The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 19, 1930, Page 4

ein Published hy the Comprodany Square. New York City, Address and mail all che Page Four Ks Publishing Co.. Inc Y. Telephone Stuyv © the Daily Worker except Sunday, a 8. Cable dails 6-28 Onion 8. AIWOTS.” Square, New York. N. ¥ ‘Baily Conta) Organ of the Communist Parwy | of the u. S. A. By Mall.(in New York City. onl ny Mall (outside of New i leo ghee Sat’ RATES: : $8.00 a year; York ftys? $6.00 a year; $4.50 six months; 93.50 six months; $2.50 three months $2.00 three months ‘LESSONS OF RECRU ITING DRIVE IN NEW BEDFORD By HELEN OKEN. ' New Bedford, where the economic ¢ capitalism has hit the. workers ve: severely, where there are 15,000 unemployed worker: where the are wage cuts and speed up s tems being introduced every day, throwing more and more workers out on the streets, fi e Party gaining more and more sup- we find I from t for the recruiting drive was 75 5 new shop nuclei, and 3 shop Our enthusiasm ran ‘so high that sed the quota for new members to 90. were so confident that they could hese that we challenged the of Boston, which contains Sections No. 1, and 3 to fulfill our quota before they did. Our ing of new members has been carried y, no so much through our ef- s, but through the confidence of the work- of New Bedford in the Communist Party. we have recruited 55 new members ction and organized 2 new we r tory. ued. rom the quotas, e going ahead strong, but the , have we done all that we could question ar to build our Party here? Not yet! Due to our zational weaknesses, we could not take | advantage of our opportunities for proper building a strong Party and recruiting hun- | dreds of workers into the Party. History of Struggle. New Bedford has behind it the history of struggles and strong fighting spirit—this spirit has not yet been utilized and drawn into chan- nals of strong organizational work. Here we have had many failures during the recruiting | drive. The Lenin Memorial meeting in itself | was a failure in that we did not recruit a | single member at the meeting. This failure again was not due to the poor response of the workers, but rather due to our failure to prop- | erly mobilize them. Because of the organiza- tional looseness of the Union—(National Tex- tile Workers Uniorf}, the mass organization which has behind it thousands of members, and the events immediately preceding the Lenin Memorial Meeting, resulting in the arrests of all our organizers and 14 active workers— the | preparations for the meeting were started just three days before the date set for it. The lead- ers of our Party and union here were so taken back by the unexpected turn of events and the arrests, that we failed to mobilize the workers in an organized fashion, trusting that the revo- | lutionary character of the workers here would bring them to our Lenin Memorial Meeting. We closed our eyes to the fact that now, when the proletariat is becoming more and more militant, due to the ever increasing rationali- zation and unemployment, that now more than ever before, they need a strong Communist | leadership; and that with this leadership and more careful preparation alone, could we mob- ilize thousands of workers for the Lenin Mem- orial Meeting. It is due to seemingly minor mistakes like these that the major tasks of our | shop | one in a textile mill and the other in | Two shop papers have already | it looks as | | permanently unemployed, 1 Party are not properly carried through. Activize New Members. Nevertheless, during the week following the Memorial Meeting we received 14 applications into the Party. This in itself proves that these workers did not blindly join the Party in the heat of the enthusiasm of the meeting, but took several days to consider and actually pre- pare themselves to join our Party, not because they “thought it was a good thing to do,” but because they were ready to fight with the Communist Party in its every struggle. We have already placed most of our new members into their units and mill nuclei. This lesson must be learned—that the energy and enthu- siasm of our new Party members can and must be exploited to a very great extent, and that if it is not utilized we will find our new mem- bers become raged, and it is very dif- ficult to activize them after we have allowed a slump in their interest. For the recruiting drive of the Young Com- munist League—I must say it has been a fail- ure. Although we have recruited some 29 young workers (mostly textile) into the League, no attempts have been made to organize these young workers into their mill nuclei. Here we have a problem—about 20 of the 30 members of the Y.C.L. are unemployed, this situation, where the young workers realize that they are encourages laxness How- not only on their part, but also on our. | ever, one shop nucleus has been organized, | in the only BVD facto in the city. This fac- tory employs only young workers who are very much exploited and the nucleus has before it definite tasks. The Party must give more attention to the League, and in all phases of our work, the Party establish its leadership among the young work- ers. In the Fight For Work or Wages. Now in our preparations for the unemploy- ment demonstration and our fight for “Work or Wages,” at every unemployment meeting, more and more workers are joining our Party. The plan of work which our Section Com- mittee worked out for the unemployment cam- paign and demonstration on March 6, concrete- ly points out how to mobilize the full member- ship o* the Party, League, NPT'WU, and other mass organizations. These plans also plan to activize the Party. units, giving them concrete tasks. The fraction of the union must be ac tivized to put into effect all the plans for the mobilization’ of the full membership for the demonstration. The question of recruiting more Party members from the union should be one of the main points at every fraction meeting. The union is a great field for re- cruiting new Party members. However, in spite of all our shortcomings and mistakes, we are confident that we will fulfill our quota for new members. But even then, our tas not completed. Our main job isto activize all our new members and to make our nuclei the real functioning political units of our Party that will be prepared to lead the workers in their everyday struggles. The Significance of a Communist, Weekly Newspaper in the South 5 goes past struggles in the South, particularly ) the Gastonia struggle, under the leader- ship of the revolutionary National Textile Workers’ Union and the Communist Party, definitely demonstrate] that the only forces in the labor. movement today which take ser- tre 2 tock of oveanizing the most ex- ploited section of the American working class, are the Communist Union Unity League. Party and the Tr Past experience also proved that the role of the A. F. of and the Muste leadership of the U. T. W. A. not only does not undertake any campaign of organization, but sets for it- self the main of acting as a strikebreaker and preventing the southern textile wo as well as the workers of other industries, from organizing into militant industrial trade unions in the struggle against capitalism under the leadership of the Communist Party. Fight the Bosses Poison Press. The developing campaign of organization in the South, initiated by the Communist Party, could best be initiated by the establishment of a weekly newspaper in the South. The significance’ of this paper cannot be over- estimated. The poisonous propaganda started by the capitalist press and the A. F. of L. could most effectively be combatted through a weekly Party organ. This Party paper will also most effectively bring to the masses of southern workers the tasks of organization and expose the role of its enemies, the mill bosses, the A. F. of L. and the socialist party. The task of organizing the southern work- ing class in the struggle for better economic conditions, against capitalist exploitation, must receive the support of the entire American working cass. The present economic crisis, the sharpening contradictions within capital- ism, and the growing capitalist offensive | against the working class making the work- | ers share the main burden of the economic Workers! Join the Party of Your Class! Communist Party U. S. A. 43 East 125th Street, Yors City. 1, the undersigned, want to join the Commu- nist Party. Send me more information. Address ... vity.. Occupation ... ArT Pop erway. ay Party. 43 East 125th St., New York, N. Y. Mail this to the Central Office, Communist t | leadership against their enemies. crisis, presents to, every American worker the great revolutionary task of giving his utmost support to the organization campaign in the South. The struggle of the southern workers has disproved all the right wing and opportunistic theories that the workers in the South will not struggle and will not follow revolutionary For the first time in the history of the American class struggle, the southern workers showed to the entire American working class how to defend themselves from the vicious attacks and the terror of the bosses and the capitalist state. In this struggle of the southern workers, which is the struggle of every working man and woman in the United States, a weekly Communist paper is of utmost importance. Fight For Ultimate Aim. The Communist Party in the South has be- fore itself the task not only of awakening and organizing the ‘southern workers in the strug- gle for their immediate demands, but also mobilizing the masses in the struggle against the entire capitalist system and for the estab- lishmentof a Workers’ and Farmers’ Govern- ment. A weekly paper in the present situation of the South will, therefore, serve as the collec- tive organizer, agitator and propagandist in the work in the South. In entering the South, the Communist Party and the revolutionary trade unions also under- took the tremendous historical task of mobil- izing the exploited Negro masses in the strug- gle against our common enemy. The Commu- nist Party has proven that through revolu- tionary class struggle against capitalism and the state we can succeel in breaking the tra- ditions of race prejudice fostered upon the workers by American capitalism. From the work in the South we can see that the Negro masses are also ready to strug- gle and to fight for better living conditions. In this particular case a weekly newspaper in the South would serve as the best weapon in the struggle against race prejudice, against lynchings and jim-crowism, and mobilize the Negro workers and farmers in a joint strug- gle for our common interests. A weekly newspaper in the South would therefore be of tremendous revolutionary sig- nificance. It would be the greatest blow to capitalism and the capitalist state; for the or- ganization of the workers and the complete emancipation from capitalist exploitation. Fight the Right Danger. A Hundred Proletarians for - Every Petty Bourgeois Rene- gade! must help the League ¢ Imperialism’s Holy War on the Workers’ Gov't (The Hunger March ot the Germa Working Class By GUSTAV SOBOTTKA (Berlin). 4 hie financial dictatorship of Schacht, coalition Cabinet has led to an enormous in- crease of unemployment in Germany. Already at the end of December, 1 registered 2 million unemployed unemployment and crisis benefit. This num- ber had increased by 200,000 in January of this year. In addition there is great number of unemployed, amounting to at least 1,500,- 000, who do not receive any unemployment benefit, so that at present there are over 3% million prolet ns without work and bread. The further “development” of capitalist economy in Germany, the increased rational- ization drive, the ruthless cutting down of credits, will further augment the army of unemployed. In view of this situation the unemployed masses and the German proletariat are begin- ning to realize that the struggle against un- employment and hunger cannot be restricted to demanding an increase of unemployment benefit, but that it is in the first place poli- tical mass struggle against the whole capi- talist society and its apparatus of power. @ result there have taken place in various towns of Germany, under the leadership of the Communist: Party, hunger marches and fight- ing actions of the unemployed and’ of the workers in the factories against the regime of plunder and exploitation. As: In Berlin, on February 1st, the mass march , of the working class once again trampled un- derfoot the prohibition of demonstrations. In spite of the actual state of martial Jaw, in spite of armored cars, in spite of the greatest preparations of the police and the wildest at- tacks, proletarians marched in closed ranks in all districts of Berlin. At Wedding, where again and again fresh processions of demonstrators were formed, many. workers were arrested but only to be wrested by the masses from the hands of the police. In Moabit the demon- strating masses put the police to flight. In the center of Berlin the workers showed by several demonstrations that for them there exists no ban-mile or prohibition of demon- strations. On the Lausitz Square huge masses wf workers gathered together, which the po- lice were unable to disperse. In Nieder and Ober-Schoneweide the demonstrating workers were masters of the strects until the late hours of the evening. In the old barricade quarters of Neukolln the workers erected a barrier in order to prevent the police from marching into the workers’ streets. The bourgeois and social-democratic press, which before the 1st of February, raised a great shouting over the “putch plans” and “attempts at insurrection” of the Communists, has become very quiet in view of the success of the Communist action in Berlin, Tt is now trying to minimize this action. “The Com- munist demonstrations a failure,” “Only tu- thousands and thousands of | hungry - mults in Berlin,” “Failure of world revolu-- | there were | in receipt of | bigger groups streamed into the square. Reichs Bank President, and of the German | TUAry- tion on account of lack of participants,” such were the big headlines of the bourgeois and social-democratic press after the 1st of Feb- The democratic, “Tempo” however blurted out the truth when it wrote: “The Lausitz Square was almost empty at half past five, but overflowing with people at 6 o’clock. From all the converging streets smaller and The Communists were, not to be driven away but put up energetic Tesistance to the police.” The hunger march of the unemployed to Hamburg was a powerful demonstration, In Hamburg itself there are 100,000 unemployed. In all the neighboring towns and villages it was decided to march to Hamburg on the 1st of February. Several days ago great masses of unemployed began their march from Kiel, Lubeck, Itzehoe, Flensburg, ete. The Ham- burg bourgeoisie and the social democracy were seized with panic. Schonfelder, the so- cial fascist police president of ‘Hamburg, and Grzesinski, the Prussian Minister for the In- terior, mobilized all the police forces not only of Hamburg but of the whole of Schleswig- Holstein. In spite of this extraordinary display @ police forces whole processions of demonstra- tions succeeded in getting to Hamburg. On the road from Flensburg a delegation ‘was. proceeding to Hamburg. It. was attacked by mounted police, the demonstrators were ar- rested, placed in wagons and transported back to Flensburg. In the meantime another pro- cession of demonstrators from Flensburg suc- aig in marching, to Hamburg by auottier Toa The most brutal persecution and the ‘use of batons could not prevent the ‘unemployed from marching’ into Hamburg, where a” big |. ‘demonstration of the unemployed and. the ~Hamburg workers took place in © Holstein Square. The police tried everything in order to crush the workers. In the ensuing fight between the police and the workers one un- employed was killed nad six workers wounded. The Hamburg workers at once convened a conference of the shop stewards and decided to carry out a 24-hour political mass strike, which for the greater part was carried out on the 1st of February. Over 80 per cent of the building workers’ struck work on this day. Also great massés of the dock and metal workers struck as a protest against oe police brutalities. In Pirna (Saxony) over 2,000 unemployed marched on the 28th of January from the sur- . rounding localities to the chief market, square and demonstrated against the government of hunger and war, for work and bread. Here also the police were helpless in face of this demonstration. The same week, the unem- ployed of the district of Konigsberg deter- mined on a march on Konigsberg. Similar decisions were adopted in many other places, The German working class, headed by the Communist Party, by arranging these hunger marches is expressing its determination to but an end to a system which literally exposes lions of proletarians to death by ata By Fred Ellis| = ia STARVE OR FIGHT! A Challenge to:the Unembloyed By GRACE M. BURNHAM, Labor Research Association. v (Continued) Hiring at the Gate. Eeoress deliberately advertise for more workers than. they actually need. By this means they keep a steady stream of applicants at the gate-from among whom they are able to-choose the youngest, strongest, and cheap- est labor. The employment manager of an electric light-and power company stated frank- ly that. he wanted to have just as many men coming to him as possible. “We interview every one-that comes,” he said, “and if we haven’t a job.we encourage him to keep at us until-we do have something.” long lines of men in search of jobs come from the automobile centers in Michigan. Robert Dunn draws many striking pictures of the plight of these workers in his Labor and Auto- mobiles. .“In February, 1928, when unemploy- ment prevailed among General Motors workers in Flint, but loads of almost penniless workers, bound from Missouri and the South, in answer to. advertisements, were brought to the city. Ten men said they had read advertisments for help in farm and weekly papers exhorting them to ‘come to Flint and earn $10 a day.’ ” “At one factory, notorious for its cheap labor policy,” writes A, J. Steiger, of the University of ‘Chicago, in The Nation, May 2, 1928, “men in search of work collect. about the door in a dense mass through which a policeman must forse a lane so that the foreman may. come out and select some friend or acquaintance and obtain for him an interview ahead of the rest. Although I was among the first three hundred applicants interviewed on my. ferst day and succeeded in worming my way the second day to the head of the line, I was turned away from the employment office with a curt nod. ‘Twenty-five hundred other men were turned away on that first day. (Italics mine). The galling part’ of this experience was that the Probably the most extreme examples of mile | personnel man stood with a device in his hand for counting heads—like a sheep herder in the stockyards. He even encouraged some of us to come back by such phrases as ‘May neec men of your ability tomorrow.’ To be told definitely, as I was, to return at 7 o’clock the next morning, and then to be unrecognized and sent away, is an experience which beats down the jobless man’s self-respect. He begins wre by how thin a thread he holds any job.” The following descriptions of conditions throughout the country in the winter of 1929-30 are given by workers: Philadelphia, Pa.: “The other day one of the theatres of Philadelphia advertised for a man and the next morning not less than 5,000 workers responded to the ad.” Newark, N. J.: “Three thousand unem- ployed stormed the gates of the Ford Motor Company, Kearney, N. J., and the police were called forcibly to maintain order. The city employment bureau has 700 to 1,000 appli- cants daily.” Chicago, Ill.: “Ten thousand workers stormed the Leiter Stores at Van: Buren and State Streets seeking work during the firm’s recent liquidation sale. Police reserves were called in twice against the workers,” Job seeking as it must. be carried on'in the United States today is costly, wasteful, brutal and except for the more fortunate few, hope- less. The entire system -of inadequate and corrupt public employment offices, fee charg- ing unregulated private agencies, uncontrolled newspaper advertisng, operates to assist the employer and to victimize the worker. A na- tionally operated system of free public‘ em- ployment offices, controlled by the workers, cannot make jobs where there are no jobs.. It can, however, stop‘ the strike breaking service of agencies which flourish by sending scab la- bor to jobs where strikes are going on, it:can cut out fee charging, fee splitting and. similar grafting, give accurate information regarding available jobs and put an end to the employ- ment markets used as a: whip-over the work- ers at every factory gate. : By HAROLD WILLIAMS. ‘HE ‘recent strike in Illinois is an indication ‘of the ‘growing resistance on the part of the toiling masses struggling for better work- ing conditions, This strike is the best answer to the promise of John L. Lewis and William Green to the Hoover National Fascist Council that they, the “leaders” of the American work- ing class would’ see to it that the workingmen submit ‘to the proposals of the ruling class not to strike for better working conditions. There are about 15,000 Negro miners in Mllinois, which include the Sangamon County (Springfield), Saline County (Harrisburg, Mud- dy), Randolph County, etc. In these places Negro workers:are openly discriminated against in the -U.M.W.A. As for example, in Saline County there are about twelve mines of which only four employ. Negro workers with one- third of the ‘working force Negroes. Negroes are deniel-the ‘right to live in several of these small towns. .Our revolutionary trade union has. net*raised sharply enough the question of diserimination in order to demonstrate to the Negro workers ‘in the coal fields that our rev- olutionary trade union is unlike that of the »U.M.W.A, Speaking to several of the Negro miners, + they: informed me that they have’ come in con- tact with leaflets of the National Miners Union as well as leaflets of the Communist Party. Yet these Negro workers are skeptical’ of the «sincerity of the N.M.U., stating that the U.M. W.A, also, has a clause in its constitution that it does not discriminate against Negro work- ers. Build Defense Committees. This only. proves that in our fight in organ- izing the Negro workers in the coal fields and especially in our campaign against the Lewis- Fishwick machine which is in alliance with the state apparatus, we must go from the stage of mere propaganda into direct organ- izational procedure in building defense commit- tees in defense of our organizers and especially Negroes, as. they are subject to the most brazen attacks of gangsters of U.M.W.A., as well as of the state apparatus. This was my. experience’ in Saline County in the ‘city ‘of Eldorado, twenty miles from :Kentucky. I _was threatened at every moment by: specail gangstérs. to. drive me out of z nd to ‘carry on a lynching- bee. But in militancy of the members of USI was able to remain in this’ town jough I was informed that:I was the first Negro tt had lived in.this. section within 29 years. The last Negroes that were seen in this, town ‘were murdered in 1900 and their property ‘confiscated by’ local business ‘men. i is true of Eldorado is:trae of ‘miany coun- ‘and in the ‘surrounding territory where kers ‘are to be found they are openly nd are subject to be, murdered or : of. town if, they are to be found in With the N..M. U. or the Communist , driven: 8) am ‘The mihers in the coal fields are among the ‘militant sections of the working class. These workers are so exploited that they hardly -Rave econd:.suit to wear. They can see nothing’ but struggle and if we are able to | build @, funetjoning fraction within the N.M. in ates out’the revolutionary tradition of Rey we be able to build. not only Pe Nae . in the coal fields, but the Commu- Fae iat. Barty into a political factor in this, dits- trict ‘of. Illinois. For example, the Pioneers of Illinois-. (Eldorado) are the most active sec- . tion of the Party and the N.M.U. In other they are. the face of the Party, which ‘one tried.to deny. The young workers as early as 3:or 4 in the morning to go on the icket line with elders. to fight for | better . working conditions. Despite the. mili- tancy of our revolutionary workers, they. still ‘Jack a, clear-cut understanding in approaching the Negro. workers, as for example, I have | heard many of these workers speaking about Negroes openly using the term “nigger,” which ‘is offensive to Negro, workers and could only, serve to keep Negrods out, of the N.M.U. This . oe fae of unconscious white chauv- ht must, be combatted in the most Win the Negro Miners in Illinois ruthless Bolshevik manner in this period of sharp class battles. Workers Admit Error. In addressing one of the meetings of the N.M.U. in Eldorado when I brought this to the attention of the workers, the following morning most of them admitted to me, while on the picket line at the. Wasson Coal Co., a Jim Crow mine, that I was correct and that it was a mistake on their part. This only goes to shdw that in spite of the ideological back- wardness of some of the members of: the N. M. U., yet they are willing to accept and cor- rect the old ideological background of the white imperialists. The National Miners Union, which is grow- ing and becoming a factor among the workers in Illinois, Pennsylvania ‘and Indiana, have not been able as a revolutionary ‘trade union to attract Negro workers in Illinois. This is one of the greatest shortcomings which must be overcome by raising the ideological level of our membership and especially of our organizers. Special amphasis should be placed in not merely speaking about the union’s fighting for the interest of all workers black and white but in actually raising the question of discrimina- tion in the mines and in those counties where Negro workers are not allowed to live. Our revolutionary trade unions must come forward in open resistance to these manifes- tations of the capitalist system not ina pro- paganda form alone, but in direct struggle of our Party and revolutionary trade union against the capitalist state and capitalist ideology. In my opinion we have just started work in the coal fields, which must be extended to.a higher level organizationally as well as politi- cally. As a result, the immediate tasks in the coal fields and especially in Saline County as I have experienced should be as follows: 1. To organize a strong Party apparatus as well as a strong fraction within the N.M.U. with strong political direction from’ the .Cen- ter. 2. That a well prepared campaign should be carried on in a merciless fight against white chauvinism. 8. The sending of leading Negro comrades and especially Negro miners to work among the Negro and white miners. 4, Organize inter-racial defense committees around the N.M.U. 5, The Pioneer movement of Eldorado must extend its activities among the Negro miners’ children in Harrisburg as well in Muddy. 6. The Party must: pay closer attention to our Negro work ‘in the coal fields than. pre- viously, since’ there has been’ gross: underesti- mation and negligence on the part of: our or- ganizers in forgetting the Negro coal miners as\ a factor in the coal .fields.: 8 7, In those ‘counties where: Negroes are not permitted to live or’ work, our-Party fraction inthe N.M.U. must be prepared to openly boy- cott restaurants ard theatres in the Jim-Crow towns and at the same time’should fight’ for laws that the Negroes ate not allowad to be there as in Eldorado, in the State of Tiiinols. . Food For Worms: The Salvation Army thumps its Sie! And Signs: ' “Come to Jesus!” Some men get religion When they cap not get bread, | eS High satis te ie hope that: bye and They will be filled with hg They do not like to think That in a little while They will only fill the bellies of worms Live now! Live now! Take the’ world And shape it to your own desire. Great deeds are possible! But things will never be done If you wait for god to do them, om: aes