The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 20, 1931, Page 4

_ Page Four 22. 1581 DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE The Costa Rican Trade Menace By JORGE. R. KNICKERBOCKER overlooked a | just when Menaces are most necessary | explain w! Prosperity didr come back in | sixty d Rica, for example Who is hidden there, in Costa Rica? Who knows, I ask! Listen, and I'll reveal to you f that all red-blood of. acts if you please, ans should be aware Why are Americans discontented? Why was | Warren 1 Hi yed? Why did | Coolidge choose not to 2? Why was Hoover | forced to bi Plan? Why was Fish? WHY And the answe: looded truth, which it is high time who love their pork 7 ARD OF MARITIES ae | ust hear, is—Costa Rica! y American worker who sees his factory closing and the boss going to the seashore while he goes to the Board of Charities, must ask him- self this question: What has Costa Rica to do | with all this? , The traveller in Central America, admiring the palm tree lined shore of Costa Rica; the grocer of Cincinnati, busily short-weighing a customer; you, the reader, scanning these lines as you stir your coffee, never imagine, in your simple- mindedness, the dark danger that lies there under the tropic sun, there in Costa Rica. Till tell you. But it’s hard to stretch the thing out for two dozen articles. Yet I'll tell you, for I am the Prize Piffle Peddler of the World! (No, not of the World, but the Post). But don’t ex- pect me to be one day in Rome and the next day in Norway, because the editor of the Daily Worker refuses to fake the date line. He's no newspaper man. He actually studies Hegel, and under-estimates the peril of Costa Rica. Now that the history, flora and fauna of Costa Rica have been made clear to you, let us ex- amine the menace of Costa Rican trade. Men have been killed in Costa Rica! Fair young girls have been ruined in Costa Rica! Mosquitoes bite like the dickens in Costa Rica! Ah, ha! Malaria and mystery lurk behind its borders! We dare say that you never heard of Don Cleto Gonzales Viquez. Isn’t it so? Yet we must Teveal the bitter truth! 12 is President of Costa | Rica! Think of it! A man with a name like Don Cleto Gonzales Viquez is bound to be against America! The very syllables smell of intrigue, banditry, plots! Is he loyal to the Stars and Sizipes? What an absurd question! Bananas Bring Dismay. For Costa Rica, with Don Cleto Gonzales Vi- quez at its head, is carrying on a ruthless cam- paign to ruin the young American song writers. many more besides! You doubt it? Look at the facts! In 1926, Costa Rica exported 8,561,000 bunches of bananas valued at $6,421,000. By 1929 it had increased its banana exports to 6,112,170 yunches. What of it, you'll say, thinking that 6,000,000 bunches of bananas are less than 8,000,000. Huh! That is only a superficial analysis of those who | don’t understand the menace.of Costa Rican trade. For might there not be more bananas per bunch on the six than on the eight! Of course there might! And trust those Costa Ricans to put them bananas on! Now you begin to under- stand the ruthless trade tactics of Don Cleto Gonzales Viquez! What song writer, making an honest living out | of selling songs such as “Yes, We Have No Ba- nanas,” can stand up under the avalanche of millions upon millions of bunches of bananas! More, imported into the United States, while the lawmakers at Washington sleep with chorus girls, imported (the bananas, not the girls) over the protest of the American Legion, these enor- mous quantities of bananas are crowding the warehouses of our coastal cities, flooding the market in a yellow tidal wave of bananas that has put literally thousands of unemployed apple sellers out of business! And all this is done with the help of American capitalists, who recking not of their country, make money out of this godless traffic by invest- ing in the United Fruit Company which imports these bananas, wholly ignoring the fact that the Apple Growers’ Association is losing ground and will soon face bankruptcy! What may be said of coffe we leave to your imagination. More than 44,000,000 millions pounds of coffe were exported by the Dictator Viquez in 1928—enough coffee to keep the whole world awake nights! But the world awoke too late! Now in 1931, Brazil, driven to the wall by Costa Rican compe- tition, is forced to burn its surplus coffee or dump it far out at sea! terrible lesson on Costa Rican trade methods! An Accident? No! Bolshevism! Naturally, all this is not accidental. It 1s de- liberate! Few know that the money gained by this cut-throat competition in coffee and ba~ nanas is going for Bolshevism! Of course the Bolsheviks will deny that it is Bolshevism, but Congressman Fish has decided that it is! For Costa Rica, on August 4, 1928, passed a law which nationalizes all electric power available throughout the country! An insult to Insull! The world is getting 2 | A defiance of the very laws of electricity, so to | speak, And, again, Americans will be surprised to learn that Costa Rica has frequently modified )m@Help to Win Miners’ Strike By CosmRICS , its Constitution. Laugh that off, if you can! For any country that modifies its Constitution is suspicious! Ask the Daughters of the American Revolution! So the Costa Rican trade menace goes on, gaining slowly but surely on the United States. While from 1922 to 1930 U. S. exports to Costa Rica fell one per cent, Costa Rican imports into the U. S. A. fell only one-half of one per cent, and anybody can see that if this keeps on for two hundred years, Costa Rica will have reaped a harvest of gold from the dumbbell Yankees, while they argue about the tariff. In closing, we again call attention to the men- ace of Costa Rica, and the fact that anybody with a, name like Don Cleto Gonzales Viquez can | mean no good to the American people. Tasks of the Communist Party in Porto Rico By JOHN BELL. MONG the countries in the Caribbean where | ‘we observe the absence of crystallized Com- ‘munist parties, Porto Rico presents all the requisites for the objective conditions as the basis for the immediate development of the Communist movement. ‘What are‘ the objective conditions? 1) the exist- ence of a proletariat partly organized in trade unions which for a long time have been under the influence of social-fascist leaders and the head of which {s the arch betrayer Santiago Iglesias. We witness today a rapid organiza- tional disintegration of the Federasion Libre due 4o the long standing treachery of the misleaders of the Socialist Party and the American Feder- tion of Labor; 2) the unorganized workers in the plantations who are the most downtrodden, ex- ploited stratum. of the toiling masses of Porto Rico are showing signs of combativeness and willingness to organize in class trade unions; 3) the oppressed non-proletarian masses of the dsland, the peasatits and city poor, driven by de- spair end starvation as a result of the domina- tion of ‘Yankee Imperialism, are beginning to turn their backs to the native bourgeois politi- elans, the alliancistas, unionistas, socialists and the demagogic nationalists. They are ready to struggle for the complete national liberation of Porto Rico. Even Hoover was compelled to ad- mit in his recent imperialist trip to the island, that there is a growing demand of Porto Ricans for the independence of their country. To what extent has Communist influence penetrated the «very minds of the workers and poor peasants can ‘be ‘seen by the response of the masses to the \ falls of the Comunists—although not yet or- “panized in the homogeneous groups—at mass meetings and demonstrations against unemploy- ment. In the city of Ponce. more than 1,000 ‘workers responded to the call of the Communists “*0n May Day in the Plaza Munoz Rivera. The Communist speakers were cheered. The workers hailed the Soviet Union. The economic crisis in the United States has ‘tremendously accentuated the crisis in Porto Rico which dates back for years. Because of ‘the very monocultural nature of the economy of fhe country, the crisis in the sugar market rought the country on the brink of ruin and starvation. More than 60 per cent of the workers @re unemployed today. American imperialist domination of Porto Rico for the last 30 years brought untold misery and physieal degeneration of the nation. More than 600,000 people are from the dreadful disease of hookworm. “blessings” of Yankee occupation can be ‘ound in Governor Roosevelt's report. For’ the last 20 years 200,000 people died of malnutrition and 35,000 of tuberculosis in the last decade. Roosevelt's report presents the darkest picture in this history of Rorto Rico. The huge surplus profits of American sugar barons and bankers and the native latifundists are extracted from the very blood of the*toiling masses in the city and countryside. Illiteracy is widespread. There is a meagre provision for children’s education The Porto Rican children sit at schoo) benches with their stomachs empty. They are pale, emaciated. In the last years a series of spontaneous strikes took place. Because of the lack of militant and sincere leadership, the workers were betrayed by the yellow socialist leaders. The leaders of the American Federation of Labor are not interested to organize the workers. More than 40,000 women and children toil in the sweatshops. These yel- low leaders consciously hinder the organization of the workers in the plantations (sugar, tobacco and fruit). The plantations constitute the key position of the imperialists and landowners in the economic life of the country. A In the face of this situation, important and urgent tesks confront the Communists of Porto Rico. The crystallization of Communist groups which must inevitably lead to the organization of a strong mass Communist Party, is condi- tioned by their daily activities in the class strug- gle. The Communist Party can only. develop and thrive through the participation in the daily struggles of the working class in all aspects of the work. Let us enumerate some of the most immediate tasks of our Communist sympathizers and groups in Porto Rico: 1. Within the existing trade unions, con- trolled by the reactionary yellow leaders, the Communists must strive to organize revolu- tionary opposition or left wing groups on the basis of a concrete program for the betterment of the conditions of the workers, for higher wages, sanitary conditions in the shops, insur- ance against accidents, recognition of the unions, etc. The Communists must be the live wire with- in the left wing groups who are to explain to the workers the necessity for the militant strug- gle against the yellow leaders and win over the majority to their side around the program of immediate economic demands. 2. ‘The organization of the unemployed work- ers into unemployed councils. Here the Commu- nists must elaborate a program of action for concrete demands: Sooial insurance to the un- employed to be paid by the government and the isnperialist enterprises, the funds to be admin- istered by committees of workers. The unem- ployed councils must strive to link up their | miners are striking under SCABS WANTED | - Oar ntl: sc wie ae John We INTERNATIONAL PRES. SO CENTS A ION - ENGHEST PAY TO OFFICIALS Chik Belih,* ECIK WEIGHIMAN BY BOSS DEMANDS- ° & UNION SCALE APPQINFE4 Sve tees teh maa A AREDEL NDEM DE RRR wm WORK AS LONG AS YOU sant WONT TO By BURCK Saving the Daily Worker This article was written more than a week ago, but its publication has been unavoidably delayed. The number of miners on strike to- day is 35,000.—Ed. Cec eee By F. BORICH. — this is written over 30,000 Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia coal the leadership of the Nationel Miners Union. The strike is spreading like wildfire. When these lines will reach the the Daily Worker readers additional thousands will be striking and the tempo of its spreading will increase. It will spread because this is a strike against the devastating mass hunger among the miners and their families, hunger unparalleled in American history. THE MINERS ARE DETER- MINED TO DEFEAT THE HUNGER. Every single mine now on strike has elected Broad Rank and File Strike Committees. Thot sands of miners have joined the Nationa Min- ers Union. Dozens of mass meetings are being held daily under the auspices of the N.M.U. with thousands of miners attending. A mass picket line is organized and led by the N.M.U. in front. of every striking mine with men, women, chil- dren, negro and white, participating. Marches of the striking miners and the unemployed miners are being led by the N.M.U. daily to spread the strike. General Strike Committee meeting of the unanimously elected miners representatives is being held Wednesday in Pittsburgh to formu~- late the demands and the policy of the strike. The United Mine Workers, with the best speakers and organizers in the field, with gang- . Sters and thousands cf dollars at its disposal, with the widest publicity of the capitalist press and the widest distribution of leaflets by the jaid gangsters, was not able so far to hold a single mass meeting in spite of many attempts. The miners refuse to attend. The U.M.W.A. or- ganizers are being driven out of the field. Few of | | their followers are trying to scab. They are or- | ganizing back-to-work movements. Not one miner in course of the strike joined the UMW.A. And yet, in view of these undisputable facts, the capitalist press of the whole Western Penn- sylvania is printing miles long stories playing up the U.M.W.A. as the leader of the strike. This is being done in an attempt to prevent the spreading of the strike which means a defeat of the strike. They know that the miners will re- fuse to strike under the leadership of the U.M. W.A. The capitalist press, in long editorials and special articles, is urging the coal operators to sign an agreement with the U.M.W.A. if they want to prevent the growing strength of the Na~ tional Miners Union. The claim that the U.M. W.A. will co-operate with the coal operators to “stibilize” the industry. Unheard of campaign of lies is being organized against the N.M.U. In order to counter-act these lies, in order to expose the strike breaking role of the U.M.W.A., in order to bring the militant program of the N.M.U. to the miners. we need tens of thousands of copies of the Daily Worker every day, espe- cially as we have no official organ of our own. But the Daily Worker finds itself in a severe fi- nancial crisis which threatens its very existence and cannot afford to send us th nessary. Therefore, in the name of the striking and starving miners, we appeal to all the readers and sympathizers of the Daily Worker to rush funds to the Daily Worker enabling it to send tens of thousands of copies every day to th: striking miners. In this way you will help tre- mendously to win the miners’ strike which is di- rected against mass hunger. struggle with the employed workers within and without the unions. 3. The most urgent task of the Communists is the organization of the agricultural workers in the plantations. These workers are the most exploited in the island and constitute the ma- jority of the wage earners. The comrades must elaborate a program of partial demands in ac- cordance with the existing conditions in the plantations. The organization of agricultural workers into revolutionary unions and their Strike actions will shake the rural population and as Lenin said: “Only the strike struggle is capable to shake off the lethargy of the countryside, to wake the class consciousness and the understanding of the complete necessity of a class organiza- tion for the exploited rural masses, to reveal to them in a practical way all value of their alliance with the workers in the cities.” ‘The Fifth Congress of the Red International of Labor Unions has elaborated concrete sug- gestions as to the close collaboration and alli- ance that we, must strive to establish between the city and agricultural workers. It is, there- fore, fundamentally important, that we must or- ganize the thousands of unorganized workers in the cities into revolutionary independent unions. This, of course, does not mean that we must not organize our left wing opposttton in the reform- ist unions. 4, The Communists must be in the leadership in the movement for the national liberation of Porto Rico. The bourgeois political leaders are using more demagogy than ever in an attempt to retain their influence among the masses and check the growing demand of the people for complete independence. They also are for the “{ndependence” of Porto Rico but in reality they work hand in hand with Yankee imperialism. ‘The socialist party sends its representatives to the White House for more American loans the huge interests of wHich are to be paid by the workers and peasants. The Nationalist Party is more demagogic with its “left” phrases on this burning issue before the people of the islands. They must strive to win the toiling masses and the petty bourgeoisie, the students and city poor for the struggle for the independence of the island. On the basis of a concrete program of partial political demands, the Communists will succeed to lead the working class of Porto Rico for the hegemony in the struggle for national liberation. In carrying out the above outlined tasks, the Communists will gain strength and prestige among the warking class and the oppressed people. In the course of their activities, the Communists must and will secure the most mil- itant elements in the trade unions, mills, plant- ations, shops, etc., for the building of the Com- munist Party of Porto Fico. The members of the existing Communist groups must be im- mediately organized into shop or street nuclei. They are to regularly pay their monthly dues at their unit meetings. ‘The passivity of the Communists and the lack of initiative for ‘Communist work, is due to the Jack of understanding of the daily tasks. How- ever, we feel certain that the above given sug- gestions as to the immediate tasks of our com- rades, if carried out, will ensure the way to the formation of a strong militant and mass Com- munist Party capable to lead the oppressed masses to the ovérthrow of imperialism and the rule of native bourgeoisie in Porto Rico and the establishment of a Workers’ and Peasants’ Gov- ernment. Party Life Conducted by the Org. Dept. Central Com- mittee, Communist Party, U. S. A. Some Notes from St. Louis A Note from A Migratory Worker 1) Three Negro workers became interested in the movement. After some. discussion among themselves they decided to join the Communist ; Party. One of them came to the Party head- quarters on a Monday. There was a meeting of the unemployed council then, so he joined it. The second worker came on a Tuesday. The Party unit met then. He filled out an applica- tion and joined. The third one came on a Thurs- day. The International Labor Defense met that night. So he joined the International Labor De- fense. For three months after this happened, the three of them thought that thy belonged to the same organization, the Communist Party. 2) Comrade K. became interested in the Party last November. He read about it in thé capitalist press. As a worker he learned from his own ex- perience that his place was in the Communist Party. He wanted to join, but he couldn't find the Party or any of the organizations connected with the Party. He couldn’t even get a hold of the Daily Worker or of anything at all to get in touch with us. Only a few days before May Day one of the workers in the shop where he is working came over to him and gave him a leaf- let, that was given out on the street, saying, “Here, you were talking about communism, they are going to have a meeting.” That, finally, brought him to us after six months searching for the Party. 3) A Party speaker calls upon an audience of workers, in the name of the Party, T.U.U.L., LL.D., Unemployed Council, L.S.N.R.; Y.C.L., to join the movement. A worker, who came to the meeting having in mind to join the Unemployed Council, asks another worker, “Does he want us to join the whole bunch of them?” MM. eke A NOTE FROM A MIGRATORY WORKER. I Joined the Communist Party May 1, 1931, but until now it is impossible for me to send you my address because I am unemployed and have no home. In the meantime, do not destroy my application card. When I find a job in Chicago I will send you my address. I will help the Party financially and also through agitation. I am spreading propaganda from town to town as I look for work, especially the farms, among employed and | Workers Order) | the class struggle pretty well to the fore. By JORGE On Fraternal Orders Recently a worker, who correctly ‘opposes the so-called “fraternal orders” under capitalist con- trol, which stultify class struggle, wrote us, add- ing an objection to the I. W. O. (International which he claims has “high rates which keep many out,” and that “one reason is the $100 a week jobs and’so’on.” He adds: “The average worker’s wage is:-$25-.a week and less. A worker's organization should have executives that live like workers and act like us on the same average pay. Those that get more are opportunists.” pe Well, opportunism must be measured’ by some- thing more than a salary. We chaps on the Daily Worker once in a while make opportunist, mistakes right when we miss pay ‘days entirely. And the I. W. O. officials are, we think, keeping But we inquired about all this and , are | informed by the I. W. O. secretary that: “The I. W. O. as a fraternal benefit society has lower rates than any other fraternal or- ganization, much Jower than the Gertian Kran- ken Kase, Woodmen of the World, Workmens Circle, etc.” As to those supposed .$100¢salaries, he tells us: “There can be no question but that the officials of the I. W. O.’are getting | salaries which are scheduled for thé “proletarian fraternal organizations. The scale of: wages for the officials cannot be higher than $50. This is a decision of the I. W. O. National Executive Committee.” So it sems, comrade, that you're 2 bit mistaken on both complaints. There are no ‘high rates” and no “$100 @ week jobs.” And jf, you still think they are both too high, well,..we guess you better join the I. W. O. and undertake, with the rights of a members, to change ‘em. on see Not the Same Appeal’ ‘The guy who sidles up to you and offers you a bottle which he calls “Pre-War stuff,” is log- ically to be suspected. The same applies to the attempt by Haldman-Julius and Fred Warren to palm off a paper they are starting as the pre-war “Appeal to Reason.” ‘The old Appeal to Reason was a paper, in pre- war days, of socialist agitation, fearfully vagué on basic theory but striking a popular note of protest at capitalism dished out with utopian promises that “under socialism things will be different.” : That doesn’t answer the question today, when any movement has to responr to concrete strug- gle, and has to stand for socialism in. its living form in the Soviet Union—or stop being a move- ment. The so-called “socialist” party. Abram- ovitch, czarist, white guards and “all, has given its blessings to the idea of “reviving”, the Appeal to Reason, so any worker can see what kind of counter-revolutionary dope sheet it will be. But there has been an awkward thing to ex~ plain. If the Appeal is being “fé¥ived,” why did it die? Why did it stay dead for over a decade? A Montana farmer who was once ite supporter but who now knows that..the only party of really socialist policy is the Commu- nist Party, and the leading English ‘paper in this country that fights for the toilers is the Daily Worker, tells us why the old; Appeal to Reason died: “Fred Warren and Emanual Hisideman. Ju- lius of Kansas are trying to revive the old Ap- peal. They betrayed the workers’ ‘during the war, by calling it the “New Appeal,” and back- ed Woodrow Wilson. The militant workers quit it and now they say it went under during the war and if the workers will support them they will revive it. “They are going to fight for ‘so- called just- ice” whatever that means. It is my, opinion that they want to stem the tide of thé workers to the Communist Party and betray them in the coming war just like they did in the last imperialist World War.” Listen how these scoundrels try to lie out of their past betrayal: “The Appeal failed because of the black ree action during and after the World War, when for some years Socialist propaganda could find no audience and Americans in particular ex- hibited a bitter resentment or cynical indiffer- ence toward discussions of social reform.” Horse feathers! Just like socialvfascists to lay their own treachery to the masses! And everything that Haldeman-Julius says in his present paper, the “Freeman,”..shows that the “revived” Appeal will do just what our farm- er reader of Montana says. A>iot,of gabble about how beautiful everything “willbe” under socialism, but—but the Soviet Union.is not men- tioned, and as an immediate aim..he proposes “Justice and sanity in government.” Gentlemen, your “pre-war” socialism is fake! appears that labor 1s sound asleep.” . People who write such stuff as that have no faith in the working class. Think! From the unemployed. In small towns we are given a place | great mine strike we hear the following: to sleep for one night and some bread to eat and the following morning we have to leave. This winter I traveled about 50,000 miles all over the U. S. A. and I find great sympathy for the Communist Party, but the Party doesn’t know about it because these workers are scat- tered throughout the small mining towns and when there is a parade like May 1st, again we don’t find them there. Capitalist vermin are spreading lying propa- ganda against the C. P. in the U. S, A. and against the Soviet Union. There are many work- ers who are misled but for that very reason we must work hard to expose these lying capitalists and their tricks. (An important article on Trade Union and Party work will appear in the next Party Life Column.) Faith in the Working Class other day a reader wrote us about some~ thing called the “Industrial Union League,” which held a meeting in a New York suburb, spending most of the time attacking the Com- munists. They put out a leaflet which speaks FROM EDITOR TO READER about “socialist industrial unionism.” Sounds | kind of “radical” to most people. Now workers should realize what all this means. The “Industrial Union League” is neither “industrial” nor a “union” nor a “league.” It is something that a few members of what there are in the “Socialist Labor Party” (and they are darned few!) play with in order to prevent workers from joining the Trade Union Unity League, the only revolutionary trade union central organization in the U. S. A. The only one supported by and guided by Communists, yet open to all workers. What has this got to do with you? you may ask. Well, we just wanted you’ to understand how Communists are different than the S. L. P. Why Communists are attacked by the S. L. P. And what's all the row about. Because many workers think: “Why can’t these radical groups get together? Why fight among yourselves?” Yet, if you really know the life of Lenin, you'll remem¥er that the biggest part of his work was fighting against misleaders of the workers who pretended to be “socialists” and “evolutionists.” Only by firm fight against such people was the Russian working class prepared to overthrow capitalism. The S. L. P. leaflet mentioned talks abou capital and labor. But it says that “The fact ; Class, “The unadorned facts are that the men women and children of the Western Pennsyl- vania coal fields show no awe whatever in the face of the armed forces; that they have re- formed their picket lines as many’ as four times and charged through tear gas barages behind which lay barricaded professional kill- ers armed with machine guns. "The workers had only sticks and stones.”, Yet the S. L. P. says “labor is sound asleep.” The Communists say that it is the«S, L. P. which is sound asleep! The Cofmtnists get the support of the masses becausé they have faith in the masses. The Daily Worker is not just kidding you when it asks youj: thousands of you workers who are not membets’the Com- munist Party, to form Daily Worker Clubs in order that the Daily may benefitiby:your ad-~ vice and your criticisms. We mednievery word of it. Only because we are Communists'do we open our door to workers, to the masses. Comrade Stalin, writing about Lenin, who had deep faith in the masses, bitterly attacks those: who os that faith. He says, in part: » “The theoreticians and leaders: of action who know the history of the peopies,.who have thoroughly studied the history of.the different revolutions from beginning to end, sometimes fall victims of a certain shameful} disease. This disease is called ‘fear of the masses,’ lack of faith in the creative genius of the masses.” Comrade reader, we don’t have.that “shame- ful disease.” No real Communist: does. We mean what we say when we urge ygu to form Daily Worker Clubs, your own organization, a club which should be a socialble.affair abso~ lutely voluntary, free from dues, tiresome rules and “stiff-necked-ism,” if you get, our meaning, but helpful to your favorite paper,,as we are helpful to you. We have faith in the working ring (