The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 9, 1931, Page 4

Published by the Gmprodafly Publishing Co., Ine. daily except Sueday, at 50 Bast ‘18th Street, New York City, N. Y. Telephone Algonquin 7956-7, Cable: “DAIWORK.® Address and mail al] checks to the Daily Worker, 50 East 13th Street, New York.N. ¥, Page Four SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $3; two menths, $1; eavepting Boro of Manhattan and Bronx, New York Ctiy. Foreign: one year, $8- six months. $4.50. Weakness In Our Unemployment) ™® UF! une Work By SAM NESIN. our activities in New seven branches of nd out of a total regis- 15,000 mployed workers we 1,000 that are members? in of our organization forms. 1 Unemployment Conven- convinced that industrial ng. After many months of line we found that the In- trial U! ployed Councils were collapsible councils, We then agreed to work on a territorial basis, flop houses, employment agencies and markets where the membership was shifty. This account- ed for the great fluctuation in our membership. ‘The acceptance of particular residential blocks as concentration points will result in a more steady membership and wil involve whole families in of the unemployed branches. 0 faced with the problem of estab- i some degree of permanency in the func- ionaries. It is a common occurrence to come to @ meeting of the branch and find one secretary and at the next meeting he is gone. This applies to all functionaries and committees of the un- employed branches. Instead of sending commit- tees from the branches of the Unemployed Coun- cil to various workers organizations for direct support for the work, we occupied ourselves with calling conferences and building super-struc- tures. We dissipated our energies by attempting to build from the roof down when we should concentrate on doing the ground work of organ~ izing functioning branches. No women in our unemployed branches. con- stitutes a great weakness in our work and handi- caps our approach to the neighborhood. Attitude of Unions and Leagues. ‘The attitude Sf our unions and leagues towards the activitie branch of Jnemployed Council is very me- chanic" a strike takes place, they either call up a message asking for a certain number kers to picket. These unions and leagues ist asa part of their ¢oncentration work at a particular factory or shop assign a number of members to the unemployed branch in that neighborhood. These assigned workers can give leadership to the branch and at the same time raise the question of solidarity with the employed workers as a normal phase of the branch activity. The same applies to the shop. Each union and league as well as workers fra- but we concentrated mainly on breadlines, ternal organizations should contribute a certain amount of money monthly for the organization of the unemployed The Functioning of Our Party in the Unemploy- ment Work. The Polburo resolution sharply criticizing the New York patois) on its burocratic methods in its work is correc! our unemploy1 ment work, Comrades who are fur- thest removed from the work give the most cata- goric instructions. This applies to the district. the section committees, as well as to the unit buors. By not participating or becoming ac- quainted with the details of the work instruc- tions cannot be anything else but burocratic and far from the actual requirements. ‘The net results of such directions is confusion, no organized fraction, either no work done or wastéd energy. Doing work for the unemployed branches and wrongly, the branch being abso- lutely unconscious of it. Even when we do come down to the branch, it is done in a very dicta- torial manner which is even wrong in our Party and particularly damaging in a mass organiza- tion. I will give some concrete illustrations of such misdirection. A section organizer decides to merge two branches of the Unemployed Coun- cil in the Bronx and a note is put up on the door to that) effect. The secretary is transferred without the branch even knowing about it. When I came to the scheduled meeting 40 workers, .in- cluding six housewives were present and up in arms about such action. Performances similar to this kind keep us busy undoing such situa- tions when this time and energy could be spent in reaching the outside masses. ‘Take the issue of securing immediate relief for | starving families. The section organizers are in- structed by the district that on a certain day they must get a group of starving families and | have a delegation at the Board of Estimates. Instead of advising them how to proceed with the work and leaving the delegation follow as the logical consequence of that.work, we have a me- | chanical carrying out of the instructions. ‘The result is that {n Harlem.where we have thousands of Negro and white families starving they picked up a drunkard. A delegation went with him to City Hall that the neighborhood knew nothing about. The comrades worked hard carried out the instructions and. here is the result. (To be continued.) Graft and Gangsters By HARRY GANNES Selling Judgeships and Robbing Unemployed Tammany graft of millions tn all city de- partments was exposed in the last article. Previous articles dealt with thé tlsé of graft and gunmen on the base of American eapi- talism. They showed Al Capone's connections with the leading Chicago capitalists and boss political parties. N August 6, 1930, Justice Crater of the Su- preme Court disappeared. Since that day not a trace of him has been found. In ques- tioning some of Judge Crater’s intimate friends the justice’s social connections led into nearly every dive in the city. But. why did he dis- appear? The fact is he was about to be ques- tioned on the purchase of a judgeship by Mag- istrate Ewald. Judge Crater withdrew $22,500 from his bank account just before he fled. At the same time, he was about to be questioned regarding his little profit of $850,000 made by acting as receiver in the crooked bankruptcy of the Libby Hotel. Supreme Court Justice Levy of New York, be- sides his usual graft, took a bribe of $5,000 from the Bank of United States just before it crashed and while he was trying a case against the bank. Levy appointed Crater as receiver for the Libby Hotel. In New York there is a price seale for every judicial office. The prices paid for the various judgeships are as follows: Magistrate’s jobs, $15,000; City Justiceships, $25,000; $25,000 for General Sessions: $50,000 for Special Sessions and $75,000 for the Supreme Court. This does not mean that sometimes the price is not high- er. Often it is. Supreme Court Justice Cohen, for example, paid $100,000 for his appointment, but then Cohen didn’t feel the strain because his father- in-law advanced the tnoney as a wedding gift. Again, Supreme Court Justice Sherman was forced to pay $150,000 and evidently thought it well worth it. The Seabury Whitewash. ‘The Seabury investigation which is still on at the time this % written will not uncover any grafting that is not already known. The carefulness with which Referee Seabury moves gives the Tammany grafters all the opportunity they want to cover up their tracks. Emanuel H. Laviné, an experienced New York reporter, author of “The Third Degree,” and a compre- hensive book on New York graft, “Gimme,” states about investigations of graft: “Persons accustomed to the working of the | machine, will not challenge the following pre- diction: After the white-washing, our political leaders will emerge slightly smudgéd angels, but angels (Tammany ones) néverthélesé.” Lavine goes on to tell the remarkable story of graft in every department of the city and state government. He says that every city de- partment has its graft charges for any kind of favor. (“Gimmee,” page 5.) “After every catastrophe, fire, collision, or serious accident there are always investigations and more investigations, but rarely any con- victions. . . . As a rule plenty of money is ex- pended in such cases to keep the wheels of justice from functioning properly.” Feed Rotten Food. ‘Tammany graft has gone so far that decayed meats are fed to the sick and infected milk is given to babies and children in schools and hospitals, Lavine relates in his book on New York graft. About the pettiest type of graft— but an indication of how thorough the grafting system in New York is—is related by this re- | porter: “Recently I encountered a cop who, during this unemployment. crisis,- was petty enough.to shake down peddlers for twenty-five cents; be-~ cause they had no license.” These are just minute details of grafting in New York. Tammany Hall is able to keep it going and to keep the lid on. The republicans and socialists unite to “investigate” Tammany Hall, but neither of them wants the basis for graft—capitalism—wiped out. The republicans and socialists find graft muck-racking a good vote-catching trick. The socialists hope by “cleaning up” the more crude aspects of Tam- many grafting to make capitalism and its city governments more palatable to the workers. Commenting on the Seabury “investigation” in New York and how much the socialists ex+ pected from it, Norman* ‘Thomas summed ‘ up the Socialist attitude towards the grafting capi- talist system. “Until people have faith in the honesty of government they will not trust gov- ernment as their servant,” wrote the Rev. Thomas in the New Leader of April 25, 1931. He even asks the workers to believe in the Seabury investigation as a partial means of “cleaning up” graft and thereby instilling “faith in the honesty of (capitalist) government.” (To be continued) How to Use ‘Party Life’ Column How To Use The Party Life Column. In the last couple of weeks, we note that the comrades have not been sending in to the Party Life column as many articles as formerly of the type which are really the most necessary and most instructive—that is, articles on our experiences in mass work. Recently, we have had several articles by unit members, unit func- tionaries, section functionaries, all dealing with questions of the actual relationships between these bodies in the Party, their shortcomings, their failure to work together well enough, etc. All these matters are important problems, other- wise we would not print articles about them at all. But they are not the main problems of the Party. The main problems of our Party work are the problems of our work among the masses —the problems of oru Trade Union work, of eur ypemployment work, of our work among the Negroes, etc. What we want to print in Party Like Sei pages’ et the: type of artistes we! were, £6°- ting formerly, “dealing with the actual exper- jences of comrades—whether non-Party work- ers, rank-and-filers or lower or higher func- tionaries—in mass work, in approaching and or- ganizing the workers. The article of Comrade Holden from South Carolina on the Unemployed Councils and the Trade Unions a couple of days ago, the recent article of Comrade Amter, on the approach to non-Party workers, the ar- ticle of Comrade Wagenknecht printed above, analyzing the successes, failures and prospects of the Salt Lake unemployed movement—these are examples of the type of article which is most needed by Party Life—the type of article that provides for a real exchange of experiences, that gives real help to other comrades facing - same poblems. Bc ne point: in bag laot few weeks, most of This condition is reflected in | By BURCK | Party Life Conducted by the Org. Dept. Central Com- mittee, Communist Party, U. S. A. Our Movement in Salt Lake City By A. WAGENKNECRT. ANY comrades will want to know how our movement among the unemployed workers ih Balt Laké City, Utah, is getting on. Salt Lake City was “big in the news” last fall and winter. Nothing much has been heard from there lately. The other day a letter arrived in which @ comfadé states that “our movement was Spontaneous and after spontaneity, reac- tion séts in.” A few days after, a detailed re- port’ arrived, together with the leaflets issued by the Unemployed Counci in Salt Lake. From these leaflets we get the real reason why the large movement in this city has suffered a cer- i tain setback. ‘The leaflets received, ten of them, never eyen once’ listed any demands for immediate relief for the unemployed. ‘They are all general and agitational in character. Seemingly the move- ment in Salt Lake remained an agitational movement, the immediate demands of the un- employed were not ascertained, the unemployed did not discuss their grievances, their demands, did not help plan activities and struggles. This, we think, led inthe main to the loss of in- terest in the movement on the part. of the un- employed. At one time our following among the workers numbered 5,000. A ‘total of 2,000 made appli- cation for membership. ‘Today there are be- tween 200 and 300 members in the unemployed branch and about 125 come to meetings. Even this--is~still. w:formidable movement for this city... “And™if.cthe.. comrades will launch into neighborhood activities, fight for food for needy families, consult the unemployed as to their demands, continue city-wide struggles for these demands, then the movement will grow. The movement is again building, the com- rades report. On April 28 a mass meeting of 1,000 workers was held. On May 1 about 800 workers paraded. Their headquarters is open all day to receive workers and hear their griev- ances. The active membership is increasing, despite a slight betterment in the unemployed situation. The membership in the Party has been inereaséd ‘from 6 to 40 since February. Salt Lake never “had a Young Communist League before arid now they have one of 35 members.’ Membership in the TUUL is grow- ing. Concentration for contatts in the smelter towns close ‘by and in the railroad shops is being carried out. The 100 Daily Workers they received has been’ cut to 50 but they hope to increase the order again. They have their eyes on the poor farmers in surrounding communi- ties and intend to call them to their city con- vention to fight unemployment and starvation. Some activities are being carried on in city neiglborhoods, - Despite the important shortcoming referred to, the comrades ‘in Salt Lake have made defi- nite organizational achievements. Is there any similar city that can report greater achieve- ments in the Party Life column? the Districts seem to have become satisfied to leave the Party Life column almost entirely to New York, Chicago and California, We are glad to get the articles from these three districts, but has ‘the Kansas district nothing to report from all its experiences of breaking into new territory? Have Pittsburgh and Cleveland noth- ing to report from their experiences in Trade Union work in the mining and steel territory? Have Philadelphia, Buffalo and Detroit nothing to report that would be of help to comrades in other districts? The Party Life column should carry the experiences of the comrades in our work from all over the country. One more note: Articles should not be longer than about 600 words. This is the most effec- tive length, and it is only as an exception that TN A Message to the “Daily Worker” Family yeu are reading the central organ of the Com- munist Party. We suppose you read it be- cause you find in it something that you like. What it is that you like we would like to know. But there may be something else you don't like | We would like to know that, too! There's a great big family of you readers of the Daily Worker! Three times as many as there are members in the Communist Party. It is easy for us to find out what the Communist Party thinks about the Daily. But we waht to know what the whole Daily Worker Family thinks! We want to know what the whole working class thinks of us! In this and other messages to you we'll tell you how you can get the widest opinion possible, to us. ‘We want to know this because we, the Com- | munists, depend upen the working class. We look only to workers for support, for subscrip- tions, donations and that same enthusiastic sym- pathy expressed in action which is putting the Five Year Plan over in Four Years in the Soviet Union! It was not any “orders from the Kremlin” which developed the most wonderful thing in | the Soviet Union—“revolutionary rivalry’—with- out which the Five Year Plan would have dragged slong, but the enthusiasm of the mass of workers who understand clearly that in build- ing up socialist industry they are buildfng for themselves, their own industry! Let us see if Daily Worker readers can match that by building up their own paper—thé Daily Worker. Let each reader of the Daily, you who read these lines, think what he or she can do. In every center where there is an agent of the Daily Worker, he has instructions about forming a DAILY WORKER CLUB. We hope you will attend its meeting. Many ways in which you can tell us what you think of the Daily Worker, and how to help your favorite paper will be ex- plained. But we will have more to tell you in our next message. PRE-CONVENTION DISCUSSION YOUNG COMMUNIST LEAGUE, U. S. A. Our Anti-Militarist Work in California AST summer we made a good beginning in anti-militarist work. We sent c-nrades into every CMTC camp in the state ar! also dis- tributed in the NG camp at San Luis several hundred “Red Guardsmen.” However, the con- tacts we made we never followed up. A mistake we made in last year’s CMTC camp was not hay- ing worked out in detail a definite plan of action. In one camp where we had two comrades these were not notified of each other with the result, that not so much was accomplished as would have been had they known each other. We should prepare for the military camps this summer, Although the CMTC is important we must put our main emphasis on the regular forces and the NG. Comrades should wherever possible be colonized, since this is the best method of reaching the workers in uniform. One of the best effective methods of reaching the guardsmen is through the youth sections of the Unemployed Councils and the TUUL, since many of them are unemployed and those that are working are bitterly exploited. A good ex- ample of this is the Sacramento hunger march in January when we distributed leaflets calling upon them to gefuse to be used as tools and break up the demonstration. The guardsmen passed remarks as “We're with you,” etc. The Youth Sections of the TUUL and UC are not as “radical” (to use the Guardsmen’s terms) as the ‘YCL and are, for this reason, a means of “break- ing the ice.” In Oakland several months ago we iscus@ a leaflet exposing the riot drill training @at the guardsmen were given, to the guardsmen them- selves and also put in the cars. A short time atfer the distribution the armory became trans- formed into a political discussion forum, where Communism was being discussed. Of course our comrades could go only so far. so as not to ex- pose themselves. Many questions were asked which we should have answered in a later leaflet. We should also send down comrades to mix and see what the feeling is among the guardsmen. However, we did not follow up this splendid start.. After this we should issue regular leaflets and make as a perspective the regular issuance of “armory bulletins,” taking up the everyday demands and abuses to which the workers in uniform are subjected to, such as, keeping the Guardsmen until midnight going through a fed- eral inspection as was recently done at the Ber- keley armory, excessive drilling which is espe- cially prevalent at the camps, being forced to contribute to the mess fund (many outfits tax the men so much for a fund to buy better feed, as the government does not allow enough money to get decent meals on). In some outfits, the Guardsmen are required to pay the cooks wages, bint Resa scalaaal tor cid drill, being forced to go to camp even if it means losing a job with no compensation for it. (There was a whole carload of Guardsmen who had to be ar- rested and forced to go to camp at the point of being courtmartialed last year at San Luis.) Of course these demands based on the above grievances should be drawn up only after eon- sultation with the Guardsmen as to what they think it is possible to accomplish and what they are willing to fight for. Of course this must be done in an informal manner, in friendly con- versations, etc. Another example (just to show the need of functioning anti-committees which we certainly need) is a court martial which took place in Oakland recently. A Guardsman was called be- fore his battery (of course to embarrass him and to intimidate the rest of the battery) and had a sentence of five days in the county jail read off to him. This worker had been unemployed and not being able to get a job in Oakland he went. out into the country to try and find work, Of course he could not attend drill in the city while he was out of town. However, this made no dif- ference to the officer who was out to show every- body who was boss. The Guardsmen resented this injustice to one of their fellow Guardsmen very much. Our comrades reported this in plenty of time but it was only after a month that the leaflet came out and then it was poorly dis- tributed if at all, and had very little effect. It is falling down on such issues that hold our movement back, The district has never sat down with the com- rades in the armed forces and worked out a plan of action, explaining to us the methods and procedure by which we could achieve results. We will have to correct this in the very near future. Comrades inside ihe armed forces as well as others who are assigned to this activity should not be given everything else but anti-work. The tactic of inviting Guardsmen to parties and dances to get acquainted is a good method of approach which we must start beginning. Whenever possible, comrades should join the clubs, etc., which the workers in uniform belong to (eg, in the Field Artillery, they have organ- ized what is known as the “Boots and Saddles Club.” The reason is of course obvious. At last years camps, both CMTC and NG, there was much propaganda against the Soviet Union dished out, therefore it is of vital importance that we nip this right on the inside as soon and even before it takes place. ‘The convention should set as one of its most important tasks the drawing up of a compre- hensive and concrete program of action for our work in the armed forces. By Comrade in the Armed Foroes. | American ideals, namely, By (en Nicking Knickerbocker It seems that a number of people are writing to the N. Y. Post about Knickerbocker and his “Red Trade Menace.” One of them whose letter in the Post of June 1, opens up as follows: “To the editor of the Evening Post: Sir—I¢ one will carefully peruse the names of your cor- respondents relative to the Knickerbotker arti- | cles on Russia, they will note that those who look with disfavor on this interesting éxpose, are not of American extraction or in sympathy with “Max Tart,’ ‘Adolph | Wolff’ and ‘Dora Isaacs,’ ” | Now that stimulated us to look at the names; although how a name could reveal not only a | lack of “American extraction” but, as the writer | ! | | quent.” | promise? indicates, a lack of “sympathy with American ideals,” is beyond us. We looked over that very June 1 issue and what did we find? Of those expressing a “fixed prejudice” we dis- | covered, that: Those against Knickerbocker were named, Hollister Noble, J. Kelley and Paul Por- ter. While the only one besides thé chap who had this notion about names, and that was really enthusiastically pro-Post and anti-Soviet was named—ISAAC POLIATSKIN. A Landlord’s Government If you review the pgpers published just before election last year, you will see there Mayor | Walker’s promise that no unemployéd worker would be evicted. But that was before, election. Now—thousands of evictions are being carried out. The capitalist papers which devote lots of ink to telling about the “Red Trade Menacé” rarely if ever say a word about this menace of the landlords and their government. Wednesday, they had to mention two items, at least the Times did. In one case the Times hac to make the following admission because 44 “reds” were arrested for putting the evicted worker's fur- niture back: “The practice of moving evicted families back into their former homes has become frequent of late on the lower east side.” _ Now, if that practice has become “frequent,” it stands to reason that evictions are also “fre So what has become of Mayor Walker's The second item forced itself into the Times | because Peter Romano, 56, and jobless with a wife and three children, shot his landlord, An- tonio Capace. Capace came demanding rent, | and Romano told him that his wife had gone out to raise the $52 due for two months’ rent: Pay up or get out!” yelled the landlord, and gave the old man a shove that sent him sprawl- ing to the sidewalk. The old worker “got out” a revolver and ended that landlord's abuse with four well-placed bullets. We suppose that this was the only way Romano had of émphasizing that Jifimy Walker's promise wasn't worth any- thing. Now let's look over the N. Y. State government. Somebody, probably interested in the plumbing business but proposing a bill in the recent State Assembly that certain classes of tenement dwell- ings must be furnished with toilets, saw the bill defeated. It would have forced landlords to spend some money to make workers’ apartments sanitary, so it was voted down on the ground that was “confiscatory legislation.” We go to the U. S. Congress. There, on Jan. 31, in the most sneaking secrecy and under the head of the “Appropriation Bill,” there was put over a clause allowing the Post-Office Depart- ment, to pursue and harass any tenant who moves out without paying back rent. The law hitherto forbid postal workers from telling anyone at all the address of any person. If you were a worker and, out of a job, couldn't pay your rent for the past month, so moved out and went to live with your relatives, the mail carrier was forbidden from telling the land- lord or anyone else where you had ordered your mail sent, ‘The capitalist government has a tender feel- ing for landlords, so the U. S. Congress on Jan: 31, this year, altered this law, allowing the Post-Office to tell the landlord where you moved to, so he can follow you up and garnishee your ‘wages if you ever get any. Naturally, the landlord is under no obligation to keep this to himself, so the butcher and grocer will follow along and the furniture man will be after his installments or the furniture. When the burden of the crisis has to bé borne, the capitalist government will see that the job- Jess worker, and not any capitalist, bears it. All of which is a good reason for organizing ‘Tenants’ (cn el el Ya Take A Slant At This, Cultural Workers You may have noticed that we are gétting all squeezed up these days. But theré’s fight in the Daily Worker yet because theré's fight in its friends. We thought that the Daily, Red packs Aid Gil Wall Soin t's lek ANC beat last Saturday. But it’s such things as the following that got us thtrough, squéésed down to two pages, true, but still in the ring, Read it: “Dear Jorge:— The John Reed Club of New York noticed that our kid brother (or perhaps we should say, our offspring of Chicago) had contributed $10. to the campaign to save the Daily Worker for the working class. We could not let this chal- lenge go unanswered, so at our last meeting we shook down our members to the tune of $16.30 ‘That's a good deal when you consider that most of us writers are so broke that our only pos- sessions are the cigarettes we managé to bum from unsuspecting victims. “We also herewith challenge the Proletpen (Yiddish proletarian writers), the Hammer and Sickle (Russian writers) and the Hungarian proletarian writers’ group (whatever their name is) to beat our contribution. “We feel that writers, artists and other cul- tural workers need the aDily as much as any. Especially now when we're about to hoid a conference to launch a federation of all pro- Jetarian cultural groups in New York area. (June 14th the date, the place Irving Plaza). We'd like to hear from these three groups in the shape of dollars listed in the bead Worker. aa BM