The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 7, 1930, Page 1

Flint Auto Workers Rally Against the Bosses’ Company Union Six Negro Workers Murdered in Alabama Over the Week End Shows What the White Bosses Will Do to Keep Their Slaves; Negroes and White Work- "ers! This is a Common Struggle! Organize Joint Defense Corps! —— = Vol. VIL, No. 162 Publisheo dally Company ine, except Sunday by The Comp 7 20-26 Union Sauare. New York City. N ¥.GE D1 VA ee) SUBSCRIPTION RATE and Bronx, New York FINAL CITY EDITION Clty and foreign countries, tMPre $5 9 year, UNEMPLOYMENT Stand Fast in Flint! HE Flint auto strikers, heroically fighting cuts in an already low and often-cut Wage scale, have bravely resisted the open attacks of the bosses and the bossge” police. Twenty-eight strike leaders are in jail for activity on the picket line. The struggle must go forward to a victory for the strikers. But the open, frontal attack of the bosses and police is only one form of the strategy of the auto bosses. Another is the planting of agents of the bosses inside the strike leadership—a very.common trick used by bosses, especially where the workers are just organizing, a trick to @emoralize strikes and betray the strikers by planting clever-tongued ‘spies whom the bosses keep in the factories for just such emergencies, to come forward as leaders—but always to mislead the strike and betray it. Clearly, this has been done in Flint. The capitalist press has been for days playing up a strike leader named Comstock, whose actions obviously certify the conclusion that he supports the bosses under the mask of being a “strike leader.” The Daily Worker warned in the beginning against traitorous “leaders,” and advised the election by the rank and file of the strikers of their own Strike Committee, which is the policy of the Auto Work- ers’ Union, whose leadership has been tested in other struggles, whose policy is the only policy that will win. The Daily Worker warns the strikers that any support to Com- stock and the Comstock policy is a direct aid to the bosses, a blow at their own strike. Comstock, aided by a clique of A. F. of L. (against whom we syarned at the beginning), aided by the police and praised by the bosses’ press, is forming a company union and attacking the “reds.” This is the old game of stool-pigeons in every such strike. Flint strikers! It was the “reds” who first helped you organize your strike, who have gone to jail and been beaten up by your enemies! The cry about “outsiders” is an old game. The bosses are “insiders,” the stool-pigeons are “insiders’—but they are your enemies! Cries about “reds” and “outsiders” are demagogic bunk. A company union will help the company, not the workers! Insist on big rank and file strike committees! Follow the policies of the Auto Workers’ Union! Those who fight against such policies are fighting against the strike! Stand firmly for strict workers’ con- trol of the strike and the union. Throw out the traitors who stand for a company union! Back your demands with mass picketing and above all—spread the strike! “Don’t Do It So Openly!” is for kids, especially, though it is not a bedtime story, and lots of grown-ups might learn something by listening in. Here goes, It was not a “long, long time ago,” but only Friday, when a ‘woman worker came in and told us on the Daily Worker, the following: “The cops were bestial and merciless. Without being provoked, they piled out of their wagon, and without questioning, began slugging a tall Negro worker, who was looking on. A few Negro workers who came over to protest were also se@ upon with the ferocity of wild beasts. One cop kept telling the,others, ‘Take it easy!» Don’t do it 80 openly!” i This is the story of what happened after the massed and march- ing workers had passed, the story of how the cops, who being too eow- ardly to attack the marching masses, skulked along in the wake of the marchers like hyennas, ganging up on a single individual worker and clubbing him savagely just out of wanton cussedness. Well, no, we won't say it is “wanton,” because that would mean that it was careless or thoughtless; when as a matter of fact the club- bing of this Negro worker, whose name could not be learned, was deliberate. The cops were acting under orders, the orders being—not written or official, but passed along—to not attack the demonstration Fri- day at the funeral of Gonzalo Gonzalez, whom the cops murdered Monday night, but to “get” workers who got isolated from the mass, just to let the workers know that the cops were continuing their terror- ist violence—that the workers had “better watch out.” This happened at 117th St. and Fifth Ave., 25 cops driving up where scattered workers were standing around peacefully and all leap- ing out to do the dirty work they are paid for doing. . These are the “protectors of civilization,” the “guardians of the people”! Rats! They are the protectors of the bosses and the guar- dians of the bosses’ government! There is a lot of boloney being peddled to make a pretense that the police exist for doing “kind deeds.” For instance (and the kids are asked to notice this), Police Com- missioner Mulrooney has announced that the cops are going to take up 2 collection to pay for “outings for poor children.” The regular flat-feet are to give “voluntarily” $1.50 each, police lie smants $4, and so on up—perhaps proportionately to the way the gr is divided for protecting bootleggers and guarding houses of > Mulrooney says that this is the “wish” of the policemen the strain among the city’s poor caused by the unemploy- situation.” 30 is, in spite of Hoover, a “situation” in unemployment! xd the “gentle, kind and courteous” cops are going to fork up to « elieve the strain on the poor.” Like hell they are! Mulrooney gives the game away when he adds that this trick is pulled off to “strengthen the cordial relations now existing between the police and the people of N. ¥.-City.” The cops who murdered Steve Katovis, Alfred Levy and Gonzalo Gonzalez, who battered heads of workers with fiendish glee on March 6, who lurk like cowards around workers’ demonstrations to gang-up on isolated workers, are putting on angel wings and going to give workers’ kids an outing, even go along with them to strengthen the “cordial relations” of the police and their victims. It is the same hypocritical sham as the cop who urged his pals, “Don’t do it so openly!” While the adult workers should get busy organizing Workers De- fense Corps to prevent these murderers from “doing it” either openly or in hiding, the working class kids of New York, we imagine, ought to say something and do something. Of course the supposed “outings” will not amount to much any- how, but if any working class kids get into this outing business by i boys or girls, they should remember the martyrs to their class, denounce the murderers, “do it openly” and tell them: “Give my dad work or wages and we'll take our own outin and imperialist tools will undoubt- UNION TRAITORS MEET "= It is noteworthy that one item on the agenda of this congress i8 re- ported to be a diseussio.. on the “po- STOCKHOLM, July 6.--The fifth | sition of the trade union movement triennial congress of the notorious social-fascist’ Amsterdam Interna+ tional of Trade Unions will open its in countries under political dicta- torship or where democratic methods session on Monday in Stockholm, Meeting at a time of grow- of government are non-existent.” The function of this itent is clearly to provide the delegates with an ex- -wide economic crisis, un-| cuse to attack the trade union move- nt, colonial revolts and in-| ment in the Soviet Union and to n whitewash the treacherous social- fascist unions in the colonies, such | glib promises of no wage cuts. (They | ‘SOCIALIST LABOR) AEL. TRYING TO [SPLIT STRIKERS Aid Flint Bosses’ Spy Attack on Picketing and for Surrender Strikers Must Control Follow Auto Union and Renew Struggle Today | FLINT, Mich., July 6.—Wholesale arrests by local police and state troopers having failed entirely to break the resistance or stop the great mass picket demonstrations of | Flint auto workers, the Fisher Body Co. has now tried the old familiar tactic of having a spy it placed in the strike committee organize a com- pany union and try to split up the ranks of the workers and lead part of them back to the job. Cecil Comstock, a member of the committee who, has for some days been mysteriously prominent in the | capitalist press as an (unauthorized) spokesman of the strikers, has come out into the open with the formation of what he calls “The Auto Workers’ Association.” He is followed by a few more of the large strike com- mittee, and hopes to win over enough of the strikers to the new organiza- tion’s program of surrender to break the strike. | Comstock» has already promised Chief of Police Scavadra that ‘the men will abandon mass picketing. His organization will betray the strike committee and the workers who elected it with a proposition to go back to work on the old basis, | pretending to believe the companp’ When the SLAUGHTERING — NEGRO FAMILY Desperate Resistance; Sheriff Leads Killers BULLETIN The governor of Alabama has one producing dead or alive any | of the remaining three living members of the doomed Robert- do not even promise to revoke the} son family. Four state law en- wage cut already put in force,| forcement officers have arrived though this is a breach of the Mor-| in Emelle to direct the killing out gan outfit’s promise made to the| of this family. world at the time of the Hoover * business conference that there would be no cuts at all during the crisis.) Comstock’s action has the whole- hearted support of the loca] Amer- ican Federation of Labor leaders and of the Socialist Labor Party fakers here. Part of his campaign is di- recte1 against the “outside leaders,”| murdered. that is, the Auto Workers’ Union, iam pea which led in organizing the strikers! EMELLE, Ala., July 6.—-A delih- when they first came out, called on| eTate attempt to wipe out of exis- them to build a rank and file strike | tence the whole Robertson (by some committee to lead the strike and| Called Robinson) family is under whose leaders, Philip Raymond and| Way here. The Robertsons are Ne- Bill Sroka and 26 others are stil! ! STO held in jail after they were arrested Which Charley Marrs is overseer. for the mass picketing Wednesday | As the result of an attempt of a and Thursday last week. Comstock | white storekeeper, Clarence Boyd, to| tries to prejudice these workers and make Fsau Robertson pay twice for encourages the authorities by a|@ dry cell battery he had bought, “Red drive” of his own. | Esau has been lynched, his uncle; The Auto Workers’ Union today | John Robertson, killed and John’s} issued a statement calling on the | house burned, with two other Ne- workers to elect a broader and more! Toes dying in the flames; Esau’s| representative strike committee to| father, Tom, has been badly wounded | mobilize in full force for mass pick- | and with another son, Oliver, is be- | eting Monday, when the Fisher Body|ing hunted over the Mississippi plant will try to reopen again after|Swamps by lynch gangs led oy being closed Friday and Saturday,| Sheriff Will T. Scales of Sumter and to stand fast for the strikers’) County. own demands: recognition of the| The Robertson family defended shop committees, improved sanitary | themselves bravely and in the fight-| conditions, against wage cuts, and|ing wounded “larence Boyd, killed | for a minimum hourly wage for men| his uncle, Grover, also killed Marrs | of $1.15 per hour and 75 cents for and wounded a plantation owner, women, with a minimum daily wage | named Jim Ayres. when there is not enough piece work| Grover Boyd suddenly opened fire to go around. from his auto and wounded Tom * - EMELLE, Ala., July 6.—Today lynch gangs killed two more Negroes. One, Mrs. Eyer was simply shot out of hand as she was riding with her hushand. The other, unidentified, was chased inta a house ten miles away and ALA. LYNCHERS | offered a $300 reward for any- | ro workers on the plantation of | CONVENTION FORMS N War Lord Hears Flint Workers Fight His Wage Cut Crane Gloats Over Jobless Leaders’ Term NEW YORK.—District Attorney |Crane yesterday naively exposed |what the capitalists have been try- jing to hide. He permitted himself to do a little war dance over his cess in railroading to jail, | without trial by jury, the elected | representatives of the March 6 j employment Demonstrators in New | York, and thereby indicated how | very much worried the bosses are jover the fact that the jobless are wages. | Crane said in his official pros cutor’s report for the first months of his administration: “The conviction of Foster and the other reds was basic. If a man| commits murder, it is a motive that moves from himself. It may not) exist in the person of anybody else. | But if a man incites a crowd to | violation of the law, and for that | reason-the law will be broken, he | lis putting the spade right under | the roots of the tree.” Robertson. One of the Negroes shot back and killed Grover. Then Oliver assisted the wounded father, | Tom, to escape to the swamps. Esau given no chance. He was arrested by the deputies and lynchers who gathered quickly and his bullet- riddled body was found hanging to a tree the next morning. Sheriff Scales, immediately on his arrival in Emelle organized a posse | and attacked with rifles the home | of John Robertson. Negroes within defended themselves with shotguns, ence Boyd and. Ayres were shot. Sumter County has a large per- centage of Negro workers and ten- ant. farmers, living in practical slavery, kept subdued by lynch tac- ties and other white terror, robbed both by their employers and by the white merchant class. They feel that the limit of endurance has been reached, organizing to fight for work or| tant labor organ stayed to explain matters, but was | and it was here that Marrs, Clar-| WOLL AND FISH START SESSIONS HERE, JULY 15TH | | Have Heard the : Reds’ | Fight Wage Cuts | WASHIN D. C., July 6.— Representative Hamilton Fish of New York, head of the congressional committee now leading an attack in the form of an “investigation” upon the Communist rty and all mili- announced today that he would start sessions | of the committee in New York on| | July 15. The New Yo are supposed to last ten after which the committee is ve on to Detroit, Chicago and| points west. It seems someone told Fish that there were a lot of Com-| munists there, too. Fish stated that his good friend, Matthew Woll, vice-president of the strike-breaking National Civic Fed. eration and of the A. F. of L., would tell us about how the “Reds led| strikes in the garment and shoe in- dustries.” Fish, in fact, character- ized Woll as his “star witness.”- An- other witness Fish expects to have cuss out the Communists is a certain ex-commissioner of police and pres- enc manager in Wanamaker’s, named Grover Whalen. Whalen is the man who made the grand fiasco with the forged “Russian documents” re-} cently. Fish will try to find out how the} Daily Worker continues to expose | his bosses’ misdeeds, and also if| something can’t be done to stop the workers’ children from turning | Communist—and sometimes convert- | ing the old folks, too. He will summon the Amtorg heads for investigation. 72 Miners Killed in Two Months. LUZERNE, Pa., July 6,—Thirty- | | three miners died for their bosses’ | profit in the anthracite diggings ATIONAL C AT LEAST ; League and the temporary national | . +; | organization of the unemployed set , CENTER VOTE INTENSIFIED DRIVE TO ORGANIZE JOBLESS Elect Executive Comm. and Resident Bureau; Call New Convention to Meet in October “Labor Day’ To Be Unemployment Day Throughout the Country; Police Terror Fails |Lovestone and Fascist Fish in Same Box The press yesterday CHICAGO, IIL, July 6.—Organization of a national center to organize the millions of unemployed workers in America, election of a national executive committee of the organized un- employed councils, setting aside “Labor Day,” Sept. 1, as Na- tional Unemployment Day, and a decision to hold another na- tional convention on unemploy-®— ment in October were the main 'B PRESS AND results yesterday of a crowded} we 35 day of work by the first Na-| tional Convention of Unem- PENEGARES HAVE ployment ever held in America. | dt VLU iw The convention resolved that the } organization of the unemployed i onl fn was the main immediate task at a | UL ¥u present. They are organizing for a as struggle for relief and insurance to| mates be paid for by the government through taxes on profits and in- heritances or out of city and state treasuries, all this insurance and) relief to be administered by the| capitalist organizations of the unemployed. | features an Associat They demand and unite with the| patch stating that t organized workers for that -pur-| organ of the Comm pose, a seven hour day and five day|the ‘Soviet Union, week, and no speed up to make| article concerning the more unemployment. | economic ¢: in the U A real program of constant | and the tasks of the struggle and building of the coun-| party of the U. S. A. cils of the unemployed was adopte = 4 While workers should alwz eva convention: | with suspicion on what the The convention met at the call of atist press gives as quotations from the preliminary national confer-| any Communist paper or leader, and |ence held in New York March 29,| should especially note that’ the and of the Trade Union Unity|«playing up” the Pravda at | whipping up the ant’ a background for the stigation” and with it des to furnish propaganda agains up at the first national corferenc: It met the day after the jobles: delegates from out of town and| some 11,000 unemployed and work-| Communist Party and the ers of Chicago had been slugged,| Union, yet some of the quot charged into, and broken up by the| are healthy refutations of the blah- Chicago police force when the work-| high of Hoover about “prosperity.” ers demonstrated in Union Park. Yesterday afternoon the creden- tials committee reported 1120 dele- gates present at Ashland Auditor- ium, with approximately 500 others | present and not yet registered. It is known that a considerable num- ber, delayed on the way, came in after the report was made. The convention opened at 11 a. m. with Nels Kjar, well known Trade Union Unity League member of Chicago district in the chair. A presidium (convention committee) of nine members was elected from the floor to take charge of all ar- rangements, To the presidium, amidst mighty cheers from the huge | convention, were elected as honor- ary members: William Z. Foster, Israel Amter, and Robert Minor, members of the elected represen- tatives of the March 6 unemploy- ment demonstrators in New York. These workers, with Harry Ray- mond, another member of the March 6 committee are held on three year terms in a New York prison. The capitalist press can not deny the “Pravda” statement that “al- most one-third of America’s army of 30,000,000 proletarians are left without employment,” that “in cer- tain branches of industry wages have been reduced by 40 per cent,” that “millions of farmers are ruined,” and that as a consequence —“The organization of a counter- attack by the laboring classes against the capjtalists is one of the leading problems of the Communist Party.” The capitalist press, of course, gives only what quotations suit its class purpose, but it is true that the Communist Party of the United States—“must emphasize the urgent necessities of the workers and unite them in their revolutionary struggle, this mobilization should be based upon the full social insur- ance of all workers.” It is also true that the Commu- nist Party of the U. S, A. “must strengthen its nuclei organization in | during May, and 89 in April, the state labor department announces. Scenes from the Mass Demonstration at the Gonzalez Funeral, July 4; Workers! Continue the Fight! (Left): One view of the trem of the numerous placards carried in the demoustiution. Negro and white workers carried endous procession, (Above): One (Right): this placard ae thousands of Negro workese ~ctahed the den ynstration, Bill Dunne, reporting for the «Continued on Page Three) the factories” in which it is at (Continued on Page Three.) 7 1