The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 16, 1931, Page 1

ee Oe ee ey ler nd ng ‘ mre AnD NEGRO Dail Central Orga CSe¢etion -oF at New York, N. Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office p ¥., under the act of March 3, 1879 the Communist yInterna . tional) Norker tha-Soamunist Party U.S.A. WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! NEW YORK, THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 1931 CITY EDITION Price 3 Cents START NATION-WIDE FIGHT TO FREE NINE NEGRO YOUTHS They Say “Starve”! We Say “Fight”! HE “Financial Chronicle,” of April 11, a journal published for and by capitalists, resorts to awkward moralizing, when it comments upon the recent “Starve or Steal?” speech of Daniel Willard, head of the Balti- more & Ohio Railroad. % ‘They call attention to the words of this capitalist who, being accus- tomed. to live by stealing, said that rather than starve he would steal. But the “Financial Chronicle” points out that Willard said that only those with “no tesources but their labor” might steal rather than starve. From this, the “Financial Chronicle” blithely dismisses the need for stealing. The workers should save their money! Probably some did. And the bankrupt banks got it! In any event, says the paper, they had better starve! But the journal is not content with laying down a policy for bankers, that a “bank clerk who embezzles because $60 a month is not enough to keep a family in the mode of life he wishes, is an unmitigated thiet” to whom no mercy should be shown. No, indeed, the “Financial Chronicle” furnishes spiritual comfort to all capitalists for their systematic thievery. “Can capitalism be condemned because millions of men are jobless and starving? No, indeed!” So it says. And it adds that, after all “only five or six millions are out of em- ployment .. . a million constantly idle by choice,” while just look at the other millions who have jobs! “Must not the capitalistic system .. . be given credit” for all these others being employed? “Can such a system be sacrificed to some makeshift, untried policy?” ings” can for a growing And the out- That But workers spot the lies in this! The lie. that workers’ possibly carry them through unemployment, permanent army! The lie that a million workers “are idle by choice.” rageous lie that there is no other policy bus this capitalist policy! there is only a choice between “steal” and “starve!” Workers are learning, from the world-shaking example of the Rus- sian workers, that by revolutionary overthrowal of capitalist rule they can insure food, clothing and shelter to all who toil! With unemployment abolished by socialist construction, with the seven-hour day and five-day week and increasing wages, it is a lie to say everything but capitalism 1s “untried!” ‘The workers are learning that. only under a Workers’ Government can they be secure! Learning that Mr, Willard’s “remedy” of stealing is no solution to mass unemployment any more than the Financial Chron- icle’s “remedy” of starving! The workers are learning to fight; for Unemployment Insurance nationally! They are fighting and learning that beyond the struggle for food, is the struggle for power! For a Work- ers’ Government! And against capitalism, with its wage-cuts, unemploy- ment, persecutions, misery.and war, the workers are rallying to demon- strate on May Day! Out of the shops and mines and ims on May Day! Strike against capitalism! Against wage-cuts! For jobless relief and unemployment insurance! For a Workers’ Government! for immediate relief in every city, Doles and Subsidies Hoover's new secretary is attempting to put the “great engineer” before the public eye as having what the capitalist newspapers call “human sympathy.” * Quite appropriately to expose the hypocrisy, the N. Y. Evening Post, by pure accident, put the “human sympathy” story right beside the story wherein President Hoover was “Lauding Red Cross for Ban on Dole: The Red Cross, it will be recalled, refused to accept an appropriation by Congress for “human food” for starving farmers and their families. Mr. Hoover in fact ordered the Red Cross to refuse the appropriation, which was for $20,000,000. So he is thanking himself in one way. But, as the spokesman for the entire capitalist~class, Hoover thanks the Red Cross for starving the poor farmers, because, according to his own words: “Otherwise, it would’ have been a step on the pathway of Government doles.” This is clear. The gigantic combination of finance capitalists who rob the farmers and exploit the workers regularly, year in and year out, would not permit “human food” to be given to starving farmers; because | 10,000,000 jobless workers, starving with their families, might also demand a right to eat the food they produced, live in the houses they built and wear the clothes they made. And that—ah! That would be a dole! So President Hoover is against doles! This executive for the entire capitalist class, which is cutting wages right and left! Which is trying to compel the workers to starve to death rather than give up so much as a penny in taxes of the profits they wring from the workers! Hoover is against “government doles.” But only for starving workers and farmers! If you are alréady rich, and organize a steamship company, you can get the following kind of a “dole,” as told of by Mr. Paul W. Chapman, president of the “United States Lines,” a private capitalist concern, in his report to the corpora- tion's directors on March 10th: “Under the provisions of the Merchant Marine Act, we have been granted by the U. S. Shipping Board, a construction loan fund for 75 per cent of the total cost (of new ships), which will be repaid in equal installments over a period of 20 years.” The interest rate, we understand, is 1/¢ per cent. In fact the government pays the total cost- of building these ships, under the so-called “Merchant Marine” law, because these ships are all being built for war! The Post Office Department kindly pays another subsidy in the form of contracts supposedly for “carrying mail"! A dole? Indeed, no, the capitalist government sets up a steamship company in business and guarantees it a profit! . But for.starving farmers! For 20,000,000 men, women and children of the unemployed! ‘Nothing! é This is the “human sympathy” of Hoover! This is the starvation policy of the capitalist class! Prepare for war! Cut the wages of the workers who have jobs, and force the ones who have no jobs to starve to death quietly! Everything for the rich, nothing but starvation for the workers! But workers are learning—from the land where workers rule—that they need not starve! That toilers of farm and factory can rule—and rule and run industry for themselves! The Soviet Union is the beacon light of the workers of all the world! And on May First, International Day of the voubirk, they are going to strike and demonstrate against wage cuts! To strike and demonstrate against starvation, demanding Unemploymént Insurance at the cost of the rich! Down with subsidies for the rich! Down with war plots against the Soviet Union! Onto the streets May First! Patterson Speaks In |Wnmos peuiutin speaker Comrade Harlem Fri. ‘ri. April 24th |turnca from a stay of three and a half years in the Sovigt Union, NEW YORK,—The Harlem mass} In the meantime, other meetings meeting, to protest the frame-up of the nine Negro youths, with death sentences for eight, will be held Fri- day evening, April 24, not this Fri- day ‘evening, as erroneously an- ing are being held in other parts of thecity, Street meetings are being held every night, mobilizing the masses for protest against the nounced in yesterday's paper. planned murder of the nine Negro ‘The meeting, which will be held in|youths and for demonstration on St. Luke's Hall, 125 W..130th St., will |May Day, uv to protest the Alabama legal lyneh- | JOBLESS: crease York, has vetoed all help for PICKET JERRY pie. Needle Trad NEW YORK—All out to picket | and the injunction at the |Jerry Dress, 500 Seventh Ave., 30 this morning! The fight goes | on here in spite of all attempts by etc, of the bosses and the {company union to crush the mili- | tancy of the, workers | There will also be picketing | Needleman & Bremmer, St. Yesterday four pickets were ar- rested at this shop and came up for hearing in Jefferson Market Court Sentence was postponed, smash at at NEW YORK.—Governor Roosevelt, Wea about the unemployed and. emphasized the necessit | doing something for the 1,500,000 jobless in the state of New DRESS TODAY. Meetings Being Held | 263 W. 40th | N.Y. STATE LEGISLATURE TURNS DOWN 1,500,000 SAYS STARVE Finds Excuses to Do Nothing While Jobless In- 2,000 a Week Must Answer by Greater Efforts at Organi- zation; Demonstrate May 1 who has shed many of the unemployed. The fake bill introduced by the republican floor leader, whi¢h would have : unem- permitted ployment insurance bosses —has been vetoed. | was fake relief and insurance is clear. plan even this was too much for | Roosevelt, who pretends to be a “lib- eral” and “progressive” and he vetoed t on the grounds that “it would be \inconsistent now to provide for one |form of unemployment insurance and |thus discriminate against other pro- posals which have had much greater | | public consideration.” “voluntary” insurance—that provided by ing. Reports in New York City show that unemployment is increasing at the rate of 2,000 per week. The bill |in the state legislature would not help \the millions now unemployed. but | the attitude of Roosevelt and his ex- | jeuses show the workers what they | | may- expect from a bosses’ ment in New York. Roosevelt adds jthat the State Federation |was opposed to the bill, because, fol- lowing the line of William Green, the is, the at their own discretion That this This is an excuse for doing noth- govern- | of Labor | Condemned Boys Tell Own Left to Right: Robertson, 17; Andy Wright, liams, ol y “defended” by ted by the court. The trial of ‘Negro Youngsters Reis Raileoadedl to Electric s>yii15 | Chairv by Alabama Bosses and Their Courts 17; his brother, Roy Wright, 14; len Montgomery, 17 the youngest has been postponed. Clarence Morris, sters have been sentenced to burn on July 10 by a prejudiced attorneys who had been howling for their blood. Haywood Patterson, 17; Eugene Wil- 20: 18; Ozie judge and The attorneys were ap- Charley Weems, CP IN ELECTIONS Negro Boy, Writes Mother from OF N. BRUNSWICK Jail, Begging Fight for Life; Shop Meetings Used | In G ampaign | Last Sunday a City Election Con- Today, at 1 p. m., there will be an | State Federation of Labor is opposed | ference was held in New Brunswick open forum for fur workérs in Ir- |to all forms of unemployment relief | to r: ving Plaza Hall. It is called by the | Needle Trades ‘Workers’ Industrial | Union, and there will be full discus- |sion of allsthe problems facing the | |furriers, and the position of the In- | dustrial Union, with particular ref- ference to the Jersey City International Fur cut on the strikers and the Interna- tional furnishes scabs. Tonight the shop delegates coun- | cil of the Needle Workers’ Industrial | Union meets at Union Hall, 131 W. | 28th St., at 7:30 to nominate officers | of the union and to take up plans for | organizatio nin each of the needle | trades, Two other meetings are to be held tonight, one of all knit goods work- ers in the Industrial Union, at 7:30 p. m. at the 131 W. 28th St. head- quarters, and the other at the same | place, of hemstitchers, at 6:30 p. m. Olympic Calls In Cops to Attack Picket Line NEW YORK.—The first clash took place yesterday on the Olympic picket, line with the police. The bosses ap- parently hoped until then the strike would dwindle away. Instead the strikers stood firm and the picket line grew stronger. Yesterday the po- lice came down and drove all from the corner, and even broke up groups of pickets which formed across the street. The strikers will not give up for this, however, and picketing goes on. strike, | where the police, the bosses and the | Workers’ bureau- | crats have united to force a wage- | |and insurance. More Struggle. This must be answered by |organizational effort in building up | the Unemployed Branches and Coun- | | cils, and by more energy in the work | to compel the state and federal gov- ernments to enact the Workers Un- employment Insurance Bill. Roosevelt signed a bill to make it }@ penal offense to (CONTINUED ON PAGE TWO) Bronx Meets This Saturday to Rally Masses for May Day NEW YORK.—Section 5, Commu- nist Party, is arranging 6 open-air meetings for Saturday, April 18, at |8 p. m., to mobilize the workers in the Bronx for May First. The following are the corners and | speake! | 139th St. and Brook Ave.—L. Baum |J. Hunt, Movshowitz and Dainoff. 161st_ St. and Prospect Ave.—Gaal, | Nay, Lustig and Williams, Intervale and Wilkins Ave. I. Hal- greater | “carry any em-| *}are to be taken to penetrate into all support behind the two Com- |munist candidates for city commis- sioner, one a woman cigar worker, another a male worker. The city elections take place Tuesday, May | 12th. Ways and means were dis- lcussed of dramatizing the struggles lof New Brunswick workers in this | campaign, A decision was made at the above | teonference to hold another election | Jeonference together -with the May | Day Conference this Sunday, April | 119, and to make every effort to have more women delegates from the var- ious shops present, get representation | from the J. & J. and other shops, |and a good number of Negro dele- | gates. Red nights are to be held, truck} | parades are to be held decorated with | our slogans and calling upon the| workers to vote Communist. Shop| gate meetings are to be held at| Johnson & Johnson, the General Cigar, where many women work, and | at other shops, Open air meetings are being held regularly. A special | New Brunswick election issue of the | Daily Worker is being prepared. Steps workers’ organizations of the city and call upon the workers to support the Communist candidates. Claremont Parkway and Washing- ton Ave.—Henkin, Coheh, Sharfen- berg, Rich and Ginsberg. St. Nicholas Ave. and 163rd St.— Smith, Ford, Johnson and Stern. 214th St. and White Plains Ave— Severeno, Taylor, Roberts and Selt- zer, pern, Fein, Frey Miller and Marks. | HELP WANTED. — The Daily Worker needs volun- teers to address envelopes by hand or typewriter, Assis- tance appreciated by the cir- culation dept., 35 E. 12th St. eighth floor. ' ‘Worried to Think Going to Die for Boys All Poor That Your Nothine” Welcome ILD Aid Poor’ Son I Families of By HELEN MARCY. “My Dearest Sweet Mother and Father: “This is to let you know of my present life and worried to think that your poor son is going to die for nothing.” These poignant lines are contained in a letter sent to his mother in Chattanooga, from 17-year-old Heywood Patterson } from the Scottsboro jail after ne and seven more Negro young- AFL FOOD LOCAL BOASTS OF SCA NEW YORK. — Twenty-four cases | of food workers arrested in the var- | ious strikes came up in court at 151 St. & Amsterdam Ave. yesterday. 10 were held for special sessions under Paragraph 600 (violation of an in- junction). The business agent of the | A. F. L. clerk’s local 338—his name is Volchuck, stated: “The aim of this injunction is not only to protect the bosses who are not signed up.” This local co-operates fully with the bos- ses in strike breaking, rushing in | wherever the workers go out and of- fering to supply scabs and apply the | blanket injunction. Monday, Rothberg, another busi- ness agent of Local 338 came to the picket line led by the Food Workers Industrial Union at Coney Island, and tried to pick a fight with the workers. He succeeded, and before | the police came down he found out) they coul dfight. Several pickets were arrested. Organizer Reich of the sters-had been sentenced to the ee chair. cious frame-up anda still more vicious bosses’ system that is grinding under foot both white jand colored workers. The letter continues: Begs Mother to Save Him. “Do ail you can to save me from being put to death for nothing. Mother, do what you can to save your son. “We did not get a fair trial, and you try to have it moved some- where else if we get a new trial. Do you all iry to come down here and try to get me a new trial, or I will be put to death on July 10. “Igam in jail for something 1 did not do, You know that it hurt me to my heart. I will be moved to Kilby Prison. “Good-bye and good luck. “HEYWOOD. “April 8, Scottsboro, Ala.” Parents Poor—Bitterly Exploited. Wright, and Roy Mrs, Patterson and Mrs. whose two sons, Andy F, W. I. U. came to the police sta- wrieht, one 17 and the other 14 tion to investigate and was also ar-| rested and charged with assault. All were released on bail. General Strike Breaks Out in Barcelona; Form “Revolutionary Committees;” King Goes Cable reports from Barcelona to j capitalist newspapers tell of a general strike being declared in that city by the United Labor Syndicate, as well as a strike throughout Catelona called by the National Confederation of La+ bor, ‘The reports go on to state that the “new republican government had tried desperately to avoid the strike, which was part of the extremist ef- forts against the new regime.” “Revolutionary committees,” hve been formed in the suburbs of Bar- celona where large textile and other miils are situated. Various exploiters | were arrested by the revolutionary committees which appear to be at- tempting to arm the workers, A mass of workers attacked the New Republican Government Tries to Keep Masses From Carrying Forward Real Revolution; Storm Prisons say that 600 persons were rel ad and that “the authorities had je difficulty in controlling the situa- tion.” The bourgeois separatists are talk- ing about creating an independent state in Cataloniafi though affiliated to Spain. Barcelona has a long tradition ot , miltiant strikes and class action. The workers are not being tooled by the fake bourgeois promises of a republic of “law and order.” However, in yiew of the scantiness of the news it is difficult to get a clear picture of the penitentiaty where many workers are asain. Timprisoned, The capitalist dispatches , M relation of class forces, the extent of the mass support of the armed uprising and under what leadership it is progressing. It is clear from events that the capitalists are having a difficult time to limit the abdication of King Al- fonso to a mere “peaceful” transfer- erce of power leaving the feudal re- gine intact. In Barcelona the masses | Were demanding bread and_ better workit.% conditions. The capitalist | press it, protectitig the socialists and | continue unabated, The provisional government headed by the Repub- lican’ Niceto Alcala Zamora is work- ing to consolidate its power and pre- vent a real revolution of the workers and peasants, Knig Alfonso has left on a warship, presumably for Eng- land, where the British Labor gov- ernment will give him an enthusi- astic welcome, A national holiday was declared Wednesday in view of the abdication of the king. The king was hung in ‘effigy in the streets, Revolutionary songs against the aristocrats were | sung by the people. Street car traffic was forcea to stop. In Seville 212 in keepim: all blame from them, spe- cifically say that the socialists con- demn this uprising and_are for the full support of the republican capi- talists, In Madrid mass demonstrations prisoners were released when a large crowd stormed the jail. Six hundred prisoners were freed by the author- ities in Valencia to prevent ® whole- sale jail rescue pais. | | years old, are being held with the {other seven, live in West Chatta- | nooga, on the banks of the Tennes- see. Clean, but very por, working- class homes, Mr. Patterson works In a steel mill on the stagger plan, three days a week. He used to make $28 a week in the “good days,” but with the stagger plan wages were cut and now for three days’ work he gets a measly $7 for a family of eight. Fel- low steel workers in the plant made |& collection and raised $10.36 for the defense of the nine youths, Andy Started Work at Age of 10. Andy and Roy Wright lost their father seven years ago. Andy started to work when he was only 10 years old to help support the family, He helped in groceries and up to last year had been working as a truck driver. Every day the boss told him to come back—perhaps he would get his job. Day after day for a whole year Andy hung around business places until he saw it was no use. He could no longer stand being a burden to his mother, who makes $6 (CONTINUED ON PAGE THREE) For full political and social rights and self-determination fov Negroes! Against imperialist wari » victims of a vi-! oN | Story of Arrest and Frame-up BIRMIN IGHAM, Ala. —The Interna- |tional Labor Defense ‘brands the conviction iof nine young Negro 'workers in Scottsboro je reuit court on April \6, with sentencing of © to death in the elec- jtri> chair as a frame- lop from start to finish. This statement followed in- igation by Alan Taub, New York attorney répresenting the [. L. D., and Dou district ILD repre las McKenzie, ative here. | Boys Had No Part in Fight. Taub and McKenzie | viewed the nine youths at length in Birmingham jail. The facts of the case as presented to them by the de- fendants are as follows: The freight train on whieh the fight with the white men and attack on ihe white girls is supposed to have taken place left Chattanooga 10:45 a m. Wednesday. M Memphis Willie Rebins old young worker trom / in an empty box by himself and one in that car tintil taken off by an armed mob at Paint Rock, Ala the girls, the white other defendants, have iftter- at He never saw boys. er the ol renee Norris ¢ Charles Weems, 19 and 20 respectively, of At- lanta, got on a flat car piled with | (CONTINUED ON TAG REED | KASSAY APER ALS FOR 9.N NEAP we HD “Hs On “Workers to | Mobilize to Stop Taral Lyneh'ng Paul Ka Hungarian worker who himself is being framed by the ruling class of this country on a fake charge of sabotaging work on a U.S: Navy Zeppelin, has issued an appeal to the working class to smash the murderous frame-up and planned legal lynching of nine Negro young- sters by the Alabama bosses and their courts. Kassay’s appeal=de- clares: ‘Just as the workers of Ohio have rallied behind the defense of Roy Mahoney, a Negro worker who was facing a criminal syndicalist charge and secured his release: just as they are now rallying so militantly behind my defense, so must you on a nation-wide scale rally behind the defense of the nine young Negro workers in Ala- bama and prevent their being burnt in the electric chair. “Only through the unity of the workers will the lives of these Ne- (CONTINUED ON PAGE THREE) Fight lynching. Fight deporta- tion of foreign born. Elect dele- gates to your city conference tor protection of foreign born. Send Greetings, Ads to Daily Now “It’s all quiet on the West- ern front,” writes Oscar S. of Aberdeen, Wash., who en- closes a $2 subscription. “So far as sawmills are concerned on Gtays Harbor there are rumors that Bay City wiil close down from April 1, so perhaps they figure on another wage- cut.” May Day demonstrations are organized to fight these wage- cuts and for wide distributién previous to May 1. Send May Day greetings from individual workers (at 25 cents a name); secure ads from mass organizations with a yol- untary sum as generous as pos- sible, $5, $10, $15, $25, ete; get ads from local, dealers, $2 a column inch, and send: these . in immediately. (Sixty thousand circulation tips on page 3.)