The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 27, 1931, Page 1

INE NEGRO WORKERS MENACED BY ALABAMA LYNCH MOB Let your protests against lynching, de- portations, discrimination and perse- cution of the working class re- sound from coast to coast on March 28. All out! Dail Central Orga CS ection: of UM —~@rnfunict orker Porty U.S.A. the Communist ait is WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! Vol. VIII, No. 75 Entered as second-class matter at the at New York, N. ¥., under the act of March 3, 1879 Post Office =a NEW YORK, FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 1931 CITY EDITION Price 3 Cents PROTEST TOMORROW, FIGHT DEPORTATION, LYNCHING! 20,000 Miners Called Out ( On Strike All Out Tomorrow! YESTERDAY the capitalist courts of Michigan, undoubtedly at the hint Y of the federal government, actually went out of their way to reverse their own previous decision to dismiss the “criminal syndicalism” charges that have been pending since 1922 against a group of workers charged with no greater crime than holding a Communist meeting at Bridgeman, Michigan. At that time, the arrests were due to a growth of strike struggles against wage-cuts and the open shop. It was in the heat of the great railroad strike, and to terrorize the workers the capitalist class jailed the Communists. Because, then, as today, the capitalists feared that the Communist Party would give unity and militancy to the workers’ strug- gles and thus defeat the wage-cut and open-shop campaign. ‘The outrageous action of the Michigan courts is, thus, plainly an at- tempt to terrorize the workers of this country in order to allow the capi- talists to put over the present savage wage-cut drive, to break up if pos- sible the mass moyement for Unemployment Insurance and weaken the workers’ resistance to capitalist preparations for war. ‘The Bridgeman case is therefore a part of the general offensive against the workers, prepared for and cultivated by the infamous Fish Committee, whose anti-worker recommendations are being enforced with- out new laws and with ever-increasing violence which, at the same time, the capitalist press is striving to conceal. To break down this hideous conspiracy must be the task of the toiling masses, who are called to pro- test. in great demonstrations tomorrow throughout America. The reopening of the Bridgeman “criminal syndicalism” case after nine years comes on the heels of the savage sentences of 42 years im- prisonment each imposed upon the eight workers who led the strike of agricultural workers in Imperial Valley, California. Today these workers are behind prison walls! On March 30th their appeal is coming up. And today everywhere all protest meetings must demand of the Governor of California their immediate release! Another and more devilish plan to divide the workers is the inten- sification of oppression and terror against the Negroes. And it is clear to every worker, white or Negro, that the lynching of one Negro in Mississippi only yesterday, and the threatened lynching of nine others in one group in Alabama today, is linked closely to the Bridgeman “crim- inal syndicalism” persecution in the general scheme of terror against the workers. To protest this murderous lynching of Negroes, and to counteract the incitements by the capitalists of race hatred. among the white toiling masses, is a class duty of all workers who should rally to the demonstra- tions tomorrow to defeat the attempt to divide the working class and weaken its united resistance to capitalist attack. Likewise, the wholesale deportation of workers of foreign birth, now being carried on behind a hypocritical pretense of “relieving unemploy- ment” is enough to make one’s blood boil! No less than 100,000 seamen afe to be rounded up and deported: without trial! ico. How barbarous this is may be seen by the reports that these penni- less workers who have piled up profits for American “millionaires have nothing to eat but grass and many have died of starvation! ‘The case of the Finnish worker, Yokinen, whose arrest for deporta- tion followed the day after he had declared for class solidarity between white: and Negro workers, shows the utter villiany and capitalist class character of the deportation campaign. The attempt to force foreign- born workers to scab for fear of deportation is an attack on all workers, native and foreign-born alike! ‘The whole army of lynchers, deporters and persecutors, inspired by the despicable Fish Committee, are attempting to defeat the wave of strike resistance against wage-cuts and the demand for unemployment insurance! They are trying to behead the working class by centering the attack on the Communist Party, the only leadership able to mobilize the masses to victorious resistance! The lynchers, deporters and persecutors of the workers have the entire support of such treacherous leadership as that of the A. F. of L. and the hypocritical “socialists” who try to keep a foot in both camps. All workers will clearly understand the importance of defeating this campaign to divide and defeat them! ‘The protest tomorrow, organized by the Council for Protection of the Foreign-Born, the League of Struggle for Negro Rights and the International Labor Defense, must have the enthusiastic support of all workers, employed and unemployed, native or foreign-born, regardless of race or nationality! All out to defend your class! \Revive Bridgeman Case, Try | Workers’ Industrial Union calls on | all workers to report for picket duty [at 7a. m. at 131 Already in 1930, over 8,000 Mexican workers were herded like cattle | union headquarters. into vile camps and then thrown over the Southwestern border into Mex- | larly to be picketed are Jerry Dress, | all industries who want to save the| 17 BIG UM. W. LOCALS — OF GLEN ALDEN COMP. © VOTE TO JOIN STRUGGLE International Officers, District Bureaucrats and U S De- partment of Labor Agent Rushed to Stop It; Howled Down By Miners |Murray, Kennedy, Boylan, Scored As Fakers When They Enter Joint Grievance Committee WILKES-BARRE, Pa., March 26.—Seventeen big locals of the United Mine Workers of America, through their General | Grieve ance Committee meeting yesterday, voted to strike im- | mediately against the indirect wage cutting, and the direct lengthening of hours. The decision affects 20,000 men, not al! STRIKERS TQ trae ects some he PICKET. DRESS SHOPS TODAY. | days of no work in the last half Union Calls On Work- of the week. The mines are generally on part-time work. ers to Smash In- junction The action of the General Griev- | NEW YORK.—The Needle Trades ance Committee was not only in flat defiance of the orders issued Satur- day by International President Lewis and District President Boylan, that the men should go back to work, but the miners boed and howled down Boylan, International Vice President | Phil. Murray, who had come from Pittsburgh to smash the strike; Thomas Kennedy, International Sec- | retary-Treasurer and International | Board members, Kmetz and Hughes. | With these officials was D. W. Davis, Federal mediator. There are 22 locals affiliated to the | Geneial Grievance Committee, and/ of these 21 answered the roll call. | Ever Truesdale local. which has not | been in the ccrcmittee before, had its (OCONTINUEL vAGIO THREE) | W. 28th St., the | Shops particu- | and Needleman | but 500 Seventh Ave., and Bremmer, 263 W. 40th St., there are also others. Today, at 5 p. m.,, all workers in | right to strike should be out to smash the injunction at the Jerry Dress Co., 500 Seventh Ave. This | i ey | Krupsle is ied by the industrial | “adison Sq. Jobless Union, in conjunction with the Council Organizes | Smash the Injunction Committee of Tenant’s League the Trade Union Unity League. There have ben trials of three ar-| NEW YORK.—Mrs. Fulton, a moth- er of four children and. only one rested for violating the injunction at the Jerry. Ida Wall, charged with | month behind in her rent, was being evicted by the landlord. The Madi- assault, was fined $10. Jennie Guter and Bessie Siegel were charged un-| son Square Unemployed Council was on the job, and organized a Tenants der paragraph 600, but the charge was later reduced to disorderly con- | League in that neighborhood between duct and trial postponed. 37th St. and 8th Ave. Mrs. Fulton is a Negro worker liv- pibeciacs ee i it 328 W. 37th St. id sick ing a 4 » and was sicl ‘The National Board of the Needle insBeal ab: iia: thane, Trades Workers’ Industrial Union was called in for a meeting this Sat- urday and Sunday, March 28 and 29, to meet in New York. The board meeting will evaluate the dress strike in New York and The question of work in the com-| pany union, united front tactics, un- | employed work, work among the new elements in the industry, Negro, youth and Spanish. | thugs. | here,” Philadelphia and many other strikes and struggles that have occurred since the last meeting of the National Board. Many other problems will \ to Jail Communist Leaders DETROIT, Mich. March 26.— Judge White granted the prosecu- tion’s motion in the Bridgeman case for an immediate trial and setting aside a former court order for sep- arate trials for the 27 indicted work- ers arrested in 1922 by operatives of the Department of Justice when they swooped down upon the convention of the Communist Party in Michigan. In a statement issued by the In- ternational Labor Defense it is pointed out that “this is a direct at- tempt at this time of attack of the boss class upon the foreign-born and Negro masses to cripple the entire militant working-class movement in the United States by imprisoning the leaders of the Communist Party, which includes William Z. Foster, Earl Browder, Max Bedacht, William F Dunne, Ella Reeves Bloor, Robert Minor, Rose Pastor Stokes and 20 others.” The charges against the Commu- nist leadership is assembling with an organization which taught the doc- trine of criminal syndicalism and the probable sentence, if convicted, will be 10 years in the Michigan peni- tentiary. One of the indicted lead- ers is Charles E. Ruthenberg, for- "_merly secretary of the Communist fats, and: aad -atnee 1927 William Z. Foster, secretary of the ‘Trade Union Unity League, was tried immediately after Ruthenberg’s con- viction, but the jury disagreed. Ruthenberg’s conviction was ap- pealed, but he died in 1927 and no decision was ever rendered. ‘The arrests in 1922 took place dur- ing a period of great unrest amongst the workers in America. Strikes were going on a large scale, includ- ing the coal miners, steel workers and rairoad men, and it was an at- tempt on the part of the authorities to root out the militant spirit of the workers. In calling attention to the im- portance of the re-opening of this case, and the new attempt to jail the Communist leadership in one sweep, the International Labor De- fense calls upon all workers “to im- mediately rally in militant fashion to save these leaders from along term in prison. Mass resistance and counter-attack alone will save these workers’ leaders and since the state permits only a few weeks time be- fore our comrades go on trial the International Labor Defense calls for immediate action. Organize defense meetings, mass demonstrations and fight for the immediate freeing of] press, the department of (in) justice our militant leadership.” The first session of the board will begin Saturday at 1 p. m. sharp. ‘The Sunday session will begin at 10 a m. sharp at the office of the pee PAUL KASSAY, Akron worker, was framed-up by the Goodyear- Zeppelin Co., and the Federal Gov- ernment. He has now been released on $20,000 bail. The story about Kassay is printed below. BEAT JOBLESS Sergt. OK’s Beating of Workers NEW YORK.—An open air meet- ing held by the Harlem Unemployed Council at the State Employment. Agency at Lenox Ave. and 132nd St. at 12 noon. Sam Brown was chairman; Partin and Sam Nesni, secretary of Unem- | ployed Council spoke. the platform. Nesin refused to call off the meeting as ordered and was pulled off the platform by the armed ‘The workers defended them- selves as best they could. Sam Brown, Nesin and Grantham | De Royal were arrested and beaten | by the cops. Brown had deep gashes cut into two places of his scalp with the butt of a gun. Royal was badly beaten and kicked in the ribs. When the workers were brought to | the police station, Nesin protested to the sergeant against the vicious beat- |ings that were being given them.! “There are no beatings while I'm said the sargeant. All the | while, right in front of his face the cops were workers. The International Labor Defense | defended the case in defense at the pounding the arrested | . FOR STREET MEET, Police made an attack o nthe meet- | ing, demanding that Nesin get off | WORKERS ATTACKS Y. WORKERS IN HUGE DEMON- STRATIONS SAT. Mass Parade In Har- | lem and Other | Sections NEW YORK., N. Y—Throughout | the country and especially in New| York, the masses of workers, native | and foreign-born, Negro and white, | will demonstrate tomorrow, March 28, against the rising system of terror | against the foreign-born and Negro | workers. | In New York, the main demonstra- | tion will be held in Harlem, starting at 2.30 at 144th St. and Lenox Ave. from which point the workers will | proceed in a parade through 144th | St. to Seventh Ave., down Seventh | Ave. to 114th St., then east through 114th St. to Fifth Ave, and down | Fifth Ave. to 110th St., where a mon- ster demonstration will take place. Negro and white leaders of the In- | ternational Labor Defense, the com- | mittee for the Protection of Foreign- | Born, and the League of Struggle, |the three organizations calling the | demonstrations, as well as the leaders | of other organizations co-operating in the, movement, will expose the lynch- ing terror against the Negroes, the | deportation drive against the foreign- born workers and the general terror | |against the working class. In the | | evening there will be a huge affair | at New Star Casino, 107th St. and | Park Ave | In the Bronx, there will be a huge demonstration at Washington Ave. | and Claremont Parkway at 3 p. m.| | There will also be a street and factory gates in midtown and downtown Manhattan. In Brownsville, the workers will | hold a mass march and demonstra- | tion starting at 1.30 at Hinsdale and | Sutter Ave. and winding up in a | huge protest demonstration on Pitkin and Saratoga Ave. | In Williamsburg there will be a | demonstration at Court and Fulton Sts. at 130 p. m. South Brooklyn | | will hold a mass parade and demon- | stration beginning at 40th St. and | Ninth Ave., and ending in a protest | | demonstration at Fifth Ave. and 50th | | St. Demonstration will also be held | in Long Island City and Astoria. | The Council of the Shoe and| | Leather Workers- Industrial Union |last night issued a call summoning | | all shoe and leather workers in join large number of | — 151st Court and won a dismissal. the mass protest demonstrations In the --" opening, | against the orgy of deportations and | the Negro and white workers were | persecution of the foreign born and| be discussed. Ham Fish Joins in Frame-Up of Akron Worker to Put Over Wage Cut for Bosses (In the following article we have a startling example of the lengths to which the bosses go during the present crisis with its growing un- employment to put over wage cuts. The frame-up against Paul Kassay by the Department of Justice and the Navy Department in Akron, Ohio, was used to aid the Good- year Rubber Co. to put over a wage cut and at the same time to intensify the drive against militant foreign born workers. Every work- er should give his answer to this slimy bit of frame-vp by demon- strating on March 28th against per- secution of the foreign born, and against discrimination of Negro workers.—Ed.) ° . ° By HERBERT BENJAMIN. The City of Akron,~the capitalist. and the “Honorable” \ J. Hamilton union, 131 W. 28th St. separated, Negro workers.” Dept. of Justice Stool Pigeons Work With the Goodyear Rubber Co. Fish, Jr, are agog with a new, up- to-date, hair raising » “Communist Plot.” At the very moment when the charge that Communists are wreck- ing banks by “whispering,” becomes even too farcical for Ham Fish to maintain, kind providence in the person of some D. of J. stool pigeons, suddenly pop up with an even more sensational discovery that a Com- munist tried to wreck the largest Zeppelin in the world, by spitting on it. (1) Ridiculous as the charge seems, it is nevertheless a very serious matter for Paul F. Kassay, an expert me- chanic for the Goodyear Rubber Co. | who is being held on $20,000 bond for , trial under the Ohio Criminal Syn- to Push War Plans dicalist Law. It is also a very ser- ious matter for the whole of the working class. This latest frame-up already has all the elements of a classic conspiracy against the militant working class movement ranking in importance with the Sacco-Vanzetti, Mooney and Billings, and other cases that have made the history of the struggles of the American working class a history of the vicious frame- up system. Background and Facts in the Latest Frame-Up. The United States government is making feverish preparations for a new imperialist war. As part of these pic, arations, it is now constructing a giant Zeppelin which is to be known as the “Akron.” The Good- year Rubber Co. has the lucrative contract for the construction of this giant dirigible. All work is subject to rigid inspection by company and Navy Department inspectors. The company is subject to penalty if the contract is delayed and of course stands liable for losses resulting from spoiled parts, etc. Every worker in the plant knows that many of the parts already com- pleted are so imperfect that they are “decorated like Xmas trees with red tags” by the naval inspectors. ‘The whole of “Ring 1,” the first section of the Zep which was completed long before Paul Kcssay was employed ir the plant is so decorated. It is alsc known that the bosses frequently ask the skilled workers to cover up im- perfections caused by the poor work- manship of unskilled workers wh- (CONTINUED O* PAGE ruins TO ANSWER BOSS ON NEGROES AND FOREIGN BORN SATURDAY ‘Will Hold Huge, Militant Demonstrations Throughout - Country in Determined Struggle Against ¢ Deportations and Lynch Terror A | Attack Workers for Fight Against Unemploy« ment, Wage Cuts, Persecution - ‘Intensify Campaign to Incite National Hatred Against Negro and Foreis +-Born Workers; Lead Lynch Mobs in South; Frai vaine Hungarian Worker in Gary BULLETIN. BOSTON, Mass., March 26.—The immigration author = ities in their hearing in East Boston yesterday of the dex portation cases of Edith Berkman, Pat Devine and William Murdoch, officials of the National Textile Workers’ Union and leaders in the Lawrence strike, are laying the base for a new frame-up. : They are trying to declare the N. T. W. illegal on sabo« ! tage charges. They are preparing the ground for a con- spiracy indictment in Essex County, and are using Legion sioolpigeons and provocateurs, and are waging a terror campaign of threats against possible defense witnesses, As the workers of the United States mobil~ \ize their forces for militant, nation-wide dem. onstrations tomorrow, March 28, against pers secution of Negro and foreign-born workers, the bosses and their police and court agencies are frantically attempting Ls defeat this expression of solix darity between native and foreign born, white and Negro work~ ers in the struggle against the | system of hunger and unemployment, race and hatreds, lynching and terrorism. In Phils idelphia, two Negro wor kers, Cornelia i Dixon, JOSS national Sanders and were arrested yese iiam terday IRVI STRIKE IS WON . SHOE and held on $500 bond each i for di: puting leaflets lling om the workers to show their solidarity by demonstrating on March 28 agair In In ching ness, and deportations, Mississippi, a Negro worker was lynched by the |Discharged Worker Is} tn stonday in a camrates to eee Re-Instated up race pass In Wynne, Ark. | the boss hipping up lynch NEW YORK.—After twenty-four | sentiment against two Negro youths hours of strike, the United Action of | who dared to defer themselves the shoe workers of the W. Irving) when murd us) attacked by a Shoe Company, at 15 E. 16th St., un- plantation t fter they had dew der the leadership of the Shoe and/ manded the wages. In Scottsboro, | Leather Workers Industrial Union— |won their fight for the re-instate- ment of the discharged worker, the recognition of the shop committee. and no more hiring and firing by | contractors in the shop, withou: the consent of the workers. After a stormy session of serveral hours dur- ing which time the boss tried hard Ala., 9 Negro workers were picked up by the police’ yesterday on vague charges of “attempting to attack” two white girls. The boss papers played up the fake attack and last night a mob of business men in autos mobiles attacked the jail. In the meantime, white workers who reject the boss poison of race hatred are | to have the Booe and Shoe so-called | brutally beaten up, as in the case Union come in to organize the shop,| of Coder and Hurst, vo white the workers refused to have anything | Southern workers, in T s, jailed, to do with the Boot and Shoe and|as in the case of four others ‘ity many of the shoe workers joined the | \ Shoe and Leather Workers Indus- | ri i : 2 fel oRtond | (ConTINUED ON GD THRERY | The workers returned to work as a| united body. “Socialist” City | Cons Attack Eviction! Meet., Arrest Four READING, Pa., March 25, — Po- lice of the Socialist Party city gov- ernment yesterday attacked a dem- onstration against evictions and ar-| rested the following four workers, | Hossmaster, Quin, Wordburn and Eckert. | The unemployed workers, under | the leadership of the Unemployed) Council of the Trade Union Unity| League, organized a committee of 100 | which went to the “socialist” mayor | and demanded the release of these | workers. The mayor refused to see | the committee, but the committee forced Constable Weidner, the ar- resting officer, to withdraw all the charges. All four were released as a vesult of the pressure cxerted by the | workers, Finds ‘Dail: Bench; Sends Sub “Enclosed is $1 for which please mail me the Daily Work- | er until my’ subscription runs out. I do not know the price of the paper but found one on a bench in the park, and if you do send it only three months I will be satisfied, for i¢ has more truth in it than any paper Lever saw.” Thus writes O. H. B. of Dale las, ‘Tex., proving that once @ worker finds the paper on @ park bench or anywhere else, he wants to read it. t 1,000 more ‘like him before May l 1,000 new subse rs, new sab- scriptions or renewals is the | goal for May Day in the Dally Worker drive. WRN ofr fon tips pg. 3)