The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 26, 1930, Page 4

Square. New York City, } Addrere ané mail all ch Published by the Comprodally Puntisning Co. inc » Oars Stuyvesant except sunaay 1696-7-8. Cable: Union Sauate New Y. Telephone to tke Daily Worker. THE PENNSYLVANIA PRIMARIES By E. GARDOS. HE recent Republican primaries in Pen vania, another “battle of the c y” for the control of the state apparatus by the vari- ous corrupt political machines, ended with the nomination of J. J. Davis for U. S. Senator and Gifford Pinchot for Governor. Weeks of artificial excitement, the use of fake ues, threats and promises, the mobilization of ail organs of capitalism, including the fascist A F. of L. and the social fascist Musteites, the flow of gold, wholesale buying of votes pre- ceded this battle of millionaires, as the New York Times puts it, which determined the elec- tion of these two expert demagogues next November, the republican party having a firm hold on Pennsylvania. to admit that t Even the bourgeois press the primaries weren't fou issue, dividing a personalities.” The questions the bourgeois parties national such as tariff, farm-relief, foreign policies, are no issues to the republican party of Pennsylvania, con- trolled through and through by financial capi- tal. They all endorse the protective tariff, the imperialist policy of the administration, the use of injunctions, of troopers and coal and iron police against the strikers—the only thing they disagree on is the control of the state apparatus by the various groups of capi- talists, especially the railroad and public utility magnates, headed by Gen. Atterbury, of the Pennsylvania K.R., the real boss of the Vare machine and tne manufacturing and mining in- terests of the Manufacturers, Assn., whose mest outstanding spokesman, Jos. R. Grundy, the “king of lobbyists” lost his fight for renomin- ation to the U. S. Senate. The real fight was centered on the governor, with all of its ap- pointive power to the Public Service Commis- sion and other juicy sources of graft and pa- tronage. In this respect, the victory of Gif- ford Pinchot, with all his fake liberal phases and Rooseveltian gestures against the “preda- tory interests” was the running mate of Grun- dy, is a bitter bill to the Vare gang in spite of the victory of Secretary Davis and the other candidates. The nomination of Davis was a victory of the Hoover administration, which disliked the tactless die-hard stand of Grundy on the tariff issue. Another interesting feature of the primaries was the huge vote polled by the wet candidates, Bohlens and Phillips, who are making the re- peal of the 18th amendment their platform, took away a large number of votes from the Vare candidates and helped to elect the dry Pinchot. The playing up of the prohibition is- sue, nationally (Morrow’s speech, the Literary Digest polls) shows by the way the efforts of the bourgeoisie to lead the discontent of the workers into fake channels. The money spent for the rich plum cannot be even estimated and amounts to many mil- | lion dollars. In Philadelphia alone, where the are machine has at its disposal thousands of municipal employees, whose job depends on the votes they are delivering, 19,000 official wateh- ers per $10.00 a day were reported by the press, besides a large number of “volunteer” watchers, gangsters, scores of lawyers, tax ambulances, to get the patients from certain hospitals to the polling stations. ‘The Senate, in order to further keep up the illusions ni honesty in government, sent down an investiga- tion committee, headed by Sen. Nye, to “as sure the proper conduct of the primaries.” | The fascists oi the A. F. of L. have of course endorsed the Davis-Brown slate. Even Pin- chot, who was in the past supported by the A. F. of L., especially the mine was not acceptable for the United Mine Workers, whose Jeaders did theiz best to deliver the vote to the candidates of the Vare-Atterbury machine. The huge vote the miners gave to Pinchot incident- ally shows the little influence the Lewis-Ken- nedy machine has upon the miners. The Muste- ites of the Full Fashioned Hosiery Workers, after playing around with the slogan of a La- bor Party rewarded through their Northeast Progressive League their friend Davis—and punished their enemy—Grundy. The efforts made by these social fasci: mass meetings and demonstrations held in Kensington in fa- | vor of the Vure ticket compared to their treach- ercus lukewarm attitude during the recent | strikes further shows’ the real face of these | so-called progressives. Party Did Not Do Enough. The Communist Party, which besides a few sporadic meetings and literature distribution did not utilize the primaries to expose the capitalist parties and to make the workers boy- cott the primaries, is faced with the task of carrying on it: congressional election campaign on such a scale as to reach all workers and poor farmers of the state and mobilize them for the class struggle. While there are still many workers who have illusions regarding “good men” in office, friends of labor line is and Pinchot, our Party will have an job to expose their program and to raise : the fight against capitalist ration- unemployment, against imperialist alization, war preparations, for the support of the revo- lutionary struggle in the colonies, and for the defense of the Soviet Union. The State Rati- fication Convention of the Party, which will be held in Reading, Pa. on July 13, will be attended by a large delegation from the fac- tories and workers organizations, who will come to this stronghold of Maurer, Stump and other social-fascists of the S.P. to endorse and ratify | the platform and candidates of the class-strug- gle and to mobilize for a revolutionary’ par- | liamentary campaign in the State of Pennsyl- | vania. Negro Workers Awakening By A. LOSOVSKY (Gen. Sec’y., RILU). HE International Conference of Negro Work- vers, destined to be convened in July next, * is of vast significance, for this will be the fris conference which will serve to unite the Negro workers of the U. S. A., the West Indie Latin-America; and South, Central and W Africa. This will be the fi conference -at which Negro workers will emble for the purpose of discussing the methods and means for waging the struggle against imperialism and race oppression. Of particular importance is to drawn into the labors of this conference the toiling masses of the most backward col- onies of West and Central Africa, just where during the course of the past year some rather militant manifestations of the Negro toiling masses took place. The fact alone that the Negro workers will meet at an International Conference, the fact that they are taking up for solution a num- ber of general class political tasks—is a sign of the growing class consciousness of this most oppressed and most cruelly persecuted section of humanity—it is the harsh warning for im- perialist domination. Imperialism based and bases itself today on race oppression. It was imperialism which first gave rise to the theory of privileged and non-privileged races; it was imperialism which squeezed and squeezes out of the colored toilers untold super-profits; it, in the full sense of. the word, exists on the blood and sweat of scores and hundreds of millions of toilers. Following in the footsteps of the bribed yellow press, the exploiters and trade union bureaucrats, many of the white workers under the impression that they are compared to the blacks, are a privileged race; they do not understand that this is a pure slave-holder theory, directed both against the black as well as the white workers. The International Negro Workers’ Confer- ence should dispel the mist which has been created by the ruling classes with regard to: colored labor, It must be announced by this conference, with all determination and plain- ness, that the Negro workers are part and parcel of the whole international proletariat, that they are ready to take up the struggle hand in hand with the toilers of the world, for social, national and race liberation, that they do not separate their fate from the fate of the exploited classes and oppressed peoples, and that without the class struggle it is im- possible, nor can it be possible, to abolish race oppression. Whatever the composition of the confer- ence may be, whatever may be its decisions, we are firmly convinced that it will be a ser- ride forward on the road for uniting the and white workers in a strong fraternal union; that this conference will come to be the center of gravity for the most backward and oppressed Negro workers throughout the whole world. . Greetings to the International Conference of Negro Workers! Greetings to all comrades and allies in the | fight against imperialism! The Tariff HE course of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Blil has been a very jagged one. Not only did this expected billion dollar grab of the big fin- ance capitalists call for the opposition of small manufacturers and the petty-bourgeoisie, but even “prominent” republicans and capitalists, in other words, sections of finance capital i self, beginning to demand that the bill in its present form be vetoed. This difference in the camp of finance capi- tal has its roots in the contradictions of the American imperialists’ economic position, in the present economic crisis and the desperate need for world markets which the tariff will sti!l further restrict as a result of foreign reprisals. If they pass the tariff, they deepen the world economic crisis. For countries that are pre- vented from ‘selling to the U. S. are also con- siderably prevented from buying from this country. If the tariff bill is not passed, they rob themselves of the opportunity of robbing the American masses and thereby of strength- ening their offensive struggle for world mar- kets which they need so badly, especially be- cause of the economic crisis. In any case, the tariff is a double-edged sword of contradic- tions which slashes both ways. The automobile industry, which places its hopes on foreign markets to get out of the swamp of overproduction, is a good example of the boomerang effect of the proposed tariff. or the auto magnates, the tariff will mean an , immediate restriction of foreign markets ‘be- cause of foreign tariff retaliation. This is the secret of Henry Ford’s “high- minded” condemnation of the Smoot-Hawley bill, This greasy hypocrite and super-slave- driver predicts that Hoover will veto the bill because it is certain to injure rather than benefit American capitalists. Faced with a de- crease of profits, he admits that it will not only not do away with unemployment but will even increase it by limiting American world trade. James D. Mooney, president of the General Motors Export Go., attacked the tariff bill on the same ground, stating that the loss of the foreign trade for autos, which amounts to about 15 per cent of the total production, would throw an additional 184,000 workers out of work, thus depriving 600,000 persons of their means of existence. These exploiters are not worried about the working class, They have only one worry, and that is their profits. Only the Communist Party exposes the real nature of the Wall Street tariff from the point of view of the working class. Only the Communist Party rep- | resents the interests of the working class, and in the coming congressional elections, when all the Wall Strect parties will attempt tb use the tariff as a vote-catching issue, the workers should register their hostility to these plund- | erers and their capitalist system by voting for | their own Communist candidates, at 26-28 Union “DAI Yor WORK.” a ! The Workers Answer South E general upsurge in the revolutionary movement throughout the world draws into the struggle ever greater numbers of the prole- tarian masses. Each fay brings fresh news about the struggle going on between the ex- ploited and exploiters, about this struggle ex- tending in scope about the most backward sec- tions of the working class rallying to it, and about the proletariat going over from the de- fensive to the offensive. The movement among the agricultural work- ers, evidenced lately in the S. W. Cape Pro- vince (South Africa), once again proves the general awakening of the exploited and op- pressed toiling masses. . Everywhere the agricultural workers are that section of the working class which is mostly cruelly exploited. Simultaneously, they are the least class-conscious and most backward strata of ‘the proletariat. In the colonial and semi-colonial countries the agri- cultural workers are in actual fact slaves or chattel slaves. They get miserably low wages for their heavy labors, lasting from early dawn until sunset. The white exploiting farm- ers in South Africa consider the black farm laborers employed by them to be their own property, however, treating them worse than their working cattle. The Negro agricultural workers in South Africa are leading a mis- erable, semi-starvation existence, without any hopes whatever for being able to emancipate themselves from serfdom under the present rule of imperialism. Heavy taxes, laws prohibiting them from going freely from place to place brutal pun- ishments and even corporal punishment for the slightest offense—such is the fate of mil- lions and millions of the South African land workers. The exploiters thought that by means of their brutal oppression they had succeeded in stamping out every desire in the hearts of the toilers for struggling to better their lives, and for complete liberation. However, the oppressors were mistaken. We are living today in the great age of revolu, tionaxy struggle. The proletariat and the op- pressed working masses, having been awakened from their long-age sleep, now took up the determined fight for theit liberation, for doing away forever with all exploitation and op- pression. The farm laborers of the Cape Province ys el a Sailu [2 Central Organ ot the Cosas MWorker Mate to the Boss: Agricultural Workers Strike in Africa | have now begun to organize, putting up cer- tain demands to the exploiting farmers, for bettering their working conditions and for in- creasing wages. They also demand that the farmers stop holding their laborers in a con- tinuous state of intoxication, and that an end be put to replacing by means of alcohol the lack of energy of the exhausted workers, Already from the very beginning the land workers are compelled to suffer from the vio- lent pressure brought to bear by the united front of the employers, the police, judges and white chauvinists. The farmers endeavored to disperse some of the meetings of the labor- ers by force; however, the latter put up due resistance and succeeded in defending their rights. And when it was decided by two of the farmers to fire some of their most active workers, they received a reply which, truly, they had little expected; all the wor! oc- eupied on their farms declared a sympathy strike. The strikers were subjected to ter- rible persecution. They, together with their families, were driven from the farms; and when they stopped at the nearest village, the police declared them to be vagabonds and com- pelled them to travel on. However, by means of police restriction it was not possible to pre- vent the movement of the land workers, and the struggle is developing and extending. The struggle of the farm laborers in the Cape Province is only the first step towards organizing the struggle throughout South Africa, It should be the task of the land workers to establish strong unions, and af- filiating with the Federation of Native Trade Unions, to wage the struggle hand in hand with all other class conscious proletarians of South Africa against the whole capitalist sys- tem. The International Conference of Negro work- ers, which will meet in London on July Ist, ill even to a greater degree strengthen the will of the millions of Negro toilers to strug- gle. The gonference will draw up a general program c? action and demands, and will in- dicate the path along which the Negro work- ing masses should tread in order to finally | overthrow the yoke of imperialism and abolish all capitalist exploitation, —Provisional International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers. mail everywhere: stian and Bronx, } Denounces Renegades Dear Comrades: I was mortified *on Saturday, May 17, to |. find that the renegales, Weisbord, Keller, Dawson and Co., using the name of “Unity Group National Textile Workers’ Union,” had signed my name to their leaflet which I un- derstand is being spread all over the country. The only connection 1 had with these scoun- drels was when Stephens, the cowardly rene- gade, former district organizer, came to my house on Sunday, May 11, and attempted to get me to join them. I refused and told them to leave, as I was loyal to the National Tex- tile Workers’ Union, the I, L. D. and the Com- munist Party. At the present time when the workers are becoming militant and ready to struggle, when the crisis is becoming acute and the war dan- ger, especially the danger of an attack upon the Soviet Union, is great, we find that these fakers, Weisbord, Keller, Rubenstein and Daw- | son, are consciously attempting to split the ranks of the workers. These individuals, when in office, showed that they were unfit to Ve leaders or trusted by the workers, Now they have shown themselves to be despicable traitors unfit to associate with class-conscious workers. When I found that they were using my name to fool the textile workers I went to the meet- ing, with the permission of my comrades, and denounced them. I want all workers to know that I am loyal to the working class and its leaders, the T. U. U. L. and the Communist | Party. Let us fight these scoundrels who have taken over the dirtiest work for the eapi- talist class and the -A. F. of L. fascists in at- tempting to disrupt the ranks of the workers. Long live the Trade Union Unity League and the National Texiile Workers’ Union! Long live the Communist International and the Communist Party, U. S. A.! Down with the Lovestoneite renegade who | are attempting to disrupt our ranks! M J. FELCZAR, SUBSCRIPTION RATES: je year $6; six m ew York City, an : (wo months-$1; excepting Boroughs of ». whieh are: One year $8; six months $4.50 By H. KORETZ. HE articles that have appeared in the May 7 isswes of the Daily Worker and the Morning Freiheit constitute, in the main, except a few incorrect assertions, the first real attempt for a searching analysis of what is wrong with the Needle Trades Industrial Union. There were attempts at criticism made in the past, under the old Lovestone right wing regime, but these were designed to cover up the op- portunist line pursued by the leadership rather than to clarify the mistakes committed and hammer out a clear cut policy for a militant left wing union. The mere mention of names in parenthesis as responsible for such mistakes has aroused bitter animosities and was looked upon as a mere factional maneuver for the sole purpose to discredit them in the eyes of the mas: No wonder the Lovestone renegades are so panic stricken and yell murder: “What will the yellow Forward and the ‘impartial’ Tam- many organ, the Day, say?” Communists, rev- olutionists, have no intertsts of their own, but that of the working masses. Consequently we want them and only them be the sole judges of our past mistakes. “The mas instinct,” Lenin said, and we can very well depend upon them, provided they are given the proper leadership. We are not at all con- cerned what the social-fascists of the Forward and the A.F.L. will say about our mistake: The question we are to ask ourselves is thi Does the policy projected lay the basis for the building up of the Industrial Union, that is to lead the thousands of needle trades workers into struggle or not? Anyone attempting to switch the discussion from ‘this line and concentrate only on one or two points of the article, which taken by them- selves are meaningless, will either show ignor- ance and unprincipledness or will work con- sciously in alliance with the right wing Love- stone opposition in our union whose policies mean capitulation before difficulties, giving up of our union and leading back the masses into the camp of the enemy. A thorough analysis of our past mistakes is the first prerequisite for a correct orienta- tion. Mistakes are not an accident and partic- ularly those mentioned in the article flow es sentially from a wrong analysis of the industry upon which our policies were based. Unless we recognize our mistakes, admit them, make the work understand them, all talk about a new orientation will amount to nothing. Some Costly Mistakes. The Joint Action Committee struggle of 1925 was the rallying point of the masses around the program of the Trade Union Educational League for the needle trades industry. The effects of the rationalization process of indus- try were already quite apparent. On the one hand, the enormous increase of output of pro- duction with a corresponding decrease of men power employed in the industry and on the other hand the perfection of the class collabo- ration policy by the corrupt socialist bureau- eracy with its wide network of arbitration schemes and governor’s commissions as a sub- stance for strikes, all these gave impetus to the growing revolt of the needle trades workers whose mood for struggle has reached the high- est point. The left wing program, organiza- tional as well as economic, was the only solu- tion for the needle trades workers and was accepted by them as such by an overwhelming majority. Philadelphia Convention First Debacle. wing which was on the verge of complete ani- hilation on one hand, and the underestimation of the fighting mood of the masses on the other hand, led to the first grave mistake— that of concluding peace with Sigman’s right wing clique at the Philadelphia convention. The bureaucrats of the various needle trades were shivering in their boots in face of the rising tide in favor of the left wing. Being in com- plete control of the most strategic local of the International comprising the majority of the membership there was no need for the left wing to reckon with the right wing. It had the absolute power to seal for good the faith of the old corrupt socialist leadership. Left Wing Fails to.Carry Out Its Program When in Power. Once in control over the New York Joint Boards of the Furriess, Cloakmakers and Dress- The imprisoned New York delegation elected at the March 6 unemployed demonstration of 110,000 workers, continues to take an. active interest and participation in the class struggle outside of their prison walls, in spite of the severe regime inflicted upon them. Following are extracts from a letter sent by I. Amter, a member of the delegation, to some comrades in one of the heavy industrial districts of the Party. “Was awfully glad to receive your letter and to know that you are on the job, You have a district with splendid possibilities of work—steel and coal. The objective conditions are hard, but if the organization is properly tuned up and put to work, there is no reason whatever why you should not progress ‘rapidly. From the Ranks. “The important thing is functionaries. De- velop them from the rank and file (I am speaking of both Party and League). Organ- ize the units in such manner and of such that each member cannot only be given work— a definite job—but be checked up. Assignment of tasks without control is bureaucratic. Have ' the nuclei and branches discuss the capabilities Overestimation of the strength of the right | ! es have an healthy revolutionary | | | The Needle Trades Under the Surgical Knife of Self-Criticism : call makers Unions as well as over the Chicago Joint Boards the left wing leadership made no attempt to immediately reorganize the organ- izations on the basis of the shgp delegates sys- tem and develop a campaign for actual amal- gamation, whereby we would have firmly en- trenched ourselves and made another attack by the bureaucracy more difficult. It was not done so, firstly, because the leadership thought it too early and had to wait till we get com- plete control over the natoinal apparatus; sec- ondly, because of the legal status (being afraid to come in clash with the G.E.B.) and thirdly which is the most significant, the harboring of illusions of possible cooperation with the “bet- ter” right wingers (election of Fish to the most strategic and important post of secretary-treas- urer in the J, B.). Strange as it may seem it was the arch- betrayer Sigman who seeing the new develop- ing trend in the industry, advanced the idea that there cannot be any reconcilliation between the right and the left. His statement to the committee of shop chairmen and that company unionism which was already then in the mak- ing was incompatible with the policies of the Trade Union Educational League. It was Sig- man who deliberately first capitulated to the Joint Action Committee only to gain a breath- ing spell, re-intrench himself and prepare after for a more vicious attack, for a life and death struggle with the left wing. Right Deeds Under a Left Cloak. Failure to overhaul the old rotten, obsolete apparatus resulted in the left wing following into the foot steps of the old bureaucracy. Methods of organization, methods of court de- fense, police collaboration was the inheritance from the old bureaucracy applied by the left wing leadership. It is exactly the same road that the socialists travelled. Started originally as the left wing of the A.F.L., they have em- barked upon a policy of graft and*corruption that eventually developed a maze of. graft scandals besmearing the entire labor ‘move- ment, such that had no parallel in any Euro- pean country. The issue of Shapiro, wrongly inserted in the article, is absolutely irrevelant in this case. What we are to establish and focus the attention of the membership upon is the fact that it is these practices that breed and produce corrupt elements. It is these prac- tices that create illusions among the masses about capitalist justice and dampens the class struggle. It is the essence of class collabora- tion. One mistake led to another and all of them, taken together, and defended, make a right wing opportunist line, All have their share of responsibility for the past, those who were the actual sponsors of such policies as well as those who offered slight resistance but have finally capitulated under the pretext that there is no use of fight- ing (this applies particularly to the writer). The Two Front Theory, On the basis of a wrong analysis the 1926 general cloak strike, presumably under the left wing leadership, has enriched us with the famous two-front theory to which the Love- stone opposition in our union still clings at this period. The essence of this theory. co1 sisted in the following: “We cannot fight Si man and the bosses at the same time. Thesi are two separate fronts of the struggle. The members will look upon it as mere politics,” ete. The truth of the matter was this: Sigman was the chief commander of the bosses against the cloakmakers. It was Sigman who had Bres- law and Feinberg open special “Real Estate Offices” for the purpose of supplying scabs. It was due to the manipulations of Sigman that the strike was prolonged to over twenty weeks and it was also due to him that the bosses fought so valiantly for the famous re- organization clause. Thanks to the stiff re- sistance of the cloakmakers and their bitter hatred for the right wing the outcome of the strike in spite of all the obstacles was under the circumstances a victory. Would the leader- ship have understood that it is in reality one front of the struggle, that to fight against the bosses means to fight Sigman at the same time, then the strike would have been settled in the early stages and the membership would have approved this course a hundred per cent. The result would have been that the second pogrom upon the Joint Board planned in ad-, vance would have been nipped in the bud. (To be continued.) A Letter from Prison of each member; decide what his task shoule be; make recommendations to the sections and district. In this way you will get functionaries that you never dreamed of. This is the basis of our future growth—without this there will be a dearth of functionaries—and without fune- tionaries, responsible for leadership, there will be no growth. “Tn the League you must begin at the be. ginning but with a good situation you | e| build up well, The same holds true of th Party. “We are here in prison and must remain until the appellate decision decides on the then perhaps we will get bail. Organize 'l. U. U. L. r “One thing more I want to add to the above —the main work is the trade union work— building up the miners ion, establishing the steel workers union, building up shop commit- tees everywhere. That is the main job of the whole Party and League and will be the center of discussion at the convention. The building up of the T.U.U.L., the establishment of shop committees and shop locals as the basis, make it possible to establish the Party and League in the shops—our main task. Every contact must be cultivated, for the workers who come to us today are militants who will help to build up, “Give my regards to everybody.” |