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eaese v ALLY W rhree = WORKERS RAGGED AND | HUNGRY IN BENTON AS_ ONLY MINE CLOSES Father Stole to Feed Starving Children, Sent! to Penitentiary Three Bank Failures Wipe Out Savings of the Workers é (By a Worker Correspondent) Benton, Ill. | Editor:—During the year of 1930, three of Benton's banks closed their doors. The hard earned life savings of many were lost. Next, Benton’s only mine, which employed | about 500 men, shut down and failed to pay its employees one month’s wages. This made beggars out of them. They begged and are still begging of those that are only existing, working only a-few days per month. On every side one hears the bitter cry for bread; on every side we see hungry, ragged > DRIVE, FAKERS FROM. MINE FIELDS : BEAT UP WAR VET; HE MAY NOT LIVE Fight Against Next War; Demonstrate August First “Omaha, Nebraska. Dear Comrades:— ; As a result of being kicked in the stomach. by a railroad “dick,” Hor- |, ace O'Neill, 37, wounded in the St. Mihiel offensive in 1918, lies in the ‘St. Joseph Catholic Hospital here in unconscious state and a hemorrhage may cause his death at any moment. O'Neill was on his way to North Platte where he expected to obtain work so that he could support his two motherless daughters. The two rail- road dicks ordered O'Neill to “un-/| load” and while he was complying with the order he received a vicious kick from one of the dicks and it caught him right on the wound that he had received in the war. Bleed- ing from the mouth, O'Neill was picked up by two working men and hurried to a hospital where he was put under influence of hypodermic injections. It was learned later that O'Neill had been discharged from a veterans’ hospital in Illinois where he had undergone over twenty opera- tions since the war. The kick re- opened his wound. George F. Woods and John L. Lehman, the two railroad dicks, who ‘were on the same train, denied ever seing O'Neill. City and state author- ities willingly took the word of these two fathead cops. Ex-servicemen and all workers should know that the capitalists’ cops are free to club and murder the working class—that the American Legion fascists and the capitalist in- stitutions will back the cops in this | cowardly slaughter! Only when the wrokers get In power will these in- Justices and outrages be done away with! All out on the streets on Aug- ust Ist to demonstrate against the capitalists and their imperialistic war against the workers of the world! U.S. RUBBER C0, CUTS PAY 10 P.C. Must Organ ize to Force Co. to Terms Detroit, Mich. Editor, Daily Worker:— Two years ago the workers at the Detroit plant of the U. S. Rubber Company went on strike. The whole plant walked out and the shop was closed down for a week. The com- pany came to our terms and we all went back to work at the old rate. Everything was fine until 3 months ago. We were to have a new wage system called “Task and Bonus,” and they gave us their promise that the ‘wages wouldn’t be cut or the wage seale changed. But they couldn’t keep their promise as two weeks ago the men in our department received another cut. The boss said that they had eli- minated a certain operation and that they were going to deduct this » time from our efficiency which would amount to only 3 per cent on a day's work. Well 3 per cent wouldn’t be so bad as that only amounted to 3 cents an hour but it turned out to be 10 per cent. ‘We must get organized into the Trade Union Unity League as the rubber workers could |tie up the}~ whole auto industry if they were organized. Sincerely, —A Rubber Worker, GIRL COLLAPSES FROM STARVATION. Hando, Cal. Editor:— Near the point of starvation and exhausted by a long search for em- ployment, Johanna Lee, 202 North Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, col- lapsed on the street car on July 17. ‘The girl revivied after being given nourishment at the Georgia Street receiving hospital. Her last job was with @ man as office clerk. He “for got” to pay her $90 a month’s wage, she said. The name and address. of the employer is unkonwn at this writing. —LP.R. GIVE YOUR ANSWER TO HOC- VEN'S PROGRAM OF HUNGER, ness. Yet when one Alex Overturf had | stolen something to eat (and I hear \ tie has a family of five) he was sent to the pen, and I, as well as others, believe that he should be released from prison as soon as possible. | Must Fight. The innocent victims of this ca- pitalist system are entitled to live. | They must fight to keep from starv- ing. Only a coward will stand quiet- ly and idly by and see his wife and children starve. The desire is to work for a living, rather than ac- cept charity or steal. But when the former is denied what is there left to do? The public is awakening. ‘What few dollars they had in the banks, a few crooks divided among them- selves. That is what has happened all over the ountry. At least I don’t see any bank president in the bread line and his wife and children bare- \footed. They still have plenty to eat and a fine home to live in and in. And where and how is it all to end? ‘The parasites tell us that unem- ployment insurane to relieve the dis- tress is Communist and unamerican. It is American to starve the people tn the midst of plenty? Or is it Amer- ican to make beggars and thieves of them? How long then will the workers stand these abuses is a ques- tion. There is, howeyer, an abun- dance of evidence that there is a turning point. And right at the pre- sent time the workers here in many ways show evidence of revolt against the present system. —J. F. LUMBER BOSSES | CUT PAY IN CAL. Mill Closes F Firing 500 Workers Eureka, Cal. Dear Editor: The “good old summer time” does not look so good here this summer. Wages are being cut and men are being laid off right and left. On July 15th the Hammond Little River Lumber Company cut wages 10 per cent in all their mills. This cut af- fected three mills and several lumber camps. The Pacific Lumber Company also cut 10 per cent in their mills. The Eureka Woolen Mill cut wages 10 per cent on July 1. On July 15 the Hammond Little River Co. shut down two of its mills and threw 500 men out of work. The Northern Redwood Lumber Co. will shut down in about a week and that will throw about 400 more out to starve. The only way the workers out here can fight against this starvation is to get together and organize. We have an Unemployed Council and the National Lumber Workers Union. The workers in Eureka by organizing into these fighting working class organ- izations can better their conditions. Let's build these organizations and force the bosses to take back the pay cuts and pay the unemployed unem- ployment insurance. COPS SLUG WORKERS. Hondo, Cal. Daily Worker:— At a meeting of the unemployed held on the Los Angeles “slave mar- ket,” 6th Street and Towne Avenue, July 17th, a young girl and at least @ score of workers were beaten up by members of the police “Red Squad.” Five cops are also reported a high-powered auto to drive around | | National called in Canonsburg, Pa. District Convention of the U. (Top) Pat Fagan, U. M. W. faker, trying to speak to a meeting of miners the strikebreaking U. M. W. The miners themselves broke up the meeting. (Below) Anthracite miners refusing to submit to listen to Pres. John Boylan at the opening of the M. W. Strikers Must Demand Recognition of National Textile Workers Union By EDITH BERKMAN. The National Textile Workers’ Union is now leading one strike after the other. Just like the National Miners’ Union, it is now the recog- nized, fighting union in America. The National Unions of the Trade Union Unity League have proven to the workers that they are fighting unions of the workers. The workers know that and the mill owners know it, too. Good Leader. The National Textile Workers’ Union is a, god strike leader. Now we must learn to be a good union builder to keep the victories, of the strike, after the strike is Settled. We must demand the recognition of the Textile Workers’ Union! Among the mistakes made in the Lawrence strike, in which 10,000 workers were involved, was one for which we are paying very dearly now. The mistake of changing the demand from recognition of the N. T. W. U. to recognition of the Mill Committee. When we done that we gave in to the mill owners one of the most important demands. The N. T. W. U. will not be able to keep a membership in the mills, after the strike, if we don’t educate the workers to understand that they must take the union with them in the mill. The strike committee must make it one of the most important tasks t oeducate the workers during the strike to become union members and union builders—union organ- izers. In Central Falls, in Pawtucket and now in Providence we must put for- ward the demand of “Recognition of the N. T. W. U.” If we don’t do that, after the strike will be over our union will be known, just like in Lawrence, as a good strike leader, but the membership of the N. T. W. ; U. will drop down right after the strike, Some workers will say: “The boss | will not recognize the union.” No, | fellow strikers, the boss will recog- nize our union if we will fight for it. Of course, the mill owners will gladly recognizé the U. T. W., for} it is the union that does not fight | against speed-up, wage-cuts, etc., but | the workers must force the mill own- ers to recognize their union, the “Red Union’—the union that is the only one in the textile industry now fighting against the bad conditions in the mills. The lessen of the strike, to the workers on strike, must be, We are on strike under the leadership of the Red Union, we will go back to work with our fighting union recognized. As Lumber (By a Worker Correspondent) SEATTLE, Wash—A decline of fifteen and thirty-three hundredth per cent in lumber mill production is shown in comparison of the week ending July 4th and the preceding week. Roughly this comes about by 40,000,000 feet less, Further figures compiled by the West Coast Lumber- men’s Ass'n show that contrary to the reports of “better sentiment” so loudly bally-hooed shew that mills for the first 26 weeks of 1931 have operated at 41.78 per cent of capacity as against a 62.57 per cent for the same period in 1930. Sales have steadily dropped being 22,500,000 less for this week than the preceeding week. More Misery. A close study of the bosses own figures wil show the lumberworkers that this trust and “faith” in the mill boss is a weak prop to expect to feed his family on. While these fig- ures show the deepening of the cri- sis, they also spell intensified misery for the lumber workers. The Weyerhouser interests which control about half of the Washing- ton timber lands are rapidly central- | Loggers’ Misery Increases Crisis Deepens izing the industry. They are driving out the smaller companies and the “shot-gun” feed as the speed-up is Jxnown locally is becoming more un- bearable. No compilation of the log- ging and mill deaths this year has been made but from casual readings of the back issues of the press a no- ticeable increase will be seen. Build Stockade. Camp workers know that when the mills stop selling they too are out of @ job. Weyerhouser has built a stockade around some of their mills and one worker reports seeing ma- chine guns stored in the Everett mill. The bosses are preparing. What are you going to do lumber workers? It’s starve or fight—Let’s fight—Fight against starvation, against the shot- gun feed, against an industrial death list as big as the war casualty list for the same period of time, against the slow killing of our children by starvation. To fight we must be organized as are the miners of the east who are fighting. Build the Na- tional Lumber Workers Union in your shop or camp or mill. Write to the NLWU at 614 First Ave. Seattle, Washington. Order No. 6409 vis to be nursing bruises today. —L.P.R. Jailed Strikers Ike Lane, left, and Lonny Steel, striking miners of Harlan, Ky., ar- rested and charged with criminal syndivalism for daring to fight WAGE CUTS AND PERSECUTION! agains! s‘arvation esx"! They ~ Were released on $5,090 4 MILWAUKEE Paid With Few Cents and Groceries for Long Hours Toil (By a Worker Correspondent) MILWAUKEE, Wis.—If one wants to see some real forced labor all he needs to do is to come to the socialist city of Milwaukee. Here the unem- ployed workers are forced to work for Milwaukee County and when pay day comes around they are given a few pennies. Here is a pay statement and a check for thirty cents, which the county gave a fellow worker for working 54 hours. Instead of giving the workers cash payment they give ek what they called “relief.” ‘This is practically the ame as slavery, as bl] is for his and. the veliet food. the “pocialist countyef Milwau : The Covinty ‘Treasurer — ou Lliant Wilson eee ONLY THIR.Y CENTS on ra bua ee “4 — eae tm COUNTY OF poVAME., 54 hrs @ 50¢ PAY ROLL AMOUNT Worker Exposes Milwaukee’s Fake Jobless eet Scheme Nite Ne? 6409 JUL i - CB ts lasne? 50) Deputy County. Slerk MILWAUKEE DEDUCTIONS OUT DOOR RELIEF TRANSPORTATION bosses here are giving the workers is sure lousy. The Milwaukee bosses have her- alded this so-called relief scheme far and wide. But they did not say that the workers had to wovk hard for it) and then receive as little cs thirty | cents or nothing in money whatso- ever. We are calling a demonstration be- fore the County Board soon and will demand that workers working on these county jobs shall receive wages in cash and not in kind Lawrence | BY SPEED-UP IN CRANE COMPANY. Wage Cut 30 to 40 Per Cent; Must Organize and Fight (By a Worker Correspondent) Chicago, I). Editor :— Crane Company is killing worker by speed-up. In the last few days six workers dropped dead in the shop from inhuman speed-up. When the | worker drops dead in the shop the | body is taken to the medical depart- | ment and then they call the patro! | | wagon to take the body from the! shop. | The reason the workers are | | dying in the shop is because one | workers must do the work of two. | The workers can not stand it in this | hot weather. The press machine molders must do twice as much work now as they did before they cut the piece | work of all molders’ working day.| But the bosses tell them a certain | number of pieces have got to be made. Some times it is impossible | to make that many. The worker is afraid to lose that job and kills him- self working. Piece work molders used to make | from 90 cents to a dollar per hour, day work wages are from 60 to 67 cents per hour in this case. Our The shop runs from 28 to 34 hours | per month. The workers cannot ex- ist any longer on this stagger system. There is, an opportunity now for the Metal Workers Industrial League to organize the Crane workers, The workers are getting ready for strug- gle. We must take steps immedi- ately to organize into the Trade Union Unity League, —IP. TEAMSTER TELLS OF SLAVERY IN Made Do Double Work At $13 a Week ‘and Starvation Board Seattle, Wash. Dear Comrades:— I work in Frye’s packing plant. This is a local concern that have their own stores, etc. They make lots of money. I haye only been here a week but I know what the conditions are and belive me they are rotten. I am a teamster. I work 9 hours a day and work 6 1-2 days a week. On Sunday morning. I have to shovel manure with the other four team- sters who work here. There are some shovelers and they work the same hours. We all get $13.00 a week and our board. That board is the rot- tenest thing about it. Just for ex- ample I will give you the breakfast that we had this morning. Hotcakes, (flabby and tough without any de- cent milk, etc.). Bacon butts. These are the tough ends of bacon that is not sold. Coffee which was nothing but rotten colored hot water. The syrup for our cakes was water thinned. Ido not have to be told much to understand that this is not worth begging to hold on to. I am for fight- ing such conditions and I am going to talk to the other workers here about organizing. This week I am going to join the ILD. I heard one of their speakers the other night and I am supporting any organization helping the fight for better condi- tions for the workers. I read the Daily Worker every day and sure am glad to see it grow the way it is. I forgot about the beds. If you want to stay awake nights they cer- tainly help you out. I can pull a sheet off of any so-called bed in here and raise a cloud of bed-bugs. Negro Jailed for Walking on Street Calls to Build Up a Strong L.S.N.R. Pittsburgh, Pa, Daily Worker:— While walking up Webster Avenue in this city, it was about 10 p. m. I was stopped by a cop, who asked me where I was going. I answered that I was going home. The cop then carried me to No. 2 police station. At the trial the cop told the judge that I would not tell him where I was going. The judge then asked me where I was going. I told him that I was going to my wife. The judge said $10 or 10 days in jail. This is the way the cops try to terrorize the Negro workers in the town of Pittsburgh. This must be stopped. If anybody has the right to walk on the streets it is the work- ers. We are the ones who built them, both white and Negro workers. We must get together and put a stop to this kind of discrimination. The League of Struggle for Negro Rights is the organization that is fighting against this kind of terror. All the Negroes, I think, should get behind this good workers’ organization. —A Negro Worker. Become a regular worker corres- |foremen are for | “their” PACKING PLANT, WORKERS KILLED ‘WORKERS DRIVE! BY IN PASSAIC DEATH Botany Mill Lenathens New Speed-U ae nit (By a Worker PAS: J.—The work or thei wn iggle |which must he answered struggles. The Bot (bigge by 10 per cent a few matic six loom the milll, turn to push who impy ed men to hurry up. Ti selves into the speed necessary to run the lo These are Ee | fired gradually and a younger ment being given the jobs. Heostitly, two shifts had their hours length- ened from 8 to 9 hours, with 10 per cent additionalfor the overtime. Man} departments of the regular shift had their hours lenzthened from the reg- ular 8 hours 40 minutes to 9 hours |40 minutes. Most likely, if the Bo- tany workers do not organize and | fight, the entire shift will have their wages are cut from 30 to 40 per cent.| hours lengthened There are 10,000 unemployed in this city. Instead of dividing up the work (with no reduc- tion in wages, which the workers can get only if they fight for it) the bosses makedt harder for the wor! to get jobs. Killed By Speed-up 'T > terrific speed-up brings ill health 1 early death to the k ers. Yesterday, a worker dropped dead by his machine. The speed-up causes heart disorders which greatly shorten the lives of the workers, (And then of course, the company roctor can say that it is due to “heat pros- tration” or anything like that) Young workers find |for a breath of air at night after coming home from work, but must stay in and rest till the next day of slovery. That’s not all. Wor with families to take care of, have to work nights, in the night shift from 3 to 12. women in New Jersey. Organize! These conditions are so not only in the Botany but in many other mills around here. But they need not remain so for long. ers got to get together. We've got to join the only workers union in the Workers Union. However, the workers can do some- fense of the Soviet Union— will be held in Passaic on Hope Ave. and Monroe St. at 2 p. m. All textile effective struggle against the bosses. tru e old work themselves so} exhausted that they cannot go out) And thére’s supposed | to be a law against night work for | ‘The work- | textile industry—the National Textile | thing right now. August First—the | International Red Day of Struggle | Against Bosses War and for the De-| workers must come to this demon-| stration and begin once again the| TO SPEED-UP MILLS Ho murs and Introduces Dies, Many Made Il Into National yn and Strik tion bigger “WORKERS GET 10 CENTS PER HOUR IN MICH. FACTORY Unemployed Council Forees Boss Reduce Sick Worker’s Rent (By a Worker Correspondent.) NG, Mich.—The Friedland and Metal Company here em- | ployes 44 men nd women at present and is owned by David Friedland. His son who is in charge is a real slave driver. For eight hours work this amounts to $4 a week—and they are driven like dogs, The men are getting from 15 to 35 cents an hour. One°man in partic- ular works 20 hours aday to provide for his family of nine. His work is very hard and his hands. They are in a terrible condition, all festered and poisoned. But when he refuses to work and askes for help from the Lansing Welfare Department, they they send him to the city doctor who pronounces him in shape to resume | work. The man said that he would commit suicide before he would go back to work in the shape he was jin for the starvation wages he was | receiving. | “Wax Face” Friedland’s son when faced by the Unemployed Council that was working against this cruelty, went to the home of | this man and, as he owned the | house the man lived in, lowered the | rent from $20 to $15 and agreed to pay his light and water bill. There are many cases like this in this same company. This shows what the Unemployed Council really can do. The Council is still in its infancy now, but if we build it into a real big Council with all the unemployed in Lansing drawn in we will be able to force the government to pay real unemployment insurance to the | jobless. (By a Worker Corgespondent) LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Califor- nia has too much fruit, too much fresh fruit, too much dried fruit, too much canned fruit! It falls off the trees, it rots on the ground, and the warehouses are full of preserved fruit. Can it be that some new fad has tak- en hold of the people and that they have decided that peaches and apri- cots and pears and berries are bad for the health? So it would seem, judging from the over-abundance in the orchards and the number of hun- gry workers in the cities of Califor- nia here. Last year the apricot pack was only half of what it was in 1929. This year the pack was limited to even less, thirty-five per cent of what it was in 1929. Prices must be kept up by all means. Now the apricot pack is finished, but a greater prob- lem comes with the ripening of the | peaches. As was true of the apricot pack, the peach pack last year was only about half of what it was in 1929. Prices were not what the canneries wanted them to be. The thousands of cases of canned peaches did not Fruit Left to Rot While Workers Starve go into consumption in spite of all the advertising that was done, and so the canners decided that some- thing drastic must be done and done quickly. That is why the gentlemen on top put their heads together and decided that the production of can- ned fruit must be adjusted to the “country’s normal demand for the peaches.” How could this be accom- plished? In the first place, there was too much fruit in the orchards, so “one hundred per cent of the indus- try” decided that 12,000 acres of peach trees must be pulled up and destroyed so that 100,000 tons of peaches at least would ‘be out of jthe way. Then it was decided that | the pack must be limited to 9,000,- 000 cases in 1931, which is more than twenty-five per cent UNDER the av- erage pack of the past five years, in- cluding the crop failure of two years ago. The finest peaches are costing the canners only twenty dollars a ton, and yet we workers pay fifteen cents a dozen for ordinary peaches at the height of the season, Such are conditions in sunny Cali< fornia where the flowers grow! pondent for the Daily Worker. Write for the Daily about your day to day struggles Ry. and starvation, NOT, A WOODSHED— Dwelling of a miner employed by the Tway Coal Co., near Harlan, Thousands of miners in the country are in revolt against misery ,