The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 8, 1930, Page 4

Page Four Square. New York City, N By GILBERT LEWIS. This is the second part of Comrade Lewis's article. The first part dealt with the vicious attack of the Negro bourgeoisie and the bor bureaucrats against the Trade Union Unity eLague and the activities of the revo- lutionary workers in the South.+ The Editor. "i E question ‘naturally ar Why is the A $ T Southern ruling class so thoroughly alarm- ed, so thoroughly freightened at the appearance of the T.U.U.L, in Chattanooga? It is because evidence is at hand to prove that organizations under the political leadership of the Commu- nist Party can smash the barriers of race pre- judice and mobilize the workers of the South, black and white, for a militant struggle against capitalism. Because Chattanooga has not es- caped the general crisis of capitalism and here as elsewhere, one witnesses the terrifi slaught of capitalist rationalization with its wage cuts, speedup and-stretchout and increas- ing unemployment. At the same time one also witnesses a decided growing resistence of the workers to these attacks upon their living standards. This growing resistance of the workers is shown in their response to our program of revo- lutionary unionism—in the fact that 1,000 leaf- lets with a minimum of information on them, | could bring into our hall some 250 workers—- in the fact that the T.U.U.L.’s acceptance of the political leadership of the Communist Party, | which has been brought out to them time and | again, did not in the least keep the workers from crowding around the organizers after the | meetings were over to join the T.U.U.L.—in the fact that in a space of two weeks time, in Chattanooga, absolutely new territory, a num- ber of workers from the shops and factories were drawn into the Communist Party. Indicative of the radicalization in process here is the relationship existing between the Negro and white workers. Though the issue of ‘race against race has at times, in the past, assumed acute form, the intense process of in- | dustrialization and rationalization has educated them to the need of standing together. Rapidly | they are coming to realize how race prejudice is used by the bosses to keep them divided, so that the standard of living of both groups can be lowered. In several instances in this city Negroes who were barred from the A. F. of L. Published by the Comprodaily Publishing Co., Inc., ss Address and mail all checks to the Daily Worker. 2 ‘CLASS AGAINST CLASS IN THE SOUTH Negro Mtsleaders in Dixie | workers in their struggle. t Sunday, a “8. Cabl 8*Union Square, d Telephone Stuyve F. of L. to go to hell and walked out in a body | and have never returned. Negro Workers in Basic Industries Militant. Chattanooga has a genuine Negro industrial proletariat, capable of leading, together with the revolutionary white workers, the revolu- } tionary struggle. The Chattanooga bourgeoisie is badly freightened at the prospect of its be- ing organized. This fact is borne out by an item which appears in the “Times” for Feb. 6 bearing the following scarehead: “Wave Red Flag as Negro Hope Against Whites,” a defin- ite attempt to whip up a lynching spirit by de- claring to the white workers that the Commu- nist Party was calling upon the darker races of the world to rise up and conquer the white man. All of these attacks, however, have done little to hamper our work. The T.U.U.L. has moved steadily forward in spite of them and all of our meetings ‘have been well attended by both Ne- gro and white workers. Our membership has increased at a rapid rate of speed, excellent progress being recorded in Chattanooga, At- lanta and other parts of the South, including Birmingham. The workers are ready for struggle and will- ing to struggle. Not only are they willing to struggle against the bosses for a bite of bread but they are prepared to wage a militant strug- gle against the whole capitalist system. Work- ers here in the South who have never heard of the Communist Party will tell you that what this country needs is a revolution. The Party must pay close attention to the South and lend political guidance to these And in view of that fact some of the things that I said in the beginning of this article in regard to winning the Negro masses will bear stressing. Class Against Class Must Be Emphasized. Certain shortcomings of the Party in reach- ing the Negro workers of the North must be overcome in the South. We cannot repeat the same mistakes. While in the North a serious campaign has been carried on by the Party to win the Negro masses for the revolutionary movement, trained organizers have been put in the field with this as their primary task, ete., the fact must be recognized that our Party hasn't a sufficient appreciation of the Negro question in this period. For white the slogan of class agains: class has been repeatedly raised | not enough effort has been made to win the unions, have been used to scab on the white | workers who have gone out on strike. In other instances, Negroes, tho barred from the unions, have refused to scab on the white workers when on strike. At all of our meetings both Negro and white workers have taken the floor and pointed out the necessity of standing to- gether. The attitude of the Negro workers in this respect presents a very interesting study. He has absolutely no objection to uniting with the white worker but neither does he regard it in | an oppressed class. | the shops and factories. the light of a special privilege granted him. | And while not in the least subjective they want to be certain that you mean it when you | say absolute equality, for they have had sorry | experiences with the A. F. of L. In 1920 the A. F. of L. came to Chattanooga and carried on a campaign of organizing Ne- | gro and white metal workers together. At first they declared that the workers were to be organized on a basis of equality. Soon how- ever, they revealed their true intention. They organized the white workers as mechanics and the Negroes as helpers, stating that while the | Negroes were receiving only $6-$8 per day as mechanics, as helpers they would receive $8.50 and up. But the white mechanics would re- ceive $10 per day. The Negroes told the A. | Negro on the basis of that slogan. In too many cases the stress has been placed upon his suf- fering as a member of an oppressed race and not enough upon his suffering as a member of We have not centered enough attention upon In too many instances in approaching the Negro worker, we have sub- ordinated the Party to general left-wing mass organizations. We have not sufficiently ex- posed to the mass of Negro workers the treach- ery of the Negro misleaders. It is not enough to tell the Negro masses that the Negro middle class is too lacking in courage or has no pro- gram to effect their liberation. We must make them understand that the Negro middle class is definitely their enemy and the friend of their oppressor. In this period of sharpening class conflicts such shortcomings become keenly apparent. Class against class must be the outstanding slogan of our Party in its approach to the Negroes of the South. My experience with the Negro in industry, the only one vital to the revolutionary movement, gives me to believe that the Negro is as class conscious as the average white worker and can be won on the basis of that slogan. —THE END.— How Job Sharks Skin the Unemployed - UTRAGEOUS treatment handed out to un- employed workers in their search for bread | and butter is once more exposed in a report on fraudulent practices of private employ- | ment agencies just issued by the American Association for Labor Legislation, in New York. The report, prepared by George H. Trafton, summarizes hundreds of pages of information buried in the unpublished proceedings of the New .York State Industrial Survey Commis- sion. “Witness after witness, testifying un- der oath,” states Trafton, “described flagrant abuses practiced by some of these commer- .cial enterprises, conclusively demonstrating that the fee-charging employment agency busi- ness is still infested with unscrupulous char- | acters who do not hesitate to mulct the help- less, and who find the jobless worker an easy victim.” One of the most common complaints before the commission was misrepresentation of jobs. “Witnesses testified,” says Trafton, “that after paying fees they had been sent to jobs which obviously they could not fill and for Workers! Join the Party of Your Class! Communist Party U.S. A. 43 East 125th Street, New York City. I, the undersigned, want to join the Commu- Send me more information. hist Party. Name ABREEND . cccccccccccccemessce UY, veccacse Occupation .......seeeescseeceees ABCrevees Mail this to the Central Office, Communist Pazty, 48 East 125th St.. New YoryN. ¥. : ‘ | which they had not applied.” Others swore that they had been sent off to temporary posi- tions which had been represented to them as “permanent.” Some told of going to distant cities for jobs that didvnot even exist. Others testified that “the wages paid on the job were much lower than the agency had represented.” Theft of fees, collected in advance for jobs, but not returned as the”law requires when no jobs were found, was also charged against the private agencies. Sometimes the employment sharks flatly refused to return the fees. At other times they would send the disappointed workers off on other wild goose chases. In this way, one witness stated, “they would keep the men going back and forth until they got tired so that they would not come any more and they would not go back for their fee.” Another witness reported having “seen fellows thrown down the stairs,” when seek- ing return of their money. During the investigation, the United States Supreme Court handed down the typically capitalist-minded decision that the fees charged by private employment agents are not subject to regulation by law. Hence the agencies can charge the workers their vety eye-teeth for a short-lived chance to be ex- Ploited. One instance is cited of a “woman who paid $18 for a job which only lasted two weeks; so that her jeb cost her half of the total wages received. She returned to the agency, but received neither another position nor a refund.” Sending of girls or women to immoral re- sorts, though forbidden by statute, is also a standing grievance against the private agents investigated in the report. Testimony before the commission on this point was backed up by the annual report of the Committee of Fourteen, of New York City, and by the news- papers at the time, i . The Daily Worker is the Party's best instrument to make coitacts among tke masses of workers, to build a mass Communis: Party. Baily Central Organ of the Commumist airy ot the U.S. A. | Now That the World Is Safe for Democracy! By Mati (in New York City only): $8.00 a year; By Mall (outside of New York SUBSCRIPTION RATES ity): $6.00 a year: S: 34.50 six months; $3.50 six months: 88 three months 2.00 three months . By “Help us lick your fellow workers on May Day and we'll give you another medal!” “Our Colony of Cuba” By JORGE A. VIVO. 1 Under this title given above, a liberal of | the United States, Leland Jenks, has written a work in which is studied $he situation in | Cuba, the neighboring country that is going through an important political crisis and in which the recent strikes reveal a strong anti- imperialist. movement, a struggle against the | native agents of Yankee imperialism. Cuba is one of the countries of Latin Amer- ica that is most submitted to the influence of the White House. “Emancipated” from Spain by means of the “generous” aid of the United States, which even in those days had sufficient “interests” there to use military force with the end of guaranteeing them, Cuba later fell | under the absolute domination of Wal] Street. During the “republican” period of “inde- pendent life” of the country, as the bourgeoisie | calls the epoch following U. S. intervention of 1898, imperialism has profited every oppor-j tunity presented to assure its decisive and absolute influence in the economy of Cuba. The result of this economic policy of imperial- ism has been very fruitful. All the so-called “national” industries are actually manipulated by companies founded in the United States. “A Yankee Plantation.” Thus, more than 80 per cent of the sugar in- dustry, with an estimated value of $100,000,-_ 000 belongs to Yankee trusts intimately linked with the National City Bank. The Tobacco Trust, which controls both the manufacture of tobacco products and the export of. raw to- bacco, is founded in New Jersey. The rail- way system is principally run by American companies and those which are British are subjected to the convenience of the American companies. Fruit production, mining (gold, copper, iron, manganese, asphalt, ete.), the telephone system, the street:cars, electric com- panies, and even amusement places and impor- tant hotels are in the hands of great U. S. trusts which also furnish 80 pér cent of the island’s imported commodities. ? The Cuban bourgeoisie, formerly master of the large part of means of production, is now really minority shareholder in the economy of the country, a mere ‘appendix of imperialist economy. The National City Bank of New York and the Royal Bank of Canada, the most important banking institutions, have. nearly’ one hundred and fifty branches in the coun- try, through which all the ecoomic life of the country is controlled. Recently, the Chase -Na- tional Bank and some others are. playing an. important role as controllers of the Cuban treasury. Practically, these banks, gll of the United States, control all finance and economy. Subjected’ to such an ab@@rbent economic submission, the island is really. a colony of imperialism, its political life directed from the White House. The Platt Amendment, a permanent treaty imposed on’ the Constituent Assembly that prepared the advetit of the “re- public,” is a treaty that confirms: this spb- mission and assures the strict carrying out of the polioy of penetration and “hegemony of ‘the United States contained in the’ Monroe Doc- trine. The “Platt Amendment.” According to this “Platt Amendment.” the Cuban government is unable to contract. debts | with other nations than the United States if | the U. S..“considers” that such obligations can- not be paid. by the ordinary income; the U. S. Government can Intervene in Cuba whenever “sanitary conditions,” “personal security” and “individual property” may not be sufficiently “guaranteed”; and, among other clauses of such, kind as make this alleged “republic” a | Yankee “protectorate” the Cuban government is obliged to cede ports of strategic value for the establishment of naval and military bases —a thing carried into practice and which has permitted the important port of Guantanamo ° to be auled under the stars aril stripes, At present the chief imperialist agent in Cuba is Gerardo Machada, internationally known as an assassin and share-holder of the General Electric Company, who was put in the | post of president of the “republic” by means of loans made by Yankee concerns’ which bought this magnificent political position for their lackey (Machado is paying great sums monthly to other politicians that opposed him in the election in which he was “elected,” sums guaranteed by commercial payments under- written by imperialist agents). The U. S. proletariat already knows the pol- icy of the Machado government, characterized by the bloodbaths given the workers and peas- ants-and the most barbarous attacks against the revolutionary organizations. Machado—The Infamous. The assassination of working class leaders, the massacre of agricultural workers, the jail- ings, deportations, the “original” method of feeding the bodies of militant workers to the sharks of Havana Bay, crimes against Cuban emigrants abroad such as the murder of Julio Mella, and other means used daily by Machado and his big gang, have made Machado’s regime known to the whole world proletariat’ as- one of the most brutal that history records in the oppression of colonial and semi-colonial peo- ples. Machado and his followers have scrupulously and slavishly served the interests of Yankee imperialism and its appendix, the Cuban bour- geoisie. The name of this criminal, an example of our class enemy, is the symbol of a regime of oppression, of plunder and robbery that world imperialism’s agents in China, that the fake “revolutionary” regime of Rubio-Calles and Portes Gil in Mexico, likewise carry out. The exploitation of the wage workers of Cuba who, according to an estimate of 1919, number 1,000,000 among a population of 3,500,000, and among which million of workers are not only men but many women and children. are nnahla to move without reckoning on the Cuban hang- man of Yankee imperialism: Yankee imperial- ism could not benefit from its rule “of this small rich country did it not count upon a whole apparatus of oppression that guarantees its investments. The accession of Machado to power marked the period in which the White House acquired complete economic hegemony in tH® country, which necessitated its comple- ment, complete political hegemony. Machado is merely the governor of the colony of Cuba, practically only another state of the American Union, subjected to barbarous ex- ploitation of Yankee imperialism. German Artel in the First Ranks We have received the following from Sim- feropol, Crimea: “A good impression is created by the Ger- mani arte] ‘Samava,’ which commenced sowing on March the 6th, the earliest in the district. They are well organized, and everyone knows his placé and duties. As.soon as the bell rings in the morning, everyone immediately leaves foxy his place in the fields. Groups of members of the artel are carrying on contests among themselves for speed and quality of work, The | artel as a whole is competing with the neigh- boring commune ‘Borba’ which has also com- menced sowing. The artél has sent its tractor to assist ‘Borba’ and has undertaken to help to sow the land of two neighboring tartar villages, “After the ‘Samava’ and ‘Borba,’ a number of other collective farms started work. Some of them completed their formation only on the eve of the sowing campaign, and adopted the rules of the arte)” "el ®"* ‘THE UNITED STATES AT THE LONDON CONFERENCE Imperialist Rivalries Sharpened By P, LAPINSKY (Moscow). THe majority of the London newspapers are endeavoring to make France responsible for a possible breakdown of the London Naval Conference. But the “blackmailing policy” and the “sabotage” of the French imperial- ists could only for a time conceal the quarrel between the most important actors in the tragi-comedy of London, the quarrel between Great Britain and the United States. When Mr. Stimson, the United States for- eign minister, hastened to publish his program memorandum, it was only at the first mo- ment that it evoked a favorable response from the British side. Stimson proposed complete. parity in air- craft-carriers and destroyers, and only in re- gard to submarines confined himself to a more vague expression of the desire to fix a “lowest possible standard of tonnage.” In re- turn for this the United States make a cer- tain concession in the question of large cruis- ers. The question left unsolved at the nego- tiations which took place between MacDonald and Hoover and Dawes whether the United States should possess 21 or 18 large cruisers, has been decided by Stimson in favor of Great Britain, The United States demands for itself only 18 large cruisers as against 15 Bri- tish. All this appeared at first sight to be acceptable “in principle.” . But suddenly there was revealed the real differences of opinion. The Memorandum, extracts only from which were handed over for publication, was set against the original Memorandum. It was ascertained that the ac- tual concrete demands of the U. S. A. imper- ialists were not at all included in the published Memorandum. Since the abortive Three-Power Naval Con- ference at Geneva in 1927, the questions of cruisers and the calibre of their guns has been regarded as the most important question in dispute between Great Britain and the United States. As is known, the principle of “par- ity” in regard to capital ship fleets was al- ready laid down at the Washington Confer- ence in 1921 and 1922. The question of cruis- ers, however, which led to the failure of the Geneva Conference, was in the main solved in the preliminary conversations which Mac- Donald had with Hoover and Dawes, and still more concretely in the Stimson Memorahdum at the London Conference. It appeared there- fore, as if everything were going smoothly. Then, howeyer, there arose in an unexpected manner the dispute in the question of capital ship fleets! After the Washington Conference there had set in a real competition in the construction and arming not only of cruisers (which were not included in the limitations agreed to’ in Washington), but also in the large -capital ships. At Washington Japan could not bring itself to scrap its newest big ship the “Mutsu,” and Japan was allowed to retain this ship and also the “Nagato.” In return the United States was “permitted” to complete the con- struction of the “Maryland,” and Great Britain was given for the sake of equality, the right to build two corresponding monster ships, the “Rodney” and the “Nelson.” It is over these powerful ships that there has arisen at the present movement the di pute regarding “parity.” ~ Before all America desired that, in order to achieve parity al- ready at the end of the coming year, Great Britain, instead of scrapping five of the older large ships of the “Iron Duke” type fitted with 13% inch guns, as was originally agreed to at, Washington ni 1922, should scrap five of the new vessels of the “Queen Elizabeth” type carrying 15 inch. guns. America ex- pressed readiness on its part, instead of three to scrap no less than four of the older large ships—how very touching!—but wanted in return to receive the right to build a supple- mentary ship parallel to the British “Rodney”! In the event of the proposals of the U. S. A. imperialists being realized, it would mean, according to British calculations, that the “floating fortresses” of the United States would possess in all thirty-three 16 inch guns, while the British would possess eighteen, and the Japanese sixteen guns of the same calibre! The conference is therefore being under- mined from all sides. At the same time hardly a word has been spoken at the conference by the representatives of Japan and Italy who are wisely keeping in the background. There have, however, been already revealed with suf- ficient clearness the difficulties of an agree- ment being arrived at between Japan and America, as well as the tendency on the.part of Great Britain to a certain “approachment” to Japan and Italy. In these circumstances the circles most in- terested in the “success” of the Conference, and before all the MacDonald Government, are compelled to seek ways and means which have not hitherto come within the compass of. the Conference. The tactics of the French imper- ialists are causing the British imperialists to bring the Conference on to the path of poli- tical negotiations over every possible peace guarantee. Fewer. ships, but more agree- ments! The United States, as before, desires to preserve full freedom of action, the privilege of the strong. Of course, a thousand consid- erations compel the imperialist powers, espe- cially Great Britain and the United States, to exert every effort in order to “save” the con- ference, or at least to keep up the necessary appearances. But the prestige of the policy of “Pacifism” has alrady received a severe blow. All the antagonisms and ‘the greedy: rivalries have come to light as -never before. Even certain circles.of United States imper- ialism, as the Washington Correspondent of the “Times” reports, are compelled “cynical- ly” to recognize that the Disarmament Con- ference has become a “Conference for increas- ing armaments.” in Our Language Press By MARGARET COWL. case because the energies and the strength of g With Petty Bourgeois Ideology WHILE out language press prints the thesis and statements of the Party, certain of the articles that it prints is ballast to the material issued by the Patty. In the “Laisve” for February 3, 1930, an artitle by Dr. A. Potrik which contained an anti-proletarian, petty-bourgeois ideology was printed. The author’s idea of an intelligent and progressive worker is one “who is able to differentiate bad from good, who is interested in the world and follows the flow of world events, who can grasp the ability to rationally orientate his life, who is somewhat develoned and independently thinking -by -himself.” The “ignorant public,” says the author, “well, one can. believe that in some time to come it will sober up, but while it is such as it is now, it benefits no one, neither the Communist Party or anyone else.” The author admits. the existence of classes but in referring to this point he says: ... “but is it possible to write all that one sees, that one hears, that one has in mind into one article?” Petty Bourgeois Views. The author tried to avoid the class content in his articles; but it is glaringly there, and especially in the above quotations. This class content is not proletarian, it is the class-view of the lower middle class, the petty-bourgeoisie. It should not find space in the columns of our Communist press.. The petty bourgeois ‘sees democracy not through. proletarian eyes as bourgeois democracy that shoots down workers on the picket line (as was the case with Com- rade Steve Catovis, and then: praise officially through its courts the policeman who was or- dered to do this), he sees democracy as either bad or good in general, for all, including both workers and: bourgeois. According to this point of. view, the proletarian dictatorship in the U. S. S. R. which denies rights to anyone who gets his whole or part living by the ex- ploitation of the labor of others, this proleta- rian democracy is bad democracy because it is a dictatorship of the proletariat in the interests of the toiling masses against the class of ex- ploiters. This idea of good or bad in general covers up the bourgeois nature of the capital- ist state, which is nothing else but a dictator- ship of the bourgeoisie against the broad masses of the toilers in the capitalist countries.; These anti-Marxian, anti-Leninist views must be swept out of our Communist press. In the present stage of the jdevelopment of American capitalism, it is more profitable to suck out profits from the toil and blood of the working class. by installing machinery which intensifies the exploitation of the workers, which wears away their strength and energy at a quicker tempo than ever before. This American rationalization drive which is wor- sening the ‘conditions of life of the workers. is destroying more and more the possibilities for the great mass of American workers to “fol- low the flow of world events,” or‘to “ration- ally crpitate his life.” More.so is this the the American working class ngw more than ever before is directed towards great mass class battles against the capitalist class in or- der to repulse the gttacks of capital and to ee the offensive ‘for a better standard of living. * “More Progressive Dentists.” It is not to the interest of Lithuanian work- ers in the U. S. A. to read long columns of text of self-advertisement that one is a more “progressive” dentist than others. The world- outlook of the American proletarian is that from which he can draw lessons to raise his struggles from those for purely economic de- mands to struggles directing him towards the establishment of a government for the working class. The source from which he can draw these lessons is the world revolutionary move- ment. It is the duty of our press to be the medium through which the American proleta- riat can-gain this information. Ideas which compare the socialization of the, medical service in the interests of the working, class as it exists in the U. S. S. R. today, where! the proletariat have overthrown the bourgeoisie and established their own government, with the Possibilities to do the same in the U. S, A. un- der the regime of capital (as compared in the | article of Dr. A. Potrik), is nothing else but Propaganda to divert the American workers from the path of class struggle to that of re- formism. This is the view of a bourgeois liberal and has absolutely nothing to do with Commu- nism. f Impermissible Advertisements “In the issue of “Laisve” for January 1, 1980 and in a later issue of the “Vilnis” there ap- peared an advertisement in the form ‘of: an article which speaks about téo much gluttony, too little religion, too little peaceful self-con- cae as the reason for most of the failures.in ite, In the present conditions when millions of American’ workers are walking the: ‘streets in a vain search for work, half-starved, homeless, when there has been started a world-wide cam- paign against the -U..S.-S. R. as: preparation for war and intervention in the U; S, 8. R., allegedly on the basis of protection of religion, but in reality because the proletariat in the U. S. 8, R. is successfully destroying the kulak as a class—the last support of world imperial- ism in the U. S. S. R.; when the wave of the class struggle is rising higher, to put forth such ideas as above mentioned even in the form of advertisement in our Communist press is absolutely impermissible. Py “TALK to your fellow workér in your shop about, the Daily Worker. Sell him a copy every day for a week. Then ask him te * : | |