The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 6, 1930, Page 1

j The Demonstration of 2,000 Detroit Workers Drove “Wall Street” Rubio out of that city, In New York, Washington and California, the revolutionary workers Showed Their Solidarity with the Victims of Wall Street in Mexico! Broaden the Fight Against Fascist Terror in Mexico! ter at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1S79. FINAL CITY EDITION nS Published datly except Sanday by Th: Company. tne. 26-28 Union Square e Comprodally Publis! rf New York City, N. ¥.@=>2 ORK, MONDAY, EW Y JANUARY 6, 1930 The Agricultural Workers in Struggle The strike of eight thousand agricultural workers in the Imperial Valley of California, under the leadership of the Trade Union Unity League, must remind every wage worker of city factory industry that agriculture is an industry and has a proletariat whose organizer and leader must naturally be the revolutionary industrial union center and the revolutionary leader of all proletarians—the Communist Party. The agricultural proletariat is ripe and over-ripe for organization and stuggle. The Imperial Valley strikers are composed largely of Mexican and Filipino workers. Their conditions are miserable. Their employers are not even the supposedly paternal despots of the “old time” farmer type on the “old home farm” (though even if they were, our Party would support the fight of their wage slaves just the same), but highly developed capjtalist farmers on commercialized farms serv- ing as an integral part of big finance capital, of American imperialism, Both to the Mexican revolutionary unions last January, and to the Latin American Trade Union Confederation at their Montevideo con- gress last May, the Trade Union Unity League pledged its best efforts to organize the large mass of immigrant Mexican workers in the United States. The present strike in the Imperial Valley must be a beginning of persistent efforts to organize the Latin American workers (and Fili- pino workers as well) who make up such a large part of agricultural labor in the Southwest. But this does not mean that other districts of the Communist Party, and other regional and local organizations of the Trade Union Unity League have not also an important task in reaching and organizing the agricultural proletariat. The scope of the present walk-out in the Imperial Valley makes it necessary that the whole revoi:tionary movement of California throws every possible aid behind these workers, and more, that the national T. U. U. L. mobilize every available support to this struggle and estab- lish a fighting union among these workers on a firm and permanent basis. But the situation demands still wider action. In every district of the country there are tens of thousands of agricultural wage workers. They are a part, and the most bitterly exploited part, of the American proletariat. As such, the Communist Party must voice their demands and assist them to organize for class struggle in the revolutionary union of the Trade Union Unity League. It is a serious error to imagine that sich work is to be done only in the W This is a task of every section in the country. All aid to the fighting wor 's of the Imperial Valley! Establish the revolutionary industrial union of the T. U. U. L. firmly and on a mass scale in this strike! Follow the strike strategy of the Red In- ternational of Labor Unions in the struggle of these battling workers! Spread the organization of the revolutionary union to all sections of the country! Organize the dairy workers and truck garden workers, too, who are accessible to the city proletariat! Build up the revolu- tionary industrial union of agricultural workers! The Anthracite Miners Show Their Readiness to Fight. Now comes a strike in the anthracite coal fields. These hard coal miners have for months repudiated the misleader- ship of Lewis and the United Mine Workers of America. They have begun to organize-in the National Miners’ Union. They are fighting the bosses to compel them to stop discrimination against National Miners’ Union members. Miserabe conditions of work, unemployment and low wages go along with this discrimination. This strike is of great significance, coming as it does while the Mlinois miners are struggling to win demands that are matters of life and death to them, and are calling all workers to aid in their fight. In this way the anthracite strike is a sharp breach which these workers have made with the treacherous policy of the,U. M. W. A. The policy of treachery followed by all the misleaders from the time of John Mitchell to John L. Lewis is one of splitting the anthracite from the bituminous miners. Lewis went farthest in this form of treason, taking care that the agreements in anthracite adhd bituminous coal fields should not expire in the same year. The National Miners’ Union \s preparing for a national strike, both bituminous and anthracite fields this Autumn, and the anthracite miners feel that this is the way to victory. The fact that the first battle in the anthracite takes over a ques- tion of discrimination, shows that here, as in Illinois, the operators know which is the miners’ union and which is their company union; the bosses are supporting the U. M. W. A. And it shows that the miners are determined to have the right to join their own union. The fact that the Tamaqua miners are ready to join and fight for a militant, a class union, part of the Trade Union Unity League, tue revolutionary trade union center in America, affiliated with the Red International of Labor Unions, shows that they are militant them- selves. They have had enough of U. M. W. class collaboration, of five-year contracts and the sell-out. They feel the effects of ration- alization, of speed-up and wage-cuts, of unemployment. They are ready to fight. The Tamaqua strike is a favorable sign for mass strug- gle in the near future. “Much depends now on the energy and ability of the National Miners’ Union leadership, on its success in crystallizing this radicaliza- tion of the miners into organization, its ability to find and develop leaders and organizers rising from the ranks in these preliminary skirmishes in Illinois and Pennsylvania, its ability to prepare for the mass struggles coming. The anthracite miners should immediately strengthen the back- bone of leadership for their struggle—the Communist Party. Miners, join the Party of your class! r e . jto do could break the young work-} i R W TOLD ler’s courage, however. He refused ‘to denounce the union. The thugs asked: “Ain’t you an rT] 5) | American?” A | “Yes,” said Totherow, “and full blooded and red blooded.” "| “Then why do you hang around A BULLETIN. LUMBERTON, N. C., Jan. 5.— The N. T. W. local secretary, Claude is held in jail here on charge of “assault with a deadly | weapon” because he armed him- — self for defense against pieect \ gang hunting him after Totherow was widnapped. ee CHARLOTTE, N. C., Jan 5.— “They told me if I ever tell this \telegraph station and wired to they’d hunt me up and kill me. I'm Charlotte. He laid special stress in telling this now, so all the workers |his wire, not on his own bruised and za nhear it, and I hope the thugs |tired condition but on the danger to who gave me a ride hear this, too.” his fellow worker, C. W. Summey, This is what Elbert Totherow, 17- whom the thugs had told him they z + back te Lumberton. aid when he dragged himself into) Totherow on his arrival at the the N. T. W. U, district office in x 7 W, office in Charlotte imme- Charlotte. He had been hauled into aiately asked permission of the Dis- scar by a group of thugs, driven | tit Fxecutive Board to go back about {> various Lumberton mills, 1) [umberton haled up before overseers and su The L i i i perintendents in the effort to work | ie Lumberton chief of police, ap a lynching sentiment. whom the district board of the Finally he was carried out on a) T. sah (3 already Lbs lonely roadsvear the South Carolina “Parged with being | responsible line and dumped out after they had along MAH Plea owners for kid ‘hreatened to I:ill him and do vari. "@pping Tothetow, wired back a dus unmentionable things to him. | eply to a number of capitalist Nothing they did or threatened (Continued on Page Three) with these Russian Reds?” “Well,” Totherow are yellow. I’m red.” Tried to Aid Summey. |From there he hitch-hiked answered, “some people are red and others Totherow walked 12 miles on a ‘lonely country road until he found the little town of Nichols, S. C. into Marion, S. C., where he found a Outatde N. DEMONSTRATION BEFORE SUBSCRIPTION RATES 1 In New York by mall $5.00 ver year. em York. by mall 86.00 per vear "Price 3 Cents MEXICAN EMBASSY 8,000 Mexican Agricultural Workers Strike in Cal., Led by TU UL TOILERS BROUGHT IN REFUSE 10 ~ SCABON STRIKE | Fight on Intolerable} Conditions; For | Wage Increase Struggle Is Spreading) Govt. Intervenes With Threat to Deport | (Special to the Daily Worker.) BRAWLEY, Cal., Jan. 5.—Turn- ling to the Trade Union Unity Lea- gue to lead them, 8,000 Mexican the Imperial Valley have walked out | against intolerable working condi- tions and starvation wages. | The rebellion has long been brew- ing, and the intense and rapidly |growing militancy of the agricul- |tural laborers in the Valley indi- jcates that the strike signalizes the | beginning of a mass rebellion by all lof the scores of thousands of bit- terly exploited Mexican, Filipino, Hindu, Japanese and Chinese agri- cultural laborers who slave for the big, open shop fruit growers and packers under conditions bordering | closely to peonage. | The strikers’ demands include a} |25 per cent increase in the average | wage; abolition of the contract la-| bor system; abolition of piece work; | | better housing conditions; no victim- | ‘ization, and a demand for recogni- | |tion of the workers’ job committees. | The present average wage of these workers is $1.50 a day, and ofter less. | The effectiveness of the strike startled the bosses. The strike is! (Continued on Page Two) TUUL CALLS FOR ” PAINTERS’ FIGHT |Fake Progressives Let Zausner Take Control The Building and Construction } | Workers Section of the Trade Union | Unity League has issued a states jment on the Zausner victory in the recent painters’ union _ elections. |Zausner is a notorious grafter and jagent of the bo: He is primar- | ily a paint salesman. The state- jment points out that his present victory was accomplished with the jaid of a well-oiled Zausner machine |which largely controlled the elec- a thousand “repeaters.” | But the statement also calls at-| |tention to the fact that not count- jing the repeaters, only about 5,000 | of the union’s 12,000 members here | voted. Most of them were disgust-| ed with both the Zausner and the “progressive” slate, and did not vote at all for day secretary and business agents. In the locals, some got good votes, “Progressives” Treachery. The failure for a real opposition | being shown against Zausner’s ma- chine is due, the statement declares, to the treachery of the “progres- sives.” Last year the left wing | withdrew candidates to please these “progressives.” During the course of the year the |“progressives” were shown to be merely self seckers, without any real enmity to Zausnerism, only to) (Continved on Page Twa) Unier the banner of “optimism,” | and with a smashing attack on the wages of the American workers, Hoover and his legion of imperialist growing sharp crisis, Thousands of tons of newsprint have been filled by the Hoover prop- agandists with this Christian science hocus-pocus. But the cheerio phrases of Hoover, and the anesthetic speeches of Green, cannot cover the crisis, increasing CUBAN WORKERS tion machinery, and permitted over | published January 11. of the candidates of the rank and!, : file endorsed by the T. U. U. L, 8 Demonstrators Still | | Party. ‘OPTIMISM’ LIES COVER WAGE-CUTS; CRISIS GROWS jist powers for world markets, and | |the war preparations that run like | ver's own pet governmental depart- | ja red thread through the blacken- | ment, the Department of Commerce, | bosses, attack the question of the ing world crisis. Cheated Snow Shovellers Storm City Hall, Get Their Pay Part of the 400 snow shovelers who, with 500 unemployed, charge: compelled the administrétion to give up its plan to keep them waiting w thus avoid paying them for clearing the streets. d into the Buffalo City Hall and ntil they starved or left town, and They were led by a Communist. Shovellers _ Raid City Hall BUFFALO, N. Y., Jan. 5.—Over | 400 snow shovelers, promised wages | \for hard work clearing the streets | during the period just before Dé | |cember25, but cheated out of their) money, waited until the end of the| month, and then followed the lead- ership of a Communist Party mem-| ber named Black, and stormed the \City Hall, demanding their pay, | jright away. . | They paraded through the streets | \first, and gathered up about 500 ‘| Ortiz Rubio on Way to Mexico With Wall « St. Instructions Kill Young Communist Harassed Workers Send Gaston Protest "he unemployed, who had grievances |of their own. When they walked} MEXICO CITY, Jan. 5.—Having | right into the City Hall, the Mayor | deported four revolutionary work-!was “absent.” So were most of| ing-class leaders to Germany, the) the other officials. Mexican government is preparing] to ship the Cuban Communists, now | Defy Cops. being tortured in various jails scat- | hands of bloody Machado. a right to be there. Systematic and repeated raids | Word was sent to come back | have been staged all over the city| Monday (this was Saturday). But/| with the object of wiping out the | warned by Black that this was a) Communist and militant trade union | trick, the workers refused to dis- | forees as a preliminary to the|band. They crossed the street to | further carrying out of Wall! City Commissioner of Public Works Street’s orders in Mexico. | George F. Fisk’s office and repeated | Ortiz Rubio is on his way to Mex-/the demand. Fisk insisted that he | ico with complete instructions from | wasn’t to blame and finally, the | (Continued on Page Three) | city chiefs, convinced that their plan | —— of starving some of these workers | BANNER ‘DAILY’ 10 Snes tee 00000 TOILERS ppotecT WHALEN with wages to the amount of $19,867, ‘lump sum. | | Three hundred thousand copies of the Daily Worker Special Sixth Anniversary edition will reach the workers of the United States,| through widespread mass distribu- tions of the Dai The issue will be | \leader and socalled “artichoke king, |close friend of the Tammany magis- of this banner edition of the Daily |trate and fascist leader, Vitale, was Worker have come from the toilers still being “sought” in New Jersey, in ev industrial center in the|Police Commissioner Whalen, him-| United States, \self, hinted at by gang leaders as| To Detroit, center of the coming | having had connection with them, great struggles of the auto workers, ‘stated last night that he would have led by the Auto Workers’ Union,|“an important statement” today, (Continued on Page Two) jconcerning Terranova’s disappear- ance. Vitale, himself, seems to have done a disappearing act. All efforts to ot Sige 41) hi i v" ‘day. Lie in Cleveland Jail reach him tailed neigh jay. i ‘ Tammany Hall is pulling all its CLEVELAND, Ohio, Jan. 5.—The |... ” three workers arrested here a rrbak | ena ncel rer eran tia polis tone | ago, during the fine demonstration | against the Mexican fascist terror, are still in jail. They are held tor | [eat ‘ P00 uball’ awhigh; dba Iuternatione: |Dammane ecraeciet Judge, Vitale, tad | abot Dédetise ia trsiig to raiee for | beet. shown to be closely connected. | them. ‘Squash Counter-Move Against Him | While Ciro Terranova, underworld Demands for scores of thousands be me x given by Tammany underworld | Every Militant Worker a henchmen, on December 8 to Vitale, | Member of the Communist | the latter, notoriously vicious to mil- | (Continued on Page Two) arpening rivalries of the capital-}facts puncture his verbal bubbles. | The latest information from Hoo- ; brands his statement of a current | | tional \“a mass organization of the ILD in| MEXICO FASCISTS Cheated Snow TAMAQUA MINE STRIKE TO STOP DISCRIMINATION Bosses and UMW Tried to Check National Miners Union Had Long Defied Lewis Slinger Tells of Help Needed in Illinois TAMAQUA, Pa., Jan. 5.—Hun- dreds of anthracite miners are on strike here against an attempt of |the bosses to discriminate against | the National Miners’ Union and The police were sent out to drive | strengthen the United Mine Work- | tered over the city, to Cuba, where |them away, and the workers stood |ers of America so that it will be/ certain execution awaits them at the ged ground and insisted they had /petter able to betray the men when | the U. M. W. agreement expires in September. The Tamaqua miners have re- fused for months to pay any per capita to the Lewis machine. When Lewis agents appear and try to compel the miners to buy the big dues buttons of the U. M. W. A. on “button day,” the miners laugh at them. Join N. M. U. Recently several big meetings in Tamaqua and vicinity have been held by speakers and organizers from the National Miners’ Union, with half the meeting usually join- ing the N. M. U. on the spot and electing local officers. Other miners join later, and the N. M. U. has a good foothold here. This the first big is test of strength in the anthracite since the | N. M. U. board member Minerich came into Pittston to lead striking miners there, and smashed an anti- free speech edict of the mayor of Pittston. The Tamaqua strikers have adopt- ed resolutions pledging solidarity with the Illinois strikers. I. L. D. Helps Ill. Strikers. Dan Slinger, militant miner of southern Illinois, today sent a mes- sage of solidarity to the Interna- Labor Defense prophesying the Ilniois coal mining section.” He was (Continued on Page Three) Peegiiees tho CLEVELAND, Ohio, ; \Millinery Workers to with ‘the ‘mititant Auto Workers | Discuss Conditions At an open forum under the aus- pices of the Needle Trades Workers missioner Grover Whalen with the | Industrial Union to be held today | underworld murder gang, with which | at 2 p. m., in Bryant Hall, Sixth Briggs plant in two weeks. Ave. and 42nd St., the problems of the millinery workers, operators, Following the holdup, by seven | blockers and trimmers will be taken| wage cuts which in some cases were gangsters of a testimonial. dinner |p, and workers in these trades areas much as 50 per cent. The com- particularly invited. Every Factory a Communist | Fortress! Build Factory Nuclei. | few case: Building Drops 77% in Chicago; 15 to 25% tn Basic Industries for 1930 period of 1928, according to the weekly statement of the Depart- ment of Commerce. “Steel plants were operating on a lower level than in the corres- a delegate to the Pitts-, WORKERS PROTEST IN “WASHINGTON, NEW YORK AGAINST MEXICAN TERROR Fight With Police Here, at Capital, and in Los Angeles, Calif. Many Rescued From Police; Worker Beaten | Unconscious in Washington | BULLETIN. CHICAGO, Ill, Jan. 5.—The Chicago workers’ demonstration against Ortiz Rubio at the stockyards yesterday prevented his visit in spite of enormous police mobilization and brutality. The reception and mass meeting scheduled by the Mexican con~ sulate here for this afternoon was also cancelled. The Mexican consul admits pttblicly through signs posted on the doors of Ashland audi- torium that the postponement was on account of the workers’ re- sentment. The signs said: “Because of radical] elements which are preparing a demonstra- | tion against President-elect Rubio, the Consulate of Mexico sees itself forced to suspend the meeting for the President-elect which it had organized for today.” » . * * i WASHINGPON, D. C., Jan. 5.—Splendid resistance to police attacks was displayed yesterday by 100 workers, who, led by the Communist Party, demonstrated before the Mexican embassy against the Mexican white terror which has imprison- |ed and continues to imprison scores of militant workers. | Negro and marine workers Strik | > ers Fight, This! participated in the demonstra- tion, which was part of a great series being held thruout the country under Communist lead- ership against the Mexican terror. Thirty-three workers who took {rested. Three of these are still |held, under charges of “disorderly conduct.” With characteristic brutality, the police charged into the demonstra- jtors, clubs drawn. The workers met them with fierce resistance. | One of the workers, Joseph Rin- kowsky, 24, of Baltimore, was so severely beaten by police that he was taken to Marine Hospital un- conscious, and is still in a semi- conscious condition. Surrounded by a large force of police, the workers fought fiercely for their banners, which attacked the Ortiz Rubio government as a Intolerable slavery at the belt in an auto plant, under which each auto worker is forced to do the work of Frequent several men. , : puppet government of U. S. im- wage cuts and increase of speed- | perialism ae qeiietd) her ed eae scious at the police station. He | fo. the Auto Porsers (mon For ‘and Simon Horvitz, 24, and Max leadership, as in the Briggs Body strike in Cleveland. See also the Ford worker's letter on Page & of this issue. AUTO WORKERS UNION LEADS BRIGGS STRIKE Cleveland Strikers Call) For Spread Burke, 18 year old worker, are the three workers still held. The demonstrators embled be- fore the emba: bearing banners with inseriptions which read: “Down with Ortiz Rubio; Down with Wall Street imperialism; Or- tiz Rubio is the murderer of work- ers and peasants in Mexico.” Elizabeth Donnelly, of the Com- munist Party; Shurgin, of the Mar- ine Workers League; and a Spanish worker addressed the crowd while \the demonstrators fought to protect ithe speakers. (Special to the Daily Worker.) | 5.—| Jan. pany got the strikers back to work at that time by promising them their old rate, but this was granted in but | o 1,000 Demonstrate in Los Angeles. LOS ANGELES, Cal., Jan. 5— Over 1,000 workers yesterday took part in a demonstration in the Plaza (Continued on Page Three) Pacifist Humbug Over Union leading them, 250 workers|Coming Naval Meetin of the Briggs Auto Body Manufac- | . g turing Co, plant here haye walked Gushes at Washington out against another wage cut. [ae The walkout is the second at the! ,, WASHINGTON, Jan. 5.—The of- Two | ficial pacifist “blah” o1 the coming weeks ago the metal finishers and "Val armament conference is burst- polishers went on strike against |i"f into full bloom as the U. S. delegates are preparing to sail | Thursday for London. It is said all ave optimistic and that the armament races, at least so far as battleships are concerned, ars to come “to an end.” It is stated The “strikers--out- this time, the {Preps ty cpr me trimmers and. cushion makers, are|ig tnt ao cat sence treet nih refusing tg listen to verbal promises | good peonaeaiday wines: (r Suends of the company, an i era i Chas titer ecteonm eaten patel lg Soa ere Sk Meera 1S \eeritte | blame and ean be : justifiably” put fis | in the list of enemies of peace. Six workers, speakers for the Auto| The endless columns of hot air Workers Union and the Trade Union about “reducing” armaments must Unity League, were arrested at a thus be understood. It is merely mass meeting in front of the shop, ; pacifist. preachments to make the vand held four and a half hours in| masseg, think something is being prison, They are I. O. Ford, W. E.\ done to “end war,” while the fact Douglas, Michael Chatsky, George lis that the Londom Conference is @ Flick, Edward Williams, and Shirley | part of war preparations. part in the demonstration were ar- fundamental facts of the growing, Benjamin Baker in the Analist (Jan. 8) looks askance at the pre- dictions of his fellow capitalist econ- omists that the present admittedly severe crisis of U.S. imperialist economy will be short-lived. While Hoover talks about increas- ing steel pro luction, revivified build- ‘betterment in business, as the sheer- est bunk. The U. 8. Daily (Jan. 4) States: “Commercial transactions dur- ing the week ended Dec. 28, as - measured by the volume of checks presented to banks for payment, were less than in cither the pre- unemployment, jing campaigns, the accumulating | ceding week or the corresponding ponding period of last year. Re- ceipts of wheat, cotton, and hogs at the principal markets were low- er than in the corresponding week of 1928, while cattle receipts were | larger. The distribution of goods, as indicated by the volume of freight car loadings, for the latest | (Continued on Page Three) Biakofsky. | The chief of police threatened that | he would handle the workers “more | roughly next time,” and that if| “they wanted bloodshed they would | get plenty of it.” | The workers throw a_ picket \ Briggs * plant HORTHY FOE HERE TODAY. Michael Karolyi, first premier of Hungary, and opponent of the bloody Horthy government arrives on the George Washington today. He is are preparing to scheduled by the Anti-Horthy League line around the} to make a tour of the United States speaking on conditions in Hungary. ARAN LO NN ND, MTR RRRE BDL Je) MES oR VU