The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 22, 1931, Page 1

& — . before. {Demme T x MONS TRATE. Iwanr) | RIGHTHERE eee) ay ler RIGNDS gS ~< FASCIST Veterans = $.P => Central Orga p) (Section of the Communist International) Vol. VIII, N Entered as second-class matter at New York, N. ¥., under the act of Slarch 3, 1879 t the Post Office <=" NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22, 1931 orker x | e-SSAMunict Party U.S.A. WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! CITY EDITION Price 3 Cents “LIBERAL” PINCHOT REJECTS DEMANDS OF STARVING “Against the Common Fee” 'HE radio Monday night brought us what was called a “round table discussion” of the current business situation, held in Washington before no less a “great engineer” than President Hoover. Hoover kept discreetly silent and listened to what the New York Times’ of Tuesday called “frank reports.” The occasion was a conference of the editors of business newspapers and journals, the chairman of which, Stanley A. Dennis, spoke at length in advocacy of a ‘council for industrial progress, a national industrial planning board, or an industrial mobilization board’—a fascist idea which is gaining ever more support among big capitalists. Mr. Dennis did not mention the Soviet Union and its Five Year Plan, doubtless because to do so would raise the annoying question of the dif- ference between the Five Year Plan of socialist construction under the Soviet Government of workers and peasants, and the “five, ten or fifteen year economic program for America,” which Mr. Dennis set forth as the purpose of his “national industrial planning board.” But there is one thing which he told over the radio that did not appear in the capitalist, press concerning the purpose of this board and its suggested “plan.” Mr. Dennis said that such a board or council, which he proposed should be headed by Owen D. Young, should “mobilize its brains, its vision, its courage, its personnel,” etc—“against the common foe.” Who is the foe? ‘Look, workers, in every great capitalist newspaper, the propaganda that is being put out by capitalist spokesmen of all kinds in favor of wage cuts! You, the working class, are the “common foe,” against which capitalism is mobilizing all its forces! The drive to force down the wage standards of the American workers is on in full swing, open and usually unashamed! The shame-faced apolo- gists for wage cuts customarily argue something as follows: “Prices have fallen on the goods which workers buy. Therefore, it will make no difference if the workers refuse wage cuts in proportion.” This is the rankest hypocrisy! If it would “make no difference,” why are all these speeches made in fayor? Moreover, these liars calmly ignore the fact that according to the United States government statistics them- selves, the wage total has already been cut $9,600,000,000 during 1930 from the total of the previous year! More, since the absolute total of wage payments includes all kinds of salaried executives, whose salaries and bonuses (such as that of Mr. Grace of the U.S. Steel) have not been reduced, the reduction noted ($9,600,000,- 000) has been taken or rather stolen from the stomachs of millions of wage workers and their wives and children. In the face of this, only those of the cast iron audacity of Secretary Hyde, would dare to speak of a supposed but wholly imaginary “equality of wealth” in the United States. Especially so since the dividend and interest payments of domestic corporations increased during the first eleven months of 1930 over the same period of the previous year, $428,- 500,000, to a total of $8,000,500,000. The first duty of all workers, understanding the brass faced gall of capitalists who are trying to cut wages still more under the guise of pretty words about mobilizing “against the common foe,” is to rally in shop, -mine-and -mill,-in. solid Tanks-against wage cuts. Organize shop committees to fight wage cuts! Unite the employed and unemployed in common struggle for unemployment relief and against wage cuts! Out on the streets in a one-day strike on May Day! Hurl back the capitalist attack! . Aid the Communist Press SUPPORT THE PUBLICATION OF IL LAVORATORE! bgp be the 4,000,000 Italian language speaking people of the U. S.,, nearly all workers and most of these workers engaged in hasic in- dustries, a Communist paper in the Italian language is an utmost neces- sity. The “Il Lavoratore,” the official organ of the Communist Party of the U. S, of America, has been and must be the strong right arm of the revolutionary workers of this country to agitate, educate and organize the Italian speaking workers as a part of the American working class. More, the Il Lavoratore is an absolutely necessary organ to build up the only dependable, because working class, opposition to fascism in Italy, already shaking above the ferment of mass discontent, by teaching large numbers of returning Italian immigrants the Communist way of struggle against the naked dictatorship of capitalism which fascism is. Still more, an Italian Communist paper in Italian is an extreme necessity to combat the insidious demagogy of the false “anti-fascists,” who are really standing on a fascist position, while rallying around them the leaders of social fascism and extending their influence over the work- ers, because of their supposed “antagonism to fascism” that is really nothing more than a disagreement with Mussolini, “The principal organ of this special kind of demagogy in this country is the “Nuovo Mondo,” which claims to be “opposed to fascism” and to “the penetration of fascism into the United States,” but whose principal political spokesman is a member of the fascist Ku Klux Klan. This organ of fascism demagogically tries to stand on both sides of the class struggle in its program—in words—but in fact it supports the wage cutting “stag- ger” plan of President Hoover, while in New York it is an integral part of the Tammany machine. The task of re-beginning publication of “Il Lavoratore” to fill the obvious need for a journal of Communism, is not to be understood as limited to the Italian members and sympathizers of the Communist Party. Every worker in the United States, whatever his birth or language, should aid to the physical limit the re-publication of “M Lavoratore” which was suspended for a short time in recent months. All revolutionary workers will second the Daily Worker in greeting the reappearance of “Il Lavoratore,” and in insuring its widest circula- tion among Italian speaking workers! All aid to “Il Lavoratore!” Next Sunday evening at the Workers Center, 35 East 12th Street, the “IL Lavoratore” will greet its supporters at a banquet. All organizations in New York, whether Italian or not, are invited to send delegates and pledge-support to this important Communist paper, More May 1 Demonstrations Planned This Year Than Last : senna Aer Ve From all parts of the country repotrs pour in on the mass preparations for May Day demonstrations. This year, with wage cuts coming on apace, with millions drawing closer to the starvation point, plans for organization for May Day dem- onstrations to rally the workers to a struggle against capi- talism, hunger and pay slashes Bia meek Piasiied "Siase as are more thorough than ever!’ nockwORD, IL—Fint of May Many cities \ where] demonstration this year in Rock- May Day was never celebrated | ford, I1., will be the biggest May before by the workers are now Day demonstration since 1919, if all planning mass meetings and demon-| *2¢ plans are carried out. ‘The dem- ‘ , onstration will start with a short i ladineN, he Py mecting at Seventh St. and First Ave. at 6:30 p.m. The parade starts CHICAGO.—This year there will| “ i be at least 25 May Day demonstra-| a! 7 P. m. and takes the following tions in the Chicago District as com- | CU"S¢:, Seventh St, ang Charles st. pared to 8 last. year, Hirer han ~ MEETINGS 1. Two Chattanooga meetings protests to governor of Alabama a Defense Conference called for April 2. Detroit police try to prevent workers against Scottsboro court roo 9 ent representing hundreds of work up and attempt at Icgal lynching. Courier. boss lynchers; N. A. A. C. P., the League maintain silence on propos Negro youths, 2 CHATTANOOGA NEGRO DENOUNCE COURT ROOM LYNCHING | Hail Entrance of 1L D and LS N R In Struggle to Save Lives of Nine Innocent Negro Youngsters | Southern Workers Rallying for May Day Dem- onstrations—Negro Workers cesentment Grows at Treachery of Reformists BULLETIN, of Negro workers last night sent nd elected delegates to Scottsboro 28 in Chattanooga. united pretest of white and Negro m lynching. New York United May Day Conference, with 727 delegates pres- ing class organizations vigorously condemned legal lynching and demanded new trial for Negro youths with jury of workers, at least half Negroes. 4, Pittsburgh mass meeting condemns convictions as vicious frame- Denounce attitude of Pittsburgh 4. Negro reformist press continues open cooperation with southern U. N. I. A. and National Urban ed mass murder of nine innocent to burn in the electric chair on July nine boys have been sentenced | 10. The ninth is still to be tried. The | ‘Pay Cuts Soon to be Handed | - All Workers in Steel Industry, | Youngstown Mills Have Plans Completed for Wage | Cuts; United States Steel to Take It Up At the End of Next Month | How to proceed with wholesale wage cuts) 5,000 Back Hunger Marchers at Capitol; Prepare May Day 400 Delegates of Pennsylvania Unemployed Troop After Committee Into Joint Session of Legislature; Call for Insurance xovernor Who Orders $4,500 Portraits Says $15 A Week to Jobless Would Ruin State AFL State Convention Hurriedly Adjourns So As Not to Meet Unemployed; Six Arrested for Selling Daily Worker In Harrisburg in every steel mill in the United States is the| \leading topic of discussion among the steel | bosses. “The matter of wages in the steel in- | idustry,” writes the Journal of Commerce, | | mouthpiece of the leading exploiters of Wall Street, “has become | one of the chief topics in the business world in these days of | declining operations and scanty profits.” Steel Workers Slashed. In Yougstown the wage slashing campaign has passed the | ORKERS TO HIT nee OF Cieruenicn Whe, actye eae LEGAL LYNCHING | ent in Youngstown, Ohio, wires to his es will take place any day now. They |are not the first but follow a whole series of pay cuts already handed out The New York Times correspor | CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., April 21—400 Negro workers| at a mass meeting at the A. M. EK. Zion Church here rose to! their feet cheering the declaration of the district organizer of | the International Labor Defense that the I. L. D., backed by the working class of the United States, would make a finish CALL 7 COPS TO ds Gas eae EVICT ONE MAN. | paper that: | “Steel manufacturers here are Parade in Harlem This | considering a general wage reduc- ion.” He also states: “Most of the | Saturday already put into effect slight re- | | tion at the brazen railroading. by the. 1d States Steel Corporation the capi- | ion.” steel companies in this district have | NEW YORK.—New. York workers! quctions.” : will express their horror and indigna-| At the recent meeting of the ,Uni- | . -¢ | Malists were careful not to say any- Peete pore 0b Clans pare | thing about wages. Heretofore, Far- | HARRISBURG, Pa., April 21.—The combined delegation: of hunger marchers from both ends of the state and all in between led the biggest working class demonstration ever seen here, 5,000 workers, many of them jobless miners assembling on the capitol grounds and cheering the demands which their representatives were making on the legislature and on Govy- ernor Pinchot for unemployment insurance, this forenoon. This great demonstration, and all the many mass meetings held in the main industrial towns of the state by the hunger marchers on their way to the state capital, serve as a mobiliza- tion for still larger May First | the lynch verdict of the Scotts- boro boss court. Eight of the Landlords Fear Action by Jobless Council NEW YORK.—When the Down Town Unemployed Council sent a committee yesterday to investigate the reported eviction of Samuel Jan- nal, 39 Suffolk St., they found when they got to the place that the furni- ture was already out and seven po- licemen were there. The committee held an, open air meeting nearby, and began organiz- ing the tenants in the building and those around. They found the ma-| jority sympathetic. The council forced the Majestic Employment Agency, 134-E. 13th St., to refund $4.50 of $5 paid for a job which lasted only one day. The worker was Frank Cuber, a food worker, and member of the Down Town Council. Preparations continue actively: for the united front conference which will establish on a firm’ basis the Lower Manhattan Council of the Unemployed. All workers’ organiza- tions below 59th St. are to send two delegates each to the conference which meets at 10 a. m. sharp at Manhattan Lyceum, May 10. To raise money for organization expenses, the Down Town Council is holding a May Day Eve Rally and Dance at 131 W. 28th St. on April 30. May First Edition of Labor Unity will be off the press Sat- urday, April 25. All workers’ organizations should send their orders for this edition at once to the district office, 16 W. 2ist St. The price for this special issue is 2 cents a copy. By FRED VIGMAN, NEW YORK CITY.—A day with the Down Town nemployed Branch of the ‘N, Y. Unemployed Council, revealed to the Daily Worker the ex- tent of misery and suffering among the workers of the lower East Side, the favorable possibilities for organ- izing the unemployed into Neighbor- hood branches, and both employed and unemployed into the Tenants’ Leagues—and revealed as well the impermissible weakness and laxity of the Unemployed Branches, which must surely weakne the preparations for May First unless the Palty frac- tion acts at once, Within one block, East Fourth St.,|. ¥ southern bosses are raising a purse t ohire a big firm of southerm lawyers to help the state prosecutor defend the railroading of the nine youths to the electric chair, Send Protest to Governor. The meeting was held under the auspices of the I. L. D. Another meet- ing was held at the same time tn an- other section of the city under the auspices of the League of Struggle for Negro Rights. Both meetings sent telegrams to Governor B. M. Mil- ler of Alabama, at Montgomery, Ala., | protesting the railroading of these innocent youngsters and demanding new trials with all rights guaranteed, including a jury of workers, half of them Negroes. Both meetings enthusiastically en- dorsed the defense steps being taken | by the I. L. D, and the call for a Scottsboro Defense conference to be held here on April 28. Delegates were elected to the conference by the two meetings. Resentment Grows. Mass resentment against the lynch verdict is growing by leaps and bounds as the workers increasingly realize that this vicious actof terror is aimed at the growing militancy of the Negro masses and to prevent the united struggle of Negro and white workers against starvation and for unemployment relief and insurance. Negro and white workers are prepar- ing for a gigantic May Day demon- stration in this city to fight the boss system of starvation and terror against the workers. Great resentment is also being ex- pressed by Negro workers against the treacherous role of the Negro reform- ist press which are either soft-pedd- ling the facts about the frame-up or actually printing news on the case from the viewpoint of the southern boss lynchers, Will Weaken May First Demonstration If Fraction Does Not Act Immediately j youths to the electric chair with a | rell, president of the U. S. Steel Cor- | protest parade’ in Harlem this Satur- |poration always loudly - proclaimed | day afternoon. |that there would be no cuts, THs) Ue f r time he remained silent. However, | Fa pergaa wa sok ee a from | 25 the Journal of Commerce points ed down tenon Ax, Ave. 274 | out, this sighifies wages in the'United pres lown ae Pas “ 110th | States Steel Corporation plants are | | koe es eye-bis ee mn be | coming down. The matter will be| cae Nenana share de, | taken up at the end of the month at | s Rela ~ | the quarterly meeting of the Bethle- | nouncing the legal lynching of these | nem Steel Corporation and the Uni-| working class youths and demanding | a new trial with a jury of workers, | half of whom shall be Negroes. Speakers will expose the vicious frame-up on the customary fake rape charges of these boys, none of whom is over 20 years of age. All | workers are urged to show their soli- | darity with these innocent victims of | southern boss court justice by demon- strating on Saturday afternoon. 2 MASS MEETS FOR PATERSON FIVE. Newark and Elizabeth to Demand Release NEWARK, N. J., April 21—The | International Labor Defense of New | Jersey is calling mass meetings for |the defense of the five Paterson | textile workers. One meeting will be held in the city of Newark on Fri- day, April 24, at 8 p. m., at the Work- men’s Lyceum, 170 Belmont Ave. Another meeting will be held in the city of Elizabeth on April 24 (Fri- day), at 8 p. m. at the Litvian Hall 69 S. Park St. It is absolutely im- portant to get publicity on the front page during the last few days, in ; order to have a good mobilization of | the workers in both cities. Daily Worker Probe Reveals Impermissible Laxity in Work of N. Y. Unemployed Council Unemployed Branch committees, in a previous investigation founud many workers’ families suffering acutely from hunger, their light and gas cut off, and the threat of eviction hang- in gover their heads, A call for committees to go out and check up on the. investigations was made, and no response from the floor. ‘The secretary finally volunteered to g0. At 75 East Fourth St., in a dark, narrow-staired tenement house, he Jocated Mrs. Gelfont. A little woman, “(CONTINUED “ON PAGE mHRp) | Detween Bowery and Second Ave, the| her hands worn with toll, her face already lined by the hard life of the East Side workers, she was a widow and had one daughter who supported them both. The daughter worked in a powder puff factory and now was on half time. “We can't live on 10-$15 that my daughter brings home and pay $20 ment.’ The rent was for two little tooms in the rear, rathe rdark with the painful neatness of a working class | ted States Steel Corporation. Wage cuts ave planed for the work- | ers in Youngstown in the following | plants: Republic Steel Corporation, Trus- con Steel Co., General Fire-proofing Co., Sharon Steel Hoop Co., New- ton Steel Co, Youngstown Pressed | Steel Co., Niles Steel Products Co., Commercial Shearing & Stamping Co., and a number of others. Every one of these steel plants have already cut wages from one to four times. Tens of thousands of workers have been laid off; but soon there will come a general wage cut affect- tng all the mills. Hoover Leads Drive . Hoover, under the guise of phrases | about “maintaining wage rates,” is| taking a leading share in this wage | slashing drive. While the steel bosses | prepare for a general wage cut, Hoo- ver, and his Secretary of Labor, Doak, together with Col. Arthur Woods, chairman of the “emergency commit- tee on unemployment,” plan wage slashes particualrly on the railroads. On Monday Woods issued a state- ment declaring that there have been very few wage cuts and that, there will be a few. This statement is broadcast at a time when every lead- ing corporation in the country has drawn up its plans for drastic pay cuts. Declaring there will be rela- {CONTINUED ON PAGE THREE) Mrs. Gelfont is one month behind in rent and already the threat of eviction is directed against her. She will be thrown out on the streets and has no one to turn to. A neighbor came in, another old woman. She agreed that something must be done. In her case she re- ceived a little money from her two married children, But they too have been unemployed for a long time and are in dire need themselyes. In cases of other families where there is no income whatsoever, little children cry themselves to sleep in mother who toils hard to keep some semblance of ceaplingss in her “home, nar the dark—for the gas and the elec- HUGE SUM SPENT FOR COMING WAR; TRAIN AIR FLEE N_ Y Starves. Jobless, But Builts Hanga:s. WASHINGTON, D. C., April 21,— The next war is going to be costly and the rulers 6f the United States, the big business men who own the government are taking that cost out shape of terrific wage cuts. Then they turn over a portion of the mon- ey to the government in the shape of taxes, and the goverriment spends two thirds of its income on the next and Past war preparations. During the first nine: months of this year, a recent treasury statement shows, the government spent $3,123, 540,000 altogether. Of this, $2,124,- 737,000 went to the war and navy departments, and for payments on) past war wreckage. The expenditures are as’ folows: Department. Expenditures | War Deparment ......... .$357,500,000 | Navy Department 267,713,000 | Vererans' administration .. 518,758,000 | Interest on the public debt 363,905,000 | Sinking fund ........ + +++ 391,600,000 | Adjusted service fund .... 225,201,000 Tee deat NEW YORK.—The board of esti-| mates calendar of business for April | 17, at which meeting the $10,000,000 | proposed for city jobs was cut down| to $2,000,000 and made to apply to| the ordinary work of the city which | would have to be done anyway, con-| tains on Page 108 an item which got | absolutely no publicity at ‘all, but which shows where some of the funds of this enormously rich city goes, in- stead of to buy food for the 1,000,000 jobless starving here. It is Item No. 108, a communication from the De- puty and Acting Commissjoner of Docks, asking, an appropriation of $666,000 to provide for more building on the Municipal airport at Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn. The largest item in the list of appropriations is $275,- 000 for two new seaplane hangars— war preparations. The item was ac- cepted to be referred to the commit- | tee of the whole. It will undoubtedly go through. Dressmaker Election Meetin~ Thursday at | Manhattan. Lyceum NEW YORK.—An election meeting | of all dressmakers in the Needle} Trades Workers’ Industrial Union will be held Thurs. xy hattan Lyceum, 66- Easi. FH Sh, The order of business wii be: 1.—Election of a dress trade execu- tive committee. 2.—Plans for further activities in the dress trade. ' 3.—Recommendations to the slo: delegates council for paid and unpaid | dress organizers. 4.—A report on the decisions of the National Executive Board, with a special report on the work among members of the “International,” and tricity are immediately shut off when <1} (CONTINUED. ON PAGE THRE Needle Workers to demonstrate on the situation in’ Locals 22 and 89. The Industrial Union calls all of the workers’ hide ‘already in the| demonstrations, which will re- peat the demands for unem- ployment insurance in thunder- ous terms, and itself lay a basis for continued organization of em- ployed and unemployed workers to force the state to grant them. The speakers at the demonstration called on all for a one-day strike and dem- onstration on May First. Legislature In Joint Session. /Phe senate andthe lower house of the legislature met in joint session to hear the demands and a delega- tion of 16 stormed in, bearing pla- cards and banners and shouting the Slogans of the jobless. They then went to the governor, who heard them, But the “liberal” governor, Pinchot, in spite of his election promises to give relief to the unemployed, turned @ deaf ear to all demands for the right to live, and, ensconed behind the state police force and the coal and iron police, which he promised during his election campaign to abol- ish, but did not, Pinchot ‘snarled that it would “bankrupt the state” to give unemployment insurance of $15 a week to each of the jobless and that the demands “were illegal.” “Your demands,” said Pinchot, “are extravagant. They are only a lot of truck.” Thousands For Pictures. Speakers for the delegation pointed out the extravagance of the state in spending millions of dollars for the state iron and coal police; thou- | sands of dollars for painting pictures of the governor and other state of- ficials. Bill Simons, spokesman of the delegation, spoke in the governor's office for 20 minutes. The governor said: “It is true there is a grave unemployment situation in Pennsylvania. But you‘ people do not want to co-operate with us. You are putting forward fantastic de- mands; they are ridiculous. They are not common sense.” He refused to listen to the delegation any fur- ther. The delegation then said they con- sidered the governor's answer as a direct refusal of all the demands of the unemployed. Grestest Demonstration. There then followed a tremendous (CON N.Y. Builders Sell 8,448DuringWk. An unprecedented sale of 8,- 448 copies was achieved by the New York Red Builders News Club last week. As a result of more concentrated effort on house-to-house routes, tack- ling new street corners, new factories, new localities outside New York City, the N. Y. Red News ' aided by mild yweontber, | as reached ti {i.z!) est. maa: since its organization. May Day demonstrations vl with increased circulation the Daily. Reach every worker, every unemployed worker with it. Order addi- tional copies for sales at May Day mobilization meetings, Do this NOW! (60,000 circulation reports on e May 1. page Three.)