The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 26, 1931, Page 1

it The Unemployed Councils Are ~ the Fighting Organizations for Immediate Relief and Unem- ployment Insurance for the Unemployed Workers. Or- ganize Them Everywhere Vol. VIII, No. 50 Dail Central °: Org lu, ‘ (Section of the Communist International) Entered as secend class matter at the Post Office <2) at New York, N. Y. under the act of March 3, 179 NEW YORK, THURSDAY, FEBRURY 26, 1931 CITY EDITION WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! Price 3 Cents : THOUSANDS OF JOBLESS PLEDGE TO CARRY ON FIGHT Join the Dressmakers In Mass Picketing Tomorrow! iL. L. G. Gangsters Try to Prevent Dressmakers from Joining Strike 10,000 Lawrence Strikers Picket Mills, Close Them Strike Spread Tuesday in Spite of Company On With the Fight! eer simultaneously with yesterday's demonstrations against hunger and’ starvation (on which reports are not yet available at this writ- ing) the Salvation Army in New York City issued the following an- nouncement: “There is no improvement in the unemployment situation. There are calls for a limited number of men and women for day to day jobs, BUT EVEN THESE SEEM TO BE ON THE DECREASE. There is little sign of an upward trend in the basic industries.” This estimate of the situation in New York City was confirmed by Edward C. Rybicki, director of the City Free Employment Agency, who stated that “the daily placements by the agency have fallen from an average of nearly 400 a day to 150 a day.” At the same time Commissioner of Markets Dwyer announced that the number of “needy families” given occasional baskets of food by the police department had steadily increased from 15,000 in November to 37,800 now. “It had been the expectation that the number of needy would by this time have begun ‘to grow smaller,” said Dwyer, “BUT THE CONTRARY HAS BEEN TRUE.” When these facts for New York City are weighed, together wiih other reports recently published in the Daily Worker showing an increase in unemployment in Illinois and other states, then the lying character of the “returning-prosperity” propaganda is clearly exposed. Actually the unemployment situation is every day becoming more acute. More workers are being laid off. Suffering from hunger increases. Yesterdays demonstrations involving tens of thousands of workers in hundreds of cities will prove to be powerful instruments in forcing the bosses and: their hirelings to consider the workers’ demands for adequate and immediate relief and for unemployment insurance to meet this con- stantly worsening situation. BUT the big mass demonstrations of yesterday must be followed up with still more extensive and energetic work! The work among the un- employed, more solidly organizing them for still! greater struggles against ihe bosses’ starvation program, stii-remains the main task of the dis- tricts, sections and units.of the Communist Party and the Trade Union Unity League. And organization must receive the major emphasis in the present period, In the past it has been too much a case of the Party, the T. U. U. L. and the Unemployed Cotineils organizing the struggle for the unemployed. Now the major emphasis in all our organization work must be the de- veloping of the initiative of the unemployed themselves. They must be drawn into widest participation in formulating demands, in the propa- ganda and agitational work, and in extending the organization of the unemployed councils to include hundreds of thousands of the more than 10,000,000 jobless workers in the United States. The wrong tendencies expressed by comrades in New York City who were afraid to draw the unemployed workers into the recent tag day, etc., for fear the movement might get out of their hands must be sharply combatted everywhere. Only by developing the widest mass initiative and mass partici- pation in every phase of the growing struggle of the unemployed against hunger and starvation can the fight for immediate relief and for unemployment insurance be won. Every day the need for immediate relief becomes greater. Every day the mass démand for unemployment insurance grows. Despite the lying propaganda of the bosses, the betrayals of the “socialists” and the A. F. of L. misleaders and the terroristic.attacks of the police, the fight for a twe months’ subsidy to every unemployed worker and for unemployment insur4nce must go forward. With stronger organization, with more mass initiative we say, on with the fight! Force the bosses and the government to grant immediate relief! Carry forward the fight for unemployment insurance! 20 Per Cent Wage Increase For Miners In Soviet Union MOSCOW, Feb. 25—At the very time that the capitalist mine owners in the bourgeois countries, with the assistance of the social-fascists are engaged in viciously slashin the al- ready starvation wages of their mine workers, the Supreme Economic Council of the Soviet Union an- nounces an increase of 20 per cent in the wages of the Soviet miners. This decision closely follows previous de- cisions of the Soviet Government to increase wages for railwaymen and water trarisport workers. The decision ordering the increase in the wages of the miners is signed by the Supreme Economic Council of. the USSR, the Soviet Central Council of Trade Unions, and the Central Committee of the mine work- ers union, and reads: For the purpose of increasing the productivity of labor and increasing the output of coal, and likewise for further improvinb the material posi- tion of the basic cadres of under- ground workers in the coal mining industry, men on mechanical coal cutters, hewers, haveurs, stoppers, timber-setters, borers, haulers, con- veyor mechanics and scrapers, un- derhand stopping hewers, horse-driv- GERMANY’S JOBLESS JUMP TO 106,000 BERLIN. — Germany's unemployed. on February 15th totaled 4:991,000, an increase of 106,000 in two weeks. Ruthenberg Edition Feb. 28 Read about the struggles against imperialist wars and the role played by Charles E. Ruthenberg in building the Communist Party, Read about the life of the former secretary of the Communist Party, who died on March 2, 1927. Read the Daily Worker, Feb, 28, containing an 8-page tabloi size’ supplement in memory of ope of the leaders of the American the special Ruthenberg edition || ers; the presidium of the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR, the Soviet Central Council of the trade unions, and of the Central Com- mittee of the mine workers’ union, hereby resolve: 1. To increase the average tariff rates of those categories of workers by 20 per cent, the amount of in- crease in the rates for each individual category be established in agreement. with the Central Committee of the Mineworkers’ Union and the economic organiations, .. Sato o Committee of the Minéworkers in the Don Basin and the corresponding economic trade union organizations in the other coal basins within. five days to conclude supplementary agreements and to carry them out as from February 15th inst. Chairman, Supreme Economic CouncilUSSR, 8. ORDJONIKIDZE, NEW YORK.—The successful pick- eting of the striking dressmakers here is causing the I. L. G., the com- pany union, to come to the aid of the needle trade employers with choice collections of muscle-bound gangsters. Hiring gangsters to help the poor bosses is an old I. L. G. custom, one that isn’t meeting with very much success during the present strike. The militancy of the strikers guard against the attacks which strikers in the needle trades have suffered in the past. The gangsters, however, are having some success in another direction; they are preventing, by} force, dressmakers who want to join the strike. The employers in many instances are actually keeping all) their doors and fire escape exits locked, in direct contravention of all safety rules, for the same purpose. Several clashes between pickets and company union gangsters have al- ready occurred, with the strikers giv- | ing a good account of themselves on | every occsion. The picketers are at| a disadyan‘e~>, however, inasmuch as the police av.cst every picket they see defending himself. Thus, 18 pick- ets were arresicd yesterday, one for} assault, though not a single gangster | was taken in, Shops Settle In Bronx. Nine of the 18 dressmakers were arrested in the Bronx, where strike activity has increased notably in the last few days. The militancy of the | picketing here forced two. employers to settle yesterday on the terms laid down by the Needle Trades Workers’ Industrial Union, affiliated with the | T U. U. L,, and several more shops CONTINUED ON PAGE TWO) | mass mecting tonight. |mands (made Sunday by the heads Offer and Police Ter: Withdraw Before ror; Force Police To Conference Starts BULLETIN. LAWRENCE, Mass., Feb, 25.—The full strike committee met the em- ployers at 9 a. m., but only on con- dition that the mounted police be withdrawn and the electric power shut off in the mills. The committee recommends the strikers stand firm for the de- mands: time and a half overtime, | double time for holidays, no effi- ciency experts, no discrimination, recognition of the mill committees and departmental committees to settle special grievances. Thousands were on the picket line this morning. ‘There is a tense situation here.’ The strikers hold a Pe haar LAWRENCE, Mass., Feb. 25.—Mass picketing by thousands yesterday, the ines being formed morning, noon and night, in the fece of the charging mounted police, aiid with mass pick- ets again entering one of the mills and cleaning it out, blocked the} American Woolen Company's boasted. attempt to reopen the mills. Instead of breaking the strike by the offers to grant part of the de- of the woolen trust) and by the po- lice threats, the strike actually grew Mathew Woll and Socialists Work for War on U.S.S.R. WASHINGTON, Feb. 25.—Matthew Woll took the occasion of discussion on the Kendall Bill in the Senate, barring Soviet products on the fake ground of “convict labor,” to launch one of his bitterest attacks against the workers’ republic. Woll calls for war against the Soviet Union, ap- pealing to the wage-cutting bosses to use all their might to crush the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. His letter written to President Hoo- ver, the prime mover in the war prep- arations against the Soviets, is an hysterical cry for armed struggle of the imperialists against the workers’ government. Woll says that “A na- tional emergency exists.” To Woll it is not the emergency of 10,000,000 starving unemployed workers who are fighting for unemployment insurance, but it is theadvance of the Soviet Union under the Five-Year Plan.) This he calls an “economic war” against capitalism, He ends up his letter by an appeal to the “American. patriotic societies, American business and commercial organizations and American ‘religious bodies,” in short all the enemies of the workers, to further the war against the Soviet Union, Supporting the active war prepara- tions of the Hoover, Woll, Green out- fit is the socialist party. It is true that Woll is a little more blunt in his method but the. socialists, who Rate the Soviet Union just as rabidly as Mr, Woll, of the Civic Federation, do their utmost to bring about war. The New Leader recently re-printed the manifesto of the labor and so- cialist. international calling on the Russian workers to join the counter- revolution. ‘This manifesto which ‘was ordered by Briand, as proved at the wreckers’ trial in Moscow, meets with the full approval of the socialist party, and was recently endorsed again at the New York City con- yention. James Oneal, editor of the New Leader, criticizes the Conference for Progressive Labor Action because ey it is against those who “join ue and cry: against Russia.” ebout “terror” in the Soviet Union, ¢gon- veniently forgetting the socialist ter- ror in India against the Indian work- ing masses, while the Soviet “terror” is directed against the bosses and their agents. 800 STRIKE AT EVERETT, MASS. Joining Metal League of the T. U. UL EVERETT, Mass., Feb. 25.—Eight hundred are on strike at the radio factory here. Many have joined the Metal Workers’ Industrial League of the Trade Union Unity League. The employers are back of an at- tempt to deport Joseph Lemieux, a Canadian young worker, for his ac- tivity in Everett, on the critical day, yesterday. Even the capitalist press now admits there are more than 10,000 out. The three American Woolen Com- pany’s mills here, Washington, Wood, and Ayer, are closed down tight once more. In adition, 20 Ooperators in the Selden Worsted Mills at Methuen walked out yesterday. And word was received that some 4.00 additional in (CONTINUED ON PAGE THREE) LESS JOBS IN NY. OFFICIAL ADMITS Situation Worsens All the Time NEW YORK.—Unemployment is getting worse here all the time, said Ed, ward C. Rybicki, director of the City Free Employment Agency Tues~- day, in a statement to the capitalist newspapers. Though tens of thou- sands keep on applying for work, Rybicki stated that the number of jobs available have dropped from 400 to less than 150 a day. Most of these , | too, he added, were just a few days work, At the same time the: Salvation Army, which is making a fortune buying property on money collected supposedly for “unemployment relief” said at the same time “there is no improvement in the unemployment situation.” Instead of providing relief for the admittedly growing army of unem- ployed, as admitted by the city of- ficials, the city government is plan- ning a fake drive for jobs. Knowing that the factories will not start up, and not wanting to give the un- employed real relief, the city is pro- posing the creation of “odd jobs,” at which the workers will slave at practically no pay. TRAIN DISPATCHERS DO DOUBLE WORK. NEW YORK.—Train dispatchers are being made to handle too large a territory, so that the safety of those who operate and ride the trains is menaced, said Po-> - * the American Train Dispatchers’ As- sociation in the current Train Dis- patcher. Luhrsen added that wages of unorganized dispatchers through- out the country are being cut. | mass demonstration for in the Atlantic Mills are ready to join | relief to the unemployed was held | of! SMALL FACTORY TOWNS AROUSED United Front of N egro) and White in Texas At the time the Daily Worker | went to press, most of the demon- | stations in cities other than New | York had not been heard from, but | some news had been received on those printed below. Se ao 6,000 in Lawrence. | | LAWRENCE, Mass., Feb. 25.—A| immediate | AGE THREE) (CONTINUED ¢ Mayor Grants Larkin Plaza to Workers Ex-, Servicemen’s League YONKERS, N. ¥—The mayor of, Yonkers granted workers a permit to have Larkin’s Plaza today at 12 noon. | The permit was given to the Work- ers Ex-Servicemen’s League to speak on the bonus and Unemployment In- surance. The Unemployed Delega- tion will march through Yonkers in the afternoon. IN COURT TODAY To Starve YONKERS, Feb. 25.—The trial of Milton Weich, organizer of the un- employed, and William Walters, un- employed carpenter, arrested on Feb. 17 during an unemployed meeting at Larkin Plaza, comes up tomorrow at 10 a. m. at City Court before Judge George W. Boote. Weich is charged with disorderly conduct, Walters with interfering with a policeman in his “rights” to beat up workers. The International Labor Defense’ is defending the case and plans to sub- poena Mayor Fogarty in an effort to force the city to openly declare its attitude towards the unemployed workers in their struggle against starvation and to force the mayor to admit responsibility for the police terror which has been loosed on Yon- kers workers at all meetings held in support of the demand for unem- ployment insurance, ‘The police have terrorized the own- ers ¢f halls into refusal to rent their [walls to the Unemployed Councils. An affidavit to this effect, signed by a hall owner, is in the possession of the I. L. D. Expose Bloody Tyranny and Forced Labor Under U.S. Tool In Venezuela NEW YORK.—Asking Secretary of State Stimson “Why is forced labor unholy in Liberia, pe. Stimson, and holy in Venezuela,” Carleton Beals, in a recent issue of The New Free- man, gives a detailed exposure of the revolting conditions in Venezuela un- der the murderous rule of the Dic- tator, Gomez, who was ~ushered into power over 20 years ago under the auspices of American gunboats and | has since been kept in power by Mr. Stimson and his fellow imperialists who preceded him in the State De- partment and all of whom faithfully ‘pursued the policies of Wall Street. Correctly assuming that his expos- ure of conditions in Venezuela will have no effect on Stimson, who na- turally prefers peddling lies about forced labor in the Soviet Union or ota his America - - Liberian Thousands On Chain Gangs and in Dungeons tools in the effort to cover up the connection of American imperialism with Liberian slavery, Beals satirical- ly inquires: “Can it be that Mr. Stimson is as ignorant of Venezuela as he was of Brazil and Guatemala? Is it pos- sible... . that he knows nothing of the five thousand political pris- oners in the Rotunda hell-hole and the various fortresses, undergoing the morst torturing conditions existing anywhere in the modern world; noth- ing of the ten thousand prisoners and worker, conscribed at the whim of the Dictator, who are tolling on his private plantations, on the roads and on port-works—driven under the lash, loaded with chains?” Beals then cites many authenti- cated cases of the most bloodcurdling tortures, of bloody terror, of whole- sale arrests and imprisonment in dun- geon cells, of wholesale robbery of the masses, of forced labor and other forms of slavery, of suppression of strikes and the putting “of hundreds of workers to work on the roads in chains for haying protested against periors pocketing part of their of “the sight of two political hung up by meat-hooks through their jaws to die,” of over 300 students put to forced labor un- der the lash on the roads, of the riveting to an iron bar in the Rot- unda of @ 63-year-old man who was (CONTINUED ON FaGm THREE) “th YONKERS JOBLESS, Boss Attack on Refusal, in the Soviet Union Greet Jobless Here NEW YORK—“We greet the workers fighting in the capitalist cities of America on Feb. 25, the day of struggle against capitalist starvation and slavery, fighting also against the campaign against the Union of Socialist Soviet Re- publics, the only country where the workers are free and there is no unemployment.” This is the cablegram received yesterday, International Fighting || Day Against Unemployment, by | the Trade Union Unity League || National Office here. It was sent by the American workers in the Auto and Tractor Plant at Nijni Novgorod, U. S. S. R. ALBANY HUNGER MARCHERS. LEAVE 200 In March To Fight For Relief Marching against hunger, the delegation of 200 jobless, represent- ing the unemployed of New York, left the city today on the first stretch of their five-day march to Albany, where they will demand from the state legislature immediate relief and | unemployment insurance. Marching through crowded streets, carrying placards and banners that gave their slogans, they indicated their determination to bring to the attention of the bosses’ state govern- ment that the jobless were prepared to make an organized fight for un- employment insurance; against star- vation. | The marchers will reach Yonkers by noon, where the workers at me Co-operative Club will feed them. | By tonight the Hunger Marchers will have reached Mohegan, Ossining | meetings, in which the Unemployed | Councils, the unemployed and em- ployed workers of those towns will participate. The mayors of all the towns along the line of march have refused the marchers the use of the armories and city halls for shelter, condemn- ing the marchers as vagrants. But the workers, rallying with great en- thusiasm, have indicated their soli- darity with the fight for unemploy- ment insurance by offering their homes, their clubs, etc. Meetings will be held in all towns along the line of march. Tens of thouusands of workers and jobless will be mobilized for solidarity along CONTINUED ON PAGE TWO) STOPS EVICTION OF UNEMPLOYED Sick Mother and Child Put on Street NEW YORK.—The Downtown Un- employed Council today at 1 o'clock moved the furniture of an evicted jobless laborer, Tony Romano, of 89 Lublow St. back into his rooms on the fourth floor of the tenement. Romano had been jobless a year now and his dependents are a sick wife and a child. He had been un- able to pay any rent for two months. After putting his furniture back, the Council, of which Romano is a mem- ber, held a meeting on. the corner and were enthusiastically acclaimed by the workers in meeting. the corner, the council marched to Cooper Square where they held a mass. meeting. From here they marched to Union Square where the | italism. and Peekskill, where they will hold | a After, the spontaneous meeting at | 40,000 IN NEW YORK; 35,000 IN PHILADELPHIA; 30,000 IN BOSTON; DEMAND RELIEF IN ALL CITIES American Workers | | 25,000 MASS IN UNION SQUARE Organized Marches To Demonstration NEW YORK.—Over 25,000 workers y at 4:30 p. m. enthusiastically outing their solidarity with the world dem- onstrations against hunger and cap- It was a mass rally to spread the fight for unemployment insur- ance and to give a send-off to the 200 hunger marchers who leaye for Albany today. When the cordon of police saw the huge masses of march ing workers come into the Square, choking the side streets, they roped off the streets, preventing thousands from joining the demonstration. Altogether at least 40,000 workers were either in the Square or stands ing in.large groups on. side streets and on all corners approaching the Scene of the demonstration, iplined Ran! From all sides, the worker: into the Square with remar marched cipline, singing and shows gans for unemployment and relief. Each time a group, with its banners and y the Square, it enthusiastic cheering. Throughout the demonstration, these organized grour that had marched through the city kept their ranks solid. The entire Square was covered with @ sea of placards blazoning the slo- gans of the unemployed: “Don’t starve, Fight! Demand a lump sum for 2 months’ support from the boss government! Spread the Fight for ‘ds, arrived at greeted with jthe Unemployment Insurance Bill! Stop Evictions! Build Unemployed Councils! All War Funds to the Un- employed for Relief! Defend the Soviet Union!’ ht Hunger!” Particularly outst: ing were thé two large colored banners, one with deaths’ head and bones with the slogan: “Fight Hunger,” and the (CONTINUED ON S TWO) BEN BOLOFF IS CONVICTED BY SEATTLE BOSSES PORTLAND, Ore., Feb. —Ben Orloff, one of the thirteen militant workers fi st tried und nal syn for | class acti been | her today after a two hour ation” by a packed jury. The ‘‘& inal syndicalist” act of Oregon . @ sentence of up to 10 years in the penitentiary. The trial and conviction of Ben Boloff paves the way for the state for an immediate railroading of the other twelve workers who ‘have been indicted under the same bosse The capitalist press in 0; have paid considerable atte: this trial is hinting that the authori-~ ties in Oregon are not only going through immediately with these cas but will arrest and prosecute all workers affiliated with militant or- ganizations. The witness brought forward by the State against Boloff were two stool 25 act nd ning “delik pigeons from the Portland police de- immigration rod partment and an Spector, and the evidence int against this militant work standard pamphlets }Communist Party }Communism Th | festo, in- |pies of vin Goodman attorney for the Interna- tional Labor De: sted all through the trial thai the doors should be kept open so the hundreds of workers crowding the corridors of aa demonstration was soon to ERT BRM, Bye a4 clase the court can listen to the aca