The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 17, 1930, Page 1

{ | | N. Y. State Communist Ticket: For Governor:—WILLIAM Z. FOSTER For Lt. Governor:—J. LOUIS ENGDAHL For Att’y. General:—RICHARD B. MOORE For Comptroller:—FRANKLIN P. BRILL Dail Central ec@dyhunict Porty U.S.A. pe of the Communist International) WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! Vol. VIL. No. 250 at New York, N. Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office ¥., under the act of March 8, 1879 NEW YORK, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17; 1930 CITY EDITION —=t Price 3 Cents NESSIN, JOBLESS LEADER, MAY DIE IN BELLEVUE WARD 15, 000 Unemployed Fight for Bread; Are Ridden Down wn by Tammany Cossacks “A Public Hearing” | deseo ks grafters, determined to steal millions of dollars of city funds by mieans of a new billion dollar city budget, but somewhat hampered by city charter provisions, were forced to hold “public hear- ings” before the Board of Estimate before they could jam this grafters’ budget through the City Council. These “hearings” were to have been held yesterday and Wednesday. Supposedly New York citizens were entitled to make proposals for changes in the budget at that time. Admittedly this new budget provided for increases of $100,000,000 in city expenditures. Actually the increases will reach $300,000,000. In this new budget, despite the tremendous increases for all depart- ments, not one cent is provided for the relief of the 800,000 jobless workers in New York City alone. Many thousands of these workers are homeless. They are hungry and starving. Suicides are daily mounting. But these Tammany grafters who hold power in New York City, aided by the republicans and the “socialists,” care nothing for all this. They, as this new budget shows, are only interested in lining their own pockets with graft while dutifully following out the in- structions of their capitalist masters. The Unemployed Council of New York City, representing the in- terests of the 800,000 unemployed workers, called upon the jobless workers to come to the City Hall and express their views on the budget. As part of New York’s “public” they called upon them to attend the “public hearings.” They called upon them to go before the Board of Estimate and there demand a ruthless slashing of a whole series of budget items and the transference of these funds, most of which were intended for Tammany graft to an unemployment relief fund from which all unemployed workers would receive a minimum of $25 per week. Pending the establishment of such a fund they demanded free rent, free gas, free light, free food and free clothing for all unem- ployed workers and their families. Answering this* call 15,000 jobless workers yesterday came to the City Hall to protest against the grafters’ budget and to demand bread. They came for a “public hearing.” “Keep Moving” 'AMMANY cossacks, however, had been appointed as the mayor’s reception committee. The 15,000 workers who came to the Board of Estimate’s, “public hearing” were told by these uniformed thugs to “keep moving!” The “public hearings,” it appears, were only intended for the respectable representatives of the “socialist? party—Mr. Nor- man Thomas and Mr. John Haynes Holmes. Jobless workers, without homes, without bread, apparently are not a part of the “public” as designated by Tammany. They were told to “keep moving!” And when they did not take this warning these jobless workers were pushed, clubbed and herded by mounted cops. But these workers considered themselves one of the classes—the working class—that goes to make up New York City’s “public.” They had come to a “public hearing.” And whether Tammany liked it or not they intended to be heard. Their defiant demands for “Work or Bread” rang through City Hall Square. Business in the City Hall was suspended while cowardly Tammany officials rushed to the win- dows to see who had come to challenge their daily stealing of city funds. Office buildings surrounding the square, housing brokers and bankers, likewise suspended. While in the streets workers refused to “keep moving.” They had come to stay until their committee came with the Board of Estimate’s answer to their demands. For two hours they were clubbed and herded, but not a worker left the square. On the contrary the mass constantly grew as the workers booed the Tammany thugs and. shouted their demands. When J. Louis Engdahl, the Communist candidate for lieutenant governor, was seen coming from the City Hall, cops were brushed aside as the jobless workers rushed to surround him and hear his report. Police reserves were called out, i. e., Tammany’s reception committee was enlarged. Mounted thugs charged the crowds of jobless workers. Workers were driven through plate glass windows. Men, women and children were clubbed, blackjacked and trampled on by the horses. With the workers fighting tooth and nail Engdahl was finally torn from their grasp by what was for the moment superior forces. He is now in jail charged with “inciting to riot” because he led a large sec- tion of the “public” (15,000 workers) to one of Tammany’s “public hearings” and because these “invited” workers refused to “keep mov- ing’ at the request of a murderous gang of Tammany thugs. “Safe Conduct” “A police detail of 110—thirty in evidence and eight on call in City Hall basement—waited for the first appearance of a Communist Party. Five members of the council were guaranteed cafe conduct to appear before the budget hearing at 2:30.”— From the N. Y. Telegram, early edition, Thursday afternoon. * * * “QAFE Conduct!” But only “to appear.” And when these workers, representing the 800,000 jobless of New York City, appeared, they were led into a trap to be beaten—probably to death! They were led into 4 trap prepared by the chief of Tammany grafters, Mayor Walker, at a signal from him they were set upon by a howling mob of detectives and police—no whit different than a lynch- ing mob of the darkest distri of the South! After two of them, Engdahl and Nesin, had been separated from the remaining four—Engdah] dragged off under arrest at Walker's order, and Nesin being slugged before Walker’s eyes and by his orders, the remaining four workers in the rear of the room, only one of them a member of the Communist Party, were leaped upon by Tammany savages! 4 ‘ “Kill them!” “Let me at them!” “Give ’em the works!”-—such were the bloodthirsty yells of literally hundreds of cops and dicks and Tammany politicians, whose commander, Mayor Walker, had given signal for slaughter. Murder in the open room was too brave a deed. They were dragged and kicked and slugged into the basement. Screams were heard from the basement. At 6:30, three hours later, the victims have not yet been found as this is written. The Tiger, cruel, murderous, somewhere in its den is mauling and clawing at the bodies of the workers who were “given safe conduct!” * * wy QELF-SATISFIED, luxury-loving business men gasped. Many were heard to say: “New York has never seen anything like it. Some- thing must be done for these unemployed workers.” But the unem- ployed workers there learned that the talk of the capitalists’ hirelings about “liberty,” “equality,” “public hearings,” “safe conduct,” etc., are, only the phrases which serve to cover up their murderous war against the already suffering workers. These workers have learned the role of the republicans, democrats and socialists as shock troops ‘for the bosses. They have also learned that it is the Communist Party which fights for their demands. § NEW YORK.—Tammany’s ans- wer to the starving jobless workers’ demands for work or wages was given yesterday through policemen’s blackjacks which split the scalps of the hungry, and the trampling rooves of police horses on their bodies. “Vote Communist” against this tyranny, this callous determination to starve the 800,000 out of work in New York! Gather in masses at the Red Rally, Oct. 21, in Madison Square Garden, right after work, to ratify the list of Communist candi- dates. Masses of workers will be From the New York Eve- ning Post Det: 16,1 1930. Walker Looks on the Mob as Did Marie Antoinette In 1789, Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, listening in her Versailles palace to the clamor of a revolutionary mob outside, was told that the dem- onstrators. were shouting that they needed bread. “Why don’t they eat cake?” historians quote her as saying. On October 16, 1930, James J. Walker, mayor of New York, stood on the steps of City Hall, watching police disperse a Com- munist unemployment demon- stration. “When will the ice, cream be served?” inquired the mayor. Carry On the Jobless’ Fight! Be at ‘The Garden’ Oct. 21 Delegation of Needle Workers Elected to Meet Released Jobless Leaders at the Ferry there to greet and to listen to those of the candidates who will on that day be released from their term of imprisonment for leading the March 6 unemployment demonstration of 110,000 workers. The candidates re- leased Oct. 21 are William Z. Foster and Israel Amter. Foster is Com- munist candidate for governor of New York state. Amter is Commu- nist candidate for congress from the 28rd district, Bronx. aa" SAM NESSIN Red Candidate, 22nd. Senatorial District, Bronx The Red Rally and the Commu- | nist election campaign of which it is a part carries on the fight of the city hall demonstrators yesterday, as that demonstration carried on The Rally will also greet Robert | Minor, another of the delegation, | and candidate fo rcongress, who is sult of mistreatment in Tammany prisons. It will demand the release of Harry Raymond, still another member of the delegation, who is sentenced to prison for four months more. It will demand the release of the workers and jobless jailed in yesterday’s demonstration. A delegation of 27 workers to meet Foster and Amter next. Tues- day at the ferry which will bring them from Hart’s Island Peniten- tiary, has been elected by »the Needle Trades Workers’ Industrial | Union, at a meeting of the General Council. The needle workers repre- sentatives will meet the candidates with the banner of the Industrial Union and with signs voicing the demands of the unemployed and employed workers in the needle trades. Other organizations must follow the example of the needle workers union which has also decided to mobilize the workers in the shops to arden Tuesday night, after work. alled figure hurtling yesterday afternoon from the Manhattan Brige into the East River added an- other attempted suicide to the long number of working-class victims of the bosses policy of throwing eight million workers on the streets to starve. The latest victim of unemploy- ment trying the suicide route is Timothy Donavan, a 48- year old laborer. Groaning but still con- scious, he was hauled from the water by deckhands on a tug which happened to be near enough to ef- fect a rescue. Donavan told his rescuers he had been out of work for several months, and had been evicted from his home, had no money and was starving, so he tried suicide. Donavan’s attempt to kil] himself followed two successful leaps from Manhattan office buildings yester- Jobless Suicide Total Grows With Six Deaths in One Day NEW YORK, Oct. 16.—An over-oday, and today a woman leaped to death from the roof of a five-story tenement house in the Bronx. Three other suicides were also re- ported today, Veronica Kocharigan, at 130 Attorney St., Manhattan, John A. Tyson, of 304 West 102nd St.; Rose Barnett, of 1429 Bryant Ave., Bronx; Anna Schmidt, of '21 Schaeffer St., Brooklyn. Thus the harvest of jobless sui- cides grows by leaps and bounds while the bosses and their politician tools and the A.F.L. traitors at- tempt to minimize the crisis and oppose the Communist demand for social insurance of $25 a week to every unemployed worker. Workers! Fight the bosses star- vation policy! Support the Com- munist demand for social insurance. Make November 4 a day of demon- stration against the bosses and their vicious starvation system. Vote Communist! the fight of the March 6 thousans. | confined in a hospital now as a re-| march in a body to Madison Square | ‘MILITANT CROWD REFUSES TO QUIT _ JOBLESS PROTEST Many Hurt Defending Him While Speaking NEW YORK.—Fifteen thousand workers jammed in front of the city hall yesterday and demonstrated for unemployment relief. They cheered mightily as their delegation went up the steps to go into the board of estimates building. With a sea of placards, over them bearing slogans, “Work or Wages,” “$25 a week for each man out of a job,” “Vote Com- munist,” “Support the Workers Un- employed Insurance Bill,” “Down |with Police Brutality,” “All war funds to the jobless,” they shouted and applauded for minutes. ten thousand more sympathetic Mail St., Broadway and Parkway, looking on. Wouldn’t Leave. In spite of every effort of police, | |with increasing brutality, to dis- Some | spectators packed the sidewalks of} the exposure that he represented the Tammany grafting politicians, lions out of which they took millions in graft, and refusing relief to the Walker yesterday instructed hun- dreds of his detectives in the as- sembly hall in City Hall to merci- lessly beat up those delegates of the unemployed council who had not hall. Sam Nesin, secretary of the un- employed council was speaking, de- manding that $7,000,000 which was to be added to the police budget be turned over for the immediate relief for the unemployed. Walker didn’t want to hear any- | thing. from a representative of the | unemployed council. Nesin said he would ‘rather represent: the unem- ployed workers than the grafting Tammany politicians, whom Walker and his gang represented. Nesin said that the Tammany judges who pay $10,000 and up for their jobs evict thousands of unemployed workers. perse them, thousands stuck. They yielded to police pressure and! marched, but they did not leave.| They were there to pick up Louis Engdahl, leader of. the delegation, | from the Unemployed Councils, | when he was thrown out of city sall at Mayor Walkers’ orders. Engdahl was borne on men’s shoulders to} Broadway, and in front of the Wool- | worth building he bega to speak. | He got only as far as saying, | “Mayor Walker tolh us he had no/| time for the unemployed . . .” when a charge by foot and mounted police crashed into the crowd. The workers’ enthusiasm and de- termination were marvelous. They faced the flying hoofs, and stood their ground until the heavy horses | bodies actually smashed dozens of | them right through the plate glass | windows of the Woolworth building. i When Engdahl was finally ar-| rested, they tried to rescue him. They refused to disperse and re-| mained singing and denouncing | two women workers who had been beaten up at the same time he was | arrested were taken over to the post office building corridor and ‘sur-| rounded by ten mounted police. At jlast accounts Engdhal was. still (Continued on Page 3) | the social-fascist “socialist” police brutality while Engdah! and | | Walker slammed his gavel down and ;jumped up. He hurled epithets at Nesin. “You dirty red,” he said, |“in about two minutes I’ll jump Hundreds of Cobs Viciously Beat Jobless Comm.in City Hail en Gives Signal for Slaughter; Taken to Basement and Beaten Some More NEW YORK.—Riled because of|!down there and smash you in the who were spending hundreds of mil-| unemployed, the despicable Mayor | previously been thrown out of the| When Nesin exposed Walker as} a grafting Tammany politician,} Workers face.” This was a signal for the hun- dreds of cops, plain clothes and uni- formed, to jump at the other mem- bers of the jobless council who were sitting in the rear of the hall ap- |plauding Nesin’s remarks. They | were: Maud White, a Negro unem-)| ployed needle worker; Lester Allen, | a Spanish-American war veteran,| and unemployed metal worker, Rob- | ert Lealess, unemployed food work- er, and Milton Stone, jobless postal clerk. They were set upon by nearly the| whole roomfull of dicks and politi- cians who did not like to hear the truth about themselves. Nesin was | brutally slugged and dragged out of the hall. Maud White and Milton Stone, were kicked and beaten and then| thrown out of the City Hall. Alien | and Lealess were set upon by doz-| ens of other cops on the main floor | of the City Hall. Windows crashed. | The workers were thrown to the | ground and stamped on. All the cops in the vicinity ran to the scene, crying “Let me get my hands on him.” “Slug the bastard.” “Kill them!” “Get the nigger girl.” Blood was spattered WALKER ORDERS NESSIN SLUGGED; ENGDAEL, RED CANDIDATE, [IS JAILED Boss Press 33 Admit Cops Beat Nessin on Head With Blackjacks Stamp on His Face Won’t Let “Daily” Reporter See Nessin BULLETIN NEW YORK — Engdah! in night court yesterday denounced the plan to railroad the arrested demonstrators before “the courts which should be trying the gang- ster Mayor of New York.” The judge, enraged, refused to hear the case, and refused to let him out on bail. “Carry on the struggle for work or bread,” shouted Engdahl, as he was being led out by police, and the workers who thronged the court rose and cheered. The judge picked out four of them for ar- rest. Chu Chen, a small Chinese worker was convicted of disor- derly conduct for hitting a cop six feet tall. He is held without bail, for sentence Saturday, and will “be investigated” in the mean: time, with a view toward deporta- tion. Two workers, both badly beaten, were convicted of dis- orderly conduct, and are held for sentencing Monday. Their names are not known. el Le. oe NEW YORK.—Beaten to the point on the floor of the city hall in (Continued on Page 3) | ‘Norman Thomas, “Socialist” Sees Slugging, and Smiles! NEW YORK, Oct. 17. — Again party has shown iis complete unity with | the savag:. Tammany police, and in |the person of the Reverend Norman { Thomas. Thomas, the hypocritical scoun- drel, who gabbles about “the rights | of the workers”, sat silent, and even smiled with pleasure, while the Tam- many police at the signal of the unspeakable Mayor Walker, savage- ly blackjacked the Unemployed Del- egation as they stood right in the Board of Estimates meeting. Qn Wednesday evening, these so- \cial fascists using the name of the | Civil Liberties Union, in which Tho- | ;mas and his ilk are the controlling police to permit a semblage” “peaceable as- of the unemployed, in- 'ferring thus that the starving mas-| group, issued a call to the Tammany | ses can hope to get a hearing from | the barbarian capitalist politicians of Tammany Hall. But here, in the very chambers of tie city government, when four workers, surrounded by scores and hundreds of Tammany cops, detec- | tive and politicians, were being brut- ally clubbed and dragged downstairs possibly to be murdered by the bloodthirsty horde of frenzied sav- ages—Thomas, the “socialist”, sat unprotesting and demonstrated his | satisfaction by smiling. Let the workers remember this! | ;And let them note that this dema- |gog and scoundrel Thomas and his “socialist” kind, only th week before and again through the “Civil Liberties Union”, declared |that the union, though it had lost no money (Continued on Page 3) (This is the 22nd article in the series on Tammany Hall.) +e ® | By ALLAN JOHNSON. There are completely serious men who declare in all sincerity that the honest cop doesn’t exist. We don’t quite agree. After all, where there are so many thousands of cops an honest man or two cannot help but creep in. But it is true, neverthe- less, that an honest cop is soon dis- covered by his superiors and trans- ferred to departments where his konesty won’t raise the morale of the rest of the force. The general rule is that cops— like judges—seek appointment for the graft that can be obtained, and they play the game for all that it is worth. As for police guarding the public against criminals, that is a fairy tale of ancient vintage. The truth is that if the police force were abolished, most crime would disap- Tammany Cops Supply Machine Guns | to Gangsters and Aid Them in Holdups pear, for without the collusion of cops criminal activity is almost im- possible. js Police Are Watchdogs of Capitalism The first. function of the police under capitalism is to protect the “private property” of exploiters from workers who rightly feel that this “private property” has been stolen from them. And so long as the police guard the plunder of cap- italists, the latter will permit them to engage in any activities that do not interfere with their primary | “duty,” that is, acting as the watch- dogs of capitalism. As such, the police do their job well. When the home of a Morgan or a Roekefeller is burglarized the jewels or whatnot are almost in- variably returned within 48 hours, at police request. There isn’t a capable gangster or thief in New York who isn’t well known to every detective on the force and the sweet- ' ness that hardboiled cops display to leading gunmen is a wonder to be- hold. Cops have always demanded some of the proceeds of crime. Less than |fifteen years ago there were ap- proximately 40,000 prostitutes in New York, according to the most reliable estimates, These, along with gambling dens and saloons, comprised the largest part of the income of police, There were very few police captains who didn’t own a part of at least one gambli house, and Murphy, who was Ta many’s leader for almost 20 years, owned the most luxurious house of prostitution in the city. Cops New In Crime Business. Until recently, however, the po- lice have rarely entered crime as an organized business. Heretofore they have been content to levy tri- bute from the actual criminal and direct him occasionally when he was inexperienced. But the worship of industrial efficiency has apparently had its effect, for today cops actu- ally engage in most of the crimes that are made possible by capital- ism—for almost all criminal activ- ity can be defined as a disease that flourishes only in capitalist coun- tries. It was not until Grover Whalen was appointed police commissioner that police criminality became wide- spread. All of Whalen’s working | hours were spent in red-baiting, forging documents, working for Wanamaker—Whalen had a staff of Wanamaker employees in his office in police headquarters—and plan- ning new uniforms for the police force, and while he was grafting on a big scale, the cops were having a glorious, grafting time, playing the Same game on every hand. Among the criminal activities (Continued on Page 3) \ } GOVERNMENT AMT MORE JOBLESS IN SEPT. Ww ASHINGTON, D D. C., Oct. 16.— Thirty out of 54 manufacturing in- dustries reported decreases in em- ployment for September as com-| pared with August earcording to the Burea of Labor Statistics, All| manufacturing irviustries combined showed a dro pof C.:! per cent in employmert and a gain of 0.4 per! cent in payrolls, indicating that longer hours re being worked. Employment gains were registered | | confectionery, cotton goods, machine | tools, fertilizer, women’s clothing and other lines. Losses were re- corded in sawmills, iron and steel, silk, automobiles, cement, rubber | tires, brick and petroleum refining. Employment gains came from the eastern secboard only. These, it must. be understood, are figures of the Hoover administra- | for th so-called | on the Gastonia defend-| ! of death, Sam Nessin is reported to be dying in the Psycopathic Ward of the Bellevue Hospital. A reporter {of the Daily Worker was refused permission to see him. Mr. Hess, night superintendent, tried to stall jalong. He would not tell the real ‘tate of Nessin’s condition. He said, “If his condition gets any more ser- | ious, we will let his relatives know.” From the severity of the beatings given Nessin, he must be near death. He is held a prisoner, with his head and body mashed in. Cops stand over his bed, like they did over the bed of Steve Katovis just before he died. The murderous beating of Nessin was ordered by the despicable May- or Walker. If Nessin dies, his death must be charged to the Tammany grafting city officials, and particu- larly Walker who gave the signal assault. Nessin was taken down to the basement of the City Hall, and screams were heard from there, Later, when the patrol wagon drove a cordon of cops kept everyone ‘0 that those. put in could not Nessin was not among the New York Post, the New York Telegram, and other capitalist press reporters saw Nessin stamped jon by detectives and cops. They }caw him last in the hands of a bunch of uniformed s rs. No further reports of Nessin’s where- abouts are given. The final edition of the New York Post on Thursday says: “Nessin was sur- rounded by uniformed patrolmen and detec- | tives and rushed down | the west stairs of the City Hall toward the sround floor. Most of the patrolmen and de- tectives drew black- jacks and weilded them on Nessin’s head and shoulders while he was slano,” tion, made as favorable as possible. The situation is admittedly this bad and acivally much worse, | to What was Nessin’s “crime?” He had told the Tammany Hall grafte (Continued on Page 2) held up and dragged.