The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 21, 1931, Page 1

} i H ! f Hi | DOUBLE THE MASS SUPPORT OF THE MINERS RELIEF CAMPAIG, double their fighting strength and forces.” ay Striking Miners Relief Committee to assist the miners in their militant battle against mass PITTSBURGH, Pa.,/immediately. The min-/funds received can|workers’ organization,|operators on the basis|Workers everywhere, Aug. 20.—“The miners|ers will continue their|feed them. There are|every relief committee|of each mine, necessi-|yally to the support of relief campaign must|fight against starva-|still ten times morejand every worker|tates increased solidar-| 14, Gana Strike double in mass support|tion upon the basis of|evictions than we can/|should collect twice as/ity on the part of all! one must be organized|miners on strike than |necessary that every|mands upon the coaljare on the increase. Frank Borich, Sec’y of the National Miners and collections imme-|again mobilizing all| provide tents for. For purposes of con-|now. The tactical turn seagrass solidating forces for|for unity with the)from Kentucky and|and the Penn-Ohio-W. diately in every city. In|forces to drive hunger all cities where there is|from the mining fields. no relief committee,|There are still more much as it has up to \further struggles it is|working miners for de-|Central sea : Committee and the Na- workers everywhere. 5 ; one Demands for relief|tional Miners Union Pennsylvania| Virginia and Kentuck ZO Ses £2 3 \ 5 st qs Sy Wari'- fy) Sas = “SPEAK To , Saccol You ~~ wagered ECO Capra ail (Section of the Communist International) Central CdR unist Party — > starvation imposed by the coal operators. Rush funds and food so that the miners can Union. |Vincent Kemenovitch, Sec’y Rank and File | Strike Committee WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! Watered as second-class matter at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879 @» NEW YORK, FRIDAY, AUGUST 21,1931 __ ae Vol. VIII. No. 201 Relief to the Miners 'TATEMENT BY NATIONAL MINERS’ UNION AND CENTRAL RANK AND FILE STRIKE COMMITTEE ON THE WORKERS’ INTER- NATIONAL RELIEF CONFERENCE IN PITTSBURGH AND THE INCREASED NEED FOR RELIEF IN THE MINE FIELDS: Forty thousand miners went on strike during the last week of May, 1931, against starvation. This strike is NOT called off. It has assumed new forms, but under these new forms of striking for local demands and involving in the struggle large masses who are now in the mines, the need for relief is intensified. Thousands of children are starving, and a school term is approaching in which they find themselves without either shoes, clothing or food enough to enable them to attend school. Even before the strike, miners’ families in whole districts were un- cle to live on the wages paid, were’seeking relief from capitalist agen- cies and were ekeing out their larder with all manner of food substi- tutes, such as dandelions and grasses picked in the fields. This situation is not changed except that it is worse. Hundreds of miners, the best fighters of the strike and the most ac- tive union members, are being blacklisted and must be taken care of until they can be returned to the mines. The policy of the coal companies is to starve these men and their families to death as a lesson to the others not to dare to organize. The policy of the strike leadership and cf the National Miners’ Union is to force the companies to take these men 2ck into the mines, but meanwhile relief is imperative for them. Great new strike struggles are developing, against starvation, in many districts hitherto untouched by the strike. These miners will need relief the day they go on the picket line, and relief must be prepared for them. In this situation, the National Conference of the Workers’ Interna~- tional Relief, scheduled for Pittsburgh, August 29-30, is of the utmost importance, and demands not only the attention of every member of the National Miners’ Union and of every striker, but also of the whole work- ing class. This conference will lay plans for making the W. I. R. a mass or- ganization, will plan organized relief in the mining fields on a permanent basis and will work out the program for distributing such relief. The National Miners’ Union and the Central Rank and File Strike Committee emphatically endorse this W. I. R. Conference, and the N. M. JU. calls on each of its local unions and each of its locals of the Women’s Auxiliary to send a minimum of one delegate to the conference. These delegates should be members who have been most active in relief work. In addition, two delegates should be elected to the conference from each section strike committee, also active relief workers, All organized relief committees in the strike atez should be main- tained and strengthened. FRANK BORICH, Secretary of the National Miners’ Union. VINCENT KEMENOVICH, Secretary Central Rank and File Strike Committee. Allentown Strike Delegates Pledge Solidarity at Huge Strike Meet in Paterson PATERSON, Aug. 20.—This morn- ers and realize that they must get City Wide Demonstrations Tomorrow to Protest Boss Terror Against Workers Demand Amnesty For All Class War Prisoners On The Ath Anniversary of Execution of Sacco-Vanzetti NEW YORK.—Leading the struggle for NEW STRIKE CERT _Price 3 Cents AIN IN KY., ENN.; MINERS OUT TO WIN Evicted Miner’s Family \ Forced to Live In Chicken Coop immediate amnesty for all class war prisoners, and in sharp protest against all forms of. capi- talist class terror, the International Labor De- fense has organized a series of open air meet- ings and demonstrations which will be held Saturday, August 22, the fourth anniversary of the execution of Sacco and Van- zetti, in all boroughs of Greater New York. Preparations are now completed for big demonstrations and marches in many workingclass sections. Harlem workers are preparing for one of the biggest * - demonstrations in their section, hav- ing’s special strike rally was the big- gest and most enthusiastic meeting that has yet been held in the strike. The balconies of the Turn Hall were filled and hundreds of workers lined the walls, The outstanding feature of the meeting was the delegation of the Allentown workers who came to pledge their solidarity and to expose the sellout of the UTW in Allentown. Each one of the delegation said that the fight had only begun. One of the strikers summed up the spirit of the Allentown workers as follows: “We are rallying our forces and in a short time we will strike again. This time it will be a real strike with a real leadership and under the banner of a real union, the National Textile Workers Union.” Allentown Workers Join NTWU. One of the Allentown strikers, a member of the UTW, tore up his card in the sell outs union in sight of the entire mass of workers at the meeting. He said that 300 workers had joined the NTWU in the one day that had elapsed since the strike was sold by the UTW. The strike is not settled although the UTW told the workers to go back. At least 1,000 workers attend the strike meetings every day. Those workers who went back to the shops want nothing to “do with the UTW. They recognize the UTW as the enemy of the work- rid of it. Rubin, secretary of the General Strike Committee, pointed out the lesson that the Paterson workers must learn from the Allentown strike sell out. The fight of the strikers must be intensified to prevent the fake sell outs and settlements of the UTW-Associated-AFL outfit. The strikers must prevent the bosses and the AFL unions from discriminating against. members of the NTWU in the shops. These lessons, Rubin em- phasized, must be learned by every striker in the city. r Mother Bloor Exposes Fakers. Mother Bloor received a tremen- dous ovation from the workers pres- ent when she rose to speak. The workers stood up and cheered for several minutes. She told the strik-|,, ers of the awakening of ever more workers in the country to struggle against capitalist oppression. She explained the role of the UTW as shown in its long history of betraycl of the workers’ interests. The role of the UTW is the same as that of Green at the head of the AFL and Lewis, the head of the United Mine Workers, and that role is one of sell- ing out the workers to the bosses on every occasion. “They don’t want unity,” said Mother Bloor, “because (CONTINUED ON PAGE TWO) ing spread broadcast leaflets yester- day calling for a mass turnout. “Todzy mass deportations, per- secution of foreign born workers, an unleashed terror drive against the Negro population, arrests of strikers, frame-ups and jailings are among. the fav@fite methods of the capitalist class trying to sup- Press the efforts of the working class to struggle against the ever mounting attacks against living and working standards.” The fourth anniversary of the death of those two working class martyrs Sacco and Vanzetti must be the occasion for large and widespread demonstrations against all forms of capitalist tcor,” declares a statement issued by the Interna- tional Labor Defense rallying the workers of this city for August 22nd, eae Turn to page three for a complete list of points of meeting and demon- stration and routes of marches and parades. SHOE WORKERS IN N.Y. C: ENDORSE RED CANDIDATES Experiences In Strikes Show Up Boss Rule NEW YORK.—Long hours of hard labor, averaging between 55 to 65 FIGHT AGAINST HUNGER! A special supplement of the Daily Worker, to be devoted to the Communist Party’s program of struggle against starvation, advertised to appear tomorrow, August 22, has been postponed. It will be published on the following Saturday — the Daily Worker of Saturday, August 29. Workers everywhere must organize a special mass distribution of this paper. No extra cost; $1 per 100 copies; $10 per 1,000, postpaid. The program, separately, can be ordered at the rate of 50 cents per 100, or $5 per 1,000. Send in your orders NOW. Remember the date of publication: Saturday, August 29. hours per week, miserably low wages, averaging between $22 and $35 per week, long periods of slack, wide- spread unemployment, yellow dog contracts, union misleaders who are working hand in hand with the boss- es to check the rising struggles of the shoe*workers for an improvement of gonditions. All thees are the and forces the workers in e@ industry have to contend with,” ‘The shoe workers are that section of the working class that has tasted very sharply in various forms the bit- ter experience of boss rule, of the boss \’pression and of ruthless ex- ploitaiion. In their strikes and lock- outs the shoe workers saw before them a clear example of how the bosses’ government through its vari- ous agencies has done everything possible to break the strike, The shoe workers haye learned very clearly that the government in Washington ]| and in the states are the bosses gov- ernment who suppress the working masses. Today the shoe workers in their struggles against wage reduc- tions and unemployment, buck up against. Tammany politicians, social- ist fakers, Lovestone, renegades who support the various cliques which call themselves unions. It is precisely for these reasons that the Shoe and Leather Workers Industrial Union endorses the Com- munist Party in its present election campaign. All shoe workers must rally around the Communist Party election campaign, collect signatures to put the candidates on the ballot, respond to the calls of the Party and mobilize every fellow worker of his shop for the Party election program. ’ HALT EVICTION NEGRO WORKER Rich Negro Landlord; Had Ordered Toilers Evicted on Street CHARLOTTE, N. C.—About fifty workers, mobilized by the Unem- ployed Council of Washington Heights in Charlotte, today put back the furniture of an evicted Negro worker. The fight against the evic- tion took place after a committee was sent by the Unemployed Branch to demand the worker remain in his home, rent free, until he could get a job. The committee was answered by the landlord's agent that the owner was a wealthy Negro, whose name he feared to divulge, and that his orders were to evict the tenants immediately upon non-payment of rent. He also added that the land+ lords had just organized in town and that an agreement was made that all unemployed workers would be put outdoors if rent due was not promptly paid up. The evicted worker's name is Henry Lewis of Booker Ave. in Relief Need Urgent! Workers Must Show, Their Solidarity | YATESBORO, Pa. Aug. 19—(by mail).—One evicted family moved in- to a chicken coop here; beds, stove, clothes, babies and all. The whole family is crowded into the little coop that formerly housed the . chickens | belonging to a sympathetic farmer. Now chickens, family and furniture are all sheltered from the rain in the little wooden shed. In-the adjoining barn, another big | family is crowded. Rags on~ the Attorneys Because of Exposure| Tabor Defense Lawyer Taub Is Told He Will Be “Put On Spot”; Reign of Terror Against Miner | Winesses and Defense | | HARLAN, Ky., Aug. 20.—Because they ex- posed his connections with the coal companies in this vicinity which hired gunmen to shoot down coal miners, Judge D. C. Jones, who is presiding in the trial against 35 miners framed | up on murder harges, yesterday fined Ben B. Golden and F. M. ground serve as a floor. The depu- | Hall, attorneys for the International Labor Defense $30 each ties pick the days when the rain 1s/ for contempt of court. |coming down in torrents to break into strikers’ homes and say, “Back to work, or out of the house you go!” Here in Central Pennsylvania, min- ers are forced to load coal with coke forks. Every miner knows what that means. The prongs are very far apart and only very large lumps of coal can be loaded; smaller pieces fall through. That means that about half the coal mined reaches the tipple to be weighed, and then the weight has a habit of shrinking when the com- pany weighman reads the scales. And the pay? Starvation! Company Invites Explosion. The Pennsylvania state laws for- bid throwing slack (smaller pieces of coal) into the gob where slate (the rock that runs in thick veins through the coal), is disposed of. But the miners here are instructed to throw all coal that falls through the coke fork into the gob. This is directly in- viting an explosion in the mine. The miners are fighting against starving to death, and working under conditions that already have caused hundreds of deaths. That is why so ‘The affidavits, it was learned, exposed that the judge receives money from coal companiés, ahd is closely allied with, as well as acts under the orders o! AWAIT DADDY iccsteoerken. $s aternacrd the coal companies. His statements against the men on trial on the first day the jury was called in clearly showed that Judge Jones is insistent on repeating the Sacco-Vanzetti trial for the 35 miners. Besides, it was also™brought out, that Judge Jones has stock in coal companies and shares in the profits squeezed out of the starving miners whom he is now helping send to their 1 | death in the electric chair. Attorneys Golden and Hall for the defense were told by Judge Jones that if they repeated their attempt to expose the judge’s connections with the coal companies and their gunmen, he would send them to jail. A wholesale reign of terror has be- gun against witnesses and attorneys for the defense, which is being con- ducted by the International Labor Defense, Stink bombs were placed in the cars of Golden, Robesey and Taub. Four dicks have been following Miners Determined To Fight For Lo¢al Demands Committee Meets Ohio Miners Adopt New Tactics PITTSBURGH, Pa. Aug. 19.—The meeting of the Central Rank and File Strike Committee today (Au- gust 19), a full meeting in spite of the heavy rain in which many of the delegates had to travel miles, showed by its practical spirit of discussoin on the carrying out of the details of the “organied retreat” that the min- ers in general are not dismayed and that they know that this retreat is not a defeat, that they are optim- rs Harlan Judge Threats Defense j istic and confident and certain of winning yet. The delegates reported the ready acceptance of the new line in all parts of the field. The only section where the new line met with some real misunderstanding opposi- tion was the Connelsville coke region, where the U. M. W. A. so cruelly be- trayed the miners during the 1922 strike. Here is was necessary for Frank Borich, the secretary of the National Miners’ Union, to go out and patiently explain all details of the plan, but, when this was done, the section strike committee of Brownsville section (in which the coke region lies).voted 34 to 1 in favor of the new line, although pre- viously, in a smaller meeting, there had been a majority against it. All other sections accept the new tactics in the strike unanimously, and the meeting of the Central Rank and File Strike Committee devoted itself, not to the discussion of the policy itself so much as to the details of its application. Delegates reported that particu- larly in Allegheny Valley arrange- ments are completed for sending the Charlotte. Lewis has six small chil-|many are moving into chicken coops, dren, He only owed rent for two|sheds, barns—even stables, to avoid weeks. In the neighborhood in which | being forced back to work. On the he lives several workers have been|pasis of local demands, the miners threatened with evictions and this}who could not Fold out and went fight to keep Lewis in his home hails | hack to work, ar2 being called to join the beginning of a mass movement | with the strikers in renewed struggle. of unemployed white and Negro| ‘These local demands must be won! workers against hunger and evic-| Help the minevs win their de- tions. While the many workers were | mands!, Send y2vr contribution to carrying the furniture of Henry/the Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Vir- Lewis back into his home, @ group|ginia, Kentucky, Striking Miners Re- of Pioneers formed around the fur- | lief Committee, Room 330, 799 Broad- The family of W. B. Jones, Har- lan, Ky., a striking miner, await his return from jail where he is held on three framed up murder charges. Jones is one 32 impris- oned coal miners for whom the state of Kentucky is demanding the death penaliy for organizing into a union to fight against starvation. The International La- bor Defense is defending the min- niture and sang, “The Cops Are Having a Hell of a Time, Parlay Voo.” The Unemployed Council of Washington Heights is a newly- ers in court and calls upon the en- tire working class to rally to their defense and demand their imme- diate release. way, New York City. formed one, having had only two meetings before the eviction, Allen Taub, I.L.D. attorney, around for days. Witnesses are threatened with murder. Taub, in the corridor of the court, was threatened to be “put on the spot” by I~puty Sheriff Earl Brock, son of the prosecutor, Commonwealth Attorney A. W. Brock. A witness by the name of Mrs. Far- ley of Evarts, Ky., has been held in the Harlan County jail for the past seven weeks because she refuses to testify against members of the Na- tional Miners Union. Because she (CONTINUED 0% PAGE THRER) Tom Mooney from Prison Cell Calls on Workers of ‘the United Sta By TOM MOONEY (San Quentin Prison, California) - I wish to add my voice to the call of the International Labor Defense for a powerful mass demonstration for political prisoners on Saturday, August 22, It is the anniversary of the legal. murder of our somrades, Sacco and Vanzetti, by a heartless ruling class that knows no law. but its own greed and no justice but the gallows and the prison cell for all who oppose its. slavery, There can be;Mo more fit commemoration than s demonstra- tion of our class’ detsrmination to save from the bloody vengeance of that capitalist class the thousands of martyrs of labor who are still rotting in prison cells or facing the gallows or electric chair, The framing up of Sacco and Van- zett! came in the aftermath of the imperialist war; and their legal mur- der was put through during a time of what capitalism calls “prosperity.” Today that “prosperity” is gone, and’ the capitalist system is in the midst, Working Class Must Smash Bloody Vengeance} of Capitalist Class Against Workers’ Leaders, Says Frame-up Victim against every worker who raises his head to lead our ranks. It is also logical that today the same corrupt school of official trade union bureau- crisis in its history. More than 10,- 000,000 workers walk the streets in the United States in a hopeless search for jobs, while their families are being starved and evicted from their homes—and the capitalist class is conducting a furious offensive of speed-up, rationalization and wage- euts to reduce our class to the lowest standards of living. And again prep- arations are being made by the same capitalist class for another imperial- ist war, in the first place against the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. It is therefore logical that the class that murdered Sacco and Vanzetti and entombed in its prisons thou- sands of other militants of labor's cause, is today engaged in a still more savage offensive of frame-ups, unspeakably brutal prison sentences (42 years imprisonment ‘for organiz- ing a union), extra-legal fascist vio- Jence and straight-out : legal» murder crats that conspired with the bosses to send Mooney and Billings and Sacco and Vanzetti to the gallows— are the first spokesmen of capital- ism’s refusal of unemployment relief, the most venomous baiters of the workers’ Soviet Republic, the most hardened deciples of imperialist war and the most skillful aids in capi- talism’s present drive to imprison and slaughter the true representatives of the working class cause. Against the constant attacks of the capitalist class intended to force the working class to bear the burden of the present economic crisis of capi- talism’s wage-slave system — the workers can make no effective strug- gle unless every blow that is struck at a single worker-in the battle-line tes to Demonstrate Tomorrow 6 of class struggle is met by the most vigorous working class defense. We must fight for the liberation of the class war prisoners now in the prisons of capitalism! We must learn to know that capitalism’s “justice” for the working class, for the Negro and for the exploited farmers is and can be nothing more than the strik- ing down, with or without legal pre- tense, of every effective fighter against oppression. The only curb on the attrocities of the capitalist class against the working class and its fighting leaders, is a mighty mass movement of hundreds of thousands and millions of workers determined to bear this martyrdom no more. Let us keep alive the rage of the working class of the world which was roused on August 22, 1927, when the capitalist class murdered Sacco and Vanzetti! ‘Let, 1 “turn this) {100d of rage into organiz. and determined struggle to rescue our fighters fn capitalist pris- ons! I add my voice to the call for a powerful mass demonstration on “August 22° x (CONTINUED ON PAGER THREE) PENN. ADMITS DEATHS FROM Extent of Hunger Is Concealed by Gov’t Figures on Deaths ‘The annual report of the Bureau of Vital Statistics of Pennsylvania admits that two workers died of starvation in the state in 1930. This open admission that there is starva- tion in the United States belies all of the lying statements that there is no starvation in the United States, that have been made by the capital< ist class and its agents in the appa- ratus of the state and in control of the “relief” organizations, The statement that two workers died in Pennsylvania of starvation means that in these two cases the capitalist class was unable to assign any other cause for death. Dozens of more workers died. but in these cases the cause for death was prob- ably given under the head of one or another of the many diseases that attack the worker who is weakened by unger. The true figures, not those the capitalist class publishes, would ree veal that thousands of workers and workers’ children have died of star= vation or of disease brought about by starvation during the past year. As winter approaches and the crisis deepens these deaths will increase sharply. The workers of the United States must save themselves from physical destruction by taking up a _Suggle against capitalist scare mapeslty, the immediate and insuranee. Organize the figh' <a oe pant STARVATION