The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 17, 1931, Page 1

Y << -e Bs oe se ae. 2 J t t t a 4 , , ee eee a BLOW AT ALL STRUGGLES IF “DAILY” SUSPENDS! Did you ever stop to think what it would be like if there were no Daily Worker? | | | “handful” of strike ‘About 32,000 miners are on strike in | ! | | | state troopers. Suppose there is inspire and lead the are a foreign-born y western Pennsylvania and Ohio—but you know nothing about it. Your local capitalist press either suppresses news of the strike entirely, or prints meagre, garbled reports about You are determined to fight together “riots” by a rs who “attacked” no Daily Worker to in this country. The faithful |’ infamous law. m. Or suppose you | ploodhounds of the capitalist press Fellow-workers, this picture we have worker in Michigan. | head the pack—there is no Daily Work- | painted is not an idle day-dream. It is | | launched | | er, the outrageous alien registration and fin- | ger-printing bill—one of the most vi- cious attacks on the foreign-born ever only English-language paper with your fellow-workers against the | that fights against the persecution of the foreign-born, to lead you and to bind you close to the native-born work- ers in common struggle against the situation we are facing today un- this ning. suspension. Only $5 day. 57 less you act and act quick! in the Daily Worker drive lasted for five or six days and did not even make up for the poor showing at the begin- Then it flopped so badly that we are now actually on the verge of Comrades, we must not The spurt | Daily Worker go under! No Daily would be a blow at every struggle of the working class! Visit subscribers, collect from your shopmates, friends and organizations, dig into your own pockets and speed every possible cent to the Daily Worker, 50 E. 13th St., New York City! 7.17 came in yester- | let the | WE NEED yous HELP| ALSO a Da Central il Orga (SECTION OF THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL) Norker e-ESYunict Party U.S.A. WORKERS OF THE WORED, UNITS! Entered as second-class matter ai Vol. VIII, No. 145 at New York, N. ¥., under the act of March 8, 1879 t the Post Office <= NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 1931 <x CITY EDITION Price 3 Cents ce ——— es 39,000 NOW OUT IN MINE STRIKE AGAINST HUNGER Workers Pack Ill. L Hoover’s “Pie in the Sky” | Plan | | ina {nto a political corner, admittedly by reason of the Five-Year Plan of socialist construction in the Soviet Union, with demands for “some kind of a plan” arising from all quarters, Hoover, in his In- dianapolis speech on Monday, proposed a “plan.” But only for the next generation! Twenty years from now—“More | leisure for men and women and better opportunities for its enjoyment.” With ten million unemployed starving, together with Hoover assures them “leisure” twenty years from now! their families, ‘To 20,000,000 people yet unborn he promises “new and better homes,” while millions are today being evicted from their homes for non- payment of rent! And to these yet unborn millions he promises “20 per cent more farm products,” while his Secretary of Agriculture is pleading with the farmers to “reduce production” because the toiling masses of the citjes of today have no money to buy the farm products produced at present! In short, pressed into a political tight corner by the growing mass discontent in the U. S. and the advance of socialism in the Soviet Union under the Five Year Plan, Hoover sputters a lot of empty words. For the distant future, rosy promises, “pie in the sky.” But for the present? Ah! Not a cent for unemployment insurance! For future generations, the purple promises of plenty. But for the present . . . unemployment and starvation . . . wage cuts and H hunger . . . robbery of the many by the few . capitalism ++ + War! Such was Hoover's “Plan” announced at Indianapolis, to the unhar- monious accompaniment of the crash of the American Trust Company of that city at the same hour he was speaking, sending $5,370,000 more of depositors’ savings up in the smoke of disillusion! America’s wheat farmers should give attention to the wordy oracle which speaks of their “hundreds of millions” of income. The wheat farmers this year will get about $400,000,000 for their wheat, where last year they got $517,000,000 and the year before $834,000,000. Hoover's “twenty year plan” if developed at the present rate, will surely be “ac- complished in four years” and leave the bread-raisers of America with no income whatever! Drouth is again spreading ruin over the North- west, and not even a vulture’s “loan” is available! The reason the wheat farmers—and the poor and middle farmers of other commercial crops, have suffered this way is, of course, the loss of wages suffered by the city wage workers, who have lost over $12,000,- 000,000 by wage cuts and unemployment and cannot buy the present production of the farms. To these workers Hoover promises wonderful things—twenty years from now—if they can go without eating that long. But as for the present? A Billion Dollars in more warships, but not a cent for the unemployed! Hoover rejects anything like “a dole.” Yet there were 2,000,000 unemployed workers in ten leading cities who, last year, got a real dole of charity amounting to $3.10 each for the year! Hoover's Indianapolis speech is an insult to the toilers of both city and farm! It is a smug justification of all the misery and privation already suffered by the toiling masses, and a cynical sneer at their demands for real relief for the poor farmers and unemployment in- surance for the starving millions of the cities! It is an attempt to “laugh off” the success of the Soviet Five-Year Plan where there is no unemployment and all who work with hand or brain are secure in life’s necessities. And the workers and toiling farmers of this country will not wait till 1932 to give this smug hypocrite his answer, but every day in the struggle against wage cuts, for unemployment insurance, for real relief for the poverty-strickery farmers, will expose Hoover for the defender of capitalism that he is, contrasting his beautiful w: with the grim reality, and press forward the struggle for a Soviet U.S. A.! Miners’ Relief News! 35,000 Miners on strike! With their wives and children, they number at least One Hun- dred Thousand. These starving workers must be fed and clothed. Their children must have milk! What are you doing for them? Defeat the Starvation Program of the Bosses! Show your solidarity with these starving workers. Get behind the ‘slogan, “A Carload of Food to Pittsburgh by Friday.” Send food to depot at 2 40 East 9th St. Rush Funds to: District Penn.-Ohio Striking Miners’ Relief Committee, 799 Broadway, New York, Room 614, FOUR WAGE CUTS IN 6 MONTHS CHICAGO, Ill.—Workers of the Chicago Marconi Co. were forced to take three successive wage-cuts in the last six months. They were given 9 fourth and the 127 workers Spur Relief Drive for Striking Miners; WIR Finds Good Response NEW YORK.—Workers are al- ready responding warmly to the ap- peal of twenty-five thousand Penn- sylvania-Ohio starving miners and their families for help. Yesterday over one hundred’ sev- enty-five dollars were collected. The Workers Cultural Federation, at its first organizational conference, pledged its support of the miners’ strike by giving it expression in proletarian art. The delegates con- tributed $60.18 for relief. The workers at Camp Nitgedaiget contributed $69, and the guests $15.33. Camp Unity also took up the appeal, with a contribution of $7 from the guests, and a pledge of $25 from one guest. Show your solidarity with these struggling miners! Extend the fight- ing line by rushing funds through District Penn.-Ohio Striking Miners’ Relief Committee, 799 Broadway, Room 614. NEGRO PAPER RAPS NAACP TREASON TO 9 | Anger of Negro Masses Brings New Tone of Militaney in Press | NEW YORK.—In the face of the desperate attacks on the Scottsboro! Defense by the Southern boss lynch- | ers and their white and Negro agents, | the mass fight to save the nine in-| nocent Negro boys facing the elec- | tric chair in Alabama continues its | forward sweép. Daily it gains great- er mass character as additional | forces join the fight to smash the| murderous frame-up against the nine boys.. To the angry protests of the American working class is now added | the denunciations of the workers of Germany, Soviet Russia and other countries. The militant voice of the interna- tional working class is smashing through the conspiracy of silence of the capitalist press justs as the angry protests of the Negro masses forced the imperialist tools at the head of the NAACP to pretend a fight to save the boys while at the same time continuing their treacherous | co-operation with the Southern lynchers. The boss papers have been forced to report the demonstration of German workers before the American | Consulate in Dresden. The New York Evening World-Telegram has been forced to publish a batch of letters from its readers protesting the frightful outrage planned by the Alabama landlords and capitalists in their campaign of terror against the Negro people. Under pressure of the angry Ne- gro masses, hundreds of Negro churches, lodges and other organiza- tions headed by reformists have been won to the fight to save the nine boys. Mass anger against the traitor- ous attacks an the Scottsboro defense by Walter White, William Pickens, and other NAACP leaders continues to sweep the Negro masses. This anger is increasingly reflected in the growing tone of militancy in many of the Negro papers. NEGRO COLUMNIST EXPOSES LIES OF N.A.A.C.P, LEADERS. It is also reflected in a growing number of articles in these paper questioning, and often attacking, the traitorous tactics of the NAACP lead- ers. In his column “Behind the Scenes,” published in the Jersey Mail (Newark), Harry B. Webber this week sharply exposes the hypocrisy and | treachery of the NAACP leaders. Mr. Webber says, in part: “While the radical organizations (he refers to the International La- bor Defense and the League of Struggle for Negro Rights—Editor Daily Worker) selected and named their attorneys in Scottsboro weeks ago; while these attorneys publicly push their cases; while one of them received threats from Southern bourbons for his energy. the great national association (NAACP) pre- fers to retain no prominent lawyer, to at least refuse to name the great attorneys they are trying te retain, hints vaguely, that Clarence Dar- dow ‘may’ be retained, talks at Tength about the funds needed, re- ports some of the funds, but gives little accounting of what has been collected or spent to date, holds mass meetings to raise money for Scottsboro, stages membership cam- paigns on the Scottsboro issue, points out how many telegrams and phone calls Pickens makes from Alabama, threatens every- thing, performs little, and then gets angry when the Negro public, © | told of the misery and starvation of |the unemployed workers, miners and Frankfeld Pictures Misery And Terror Against Jobless; “Will Struggle, Not Starve!’ Hunger Marchers Held Virtual Prisoners At Riverview Park; Delegation of Five Is Escorted to the State Legislature SPRINGFIELD, June 16.—A delegation of five representing the hunger marchers to the Illmois State Capitol was escorted into the State Legislature, under State police guard. yesterday Phil Frankfeld, Trade Union Unity League organizer and leader of the hunger march, presented. the de- mands of the unemployed workers. He gave the. Legislature a full picture of the methods used by the state police and the authorities in an attempt to intimidate the marchers and the workers of Illinois which exposed the boss government. He NEEDLE WORKERS STRIKE IN BOSTON |Industrial Union in Or- ganization Drive BOSTON, Mass. June 16.—The | Harrison Manufacturing Company poor farmersin Illinois. He stated the workers will not starve without struggleand will fight for the enact- ment of thesocial insurance bill. The gallery was crowded with people who came to hear the dele- gation and left immediately after the delegation was led out of the Legislature under guard. In answer to the demand of the delegation that the state police guard be withdrawn from the hun- ger march, the speaker of the house said that they had nothing to do with that. All the marchersleft the | grounds under state police guard. Meetings have been aranged thru- out the state to hear the report of the hunger marchers. Sect re SPRINGFIELD, [fl June 15.— The following story was related by a delegate who evaded the state po- lice and escaped from Riverview Park where 300 delegates were held virtually prisoners. The delegate left the camp by decision of the leading committee with the assist- ance of Springfield workers. After the delegates assembled and the state conference started, the state police and city police, under the personal supervision of Superin- (CONTINUED ON PAGE THREE) raincoat shop locked out its workers. The Needle Trades Workers Indus- trial Union has called a strike. The firm’s action is part of a concerted attack by the sheepskin, leather and raincoat bosses, as well as the Schles- linger - Hillman - Forward clique | against the workers in an effort to stop the rapidly developing organi- zation campaign of the ‘dustrial union. The N.T.W.LU. has called a special meeting of the sheepskin, leather and raincoat organization committee for Thursday, June 18th in the evening. The International Workers Order is | helping to raise strike funds. BUILDING 16% OF LAST YEAR ‘CHICAGO.—The Mlinois Labor De- partment released figures which show that building permits in Chi- cago for May, 1931, were 84 per cent lower than for May, 1930. Wall St. Sheet Admits Miners ~ Starve; Show Strike Spreads NEW YORK.—Admitting that the coal miners in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia are faced with mass starvation, and that the coal strike is spreading under the leader- ship of the National Miners Union, the Journal of Commerce, one of the leading Wall Street mouthpieces here prints a special article on the coal mine strike in its issye of June 16. While confused about what the National Miners Union is, this sheet of the bosses admits the strike is spreading under the National Miners Union leadership and that the United Mine Workers of America is finding it difficult to break the strike. This article, in part, reads: “It is an axiom of the coal pro- ducers that hard times breed strikes. At the same time they say the payment of such wages as $1.50 a day for a three-day week was a strike provocative in itself, while such of the producing companies as have maintained wage scales at Jeast within the crepuscule of union standards only after a desperate spirit of Bolshevism if not its cor- poreal agencies in the persons of the active officials of the National Miners Union, a left wing sprout which the United Mine Workers has not been able to amputate. “It is known the Pittsburgh Ter- minal Coal Co, is nearly 100 per cent on a strike footing; the Car- negie Coal Co., almost as bad off. Reports from Northern West Vir- ginia show rapid extension there of the will to strike. Most of the large bituminous operators of cen- tral Pennsylvania and of southern West Virginia are without strike trouble now. They have established relations of extraordinary good will with their workers, throwing in a dole day with one or two days a week required mining, shipping the output out and selling it on a de- cline and at a loss. Even at that their miners cannot escape the pinch of hard times, and daily grow more discontented and rest- less, as the Pittsburgh strike makes progress, testing to the uttermost the capacity of the local author- egislature to Hear Jobless Demands OHIO MINERS MEET; STRIKE BEING SPREAD Boycott Bellaire and | ‘Petition for Rate Rise St. Clairsville to . Hit Terror By BILL DUNNE. | BRIDGEPORT, O., June 14 (By| Mail) —The Rank and File Commit- | tee of the National Miners Union| today showed the great mobility of its forces when, after the Bellaire City and the Belmont County au- thorities closed Roma Hall and pro- hibited the District Strike Committe> | session, the meeting was transferred | to Dillonville, 26 miles away in Jef- ferson. County and convened within one hour of the regular meeting | time. Fifteen hundred men, women | and children heard Foster speak later | in the day at Shadyside, a few miles from Bellaire at a picnic under the auspices of two local unions of the NMU and ILD. The first action of the Rank and} File District Strike Committee com- posed of 109 delegates from local | strike committees was to authorize aj} boycott of all business institutions in | Bellaire to remain effective until the right to meet freely in that city had been conceded. Five thousand leaflets advertising the boycott will| be issued, with the slogan: “Buy Nothing in Bellaire.” The question of starting a similar boycott of St. Clairsville, the county seat, where deputy sheriffs and American Legionnaires gassed a min- | ers’ meeting and jailed 14 strikers | and organizers, will be taken up at the first meeting of the Executive Board of the Rank and File Strike Committee. The 108 delegates were from 27 mine strike committees and repre- | sented 6000 miners, The unemployed miners’ delegates represented 4000 jobless mniers—a total of 10,000. A number of the delegates were Ne- groes and there were also a number of women. Negroes and women are (CONTINUED ON PAGE THREE) RAILROADS OUT FOR WAGE SLASH Shows Their Hand NEW YORK.—More proof that the railroads are preparing wholesale wage cuts for over 1,200,000 railroad workers is contained in a petition soon to be filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission, a summary of which is contained in the Journal of Commerce, Tuesday’s issue. This petition shows that the request for increase in freight rates is just a maneuver to put oyer a wage cut. Realizing that no marked increase in freight rates is probable, the big rail- road companies point out they will have to cut wages. The request for freight rates in- crease will be followed by wage-cut- ting, this petition shows. Comment- ing on this, the Journal of Com- merce says: “The railroad carriers will declare that they have thus far made only limited reductions in their total ex- Ppenditures for labor and do not wish to make further cuts unless it is absolutely essential. .It was learned in informed railroad circles. It will be intimated, it is understood, that if the move for increased rates fails the roads will turn to wage reduc- tions in effart.to bolster up net Miners March On Wash. Pa.; Put Demands Bosses Try to Break Strike By Injunction; Evict Miners, As Fake Promises of Pinchot Are Exposed Start National Drive for Relief of Strikers; Protest Terror of Armed Thugs BULLETI NEW YORK.—Theodore Dreiser, one of the foremost American writers, has wired the executive committee of the Central Rank and File Strike Committee an offer to conduct a pubic investigation of the wholesale brutality and murderous attacks of the state authorities and company gunmen. The telegram sent by Dreiser is endorsed by John Dos Passos, Mary Heaton Vorse, Robert W. Dunn, Malcom Cowley, Frank Palmer and Anna Rochester, The wire sent by Dreiser, in full, reads: “In the coal mining we Of Pennsylvania the newspapers have been reporting the constant use of!machine guns, gas bombs and clubs on the part of the police on the striking miners, and their families. “According to news reports, the public demand fer an investiga- tion of this outrage has been met by Governor Pinchot with a secret hearing behind closed doors. The Strikers’ Committee leading the Present struggle is demanding a public hearing. “We, the undersigned, believe that a public hearing is essential in the present situation and we therefore extend our services to the Strikers’ Committee to conduct such an investigation.” ‘ * * ‘« PITTSBURGH, Pa.,’ June 16.—Thirty-five thousand coa! miners are now striking against starvation, as thirteen hun- dred more joined the strike yesterday in Ohio and West Vir- ginia. The capitalist’ press sstories about the kidnapping of ® Foster and Borich are fakes. PART VICTORY IN BREAD STRIKE Sentence 3 Women to Jail for Picketing BRONX, N. Y.—The militant struggle, the working women put up in the neighborhood of 180th St. be- tween Prospect and Arthur Ave. to forcethe bakery owners to reduce the | price of bread from 8 to 5 cents a| pound, secured a partial victory al- ready, because some of the bakers are selling the rolls 15 cents a dozen, as demanded by the workers instead of 20 cents. But the workers housewives are not satisfied with this and at the mass meeting which they held on Monday night, unani- mously and with enthusiasm they | declared to carry on the fight till) final victory. | Picketing is getting stronger and | stronger every day, since new re-| cruits join the strikers every day. The American Federation of Labor business agents are spreading the rumor that the strikers want to re- duce the price of bread at the ex- pense of the workers, but nobody listens to this lie, for all the workers in the neighborhood know that the strikers not only fight for lower bread prices, but also for the better~ ment of the conditions of the work- ers, working in these bakeries. From today on mass picketing will take place every evening in front of all the bakeries until they give in to the demands of the United Front Strike Committee. Three women who were arrested several days ago were sentenced 5 days in jail or $50 fine. All were remitted to jail in lieu of fine. One of the three is an expectant mother. THREE BANKS CLOSE IN ROCK- FORD, ILL, ROCKFORD, Ill—Three Rockford banks closed according to authorities because of frozen assets and con- tinued withdrawals. The banks were the Manufacturers’ National, the Se- | everywhere. An injunction was granted to the coal bosses by Judge Rollins. Judge Rollins is an old man who is not up for re-election, and was placed in charge of the injunction hearing this week by a conference of all the Pittsburgh judges. The Pittsburgh papers agree that this paves the way for injunctions Evictions have started at the Crescent Mine in Daisytown today at the order of the Pittsburgh Coal Company, although Governor Pinchot hypocritically requested no evictions and said that he would per- mit peaceful picketing. The National Secretary of the Workers International Relief is on a tour of the middle west for relief for MINE STRIKE AREA west wfeerny® VIRGINS the striking miners. The Interna- tional Labor Defense is protesting against the declaration of Sheriff Cain of Allegheny County that he will study the case of each arrested striker on the picket line with a view to deportation. The Cannonsburg Section Strike Committee protested by wire to Gov- ernor Pinchott against brutality and reminded him of his promises. Pin- chot’s secretary, answered the wire saying that the governor was out of town, although it is known he was holding preliminary conferences for the Pittsburgh Terminal, and will be at a United Mine Workers scab conference on Thursday. ‘Thousands of miners and jobless are marching on Washington County, Pa., in three main lines. One from Avella, a fifteen mile hike from Can- onsburg, and another from the Brownsville section. There is a heavy rain on. The strikers did not ask for a permit for the demonstra- curity National and Bank tion to Washington, but the police ~