The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 19, 1929, Page 4

Published by the Comproaatty Publishing Co., Inc. Square, New York City, N. Y. Telephone Stu Addrees and mail all checks to the Daily Worker. pt Sunday, we ——ws U: 7-8. Cable: “DAIWOT Union Square, New York N SUHSCRIPTION RATS: a! iota By Mail (in New York City only): $8.00 a year $4.50 six months; $2.50 three months 4 ae By Mail (outside of New York City): $6.00 a year; $3.50 six months; $2.00 three months } Page Four THE COMMUNIST ELECTION' CAMPAIGN sgt By S. A. DARCY. Article 1. OMMUNISTS participate in parliamentary elections with only one central view—to destroy the illusions of the workers in bour- geois parliaments and using parliamentary tribunes and elections campaigns to win them for revolutionary struggle. The utility of parliaments to the bourgeoisie lies in this very thing; namely, that it is the screen with which it tries to cover its class rule. Because of this very fact an “opposition” (necessarily a harm- less one for the bourgeoisie) within parliament is always necessary, that is, an “opposition” which has the appearance of representing the protest of the masses. The bourgeoisie use the “opposition” in order to turn the masses away from revolutionary action and towards the harmless safety gauge which lets off steam in loud speeches and keeps the machine from blowing up. In a period of sharpening struggle of the oppressed masses the “parliamentary opposi- tion” therefore becomes most useful—and in- versely exactly at such a time the sharpest attack of our Party must be against parlia- ments in general and this so-called opposition in particular. In the United States the so- cialist party is being groomed by the bour- geoisie to play the role of the safety gauge. If we examine our election campaign we must do so from this basic consideration. The election campaign showed that the Comintern line is not being fully applied in our work. What were the evidences of this? The outstanding evidence was that in the final note, the candidate. for mayor on the Communist ticket ran behind all other can- didates. This can be attributed chiefly to the fact that many close sympathizers voted for ‘Thomas, thereby evidencing unclarity as to the counter-revolutionary role of Thomas. It would be of little use to us to approach the question in the manner of the Lovestoneites, namely, that the strength of capitalism makes the masses of workers reformist, that we are “stalwart leaders” and shut our eyes to every- thing else. It is true that Thomas’ vote was a “silk stocking” vote but no one can deny that many workers voted for him. Only the frank- est and sharpest self-criticism can expose the cause for this situation and overcome the dif- ficulties with which we are faced. Of course we had additional enemies to fight in this cam- paign. The attempts of the Lovestoneites to undermine the Party among the workers had to be counteracted. But a thorough Leninist self-criticism is very necessary in order to strengthen the Party in its future campaigns. Some Characteristics of the Present Period. Under what circumstances did this cam- paign occur? It took place at a time when the new role of the socialist party was be- ginning to find organizational expression in that certain left bourgeois papers took up the struggle for Thomas; that Lamont of the House of Morgan established connections with Norman Thomas through the endorsement of the socialist. candidate by his son; that Fos- dick endorsed Thomas, thereby establishing connections for the House of Rockefeller; that the public schools, the Movietone and all the other facilities of bourgeoisie propaganda were turned over to Thomas in order that he thight properly perform his role which was | ining from tme to tme the activities of the | | to lead the workers who were becoming in- creasingly militant into other channels than those of class struggle. This campaign oc- curred during a period of increasing unem- ployment and sharpening struggles in New York, among the examples of which are the needle trades strike, the food workers’ strike, the struggle of the shoe workers, the various transportation strikes, etc. In other words, the campaign occurred in New York in a per- iod which showed all the earmarks of the na tional and international situation as pointed out in the analysis of the Comintern. What Was Our Basic Shortcoming? What should have been our line? We should have applied without hesitation the line of the Comintern in all its phases and implications. And this is exactly what we failed to do. Not that we did not adopt the line of the Comin- tern—but we did not carry through this line with sufficient energy and with sufficient | consciousness in every phase of the campaign. Thus, for example, we failed to direct our | chief struggle against the most dangerous enemy of the workers, namely, Norman Thomas and the socialist party. For more | than a week after the New York Telegram, the New York World, the Rockefeller church and Lamont’s son endorsed Thomas our press was silent on the question. And in fact even to this day most of our press in New York has either never editorialized on the signifi- cance of these facts or has never even re- ported it. During the course of the election campaign there were no special leaflets issued against the socialist ticket and in fact even in our regular leaflets the question of the strug- gle against the socialist party were only rare- ly put in the foreground. These are only some examples which show that we failed to carry through the proper struggle against the so- cialist party. Underestimation of the Question. The leadership of the District Committee in this campaign was weak in its political nature. Instead of devoting the largest part of its time towards considering each of the events | as they occurred during the campaign; exam- Party in the campaign and making the neces- sary corrections, our District Committee con- cerned itself with the technical arrangements for meetings in the various sections, the get- ting of speakers for these meetings, the is- suance of leaflets, publicity, ete. At no time did the activity of the district show an under- standing how the campaign was of major im- portance. It was the lack of attention to the political side of the campaign which is respon- sible for many of the shortcomings which existed. The over-occupation of the District Committee with the organizational sides of the campaign resulted in taking the initiative in the campaign away from the lower organs of the Party, where these lower organs should have had the initiative. This put the whole burden of work, including technical work, upon the District Committee when the Section Committees should and could have done a large share of it. Our underestimation of the political aspects * of the campaign resulted in neglect of the arrival of MacDonald for agitation against the socialist betrayers, in failure to utilize the | stock crash sufficiently, etc. (To be continued) PARTY RECRUITING DRIVE ‘. Y. Membership Meeting Start Drive The New York District has begun its mem- bership drive with tremendous enthusiasm. In a series of membership meetings called in all sections the’ spokesmen for the various units, almost unanimously, urged increase of their quotas. The amounts assigned to each section \s as follows: Section 1—150 new members. Section 2—150 new members. - Section 3—150 new members. Section 4—150 new members. Section 5—100 new members. Section 6—75 new members, Section 7—50 new members. Section 8—50 new members. Section 9—50 new members. New Jersey—100 new members. Staten Island—10 new members. Yonkers—25 new members. Poughkeepsie—5 new members. Beacon—10 new members. All the Icading Communist Party fractions im the trade unions have been assigned quotas of new members to be obtained as follows: Building trades—50. Food industry—50, Laun#@y—25. Leather and shoe—50. Marine transport—20. Metal industry—20. Needle industry—150. The Workers School with its many hundreds of non-Party students is a fertile recruiting ground for members for our Party. These students are young proletarians who look to the Party for leadership and now must be enlisted in our ranks. The district has as- signed the Workers School a minimum of 100 new. members. The district is procuring 15,000 of the 50,000 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. AMGTONE o0 0 occ ccvccsvcdcveese Cit¥sssccsece Occupation + AROS Mail this to the National Office, Communist Party, 43 East 125th St., New York, N. Y. Ae pamphlets being printed by the Party. In ad- dition there are a number of pamphlets cost- ing from ten to twenty-five cents which should be secured by the section bureaus for use dur- ing the Recruiting Drive. Every comrade dur- ing the drive must be supplied with application blanks (in New Jersey, Daily Worker subscrip- tion blanks), pamphlets, leaflets, etc. For New Dues System. By JACK DONALD Young Communist League Organizer, Dist. 4. The new dues system is another of the long chain of changes which our Party must under- go in the process of the Bolshevization of our Party, in the process of making our Party worthy of being a section of the Communist International. But as usual when the Party undertakes to make certain changes in the methods of carrying on Party work there are always those who predict that it will fail and that it is no use to try to even put it in ef- fect. This is not all, even some of our district organizers have shown resistance to these changes, instead of winning over the member- ship for the policy of the C. E. C. Some dis- trict organizers went to the extent of saying that if the C.E.C. receives opposition on this question from about fourteen bureaus, that the C.E.C. would after reconsider the dues sys- tem. This, for example, was done in District Four at a meeting of the district bureau where this question was being taken up. After a discussion the district organizer of District Four succeeded, instead of winning the bureau for support of the C.E.C. on this question, succeeded to win the majority of the bureau members for opposing the C.E.C. policy of changing the dues system. Comrades, the new dues system will more than do its share towards the stabilization of the financial situation in the Party. The new dues system will make it easier for the mem- bersh:p to pay up its dues. It will take away the money collecting system which has long been a hindrance to our work. It will relieve the membership of the great financial burdens which have long discouraged new members from coming to Party meetings after being there for the first time and seeing that all that’s done is money collections. ‘ European Auto Trusts Fight U. S. Competition. BRUSSELS, Dee. 18.—European automobile makers met in executive session today working out plans to keep American cars out of the European market. With the slump in automo- bile production in the U. S., the European auto capitalists know that international competi- _ tion will be more severe than ever before in the history of capitalism. | cloak of ss SOUTHERN COTTON MILLS) AND LABOR se Village Schools and Company Welfare Work. By MYRA PAGE, (Continued) Village schools blished on the prin- ciple that. mill hands’ children will also grow up to be mill hands, and the school’s job there- fore-is to fit them for their future work. In both content and extent, the school curriculum is geared to this end. e In the early days of mill development, mar companies built a grammar school in each v lage, hiring the teachers and paying all ex- penses. At the beginning, little attention had been paid to the question of education for | mill hands’ children, but management soon | discovered that a machine operator who could not read, write and do simple problems of arithmetie was a business handicap. In gen- eral, managements preferred to build and con- trol these schools, rather than have to deal with outside interference and school tax: problems. In most of the southern stat in South Carolina, the majority of village | children still go to such company-owned schools. There is one outstanding exception in this rule, that of the Parker District surround- ing Greenville, S. C., but company influence ; still predominates here as well. In North Carolina only one-fourth of the 119 schools for village children are now owned by mill companies, but company control is maintained by the practice of mill officials serving on sehool boards and, in a few cases, acting as superintendents. In this way the schools are doubly secured as an agency of company propaganda. The amount of education which mill vil- lagers receive is meager. Those above four- teen years of age have had, usually three years of schooling, while only one-fourth have gone beyond the fifth grade. Nearly one-fifth of them are illiterate. This rate of illiteracy is extremely high, being two to three times the rates for the southern population as a whole. | The younger generation is receiving slightly more schooling than their elders did, never- Hoover Leads Drive Against Young Commuist League By JOHN STEUBEN. UST as the Kellogg Pact, the Stimson note and the Hoover Armistice speech, under the peace constituted a a policy of imperialist war on the part of the U vernment, so is Hoover’s statement on the Young Communist League a declaration of war against the Communist movement and the Young Communist League in particular. It was the first time that the president of the United States issued a public statement on the Young Communist League. - Behind the typical American demagogy and hypocrisy con- tained in this statement of Hoover, there is an expression of deen fear on the part of the rul- ing class. It is no accident that this statement came about as a result of our active participa- tion in the demonstrations on the streets of New York, San Francisco and Washington for the defense of the Soviet Union and against the marine rule of Amer ism i Haiti and in other colonial and semi-colonial countries. It is no accident that this statement is made at a time when the process of radicd ization within the ranks of the working class youth is’ developing daily and already the young workers make up a mighty force in the struggle against capitalist rationalization and the war danger. The ruling class is fully aware of the fact that it is the Young Communist League in this country that will lead the young workers against capitalism. Hoover is quite aware of the role of the youth and knows very well that | the future dey Is upon the road the working class youth will choose. We can already state today that due to the process of rationalization and the burden of capitalist militarism, a complete turn is taking place in the life of the toiling youth. This turn is towards the class struggle. onia, Marion, Blizabethton and the Illinois coal strikes are good examples of the role in the struggle of the youth who make up one of the most militant sections of the working class. In order to weaken the developing militancy and the solid front of the toiling youth, the “Walk-Out Has Employers’ Sanction” By I, AMTER. T= International Ladies’ Garment Worker Jnion is a company union led by social- ists, It is a union that works with the manufac- turers to “establish conditions in the indu: try.” Each party to the agreement is mutual- ly concerned about the welfare ofthe other. The employers will eal with the unien “pro- vided it represents the majority of the wor! ers” (!) and the workers, through their social- fascist leaders will do everything to “help the manufacturers organize their association.” (So goes the talk of the social-fascist com- pany union.) Not only that—the ILGWU, which is calling a fake “strike” on Dec. 31, says it will take the workers out “with the sanction of the employers.” This was stated at the conven- tion in Cleveland on Dee. 3. The convention, which was greeted by Gov- ernor Cooper of Ohio, and Mayor Marshall of Cleveland, and received a message from Gov- ernor Roosevelt of New York, through that representative of finance, Lieutenant-Governor Lehman, “dwelt at length on the public spir- ited and friendly attitude of Roosevelt and Lehman.” (This is the organization which, according to the report of the General Execu- tive Board, “has emerged strong and. militant again. . . to take its place once more in the front ranks of the labor unions of Amer- ica.”) That was not enough: Mayor Jimmy Walker sent his cdngratulations to the convention, as- suring his interest. This is the Jimmy Walker whose police crack the heads of the workers who fight for decent conditions! This is the Jimmy Walker who represents the most cor- fi declaration of | | mander of the Ame | made by the Cleveland convention of the state began a campaign of rep on against the Young Communist League throughout the country. On and since Red Day (August 1, 1929), hundreds of League members were ar- rested. In Gastonia, five of the seven textile workers convicted a young workers, most of them active members of the Young Communis League. : Only a few days ago our Cleveland District Organizer at the League convicted on a cviminal syndicalist charge and sentenced from five to ten years and 000 fine. Our District Organizer in Pittsburgh is now serving a 30-day on sentence. Many co ‘e now upon trial on the “sedition” rge. John Porter is s lin prison for his splendid oung miners are now being led on the battle field in the Iinois coal strike, The resolution in ‘oduced by McNutt, Com- an Legion and adopted at its last convention asking for an investiga- tion by the United States Senate of the Young Communist League and Young Pioneers, as the present. campaign of the entire press against our movement, shows definitely that the rujing class is trying e the Young Communist League under- ground. Hoove statement is therefore a camouflage order to blind and delude the working class youth, and at the same time further to increase the drive of terror against them and the Young Communist League. Hoover considers the Young Communist League as “misguided youth calling themselves Communists.” What hypocrisy and nonsense! It is precisely the Young Communist League whien makes up the alvance guard of the toil- ing youth in this country who not only cease | © be “misguided,” by the Hoovers, but which is fully aware of the economie and political posi- tion of the toiling youth and knows how to struggle against the present horrible conditions as well as against the entire capitalist system. Hoover gave the signal and the next day rupt political machine in the world. Schlesinger-Walker-Roosevelt - Lehman and the manufacturers, behind whom stand the banks of New York. This is the social-fascist aggregation, which claims to promote the organization of the needle trades workers! This is the union which sends a telegram to' Hoover demanding -that a scab manufac- turer be removed from the committee of seven- ty-two keymen, since his (Mr. Herf—a manu- facturer) appointment was “resented by both organized labor and the organized manufac- turers!” One might be inclined to ask how Schlesinger knows that the manufacturers re- sent it? But knowing the character and func- tion of the social-fascists today, one is not surprised at the language of Schlesinger-Du- binsky, nor at the character of the decisions Vly The convention, which was a meeting of the officials of the company union, decided to tax the membership $1,000,C00—a fund to help the workers put strong chains on themselves. These preparations are being made with the “sanction of the manufacturers!” William Green was essential to complete the fascist character of the convention. Fat and sleek, he stood on the platform and talked “prosperity,” about the “boom in the building industry,” which would be among the “aceom- paniments of the coming new era of prosper- ity!” Hoover is worried about the situation— Green is at the height of his optimism! Why not? A million dollars stolen from the workers for a fake “strike” “sanctioned by the employers,” is a rich morsel for Schlesin- ger, Dubinsky and Green. The social-fascists do not serve the manufacturers for nothing. | Warsaw, Shanghai and Canton have often been ; shoe workers, food workers, textile workers the capitalist press thruout the country speaks of our “cheap martyrdom.” The Hoovers and Mussolinis cannot stand the firmness, the de- cisiveness, and the fighting ability of the Young Communist League throughout the world. They cannot stand the devotion and loyalty of the Young Communists who, throughout the world face the firing squads, the gallows and life impriconment with a smile on their face, being fully convinced that their death is for a great cause, for the proletarian revolution. At the present time more than 3,000 young Communists ave in prison in Poland; thou- sands of young workers in Bulgaria have been killed by the fascist government. In Jugo-Slavia three leading members of the Young Communist League have been brutally killed by the police. The streets of Berlin, drenched with the blood of the best proletarian fighters of the toiling youth. Hoover can speak about “cheap martyrdom” but the young workers find out more and more th.t it is the Young Communist League that is capable of leading the young workers in their struggles. Let Hoover bark, let the capitalist press rave; vz will go on and will further intensify our work. Nothing will stop us from organiz- ing the masses of young workers for the de- fense of the Soviet Union. Even the capitalist New York Evening Post has to admit that the “young Communists are hard to deal with.” This is quite correct, we have proven on Red Day, we have proven it in the South, and we have proven this, only the other day, when we were not “cheap martyrs” but on the con- trary battled with the police for more than an hour on the streets of New York when they attempted to smash our demonstration. We will not at all be surprised that the next statement of the President will be that the village. Young Communist League is “endangering the republic.”" Our answer to Hoover is that we have only made the very first beginning’in the struggle for the defense of the Soviet Union and against imperialist wars. We will yet see who is misled and who will lead. When pledging the cooperation of Iabor not to seek for wage increases, Green put forth his hand for “his.” What he got, we do not know, but it surely pays the bosses to give him his reward. The workers, on the other hand, are mulcted on the excuse of a “strike” sanctioned by the employers—and $1,000,000 is not to be laughed at. William Green naturally spilled his venom on the Communists, and declared that “an- other deadly influence must be completely dest. yed, namely, Communism in the labor movement.” (“Dead?” The needle workers will show them!) Green is havnted by Communism, and for a geod reason. Wherever this social-fascist turns, ‘he is confronted with Communists who a e routing him from unions, buil ling up fight- ing industrial unions and exposing Green- Schlesinger-Dubinsky and the remainder of the paid tools of the capitalists as being social- fascists and traitors of the working class, Communism is “dead,” say Green and Hill- quit. Then why worry? There is goo.’ reason, for the new struggles in New York and the rest of the country are bein, led by the Communists. ‘The miners, have Communists in their leadership, The Needle Trades, Workers Industrial Union has Communists in the front—and now they are >reparing the workers for a d; amic offensive against the manufacturers—not sanctioned by the employers! Are the needle trades workers to be organ- ized t» ‘ight? If they are, they must have an industrial uniof, fighting leadership, militant policy. This the needle trades workers of all departments recognize, and the united front of the state, the manufacturers, the A. F. of L. ¢ theless approximately twenty per cent of North Carolina’s mill village children between seven and fourteen years of age were not in school in 1925 (Cook; “Mill Village School of North Carolina,” p. 109). The situation was certainly no better in the other mill states and was probably much worse. This rate of non- attendance is just twice that for the country as a whole, Mill workers’ poverty is at the basis of this non-attendance. The rates of illness among both young and old are high, due to malnutri- tion, exposure through lack of sufficient clothing, and poor sanitary conditions in the Also many children below working age are kept at home to assume duties while their parents are at work, while others are in the mill, having been granted “special” working permits. There are almost no means of en- forcement of compulsory attendance laws in mill village districts. Local teachers consider the mobility of village populations an impor- tant factor, affecting both attendance and achievement at school. Each Monday morning a new class roll has to be made, and it is not uncommon for the entire membership of a grade to be changed by the end of a quarter. In addition, the poorly trained teachers, work- ing with meager equipment and limited pro- © gram, fail to arouse in either children or par- ents any marked enthusiasm for school work. Here again, race discrimination is practiced, and the schools into which the colored chil- dren are segregated are notoriously bad. All but a small fraction of village children leave school the day they are fourteen (if they have not left before), a practice prompted by the necessity of earning a living. About three-fourths of the parents and children ex- pressed their unrealized desire for more edu- cation. Another difficulty in the way of vil- lage youth seeking “higher education,” beyond the age of fourteen years, is the general fail- ure of village schools to offer more than a six or seven year course. Company purposes are met when its prospective mill hands have had 3 or 4 years of schooling. Those few who continue into high school must travel long distances and pay part of their tuition. In those few districts where village youth have better opportunities for a high school educa+ tion, school records show an increasing num- ber of pupils continuing on into high school. But this tendency is necessarily a slight one, since economic factors still operate to force children from school into the mills, and the schools and social environment, on the other hand, offer little incentive to youth to continue on. Such vocational training as there is, is generally limited to training in textiles, so that the few mill workers’ children who com- plete high school usually enter the mill along with the fourth-graders, receive the same rates of pay, and live under the same. condi- tions. So, mill workers reason, what. has been accomplished by all the years of sacrifice? As they express‘it, “Ejication (of this kind) ain’t fer us mill hands, but fer them what’s goin’ to make somethun of theirselves,”—in other words, for those who are training to become business or professional men. Although they are unfamiliar with working class education and its social philosophy, they nevertheless sense the fact that mill people need education of another kind, one which will not merely teach them the technical aspects of their trade but will also give a training and outlook that will enable them to improve their standard of living and enrich their lives. Once mill workers have established their own organiza- tions, they will undoubtedly undertake to build up such an educational movement among themselves. (To Be Continued) the socialist party, the Musteites and Love- stoneites cannot turn them from their course. The fake “strike” of the company union, the scab I. L. G. W. U. is a sheer bluff—and the officials know it, for it has the “sanction of the employers.” It is a fake stoppage on the score of which $1,000,000 as graft is being raised. It is a stoppage by which Schlesinger intends to turn the workers ovcr to the bosses. The policy of ie Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union must be absolutely and radi- cally different from the policy of these fakers. It must be a fighting policy to strengthen the position and to fight for improvements for the worke.s, The organization drive conducted by the industrial union must be made more and more intensive. Shop after shop is being taken out c> strike—both I. L. G. W. U. and non- union shops—both shops being the same as far as conditions are concerned. Wherever manu- facturers refuse to put into real practice the conditions of the industrial union, the shop must be struck. The Industrial Union is out to organize the dress and needle industry, fully conscious what the odds are. The Industrial Union knows that the fascist- social-fascist aggregation will resort to the ast violent methods with the aid of the Jowest. gansterism, to prevent the workers from or- ganizing. The workers, at the proper time, will answer with the general strike, and with their organization well knit together on the shop delegate basis, with militant leadership and policy, they will face this aggregation in a struggle NOT sanctioned by the employers, Workers were never organized for an im- provement of their conditions with the “sanc- tion of the employers.” To obtain conditions, the workers must fight—and those whom they must fight are the employers, the state and all their allies, the social-fascists. Hoover, Roosevelt, Lehman, Walker—the manufactur- ers, the A. F. of L., the socialist party, the Musteites and Lovestoneites—a somewhat im- posing combination. The same combination the fighting workers?today have to face on all hands. Against this the workers pit their organized strength, built into industrial unions, their fighting spirit and their fighting lead- ership which must culminate in a general strike when the workers so decide. * Is this Communist policy? It is—and it is this policy that is winning the southern workers for Communist leader- ship and the class struggle, and is,spreading the spectre William Green and the rest fear so much, * “With the sanction of the employers” —to hell with it. We fight! { > 2g