The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 27, 1930, Page 4

—— Published by the Comprodaily Publishing Cog Inc, @aily excent Sunday, at 26 28 Unt Page Four Souare. New York . ¥. Telephone Btuyvesant 1696-7-8. Cat DALWOR Adarese and mail a ks to the Daily Worker. 26-28 Union Suuate York, N.Y. TWO CONVENTIONS roe cs By TOM JOHNSON, HE Alabama State Feders ed its 28th annual conve Ala. on May The Tr League will call to ort ference in Ch will be interesting t of the State Federation results with the conferer Unity League. The Birmingham labor sheet supreme, ¢ tion as the State Fed ion since convention lasted fror ) the morning of May 15. E “Labor. Advocate” nothing v Almost the entire spent in squabble dent Hur: of “borrowing $1,000 printing concerns in th ate knowledge of the other Fede This pair of worthy thieves were out by the convention. Their “Good Friend.” The convention was opened by the pre: of the Tuscaloosa Central Body, who pror turned the chair over to a “good friend” of labor in the person of Norfleet Harris, the president of the Tuscaloosa City Commi: sion! The next speaker was another “good friend of labor,” ex-Governor William W. Bran- don. The present Governor of Alabama, Col. Bibb Graves, was invited but failed to put in an appeafance until the second day of the con- vention, when he, too, spoke. This is the same Graves who in 1920 commanded the State Mil- itia which succeeded after a bitter struggle and after the murder of several miners, in smash- ing the 1920 coal miners strike in Alabama. The credentials committee reported the sec- ond day of the convention and the fight started. In the first place some of the more naive delegates were opposed to the seating of the delegation of the Mobile Street Carmens Union on the ground that this organization had last year built a new hall and headquarters with non-union labor. This matter was finally re- ferred to the national headquarters of the A. FE. of L. at Washington. Bill Green promptly wired the convention that such a little thing as one A. F. of L. union scabbing on another should under no circumstances cause the un- seating of delegates, and the Mobile delegates resumed their places in the convention. The second fight centered around the person of one J. L. Clemo, former Secretary of Dis- trict 20 (Alabama) of the United Mine Work- ers of America. Mr. Clemo, with the able as- sistance of Van Bitner, of West Virginia fame, sold out the 1920 strike of the miners. This no one disputes. Since this time it has been common knowledge that Clemo is on the pay roll of the Alabama coal operators, ready to smash any new efforts of the miners to organ- ize. Clemo showed up at the convention rep- resenting himself as a “delegate” from District 20 of the U.M.W.A. In the credentials com- Negro Masses 72S appeal of the Provisional Committee call- ing an International Negro Labor Confer- ence in London in July, is finding a warm response among the workers in South Africa. The South African Federation of Non-Eu- ropean Trade Unions has issued a call for a Conference to be held in Johannesburg on Sun- day, May 18. The call is addressed to all the South African Negro organizations, to the af- filiated organizations of the S. A. Federation of Non-European Trade Unions, as well as to all workers in the mines, factories and on the land. It is hoped in this way to reach, not’ only the organized workers, but also the unor- ganized and particlarly the miners, who are living in compounds under almost unbearable conditions. The main purpose of the Congress will be to discuss the question of the International Negro Labor Conference and to secure the proper delegation. The Agenda also includes various questions appertaining to the conditions of life and work of the natives in South Africa. The Conference will discuss the question of a struy- gue against imperialism in the light of the economic crisis, and the struggle for the estal- lishment of the Native Black Republic of city and land owners. The Conference will also consider various bills now pending in Parliament, which are di- rected against the Labor movement of the | metal, mining. several facts were revealec tee Clemo was expelled from the l h 20 sell out. Second th ere is not of the U.M.W.A. in Alabama to- no distri ion to send Clemo t organiza delegate. Third that it is common know- edge that Clemo is a labor spy. After these facts had heen aired the convention voted to | seat Clemo! Jim Crow. The convention was made up of some 275 delegates. Of these 20 were Negroes from the Longshoremens Union and a couple from locals of the Plasterers Union. Some 10 women were present. The Negro delegates were of course segregated from the others in Jim Crow fashion. The delegates present were almost ex- clusively from the highly skilled trades. The textile workers had a negligible delegation. There was not one delegate to represent th 20 odd thousand steel the state Not one to r ent the thousands of coal and metal miner: n other word it was a typical L. convention, workers in ALF The convention had not one word to say about the recent wave of lynchir that has swept the South. Not one word to say about the terrible social and political oppression of, the Negro workers. From start to finish it wa: a Jim Crow convention. to the organization of the unorganized workers, the keynote of the convention was sounded by Paul Smith, one of the worst scoun- drels in the entire labor movement and at pres- ent chairman of the Southern organization campaign of the A. F. of L. in his speech on the results of the the campaign. Smith said: “We have come here on the invitation of the Southern workers (read bosses—T.J.) to help them. We realize that we must help the em- ployers of labor if the workers are to be ben- efitted and we are anxious to be of assist- ance. ... We have made considerable headway in our organization campaigh, but the em- ployers, some of them at least, are unfavorable to us, though why I don’t know.” Such was the convention of the Alabama State Federa- tion of Labor. Quite Another Matter. The coming Southern Conference of the Trade Union Unity League will be quite anoth- er matter. There will be no ex-Governors or present governors with the blood of working class victims still on their hands, to welcome this conference. This will be a conference of workers, direct from the bench and the face in the mines. The largest delegation will be from textile, next will come metal, and after The overwhelming majority of the delegates will be Negroes. Far from being welcomed by the bosses and high officials of the state, the T.U.U.L. Con- ference will meet in an atmosphere of raging white terror. It may be broken up by the police. It may have to meet underground. But it will meet end lay the basis for the building up the revolutionary unions into the mass or- ganizations of the Negro and white workers of | the South. in South Africa country, and particularly the so-called Anti- Riot Bill, which will establish an open Fas- cist Dictatorship, by giving the Minister the right of prohibiting meetings, publications and of deporting without trial any workers from the province or from the country. It is expected that the Conference on May 18 will be well attended, since the sharpening economic cris s bringing in its wake much suffering to the native toiling population, which works at wages averaging nine shillings a week and a still smaller pay for the land work- ers. The. native in South Africa is deprived of all social, economic and political equality, and even the churches do not permit the at- tendance of natives in the churches jointly with the white population. There is a growing dis- satisfaction among the natives, which express- es itself in the recent uprisings in Durban, Worcester and other places. The South African Delegation will expose ell these conditions before the International Ne- gro Labor Conference. The South African na- tives are glad to have the opportunity of meet- ing the oppressed Negroes of America, Haiti, French Equatorial Africa and all other coun- tries, in order that all the forces may be united in the struggle against imperialist oppression, and also that the Negroes may be able to unite their forces in the struggle of other colonial People and with the workers in the capitalist ‘countries. “When Thieves Fall Out...” eee thieves fall out,” the old runs, and has a new application in the fight between the Lewis gang in the United Mine Workers of America, and the Howat- Fishwick-Farrington crowd. Lewis, headqua ters in Indianapolis, and his rivals, headquar- ters in Springfield, Ill, have fallen out so completely that they have organized gunmen and espionage systems on each other. Both are experts in stealing elections and other things, and both are for the coal operators— different groups of operators, which is the main reason for their falling out. Where Power Lies. A Lewis victory is the securing, by what means your correspondent knoweth not, but has a pretty good suspicion, of a letter signed in Frank Farrington’s own inimitable hand- writing which now appears plastered over two pages of Lewis’ official organ, the United Mine Workers’ Journal. Farrington is, a for- mer president of District 12 of the U. M. W., who, in 1926, was caught taking $25,000 a year from the Peabody Coal Co. He admits it, but such are the ways of thieves, that now “he is the power behind the throne in the Howat-Fishwick “Reorganized U. M. W.” The letter shows that this Peabody Coal Co. agent was the real originator of the “reor- nized U. M. W.” and had to club Fishwick into line. One paragraph is amusing: “I regret to advise that a large part of the Tllinois miners, particularly those in Franklin County and the Peoria District have no con- fidence in Fishwick and are rebelling against his leadership. He, in turn, isso vain and egotistical, I think there is little difference between he and Lewis in that respect, that saying | he will not be guided by the advice of, nor openly accept the aid, of anyone. In fact when Judge Jones rendered his decision, Fishwick told Ameringer that he knew he would win the decision because God was with him and all wof the churches had been praying for his suc- ce Ameringer told him that he thought ‘arrington had rendered him greater aid than God.” With the S. P, In It. Ameringer, it may be mentioned, is a so- cialist party man, editor of the Illinois Min- er, the Fishwick official organ. The letter has a postscript on the back, in handwriting, which says in part: “Since this was dictated, there has been a complete change in policy due to a meeting with Fishwick that lasted nearly all of last night. In fact up to last night Fishwick had no policy for the future. He has finally ad- mitted he needs help. I am going to Frank- lin County at once to try and line up the men for the district” (i. ¢., for the “Reorganized Union”). “A district convention will be called... .” It was, and after a flurry, Farrington stayed in, with Howat the new president, and Fishwick still running the Illinois district, as much as Peabody Farring- ton would let him. The miners have nothing to gain from either of these cliques of fakers. They have a union, a real union, the National Miners’ Union, The Deily Werker is the Varty's hest. instrament to make contacts among ite masses of workers, to Luild a inass Communist Party. little | Central Or: By GILBERT LEWIS. the convention of the Party to be held n June many questions in relation to our work in the South will have to be taken up and given serious consideration. For instance, the gap between our ideological influence and organizational results must be overcome. The convention will have to take up and find out the reason for this. Down here the workers are radicalized, they are prepared for struggle. They listen to and agree without program— even the most backward white worker is will- ing to accept our program on Negro equality, agree with us that the Negro and white work- ers must be organized together. Yet our or- ganizational gains have not been commensurate with this degree of radicalization. Not An Experiment. Let us analyze the situation and see if we can find out some of the reasons for this. The recent Plenum of our Party pointed out that no longer must the South be regarder as a sort of experimental laboratory but serious and sustained attention must be given to the work here. In many things the decision has been put into effect. The tour system (where an organizer would get into a town, get a numbe of workers together, call a meeting and form 2 nucleus only to return in a few weeks to find “that it had disappeared), which greatly af- feeted organizational results, has been over- come. Our comrades are fast coming to real- ize that Southern workers with practically no experience ins the labor movement and many of them never before having heard of a revo- lutionary Party, cannot be expected to carry on Iong in the absence of competent leadership It will be sometime yet before we can form nuclei after one of two meetings with workers and coime back weeks later and find them functioning. (In Atlanta, a nucleus so formed, wrote in later to ask the Party to reconsider its stand on the Negro question. When this was not done the organizer resigned and the nucleus was practically dissolved), Also the comrades in the North are over- coming what might well be termed a geographi- cal attitude in regard to the South. They are gradually, bet by no means rapidly enough, coming to realize that the South is not an isolated section of American capitalism and that the semi-feudal repressive measures now being utilized in Georgia (Powers-Carr case) and other parts of the South (lynching and burning of Negro and white workers) will, if not severely resisted, rapidly spread to other sections of the country. ‘silures on May Day. ed itself in our At a time when This geographicalnees expr preparations for May Day, May Day mectings, because the existing repres- | sive measures, should have been held in every city in the South, only two can be recorded, one in Rome and one in Chattanooga. If the Central Committee truly understood the situa- tion, it should have drained itself of forces to hold meetings in at least all of the big political { centers of the South, and particularly in At- lanta. This failure to hold a meeting in the city which is taking the lead in the effortto drive our Party Into illegality, where two and | by now probably six more), of our comrgdes are facing death in the electric chair and a South, was a decided setback for our Party. In this connection it should be pointed out that organizers should at all times, give in ac- curate reports on which the C.C. may base its estimate of Party forces in a district. For no doubt in the case of Atlanta, the C.C., on city which is incidentally the Wall St. of the | jreeceset S Baily Ls Worker | eng not the Commuaist Variy gf the US. As | Sor SOVIET | eu Ry mail everywhere: One year $0; Machstian and Bronx. New York City, and foreign, which ar JBSCRIPTION RATES: months $3; s two months $1; e; One vear $8; six months $4.60 excepting Boroughs - By FRED ELLIS | Our Tasks in the South the basis of reports given at the Plenumas to the Party units and the Left Wing Wor men’s Circle group, was counting on something it did not have. What was actually there can be judged best by the fact that the Party unit no longer actually functions and the Left Wing Workmen’s Circle crowd came down to City Hall on May Day with their water bills in their hands, In other things also does the dead hand of the past weigh heavily on the present. Lack of adequate organizational preparations for staging real fights still manifests itself. An American Negro Labor Congress meeting, call- ed in Atlanta to protest lynching, was held without any organizational preparations. It is not really true to say that the meeting was held, for all of the comrades connected with the meeting were in jail half an hour before the time scheduled for the meeting to open. Not the Way. The comrades must one of the means of vitalists do not in- tend to give up wi Any mass meeting in the South against lynch- ing, is going to be met with the sharpest re- sistance by the capitalists. Without organiza- tional preparations, mectings called to protest lynching can, and in many cases probably will, result in other lynchings. We must guard against this. In my opinion the national offiee of the A.N.L.C. made a mistake in specifically de- claring that there should be a Negro chairman of its Southern meetings. For while the A.N. L.C. is an organization voicing the specific racial demands of the Negro masses, on a class struggle basis, any fight against lynch- ing must be a united front affair, united front of Negro and white workers, and not only in the audience but as speakers, chairman, ete. Tn our mass work, in the building of the T.U.U.L. and revolutionary unions, much quiet determined work will be necessary in order to overcome the gap between ideological and or- ganizational strength. There must be less mass meetings and more group and shop gate meet! ings. We must raise the political conscience- ness of the workers in the shops. For this more shop papers must be built up. The work- ers are with us ideologically but have not quite reached that stage where they are willing to take hold on a.mass scale. We must over- come this, "Workers! Join the Party of Your Class! Ccmmunist Party U. S. A. 43 East 125th Street, New York City. I, the undersigned, want to join the Commu- Send me more information. nist Party. Name .... Address scccseseseccecomecces UtYocccscene Occupation ..ccccccccccccsceseres AQ@sseces Mail this to the Central Office, Communist Party, 43 East 125th St.. New York, N. Y, hout a determined struggle. j The Needle Trades Under the Surgical Knife of Self-Criticism By KORETZ. XACTLY two y after the expulsions, the Needle Trades Workers” Industrial Union was launched. Should we not ask ourselves why it took us fully two years to be con- vineed about the necessity of building a new industrial union? Is not this in itself proof of political blindness of a vacillating leader- ship? This exemplified “revolutionary lead- ership” was fully under the influence of the great leader, “Mr. Lovestone,” at the time. It was the “expert exponent” of Leninist strategy-—Mr, Lifshitz, who bitterly attacked the writer for insisting at a discussion meect- ing, that the launching of the National Ors ganization Committee, meant laying the base for a new union outside the A. F. of L. It was the same lieutenant of Lovestone, who in- sisted that the Los Angeles local does not withdraw from the I.L.G.W.U., even after the National Organization Committee was ized. H. organ- For two years we failed to amalgamate our own Joint Boards, (Furriers end Cloakmak- ers). Each one fighting its own battles, hav- ing separate offices, separate committee, sep- arate lawyer—a separate craft ideology. While at the same time the entire labor bureaucracy has united against us, by organizing the fa mous committee for the preservation of the labor unions. Unhampered by any outside force,’ we again failed to reorganize on the basis of the Shop Delegate System. We have failed to draw in the out-of-town centers into the struggle, most of them left wing locals, which instead of helping us, helped Sigman against us. For one year and a half, we maneuvered with the s ed Centrist Move- ments (Shelly, Sorkin, Winnick, ete.), with the result that the bulk of the membership re- mained outside both the right and left organ- izations. The masses said: “We are waiting till peace will be concluded, and one union established, then we will join.” Instead of mobilizing the masses for de- termined struggle we have mainly concen- trated on maneuvers on top, thus creating illu- sions among the masses of a possibility for reproachment. Instead of coming out to the masses with a clear cut statement about the absolute impossibility of building a union together with the right wing social fascists, I we, ourselves, were responsible for paralyzing the struggle. This was due to the fact that the leadership at the time, under the influ- ence of Lovestoneism, falsely calculated on | | differences between various cliques in the ma- chine, for a possibility to come together. (Failure to fight Shelly for his conferences with Dubinsky and for his endorsement of Schlesinger to the convention of the company union, while being a member of the National Organization Committee.) The Source of All These and Other Mistakes. The needle trades industry for the last de- cade has undergone a tremendous change. From a highly competitive industry it became more and-more centralized with finance capi- tal, gradually assuming major control. Stand- ardized prices, standardized styles, introduc- tion of new machinery, were on the order of the day. This rationalization of industry was quite apparent already in 1925. The right wing, whose darling creature is the class col- laboration policy, has never conducted a real{ struggle in the interests of the workers. How- ever, in the early stages, when the industry was still competitive, when they still could count on one group of manufacturers against the other, they gained some concessions for the workers even though the strikes were not stril in the real sense of the word, When, however, a small group of jobbers and chain stores became the real controlling factor in the industry, the socialist bureaucracy gave up any pretense of struggle entirely. Hence, the process of complete company unionization of the industry. The right wingers don’t need any more the workers. Decisions about strikes, taxes, etce., is being prearranged, first with the consent of the bosses. As a result of this the state power—the police, the courts, are openly cooperating with the social fascists because the latter served their masters, the bosses, Confronted with this formidable com- bination of the social fascist, the bosses and the state, the left wing could only come out. victorious if broad masses are involved in struggle. Individual str surprise general strikes, insufficient preparation for them, failure to draw in the unorganized into strug- gle, cannot help to build a militant industrial union. The Needle Trades Workers’ Industrial Union was born as a result of these changes in the indus The Needle Trades Workers’ Industrial Union was born to lead thousands upon thousands of exploited needle trades workers into struggle for better conditions. The Needle Trades Workers’ Industrial Union was born to give leadership to these masses. What it has accomplished, and what it has failed to do, the next article will deal ‘in. Shortcomings in Lower Party | Units By M. SILVER (District 3). HLLE there is an improvement in the fune- tioning of the Section Committees in Dis- trict 3, to the extent that they meet regularly and take up problems confronting them, the units still do not recognize the authority of the Section Committees, do not get individual guidance and are too dependent on the district. The Section Committee is more of an advisory board to the Section Organizer than a leading committee composed of comrades in charge of ifferent departments of the section, who par- ipate in the everyday work of their particu- departments. We can find many a unit Daily Worker representative or a unit Negro director who is better acquainted and participates in the campaigns of that pa lar department, than the section Daily Worker representative or Negro director, un is often the ¢: the section functiona a unit functionary of the same natur that event the comrade is actually a unit func- tionary and only carries the title of a section functiona District 3 will have to develop the sections to become real political leaders of their respec. tive territories. The units will have to go to their sections for instructions and guidance in- stead of to the district office. At present the units are still being nursed too much by the district office, with the result, therefore, that the district office does not give sufficient at- tention to the out of town sections, New Elements. We are at present involved in a reeruiting drive which is to further strengthen our Party and improve its social composition. The work- ers joining our Party today are not the type that have been at the fringe of our Party for a number of years, which elements will re- main traditional sympathizers but will go no further, The elements we are getting now are new as far as our movement is coneerned— Negroes, unskilled workers of basic industry, who have been attracted to our Party through the Party's participation in the class struggle. These workers, if retained, are the elements who will radically change the composition of the Party. The problem of keeping these new members is of utmost importance, The unit meetings, however, are conducted in such a manner that unless improved immediately we shall not be able to keep a great number of new members. We don’t have enough poli- tical life in the conduct of the meeting to ex- plain to the new members what it is all about, and the discussions are too “political.” To illustrate: At one of our unit meetings, the organizer reporting for the ecutive on the Daily Worker Campaign, Call to the Na- tional Convention of the Party and the J. L. D.; reported in the following manner: “The Executive has decided that every comrade must pay a dollar for a Convention Assess- ment Stamp, that every comrade must go out to collect money for the Daily Worker and that all members are instructe] to participate in the house to house collection this Sunday.” Using a few words like “plenum,’: “red Sun- day” at the meeting where 8 or 10 who joined the Party came down for the time to a Party meeting were siti waiting for an explanation of what money was needed for. wo x and all this Comrades claim that a report of this nature is necessary in order to be through with the business side in time for a discussion, The discussion which is held | oy later in the evening is conducted in such a manner that the new members do not get’ the meaning of seventy-five per cent of the words 1, besides the comrades who introduce the ussions are of ‘the opinion that they must speak from 40 minutes to an hour, which pre- vents even the old members from participat- ing in the discussion, due to the lateness of| the hour. Our unit meetings must be con-' | ducted in the following manner: Every discussion in the executive, must be followed by an explanation, why this decision was reached. Our comrades must get part of their political education in the every day work of our Party. Especially at unit meetings, our leading comrades must learn how to introduce a subject for discussion in 15 or 20 minutes which will result in having discussions at every unit meeting with a large number of members participating. Our unit organizers must learn to come to the meetings not only with military instructions given to the army, but the unit organizers must be the political leaders in their respective units. ik Their Language. Our at the present period of sharp- ened class struggles, attracting the most exploited sections of the working class. These workers, however, are not acquainted with our terminology. We must speak to them the Eng- lish that is being used by the ordinary work- er: _Th e not ready to take order from a unit organizer unless they know why these orders are given to them, Experience has shown that those units that have manage to keep the new members recruited in our las drive find them the most active participants i the life of the units as compared with the ol members—who are getting tired, stick to old traditions and have remnants of language federationism. The workers joining the Party at the present period, do so, not because the Party sponso umanitarian ideals, or culture, hut because it is a Party of struggle in the full sense of the word, and they will be ready to struggle provided we will manage to keep them in the Part Wer, i'd Five Year Plan in Four Years” LENINGRAD, (By) Mail).—3,000. scientific workers who heard a lecture by Lunacharsky on the role of technicians and specialists in the Reconstruction Period sent the following tele. gram to the Central Committee of the C. _“The engineers, technicians, agronomes, phy! sicians and scientifie workers of Leningrad it assembly here send their fiery greetings to the headquarters of the working class and pro- claim their readiness to stand with the prole- tariat and give without hesitation all their strength, knowledge and experience to the building of socialism, and to strain all their 's in order to carry out the Five-Year Ph n in four years; that they will carry on 3 ant struggle against all enemies of the We will etand in the ranks of the struggling proleta at to socialism from all the attacks of international capital, trying to crush soci ism with their crusades and fascist outbursts against the workers. “Long live the vanguard of the proletariat— the All Union Communist Party, Heil the world social revolution,” Eimear