The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 23, 1931, Page 4

PubMshed by the Comprodaily Publishing Co., Inc., dail 18th Street, New York City y. ‘Address and mail all checks to tne Daily Worker, 50 East 15th Street. New York, N. ¥ Page Four 7, Cable: except Sunday. at 50 East e “DALWORK.” al Centrel Yorker’ Party U.S.A SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $3; two months, $1; excepting Boroughs et Manhattan and Bronx, New York Ctly. Foreign: one year. $8- siz months. $4.50. ENGDAHL ations of the working This also involves left without the LOUt s been too much neglected in the ional Labor Defense, which through this special task, siderable indifference, even in developing the relief of jependents, in uniting the with the class war pris- pondence, the patronage le, Generally, the of capitalist class s that thes y viet {in pri have not of Prisoners Doubles ion is again brought by the fact that nearly o1 miners and their sympathizers 1d in the coal war that rages and Bell Counties, in Kentucky. . therefore, the number of been doubled. In a pre- 29 families, the Interne ns that these 29 pris- rs ha oners have 135 pendents W. B. Jones, secretary of the Miners’ Union at Evarts, Kentucl held in the Harlan Coun- Jail charged with murder, writes as follows: Face Death By Starvation am willing to help you in any way that I to expose the conditions that now exist in part of the country. But if I could get out jail, I could do a much better job of it. tT be glad when the books you have for me as the e drags on slowly for me, for ve been active all of my life. I am going to send you the names of all the people that ed here, and anything that you can do nm will be appreciated. I assure you that they need food and clothing. Come to their rescue if you can, for they have starved all win- ter, and if there isn’t relief soon, some of them will starve to death. So come to us everybody and help us lest we perish. We love our wives and little children. So help us so we can help them and keep them from starving.” This is an appeal to the whole working class. ty Remember the Prisoners! The International Labor Defense can only be an instrument for carrying through labor's reply. | ‘The Eastern Kent coz] miners are fighting | the same great corporations (United States Steel, | Commonwealth Edison, Peabody Coal) that are | seeking to smash the standard of living of labor everywhere. The same st le rapidly develops in Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio and West Virginia, where the number of arrests and persecutions grow, increasing the responsibilities of labor's defense organization It must also be remembered that one phase of the Scottsboro Campaign is the care of the pris- oners and their families Last year. 1930, the International Labor De- fense, nationally and through its district and local organizations, took care of 7.000 arrested workers, most of these, of course, remaining in jail for very ort periods Let No One Be Forgotten gle prisoner for a single da The women and children of the pri: must not be held in need. The International Labor Defense calls upon you to do either one or all of the follow 1. Send an immediate Prisoners’ Fund, Interr Street, New York City. 2. Become a Prisoners’ Relief Fund Sustainer by pledging yourself to send in a regular amount monthly. The International Labor Defense makes an effort to send $5.00 monthly to every prisoner and $20.00 to dependent families, Literature, Food, Clothes 3. Send in whatever books, magazines, or | other literature that you can spare and this will | be divided among the prisoners. | 4. Send in clothes, food or other relief (to | the above address) and this will be forwarded to the prisoners’ families. If you would rather have a member of the I.L.D. call at your home, | write and we will have someone from a district | or local organization of the I.L.D. call at your home. "This is not charity. This is proletarian relief, to help maintain intact one of the most im- portant fronts in the working class. Support the class war prisoners and their famities. contribution to the Dependents’ Relief r Defense, 80 East 11th American Legion and Veterans of “WON’T YOU PLEASE JOIN?” neem ere NEWS ITEM: State police going from door to ete eernrenerenren remnemnammarenarn sna door trying to get miners to jein the U.M.W.A. By BURCK la Bove , « arn me Dene (a3) Foreign Wars | By C, TIPTON. BOUT the beginning of May of this year Senator Reed attacked, in a speech before some bank the legislators in Congress, for passing the bonus loan bill. Personal, political expediency, was the charge, some sort of un- patriotic motive of legislation and those who | asked for the passage of the bill. Of course the congressmen who supported the bonus bill did so for the same fascist purposes that are de- sired by Senator Reed—it was only a difference of opinion on the tactic of paying the veterans for strike-breaking or getting them to do it | without cost—“For God and Country,” Wide publicity was given by the bankers to this speech. These charges seem to have an- noyed the Legion. The charges convey a hint that the A. L. leaders may lose their great patriotic prestige in the eyes of the ruling class, the bankers and bosses, by giving in to the yank and file of the members and presenting | their demands for payment of the bonus. Strike-breaking was costing too much. So the misleaders of the Legion, after these and other charges of bankers, decided to pre- sent various other motives, of unemployed ex~- servicemen, etc. After considerable, painful juggling with the spirit of pay-triotism, after innumerable fervent salutes to the American flag and considerable praying at their meetings in order to drive away the spectre of an un- employment problem of the exploited worker members of the Legion, the fascist misleaders finally blurted out something about needy ex- servicemen. They thought they had practically the problem solved with donations of old pants to their fellow citizens, and even actual money —charity allowances—were given to the defend- ers of American democracy. But not until May 14, 1931, do we read in the press that the A. L. will “urge upon President Hoover the calling of a national non-political conference to seek a solution for unemployment and depression crises.” ‘The Legion unemploy- ment commission expressed a fear that inac- tion in the face of continued widespread un- employment would bring “dire results.” Against the supposed “inaction,” the Legion evidently proposes “action.” But what kind of action? What is proposed, is a “national non- political conference,” of course, a conference composed of capitalists, the reactionary Amer- ican Federation of Labor officials and these precious fascist leaders of the American Le- gion themselves. There could be no program and no “action” come out of such a conference but a fascist program and fascist action— against the workers. And Hoover, the one who has been most reso- lutely against unemployment insurance, who has by other “conferences” actually helped the employers in putting over wholesale discharges of workers and widespread wage cuts, is “urging | to investigate.” The same Legion racketeers, who consistently refused to consider unemployment problems | under the hypocritical pretense that labor prob- lems do not come within the scope of their ac- | tivities, all of a sudden feel themselves inspired | (by a hint from the capitalists) to spit out | something about an unemployment problem, be- | cause inaction would bring “dire results.” | What are these “dire results” to Hoover, the Legion, et al.? Is it the extreme destitution and hunger of the worker ex-servicemen? Oh! | No! This does not hurt them, is not of any | concern to a boss, to the capitalist class! It is | the fear that the starving ex-servicemen are turning “Red.” The Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars did | not fail to see the growing misery of the un- employed. It is not a case of their being ig- | norant of conditions. The Legion leaders knew the misery of the workers but they followed the policy of the capitalists faithfully. The first was a policy of black-jacks, clubs and bullets against the workers. The Legion constituted it- self as an auxiliary of the capitalist police and aided in the savage clubbing and brutal attacks upon the unemployed. Now that the policy of the capitalists has been amended, now that the policy includes hypocrisy and deceit, a pre- tended solicitude for the unemployed, so now do the fascist leaders of the Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars suddenly find it necessary to come out with hypocritical words of pretense expressing their “anxiety” about unemployment and the “dire results” that may flow therefrom. This fascist maneuver is designed to stem the rising tide of spontaneous revolt among the growing army of unemployed veterans. In sheer Gesperation, growing out of their agonized existence, the rank and file are beginning to see the treachery of their misleaders, who have sold out their former buddies into the hands of blood-sucking exploiters. The worker ex-service- men are losing the illusion of a national rela- tionship with the enemies—the bosses. The workers’ class consciousness is beginning to dawn upon them. The worker vets must join the organization of their class and fight with the rest of the work- ing class, the common enemy—the capitalist class, The Workers’ Ex-Servicemen’s League is a working man’s organization. ‘hey fight for the other half of the stolen bonus, for unemploy- ment insurance, instead of degrading charity. ‘The W. E. 8. L., alongside with other workers’ organizations, fights against wage cuts, against capitalist war and the capitalist system of wage slavery—for the advancement of the working class to political power. The National Executive ot I W.O. Calls for Funds for “Daily” «aa first meeting of the new Executive Com- mittee of the International Workers Order flecided to call upon all branches to raise a minimum of 25 cents per member to help save the Daily Worker. This money must be raised within the next two weeks, All funds should be sent to the National Office, 32 Union Square. ‘The following appeal for the Daily has been issued by the National Executive Committee: Comrades:—We have just completed our first convention. In the history of the fraternal move- ment, this convention will be one of the most important. The convention laid down the policy for the unification of all class-conscious frater- nal organizations. ‘The convention consolidated {he forces of the International Workers Order, which up to date has succeeded in organizing 241 brenches with a membership nearing 12,000. The abled not believe in declarations only, that. we want to prove to the labor movement in deeds that we are an important part of the class struggle in the United States. Raise Funds for Daily. ‘The Daily Worker is the only proletarian or- gan in the English language which fights for the interests of all sections of the working class. The Order now appeals to all branches of the International Workers Order to raise the neces- sary funds to enable the Daily Worker to con- tinue. existence and to carry on the struggle of the working class, Our first convention stressed the importance of organizing English sections of the Interna- tional Workers Order. The Daily Worker will be an important instrument for the organizing of our English sections. The Daily Worker will a dotempstiope! Workers Sader 2 San. Pt Fa | steps taken in order: | alive the competition; 2) nothing is done to Party Life Conducted by the Org. Dept. Central Com- mittee, Communist Party, U. S. A. Revolutionary Competition By I. AMTER. ROM time to time, launched by the Party, the slogan of revolu- tionary competition is brought before the mem- bership of the Party for the purpose of stimulat- ing the campaign. A challenge is issued by one district to the other, one section to the other, and the campaign starts. In some instances, this stimulation has an effect, but in most in- stances, it remains merely a slogan. The reason is that there are no organizational 1) to launch and keep check up either in the unit, section or district on the work done or not done. The Districts, sections and units trust firstly to the under- standing of the members as to carrying on their work under the stimulation of revolutionary competition (which does not mean merely get numbers of members for the Party, TUUL, etc., but building up the Party and TUUL in the shops); and secondly do not set up the machin- ery for controlling and checking up the work accomplished. Must revolutionary competition be continued to campaigns? Or cannot rather for the regular work of the Party, when no particular campaign is in progress, revolutionary competition be es- tablished between the Party units and sections, between unions and leagues of the TUUL, bran- ches of the mass organizations, etc.? Unquestion- ably if the spirit of competition is aroused among the membership of the Party, unions and mass organizations, if an understanding of the basic need of building up the organization is instilled, and particularly if the machinery is set up not only for guiding the work generally but parti- ticularly for checking up and giving regular pub- licity to the work accomplished, a livelier spirit will be brought into the work of the Party. Take the Daily Worker, Labor Unity and Lib- erator, for instance. Why should there not, on the basis of the crying need of’ building up the cir- culation of these three organs, be recolu- tionary competition between the sections, units and members of the units, between unions and organizations, between members of the Red Builders Club? Why should this not become a regular institution in the Party and mass or- ganizations, a driving force in building up the revolutionary press? Why should there not be revolutionary competition between the various language groups in the building up of the res- pective language organs? It is harder to inspire the membership of the Party for routine work, whereas the Party mem- bers respond to demonstrations with enthusiasm, among the reasons being the fact that there is nothing glamorous and noisy about the daily work. It is hard plugging, making and reaching contacts, getting subs, selling papers, etc. Noth- ing that creates a noise, But it is this very when a campaign is | tain its class line and will place before the work- ing class the aims of our order. Collect in Shops. ‘We ask all branches to immediately start the campaign to raise in the branches or at the branch meeting. All members should be mobil- for actively participating in the campaign fot the Daily Worker by raising money in the shops, from their friends and wherever else it is possible to raise money. This will be credited to the branches, Comrades:—You carried on a successful cam~- paign to save the Morning Freiheit, the paper which actively participated in building our or- der. Do the same now. See to it that within the next two weeks you fulfill the quota which the newly elected National Executive Committee re- quests of you. Comradely yours, National Executive Committee International Workers Order 1 B Saltgmap, Secretary. article om the Due to lack of space, the Daily Worker has | not been able to publish sufficient pre-conven- tion discussion articles. However, the comrades are asked to send in articles to the C.C. of the YCL, who will arrange to have articles printed. Comrades in the units are especially asked to write on their problems. What kind of youth activity is being conducted for Scottsboro— how? How have you succeeded in raising youth demands in shops, mills, mines—and hew did By IRVING HERMAN ibe dealing with the farm youth question we must understand that the demands that we put forth vary in different localities (in certain places we find tenant farming on a large scale and in others we find mortgaged farmers, in some localities the farmers raise wheat and in others they are purely dairy farming). In this article I will attempt to deal with the question of demands and forms of work amongst farm youth as we have experienced it 1» our district. In District No. 9 we find thai the farm youth’s basic demands on the economic field are the same as the adults. The farm youth works on the farm with his father and the rest of the family and is affected by the high freight rates, falling prices on products (such as butter fats selling as low as 25c), bank interests, debts, taxes, mortgages, etc. It was reported that in Michigan the average poor farmer reccives be- tween $2.90 and $5.00 per week in cash. This sum is nowhere near enough to meet the poor farmers’ needs. As a result we find that tho the farm youth works hard and at long hours on the farm, he seldom receives any money at the end of the week. Life on the farm is exceedingly dull. There’ are, in most cases, no sort facilities or secrea- tional facilities for the farm youth. The schools to which the children go (many of them don't get any schooling) are overcrowded in many cases, in winter they are cold and generally are uncomfortable. This in brief is the picture. The task of the Young Communist League is to build up the United Farmers League. This organization must be broad and draw in all sections of the poor farmers and their families. routine work that builds up the revolutionary movement in its early stages, gives us contacts in the shops and makes possible the building of grievance committees, groups of the TUUDY. in the shops, which leads to the building of strike leadership and the organization of struggles. ‘There must be put into this work something that will inspire the comrades more than the mere knowledge iat they are doing revolution- ary work. The coinrade who works 8 or 10 hours a day and returns home tired and ex- hausted, needs the mental and organizational stimulus that his work is being measured not just by general results, but by direct comparison _With that being done by other comrades. If revolutionary competition is instituted, it will be the spur to more action on the part of a great part of the membership of the Party and the mass organizations, who are unquestionably will- ing to work. Revolutionary competition, but it must be properly organized and checked up, so that re- sults will be known to the membership, short~ comings and achievements be pointed out, so that the membership and the Party will be able to profit by the actiyity under the spur of re- volutionary competition. eal wae (The next Party Life column wil! contain an | sm the gem ayeions of |PRE-CONVENTION DISCUSSION YOUNG COMMUNIST LYAGUE, U.S. A. you place th criticism hi ods of m before the young workers? What | ‘ou of the unit, the district meth- | methods of work? What experiences have you in organizing and mobilizing ycuth for strikes, for campaigns. Send | ‘em in! Unit members especially, we want you! | The National Convention must be postponed for | | | work, the national a short time for extremely important reasons. Districts are receiving information. This gives us a chance to intensify and deepen our dis- cussion, Forms of Work and Demands Among the Farm Youth Withti. these we must build Youth Sections that | will have as their specific purpose to win the | youth for the UFL, to develop struggles around those issues affecting the farm youth and chil- dren, to develop various interesting forms of activity so as to maintain them in our movement. We must guard against the tendency to make these Youth Sections forms of a Youth UFL or just merely recreational institutions. The youth drawn into the UFL must become the best mil- itant fighters against the high taxes, foreclosures, ete. In addition to these forms of struggles the youth must be mobilized to fight against the various laws which bar farm youth from hunting and fishing (these things are of utmost importance to farmers). r The youth section must develop forms of so- cial activities and sport activities. Struggles for the use of certain school gyms, for baseball diag monds and baseball facilities must be developed. However, our slogans must be of such a charac- ter as to convince and win over the farm youth in a struggle.. If we merely come to the farm youth and say fight for baseball facilities, they will say the following: “The township is broke completely and if we make these demands we will be the losers because our parents will have to pay greater taxes.” Therefore our slogans must be tied up with the fact, that there shall not be any increase in the taxes of the poor farmers. But where will the money be raised, one may ask. In certain parts of northern Minnesota we find that right next to tne farm towns might be a mine of the Oliver Company or a railway of the Great Northern passes thru that territory. Therefore our demand must be for the sports facilities and the necessary funds for these are to be gotten by increasing the taxes of the Oliver Mine Co. and Great Northern Ry. In other parts we find that there are certain rich farmers who thru various trickeries do not pay taxes on most of their property. In such cases we can concretize our demands for sport facilities with the demand that the funds be gotten by taxing the rich farmers, Above all, we must formulate demands that will prove pos- sible and gain the support of the poor farmers and the farm youth. In the schools we must put forth such demands as: For free hot lunches and medical aid, etc. In District No. 9 the biggest obstacle in the way of carrying thru the struggle for these de- mands is the fact that we've not sufficiently gone over from the purely agitational stage to the concrete organizational stage. The imme- diate tasks of the YCL units in farm localities is to set up joint committees with the Party for the organization of a U F L township, having these committees approach poor farmers and get their consent for the calling of a meeting in the locality on such an issue as taxes, issuing leaflets for such a meeting with the signatures of these poor farmers that have agreed to call the meeting, and at this meeting to take the first steps of organizing a local UFL. Some pro- gress can be recorded in the past few months in the sense that many League units were big factors in building local UFL township commit- tees, have gone from farm. to farm selling the UFL program and the United Farmer, etc. Con- crete organization and development of struggle for various demands must be our foremost task District No. 0 3 me By JORGE | “Congratulate ’Em” ‘There is a well known saying in America, that if anything's wrong, the first guy who opens his mouth says: “There ought to be a law,” ete. ‘This is what is called in Communist lingo a ‘parliamentary illusion.” That is, a reliance in legislation by a capitalist government which pre- | tends to be “above classes,” but which really represents the interests of the capitalist class. The coal miners have suffered many injunc- tions, and a lot of hokum peddlers, liberals, fake socialists” and the A. F. of L. have been mak~- the workers believe that if only they could “get a law pessed” against injunctions, then everything would be quite all right. So the New Republic, liberal dope sheet with a strong smell of social fascist “socialist” talk, comes out in its issue for June 24, hurrahing over the passage of two “anti-injunction” laws, one in Pennsylvania, the other in Wisconsin, These peddlers of parliamentary illusions go into great detail to explain how, under the law passed in Pennsylvania, ‘‘They can’t do that!” in reference to judges issuing injunctions against, strikers. “The rights of peaceful picketing and all or- derly and normal strike activities are defined and assured; these cannet be enjoined. Penn- sylvania workers may indeed be congratu- lated.” What they are to be congratulated for, is their determination to “picket, assemble or urge work- ers to strike,” all of which is forbidden by the injunction issued by Judge H. H. Rowand on petition of the Butler Consolidated Coal Com- pany, just last week But the hokum artists of the New Republic try to make the miners believe that they should pat themselves on the back because there is “a law against injunctions.” All we got to say is: THE MINERS HAVE PASSED A LAW THAT SAYS: “TO HELL WITH INJUNCTIONS.” be ie, Spa Try This on Your Bed Springs Commissioner Mulrooney’s “gentle and cour- teous cops” have been at it again. In fact they never stopped it. This time, the World-Telegram of last Friday tells the story. Some lad, 20 years old, was ar- rested under suspicion of being one of four ban- dits who killed an Elmhurst grocer. His name is Michael Alexa, and some time after he was ar- rested the cops produced a “confession.” But the boy, when brought up for arraignment before County Judge Frank Adel began to strip off his coat and shirt, and showed his body beate en black and blue in great blotches. “That's why I signed that confession!” he de- clared. ‘The judge questioned the detectives, and the World-Telegram gives what they said as fol- lows: “Detectives said he had resorted to the old trick of removing the mattress from his cell and | sleeping on the springs, thus causing the marks.” Now that is about the best one we heard since last August, when Police Inspector Day, after laying in ambush for the workers on Union Sq. and attacking them with blackjacks on 15th St., explained that the workers “Threw themselves violently to the pavement, in such way as to obtain bruises they lay to the police.” They Did It Right Chalk up another victory for Red Sparks. And for the Y.C.L. All because we mentioned the mistake of the Brownsville Y.C.L. in dis- couraging non-Party workers, we were visited by the East New York Unit of the Y.C.L., with the following story. The Unit had held an open air meeting for the Scottsboro defense, and a Negro worker came up to the chairman and asked to speak. “This meeting has me all steamed up,” he said, “to see white men out agitating for the nine Negro boys and against race discrimination. I want to help. I want to get my people to fight side by side with you.” The Y.C.L. put him on the speaker's stand, and my, O, my, how he did stir things up! Some way or other, this Negro worker, not a member of the Communist Party—yet, got more results than a dozen of those kind of Party members who are afraid to admit it and who jabber al- ways about “difficulties.” He knew about how the Soviet workers had made an example of the race prejudiced white Americans at Stalingrad, and he declared the Soviet Union is “a beacon light” to all the op pressed. In fect he not only inspired the Negro work- ers present so that ten came forward with offers to help organize block committees for the Scottsboro boys, but he and his enthusiasm gave new life to the Y.C.L. Unit and now it is all pepped up for work. Never forget, allow the ini- tiative of the masses to express itself. Piet ae Alabama Indignation 5 When the International Labor Defense a Chattanooga wired to the police of Huntsville, Ala., last Friday protesting at the reported lynching of a Negro named Thomas Jasper, they got back the following reply: “Jasper not lynched, but made getaway. Po- lice department has done everything possible to apprehend his abductor. We believe in uphold- ing law and resent your implication of this de- partment’s co-operation with law violators. Come to Hunstville and make your charges in person, and don’t send us any more messages as to how to attend to our business. We swore to uphold and defend the Constitution when we took of- fice; can you say as much? We do not consider it any of your business what we do at our jail, you are not a taxpayer of this community. H. ©. Blakemore, Chief of Police.” From which we gather that Chief Blakem@e was peeved about something. And, since we krow how sensitive souls chiefs of police have, we felt saddened, until it occurred to us that he revealed the cause of his indignation in his first sentence ~‘Jasper made getaway.” And then, well, he invites a substitute to to “come in person.” Some way we atill dis- trust police, ¥ ames