The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 21, 1931, Page 4

Published by the Comprodaily 14th Street, New York Ci Address and mai! al Page Four Publishing Co., Inc ty. N. ¥. Telephone Algonquin 7956-7. Cab} hecks to tne Daily Worker, 50 East 13th Street daily asesht Sucday. at 50 £: Daily, Worker’ ot SUBSCRIPTION Rimes By mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $3; two months, $1; eacepting Boroughs % Manhattan and Bronx, New York Ctly, Foreign: one year, $8- six months, $4.50. Musteism i in West Virginia Against the Unity of the Miners This is the last of a series of three articles. to Edmund Wilson's Article of Jnly 8) By BILL DUNNE (A. reply New Republic Article TH. From 1921-1922 to 1924 Keeney was a hanger- on with the machine. With the disappearance of the union in southern West Virginia his use- fulness to Lewis disappeared. Van A. Bitner be- came the. organizer of the bought-and-paid-for delegates from there whom Lewis needed for convention purposes In 1923-24 the rise of the left w Lewis machine began. In one an Illinois miner practically unknown his sub-district, actually defeated Lewis by referendum and, compelled to allow Voysey 60,- 000 votes, the Lewis r hine stayed in office only by the most ol ballot thievery terrorism. Following the signing of the Jacksonville con- tract in 1924, when Lewis agreed to drive 200,- 000 miners out of the industry and put over the speed-up for the operators, the left wing organ- ized the “Save the Union” movement which cul- minated in the strike of 100,000 Pennsylvania and Ohio mi in 1927-28. The Lewis machine betrayed this strike. The conditions of the min- ers became increasingly terrible, notably in West Virginia Keeney appeared once for a brief period in the 1927 period to flirt with the “Save the Union” moyement but only, as was discovered later, to be able to make a detailed report to the Lewis machine. Keeney was able, at the “reorganization” con- vention in Springfield in 1930, in which the Musteites took part, to swallow without vomit- nauseous dose prepared by Farrington, ,000 per year stoolpigeon, the crying John Walker, Fishwick, Howat and other choice speci- mens of the Peabody Coal Company, types of renegades and jackales preying on the miners In this he in no way differed from the Muste- ites who hailed this back-to-Lewis movement as blazing the trail to salvation for all the miners of America. This of course was for the con- sumption of the miners. Musteites never had any doubt as to where the movement was going All they wanted was to smooth the trail so the miners would not stumble on the way and fall | into some Communist machine-gun nest The “reorganized” Illinois faction leaders soon found their way back to the UMWA. But since | Keeney could not deliver the coal miners of | southern West Virginia for Lewis, both because there is no checkoff there and because they would not stand for it, he was left out of the wis machine in order to get back into the of- ial family. His West Virginia Mine Workers on is the result. ig pretty much a skele- organization. The miners who. support it do so because they will still think that Keeney is against Lewis and because their conditions so miserable that some form of organization | is absolutely necessa: But they will not follow | Keeney back to Lewis. | _ It ts especially here that the role of the Muste- ites is despicable and dangerous for the miners Tippet, who is the mining specialist of the Musteites, and who helped to check the mass re- volt against the Lewis machine which began | December 9, 1929, with a strike of more than | 10,000 miners led by the National Miners Union, is now in the Kanawha field preparing the way for a return to the Lewis UMWA—in case the present ke spreads and the militancy of the miners and the need for unity with the mass strike movement in Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio and the Panhandle of West Vir- ginia, bring them nearer the National Miners Union. But they are using all their forces to prevent any genuine unity of the miners—unity effected by a national rank and file delegate conference, a common program of action and common struggle such as is proposed by the National Miners Union. Those who oppose this program are on the side of the miners, for the revival of the fascist UMWA as the instrument for carry- ing through a new and more intense program of wage-cutting and speedup in the coal industry. Wilson’s New Republic article is part of the Musteite campaign for keeping the miners divided. They intend to save the southern West Virginia miners from Communism by keeping them iso- lated from the masses of miners already on strike, organized and led by the National Miners Le Bees 12 PR Union and the elected rank and file strike com- mitéees, and finally turn them over to Lewis in the name of unity. Thus in the United States as in Europe the social fascists prepare the way for fascism. It is now necessary, following the National | Miners Conference in Pittsburgh, the heart of the strike area, to expose with increased energy, and on a mass scale, on the basis of the | concrete facts of the betrayals, in Elizabethton, | Marion, Danville and Illinois, the treacherous | part being played by the Musteites in the mine- | fields of southern West Virginia, to carry the united front from below into that field, and to | enable the miners themselves to drive these | advance agents of fascism out of the coal camps. The miners will do this as they learn rapidly in this period of sharp class battles that the | Musteites are not for a united fighting front’of | all miners, employed and unemployed, Negro settlement and consequently had to find other | methods of bringing enough pressure upon the | and white, but are against unity—as Wilson's article shows. A Daily Worker Club Meets By HARRY RAYMOND. HE West Side Daily Worker Club, which was organized recently by a small group of read- ers and friends of the Daily Worker at 461 W. 57th Street, New York City, serves as an excel- lent example of what a Daily Worker Club should be. Although this club is very young— indeed it is still in its swadling clothes, being only three weeks old, and has only as yet twenty some members—it is one of the clubbiest little working class clubs that this writer has ever seen. We can learn much from this club and from the workers who have organized it. It is pro- letarian from top to bottom. The absence of any kind of stiffness and formality that is often found even in proletarian groups in America, the general air of working class frankness with which the meeting last Thursday night was con- ducted, the fine social atmosphere and com- radely feeling and the excellent discussion that followed the meeting, all contributed to make the meeting a succe! The club itself is already a success and if the Daily Worker Clubs aiready in existance and these being born throughout the land will fol- low the example of the West Side Club it will not be long before we have hundreds of per- manent clubs functioning everywhere where workers will be glad to come for a social even- ing and entertainment, to discuss the Daily Worker and help build it into a mightier mass paper. ‘What did we find when we went down to this little club room on the West Side? A group of workers waiting, sitting stiffy in chairs wait- ing for a lecture? No. We found Negro work- ers, white workers, American workers, workers of various nationalities thoroughly enjoying themselves. A worker could not help but enjoy himself among such a crowd The day before the meeting the members of the club busied themselves foraging for re- freshments. They brought home-made cakes and pies and all kinds of good things to eat It was a warm night, so they had a big crock of lemonade. They called in a Negro worker to furnish music on a guitar. ‘We had music and ate and talked and enjoyed Ourselves generally and then the chairman of the club called the meeting to order. He told @f the purpose of the club and after briefly car- rying out the club's business we talked about the capitalis: press and the Daily Worker. We suggésted that everybody talk, to tell what they think of the Daily Worker, to discuss the capi- Coining Profits from Work- Bleod Stocks rebounded sharply yesterday on receipt of definite news from Washington that the break with Germany had occurred Bethlehem Steel rose 30 points, and the Bethlehem B shares gained 103,-—-So eager were buyers for certain steel and copper sic that 2 points or nore frequently existed cen a purchase srice and the next bid price.” — N. Y. Times, Tebruary 4, 1917. The bosses let millions he slaughtered in the ‘ast war for profits. They are planning to laughter millions more to save their profits and ir exploiting system. They are planning to ‘ack the Sovict Union, the workers’ and peas- “nts’ county. All out August First to the de- nse of the Soviet Union. ‘ ” Len. talist press, and one after another the workers took the fioor Workers, many of them who had never spoken in their lives at a meeting got up and told what they thought of the workers’ press and offered many good suggestions for improving it. One worker, obviously an old worker in the movement, said that he though the Daily Work- er was not popular enough for all the workers. He advised that we discontinue all Party docu- ments and theses. He said new workers would not understand them and that they were of no use in attarcting new workers into the revolu- tionayr movement. Another worker, not yet in the Party and a new reader of the Daily, followed him on the floor. “The Daily Worker,” he said, “is the best paper any workingman can read. I am not a good reader, but I car’ read and understand this paper. I might not be able to understand every- thing on the back page—that is, the documents that the other gentleman was talking about— but I understand everything else, and if I keep on reading the paper a little while longer I'll understand the documents and theses too.” This second worker was correct. He pointed out perhaps better than the speaker could have the incorrectness of the first worker's criticism. He expressed simply how workers react to our paper once they read it a few times. The first worker, although in the radical movement for some time, did not know the function of a Com- munist paper. He did not know that we try through our press not only to attract new work- ers into the movement, but to raise their idea- logical level as well. The second worker pointed this out and showed that workers want to raise their idealogical level and that the Daily is doing it. Another worker offered a suggestion on how to increase the circulation of the Daily. The Ne- gro workers were all enthusiastic about the Daily. They all told how they read it and prom- ised to tell their friends about it. One worker told about a woman who was writing a poem for the Daily and several promised to write for the Daily about what is going on in their neigh- borhoods and shops. A workers’ correspondence group was formed on the spot. ‘There was much more criticism, much more discussion. The meeting lasted until late, but nobody got tired. It was a good meeting, the kind we must have more of. At the next meet- one of the club members will speak on his ex- periences in the South. They don’t need out- ! side speakers any longer. They can run their own meetings, which is the way it should be. Other clubs should profit from the example set by this club, Make them real workers’ clubs. ; Make your meetings interesting. If you do this, workers, you will attract many new workers into your clubs and lay a base for making the Daily Worker a real mass paper supported and built by the workers. FIGHT STEADILY FOR RELIEF! | Organize Unempleved Councils to Fight) for Unemployment Relief. Organize the Employed Workers Into Fighting Unions. Mobilize the Employed and Unemployed for Common Strug- gles Under the Leadership of | new elements to take the place of those who | P.O. Box 87 Station D. | munist Party | CHE ..cceceeeecsereccnsesenes BAO »seseeneeee ._ the Trade Union Unity League ~ “TELL MR. DOAK THAT THE MINERS ARE HERE!” CA ig VATE § By BURCK PARTY LIFE Conducted by the Org. Dept. Central Com- mittee, Communist Party, U. 8. A. How A Local Mine Strike Committee Functions From the Org. Bulletin of the Central Rank and File Strike Committee, Pittsburgh. 1. That meetings be called of all men and women involved in thé strike at which the Strike Committee should be strengthened by electing have dropped activity. 2. That at thése meetings we begin to of- | ganizé all strikérs, men and women, into groups of ten, each group to elect a captain. These groups are to be assigned to any strike activity deemed necessary by the strike committee. 3. That at these local strike meetings 3 men and one woman be elected to the Section’ Strike Committee or a sufficient number to take the place of those men not active. A similar num- ber, but not the same people, should also be | elected to the Central Strike Committee. Changes in the strike committee should only be made to strengthen the strike committee by dropping weak or non-active members and electing stronger members to the committee. 4. Local mine strike committees should meet at least three times each week to review the situation and to plan daily tasks. The local strike committee should elect an executive com- mittee to carry on the daily work between meetings of the ‘strike committee. This ex- | ecutive committee should be composed of the following: Chairman and Secretary of Strike Committee; Local N.M.U. organizer; Head of Relief Commit- tee; Head of Defense Committee; Women’s Aux- iliary Organizer; Head of Literature Committee; Youth Organizer. The local Strike Executive also proposes the Order of Business for the Strike Committee. 5. Short meetings of all strikers, men and women, should be held every day, to strengthen the local situation, to assign the next day's tasks. On days when relief is given out the meetings should be held before the relief is given out. The reports of the meetings and decisions of the Section Strike Committee should be given at these meetings. On Thursdays a report from the representatives to the Central Strike Com- mittee should be given to the mass meeting of the strikers. Saturday should be utilized for a mobilization for a central mass meeting on Sunday. The Sunday mass meeting should be utilized for mass picketing on Monday morning. 6. All strike relief should be linked up with strike activity. Relief cards, punched or given out on che picket line, are to be shown at the relief station. 7. The mine local of the N.M.U. should meet once each week in the evening, take up the strengthening of the union, the drawing in of every striker into the union, and see that every member of the union be active in the strike; also to take up the organizing of a branch of the women's auxiliary, assigning some members of the union to help in this work. 8. It should be the aim of every mine strike committee to draw into activity all strikers and their families in an organized way. The best and easiest way which will get the greatest re- sults, is to organize groups of ten, with a res- ponsible captain. When this has been accom- plished, then the strike committees, instead of dealing with individuals, has companies to move around. -Workers! Join the Party of. Your Class! Communist Party 0. & A. New York City Pir se send me more information on the Cum- Name Address QCCUPALION . .serseesesccerceecereree ABE ...0- Workers! Answer the call of the heroic Chinese toilers who are fighting against the bloody white terror of Chiang Kai-Shek, the tool of American imperialism. Turn out in masses on August First! Demand the with- drawal of American gunboats from China! Defend Soviet China! ee | Dear Comrades The rapid gtowth of the Soviet movement in Kiangsi, Hunan, Hupeh, Fu-kien, Honan, An- whei and other provinces of China, causes panic in the ranks of the imperialists, the Kuomin- tang, the militarists, the re-organizationists, headed by Van Tsin-Vei, the liquidators, headed by Chang Du-su, the social-democrats, headed by Den Yan-da, the Rights, headed by Lo- Chang-lun, the chauvinists, the Russian White Guards and all the other varieties of the coun- ter-revolution in China. The imperialists give direct help to the Kuomintang and control its army of 300,000 men and its navy. The failure of the first Kuomintang campaign against the Red Army has made the international and Chinese counter-revolution hate the heroic workers and peasants’ Chinese Red Army and its leader, the Chinese Communist Party, even more than before. ‘Simultaneously with the second military ex- pedition against the Soviet districts, for which the imperialists and the Kuomintang had equipped an army of over 100,000 men, they mobilized all the forces of the counter-revo- lution, from the Kuomintang re-organization- ists down to the vacillating elements in the Chinese Communist Party itself for the struggle against the Chinese Communist Party and the revolutionary workers and peasants who have risen under its leadership against the present regime. The reactionaries ende2“>ur to drown the Chinese Sovief Revolution in ‘>e blood of millions of Chinese workers, peasat-’s, soldiers and poorest elements of the population. In the struggle against the Soviet districts, they make use of aeroplanes, poison gases, and big long-range guns, sweeping clean off the face of the earth whole towns and villages. The imperialists and the Kuomintang do not spare the revolutionary population, using rifles, ma- chine guns and cannon against all—old men — oS ae. Q. 4 0 jab) DM FE: FE: 12) © Petey a — et 2e a>) (=) ae [aK and children, men and wonten, all of whom are classed as “bandits.” In non-Soviet districts, for the struggle with the revolution, the imperialists and the Kuo- mintang mobilize not only all their own forces, the gendarmerie and the secret police, they even bribe the bandits and the lumpen-prole- tariat, and carry on through them “diversion- ists” work inside and outside the Communist Perty, As a result of this, in the last few months members of the local organizations of the Com- munist Party and revolutionary ¢lements from workers’ and peasants’ rarsa, as well as many elements of the poorest popula!ity. Lave been secretly or openly executed by the Kuomin- tang and the imperialists. You probably know about this from the press, but the newspapers write, in fact, only about one-hundredth or one- thousandth of the brutalities to which your brothers in China are subjected. The Chinese Communist Party, which heads the heroic strug- gle of the workers’ and peasants’ Red Army against the repeated “campaign against the Commurtis,” at the same time rouses the broad workers’ -nd peasants’ masses in answer to the White t. ror. The (“1inese Communist Party asks you to organize’ immediately a revolutiénary mass movemcat for the Chinese Soviets and against White terror. By means of strikes, demonstra- tions and other revolutionary methods, protest against the dispatch of imperialist troops and the transport of arms and ammunition for the Kuomintang and the militarists intended to be used against the revolutionary Chinese masses. Protest against the inhuman terror of the im- perialists, Kuomintang and militarists with re- gard to the Communist Party, the revolutionary workers and peasants, the soldiers and the poorest population. The Communist Party of China with its 190,000 members, and the mil- lions of workers, peasants and poorest elements of the population, who carry on a life or death struggle with the enemy, are waiting for your support. With fraternal greetings, COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA. By LABOR RESEARCH ASSOCIATION TATE vagrancy laws which began to appear in the South after the Civil War and during the economic crisis of 1873 are being used more than ever as a weapon against the working class in the United States during the present economic crisis. The employers meet the mass misery of the workers by applying these laws to unemployed workers picked up in connection with strikes, hunger marches or demonstrations. The penalties are heavy fines, long chain gang sentences, or bondage under an employer who in order to get this type of forced labor may pay the fine and court costs. This is one way of obtaining cheap labor. The planters and in- dustrial exploiters of the South regularly resort to this practice, especially against Negrc2s. Reports from southern states show that the victims of the vagrancy laws are radicals, Com- munists, members of the Trade Union Unity League, many c? them Negroes. The laws are used to force Negroes as well as white workers to toil at whatever wages are offered. Unem- ployed workers are picked up on the streets of southern cities, sentenced for vagrancy, and forced to work on the chain gangs or state farms. Often they are leased to contractors in mines and turpentine camps. This is a form of “forced labor” about which Matthew Woll, Hamilton Fish, and the other anti-Soviet ele- ments have said nothing. Practically every state has some kind of vag- rancy law. The following states defgne as “vaz- rants” those persons out of work and “without visible means of support”: Colorado, Connec- ticut, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, Tennessee, ‘Texas, Wisconsin, and South Carolina, And they do not specifically exclude those who are idle because of strikes or lockouts, In Other words, the vagrancy laws can be used against strikers as well as against the growing army of unem- -Mail this to the Central Ofce. Communist | Raxtyy Fy: On be AY Blatdon D, Nem Zork Cite, Ployed Ha ey Vagrancy Laws Against Workers And the vagrancy law of South. Carolina can easily be used by land owners against share- croppers, both Negro and white, for it applies to persons “who occupy or being in possession of some piece of land shall not cultivate enough of it as shall be deemed by the trial justice to be necessary for the maintenance of himself and his family.” In Arkansas and Oklahoma the laws include as vagrants those who are without work and who are “not actively seeking work.” Under this definition a worker who has been black- listed, say in a cotton mill village, and who has already tried at every mill to get a job and been turned down, can be quickly classified as not seeking work ard convicted as a vagrant. In another group of states the vagrancy laws are so worded that a jobless worker can be arrested and jailed and given a fine, or both, if he is able to work but refuses any work of- fered to him. Thus, an employer may force men to work under any conditions which he dictates, holding over them the threat of arrest if they refuse, no matter how low the wages. States having this type of vagrancy laws are Arizona, California, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, and ‘Washington. Then there is another set of states which in- clude idle persons as vagrants, but which quali- fy the term “idle” as “dissolute idle” or “idle and of doubtful reputation,” “idle transient,” or “fdle without a home.” The terms can easily be stretched to include any unemployed worker and certainly any active labor organizer. The laws of the following states fall in this class: Delaware, Illinois, Towa, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming. The International Labor Defense is fighting these laws. One practical way to fight these vicious vagrancy laws ts, therefore, to support the work of gbe International Labor Defee, | —ayd starve the wockara By JORGE Kicking.a Good Dog Recently the capitalist press had its feelings © hurt by a censorship order of Hoover to Wash- ington correspondents-that they must not write anything about him at all except what they got from “official sources.” Even the N. Y. Times felt grieved editorially, said that Hoover had been “getting- a good break,” and therefore shouldn't be nasty. Absolutely .correct. When the Republican Na- tional Committee hired (of course the’ govern- ment paid for it) a couple of new secretaries for Hoover, to try to “make Hoover look human” to newspaper readers, the correspondents ate the stuff up. They told all about Hoover and the “boy hero of a Colorado blizzard” until we got sick at the stomach. Then they did the best they could with a puppy who “stole Hoover's egg,” -and labored mightily to relate to 10,000,000: jobless workers whom Hoover tells to go off and die if they can’t wait for twenty years, how kind- hearted he is to his grandchildren. So it wasn’t exactly fair for the old grouch - to kick the journalistic dog just because He was ‘caught breaking the speed laws of : Virginia. These capitalist journalists thought, in their slavish minds, that everybody would be pleased to know that the president of the nation. ex- ercises the “divine right” of all despots to break any law he likes. But there you are! The despot don’t like to be known as one and he lams into the most servile lot of bootlickers ey ies Polished leather. The Police Veto God In Henryetta, Oklahoma, according to the.N. Y. Times of July 19, when hundreds of starving unemployed decided to march upon the. food stores to get something to eat; “The Rev. Charles Holmes, a minister from Dewar, a mining village near Henryetta, met with the crowd in the City Hall before the march and prayed for divine guidance. After his prayer, he addressed the throng, declaring that the jobless should visit grocery stores and ask for food, and if they did not receive it, to take it.” Then the Times goes on to say “Before the first store was reached, the head of the procession was met by Oscar Adwen, a prominent citizen and a police officer, who Pleaded with the crowd merely to ask for gro- ceries and use no force. The marchers ac- ceded to this.” » The result was that they didn’t get much. But another result was that the sheriff and his gang came hurriedly into town from the county seat to see that the local cops got help in veto- ing God and upholding capitalist private prop- erty. Hopeful Herbie “Debt Plan Helping to End Wheat Hoover Tells West,” says a headline in the Times of July 19. SJ Yep, it is probably good to cure horses heaves, relieve painful bunions. revive the-mar- ket for canned onions, dill pickles,-rayon un- derwear, and restore garlic to “prosperity.” After such god-awful rubbish, no wonder that vice-President Curtis is advertising his “I do not choose” to run again with Herbert Hoover. of oe 6 Crisis, Short Circuiting Electrical Workers “Brother” Broach, the boss grafter of the I. B.E.W. (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) Local 3, of New York, is trying to put over a new barefaces swindle. It’s a habit with him. And with his gang. The new gag is a plan for an “Unemploy- ment Allowance Fund,” but don’t get the idea that Broach proposes -that the bosses should pay. Not on your life! His plan is that journeymen and helpers “pay 5% on all wages earned” into a fund which “can only be used for unemployment relief.” ‘That last would make anyone, who knows Broach, snicker. Some time ago, when 15 men out of the several thousand in Lecal.3 struck on some small job, Broach used this as an ex- cuse to demand a $50 assessment each from all the othr thousands. Now you know why these A. F. of L. offie cials can move in high society and buy. U. 5. Steel Stock, etc. But about this “Unemploy- ment Fund’—Broach promises, no, “guarantees not less than $20 per week” to journeymen and $15 per week to “fourth year helpers.” A young- ster has to “help” about forty years, apparently, to become a journeyman in this outfit. a The joke of all this is: About 65 sper cent of Local 3's members are entirely out of work, about 30% are working only part time, -and: only about 5% (who are the inside gang that Broach “takes care of” to use against the rank and file) have steady work. ‘These rank and filers have ‘figured out that 5% tax against the wages of those who working, if collected, there would be enough to allow only about 25 cents a week each to the wholly unemployed, and not any. $20 -per week. Thus the promises of Broach’s gang are’ pure hokum. But in order to. ‘get the members to swallow: this hokum, Broach promises that if ‘they adopt the plan (if. they don’t vote for it, Broach will count thety votes for it anyhow!), “we can assure you at this time that the em- ployers will return to the five-day week as per: the agreement with the employers: -and ‘this Local Union.” a ‘That's interesting: Why, if there was a “sacred” agreement, did bosses not abide. by it? Wasn't one. of the hoasts‘of the offisials. of the LB.E.W. and the whole A. F. of L, this. “five day week” agreement? The answers. that. it was violated by the joint action ‘of’ the of- ficials and the bosses, who agreed’ on Hoover's famous “stagger” plan, with theyidea’ that those employed should work four days a week, and:- the other day would be “given to the fobless.” But. the bosses speed them up for four days and don’t give out any work to anybody on the fifth, So even this “victory” of a “four day week” don’t mean anything except a wat cut for the workers who do work—while the unemployed still starve, This “unemployed fund” is just as a swindle, intended deliberately to squelch the demand for real unemployment insurance by the workers—to short circuit their demand, save’ the bosses money, make a new soures of graté ess! Mimsara > ag ROE