The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 14, 1931, Page 6

\ pee » an = WUBTHH By the Comprodafly Publishing Co., Inc, da aunday, at 50 Fast Page Six 18th Street, New York City. N. ¥. Telephone Algonquin “DALWORK.” al Address and mail all checks to the Daily Worker, 50 lia h Street. New York, N. ¥ Contra ——— = - orker Dorty US.A SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $3; two months, $1; excepting Boroughs ot Manhattan and Bronx, New York Ctly. Foreign; one year, $8: six months, $4.' 50. CONDEMNED MEALS From the London Dally Worker) By BEJAY. 0! nist movement. I re- threats by every post. My Yesterday I slipped on a swallowed my dental plate. I mean the banana skin, Co 118 and the price of my silence. old father used to say, rising market.” I shall y threats, Ambition spurs me o one better than the capitalist veil the sufferings of the of the accounts in the tnoreased wages are brutally forced upon these unhappy people. incredible. The “Daily Express” says work has become compulsory. . . badge of citizenship. .. . here is jittle escape.” The hor England, where everything is done to prevent the workers from getting into the factories. ism have aroused the | | to the susceptibilities of vegetarians.” the | Once absorbed | x of this can only be appreciated in | This | complete reversal of the customs of Christian | countries proves.the determination of the Soviets to overthrow civilization. terrible indictment goes on: impossible today to secure the odest ‘servant. ... Women who 2» years ago were glad to accept any of domestic service, have all gone into the facto Holy. Maggie; Can these things be? say no more. But I damn well will. Let. the “E: s” go on tearing the mask from Bol- is no doubt that they receive more intial remuneration there .. . greater meas- of independence . . . liberties and privileges of Communist citizens.” This frightful picture of workers being forced to accept higher wages and more independence was hard to believe. I resolved to verify it. I advertised for evidence at usual rates. Struck by the importance attached by “The Times” to the evidence of a “God-fearing ship's captain,” I chose my witnesses solely from men of cer- tified religious opinions. A God-fearing stoker says: “It is a common sight to see a young woman running screaming from an evil looking trade union official who is trying to make her accept higher wages.” Another, witness, Presbyterian ship’s carpenter, writes: ‘If a worker refuses greater independ- ence and the privileges of citizenship, he is branded on the forehead with a U, signifying Upthepole, which is Russian for bourgeois.” English workers, sitting in their comfortable homes, never dreaming of the possibility of having a job offered them, cannot imagine the horrors, perpetuated under the Soviet scheme for abolishing unemployment. A very reliable witness—a Methodist boatswain—tells me that whenever anybody hasn’t any money they are brutally offered a job. He drew terrible pictures of innocent people being forced to do something and take wages for it. He says, “I shall never forget seeing @ poor woman, who had never done any work in her life, being offered some work. Her screams of terror ring in my ears yet. I have washed my ears twice, but it still goes on.” Referring to the admission by the Daily Work- ‘@ that every worker in Russia is sure of his next meal, a Baptist plumber says: “This is only too true. These meals are compulsory, like Right Opposition In Lithuanian Publishing Association Btatement of the Central Committee, Communist Party of U. 8. A, sia Central Committee has carefully exam- ined into the disputes which have arisen mong the Lithuanian comrades which have al- Teady come into the open in the shape of seri- ous factional organization directed against the Communist Party and the Communist Interna- tional. This crystallizing right wing is an ex- pression of petty-bourgeois tendencies and ele- ments which have been carried over from the past of the Lithuanian workers’ movement in the United States. Certain elements of cor- rupted workers and small business men are frightened by the sharpening class struggle and the threats of the Fish Committee of govern- mental repressions. They are irked by the bur- dens of class struggle placed upon them by the Sharpening oppression of the capitalist class. ‘They wish to run away from the fight and make their peace with capitalism. ‘Therefore they or- ganize and struggle against the Communist Party and raise the slogan of emancipating the Lithuanian papers, Laisve and Vilnis, from Party control. _ This anti-Communist fraction is composed of *)@ group of non-Party people, some of them renegades, but the most damaging work against the Laisve and Vilnis is being carried on within the Party by Party members. The most cut- Standing expression of this activity within the Party has been presented by Comrade Pruseika, / who as one of the editors of Vilnis in Chicago, Published the most flagrant attacks against the Stockholders’ meeting of Laisve, because that ‘meeting repudiated the opportunist disrupters and confirmed its adhesion to the Communist a Comrade Pruseika has masked his op- st factional activity by a formal al- ce to the Party and by declaring that the ference> were personal ones and centered nd the personality of Comrade Bimba, sec- ry of the Lithuanian Buro of the Party. he Central Committee, in order to make clear to every Lithuanian worker the falseness of the platform of the opportunists, which their anti-Communist Tent las behind + as | arffieff’ | the forest like the herald of some fearful doom. I need | --TO THREE A DAY everything else in this enslaved country. Three times a day men, women—ay, and tender chil- dren, are driven into dining-rooms, without be- ing asked whether they want food or not. They are forced to eat more than they have ever eaten before. The agonies undergone by hiccups are terrible.” Asked if it were true that many thousands of Russians were now eating meat for the first time, a Vegetarian ship-steward says: “That is only too true. Meat is forced upon them. In this irreligious country no consideration is given The following report from a Theosophical plum- ber gives a further idea of the conditions in the awful timber camps: “So severe are the restrictions that the work- ers are not allowed to look miserable. This explairs their apparent satisfaction with condi- tions that the rest of the world knows to be slavery. They are given good food and wages to hide the fact that they are really suffering. They smile, because they know that if they did not, they would be boiled in glue. “I asked one worker, who in accordance with the strict rules of the camp, was lying on his back pretending to enjoy a smoke: ‘Do you | like being a Soviet worker.’ | “He replied, ‘Youbetcha’ (Russian for ‘it is terrible, and gives me bunions’ “Js the work hard?’ was my next question. ‘Notsobadsky’ (horrible) he replied. ‘No man can stand it. for more than three months. I have been here two years and I know.’ “I then asked him about the conditions. ‘It is so cold,’ he said, ‘that your arms and legs drop off. See, I have cork arms and wooden légs. If you do not fell 500 trees a day they pull your face off. See, I have art India-rubber | face (flop!), and he pulled his nose out several | inches and let it fly back to his face with a loud report. “Tt then asked him if he were hungry. Not- | (my sufferings are indescribable), he | said, ‘not a morsel has passed my lips since | supper.’ As he spoke a hooter sounded through The man rose to his feet with the alacrity born of servility. ‘Where are you going?’ I asked. ‘To breakfast,’ he replied, and ran off at top speed, lest he should be shot for unpunctuality.” These sufferings paralyze my mind. I can't think of anything worse. When I doI shall send Soviet officials (fram our Riga correspondent—a God- fearing Press agent). baba of typical it to “The Times.” The repression of the people is beyond all imagination, except a news | agency's. Take their sports. This paper is always talk- ing of the development of athletics in the Soviet Republic. You do not realize that this is another means of crushing the soul out of the people. A God-fearing linesman tells me tha tafter a football match (compulsory) between the Tor- turers’ Union and the Agents Provocateurs, two forwards were shot for keeping the ball too | much to themselves. The referee who was, of | course, a member of the Tchecka, before sen- | tencing the men, made a two-hour speech, in which he said that they showed a criminal lack of class-unity. Next week: Limb from limb, or life in a Rus- sian wheat dump. formal expressions of loyalty, called a confer- ence of all the leading Lithuanian comrades, in- cluding Comrade Pruseika. At. this conference, | the Central Committee gave unlimited oppor- tunity for every comrade to present his views and make argument. The Central Committee then proposed that inasmuch as all the com- rades expressed their complete loyalty to the Communist International, that a delegation representing all points of view should be se- lected to lay all the problems of the Lithuanian movement before the Communist International, pledging themselves to abide by the decision which would be made and in the meantime to secure immediate stopping of the factional fight and the disbandment of the opportunist faction. This proposal was accepted unanimously by the leading Lithuanian comrades, and each one per- sonally pledged himself to ‘carry out this de- cision. This conference was held on March 3rd, but only three days later, on March 6th, Comrade Pruseika appeared at an open mass meeting in Brooklyn, where six or seven hundred workers were present, and there repeated and em- phasized all of his factional charges against the Party. On the same day he informed the Cen- tral Committee that he had changed his mind and refused to carry out the agreement which had been solemnly made with the Central Com- mittee. Immediately thereafter he left New York after refusing to again meet with the Cen- tral Committee to discuss the question further. Simultaneously with this unprincipled maneu- ver and breach of faith by Comrade Pruseika, a group of Opportunists outside of the Party, members of the Laisve organization have is- sued a large pamphlet full of slanders, distor- tion and outright lies, calling upon the Lithu- anian workers to organize to take the Laisve | TUUL, LSNR clubs and so on. The comrades | prepare the leaflet, and when I made the stencil POLICE BRUTALITY ON THE WEST COAST ry as > AI beet Sa) iy oa ew note ta. 64) 0.00 1 gy | MATS Ma " GTM i ising or Above: Jobless worker who demonstrated with thousands of others. | Feb. 25th in Oakland, Calif., clubbed into unconsciousness and left in the position seen by the cop walking away in the background. Miami Beanties Go European With Lat Latest Beach Coadiivaea | HAN | at HOST WMINTER ANS, Below: Clippings of the bosses’ wives down South enjoying them- selves on th emoney which was sweated out of the workers. Jobless workers seen demonstrating for relief at the right. PARTY LIFE || Living In the Past By B. G.. T this moment I wish to bring to the attention | of the Party center and the Party as a whole | an important weakness in our Party which must be rectified if we seriously mean to concretize | our activities. I have just returned from an organizational trip to the southern part of District Six—Cin- | cinnati, Dayton, Columbus, Sprinefield, etc. The Party situation in every one of these places is very bad. We have Party units there but they are not factors in the workers’ struggles in these towns. There are no unemploved councils, de- | spite the most favorable conditions: there is no in these places have’ so little practical organ- izational experience that they do not even know how to organize a mass meeting for the De- fense of the Soviet Union. We.wrote the com- rades in Cincinnati and Dayton to organize mass meeting for me, giving them more than a week to do it, but when I got to Cincinnati, two days before the scheduled time for the meeting, I found that absolutely nothing had been done. I was told that they waited for me to come and we found that the mimeograph machine was about 30 years old—a fragment. of a “socialist empire;” and the leaflet came out rotten, Un- der such circumstances is there any wonder that only 60 workers came to the meeting? While in Dayton the comrades did not even attempt to organize a meeting. “Too much trouble— no typewriter to make a stencil and no mimeo- graph to run it off.” ‘The fact that the Party in the above towns hhasn’t as much as the technical means for or- ganizing a mass meeting, goes hand in hand with its living an isolated life away from the workers, Both of these things are a direct re- sult of the Party’s method of carrying on ac- tivities in the past. The above mentioned towns are the last survivals in our district of a pre- vious epidemic. This condition is the result of spectacular activity vs. concrete planning, “hit and run” campaigning vs. campaigning which leaves definite organizational tesults. The Party maintained leading comrades in the southern part of the district. These com- rades held many street meetings and demon- strations, defied and insulted the police and got’ splendid writeups in the capitalist press. Some of these comrades are in jail now, others have heavy sentences hanging over them. But what. haypened to the Party. Meanwhile—nothing. The comrades of these towns are waiting for other leading comrades to come in and hold another demonstration where “we could give the damned police a real battle.” No attempts to carry on unemployed activities; to carry on shop work; to draw in new, proletarian blood into the Party; no attempt to develop local leading forces. The comrades in these towns are well trained Vilnis away from the Communist movement and back to the Second International. We have the utmost confidence that the Lithuanian workers will give the sharpest rebuke to these factional disrupters. At the same time, however, the Cen- tral Committee will exercise every effort to make sure that not one single honest and sin- cere worker shall be misled by the false issues and arguments of the opportunists. We call upon the various committees and units of the Party to exercise the utmost vigilance and energy in combatting the opportunist schemes, and at the same time to exercise the “utmost patience in explaining thoroughly to every worker the correctness of the Party poli- cies, the necessity for the Party and every one of its members to be in the forefront, leading the working class in the struggle for unemploy- ment relief and insurance, for the building of the revolutionary trade unions and in the fight against wage-cuts and speed-up, for building a strong revolutionary press in all languages, closely united uunder the leadership of the Com- away from the Communist Party and away from the Communist International, ‘The Central Committee 1s confident that the | Lithuanian workers, whether they are members of the Communist Party or not, will eriergetically and decisively defeat the efforts of this group of-opportunists who-wish to-take the Laisve and munist International and for a merciless fight against opportunism of every brand. Fight against the Opportunist Disrupters! Fight for the Leninist line of the Communist Party and the Communist International! - COMMUNIST CARTY OF THE U, BA. : io A. F, of L. Leaders Betray Tom Mooney Tom Mooney, serving life in San Quentin as a result of a frame-up in which the A. F. L. leaders had a part, lay in prison 14 years be- fore he decided to expose them. He now tells how the A. F. L, chiefs helped put Mooney and Billings in jail, and how for all those years they helped keep these two workers in prison, sabotaging every real effort to get them out. The parts printed in previous installments are a letter written by Mooney to Billings, ex- plaining why he is speaking out now, and a review of the State Supreme Court’s fake in- vestigation of the frame-up, last year. Now below, Mooney starts telling of the treachery of the secretary of the California State Federation of Labor (A. F. L.). rae ent INSTALLMENT 5. (By mistake Installment 6 which should have come after today’s installment, was printed in yesterday’s issue.) PAUL SCHARRENBERG ATTACKS TOM MOONEY. a the annual convention. of the California State Federation of Labor held in Marysville, September, 1950, Secretary-Treasurer Paul Schar- renberg, with contemptible subterfuges, issued a challenge to Tom Mooney and his Molders De- fense Committee on the grounds that the Com- mittee had never issued a detailed financial state- ment. This was merely a strategem to enable the California State Federation to pretend that it could not, in the face of this “financial irre- sponsibility,” undertake to support the ‘Tom Mooney Defense Committee. In his report Scharrenberg appeared in his true colors and went on record with a dastardly attack against Mooney and the Defense Com- mittee. He declared that ‘he has at all times tried to be helpful to both Mooney and Billings, but it has been a thankless task so far as Mooney is concerned.” Commenting on the re- fusal of the governor to pardon Mooney and Billings, he stated: “Billings took the news with commendable fortitude and merely reiterated his absolute innocence. . . . Mooney made impas- sioned charges against various persons who have tried to help him... . Your Secretary was assailed.” This is really news. When did Paul Scharren- berg experience a change of heart? What has he really done to help Tom Mooney? Paul Scharrenberg has grown fat on the juicy Ppoli- tical plum that has been giyen him by his close friend and political ally, Governor C. C. Young. Because of the defeat of the Governor in the recent primary, Paul Scharrenberg has already lost his sinectre—membership on the State Board of Harbor Commissioners. And as it happens that Tom Mooney played a prime part in the defeat of the Governor, it is at once ap- parent why. Scharrenberg was so eager to attack Mooney through theState Federation of Labor. Scharrenberg’s attitude is no recent develop- ment. If we examine the record of this “labor leader” we will find that he has consistently fought against any move designed to pardon Tom Mooney. His statement that “he has at all times i in holding street meetings, but when it comes to organizing an unemployed council there is no- body home. The fact that'two and a half months after the last Party plenum there still are sections of the Party living in the past shows the Plen- “um resolutions were not sufficiently popularized to reach the entire Party membership. — espe- cially now, when we are having so many unem- ployé* demonstrations it is very important that . Scharrenberg claims a, per capita membership of tried to be helpful to Tom Mooney” is a bare- faced lie. Two or three examples of this boasted help will prove that Scharrenberg has never lifted a finger—except to strengthen the bonds that keep Tom Mooney in prison. Among the many positions that this versatile “leader” holds is the editorship of the Pacific Coast Seamen's Journal, official organ of the Seamen’s Union of the Pacific. One would sup- pose that this helpful person in his official ca- pacity as editor of a paper circulated among workers, would devote some little space to the Mooney-Billings case. Yet in the past three years no more than eleven typewritten lines have appeared in this publication. Considerable help, indeed. The Convention of the A. F. of L., held in Los Angeles in 1927, was the first one that failed to adopt a resolution on behalf of Mooney and Billings. It has been openly charged by a re- sponsible official of the A. F. of L. that Schar- renberg was directly guilty of this cowardly maneuver. The proceedings at that convention were so outrageous that Editor E. B. Ault found it necessary to write in the Seattle Union Record: “The American Federation of Labor passed the buck on Tom Mooney and Warren K. Billings to the executive council of the Federation. It is the first time since Mooney was first sen- tenced that organized labor has nat flatfootedly demanded his release. Perhaps the delegates thought they would be violating the hospitality of Los Angeles, whose Merchants and Manufac- turers Associatidn is largely responsible for the conditions that have made the labor struggle in California more violent than elsewhere. Perhaps they are Just too cowardly to take a stand on behalf of the men who have borne the brunt of the struggle to make union organization possible to a lot of people who would otherwise be work- ing under the most oppressive conditions. What- ever the reason for the pussyfooting, it was not creditable to organized labor and it will reflect on the men and women who failed to do their duty.” Indicative of the attitude of Scharrenberg is the fact that every time he met Edward Nockels, Secretary of the Chicago Federation of Labor, during the sessions of the Los Angeles A. F. of L. convention, he would spitefully greet him with the following underworld phrase: “Well, did you ‘spring’ your friend, Tom Mooney, yet?” Scharrenberg has absolute control over the California State Federation of Labor. Not only is he Secretary-Treasurer of that body but he dominates the Seamen's Union of the Pacific and the Waterfront Employes’ Association of San Francisco. The Seamen’s Union is credited with a membership of 3,000 while the Waterfront Employes’ Association claim 2,400. With the manipulation of these votes Scharrenberg is en- abled to retain his power at every State Con- vention. Incidentally, a brief glance at thes: two or- ganizations will shed considerable light on the integrity of Paul Scharrenberg as a “labor lead- er.” | The Sailors’ Union of the Pacific, for which oe ee in reality has little more than 500 , Paying {members!) The San Francisco Satectrent Employes’ Association was an out and out scab company union. Organized by em- ployers in 1916 in order to crush the Interna- Longshoremen’s Association, and procured the admission of its delegates to the San cisco Labor Council, But, it has never affiliat with the International Longshoremen’s Associa- tion - These are Scharrenberg’s “own” unions, through whose votes he maintains control over the State ‘Federation. And while he hypocritically | quick, but some chap-who identified himself as and falsely attacks the Tom Mooney Molders Defense Committee because it “has never issued @ financial statement” the fact remains that neither of these organizations has contributed “one cent tothe Defense Committee since it was reorganized three ago. On the contrary Scharrenberg has done everything in his power to prevent any « jon or individual from contributing’ to the ‘defense of Mooney and [ fon | By. JORGE Well Done!..-We Thank You! Hurray! The campaign for a radio for the Daily Worker is ended with great and astound- ing success! We—you and the rest—have in the last days come through fine and accomplished our Five Year Plan in One Year! It may take some time to get started, but when our gang gets going, my gosh how the money rolls in! So with heartfelt thanks to everybody that helped along, we're calling the campaign off! But that Radio Commission of ours who pledged to raise Ten Bucks and then retreated to the caves of Nitgedaiget have yet to be heard from, and we think that it ought to keep its pledge because, although we seem to have enough already, you know how these radios are ‘it’s the overhead” of tubes and so on... « We wouldn't have ended the campaign so J. X. K. came into the District Daily Worker office and dropped $30—just like that! Then dollars began dribbling in and counting up so that we feel sure now that, with what's probably on the way we'll haye enough to get the ma- chine, rig it up and-some left over for upkeep. Because the donors have been numerous, we'll have to be brief in acknowledgement, Clear from St. Paul came $1 from William J, Comrade Newman dropped another right in our mitt. Dr. M. M. gave a, whole $2.50. Anna Roch- ester sent $1. From LB. of New York came $1; and another L. B. sent a Bone from Newport, RL Then Harry L. sent $1 with a long letter rais- ing the devil with the Daily because it “jumps” stories from the front, page-to inside pages. He demands no “jumps” at all, in fact he has been demanding that a long time. It is @ perfection we aim at but rarely attain. He thinks we don’t try. Also, he declares that until all stories started on one pagé end there, the.American working class won't read the Daily! That looks over- stated to us. But what do you, readers, think of it? Remembering our technical difficulties, don't think we “jump” stories because we like to, Comrade M., whose heart was good even if his radio (which is the one which our Commission vetged) was bad, sends in $1 and says that the old! box, like capitalism, once deserved some credit . . . “a few centuries ago.” No apolo- gies necessary, comrade. You did the good job of starting things for the whole works. The following were picked up by, the Daily business office: H. Résnow with $1; a comrade from Tomkinsville, Staten Island, $1; “a sym-< pathizer” who was bashful about her name, $1; then Theobald Aquino left $2, and we ran right across Bob Dunn who put a Buck in the pot. When Comrade Kasper of the Newark T. U. U. L. came in, with along list of signatures to- talling $8.02 (the 2 cents grom an unemployed worker being appreciated even more than that $0) we knew we had friends. Then a disabled war veteran dropped $1, to-show how vets like the Daily, Just now V. H. L, of Brookline, Mass., arrived with $1. Now we counted that all up and found it made $55.52. We had previously acknowledged $4 in cash and that makes $59.52 on hand. We had started in counting the $10 pledged by our Radio Commission, and wouldn't it be dirty Irish trick if they started off that way and welched on the home stretch? We heard that “a little group of serious thinkers” has $6 gathered up—and we hope to get that, too. So, although we aimed modestly at a radio at about $42 on the hoof, we may get a better one, Any- how, we'll get one, and outside of our Commis- sion at Nitgedaiget ahd the group last men- tioned, all the rest. of you can keep your money— until we ask for something else. Incidentally, we had asked for something else. Remember the letter\we printed by a comrade who started off a ‘little fund for printing the Daily article (published Feb. 24) on the starva- tion policy of the Red Cross? Weil, response has been slow, only $1,50-more besides the first $2 by Comrade 2, Don’t you think jt~would be all right, if the few bones which come in on the tide of past appeal (excluding the one pledge and the one hope noted above) ‘would be devoted to that pur- pose, to tell the drouth stricken farmers what tc do, how to fight with the Communists against capitalism? That would be giving concrete ex: pression to the revoltitionary alliance of worker: and farmers, one of the prerequisites of a prole- tarian revolution, © : | P. S.—One comrade suggests that just to make , Fish sore, we oughta. get a_short wave receive’ that would pick up, Moscow where those awfv reds are building a. station that will brea) through even the st of Satura| Mooney Molders ees charges that Paul § major “labor leader i not with the pardon. of Tom Mooney. They ary interested solely in “Keeping Tom Mooney prison, or at the inost, in making an empty gi ture by advocating that he be released’ on parol Paul Scharrenberg”-heads the list of the betrayers of the workers of the State of Cal’ fornia. He remained at his.post in the cabinc of Governor C. C. Young at @ time when th: official refused to consider Mooney’s petition fc @ pardon. He campaigned for Mooney and Bil) ings’ jailer, Governor C, ©, Young, during tl recent primary—after this cowardly tool of Bi Business brazenly 1d to. ae these guill less trade unionis‘ These are only afew of the charges agai this “labor leader.”. ‘They suffice to show th Paul Scharrenberg finds it. to his best interes not to lead the workers of this state in the struggle against unemployment, “stagger sy, tems” and. cuts.” No; the best interests _ Paul Scharrenberg-Me~in quite the other dire tion. He finds it much more, to his advant to hamstring the workers, to so organize that workers striving ‘for living wages are © feated, to support tlie’ employers of this state. every form, manner: and shape, and to fir ra