The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 4, 1931, Page 4

fi BR Address and mail Pudtisnea by the Comprodatly La aaa! Co., Ine. 18th Street, New York City. > 1 all checks to Cable Street, ne Algonquin 79 rker, 50 East 13 the daily except Sunday, at 50 East DATWORK." few York, N. ¥. THE FIRST REAL FIGHT IN GRAND RAPIDS By BOB FITZGERALD. N February 25 the crowds began to gath 2 o'clock on the sidewalks around the Hall; in a short time the police began to 1 in and take positions and clear the side surrounding the hall; about one hundred w mobilized s When the clock boomed times 2 deep silence fell ov the crowd x te later in full view of the crowd packed on the opposite sidewalks, Alfred Bissell stepped from nowhere, seemingly, on to the parapet edging of the side- walk behind the police naires and called out: “Workers! The ration has now officially started. We are here tod: demonstrate for immediate unemployment re- then the cops and their allies woke up and and Legionaires grabbed him About and hustled him toward the closed car. He er and hollered: “How about ional right of free speech.” They were unable to handle him for a while. Elsie Ziegler fought to hold hi him go,.” She was handled brutal Legionaires. The crowd on the sidewalk: toward the City Hall to go to their aid. Squads of cops and over a hundred Legionaires, some of the latter wearing uniform caps and red, white and blue armbands, fought to drive the crowd back to the sidewalks, and finally began to drive their into the crowd; a stool pigeon, named Schenk, stood on the running. board pushing people back and when he found they wouldnt move back, he pulled out a black-jack and be- gan laying it on in all directions. At once the rest of the cops and Legionaires began black- jacking with all their might and the crowd came back strong with fists. One yello& plain clothes man, named Buck, stood on the hood of a car, well out of harm’s way, with a blackjack about 18 inches long ehopping into the crowd, which was holding the auto to keep it from moving. The crowd fought like cats; Schenk, a Legion man, was with the blackjack in all directions like a mad dog, with foam drolling out of his mouth. Many landed on the cops noses, but the Legion men caught the most of it. More arrests took place, the workers fighting all the way. Police cars pushed through the crowd making an infernal din with their sirens, the cops in- holding up tear gas bombs to threaten the crowd; the cops struggled hard to get the crowds back on the sidewalks with no success. Cars were driven into the packed mass at low speed. A ::iddle aged woman who was pushed by a cop used her fists on him and knocked him down; more cops closed in on her and pounded her severely, around the waist line, so that the crowd couldn’t see what they were doing. In the back of the mass, Legionaires of the yellow dog type were stooling on the workers who had hit police. One of these heroes, named Bill Elliot, who runs a gambling club with police | protection, grabbed a fellow half his size around the neck and shrieked: “I got one! Come and get him.” At about four o'clock the workers decided to call it a day, and the crowd began to break up. They had done their bit. At the jail as the workers were brought in | they were dragged by their necks forcibly over | the steps into the jail, punched and beaten, thrown on to the cement floor. An ex-soldier who was taken for having a placard reading: “Pay the ‘tombstone’ bonus now!” was beaten about the head by Legionaires and the police so frightfully, pain. A young worker, just out of the hospital after an operation was also beaten badly in the jail and pitched in a cell with his clothes cov- ered with blood; his crime consisted of having a placard concealed under his coat, which read: “No instalment payments while unemployed.” \vuen Bissell was brought into the jail, the cops who had him in charge said to the others: “You can kill the red son of a bitch, if you want to!” A Letter From the Furniture Capitol ot the ' World Feb. 28, 1931. ¥ditor, Daily Worker, 50 East 13th Street, New York, N. Y. Dear Comrade: On Wednesday evening, Feb. 25, we sent a night letter, describing the demonstration in Grand Rapids, stating that 25,000 workers participated in it. The report was printed in the Feb. 27 issue (which reached us on the 28th) giving the number of participants as twenty-five hundred. In the same issue (Feb. 27) is an editorial “Against Exaggeration.” Probably the comrade ‘who was responsible for changing the number from twenty-five thousand to 25 hundred thought that we exaggerated the figure. However, this report was correct. There were fully twenty-five thousand people in the demon- stration, according to every conservative esti- mate both by comrades and enemies. The Dis- trict Representative, Alfred Goetz, a member of the District Secretariat, was present at the dem- onstration and was one of the authors of the telegram. On January 29 we had a demonstration be- fore the City Hall which was not broken up by the police and at the very least, 3,500 attended this demonstration. On Feb. 10, the first demon- stration to be broken up, and at which 14 were arrested, we estimated the crowd at least 10,- 000 ard notified the Daily Worker to that effect. The Associated Press dispatches which were printed in a number of newspapers estimated the crowd at from 15,000 to 17,000, while “we said 10,000 in order to avoid exaggeration. We ex- pect the capitalist press to play down the fig- ures but we certainly didn’t expect the Daily Work-z to do this. The situation in Grand Rapids is serious. With only about 2,000 able to get relief out of 15,000 unemployed, the bread and butter question is a burning one. The employed workers are also | faced with a problem of supporting their fami- lies on 2 or 3 days work a week for 25 to 35 cents an hour. We also have another more or less peculiar problem. The number of working class home-owners in Grand Rapids is excep- tionally large. Of coursé, most of these work- | ers d> not really own their homes, they are only paying on them. Hundreds who own their homes are losing them because they are 2 or 3 years behind in tax payments and have no pros- pects of ever being able to pay any taxes. Other thousands are losing their homes to the bankers because they can’t keep up their installment payments, or because they can’t even pay the interest on their mortgages. We are fighting for decent cash relief for unemployed. We are stressing relief for part- time workers. We are demanding no foreclosures or tax payments on workers’ homes during un- employment. We have four unemployed coun- | cils in Grand Rapids and two in the suburbs. Twenty-five Grand Rapids workers face trial on March 4 for militant participation in the last two demonstrations. Yes, exaggeration is a danger, but under esti- mation of the response of workers to a militant program and struggle against the miseries of the present crisis is also a danger. We hope the Daily Worker will correct the erroneous re- port of our demonstration in the Feb. 27 issue. Grand Rapids Section Committee of C.P.U.S.A. District No. 7 Arnold Ziegler, Section Organizer Who are the Slave-Drivers? By HELEN KAY bg Sed opening up and bringing. under cultiva- tion of unpopulated regions would be impos- sible without the help of coercive measures which compel the work people to carry out the obliga- tions which they have incurred.” Thus, Dr. Kirk Fock; former Governor-General of the Nether- lands Indies, justifies the barbarous system of forced labor practiced in the Dutch East Indies, composed of Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, ‘Madoera, and other islands in the archipelago. These coercive measures, the brutal realities of which can hardly be expressed in words, are not only enforced by the Dutch. Imperialists: they are also used by American Imperialism, which brazenly and cynically prattles about “forced labor” in the Soviet Union. In order to compel the imported coolies and Javanese to slave submissively and quietly under the horrible conditions enforced by Dutch Im- perialism, “strict, government. control is neces- sary.” Therefore, “a clause was introduced into the ordinance to the effect that a workman who, on insufficient grounds, Jays down his work or quits the service, is liable to punishment.” The system of contract labor is used. Workers are induced to come from various surrounding “islands and‘ countries to settle in the sparsely populated island of Sumatra, They are con- tracted for periods of from one to five years, and then may be contracted further for three years. Thirty per cent of the total population of the Dutch East Indies are under obligation to carry out compulsory services, according to the “In- dustrial and Labor Information.” (League of Nations.) In the Dutch colonies, compulsory labor, or forced labor, is exacted by the government in the form of a labor tax upon the native population. The government may force the natives to work up to @ maximum varying from 30 to 40 days ® year. Workers are not paid for this work. The International Labor Office says, “by far the greater part of the compulsory labor levied from the population of the Dutch Kast Indies is un- paid.” In an article appearing in the December 24 issue of the “Nation,” Raymond Leslie Buell, says of conditions im the wood cutting camps of Sumatra, “On inaccessible parts of the island of Sumatra will be found a large number of pang- longs, or small wood-cutting establishments which make* planks, firewood, or charcoal. The owners of these establishments have secured their labor among Chinese at Singapore, and according to reports these laborers have lived in a “veritable reign of terror.” Workers slave in these panglongs for 14 and 16 hours a day. Conditions are terrible. In many places, humans are forced to carry the logs, in others, oxen are used to pull the loads. The dwellings are very primitive. The panglong bos- ses gather up the coolies from houses in Singa- pore, known as Kedehnasi, where jobless Chinese workers are boarded and lodged. “These coolies have paid for their board when they found work, that is, when they are sold to an employer. The employers, in fact, con- sidered that they bought their workers, and the coolie lodging house keepers were known as man-dealers. These “man-dealers” received a sum from the employer and sometimes an ad- vance was made on the wages promised to the coolie to pay the “man dealer” for supplying the coolie with board and lodging.” “The coolie was then off to the panglong heavily in debt. And to keep him in debt the panglong owner would force him to buy clothing, Mosquito netting’ and other articles at high prices,” One of the greatest producers of rubber is Sumatra. The United States Rubber Co. obtained @ concession from the Dutch in Sumatra in 1910, and its holdings today total about 134,000 acres. The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. holds some 50,000 acres in Sumatra, Imported Javanese and Chinese coolies work on these rubber plantations. John H, Harris in his book, “Slavery or ‘Sacred Trust,” says of conditions on these rubber plant- ations. “The major part of this rubber is prod- uced today by plantations run by contract native Jabor under white overseers. Large numbers of these plantations are festering sores, not merely politically, but physically. Disease is rampant. ‘There are no, moral. standards, whilst corrup- tion, oppression and brutality are indicated by the appalling sickness and. death rates.” Workers are supposed to receive from 35 to 40 laying on | that he screamed for hours with | STOP! SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $3; two months, $1; of Manhattan and Bronx, New York Ctiy. Foreign; one year, $8- six months, $4. excepting Boroughs ! (Farm Women in North Dakota By ELLA REEVE BLOOR. OR, the past few weeks have been staying in the homes of the farmers of North Dakota, | speaking for them in homes, schoolhouses, and towns halls, and I just wish all the women workers of the cities could realize what heroic | characters these women are. Just now, many of the children have no clothes to wear, but food, of a sort, is still within reach of most of the poor farmers, although the Red Cross doled out $4,000 last week in one county—and their in- | vestigating committee said thousands more were | needed. One of our members of the United | Farmers League, a Swedish woman who staked a | government homestead here years ago—has been | @ widow for ten years bringing up three little boys. Now she is in constant danger of evic- tion as she had no crop at all this year, con- sequently no food for the family or the stock. The members of the U. F. L. in her township are | watching constantly for the agent of the bank- ers who will come to evict her, or will send the officers of the “Law.” Our members will mo- bilize not only the township farmers, but also the county to protect and defend her. At all our meetings—one every day, sometimes two—we are deeply impressed with the large number of women and youth in attendance. Driving over rough roads sometimes fifty miles to a meeting our own woman comrades (all farm- ers’ wives) never fail to take their responsibility | for arrangirig and helping to promote the cause. No matter how heavy their own burdens, Sophia Husa, mother of Mabel and Lilian and six more bright boys and girls living on a bleak hillside, toiling from morning to night, is always eagerly in touch with the world Communist movement. Hilda Pearson, young mother of seven chil- dren forced to bring them up in a small farm- house with only two rooms and a kitchen, with nothing beautiful anywhere inside or outside of the house except the children, is one of our most loyal comrades, never fails to attend the units or mass meetings, helps to promote the village entertainments nearby. When her husband, county organizer of the UFL, has to leave for two or three days on the League organizational business, she always cheerfully helps him off, saying, “‘We will do the chores and milk the cows.” The children are bright young Bolshe- viks eager to read, without books or pictures. Of course on all our visits, we take papers and books, show them new games, etc., but oh! How hungry they are for joy and beauty! One of the children, an eager boy, said to me recently “mother, I do wish the revolution would hurry up and come so I could get more education. I've gone as far as I can in the country school and I will just have to settle down on this old farm with no more schooling. And all I will be here is “just another farm- hand.” This boy is only 13 years old. "ais week I spent a beautiful two days in a far-off country-side called Bonetrail. Here I found a man comrade whose wife died eleven years ago leaving ten children, the youngest 11 months, the mother only 37 years old. Now they girls, all home, Three boys belong to the U.P.L., . tions. On the highlands they get about 20 cents. Rubber is produced as a resylt of this cheap at 16 cents a pound. Sumatra exports for 1929 to the United States were valued at $30,948,000, The amount of crude rubber sent to the United States was 202,816,000 pounds valued at $47,500,000. The Rubber plant- ations in Sumatra are run by contracted labor, and forced labor. The United States imports this forced labor product into the United States, mowing full well that it is the product of truly forced labor. Even Senator Stiever recently admitted during the discussion on the ban of Soviet products that “forced and indentured labor are employed in Sumatra, and various other parts of the world.” Besides slaving on the rubber plantation, in the ) panglong, or on the coffee plantations, the servants, also imported Jayanese, are continually threatened with beatings and of being sent to the rubber plantations. In the July, 1930, issue of “Asia” there is a letter, telling of the life’ of a native rubber plantation owner. The writer tells of a woman's threat which she holds over the servants. She says that when the servants, the Javanese, annoy us, ‘they are sent back to | workers, both native and foreign-born. are all stalwart comrades—seven boys and three | the fields or the rubber forests where the work fs much harder, and therefore, more or less Negro Women in Industry By I. AMTER. ‘HE Negro in industry is ‘a growing factor. The bosses recognizing that they can play one section of the working class against the other are employing foreign-born workers to antago- nize the native born and the Negro workers; and again, in other situations, are using the Negro workers in order to antagonize the white In the present crisis not caring what becomes of the workers, and yet, understanding that the entire American working class is being aroused by misery, starvation and wage slashes, the bosses are doing everything possible to divide the working class. For unity of the working class, with definite working ¢lass purpose and militant leadership and ‘policy Will be danger- ous to the interests of the bosses. The Negro workers, although fearfully affected by the crisis, are playing a big role in industry. The Negro worker not only in the past, but at present, earns the lowest money at the hardest work. He has to pay more for living in the in- dustrial cities than the white workers. The rents are outrageous, and the result is that the Negro workers have to double up in flats in order to meet the rents. Negro workers ere unable to pay their rents, and in all industrial cities and towns, evictions of Negro workers are very nume- Tous. ‘The Negro women and girls in industry are in- creasing in number. They are entering all the industries in which women are employed. And yet for the same operation, even though it be an unskilled operation, they receive less pay. They are given places in factories where it is more difficult to work, thus lowering their earnings. ‘The Negro workers, and particularly the women workers, are far from organization. The American Federation of Labor, with its tradi- tional policy of keeping the Negroes out of the unions, does absolutely nothing to induce women one will be a delegate to.the regional confer- ence at New York Mills on March 8. This boy has just returned from a visit to his grand parents in Norway. As we sat around a huge table in the kitchen and-talked about the world movement for the workers. and.farmers, T felt reverence, almost, for the father whd.had kep’ them all together alene, had kept ‘them growin; mentally as well as physically, Some of the sophisticated city women workers | “Why don’t these comrades strive. for . will say, smaller families?’ This question would show the utter ignorance of the conditions on poor farms—no bath rooms, no pgivacy whatever, in two, or at the outside, three small rooms with- out deors. We are.quite.used to making our with a large “audience” of children. ‘Acs Weber fed Wes ecomnasa nave: th large families of strong, healthy boys and. girls? “No, we are not.” They will make the strong bulwarks of the Red Army of our revolution. Workers! Join the Party of Your Class! Communist Party 0. 8. A. P. O. Box 87 Station D. New York City. Please send me more information on the Com- munist Party, NAME ..rcccccsecccncccscscescscccssecsccscccocs Address deeccceccescnces By BURCK to join the unions. The fascist leaders of the A, F, of L. who follow the policy of the Amer- ican bosses (Green’s promise to Hoover not to lead any strikes, which can only be in the inter- est of the bosses), also follow the policy of! the bosses in lowering the standard of the Negro workers, which was terribly low even before the wage slashes began. Negro women are totally unorganized in the American Federation of Labor, for added to its policy of discriminating against Negroes generally, the A. F. of L. does not even make a pretense of carrying on work among Negro women workers, for they are mainly unskilled workers. Only in the revolutionary unions of the Trade | Union Unity League do the Negro workers, both women and men, find a place. In these unions, the Negro workers stand and fight shoulder to shoulder with the white workers. The Trade Union Unity League not only admits the Negro to its ranks, but carries on a militant fight to line up the Negro workers. It conducts a bitter struggle against white chauvinism (the feeling of superiority of whites over Negroes cn the basis of bosses’ ideas taken over by the white Workers); it maxes it the duty particularly of the white workers in i‘s ranks to fight for the rights of the Negroes—against jimcrowism, segregation and discrimination. Thus, not in words alone, but in deed, the Trade Union Unity League is the only organization of the workers on the industrial field, where the Negro and white work- er is united in struggle against the bosses. This applies in equal measure to Negro women worker, who are growing in numbers in indus- try. Still the number of Negro workers in the Trade Union Unity League, and particularly of Negro women workers, is insignificantly small. Therefore the Trade Union Unity League must pay far more attention to this important sec- tion of the working class, The Communist Party, which unites the work- ers of all nationalities in its revolutionary ranks and leads the struggles of the entire work- ing class, is the only political party of the work- ing class which fights for its interests. The Negro women together with the Negro men, have been fooled by Negro leaders, also of the stamp of the socialists, who work together with the fascist strikebreaking leaders of the American Federation of Labor and the bosses. The so- cialists make a bid for the support of the lily *whites of the south and of the north, They not only do nothing’ to prevent lynching, but even aid it by their indifference. The Communist Party is carrying on a bitter fight for Negro rights, and has as its policy the prevention of lynching by demanding the death sentence for lynchers, and also the organization ef white and Negro workers into defense corps to prevent the mobs from laying their hands on Negro work- ers. ‘The Communist Party supports the right of the Negroes to self-determination ii the where the Negroes in the black belt are majority. It fights for the right of a Negro “state thus founded to separate from the United . Btates if they so desire. .. This policy, for which the Communists fight openly, has made them feared and hated by the white bosses of this country:and their govern- ment. Thé Communists are hated also by the Negro intellectuals and businessmen, who see that the Communist Party is being regarded by the Negroes as the ONLY organization that rep- resents their interests. ‘The Negro women workers must begin to rec- ognize that only through organization and fight- ing for working class rights will they be able to improve their condictions. The white work- ers, and particularly the women workers, must need of getting the Negro women Communist Party toward this growing section of the American working class, at the same time that they lay particular emphasis on the grievances and demands of the Negro International Women’s Day on March 8, must bea day for mobilizing the Negroes and particu- larly the Negro women for the struggle against. tthe crisis: and the. datiger of; anew timpertaltat The Communists must make this one of By JORGE cece Bie for Farmers. Detoured The meaning of the Arkansas compromise” on the $20,000,000 “drouth relief.” Robinson xepublicans and Hoover democrats swore by all that was good and holy that Secretary Hyde would administer the $20,000,000 with “sympathy” for the starv- ing farmers and their families, Borah bellowed and Robinson. roared and Caraway said, “Me, too!” Hoover wrote a letter and Hyde wrote a-.telegram and Watson “cor- rected” it, all to help keep the dregded phrase “food for human beings” out of.the appropria- tion resolution. But all these capitalist scoun- drels agreed to say that Hyde would have “sym- pathy”; “that the wording :of, the resolution “would permit” food for human beings, Now, what has been the result? On Feb. 27, Secretary Hyde said that half “the $20,000,000 would be used to help “agricultural credit cor- porations,” if they have “a capital stock of at least $25,000.” That is, the Farm Board merely gets more money to aid the rich farmers and bankers. But the crowning glory of-all-is this: “One relaxation of restrictions relating to food for human beings,” says the Y. Times of Feb, 28, was a revised regulatior providing for loans “up to $75 for buying feed for live- stock, dairy cows, hogs and poultry, used for producing food for the farm family.” Now, the term “dairy cows” excludes any bull, and the beast must die, unless Secretary Hyde interprets his contribution as. “feed for dairy cows used for producing food forthe farm fam~ ily.” And what about a cow which has gone dry because of the previous demtise of all avail- able bulls? Hens who deliberately refuse to lay eggs—are they to be coaxed or’ killed on the spot before a loan will be approved? Maybe Secretary Hyde can compel part of that $75 to be used for importing grass-hoppers, so ow it all- comes out! | that if the chickens don’t eat ‘em, the farmers can, after the fashion of the locusts. devoured by the victims of Pharaoh when he hardened his heart. Only Pharaoh didn’t make any pretensions of “sympathy.” A Question of Geometry This business of nagging at’ Mussolini has gotta stop! It went so far already that in the case of General Butler, it had the imitation “social- ists” all pawing the air and crying out to their “hero,” the commander of the U. S. Marines. Now, undoubtedly, they will have t’ rush to uphold the First Assistant Attorney General of the United States, Mr. John Lord O'Brian. It seems that this gent—by pure accident, of course—in a speech at the Union League Club of Brooklyn on Feb. 14, remarked the following remark: ; “Thank God, we do not live in a country such as Italy, where a dictatorship of one man can make a horizontal slice in wages.” Now that the Italian ambassador, who has a name like a cockteil anda disposition. like’ cér- rosive sublimate, has “demanded afi ‘explana- tion,” we perceive that the Italian’ “socialist” paper, Il Nuovo Mundo, with the’ Brookwood “Labor” College “progressive,” A, J. Muste, on its staff, will have to repeat the trick they did for General Butler. In coming to the defense of the U. S. Attor- ney General, however, it is to be noted that he was telling how-—“The American wage scale has held up in the face of the industrial depression.” And only mentioned Italy “for comparison.” We have heard that comparisons are odious. But if the “socialists” can swallow the comman- der of the Marines they ought not to strain at an Assistant Attorney General who objects to a “horizontal” wage cut, but who contends that a perpendicular wage cut is to be defined as none at all. Perhaps it is only a matter of geometry. oo 6 ata Come On, Fellers! . Late last year we were impressed-by the fact that no forward-looking Communist daily could do without a radio to naik-the-hokum being peddled over the air. We asked that.some com- ‘rade who might have an extra radio, to make us a Christmas present. Seemingly, the over-produiction of radios does not extend into the army of readers of Red Sparks. We got one, just one offer. And while it was the best the particular comrades in ques- tion could do, a commission of experts who sud- denly appeared magically after our recent ap- peal for a radio doctor to diagnose the case, decided: First: The box on hand is marketable in Czecho-Slovakia. fe Second: That the difference in cost between fixing it up, and in getting a new electric set is not enough to make up for the incomparably better reception guaranteed by, a new set we can get for approximately $42," Third: That the Commission of Experts itself opens the kitty with $10, and proposes through Red Sparks that 30 or more friends of this column. who have-and can spare—theprite ‘of a radio tube, which is about a dollar, send | their mit in as a special aid to speed up “what is begin ning to look like a Five-Year~ Plan to get th Daily Worker a radio, Al} donations to be ad dressed to and acknowledged by Red tec in cold type. Considering the painful situate? “ot the Daily's treasury (and, say, it’s gettifig™t66 ‘painful for words!) we are taking the advite’of the Com- munist Radio Commission and ‘herewith declare the gume open. Now, it’s your'move!- Raise the) ante or pass the busi! Phar teoams opm ol They Didn’t Like tt” The, Cleveland “Press” recently py the foh lowing letter, from somebody dently has got next to the fact that caspian is abole] ished in the Soviet Union: - “To the Editor of the Press: this country couldn’t make a b: Hoover for Stalin. The Risslan government needs an engineer pretty badly, I'think, and what this country needs is’the mai’ who gives eee a job—Andrew i 2695 Lisbon The | editor of the “Press” put ‘a it: “We Don't Like This Trade’ Which in: clines us to be in favor of it What if we cot get some of that “forced Jabor’here? .Oh, t At trade union wages, the seven-hour day, four days and off the fifth! A vacation at f pay, no loss of pay by sickness,, m cal attention for the whole family: a Bring a Stalin and vances