The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 12, 1931, Page 1

| | | A. NEGRO Boy AGED IG War’ AT HAYNESVILLE ALA Was TED To ATREE -AND His Bony Was RIDDLED With 32 Buuey Dail ‘Orga Central YW (Section of the Communist International) o wi Vol. VIL, No. 193 Entered am second-class matter at the Post Office at New York, N, ¥., under the act of March 3, 1879 orker ist Party U.S.A. _NEW YORK, WE WED SDAY , AUGUST 12, 1931. CITY EDT' TION WORKERS OF THE WORLD,’ UNITES __ ee b. Cents MINERS ACT TO SPREAD STRIKE THROUGH CENTRAL PA. CHICAGO UNEMPLOYED MAKE DEMANDS The Business of Cops Is to Commit Crimes for Cap- italist Dictatorship 'HE Wickersham Report on the crimes committed by the police has caused the capitalist newspapers to pose as being “shocked.” But the “new” thing is not the well-known fact that the police of the American cities are themselves criminals, The new thing is the fact that a Commission representing the interests of those who control and direct in a general way the criminal actions of the police—bring out a . Sensational exposure of the crimes of the police. Is this action puzzling? It is intended to puzzle. . . . ‘This is a time of tremendous social unrest. The working masses of America, plunged into the depths of starvation through unemployment and wage cuts, and the masses of farmers suddenly transformed into starving peasants, are in a process of ferment, questioning the social order and groping toward action against those responsible for their un- bearable position. It is no secret to a half-starved miner on the picket line in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky or West Virginia, that the police orack the heads of workers; it is no secret to a Kansas faxmer that the officers of the law will extort his last dollar; it is no secret to the Negroes ef Chicago or the black share croppers of Alabama that the police habit- ually murder them. The rage of the exploited and swindled masses accumulates at one pole as rapidly as the concentrated power of the finance capitalists who rule this country, accumulates at the other. ais cones For this very reason, at this time a Commission representing the highest ruling financial oligarchy is permitted to “expose” some of the bitter facts that have been fermenting in the minds of thé masses. The peculiar thing is that the exposure is largely by judges, prosecuting at- torneys, officers and others who are themselves a direct part of the sys- tem of police crime, and who will continue to live by the same system of criminal activities against the masses by the police after this exposure. Why is this? The answer to this puzzle is not very difficult. It will be noticed that the “exposure” of police crimes, horrible and brutal as the details are, do not go into the reajly basic things. ¥. The “exposures” do not show—but are intended to conceal—that the Job of the police is the commission of crime. The final effect of the re- port is to hold up before the eyes of the masses the illusion of the pos- sibility of “honest” policemen, “honest” judges, “gentle,” “decent” police of the capitalist state—in short, to-give a picture of “honest” rule over the working class and farming masses by oe plunderbund of bankers and trust magnets. ‘The impression intended to be created is the report is that the ruling class and its government is the defender of the masses against the “ir- regularities” and “unauthorized violences” of the police. But the policeman’s business is .o commit crime. The job of the police is to employ whatever degree of violence is necessary for the pur- pose of preserving the property privileges of the ruling class. During the present economic crisis, the degree of violence is greater than at ordinary times—the police are shooting more coal miners in Pennsylvania and Kentucky than usual, shooting more Negro workers in Chicago and more Negro share-croppers in Alabama, murdering more pickets in New York. And the police will continue to do this with the full support of President Hoover and the members of the Wickersham Commission and under the ultimate control of the same forces which permit the Wicker- sham Commission to “expose” some of the more obvious crimes of the police as being Seno and ae ‘The Commission report ee out some of the ghastly cruelties of thé federal immigration officers under the direction of the callous, reac- tioncry brute, Secretary Doak. But the Hoover government will con- tine to carry out the criminal violence against the working class of de- porting thousands of workers for the “crime” of joining unions and hold- ing class-loyal political opinions, and will use all the brutality, the cruelty (CONTINUED ON PAGE THREE) Call Conferences to Prepare Nation-Wide Aug. 22 Demonstrations Protest Murder of Workers! Demand Release Scottsboro, Camp Hill Victims, Mooney and All Class War Prisoners! BULLETIN. 7 CHATTANOOGA, August 11—Beddow, chief of counsel for the Na- tonal Association for the Advancement of Colored People, has issued a statement withdrawing from the Scottsboro case. His withdrawal follows the failure of the NAACP and their boss allies to terrorize the x Saad Scottsboro boys into repudiating the militant defense of the Interna- tional Labor Defense and the millions of workers mobilized through- out the world behind that defense. General Chamlee, ILD attorney, has just returned from Camp Hill, Alabama. He reports that five of the croppers are still held in jail. Two are out on bond. Charges against the others have been dismissed following the failure of the landowners and their courts to work up a successful frame-up. The hatred of the landowners is now concentrated on the remaining five. Trials have been set for September. An attempt of the bosses to organize an NAACP branch here was an utter failure, with only 15 present, : On the same evening, the ILD held a successful meeting with 150 enthusiastic workers present. This meeting was addressed by’Mrs. Wil- liam, Mrs. Patterson and cane Waketiela: NEW YORK.—More than 100 delegates representing tens of thousands of workers met in this city at the call of the New York District of the International Labor Defense to make in- itial plans for Sacco-Vanzetti Day, August 22. § New York City has seen each year an increasiné outpour- ‘kers: for the: Saccos¢—= = ge rid The |! deportations as a weapon against demonstration this year prom-| ‘he struggles of the masses against ises to be treater than ever|St#rvation, with the linking up of the _Bacco=Vanzetti Memorial with the growing persecutions of workers— Scottsboro, Camp Hill, Birmingham, the Chicago eviction massacre, the savage attacks on the coal mine and Oe The Boston District ts completing plans for Sacco-Vanzetti Day at the Amnesty Conference being held on Sunday, August 16, at 10.30 a. m. at Ambassador Palace, 20 Berkeley St. hs TO HOLD MEET ON AUG. 16 T0 PLAN ACTION Unemployed C ouncil Issues Call to All Workers’ Bodies CHICAGO, Aug. 11—The trial of six Negro workers and one white worker, arrested on Aug. 3, is sched- uled to open today. The workers were arrested in an effort of the po- lice and city government to justify the police massacre of unemployed workers on Aug. 3. The arrested workers are being charged with “in- citing to riot.” They are being de- fended by the International Labor Defense. In an attempt to silence the pro- tests of the workers against unem- ployment, starvation, evictions and the police terror, the police are de- manding of the hall owners that they do not rent their halls to mili- tant working-class organizations. Hall owners are instructed to fur- nish the police with the names of organizations renting their ‘halls for meetings. As a result of the widespread in- dignation of the workers, Negro and white, against the police massacre of unemployed workers, in which four Negro workers were killed and scores of white and Negro workers wounded, the Emmerson Committee has called a fake unemployment con- ference for Aug. 17 at the Stevens Hotel. The Chicago Unemployed Council has issued a call for an Emergency Conference to elect a mass delega- tion to present the demands of the unemployed to the Emerson Com- mittee conferénce. The conference called by the Un- employed Council will be held Aug. 16 at 10 am, the day before the fake conference called by the Emer- son Committee. All trade unions, all working-class organizations, branches of the Unemployed Council and workers, organized and unorganized, in the shops are urged to elect dele- gates to the Aug. 16 conference, where the demands to be made on the Emerson Committee will be dis- cussed and adopted. The bosses and their Negro re- formist tools are trying desperately to betray the struggles of the Negro masses and to win them away from Communist leadership. That they have failed so far they themselves admit, Landlords in attendance at the meeting of the Chicago Real Estate Board on Aug. 6 were forced to admit that “there is no racial fac- tor involved” in the fight against evictions. In a statement made public a few days ago by John McKinley, city editor of the Whip, and Bry- ant Hammond, Negro democrat, open admission is made that the Negro masses are no longer follow- ing the traitorous leadership of the reformists. The statement declared it advisable that “next time a con- ference with Negro citizens is called persons who have the con- fidence of the discontented masses be invited rather than business and clerical leaders regarded as hostile, and that the mayor call into conference spokesmen of the Communists and those who are demonstrating. R.R. Union Officials Help Boss Wage Cutting Schemes Railroad Workers Meet Conference: Foster to Speak CHICAGO, Ill, Aug. other industries, the railroad workers are being attacked on all sides by the various wage-cutting schemes of the companies and the reactionary grand lodge officials in control of the old unions. A typical example (many others could be mentioned) of how the union bureaucrats are putting over the railroad companies’ wage-cutting program is the “26-day month and miicage limitation” rafl- roaded through the recent Houston Jim McCullough, Striking Miner of Coverdale, The outdoor dining room is along- side their tent in she union colony at Coyerdale. Dandelion greens and food brought in by the Pennsylvania- Ohio-West Virginia-Kentucky Strik- ing Miners’ Relief Committee keep the miners alive while they are fighting their determined battle for union conditions and against starva- tion. More tents are needed! More families are hungry! Help the miners’ fight! Send your contribu- tion today to Room 205, 611 Penn Ave., Pittsburgh, Pa. The McCulloughs are one of many families living in the tented city that has sprung up in Coverdale. Scores of families were evicted from com- pany houses when they refused to go back to work under the scab agreement signed by the United Mine Workers of America. Myrtle McCullough’s man, Jim, worked for the Pittsburgh Terminal Coal Co. for many years. The sight of Mrs. McCullough—bones and veins covered with skin, or her children, pale, anaemic, fleshless—tells why Jim McCullough went on strike. Even the baby of the family, Mabel, tells the other children in the chil- dren’s ward at the County Hospital that her dad is striking against star- vation and that the whole family is in the fight. The relief commit- tee sent Mabel to the hospital be- cause she “took fits.” As soon as she began eating three meals a day at the hospital they stopped. In the meantime, Mabel’s sisters and brothers and parents marched on the picket lines. And the lines at the Coverdale Mine grew and grew and more men came out of the mine every day. The strikers grew more determined than ever to close down the mine. From all the Terminal mines ground, men, women and One Killed, Several Dying As Boss Terror Continues To Hit Birmingham Negroes Scores Arrested, Milita: Framed on Charge o Woman; C. P. in nt Workers Are Being f Murdering Society Vigorous Protest BULLETIN CHATTANOOGA, August 11.—Warrants have been issued for all 11,—As in) Railroad Trainmen. white and colored Communist leaders in Birmingham. A special “Red” squad has been organized in the effort to deprive the workers of mili- tant leadership. The capitalist newspapers carry scream headlines call- ing for the “driving out” of all Reds. q BIRMINGHAM, Ala., August 11.—Since last Thursday night when it is alleged a Negro hold-up man killed a society woman and wounded two others in Shades Valley, near this city, a steady campaign of murder and terror against the Negro work- ers has keen in full blast with the active aid and direction of — police depart- Wane Negro worker and wound- Railroad, dicks have killed ed another while Setting off a were taken out of bed and carried a short distance from their homes and shot down. They are in the hospital and are not expected to re- cover. A Negro cafe in Woodlawn has been bombed. A group of Ne- groes standing in front of their home was fired into by whites in a pass- ing automobile, A 16-year old Ne- gro boy has been lynched in Hey- nesville, Southern Alabama in United Front This is the most brazen sell-out of the train and yardmen in the his- tory of this strike-breaking organ- ization. It not only means a 15 per cent reduction in average earning power of these workers, but it threatens to completely destroy the basic wage standards and working conditions in train and yard service. The means by which the union of- This is a part of the wave of vio- lence launched by the bosses who are using the hold-up and shooting of the society women as a pretext to further terrorize the Negro. mas- ses. In their efforts to crush the grow- ing militancy of the Negro workers in. the fight against starvation, the bosses are carrying out wholesale freight train. Two Negro workers] * AUG. 17 Pa. and His Family children came to picket the Cover- dale Mine. “Concentration” the Na- | tional Miners’ Union calls it—first pulling one mine, the-mext one, The Pittsburgh Terminal Coal Co. brought in more gunmen, who ter- rorized the patch, “Back to work or out of the company houses!” came the next order. For a week after the McCulloughs were evicted, they lived in the open, with rags strung from tree to tree for a roof. “I'm in this fight to the finish!” | dim McCullough said. “I've never been a scab yet, and I don't expect to be one now!” “No man of mine would ever | scab!” Myrtle McCullough — said.| “We've starved long enough with him working so hard he could only | fall into bed at night, and not enough | to eat in the house to feed half of | the children. Not one of us has had three meals in one day so long back —we hardly remember when. We're counting on the National Miners’ Union—we've got to have a strong union and beat the operators. Other- wise we go back to the same star- ving living. The union’s all we got to look to. We've got to fight like anything for it! Just look at me. You wouldn’t think I was still young in years, me with my gray hairs. And look at my children. Not one of them has any flesh on. I don’t want them to grow up into the life I've had!” | All of the children have matured, determined faces. And why not? They are so much a factor in the strike that the yellow dogs try to| chase the children off the picket lines first. | “Don't work for an empty dinner bucket!” the kids shout. “Come out | on strike, join our line!” And they sing and they cheer about the union, about bread, about union conditions. They boo the police. Dolls, kites, toys of any sort are very rarely seen in the coal towns, Men, women and children are all in the fight. And men, women and children need some food to keep them going while they are fighting then going on to| |. | depositors to come HOLD CONFERENCES TO BUILD STRIKE FRONT, CALL N.MLU. TO LEAD File Groups Map 24 Delegates Representing ience with the UMW betr: of UMW International Board ‘DEMAND WORKERS BE PAID FIRST IN BANK OF US. At Mass Sat. Depositors to City Hall S: NEW YORK—Declaring that it vallying- thousan’sofsnfalt'@epositors jof the Bank of United States who have been robbed of their money, the United Depositors Committee has is- sued a statement calling on all such depositors to come to the mass dem- onstration in front of City Hall on Saturday at 12:30 pm. when the committee will present demands to Broderick, state superintendent of | banks. The demands the United Deposit- ors Committee will present, and for which it calls on the 400,000 small and demonstrate Saturday, are as follows 1) Workers and small depositors should be paid out first and in full 2) The prosecution of the guilty of- ficials of the state banking depart- ment. 3) The state department should guarantee all the deposits of the small depositors. 4) Prosecution and immediate arrest of the entire Board of Directors of the defunct bank. 5) To assess the board of di- reciors with the full losses of the de- Positors, and to assess the stock hold- ers with the par value of their shares. A statement issued by the commit- tee stys “We appeal to you to participate in |our demonstration, as the fight that we are leading against the bankers and capitalists politicians, is not an isolated struggle, for it is but a link in the chain of the great class strug- gle that the entire working class pop- |ulace is leading against the capital- ists of this country.” their battle through. Tents are needed for hundreds of evicted fam- ilies. ‘The Pennsylvania-Ohio-West Virginia-Kentucky Striking Miners’ Relief Committee calls upon you to do your share in this job—help the miners win their battle against star- vation! Send all you can to the re- lief headquarters, Room 330, 799 Broadway, New York. Gov’t Spends $ 658,000,000 a Year for War; Double 1913 Professor Says New War Is Coming in Five Years NEW YORK.—That hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent for a war by the imperialist nations, which, he predicts, is to come within five years, is the declaration made by Professor C. Delisle Burns of Glasgow University in a book fust published entitled “Modern . Civiliza- tion On Trial.” Professor Burns tries to absolve the capitalists of the ~blame for + war, claiming it is just a part of the “march of civilization.” However, he sonvention of the Brotherhood of] (coyrm™mysp oN PAGE THREE) | (CONTINUED ON PAGE THREM) | Teveals that every one of the capi- \ talist countries are spending millions for the coming war. Professor Bruns forgets to add that over 30,000,000 unemployed starve in the meanwhile. Europe, he poits out, is spending about $2,500,000,000 for war prepara- tions, nearly $500,000,000 more than in 1913. ‘The United States ts no ex- ception and it, too, has increased tremendously expenditures for arma- ments, he asserts. In 1913, this coun- try spent about $316,000,000 and to- day spends $658,000,000 # year in Preperations for war, ers. Delegates From 10 ‘Nee Liséals of NMU and 6 Rank and Demands Sunday 6,000 I Miners Sold Out By \, Plan To Strike At Scotts Run, W. Va. JOHNSTOWN, Pa., August 11.—The situa- tion here in Central Pennsylvania continues to grow more critical, with strikes likely to start at any time and spread over the district. bois mine is already out again after an exper- Du- Some 300 men in this mine struck a couple of weeks ago under the nominal leadership Member Chizzoni. They were preparing to march on the neighboring mines and bring them out, when it was discovered that the great leader Chizzoni had © fled the field. The strike broke down. the men went back, and are now coming out, and sending word to th? National Miners Union to lead them this time. Delegates of ten new local union of the NMU, with other delegate: trom six rank and file groups, newly organized, and a delegation from th: women’s auxiliaries and Unemployed ‘ouncils, Met here Sunday in Har- Woodvale, and adopted {the demands worked out by their | scale committee elected at a confer- ence of delegates from mines not at that time organized, two weeks azn The demands follow the line of the Western Pennsylvania demands but add many items of local importance. and call for higher tonnage rates because of the low coal in Centre Pennsylvania ‘The conference Sunday Central Pennsylvania into sections; Windber, Johnstown, Portage, Cen- tral City, ete. and established a sec (CONTINUED ON divided AGE THRER SPEED SIGNATURE DRIVE FOR NEW YORK ELECTIONS NEW YORK.—The campaign collect thirty-five thousand signa- tures required for placing the Com- munist candidates on the ballot is winning the support of workers in the trade unions and mass organiza- tions but not at a speed that is fast enough to bring in the signatures within the required time. The sections of the Party must also speed up and begin organizing shock troops to assist sections where the forces are too weak to handle the task alone. The Communist Party District 2, therefore, sends forth this appeal to all sympathizers and work- ers in shops and factories, mass or- ganizations and unions to appoint election campaign committees of 3 workers to mobilize all the forces in the shops and organizations for sup- port in this drive, which {s the most important campaign before the Party. The United States Bank depositors committee which is organizing for the demonstration on August 15th. the Unemployed Councils, the League of Struggle for Negro Rights and similar organizations which well un- derstand that the Communist. Party is the only party which supports their struggles and all struggles of the working class should take spe- cial steps to enlist the support of the membership for the first fight in the election campaign to insure having the Communist Party candidates on the ticket. All organizations are also urged to immediately begin preparations for the Ratification meeting which will take place Friday, Sept. 18th, and for the Election Tag Days which fol- low immediately after, Sept. 19th and 20th. * The reactionary parties are begin- ning to work overtime to capitalize the elections this year so that the pockets of the gangsters and rack- eteers may be filled to overflowing with graft and “good” jobs, while hunger and misery spread deeper into the ranks of the working class which faces the 3rd year wu crisis to this winter—the worst in the history of the country,