature’s small creatures. Heating and cooking are often by means of an open fireplace, though in some instances a | wood-stove has been added. Lighting is by lamps or from home-made rag wicks standing in a saucer of oil. Furniture is usually coarse and often home made. It is not unknown for a housewife to have only one saucepan in which to do all her cooking. Corn pone, hog’s meat and white potatoes are the main foods. Milk and butter are not a customary part of their diet. Snuff and to- bacco habits are common to all—men, women and children, Among some lowlanders and many highlanders the brewing of “moonshine” is also practiced. There is an economic basis for this practice, since the small farmers in poor road sections can not manage to get their corn to the railway station or to pay the freight rates demanded, but they can transport the modest supply of whiskey made from their corn and dispose of it-at much less cost. Pro- hibition, of course, has given an additional im- petus to moonshining. The long struggle be- tween federal authorities and mountaineer Poor Whites over the distilling of corn-whiskey has led the southern mountaineers to assume a hostile attitude toward “the government,” in what they consider a righteous cause. Even those families in the community who them- selves do not make moonshine will protect dis- tillers from federal agents. Both speech and dress distinguish Poor Whites from other elements in the population. Men and boys wear overalls or shapeless home- spuns and enormous straw or felt hats, while women and girls are costumed in sunbonnets and ginghams, or homespuns cut in the early and ugly fashion. ‘Their speech is an inter- esting mixture of Chaucerism and Shakespear- forces is taking place. The anti-imperialist forces are getting rid of their former leaders who went over to the camp of the enemy. In the United States, it is our Communist duty to rally the American workers for the struggle and support of the oppressed workers and peasants in Latin America. Their exploit- ers are our exploiters. The Party is now for the first time taking up the struggle of our Latin-American brothers and is trying to mob- ilize the workers for their support. But this is a mere beginning. Let us bring to the Amer- ican workers the very problems of the Latin- American masses and together with them pre- pare the ground for their complete independence and ‘for a Soviet Federated Republic in Latin America and the United States, SOUTHERN COTTON MILLS AND LABOR ian English, with various colloquilssms which have developed out of the decades of their iso- lated and unlettered life. These are some examples of original phrases: “feisty” (gay) “just fixing to” (preparing) “reckon” (think) , “allowed how” (estimate or plan) “howdy” (How do you do?) “up yon” (yonder) “ary one or tother” (either one or the other) “twistification” (dancing) “broquin’ about,” “cooterin around” (inves- tigating) “pretty nigh gone” (nearly exhausted) “right smart” (very intelligent, or, much) “adopts a rheumatiz” (gets rheumatism) “p'intedly” (directly) “that thar” (that) Old English folksongs, proverbs and dialect have been transmitted by word of mouth from very | generation to generation, and medieval super- | stitions about dreams, charms, and “bewitch- | ing” are still common. Like most agricultural peoples, southern Poor Whites are very individualistic. Their habits of action and therefore of thought rare- ly extend beyond the small family group. Loy- alty to family and family standards is intense. Within the family, man is master. While monogamy is the accepted standard, a child | born out of wedlock is not stigmatized as in | other American groups. Neither does his un- married mother suffer as severe ostracism. | There seems to be less of a double moral code. Often the woman later marries and her earlier child is accepted by her husband and raised without discrimination along with the children | born of this legal union. The community may gossip, but it soon forgets. nally penalize. (To Be Continued) It does not eter- Snowden Comforts the Briti War Bond Holders. LONDON (By Mail).—Holders of war bonds have been comforted by the “labor” chancel- lor of the exchequer, Philip Snowden. Several weeks ago Tom Shaw, labor war minister, announced the fact that the holders of war securities were getting something like $500,000,000 a year “to which they have not the slightest moral right.” Shaw doesn’t mind paying the British capitalists properly for their war duties but he is jealous of the interest of the armed forces and wants to hake sure money isn’t wasted that can be put to good purpose shooting Arab, Hindoo and Chinese workers. Snowden believes the bosses Shouldn't ask more than a fair price for their war ac- , tivities. come. They can wait—more wars are to Strife in Labor Party Ranks LONDON, Dec. 13.—Ernest Thurtle, secre- tary to his father-in-law, George Lansbury, “labor” commissioner of works, resigned from the Independent Labor Party because the Max- ton group, who parade under the misoner of “left,” embarass Ramsay MacDonald. There is growing discontent within the ranks of the Independent Labor Party against the MacDonald group because their outright im- perialist acts are making it hard for the Inde- pendent Labor Party to mislead class conscious workers. Railroad Bosses Lied at Hoover Conference During Hoover's conference with the rail- | road bosses, statements were issued to the capi- talist press about ae building projects for the railroads. e Daily Worker pointed out at the time ise iteae were the flimsiest fairy stories. Railroad activity is dropping and the need for equipment is less than ever before. “Re- cent car-loadings figures,’ says a financial writer in the “New York Times” (Dec. 10) “indicate that the gross and net receipts of the railroads will decline in the last quarter of the year.” Railroad earnings have been dropping for nearly the entire year. With need for freight cars decreasing, the railroad bosses’ state- ments are not worth the paper they are written on. Defends Wall Street Domina. tion in Nicaragua GUATEMALA CITY (By Mail).—Foreign Minister Cordero-Reyes of Nicaragua, who is on a special mission to Central American re- publics, today defended Wall Street’s rela- tions with the Moncada government. Cordero-Reyes owes his job to the fact that Stimson paid Moncada $5 for every rifle he turned in to the marines. Cordero is one of the candidates “who always won when our marines were on the job” as Gen. Smedley Butler said. Workers! Join the Party of Your Class! Communist Party U. S. A. 43 East 125th Street, New York City. I, the undersigned, want to join the Commu- nist Party. Send me more information. ? Name ....ccacesccecsenseerceeecee cares ory Address . OCDUP REO 6 io.c aise eal bags se lax Age... : Mail this to the National Office, Communist Party, 43 East 125th St., New York, N. ¥. —