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

New A Year of Communist Work | in the South | By BILL DUNNE are robbed and op- art of the y estab: 1 campaign our mportant We have nal work in presi- of the South Party t who ha i ith the mass strugg! 1 workers, and who come from the Southern workers. Trade Union Work. ustrial unions 0 mue are carrying on nsive teel and metal, Many confer industries. The y unions and of the re being popular- je org tionally. Negro masses our its most important for full social, political ity has been put forth un- ngly and our Party stands forth fore the working cla the leader of ro wor and farm- xtile, nsport in the: 1 but this is being corrected. the South has furnished the proof of the correctness of our tent and rapidity of the a lization of the American working class. oved complet the pet capitalist native born American workers re- lways reject the program of the ts and will not engage in militant f the Southern masses, organ- our Party-have been of the and have quite often had ary characteristics. t natur Vali It was in the South, in connection with the s of the textile workers orgahized Textile Workers Union, that tal issue of self defense against their armed government forces ; arose in the most concrete truggle in able Experiences. ainst the fascist Musteites, h through the United Tex- tile Workers of the American Federation of La- I ty gained rience which has 1 to determine correct policy in ns of the country and in other in in Ilinois in the coal mining g in tk ber, our Pa been —notably As a result of our activity thousands of Southern workers have seen the fascist lead- I A. F. of L. exposed as the in- of the class enemies of the masses nomic and political struggles. The Capitalist Offensive. of the nts Communists Make Great Gains in the South eres By JACK HARDY. In 1928 the National Office of the Commu- nist Party sent its first organizer into the cotton grgwing states. Many scoffed and ridiculed the idea. The obstacles in the. way were too many; the power of the capitalist class was too great; the industrial and agri- tural proletariat in that section of the country was backward and reactionary; many of them were illiterate; they were too indi- for mass action, ete. A Year of Achievements. ievements of the past year have red the sceptics better chan any words could ever do, The results of a year’s steady work have,netted gains for our movement which have exceeded our most optimistic hope In the South, as elsewhere in tne cou Communist Party has emerged », where it was a small propa- lt has become a stalwart leader a recognized and feared leader iat in its class battles, ‘tivity elsewhere. answ from ganda gre of the mass: of the prolet with years of sta: The Party ean not, at this point, relax one jota in its southern work. Quite the con- trary, our activities in that section of the country must be redoubled and_ intensifie1. hor in no section of the country do the econ- omie conditions of the toiling masses offer better opportunities for our Party to flourish and grow. In no section of the country do the workers suffer equal or greater exploita- tion. “Cheap Labor.” Of, this the capitalist class beats in thou- sands of, paid advertisements and reams of publicity matter. The secretary of the Gas- tonia Chamber of Commerce, for example, wrote as follows to the representative of a northern manvfacturer: Wages in Gastonia range from 18 to 20 é ig ished by the Comprodaily Publish! N.Y, 7 Inc. Gaily, except Sunday, at 26-28 © Stuyvesant (1696-7-8. Cable: “DATW ly Worker, 26-28 Unio i York, | » government against our Party and the work- | and for self-determination has not | | pare for the election campaign, we must broad- | ship than we have to date and this can be of the capitalists and their | dustrial center. in the South, has been of the sharpest and most brutal The American struggle furnishes no parallel for the manner in which Communists and militant non- Party workers have been persecuted in the South in the last year. The attacks have not been confined to one locality, one industry or to one state. They are widespread and are launched wherever organization work and | struggles are carried on. | ing cla They indicate clearly the rapidly growing fascist character of the program and methods | of the American ruling class and the almost complete organic unity of “business and gov- | ernment.” Workers Not Fascist. But these attacks disclose something of still greater importance. In not a single one of these attacks has the capitalist class been able to mob Not even in the attacks directed toward the of Communist activity among the 2s have the bosses and their agents to enlist worker The classic anti- } Negro slogans of the Southern ruling class have * shown to be barren of results so far as workers are concerned. Here again is the most striking proof pf the , ization of American workers under the ressure of rationalization. The significance of the failure of the Southern ruling class in this field cannot be overestim- ated. re is not a single organizer of our Party in the South, not a single organizer of the va ous class struggle unions, of the International | Labor Defense or of the Workers International Relief that has not been jailed, convicted and sentenced. y of them have a half-dozen charges hanging over them. Comrades Beal, Miller, McGinnis, the N.T.W.U. Chain gang sen- under the murderous Southern penal 3 have been handed out to many more. The work goes on. Kidnanpings and flog- gings, continuous threats by the fascist bands, murder s.of Ella May, hinder but do not stop our agitational, propaganda and organizational | activity. Hendryx, McLaughlin, Harrison, Carter, o face up to 20 years in prison. tences Extending Our Work. We have made a good beginning in the last year, but only a beginning. We must estab- ish a Communist paper in the South, we must increase our Party membership, we must pre- en immensely our work for the organization of the jobless and the struggle against unem- ployment. We must extend our work among the agri- cultural masses—especially among the Negro workers. We must consciously give all of our campaigns more of a political character. We must do all in our power to see that the revolutionary unions obtain better organ- izational results from their activity. We must lead more struggles. We must more system- atically expose the, Musteite social fascists. We must concentrate more in the big industrial plants and engage in more-planned work. . For the Next Year. From the ranks of the Southern masses we must recruit many more workers for leader- done only by extending our cultural and edu- cational work to which far too little attention has been paid. The defense of the Gastonia defendants must once more be placed in the center of our ac- tivity and the demand for unconditional release of these class war prisonérs made a popular issue. One year of work in the South established our Party there firmly in the mass movement. In the next we should set as our objective the complete defeat of the A. F. of L. and its so- cial fascist Muste gang, the organization of the decisive sections of the working class in the South in the revolutionary unions of the Trade Union Unity League and the popularization of our Party program in every important in- to 30 cents (per hour) for skilled workers. ~.. Children from 14 to 18 years of age can only work 11 hours a day. Hartsville, S. C., boasts as follows: Wages, 16 to 20 cents per hour; worked 10. W. C. Denmark, secretary of the Goldsboro Chamber of Commerce, sent out publicity matter reading, in part, as follows: Children between ages of 14 and 16 that have gone through the fourth grade of school may work 10 hours. Children that have not gone through fourth grade work 8 hours. Adult female hours, 11 per day. Attract Northern Capital. * These examples are typical of hundreds like them which have been collected and could be cited. They serve to illustrate the point. Like the slave merchants in the market place, the Southern Chambers of Commerce are shouting their chief stock in trade—highly ex- ploited labor. With such arguments as these they are inducing northern capital to close shop in their established localities and to move South. Their efforts are not without avail. Manu- facturers, particularly textile mill owners, are engaged in a furious trek to the Piedmont. Between 1923 and 1927 about $100,000,00 of New England mill capiial migrated south- ward, Since then the movement has been gaining increasing momentum. hours A year’s activity of the Communist Party in these sections have severely shattered the illusions~concerning the docility and submis- siveness, of the southern workers. But labor still remains cheap. When the cost of main- taining the mill villages, variously estimated to cost from $1.50 to $4.36 per operative per week, is deducted from the wage savings of tho cotton grow'ng states, the South still has a differential in manufacturing costs of about | Unton onic” Noy Central Organ of the Co “And We Will Also Strike Side Sttinanrced a ws the U.S. A, By Side on May Day!” By Fred Ellis Statements by Gastonia Defendants; How They Feel About Campaign Hard Battle But a Glorious One’ ict | By FRED ERWIN BEAL. | (Sentenced to 17 to 20 years.) The history of American industrial strug- gles probably does not contain a more signi- ficant event than the strike of 2,000 textile workers in the Loray village, Gastonia, North Carolina, April Ist, 1929. Since then Gastonia and the entire South has held the attention of the whole country and the world. E i Since then Gastonia and the entire South | has held the attention of the whole country | and the world. 4 The first mill in the South to strike under | the auspices of the National Textile Workers’ Union was the Loray will of the Manville- Jenckes company at Gastonia. The mill workers were living on starvation | wages, Whole families worked in the mill in order to make both ends meet and even then they found themselves in debt. Father, mother and children often worked side by side. The family lived in” two, three or four | room shacks. They often had to take in | boarders. The wages averagel $11 and $12 | | | | Enslave Whole Families. | | | a week. Efficiency “experts” stood over the workers—with stop watch stretching out the | work. They worked 60 and more hours a week, ges hep The strike.came about because of the We | it | tense exploitation *of ‘these workers. reached its limit. The rebellion began. Mass Meeting. The strike began on a Monday. The Sat- | urday before a big mass meeting—the first in the open held by the N. T. W. U.—was held close to the mill. Everyone knew that many workers would be fired on Monday for at- tending the meeting. The local voted to strike if any member was fired. Headquarters were obtained on Franklin Ave. near the mill and preparations made for the coming struggle. Temporary headquarters of the union were in a workers’ ee cneceneeeeeeee ee eee mescemeanaesnaetoemaaiied 20 per cent—even as high as 30 per cent for some classes of profucts. In one computation | of the costs of producing a pound of an iden- tical print cloth in a Massachusetts and a southern mill, the Arkwright Club, a manu- facturers’ organization, found the Massachu- southern mill was 19.9064 cents. Of the setis cost to be 28.0303 cents; that of the 8.1249 cents difference’ between the two, 7.9774 cents, or 98 per cent, represented sav- ings in labor costs. j Southern Organ Needed. The above story has been told largely from capitalist sources. It becomes a prime neces- sity of the Party at this time to establish, | among other things, a sou.hern press. The southern revolutionary masses have no paper of their own in which to discuss their prob- lem, keep abreast of activities in other south- ern centers and reach the other broad masses who can not be reached directly. Corarades | recently returned fromthe South te!l how | every copy of the Daily Worker is passed from | hand to hand until it falls apart from sheer | wear. But the “Daily” does not and can not devote major emphasis to southern problems of organization, tactics and struggle. What the revolutionary masses of the South need and want is a press of their own. The Party must meet this pressing and vital nez™. home. Great numbers of workers came here to join the union. On Monday groups of dis- charged workers came to the new headquar- ters, A mass meeting of night workers was held on the lot behind the union hall and a unanimous vote to strike was taken amidst cheering, singing and yelling. The strikers in picket line formation went to the mill. The day help swelled the strikers’ ranks. A mass meeting was held in front of the mill gate; back to the union lot. That night hundreds of workers from other mills in the vicinity attended a'mass meeting, The next day the strike committee was formed where the workers summed up their grievances. They became an organized army determined to pit their united strength against the power of the well organized cotton barons for better living conditions. So they made demands against the bosses. These were some of the demands: Minimum wage of $20 a week. Abolition of the speeding and doubling up of work (stretch-out). Forty-hour five-day week. Equal pay for equal work for women and youths. For sanitary working conditions. No discrimination against workers taking active part in strike. Recognition of National Textile Union, $ War Is On. Workers’ The roar of the battle was heard through- out the South. The bosses became extremely nervous; called conferences amongst them- selves; organized gangsters; tore down the union headquarters; beat up organizers and the active strikers—women as well as men. A new headquarters was built by the strikers. The bosses’ men tried to raid the new head- quarters on June 7 but were met by a deter- mined set of strikers who were guarding their lives, In the exchange of shots fired on the union lot one organizer was wounded and four depu- ties of the mill owners. One, the chief of po- lice, by the name of Aderholt, died the next day, Though the workers defended them- selves the bosses thought they saw an oppor- tunity to smash the union. Hundreds of sutikers and organizers were arrested and thrown into jail. Sixteen were charged with first degree murder. The International Labor Defense was on the job. Mass demonstra- tions were held throughout the country and 'the world. The bosses were afraid to burn us in the chair but they succeeded in preju- dicing a backward jury and seven of us now face up to 20 years in jail. Only the workers can save us from a living death. But Union Goes On. But putting us in jail will not stop the progress of the National Textile Workers’ Union in the South or the North. ‘The en- trenched mill barons have had their day. The workers in the South are marching along with their northern brothers under the ban- ner of the Nationa¥ Textile Workers’ Union. They know that the United Textile Workers’ Union of the A. F, of L, woull sell them out aga’n 2 it did in the years 1919 and 1922; as it did in Elwabethton, Tenn; as it did in Marwn, ss. CG, ‘Lney know chat the A, F, of L. drives in the South are fake drives, done for the benefit of the textile bosses. They know that the A, F. of L, union is a com- pany union and that the bosses want to steer the militant textile workers into it to prevent ~~ er FACE 20 YEARS: STILL FIGHT SU! By Mati (in New York City only): $8.00 a year; By Mail (outside of New York RSCRIPTION RATES: ity): $6.00 a year; $4.50 six months; $3.50 six months; » $2.50 three months $2.00 three months 0 ES ES eS SS SE a See Gastonia Marked Smashing ot Race Barrier for Workers By CHARLES ALEXANDER (Negro Member of the Gastonia Labor Jury.) The anniversary of the strike at the Loray mill of the Manville-Jenckes Company of Gas- tonia has tremendous significance in the strug- gle of the American working class, and par- | ticularly to the millions of miserably exploited | Negro workers in the United States. The out- | come of that strike is now history, but seven | Gastonia prisoners are facing 117 years in | prison. Their appeai comes up in the Supreme Court of North Carolina in April. ‘The mill barons and their hangers-on in the | South, previous to the strike, broade: ‘ar and | wide the complete subservience of their work- | ers, on the basis of which they dreamed of | reaping fabulous profits sucked from the very blood of the southern workers. And it can be | imagined what were the horrors that gripped them when on the morning of April 2, 1929, the workers of the Loray mill in Gastonia, re- fusing to submit any longer to slavery, rob- bery and plunder, left their machines, downed tools—struck, under the militart leadership of the National Textile Workers Union. A few weeks previous, the workers of the Bemberg and Glanzstoff mills in Elizabethtown, Tenn., had also come out on strike under the treacher- ous leadérship of the American Federation of | Labor, and were betrayed. Full Equality. The N. T. W. U., affiliated to the Trade Union Unity League, led and fought for the organization of Negro and white workers to- gether into the same union on the basis of full | equality. To the Negro masses of the South | and of the entire country, this was indeed sig- nificant. The N. T. W. U. not only put forward | the organization of Negro and white workers 4 together, it also raised the banner of full racial, | social and political equality for the Negro masses. ‘fhe terror of the southern bourgeois knew no bounds when they saw the breaking | down of their age-long barrier of “white superi- | ority,” and the unity of Negro and white work- ers tor common struggle against the milf own- ers. | | | | They resorted to all possible devices in an at- tempt to break the solidarity of the Negro and white “workers. But the white workers began to see that the factories, mills, works, banks, and all the riches of the country were in the hands of the capitalists, they saw side .by side. with the loud-mouthed phrases of democracy, a perpetual en- slavement of millions of workers and a continuo’ poverty, and they asked of the mill barons: Where is your lauded “superiority”? Not for the toiling masses but for the capitalist class. Unable to break the spirit of the workers by the utilization of fascist means, (National Guard, thugs, gangsters, police raids, etc.,), the mill barons proceeded to other means—that of legal lynching. The writer happens to be one of the Negro members of the Labor Jury which attended the second trial of the Gastonia defendants. And it is important to say espe- cially at this time when the appeal of the de- fendants is near at hand that the verdict of the Labor Jury is that the defendants are NOT GUILTY, and that the whole capitalist class of North Carolina is guilty of the murder, rob- bery and plunder of the textile workers, The Real Issue. The defendants were tried not because they committed any offense, but purely because of their views and militant struggle in the in- terest of the toiling textile masses. Not only were political, economic and religious views the central points during the whole trial, but. the racial issue was brought to the forefront with all intensity. ‘ Race Issue In Trial. . To bring the importance of this case to the working class, to show how the racial issue was utilized, both in an attempt to keep up. the division between Negro and white workers, and to render them helpless prey to these vultures of capitalism, and to rally the Negro and white workers of the whole land to defeat this vicious sentence, I shall state an incident which took place during the trial when one of the defense witnesses was on the stand. Dewey: Martin, one of the organizers of the National Textile Workers Union is on the stand, and is being cross-examined by Cansler, one of the attorneys for the mill owners “Mr. Martin, did you speak from the same platform with Otto Hall, a Negro Communist, who adyocated social equal- ity for Negroes?’ “Yea. Cansler, “Your honor, I move that the testimony of this witness be impeached, as it is in violation of the laws of the state of North Carolina, which is against social equality for Negroes.” Attorney for the Defense: Object. His honor, the bought and paid for tool of the mill barons, “Objection overruled.” And so the testimony of Dewey Martin, vital to the case of the defendants was impeached and not permitted to the credit of the defense, because he admitted speaking, from the same platform with a Negro worker. Union Organize Bath. While this situation was going on in the court room, the textile workers were busy outside, organizing Negro and white workers together, and perfecting their organizational plans for the southern convention of the Na- tional Textile Workers’ Union convention in Charlotte. This convention was a symbol of the growing class consciousness of the south- ern workers. It demonstrated very clearly the breaking down of racial barriers between Negro and white workers, and a call to go forward into militant struggle. The conven- tion attended by hundreds of textile and other workers of the South, with delegates coming from five different southern states, and with 15 Negro delegates who sat together wiih the white delegates, and took active part in the formulation of plans for successfully com- batting the exploitation of the southern bosses was indeed historid, Every Negro and white worker, conscious of his condition must make the’ struggle of Gastonia live, and there is no other way in which this can be done better than by joining the Trade Union Unity League, the Inter- national Labor Defense, and let us carry on the fight, not only for the release of the Gastonia prisoners, but for our final liberation from capitalist oppression and slavery. them from going into the militant workers’ N. T. W. U. It is a hard struggle but a glorious one for the southern workers. The start was made April 1, 1929. The end will be when the textile workers along with other workers, do away with all ploitation and run the industry for their own benefit. Union Drive Breaks Down Racial Barriers 4 \estisSesalabala By G. W. CARTER. The significant thing about the Gastonia strike was the fact that the National Textile Workers Union was the first labor organization to advocate the breaking down of racial bar- riers and to organize Negro workers side by side with whites on the basis of equality. Chattel slavery was abolished legally in 1863 by the emancipation proclamation. They raised the cry of the black menace and thus were able to mobilize the white workers to “keep the Ne- gro in his place”... slavery. Since the white workers were fighting their fellow workers they were not strong enough to arise above themselves. This is why we find the miserable conditions in the Southern mill villages and in- dustrial centers. The Loray workers revolted against this slavery. Spread this revolt. On with the fight against slavery and race discrimination For the unity of the workers of all races. Gastonia Strike Was Revolt ' Against Conditions By K. 0. BYERS. (Defendant in the First Trial) One year ago, on April 1, 1929, the first strike was called in the South by the Na- tional Tetile Workers Union. Two thousand workers came out on that Monday, under the leadership of the N.T.W.U. On the first day of the strike the workers elected a strike committee and mass picket lines were formed around the Loray Mill. When the bosses saw that they could not fool the workers and scare them back to work,” they hired thugs and the Ku Klux Klan to beat up the strikers on the picket line. But the workers would fight the police and their fellow-gunmen when they were attacked by the police and the thugs. Evea the capitalist press, the Gastonia Daily. Gazette would say to the workers: “You are citizens, don’t strike, go back to work.” But the workers’ answer was: “We have been slaving long enough, we are on strike for bet- ter conditions.” Their ‘demands were: Equal pay for all young workers, no discrimination against Negroes, for the eight-hour day, a Cris . ‘ ex- j minimum wage of $20 for all young workers, free house rent, free lights and water. The workers continued to hold mass meet- ings and picket lines every day in front of the Loray Mill. Then on April 19 a mob of mill owners’ thugs came to the union head- quarters, smashed the hall, destroyed the Workers International Relief store, and threat- ened to lynch the organizer, But this did not stop the strikers. They built new headquarters and continued to hold mass meetings and mass picketing every day, until June 7, Raid on Strikers. On the night of June 7, the chief of police and his gang came to the union headquarters and fired into the union hall and the strikers’ tents in which they were sleeping. The strikers defended themselyes“from being shot down in cold blood. They won the battle. The several workers were arrested. At the end of the trial seven workers were given twnty years in prison. The appeal comes up on April 15, All workers must organize and fight against the capitalist courts and the bosses. Organize in the Trade Union Unity League and the Com- munist Party. How the Workers Learned of Revolutionary Unionism By LOUIS McLAUGHLIN. « (Sentenced to 12 to 15 Yeara.@ April 1, 1930, is the first anniversary of the Gastonia strike. There is a great difference in the minds of the Southern workers today from what there was before the strike. Before April 1, 1929, the workers did not know of the Communist Party, the National Textile Work- ers Union or the International Labor Defense. ‘What they knew is what they got out of the capitalist. press. What the capitalist press says of the Communist Party, in the South, is that it is a man that has a sword in his mouth and a gun and a bomb in each hand. But when workers really learned of the Communist Party and the N.T.W.U., they struck with the move- ment, When the police and thugs tried to destroy the second headquarters on June 7, at Gas- tonia, after they had destroyed the first, the workers then defended themselves. So the capitalist court put the ones they could on trial. If it was not for the workers pro- testing while the trial was on, we would have been put in the electric chair. So when April 6 comes, which starts Gas- tonia protest week, by the I.L.D., all. workers must make their protest felt, Protest straight of through-till the 13th of April, and it will force the courts to listen. The appeal of the workers comes up in April, so all workers must demonstrate in mass pro- _ test on April 6 to April.13 and show to the world what the cavitalist class Soutaern. worxers, is doing to the NPT RIOT RNP