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

SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By mail everywhere: Une year $6; six months $3; two months $1; excepting Boroughs of Manhattan and Bronx, New York City, and foreign, which are: One yr. $8; six mons. $4.50 Published by the Comprodaily Publishing Co., Inc., daily, except. Sunday, at 26-28 Union Page Four City, Y. Telephone Stuyvesant 1696-7-8. Cable: “DAIWORK.” checks to the Daily Worker. 26-28 Union Square. New York, N. z.. ~ FASCISM IN SOUTHERN , CALIFORNIA Daily, Worker Central Orga nist Porty U.S.A. BY BURGE. WHILE NINE MILLION STARVE! By FRANK SPECTOR. (One of the Imperial Valley Defend The ger hern C 26 and March 6, ms against une over 25,000 workers led Party and T.U.U.L. These were followed by a number of other demonstrations May 1, August 1, “An’ perialist War Day” and Sept. 1, in all of h large masses of workers took part. The Southern California notorious open- shop forces under the leadership of the Los ‘Angeles Chamber of Commerce recognizes in the growing activities and r influence of the C.P. a rev which threatens their very it of and exploited workers the bosses undertook a reign of terror, almost unparalled in other parts of the country, against their leaders, the C. P. and other militant working class organizations. The meeting halls and head- quarters of the C. P., T. U. U. L., industrial unions, I L. D. and cooperative are con- | stantly raided by specially subsidized “Red Squads” during which meetings are broken up, equipment wrecked and workers are beaten and jailed. At nearly every demon- stration the thousands of workers, men, wo- men and children are blackjacked, dispersed | by tear-bombs and many are thrown into jails. The already mentioned Imperial Valley struggle saw the revival of the vicious Crim- {nal Syndicalism Law aimed at driving under ground militant workers’ organizations. For mere “distribution of leaflets,” “blocking the sidewalk,” etc., workers are given 90 days and over. Two women workers are now serving 90 days for daring to defend them- selves against the clubs of the “Red Squad.” 15 workers received six months for participa- tion in March 6 demonstration and are about to begin to serve their sentences. The workers, however, are not docile. Every | demonstration, factory gate and indoor meet- | ing sees their determination to defend them- selves through the growing organization of | Workers’ Defense Corps. When brought to | courts the workers, guided by the I. L. D. select from among their midst competent militants who, alongside with I. L. D. law- yers, serve as political spokesmen for the toiling masses whose fellow-workers are on trial. Thus the March trial of 15 workers, the trial of five Y. C. L. workers, the February 26 and the Paris Commune cases were conducted along clear-cut, class against class lines, during which the right of work- ers to demonstrate, the right of workers to self-defense were made the chief issues. At these trials the workers exposed the vicious orders of the Chamber of Commerce direct- ing the police department to break up every Communist meeting—outdoor or indoor. ‘Three Imperial Valley prisone: C. Sklar, former C. P. section organizer; Tsuji Horiu- chi, a Japanese worker, former T. U. U. L. organizer, and Frank Spector, I. L. D. or- ganizer, were brought from Folsom and San Quentin to be tried among other workers in the February 26 and Paris Commune cases. In both cases Sklar and Spector were selected by their fellow-defendants to act as workers’ spokesmen. During the ensued trials the court room was daily packed by workers who fre- quently demonstrated on the streets their solidarity with the workers on trial. Through- out the entire cases Sklar and Spector con- stantly exposed the real role of the courts as instruments of the master class. They brought forth in the court room the class struggle in all of its strongest forms—un- employment, speed-up, wage cuts, exploitation of ‘women, youth and children, exploitation of Mexican and Oriental workers, race dis- crimination against Negroes and the lynching of black and white workers; war danger, the role of the Soviet Union; Communist Party; Trade Union Unity League and I. L. D., ete. In both cases they demanded a jury com- posed of industrial workers, Negro and Mexi- an workers, who comprize ‘the major part of the city’s population. They exposed the jury panels’ complete composition of para- sitic elements—retired bankers, real estate men and idle, rich women, etc. The entire’ atmosphere of these two trials was impreg- nated with militancy of the workers on trial and outside. There was the constant presence of heavy police guard which bespoke clearly the fear of the master class. Sklar, Spector and Horiuchi were daily brought to court in ‘ehains under a heavy guard. During the oral arguments of the defendants and the I. L. D. _ attorney, the court was packed with workers, “many of whom stood outside, unable to gain admission. The trial side of the room was filled with “higher-ups”—jolice commissioners, chamber of commerce men, judges of other ‘courts, lawyers, etc. While the I. L. D. attor- “mey confined himself, in the main, with the d in the case, Sklar and Spector in - speeches brought forward the class y power- | nist | such as | To | crush the growing revolt of the unemployed | is as part of the class and throwing class the chal- led by the jury, which y acquitted as to the ng the ju who the boss terror among t : d and read during Boss New Tactics. of the repetition of se cases already he therefore di them and orders removed from court to their. prisons. hen he added that an additional sentence harm” the two wor! “chances” with the parole board, his ypocrisy was immediately exposed by himself when at the demand of the I. L. D. attorney he refused to apply his decision to Horiuchi, who is also serving 42 years in Folsom. Sklar and Spector were not given a chance to reply because of their quick removal from the august presence of “his honor,” by guards. Horiuchi immediately demanded the right to take the place of his fellow-workers as the spokesman of the workers on trial. This was denied by the judge. The following day Horiuchi and another worker-defendant com- pelled the judge to permit their self-defense alongside with the I. L. D. attorney acting for the other four defendants. The Japanese worker then made a statement in which he characterized the dismissal of Sklar and Spector as attempts to muzzle the workers’ expression and thus more successfully accom- plish the railroading of the rest of the work- ers—defendants—to long jail terms. He de- manded the dismissal of the entire case and was supported in this by all others, through the I. L. D. attorney. This was promptly de- nied by the trial judge. He then proceeded in stopping all the efforts of the workers’ spokesmen to bring in the Class issues. As the new trial of the Paris Commune case was scheduled the following day in the same court, Spector, who with another de- fendant was charged with “battery” (in reality self-defense), was brought again into this court. When the case was called by the judge for re-setting, Spector availed himself of the present opportunity and made a statement exposing the action of the judge and demanding the dismissal of the Paris Commune case as one resulting from police terror. The judge replied by denial of the demand and by informing Spector that he dismisses the charges against him alone, giv- ing similar reasons as previously stated. When led out Spector threw into his face that by their actions he proves the éourts the faithful tool of the chamber of commerce. As the February 26 case trial proceeded the judge became more vicious against the defen- dants as well as the I. L. D. attorney. Later, upon the repeated effort of Horiuchi to ex- pose his hypocrisy, the judge was forced to dismiss the Japanese worker as well. His place was taken by another worker and the trial continued with the workers fighting for the right to bring into the case the elass issues underlying the cases where workers are brought to trial. Workers Will Continue Fight. The above described proves clearly the correctness of the policy of the revolutionary working class organizations, the Communist Party and the I. L. D. in exposing, right within the enemy’s camp, the true character of the capitalist courts as faithful servants of their masters. It also serves to shatter whatever illusions there may still linger in the minds of the workers as to the “justice” and “democracy” of which the liberals prattte. It likewise proved that the release of the class war prisoners can only be gotten by the organized mass pressure of the toiling masses. All the boss terror, through its police, its courts, its servants—the A. F. of L. buro- cracy and the socialist party, cannot stop the toiling masses in its struggle against fascist terror used by the bosses to crush the revolt of the workers by driving under- ground its militant leadership. The workers on the outside must give their mass support to their fellow-workers on trials by packing courtrooms during the trials and by organized demonstrations of solidarity, so that all the toilers in shops and factories, mills and fields receive the proper knowledge of the true role of class justice. The pending, at ‘the present time, appeal against the brutal sentences of 42 years for the now serving in San Quentin and Folsom, six Imperial Valley militants can be only made effective through nation-wide protests by the broad masses of workers. Only the mighty protests of the masses can compel the abolition of the vicious Criminal Syndi- calism Act and the release of the Imperial Valley prisoners. Only the organized mass pressure will save our six Atlanta, Ga., com- rades from the electric chair and will open the prison gates for Foster, Minor, Amter and Raymond and Mooney and Billings and all other class war prisoners. The I. L. D. is the most effective weapon in the hands of the masses for the defense of its militants. The I. L. D. constantly exposes the bosses’ sham justice and mobil- izes the working class for militant defense. Join and support the I. L. D.! Support the Unemployment Insurance Bill of the Communist Party which demands $25 | weekly relief for every unemployed worker and $5 extra for every dependent. Vote Communist! } Labor Unity Vanguard of the Workers’ Press By JOSEPH NORTH. William Randolph Hearst, multi-millionaire publisher, a high priest of American capital- ism and one of the “59,” prints 20,000,000 copies of his newspapers daily from coast to coast. The Associated Press and the United Press, as active in spreading falsehood for capitalism as the Jesuit Society for Catholicism, click off hundreds of miles of dispatches to more than 2,500 newspapers daily. And the Interna- tional News Service, owned by Hearst, runs the A. P. and U. P. ragged in pouring the Niagara of lies upon the hundreds of million American readers daily. Add to these brigades, the moron weeklies of the Américan Federation of Labor, the treacherous, liberal weeklies (Nation, New Re- public). the chain of Scripps-Howard papers which jog Green on to “organize the unor- ganized before the Reds” and the worker be- gins to get a picture of the forces of darkness in America. powerful news agencies and dailies, agitprop of the capitalist, are past-masters of propaganda. High paid technicians of false- hood, columnists (Brisbane, Broun, Tracy) grind out their stint of misinformation daily. Pornography disguised as news, the use of graphic illustrations, the liberal use of ex- pensive pictures, in addition to powerful cir- culation systems, bolster the capitalist news- structure. The advertising department of the news- paper is the executive committee of the capi- talist newspaper. The adve:‘ising department reveals the fiction of “free press.” The work- ers’ press cannot hope, except through most energetic, daily struggle to reach the masses in millions while the bosses feed their press fabulous sums of money in advertising. Free press exists in name only. The Role of the Revolutionary Press. The American worker, from coast to coast, is saying more and more, “You can’t believe all you read in the newspapers.” He is in- stinctively realizing the capitalist press is his { enemy. More and more the workers are seeking such papers as Labor Unity, the official organ of the Trade Union Unity League; the Daily Worker, and other organs of the class-con- scious strata of the proletariat. Of all the revolutionary press, Lator Unity, expressing the economic struggle of the work- ers, speaking to them on wage-cuts and speed-up, on organization, appeals most to the unorganized masses. It is the bridge-organ to political consciousness. From readers of La- , bor Unity must be recruited the readers of the Daily Worker. For from econorsic strug- gle grows political consciousness and struggle. , More and more the workers are seeking such a paper as Labor Unity. Daily such ex- pressions come to Labor Unity as the fol- lowing: “T am sure pleased with the last few issues of Labor Unity, especially the one of August 18, and am anxious for the coming issues,” writes a lumberjack from the state of Wash- ington. “We have read Labor Unity and want to get it steady. We are just waiting for something to pop off and want to join the T. U. U. L.,” writes a group of Mexican workers from Newell, S. D. From San Antonio, Texas, comes the following: “Labor Unity is a good paper. I would like to get all the subscribers I can.” These are indicative. A paper of the type of Labor Unity appeals to all strata of the working class. Its militant program and ex- pression appeals to all sections of the working class, especially the most exploited millions. A comrade tells of a Negro woman worker who upon reading Labor Unity for the first time declared, “Why, the whole world’s out on strike!” And because strike is and always has been the natural response of workers to brutal conditions, wage cuts, slavery, Labor Unity appeals to them instinctively. What Is To Be Done? The question is: “How are we going to get Labor Unity to the masses?” That is the problem, It can ‘be done if Mistakes In Our Trade Union Work ) By TOM JOHNSON. (Continued.) A classic example of the first method of work was given by the Textile Union in its work in the South, and, as far as I know, its work nationally. Under its former leader- ship the National Textile Workers’ Union fol- lowed a policy of building up paper districts of the union all over the country without plan, or, as far as one could see, purpose. The result was that the weak forces of the union were dissipated all over the country and the work in strategic centers suffered accordingly. In Georgia, for instance, an in- experienced comrade was sent into the field, paid a total wage and expense account averag- ing around $7 per week and instructed to build up a district of the union taking in the whole ‘state of Georgia. After months of work the net results were some five or six non-functioning mill committees scattered from one end of Georgia to the other. The com- rades simply went into a mill town, got some connections with the workers and set up a paper committee in the mill. Then off to an- other town to repeat. The existing commit- tees were, of course, neglected and promptly fell to pieces while the organizers were en- gaged in forming new ones in other mills. Naturally enough the workers saw that we those workers already in the T.U.U.L. take the task seriously. If they realize the collec- tive organizational value of Labor Unity, its strength in enlightening those workers under the influence of the capitalist and reformist press, they will lose no time in building up the circulation of Labor Unity. If the members of the Communist Party are sincere in their turn to trade union work they will themselves read and spread Labor Unity. This organ, of all the revolutionary press, must be foremost in reaching the masses. * It must be sold at street meetings; shop gate meetings; to fellow workers in the shop; in the home neighborhood. For Labor Unity appeals especially to the unorganized workers, who have not yet come across the revolutionary labor movement, who do not know of the Communist Party. If the minds of the working class are to be liberated from capitalism, Labor Unity must be built up, at once, to a powerful organ reaching hundreds of thousands of workers. It has a powerful historical role. It cuts into the darkness of capitalist misinforma- tion and lies; and concretely teaches the workers how to organize. The basis of Labor Unity’s strength lies of course in the strength of the T.U.U.L. But it must run ahead—reach thousands of workers not yet in the T.U.U.L. Its advance need not be parallel with that of the T.U. U.L.—it must precede—be in the vanguard, scout ahead among the backward masses. To do this we must have the following: 1. Actively functioning Labor Unity agents. 2. Responsibility of T.U.U.L. affiliations in selling and reading Labor Unity. 8. Organization of shock-troops in all unions, leagues, and all workers available for the mass sales of Labor Unity. 4, It must be sold at all mass meetings, street meetings, shop gate meetings, unit meetings. 5. It must help the foreign born workers in the T.U.U.L. who cannot express them- selves in English to organize American born workers into the T.U.U.L. 6. It must be read by all members of the Communist Party and all affiliated organ- izations. If these points are followed up, Labor Unity will be a powerful force against the Hearsts, the Scripps Howards, the A. P., U. P. and other members of the agitprop were merely playing with the question of a serious struggle against the stretchout and wage-cuts, and the prestige of the union suf- fered accordingly. If, on the other hand, we had concentrated all our forces and energies on one mill, or the mills in one town, where conditions were especially bad, with the definite prospect of building up a strong mill committee with its ramifications éxtending to every department, and determined to take advantage of the first favorable opportunity, such as a wage-cut or stretch-out or widespread victimization of union men, for a strike, the present situation of the National Textile Workers’ Union in Georgia, where today we have absolutely noth- ing, would have been far different. We have nothing in Georgia today because the workers, who realize as well as we Communists that nothing can be gained except through the strike struggle, saw that we were not seri- ously and competently organizing and prepar- ing for strike action. These workers came into the union to get better conditions and when they saw we were not preparing in a serious manner to carry on the fight through strike action for better conditions, they left the union. Can we blame them? I think not. In District 17 we were given this same in- eorrect theory of building th: unions when one of our comrades proposed that in order to fight the A. F. of L. we send forces into new territory where we had nothing and where the A. F. of L. was showing considerable ac- tivity. This would have been desirable, but with our weak forces it meant inevitable ne- glect of work already started. This comrade did not see that the way to smash the A. PF. of L. and to destroy its influence over the workers is not to rush helter skelter over the country setting up small, meaningless com- mittees, but to concentrate our forces on build- ing up committees in a few shops to which we can give adequate attention and which therefore will not remain mere agitational or- gans for a time and then collapse, but which will develop into the leaders of the workers, consciously preparing for strike action and capable of carrying such action through. One strike, if only partially successful, will mean more to us in building the revolutionary unions than a score of still-born organization commit- tees in the shops without any clear prospective of strike, whose only function is the issuance of an occasional leaflet, and which through lack of a concrete program of action are bound to collapse. We have yet to learn, it seems, the elemen- tary fact that organization committees and the bonafide shop committees, which it is their task to build, are organs of struggle. It is possible to build up an organization com- mittee of a revolutionary union in a shop through propaganda and agitation and a mini- mum of organization work. It is impossible to kéep that committee in existence indefi- nitely through giving it merely agitational functions to perform. The workers will join that shop organization because our agitation was centered around fighting demands and fighting slogans. They join in order to carry on the fight. If we fail to convince these workers through our organizational activity that we are preparing organizationally for the fight, that we are driving steadily along the path to strike action for definite demands in that particular shop, we will fail to hold them. Some few will remain, but these will be the most class-conscious advanced workers —workers in most cases ready for member- ship in the Party—while the masses of work- ers will remain outside of our organization. It is true that we cannot state arbitrarily that our prospective in every shop and indus- try is for an immediate strike. Ill-prepared strikes, called at the wrong time; strikes that are doomed to defeat from the very start, can do us a tremendous amount of harm. This is another reason for concentrating our best forces on those industries and shops where oes! By JORGE REFORMISM IN NEW MEXICO. We are hereby petitioning, the Workers’ Library, Incorporated, dessicated and more than half evaporated, to lay down a boycott against the “Progress Builders of America,” whose whereabouts at last reports were at Roswell, New Mexico. What’s the matter? Are we anti-progress? Do we, as Lovestone or the N. Y. Times (it matters little which) says, reject the united front? Nay, nay, brother! But there are limits to our patience. For example: We picked up a little paper “The Progress Builder,” published by some ambitious scoundrels, who conduct a “coopera- tive colony” down along the Gila Monster Route, and find the following: “Read—‘Victorious Socialist Construction,” price 25 cents. The Progress Builders of America, Roswell, America.’” And above that it said: “All down through the ages . . . man has dreamed of Utopia, ‘The Cooperative Com~ monwealth.’ It has remained for Russia alone to make the great experiment upon a national scale. However, it is now possible through the Progress Builders, to create our dream home and ideal social conditions here in Amer- ica through our Colony Units. New Hope, Mississippi, is now being formed with a man- ager now in charge and a call is hereby made for volunteer workers, farmers and producers, with some means and unlimited faith. Cash members and dollar per month men can make this a real dream home.” There is much more in the sheet of the same character; a baiting of workers and poor farmers with the pamphlet “Victorious So- cialist Construction,” written by Bill Foster, who is enjoying the air in Tammany’s “co- operative colony” over on Hart’s Island. The unwary who fall for this line of crap are made to believe that they can get the benefits of a, proletarian revolution without making one. We think we shall send the “Progress Builder” to Foster and let him take a shot at the idea. Re THE I. W. W. GOES FISH. In the port of Philadelphia, the I. W. W. has been asleep nearly as long as Van Winkle. But it has suddenly shown signs of life. Looking closer we see that the “life” is only maggots crawling over it. It has published a leaflet for longshoremen, in English and Polish, and playing to the backward Catholic elements among the Polish workers who are enough as it is under the influence of fascism and religion, the I.W.W. seeks, instead of enlightening these workers and dispelling the reactionary prejudices which hinder their class consciousness from developing and expressing itself in action, to nourish these prejudices and use them czainst the class interests of these same Polish work- ers. What else can one make of the following: “The ILW.W. is against any politicians’s attempt to organize Labor Unions to war against Churches and Governments, and this is the hidden program of the Commu- nists.” This is a perfect example of social-fascism. Fish, for example, makes no pretense of cov- ering his counter-revolutionary attack on the working class. He is openly a fascist. Openly speaks for the capitalists. The ILW:W. does the same work as fascist Fish. Only it tries to cover it with a veneer of “labor unionism,” it tries to rally the capitalist ideology, the r jous and patri- otic backwardness remain’ the workets, for the same fas The LW.W. thus seeks a for fascism aniong the working the class which fascism means to attack, is attacking. The LW.W. is thus controlled by social fas- cists. Perhaps, since it has become a sort of counter-revolutionary church, it feels that it is in the same position as the Pope, who has given them the lead on defending the church against the Communist “peril.” And isn’t it funny, too, how worried the Wobblies are getting for fear somebody will take their precious government out and choke it to death. The Centralia prisoners must be proud that the G.E.B. is going to prevent the wicked Communists from overthrowing the dear, good, kind government and breaking down the doors of the Walla Walla peni- tentiary. the objective conditions for strike action are most favorable. At the same time our gen- eral agitation and propaganda must’ not only suffer from this, but must be greatly in- creased. The third mistake consists in our unpar- donable organizational looseness and laxness. As well as one can judge from the field the national offices of the various unions are tightening up considerably organizationally and are establishing more responsible methods of work. However, it is in the field that this organizational laxness does us most harm. _ The question of dues payment enters here. We often seem afraid to ask the workers to pay dues. We organize a small group in a shop or mine and meet with them for weeks without insisting that they either all pay dues and become bonafide members of the union or else drop out. No worker has re- spect for an organization which functions on a charity basis. He has no feeling of respon- sibility toward an organization which, does not demand a minimum of financial and other sup- port from him. We fail to maintain any kind of discipline in our union locals. Meetings are held on dif- ferent days of succeeding weeks. The meet- ings do not start on time. No action is taken against members who consistently fail to at- tend meetings. The meetings often drag out interminably due to inefficient organization of the meeting and the work. No regular min- utes of union meetings are kept in most in- stances. No uniform method of book-keeping is in effect in most, if not all, of our indus- trial unions and leagues. Our whole organ- ization is loose and inefficient. Until we change all this and put into ef- fect a general tightening cp orgahizationally in our work, until the local unions enforce working-class discipline in the ranks of their members and learn to conduct their meetings on a formal enough basis to insure a possi- bility of efficient functioning, we will be un- able to stabilize our unions.