The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 22, 1930, Page 4

shed by the Comprodai re. New Ye City, N Page Four “PARTY RECRUITING Publishing Co. 1 fa Y. Teleph Stuyvesant 8 he Dativ W Sauare except Sunday, at 24-28 Unton “DATWORK.” New York N ¥ DRIVE Detroit Intends to Carry Out | Slogan “Every Mex:ber a New Member” By T. GERLACH. t ew Southern District where w members previous to the ing gn and it can not be com- 1 with old established districts in the our weeks the Detroit District thus far wn the greatest activity in the recruit- The Detroit District in the of the drive has secured 214 against 379 in New Yor! and.153 in Philadelphia its While on the basis of the pre- utside of the South, the order is 51% of its quota. of its quota 9% of its quota Chicago of its quota the Detroit District occupies first is remembered that all but the ict of the above mentioned dis- ing on the basis of the quota set by the nal Organization Department and the Detroit District at its membership meeting on December 10, the day of the open- ing of the membership drive voluntarily raised m 400 to 500 in answer to the the Cleveland District. Detroit District to work on the the National Organ- ntage at the pre- Aside there were very pare members, in Chicago new 210 adelphia New Y in reality its quota fr challenge by Were the basis of the quota set ation Departmen t time would be 53.5 or 244% above Phila- its nearest rival recruited the Detroit place only to the Districts. Comparing Bat in order to secure the actual participa- tion of the districts and the membership in the drive and to estimate to what extent the slogan “every member secure a new member” is be- ng put into effect it is necessary to take into account not only the present quota of each district but to take this in the light of the actual membership of each district. If we do this the results for the above mentioned the end of the fourth week of the is as follows drive Secured of a 500 500 Jelphia Detroit 500 The above figures give the correct picture of the actual recruiting power of the district in the light of the membership of the district. It is true that not only the number of mem- bers must be taken into account in each di tret but also the objective factors. But cer. tainly no district can argue that it exempt from wage cuts, unemployment, and a general offensive of the bosses. Activize Every Member. If we are to put the slogan “every member segure a new member” into reality then the districts must not be satisfied with merely making their quota but strive to put every member into action. The above percentage shows that the Detroit District during the first four weeks of the drive nearly fulfilled this slogan. With four weeks out of nine gone we have 44.4% of the time gone and with 42.8% of the quota filled, and with the quota being equal to the District membership. Upon this asis the Detroit District feels confident that it will make its quota and thereby fulfill the slogan “every member secure a new member.” This does not mean that every member in the Detroit District is on the job. The district through the active membership is those inactive elements in the drive. All these inactive elements must now get on the job and make possible not only the securing the quota of 500 but go way over the top. With regard to the number of Negro work- ers recruited the Detroit District has already surpassed its quota of 75 adopted at the Dec. 10 membership meeting and had securel 83 Negro workers into the Party the first four weeks of the drive. With regard to the nuclei organized the Detroit gan weeks of the drive. number new shop District has or- Four in Detroit and four in Grand Rapids. The quota set by the Na- tional Organizational Department was ten new factory nuclei but the District raised this quota to With regards to the factory papers. The ct has already published six factory papers and others are being planned. The Na- tional Organization Department had decided that the quota be three new factory papers. But the Organization Department was not aware of the fact that the factory papers that existed previously had practically been liqui- dated, with only one paper having been pub- lished in the last ten months in two editions, In the light of this the district decided to raise the quota to ten factory papers, this includes the publication of the six papers that had for- merly existed and four additional papers. The district feels confident that it will have more than the ten factory papers by the end of the drive with six papers already published. Not Pushing Daily Enough. In reference to the Daily Worker the district has secured only 31 subs. This is a great de- fect which cannot be wiped out by the fact that the district is selling and distributing 800 Workers! Join the Party of Your Class! Communist Party U. S. A. 43 East 125th Street, New York City. 1, the undersigned, want to join the Commu- nist Party. Send me more information. NAME 20... eccesscccseccccvsecccssstonneves Address . oomseses Uity. Occupation . « Age.. Mail this to the Central Office, Communist “arty, 43 Epst 125th St., New York, N. Y. 4 | mines, the docks, lumber camps, ete. | | | | wi | this week all came from the range country— copies daily in bundle order as against a bun- dle order of three copies a day previous to the drive. Every effort wili be made to overcome this defect in the drive. With reference to the composition of the membership the results are very good. The er number recruited are workers. The great majority are auto workers with the biuld- ing trades, laborers, and metal workers well represented. The great majority of the new members are native born, Negro and white. (Less than 33%%% are foreign born workers. A great defect in the number of new mem- bers recruited is the fact that the great bulk are unemployed. While it is true that the great bulk of the workers in Detroit are un- employed nevertheless greater effort must be made to recruit from those employed and par- tially employed. Another great defect to Le overcome is the fact that the other cities outside of Detroit have thus far not contributed their share in the drive. However, the last week has already shown some signs of life here and this must be given the greatest attention by the district. Flashes from the Recruiting Drive Front During the fourth week New Bedford showed that it meant business by challenge to the entire Boston organization by bringing more than double the number of new members than Boston did. The fourth week for Boston Dis- | trict was a poor week, only 19 new members, ith New Bedford leading with 9; Peabody Boston 4 and Worcester The Chelsea | unit of the Party held a local mass meeting | with 50 workers present. During the week leaflets on different subjects eight thousand were distributed. bers for the first four weeks of the Drive. These were recruited from the following cities: Boston 24; New Bedford Haverhill 14; Worcester 4; Peabody 4; Lawrence 3; and one | each in Brockton, Roxbury, Cambridge, Fall River and Lanesville. All of these are work- ers except two, the textile industry leading with the largest number. | | The Boston District recruited 66 new mem- 29. Minnesota recruited 19 new members in the fourth week, bringing their total up to 68, Boston District and Minnesota slightly in the lead. However, Minnesota is simultaneously conducting a wide campaign and struggle ; against the renegade Halonen and his mana- gerial supporters. With the Party cleaned up | of these petty-bourgeois reformist elements, workers will flock to our Party from the metal The Min- nesota District has correctly raised the slogan of replacing dozens of workers for every right wing renegade. The 19 members recruited which means metal mines and lumber workers. Join the Young Communist League Throughout the country hundreds of young workers are joining the Young Communist League. Thousands of young workers recog- nize in the Young Communist League that | leader in the struggle against the bosses— ulling along | ed eight factory nuclei in the first four | because the Y.C.L. in all the recent struggles of the young workers has stood in the front ranks leading the young workers in their de- mands for better conditions. In Southern Illi- nois, in the South, in New York, in California, | Chicago—every section of the United States the Young Communist League defends the in- terests of the young workers. And as a result the present membership drive of the League, al- though in progress only a few weeks, has al- ready resulted in several hundred new mem- bers. Every militant young worker belongs in the ranks of the fighting working youth. Show your solidarity with the young workers of the world by joining today. Letter from Dewey Martin The Daily Worker i d to print the fol- lowing letter which explains itself. The Daily Worker did say, in one of its early articles on the kidnapping of Totherow that rv was flogged, having obtained ion from one of the first stories sent in from the ‘South. It is a matter of no great political importance whéther Totherow was “roughly handled” while kidnapped, or “flogged” while kidnapped. The fact that he was kidnapped and threatened overshadows all else. But the Daily Worker wishes to maintain strict accuracy in news articles and will publish corrections of any miytakes made. It also urges upon all of its corres- pondents extreme care in news writing, and that corrections be sent in when, as is some- times unavoidable, errors are made. y « To the Editorial Committee of the Daily Worker: The Daily Worker is the only English lan- guage national) labor daily in the United States. It is the only newspaper that fights for the workers every single day of the year. It came out for the textile workers of the South every day of our struggles and was—and is— our champion. It exposed the lies of the boss- es’ press like the Gastonia Gazette and the Charlotte Observer and the Charlotte News. In the coming period of struggles for better conditions, against the wage-cutting»drive of the bosses, when we will have to face the com- bined forces of the bosses, their thugs, their government power, and their servants, the American Federation of Labor fakers, the Daily Worker will be one of our greatest helps in the fight. Just because the Daily Worker is so im- portant to us, we must help the Daily Worker along. The Daily Worker is the only paper of the workers that is controlled by the work- ers and the interests of the working class. The Daily is the only paper which we can criticize freely in order to help it be a mass organ of the workers. We therefore want to call to your attention an error that crept into the story of the kid- napping of Elbert Totherow, youth organizer of the National Textile Workers Union. That story talked of the “flogging” of Totherow. While Totherow was roughly handled, he was not flogged. Of course, it does not make very much difference. The purpose was the same— to try to scare Totherow, Nevertheless, the fact remains that Totherow was not flogged. THE FLEA CIRCUS Dany SAS Wotner Central Organ of the Communist Party of the U. S. A. by Fred Elle -T ENTN ON THE ROLE OF A. Ry Mail (in New York City only): $8.00 a year; By Mail (outside of New York City): $6.00 a year; SUBSCRIPTION RATES: $4.50 six months; $3.50 six months; $2.50 three months $2.00 three months The A. F. of L. Comes South By SI GERSON. dae American Federation of Labor has come South to stop the movement of the bit- terly-exploited southern workers for higher wages and better living conditions. This is the meaning of the conference held here in the main ballroom of the fashionable Hotel Charlotie. This conference is no accidental thing. It was not conceived. of or initiated by the A, F. of L. alone. It is a result of the process of the growth of tendencies towards fascism in the United States which has been so marked a feature of the class struggles that have taken place here in the last few years and is an integral part of that process. To under- stand this one must dig into the roots of the history of southern labor, Treachery of ‘A. F. of L. For years there has been only an insigni- ficant labor movement in the South. For years the only labor organizations that existed were the small craft unions in the highly skilled trades—building, printing, ete.—and on the railroads, limited almost exclusively to the | skilled white workers. The unskilled workers, in steel, textile, lumber, and marine transport were not touched. The fakers did not even dream of organizing them. Right after the war period, when the bosses began a vicious wage-slashing drive: against the workers, a series of widespread struggles began, especially in the textile industry. The UTW came into the field after these strug- gles had already begun, enrolled thousanis of workers—and promptly betrayed them. City after city, mill village after mill village, can testify to this. The writer has spoken to workers from as far apart as Columbus, Georgia to Concord, North Carolina, who re- call with bitterness the sell-outs and betray- als of the A. F. of L. in that period. Colum- bus, Ga., Macon, Ga. Atlanta, Ga., Green- ville, S. C., Anderson, S. C., Gastonia, N. C., Bessemer City, N. C., Charlotte N. €., Con- cord, N. C., Danville, Va.—the very places where the National Textile Workers’ Union is now growing and flourishing—were among the few places that experienced the treachery of the A. F, of L. in those days. An inevitable period of reaction set in among the workers. This, coupled with the fact that the textile industry was in a rela- tively stable condition and the other big south- ern industries (coal, steel, water-power, mar- ine, ete.), were experiencing an unprecedente) boom, made for a dull period for unionism of any sort until the period beginning about the spring of 1927. The great stocks that had been piled up by the workers in the so-called “norwal” period made for overproduction. In- ternational competition for markets became fiercer, English capitalists could defeat Amer- LL This mistake came about because of the fact that the Paily got its information from a number of people by phone, wire and letters. In the confusion, some of the facts were not gotten down correctly. I know that the Daily Worker follows the policy that—truth is one of the greatest weapons of the working cluss. The workers who read this also know this. And the worker readers of the Daily will always help our Daily correct any little mistakes that may creep in so that no class enemy of ours may use a little inaccuracy against us (as Prose- cutor Britt tried to use this error in Lumber- ton Court against fellow-worker Caudle). Please print this soon. Let us show our enemies that we are not afraid to own up to our little mistakes before the workers. This will only make us stronger and firmer. Yours for the emancipation of the workers, DEWEY MARTIN, Dist. Org, Dist. 9, N,.T.W.U. | | | ican textiles in foreign markets by using In- dian and Chinese coolie labor and by ration- alizing English mills with the help of the Eng- lish labor fakers. Efficiency engineers began to be seen in the textile mills. The stretch- out (speed-up) was introduced; the hank- clock and piece-work became typical features. 128 ait] 1929 saw a series of isolated, spon- taneous revolts on the part of the workers. This time it was not the UTW but the Na- tional Textile Workers’ Union that stepped in, organizing the workers under the banner of militant, industrial unionism. The UTW and the A. F. of L. had no hold upon the workers at this time. This was pri- marily because there was very little objective basis for the A. F. of L. There are no skilled | workers in the highly machinized industries of the South to speak of. These great masses of unskilled workers, including hundreds of thousands of women and young workers, raw recruits to the mills, with the militant tradi- tions of the mountaineers still strong in them, were workers whom the A. F. of L., by its very nature, could not lead. Only the Muste- ites (Hoffman, Ross, etc.), trying desperately to stave off the organization drive of the N. T, W.WU., male a few isolated attempts to “organize” the workers, that is, to mislead them. Elizabethton, Marion, Greenville, Ware Shoals, were examples of their betrayal policy. But the A. F. of FE. generally retreated quickly, leaving a trail of hopelessness and despair be- hind them. The only road for the workers was the N. T. W. U. and the T. U. U. L. This they began to take in ever-increasing numbers. The panic of the bosses grew at this. Finally there was evolved a system of planned terrorism—raids, beatngs, arrests, floggings, kidnappings, shootings, ete.—which reached a high point in the sentence of 7 workers to virtually life sentences in the Raleigh, N. C., pen and the shooting of Ella May. Blacklisting, evictions, terror, arrests, Jong jail sentences—nothing could stop the organization work of the work- ers into the militant industrial unions like the NTWU. The meanwhile some little gen- eral TUUL work was being carried on, The TUUL officially established itself in the South at its conference of Oct. 13th. The political influence of the Communist Party grew apace. “Far-seeing” capitalists and liberal mem- hers of the southern intelligentsia began to see that this would not do. Terror was not sufficient to stop the workers from organiz- ing. The leaders of the NTWU, proletarians, many of them Communists, could not be terri- fied by jails or death. Something, a certain more “advanced” section of the capitalist class thought, had to be done. The workers had to be given something to pacify them. The crisis was growing more acute. Unemployment was increasing. The A. F. of L., which had done such yeomans service in strikebreaking in the North, must step in. Thi talist class and especially the liberal intelli gentsia—who often react more swiftly to poli- tical events than the main body of the class they represent—commenced an agitation for “bona-fide unions with constructive leader- | ship” and the right of workers to organize into the yellow unions of the A. F, of L. Typical of their attitude is the following ex- cerpt from the Dee, 14th issue of the “Daily Tar Heel” (University of North Carolina | newspaper): “Through unionization alone can the in- terests of the workers be safeguarded, and we believe that once labor is in a position to be assured of receiving its just portion of the profits in the textile industry, it will cooperate fully with the manufacturers in attempts to increase their profits.” (Em- phasis ours.-—SG.) The plans for the “unionization of the South” (by the A. F. of L.) were undoubtedly COMMUNIST PARTY. NOTE: The excerpts printed below are taken from Lenin's famous brochure, “What is to be done?” which is included in Volume IV of the Collected Works of V. I. Lenin, just published by the International Publish- ers, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York, This vol- ume, published in two parts, includes all the writings of Lenin between 1900 and 1902, and covers the formative period of the Rus- sian Bolshevik Party. a “Every one agrees” that it is necessary to develop the political consciousness of the work- ing class, But the question arises: how is that to be done? What must be done to bring this about? The economic struggle merely brings the workers “up against” questions con- cerning the attitude of the government to- wards the working class. Consequently, how- ever much we may try to “give to the economic struggle itself a political character” we shall never be able to develop the political conscious- ness of the workers (to the degree of Social- Democratic consciousness) by confining our- selves to the economic struggle, for the limits of this task are too narrow. The Martynov formula has some value for us, not because it illustrates martyrdom’s ability to confuse things, but because it strikingly expresses the fundamental error that all the economists commit, namely, their conviction that. it is possible to develop the class political consciousness of the workers from within, that is to say, exclusively, or at least mainly, by means of the ecanomic strug- gle. Such a view is radically wrong. Piqued by our opposition to them, the economists re- fuse to ponder deeply over the origins of these disagreements, with the result that we abso- lutely fail to understand each other. It is as if we spoke in different tongues. The workers can acquire class political cons- ciousness only from without, that is, only out- side of the economic struggle, outside of the ployers. The sphere from which alone it is possible to obtain this knowledge is the sphere “of relationships between all classes. and the state and the government—the sphere of the inter-relations between all, classes. For that reason, the reply to the question: What must be done in order that the workers may acquire political knowledge? cannot be. merely the one which, in the majority of cases, the practical workers, especially those who are inclined to- wards economism, usually: content themselves with, i.e., “go among the workers.” To bring political knowledge to the workers ‘the Social- Democrats must go among all’ classes’ of the population, must despatch units of their army in all directions. 8s : xu Any trade union secretary, an English one, for instance, helps the workers to conduct the economic struggle, helps to. expose factory abuses, explains the injustice of the laws and of measures which hamper the freedom of strikes and the freedom to picket, to warn all and sundry that a strike is proceeding at a certain factory, explains the partiality of -ar- bitration courts which are-in.the hands of the bourgeois classes, etc., etc.. In a word, every trade union secretary conducts and helps to conduct “the economic struggle against the employers and the government.” It cannot be too strongly insisted that this is not enough to constitute Social-Democracy. The Social-Dem- ocrat’s ideal should not be a trade-union sec- retary, but a tribune of the people, able to re- act to every manifestation of tyranny and op- pression, no matter where it takes place, no matter what stratum or class of ‘the people it affects; he must be able to group all these anifestations into a single picture of public violence and capitalist exploitation; he must be able to take advantage of every petty event in order to explain his Socialistic convictions and his Social-Democratic demands to all, in order to explain to all-and- every one-the world his- torical significance of the struggle for the sphere of relations between workers and em- VERY Party district bureau, at its next meeting should place “Building the Daily Worker” on the agenda and then exert the severest self-criticism for neglecting to empha- size the securing of Daily Worker readers in the shops, mines and mills, as a best method of securing contacts for the Party and building a mass Communist Party. The drive statistics published in the Daily Worker, a few days ago show: Party members secured in the drive to date, 1,378. Daily Worker subscriptions secured 189. This means, firstly, that every new member secured is not being made a: reader of the Daily Worker; sec- ond, that no emphasis is being placed upon Daily Worker building, because actually more Daily Worker readers ought to be secured than Party members. So far as Daily Worker building is con- cerned the drive has distinct shortcomings. 1. The Party districts and _ sections, the smaller cities where the party has member- ship, are not giving Daily Worker bililding sufficient attention. are districts and cities which give Daily Work- er building no attention whatever. Only a small percentage of Party members are being mobilized to secure new readers for our central organ. 2. Daily worker representatives have nci yet been named for every district, section, city and unit. 3. Only in several districts has the work of regular mass distribution of the Daily Worker to workers in the industries been undertaken as regular readers. 4. Lenin Memorial meetings will be held in a few days. At the time we write, only two dis- triets have ordered copies of the Lenin Memor- rial edition of the Daily Worker for sale at their meetings. We prophesy that dozen of Lenin Memorial meetings will be held where the Daily Worker will not be sold to the au- diences and where the speaker will riot men- tion the Daily Worker from the platform. 5. At dozens of other meetings throughout all the Party districts, the Daily Worker never appears, Only in very few instances does the Daily Worker receive orders for bundles of our papers to be sold at meetings demonstrations, | ete. We can say that there | emancipation of the proletariat. ‘Shortcomings in Daily Worker Building Leaflets, shop papers, other printed material, are issued by the districts in the tens of thou- sands of copies and yet, workers who read this propaganda never see the Daily Worker men- tioned. 2 7. Speakers are toured by the national and district Party centeys who never mention the Daily Worker in their speeches and. who never call the attention of the comrades in charge of the meetings to their. failure to sell Daily Workers at the meetings. 8. The Daily Worker does not appear in strikes to help give leadership to the workers. Party districts in which mining regions are lo+ | Worker among the miners te acquaint them | with the Illinois miners’ struggle. Textile cen- ters where we have Party members. do not spread the Daily Worker among the textile workers to acquaint them. with the Southern textile struggle. 9. The basic supporting group. to build the Daily Wofker in each city must be the Daily Worker readers of, that city, plus representa- | tion from sympathetic workers’ organizations. We have still to hear of the first Daily Work- | er readers conference being called to help build the Daily Worker. | 10. With two or three exceptions, no confer- ences of Daily Worker unit representatives have been called in the district headquarters’ cities. In Detroit, Philadephia, New York City, California, we can note marked progress in Daily Worker building. The Daily Worker rep- resentative in Buffalo is active, but-si not getting enough support from Party members in the district. The other districts are advised to again read the program for Daily Worker building, published some time ago and then get into action. Every Party member a Daily Worker reader, | every Party member an agent for the Daily Worker, distributing it in his shop and in other shops, selling it at all shops, workers’: meet- ing places, working class neighborhoods and getting subscriptions all the time. > To urge you into action, we have decided to offer books on Marxism and Leninism. Soviet Union, Labor, Revolutionary Fiction, free with all subscriptions. Read the announcement: in this issue. Fi ———_—==_—zx«**~*~—~s~s=Ee==—e&eEe=e=E—=EeE=E=E=E=E=E hatched to stop the genuine movement of the workers against capitalist rationalization and for better living conditions by the Hoover Fascist Council in Washington at the recent conference of labor fakers, millionaires and capitalist politicians. It war very evident weeks before the A. F. of L. conference that the fakers would be wel- comed by a great section of the southern bosses. The cordial tone and the acres of * publicity that the A. F. of L. got before their Jan. 6th conference in Charlotte testifies to that. Listen to this from the Jan. 2nd edi- torial of the rabid, labor-hating “Charlotte News”: + + + unionization of labor in the South, a movement which this newspaper does not oppose per se when intelligently directed and conscientiously intenJed. . . .” The only division of opinion that existed in the ranks of the capitalist class was over two things: (1) Was the time favorable for dra- gooning the workers into the yellow unions of the A. F. of L.; (2) Would not the workers, even in A. F, of L, unions, carry on a strug: gle for better conditions and would it not there- fore be inadvisable to “permit” the workers to get together in any form of organikation? These were-——and are—the main hones of contention in the ranks of the capitalists—but most all are agreed that the A. F. of L. is one of the chief means of fighting the rising tide of militant unionism, But the critical bosses want guarantees of the effectiveness of the A. F. of L. in smashing strikes, drug- ging the militancy of the workers and speed- ing up production forthe bosses, The second question most are willing to take a chance on, since the workers are showing a will to organization ani this is the best of a bad bar- gain. But the first question—whether the mo- | ment is propitious or not—is still a con- troversial one among the capitalists. The tex- tile industry, the main industry in the -Pied- mont region, is in a state of crisis.. Many mills are working either part-time or are shut down altogether. Unemployment is on the increase. Raising of wages under present conditions— even for a small. section of the workers— would automatically mean a, certain reduction in profits, and it. is only. too well known. te the workers that the bosses would rather lose an arm or a leg than lose any sizable, per- centage of their profits.. Also, Green had just Promised Hoover. that he. would. not fight for wage raises (a superfluous pledge). Last, but not least, the memory of the A. F. of L. be- trayals in ’21-’22 and also in ’28-'29 gre still fresh in the memories of the workers. There- fore the “Charlotte News” (Jan, 2nd) de- manded editorially: + Bs ays “When he -(Green—SG) was called to Washington to confer with President Hoover : + + it was Mr, Green’s opinion that. . . it would be quite improper and unsound for labor: leaders to: start any ‘efforts which nea in. any wise upset the present’ wage “When, he (Green.—St) comes here next Monday it becomes. him. to set. dimself straight in, this regard and do what’he can, if he proposes to set on foot a general. moye- ment for unionization . . . to. disgeciate | from the public mind the two ideas this effort is synchronous with:a general.effort to disturb the present wage standards in South.” (Emphasis ours—SG.) ~ — ; Organize—but not for higher wages! Or- ganize—but not for better conditiong!. Or- ganize—so that strikes: can. be , bro! the Communists and ‘militant leaders combatted, the workers speeled up and: “etretchéd-out” even more! This is what the bosses demands ed of Green and Company prior to the ference, % (To be continued) | cated, make no attempt to circulate the Daily ~