The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 9, 1931, Page 1

€ (rae OREAD bi Oo wort! Daily, (Section of Cd the Communist orker unist Party U.S.A. Fe ae te WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! Entered an second- Vol. VIII, No. 86 at New York, N.Y. class matter at the Post Office :¥3»21 under the act of Murch $, 1879 NEW YORK, THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 1931 CITY EDITION Price 3 Cents GLEN ALDEN GRIEVANCE COMMITTEE SELLS STRIKE ‘} 4.5 in 1913, while infant death per 1000 births had falled from 287 in Defeat Bosses’ Trick 340 New Wage Slashes During March, Gi Government Admits Down Tools, Demonstrate May 1st (Manifesto of the Central Committee, Communist Party of US A) Mr. Raskob Speaks R. RASKOB, Chairman of the Democratic Party National Committee, has issued a programmatic letter stating his opinion of what that party should stand for in 1932. Naturally, since Raskob holds a mortgage on the Democratic Party, his letter states approximately what the Demo- cratic Party stands for, not only in 1932, but today. ‘The Raskob letter, in the first thousand words of the five thousand word total, says that the Democratic program “should be brief.” Also it | is stated that the program should be “concrete” and, “inspire a sense of security and confidence.” Workers will note that Mr. Raskob carefully distinguishes between a Program that justifies “confidence” and one which merely “inspires confidence.” Understanding, therefore, that Mr. Raskob wants the Democratic Party program for 1932 to be thoroughly hy: pocritical, workers will further note that Mr. Raskob’s letter sets a brilliant example tor his party. In a country where a more adept demagogue among the democrats, Senator Cordell Hull of Tennessee, reminds Mr. Raskob that there are 0,000,000 men, women and children really in need of more food and more clothing,” Mr. Raskob would have the workers believe that what they really desire, what they are simply dying for, is more and better beer! The capitalist press is doing its worst to shift the attention of the workers on to Mr. Raskob and his beer. For the Republican Party, too, is quite willing that the workers should forget their misery, if not for beer at least in contemplating the possibility of beer. And as for Mr. Raskob, it is a stroke of providence that thus permits him to pretend that the democratic capitalist party is different in essence from the Republican capitalist party. For here in his program as point No. 1 is the policy of “relieving trade from governmental restriction’—exactly as Mr. Hoover would say it. And since the Democratic Party is adjured to be crete” Raskob gets aw: ay on point 2 by saying that “our tariff policy should be clearly defined.’ How defined, only God and Mr. Raskob know, The democrats, says Mr. Raskob, “should be fair to all alike, poor and rich, labor and capital.” But Mr. Raskob devotes exactly 42 words out of his 5,000 to the 3 points in his program that refer to the material needs of the toiling masses. And in these points, again making use of Raskob “concreteness” we are first told that the Democratic Party should develop “some scheme” of farm relief. “Some scheme,” that is to say, which will | “inspire confidence” among the farmers without relieving them from slavery to the bankers and landlords. ‘The other two points are merely pious declarations about unemploy- | ment insurance and the five day week “without diminution of weekly wage.” Yet we cannot forget that Mr. Raskob is not only the head of the Democratic Party, but is also the head of the General Motors Co. And although it would be pleasing to Mr. Raskob that workers would forget it, we must remind all workers who may be fooled by Mr. Raskob of the Democratic Party, that Mr. Raskob of the General Motors has been cutting wages of tens of thousands of workers. In the Detroit and Pontiac plants of the General Motors, wages were cut last December, on the very day which President Sloan of the General Motors announced that there had been no wage cuts! Pontiac police and Michigan state troops used a brutal reign of terror to drive Mr. Raskob's workers back to the shops when they struck against “any diminution of weekly wage!” And Mr. Raskob “stabilized” the industry by a three-day ‘week with wages which, deducting various expenses necessary to the work itself, left the worker about $7.70 a week on which to support a family! Workers, let these facts answer the empty demagogy of the Democratic Party! Realize that the Democratic Party is trying to take advantage of your hatred of Hoover, only to gain support for the same capitalist class that owns and controls both parties! Vote for the Communist Party in the local elections now proceeding over the country! Fight under the banner of the Communist Party in all struggles for the working class! And—realizing the whole hypocrisy of capitalist politics, workers, come on to the streets May First, under the banner of Communism, to protest unemployment, wage cuts, capitalist terror against the workers, and the preparations for a new and more terrible world war! HE so-called “soviet plan” of the New South Wales “labor” party of Australia is already proven a fake the same week it was announced. The demagogue Premier Lang, and his liéutenant, Jock Garden, decided to call it off. Moreover, the reactionaries, largely centered in the big Jand-owners of the northern region, are demanding from London the right to secede from the New South Wales and form a new province called New England. Thus we see that the bluff of “left” socialists of estab- lishing soviet system without a revolution is pure nonsense only aiding reaction. * . * ’ | becienaa dispatches to the New York Times of April 8 give proof, by yital statistics, of the rising standard of living of the toiling masses. In Moscow the birth rate in 1930 was 22.2 per 1000, compared to 33 per 1000 in 1912-13; the death rate of 13 per 1000 is far below the figure of 19 ‘13 | > 123.8 in 1930. The pre-war infant mortality rates in the farming ii stricts was 350 per 1000 births; while in 1930 it had falled to 15.2. It | is thus seen that despite all the sacrifices in the active revolutionary period of civil war, the revolution of the working class has actually saved far more human lives than it cost. Fifer Shoe Strikers as follows: No discrimination, no wage cut, and full recognition of the workers’ shop committee. The work- ers replied that if all the strike- breakers are thrown out, they would then consider the proposals. The in committee was still in conference at NEW YORK.—One hundred strik-| Daily Worker press time. rs of the Fifer Slipper Shop at 45 llth St. defeated the bosses’ to break their ranks by ar- a booze party through hired its, who invited the workers inder the guise of having a good ime, only to find themselves con- ted with proposals to break away their fellow-workers for a price. A few of the workers, after drink- 1g bosses’ booze, fell for this trai- us talk and signed a yellow-dog greement while under the influence ff booze, The next day, realizing heir error, they came to the s‘rike ceting and denounced the dirty rick, declaring that they are more letermined than ever to fight for Shoe and Leather Workers’ In- justrial Union. ‘Today the bosses, finding them- Collections for Liberator Sun NEW YORK.—The City Committee of the League of Struggle for Negro. Rights has designated Sunday, April 12, as Liberator Sunday for collection of funds to enable the regular ap- pearance of the Liberator. All work- ers are urged to give concrete sup- port to the Liberator by turning out. for collections on Sunday, The sta- tions are: Downtown: 27 East 4th St. and 64/ West 22nd St. Harlem: 353 Lenox Ave. Brooklyn, 73 Myrtle Ave., 1373 43rd St., 105 Thatford Ave. Coney Island, 2853 W. 23rd. St, |all the industries D0 NT TELL WHOLE STORY OF PAY CUIS Many Thousands Are Affected During March there were at least | 340 wage-cuts in thosé plants which report to the Department of Labor, |says a report issued by the Labor Bureau, Inc. This does not comprise in the United States. Wage cuts during March were greater than any month since the crisis started. On the basis of the reports thus given, stating that 340 plants cut wages on the average of 10 per cent, if applied to all in- dustries the pay slashes would num- ber well over 1,000 involving hundreds (CONTINUED ON PAGE THREE) RABBIT DRESSERS GO ON STRIKE Fight Wage Cuts Un- der NTWIU Leader ship NEW YORK.—The Needle Trades Workers "Industrial Union is conduct- | ing a strike against the S. K. & S. Fur Rabbit Dressing Company, lo- cated on Logan Ave., Jersey City. The strike was called against the at- tempt on the part of the firm to re- duce the price for fleshing white rab- bit skins, from $2.15 to $1.60 per hundred. Mr. Moe Harris, Kaufman's agent, is now sending scabs to break the strike. The strikers issued a leaflet to the fur dressers in which they pointed out that a wage cut in the rabbit dressing trade will eventually result in a wage cut for all workers employed in the fur dressing trade. | Moe Harris is trying to create the impression that he does his scab work in the interests of the members of the company union, but even a child can understand that if the strike is broken, and a wage cut takes place, the cut will effect all workers in the trade. The strikers therefore call upon the members of the company union to fight against the scab activity of Kaufman and Moe Harris, and to join the workers of the S. K. & S. on the picket line and support their strike. NEEDLE COUNCIL PLANS NEW DRIVE Smash Injunction at Jerry Dress, Friday NEW YORK.—The important Shop Delegates Council of the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union at its meeting Monday night will plan the work to be taken up in connec- tion with the organization drive which is intensified next week. All shop delegates should be sure to come, The Industrial Union calls on all workers to bring in their May Day Sreeting lists before Saturday. Greet- ings are to be sent to the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union, and the delegate of the union who will carry them across, will be leav- ing in a few days. Friday at 5 pm. there will be another special mass picketing of the Jerry Dress Co., 700 Fifth Ave. This company and the International Ladies Garment Workers have an injunction at this shop, and the strikers and the Industrial Union are determined to smash it to save the right to strike and picket, The Jarry Dress strikers are giv- ing a movie to raise funds for or- ganization purposes and for defense |of the many strikers who have been arrested for picketing that shop. The movie is the splendid film made in the Soviet Union and called, “The Village of Sin.” It shows the awak- ening of the women workers of the USSR. The date is 8 pm. April May WORKERS OF AMERICA! Day M* FIRST is approaching. May First is International Labor In the 80s of the last century, First was chosen by American Labor as its own Day. In 1889 this day was accepted by international Labor as its own. The ‘American bosses dreaded a working cle which dared to choose and to take a day for itself. Out of this fear the American “Labor Day” was born. It was a “gift’’ of the cap- italist masters. 7 This maneuver of the bosses could not change the character of May First as In- ternational Labor Day. It is still the Labor Day chosen by the American workers them- selves. It is the Day on which labor by downing tools and demonstrating, proves its power to take what it wants. It is the Day on which the working class of the world demonstrates its determination to fight for what it wants. The Communist Party of the U.S. A. calls upon all workers in America to down tools on May First and to join it in a na- tion-wide demonstration. Demonstrate on May First, and fight for unemployed insurance. Demonstrate on May First, and fight against the war preparations of the capital- ist bosses! Capitalism Starves Workers. American capitalism is in the grip of the deepest crisis of its history. Millions of workers are jobless. The worker’s chance to live and to maintain his family depends on his job. No job means no wages. No wages means no income. No income means misery, disease, eviction, starvation. Nine billions of dollars were the losses in wages sustained last year by the Amer- ican workers according to official govern- ment statistics. The result of these losses on the working class are an unanswerable indictment against American capitalism. Whole mining communities in West Virginia are faced with acute starvation. On endless breadlines hundreds of thousands of hungry workers wind their weary ways thru the streets of the industrial cities. Large mas- ses of hungry workers’ children thruout the country are defenseless objects of tubercu- losis. No amount of Xmas seals can redeem even an appreciable part of these victims of capitalism. Suicides of destitute workers are the order of the day and their record fills the columns of the daily press. Homeless and penniless workers camp in abandoned brick kilns and other places thruout the country, affording them a meager shelter. Thousands upon thousands of “home-own- ing” American workers have been and are being foreclosed and are parted from “their” homes. Hundreds of banks have failed, bury- ing the savings of virtually millions of work- ers under their ruins. Thus, these workers were separated by the capitalists from their scant reserves exactly at the time when they needed these reserves most. Capitalists Attack Workers These miserable conditions have been used by the American capitalists as a signal to slash wages in all industries. In coal mining, these slashes reduced wages more than half. The old wage-scales in the build- ing trades are formally maintained as a fig- leaf for the naked treachery of the A. F. of L. bureaucrats who actually force the bosses’ wage cuts down the workers throats in all branches of the industry. Whenever work- ers revolt against the progressing enslave- ment of the workers by the profit-hungry bosses, as in the instance of the textile work- ers in Lawrence, Mass., the Department of Labor at Washington steps in and acts as the official and energetic strike-breaking agency for the bosses. Foreign-born work- ers who dare to complain of starvation wag- es or of unemployment are rounded up and deported. Workers who appear before our emp! opr 9 aes Sb" 8, ide ieee kW a as capitalit lgeislatres in Washington, Al bany, etc., to demand unemployment insur- ance are set upon by the police, by state troopers and other so-called peace officers, are clubbed, gassed and threatened with ma- chine-guns. And as its crowning infamy, bestial lynchings become more and more systematic anti-working class pogroms or- ganized by American capitalism. In the first three months of 1931 ten Negro work- ers fell victim to such capitalist murders. Many other unsuccessful lynching attacks were made during the same time against Negro and white workers, American capitalism, though it boasts of being the richest in the world, seems to stand helplessly before the problems of its crisis. Its inviolable commandment is: “Thou shall make profit! To increase its profits, capital- ism rationalizes production. Rationalization in turn throws the workers out of their jobs. Yet at the first sign of the crisis, more ra- tionalization was resorted to as a means of “cheapening’’ production. Thus the capital- ist remedy for unemployment became more discharges of the workers, more unemploy- ment. Wage cuts are continuously carried thru to increase profits. Wage cuts diminish the buying power of the workers. Yet at the first sign of the crisis, more systematic wage cuts were forced thru as a means of “cheap- ening” production. Thus, the capitalist remedy for a narrowing market became a further narrowing of the market, a deepen- ing of the crisis. The outstanding characteristic of capi- t action in the present crisis is refusal stematic relief for the starving workers and an attack instead all along the line, on the wage, living and working standards of the working masses, New War In the Making This condition is aggravated by most in- tense preparations for a new imperialist war. Our capitalist masters want to en- large their shrinking markets by means of new imperialist conquests. First of all, they want to participate in an international capi- talist intervention in the Soviet Union, with the aim of taking Russia from the working class to make it again the object of capital- ist exploitation. To this end, battleships are being built; new war chemicals and poison gases are being developed; the nation is being militarized to a degree unknown in the period before the “war to end all wars”; an official war hysteria turns into high treason every form of opposition to imper- ialist war—even before the war is formally declared; “preparedness” becomes an excuse for the systematic fascization of the govern- ment with an equally systematic suspension of all supposed constitutional, popular rights. Soviet Union Points the Way As against this crisis of the capitalist system, we witness the progress of the build- ing of socialism in the Soviet Union. The outstanding features of this contrast are: Growth of unemployment in capitalist America—liquidation of unemployment in the Soviet Union. Systematic wage cuts in capitalist Amer- ica — systematic improvement of working conditions in the Soviet Union. Fattening of profits at the expense of the working class in capitalist America—liqui- dation of the profit system and development of industry for the benefit of the working masses in the Soviet Union. Dictatorship of the bosses class against the workers in capitalist America—dictator- ship of the working class against ioe bosses in the Soviet Union, Capitalists Fear Soviet Progress The American capitalists fear that the example of the Russian workers will invite the American workers to do likewise, They % (Continued on page 3), SENDS MEN T0 SL SLAVERY; NATIONAL MINERS UNION URGES FIGHT TO WIN 25,000 Battling Wage Cuts and Intolerable Conditions Should Elect Own Committees Grievance Committee Betrayal Follows Long Course of Maneuvers; Militants Warned BULLETIN The Glen Alden Grievance Committee took its action ordering the miners back to work after Tomcheck and Maloney met with the district officials behind closed doors. The Grievance Committee met for two days under police protection. * . Word was telephoned from Wilkes Barre Pa., yesterday afternoon that the General Grievance Committee had called off the Glen Alden Strike by unanimous vote, and had turned over the grievances which the commit- tee had drawn up (and which omit the main grievances of the 25,000 anthracite miners on strike) to District President Boy- ian of the United Mine Workers to be arbitrated. This is what the National Minerss Union has warned against almost from the first day of the struggle, which FRIDAY MORNING The Glen Sag General Grievance Committee is dominated by local Against Murderers of Japanese Workers fakers who want district office, and these have tried continually to end the strike without rousing the anger of the miners. One maneuver after another has failed due to the de- terminatoin of the strikers to win their real demands, for pay for dead NEW YORK.—The American im- perialists are ready to greet with royal splendor two blazoned repre-| sentatives of the Japanese imperial-} ists. As it can be easily inferred, they are not hindered in this instance by their ideology of race superiority. This ideolozy is fostered by the im-| perialists in order to “justify” the} persecution and deportation of Jap-| anese workers who dare to voice their protest against the ruthless exploita- tion to which they are subjected in| this “land of liberty.” | work, no topping, no wage cuts, im- provement in conditions, etc. Now the General Grievance Committee evidently decides that the miners are losing their respect for the officials anyway, and they might as well do the operators’ bidding openly. Carry On The Strike! Boylan and International Presid- ent Lewis of the U.M.W. have. from the first ordered the men back to slavery. The rank and file opposition of If the workers think that such an| lee miners has been organizing, and ideology is fostered in order to pre-|‘R€ Opposition inside the U.M. W., yent the Americans from having any | with the National Miners Union, calls “contact” with elements of an “in- leew the Glen Alden Miners not to ferior race,” they are mistaken. The fact that the American imperialists are anxious to receive with open arms two royal Japanese parasites, shows that “race superiority” is merely a} smoke screen behind which the capi- talists want to hide the class nature} of the shameless discrimination| against Japanese workers. It shows, moreover, that this “race superiority” is a genuine capitalist lie, which the workers must recognize as such in order not to fall under its sinister influence. The Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born calls upon all work- ers to close their ranks, to intensify the struggle against deportation and persecution of militant workers and to voice their mighty protest against | the two “royal guests” who, regard- less of their color, are just as mur- derous as the American imperialists. Demonstrate Friday morning at Bat- tery Park, Pier A, at 9:30 o'clock against the murderers of Japanese workers! Continue Violation of Injunction at Sun Market; 6_ Arrested NEW YORK.—Picketing goes right on at the Sun Market in spite of the injunction obtained there by the employers and the A. F. of L. clerks’ union, which had not a single mem- ber there when the workers struck but came in to supply the scabs. Up to Tuesday, the Food Workers’ In- dustrial Union had 78 arrests at this place and other strikes in which in- junctions have been used in the last few weeks. Tuesday, Benjamin Smit- line was the first to be on the picket line, and the boss, outraged at this defiance of his terror system, as- saulted Smitline himself. The picket put up a good defense, and the po- lice arrested the picket. Murray Goldstein and Ed Lee were also ar- rested. They were held for trial April 9, by Judge Grant in night court. Bail is $500 each. All are |obey the orders to return to work issued by the General Grievance Committee, to continue to organize | their own committees, in each. local, to federate them in a Rank and | File strike committee, and to carry on the strike to a victory. TAG DAY FOR 5 FRAMED IN N. J. Call for Smashing of Murder _Frame- Up PATERSON, NJ. J., April 8—An- other Sacco and Vanzetti case is in the making by the Paterson silk bosses. Five workers, four men and one woman, all members of the Na- tional Textile Workers’ Union, are held without bail on a frame-up charge of murder in connection with the death of a silk boss, where a strike was in progress. All five members, especially Com- rade Leib, are well konwn to the silk and dye workers of Paterson for their activities in many strikes and Struggles since 1924. Therefore it is no accident that the silk bosses, who fear and hate the militant National Textile Workers Union, to strike fear into the hearts of the silk workers by framing its most active members and thus prevent the organization from entering a successful campaign to organize the dyers—the most ex- Ploited section of the silk industry, and all other crafts. ‘The Paterson Textile Workers’ De- fense Committee, in co-operation with the I. L. D,, have arranged a house-to-house collection for Sun- day, April 12, 1931, throughout the state of New Jersey. For this work all I. L. D. branches, labor and fra~ ternal organizations should partici- pate. In Paterson, the Paterson Textile Workers’ Defense Committee will charged with violation of injunction, have direct charge of the house-to~ be