The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 31, 1931, Page 3

aq! \ WORKERS’ CORRE DENCE WAGES INCREASE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1931 8S. R.— YOUN ’e"ERS JAILED FOR FIGHTING STARVATION — KENTUCKY MINER; ENS US; FIGHT W: A ( S xsE-CUT IN LAWRENCE: =: MIN- RALLY IN NEW STRUGGLE rave smrce mar | N SOVIET QUARRYMEN’S PAY RAISED 7 FOLD in. Tacoma Smelters| “SINCE REVOLUTION. Workers Who Received 1.20 Rubles per Day | wase--cuts alt around Now Get 9 Rubles for 8 Hours Work New Living Quarters, a Dear Comrades: We, the workers of the Soviet Quarry, located in the vil- lagé Gnivan in Soviet Ukraine, the American workers. The fulfillment of our program by the workers is 105-112} per cent, on the average each ¥ 109 per cent of the program. Big Wage At the time of the Czarist TAMMANY MOVES TO BLACKLIST: N.Y. TAXI MEN! Walker’s Commission Fingerprints and Registers Drivers (By a Worker Correspondent) NEW YORK.—The taxi drivers have been “lised to 2 good advantage during t&e election campaigns. Jhen James J. Walker was running for mayor for the Yirst time the hackmen were or- ganized into “Our Jimmie Clubs” and when “Our Jimmie was eletced under direct police control. They were fin- ‘gerprinted and registered on criminal identification cards. Under this sys- tem the fleet owners are able to have a real black list of taxi drivers. A General Motors Commission ‘Walker also appointed a commission in 1930 to investigate the cab in- dustry. It was not for the purpose of helping us drivers, however. The re~- port proves this. It speaks of a mono- poly and ® franchise for the most financially responsible party, which proves that the comimssion was ap- pointed at the behest of the General Motors. The commission did not find it mecessary to say anything about the 12 hour day and the measly $15 weekly pay. Not a word about the discrimination in the courts and on the streets or about the jimcrowing of Negroes into special garages. ‘When the commission spoke of the franchise, did not take into con- sideration 40,000 that would be thrown out of work thereby, nor did they mention the strict blacklist. Drtvers, Vote Communist ‘The Walker Taxi Commission is scheduled to meet again, but after the elections. The hackmen, how- ever, will not be so easily fooled into voting for Tammany. The Commu- nist Party, which represents the in- terests of the workers, is the party that the taxi men should support in the coming. elections, DOCKERS PARADE IN HOUSTON, TEX. 600 March in Protest Against Wage Cuts (By & Worker Correspondent.) HOUSTON, Tex.—Stx hundred songshoremen and their families, 355 whites and 245 Negroes, marched here in @ protest ‘parade aaginst ‘wage-cuts on October 20. ‘The workers marched in fours impressive part of the par- ‘was the fact that the white and “Jongshoremen marched to- gether, uniting their forces and thus their power of resistance. Tt showed that the white and black workers of the South are awaking to WORKERS M (Note:—Mary Rasefske, 16-year- Righ school student, was active —~— ——~# idea about the mechanization of pro- | Dining Rooms, Clubs, | Schools Built for Stone Workers | Gnivan, U. send our heartiest greetings to} vorker’s production amounts to| Increase. | regime there was not even any duction, in order to facilitate- the working conditions of the workers. | Everything was done. and the stone was quarried by “Adam's methods, e., by hand, and the earnings of | the workers amounted from 40 kopeks | to 1,20 per day. It goes without say. ing that there was no cultural w or any concern about our living con- ditions. And what have we now? First of all, the average earnings of a skilled worker (stone cutter) is about 9 roubles per day, while a fairly skilled worker (stone breaker) earns about 7 roubles for 8 hours work. The workers are supplied by the quarries gratis with the follow- ing articles of clothing—boots, suits, sweaters, etc. In order to assist in the completion of the Five-Year Plan in four years, our workers haye submitted a counter-plan whereby they agree to produce 13 tons in-| stead of the planned 9. New Homes. Mechanization has been intro- duced at the quarries. Of the five quarries, In four the transporta- tation of the stone has been me- chanized as well as drilling. We have 65 stone crushers and 8 stone- cutting hammers. New dormitories for the workers have been built which have nothing in common with the old type of barracks. On the contrary, each room provides for four workers only. There are six dining rooms for 500 men, and soon another dining room accom- mod2ting 300 persons will be built. We have six clubs for 1,000 men, six radio-moving pictures, and red corners in the dormitories. ‘To comply with the slogan of our Party “engineering art for the messes,” an engineering" station has been established with all the neces- sary equipment. New Schools. Six hundred and forty workers have been prom ced to different ad- ministrative uitices, from foreman to assistant director.. We have six dif- ferent schools and a workers’ faculty, foremen’s school, mining school, a school for training of administrative staff, and a school for workers on mechanized equipment, such as pneu- matic drilling, cranes, elevators, etc. Labor Shortage. We are suffering very much from the shortage of labor, as we have only 50 per cent of the required num- ber of workers, All our efforts to get workers are in vain, as, if there are 20 to 30 workers in the neighboring village they are claimed by twenty other jobs, also suffering from the shortage of labor. We hope that the workers of the newly-organized red labor unions will follow our example and will send the red revolutionary labor unions to abolish the boss system, and, having made an end of it, they will begin to build up socialist construction in their own country. {Bosses Move for New /Pay-Cut on Workers in. Ruston and many other mills the lized the bosses are trying to slash land part time work it is very hard | (By & Worker Correspondent) 1 TACOMA, Wash.—At the smelter 10 per cent workers recently got | Because the workers are unorgan- | their pay still further by ‘approaching them. individually and telling them that there will be more work for | them if they work for wages lower than the existing ones. The workers are now, beginning to see lies and trickery of the bosses in trying to force the wages to a star- yation level. Due to unemployment | for the workers to feed their families. | The workers here are beginning to realize the need of organization to fight against further enroachment on their wages. | RELIEF SLASHED FOR JOBLESS AS, BOSSES CUT PAY Pittsburgh Families Refused Milk for Hungry Children (By a Worker Correspondent) PITTSBURGH, Pa.—Pittsburgh workers living on the South Side have ‘been meeting together this past week to consider and act on their terrible conditions. The bosses and their pol- iticians of this Mellon city are work- ing hard to force more starvation onto the’ Negro and white workers of the South Side. The Pittsburgh charities, most of which have gathered together into one vicious gang of starvation relief racketeers is called the City Welfare. The City Welfare has slashed relief at a faster rate than the bosses have cut wages. Unbearable misery and starvation is the result, Families Refused Milk Committees of unemployed workers have begun the registration of the unemployed. They have come across families who have been refused any- thing, even milk for their babies. Working class mothers are forced to stay at home because they have no shoes to wear, families can’t send their children to school—they have no clothes for them. At the South Side Unemployed Workers meeting, a delegation was sent to the City ‘Welfare to demand relief. The dele- gation placed their demands of at least $10 a week relief for every fam- ily and $3 a week for every child dependent and also for free coal and; medical attention, clothes and food for the children. Workers to Press Demands The Welfare’s answer was that it will not do anything now and can’t promise when it will. The delegation ‘will report at a mass meeting in de- tail what took place at the City Wel- fare. The workers are more deter- mined than ever to get all the work- ers together here in Pittsburgh and THE WORKERS’ PLAN VERSUS THE HOOVER PLAN | | | | | } Straight (From a Striking Miner's Wife, Straight Creek Section, Ky.) Castro, Ky., Oct. 22, 1931. Dear Comrades: Just a few lines in regard to our | struggle. | My husband and son had to work | from 8 to 16 hours making only one dollar per day, then come out and| go to the scrip office and ask for serip to get food for breakfast, and get denied. Then go in next day/| and work without any nourishment | Creek Miners Uniting to Fight Wage-Cuts and Starvation Hundreds of Small Children Die of Hunger | from one evening to the next, the operator keeping all they made for | cuts and carbide and mine expense. | My husband has worked for the Castro Coal Co. three years in mud and water, wet to his waist. Our Turn to L Four Mile, Kentucky. Dear Comrade: Say, they sure are getting every- thing stirred up just right now up in here. There are four places come out over there on Straight Creek now and they have got everything all over the Harlan fields going just right too and we dré waiting for them to come out here most any day. They have got a soup house at Straight Creek now. I tell you hard times is facing everybody, not just one, but every- body and it looks like we are going to have to fight the battle to win it too if it takes it or dying trying it. ‘They worked three days last week here at one place and two at the other one, and when these poor men go in at seven, maybe they come out at five or six and sometimes seven, Says Wife of Ky. Miner augh Soon and after they worked all the long hours what have they made. Only a dollar, or dollar-eighty, and some- times hardly not so much, just toil- ing their poor lives away for little or nothing. But they are trying to get their poor little hungry children something to eat and then when they go to the office to get it they are bawled out for asking for it. I tell you they may treat us this way a little longer but not always, for we hain’t going to stand for it for we} are going to come on top and then we will be boss, ~ They may wear their old stiff col- lars and stand back with their hands in the bottom of their pockets and laugh at us now but somebody will be laughing at them soon. —A Coal Miner's Wife. LL.A. SCABS ON press forward their demands until they win. SUPPRESS SHAW’S SPEECH IN FLORIDA (By a Worker Correspondent) TAMPA, Fla.— When Shaw was speaking over the radio of the Soviet Union the electric and power com- panies here in Florida cut him off. Many of the farming people that re- mained home on Sunday, were much disappointed. The workers in Tampa came to the Workers Center and read the Daily Worker and looked at the Group Committee of the Gnivan Granite Quarries, pictorials of the U. S, 8. R. in Con- struction. meee To Defend The Soviet Union Not only the men, but millions of women workers in the Soviet Union as well as workers throughout the world stand ready to defend | calls on them to close their ranks and the Soviet Union. Philadelphia Fakers Herd. Seabs (By a Worker Correspondent) PHILADELPHIA, Pa.—The 8. 8S. Harbourg of the Hamburg American Lines arrived in Philadelphia Satur- day from Boston where she was de- layed for four days due to the fact that the longshoremen of Local 800 are out on strike against the last wage-cut the stevedor bosses and the officials of the International Long- sshoremen Association tried to put over on them, The crew of the Harburg showed their solidarity by refusing to handle cargo. ‘The result was that the shipowners had to send the ship to Philadelphia The Marine Workers Industrial DOCKERS’ STRIKE, FARMERS EXPOSE THE RED CROSS Red Cross Heads Flee Farmer’s Queries (By a Farmer Correspondent) PLENTYWOOD, Mont. — The in- creasing strength of the United Farmers League in Sheridan County was manifest at s meeting of the County Organization here yetserday when thousands of farmers packed the Farmer-Labor Temple to over- flowing. A parade after the after- noon speeches, to the Court House to meet the representatives of the Red Cross was one of the most im- pressive and effective events of the day. Red Cross Flees During the course of the afternoon the farmers asked representatives of the local Red Cross to appear before the great crowd to answer some of that organization. None of the Red Cross members showed up, claiming they were too busy at a business men’s meeting. After the speeches Union warned them not to work this ship, but the I. L. A. did not take any action. ‘The rank and file of the ILA are against the officials but if they make a kick, they are blacklisted. In Boston the rank and file of Local 800 ran Joe Ryan off the water front so Ryan revoked the charter of Local 800. The Marine Workers Industrial Union, the American section of the International of Seamen and Harbor Workers, has pledged to’support the rank and file members of the ILA and fight. y were over, the United Farmers de- cided that since the Red Cross would not come to them, they would go to the Red Cross, but found after their march to the court house that the representatives had all fled; even those who had said they would stey overnight, had gone suddenly off on the afternoon ‘train. The United Farmers League is planing upon a school for the young workers and farmers of this district to be held in Plentywood in the near]. future at the Farmer-Labor Temple. At this school, it is expected to give training courses in Pioneer leader- ship, public speaking, theory and Every day he worked and we had no clothes to wear and we have .no boots. We lost our health on account of starving, not able to get proper food to nourish our bodies. So we are all united together, the Castro miners and their families, fighting starvation. We are out to win and we need food and clothes to enable us to win and get a living} price for our work, I am a nurse. I have been called to many different mining camps this summer to nurse cases of flux among children, finding the cause of flux being no account of no proper nour- ishment. Hundreds of mothers have lest their children this last summer by not being able to get proper nour- ishment for them. Dear comrades, I aim to do every- thing I can in this fight aganist star- vation. I am sure God will bless every effort every one of us will make to relieve the starving miners and their families. Every contribution will be| appreciated. Closed with greetings, comrades. WORKERS FORCE RELIEF IN CHICAGO, Get Cash, Coal and Clothes (By a Worker Correspondent) CHICAGO, Ill.—I am going to show an example of what it means to or- ganize in demanding aid from char- ities. Last week Unemployed Coun- cil Branch 7, took a lady comrade to the United Charities. This com- rade has three children and a sick husband. We presented the creden- | tials to the bosses’ tool to read. She j told us to be seated as there were others before us. She gave us a num- ber and said wait until it is called. We comrades did not say anything, but she must have read the expres- sion on our faces for she said, “Al- right, alright, but we must investi- gate first.” We answered that our committee did all the investigation neecssary and it would be useless to do any- more. She called the supervisor. He told us to return tomorrow and he would help this case out, Five of us returned the following morning. The supervisor gave us @ writen order to another place where they offered the needy woman com- rade $5 worth of food, which only j absolutely ignoring the young work- }mile for the total miles driven. If _ YOUNG WORKERS LEAD IN LAWRENCE STRIKE TO SMASH WAGE-CUL | | 30 to 40 Per Cent of 25,000 Strikers Are Young Workers Who Show Great Militancy | A. F. of L. Ignores Youth in Order to Split the Workers’ Ranks and Sell-Out Strike By a Young Worker) LAWRENCE, Mass.—Mond ning of a generdl strike of text bosses announced a 10 per cent effect Oct. 13th. lute starvat bosses to cut their already mise Jay, Oct. 5th, saw the begin: ile workers in Lawrence. The wage cut which was to go into The workers realized that it meant abso- ion for them and their families if they allowed the rably small earnings. So they answered this attack of the bosses by going out on strike before the bosses could put thei: 30 to 40 Per It began in two mills in th American Woolen Co. In two days’® time it spread to all the major tex- tile mills in Lawrence. At present there are some 25,000 workers on strike. Out of these three are some 30 to 40 per cent young workers who are the most militant fighters in the strike, The conditions of these workers, and especially the young workers, are extremely bad in the factories. Long hours, tremendous speed and miser- able working conditions in the fac- tories and then very poor wages even before this announced wage-cut. These facts account for the great| militene; of these young workers on} the picket lines, etc Young Workers Lead | It was the young workers who were the first to go on strike and they| took the most important part in the spreading of the strike, One whole; department from the Wood Mill em- | ploying a great number of youth were | the first to declare strike and they | became the established leader in the spreading of the strike throughout the mill and spreading 'it into ‘the Ayer, Mill. The A. bosses to betray and sell out the strike, is playing true to its role of of L., brought in by the| ers on strike, having no program of struggle for these young workers and using this fact of split the ranks of the workers in order to be better able to defeat the strike. j The National Textile Workers; the strike. Now after the workers came out on strike in spite of the A. F, of L., these same fakers sare pushing plans of arbitration and sell- out. The NTWU is paying special at- tention to these young workers, in order to organize htese militant fight- ters against the bosses and their pay cuts, Call Chicago Taxi Men to Organize (By a Workers Correspondent) CHICAGO, Ill.—The Daily Worker has published many letters from cab drivers, the one below appeared in a capitalist newspaper's open column: “I am taking the liberty of giving you a few more facts about taxi driving. We must have 16 cents a drivers do not get this amount, the manager gives them a lay-off of from one to two weeks. Thus a driver must get a fare back from wherever he discharged a last fare, If he can’t find a fare his mileage rate is cut down to ten cents a mile. If he runs up a dead mileage, he is laid off. If he has an accident, whether or not it is his fault, he is laid off.” Editorial Note—The Chicago taxi men will have to organize to fight cost three dollars. We demanded four dollars cash and we got it for her, also we put in an order for clothing and coal and our Unemployed Council will see she gets it too, these conditions. Get in touch with the Trade Union Unity League. Organize committees in each of the taxi fleets. Discuss and draw up demands, strike against the rapidly worsening conditions. Part of the Soviet Army of workers and peasants, who stand ready to defend the achievements of the October Revolution against any at~- practice of working-class economics. tack of the capitailst robbers. r wage cut into practite, Cent Youth. e Wood and Ayer mills of the NOT “BAD BLOOD,” BUT CAPITALISM BRINGS MISERY Rich Ladies Theorizes Say ‘Bad Blood’ Makeg Girls Immoral] (By a worker Correspondent) NEW YORK.— That. immorality among young girls is increasing today seems to give the “philanthropiste® a lot of concern, They get together at their society dinners, and very sole emnly bewail the fact and ask for more money for wayward girls’ in- stitutions. (Some of those American institutions” they fear the “reds” will destroy). With a wave of sentiment passing through’ her generous body, the charitable lady digs down in her silk stocking and produces @ farthing. And it's advertised in the press that Mrs. So and So gave a contribution. She blushes with joy as her friends flatter her for her good deed, and returns home to continue clipping coupons and receiving her regular dividend checks from this and that company, including perhaps the A 4 P Tea Company. Workers, this is a story of a worker in the A. and P. Tea, but we | Union was the organizer of the strike. | Will go back to our kind coupon-clip- | The A. F. of L. did its best to avert | Ping lady. She reads books, this lady does. “Scientific” ones created by a host of “intellectuals” for consunmrp- tion by just such ladies. She reads that it’s “bad blood” in the girl thet Jeads her on the wrong path, bed upbringing and bad dreams—any- thing but bad wages. She never thinks of looking at her A and P Tes dividend checks, and connecting it up with the girls for whom she is donating that “generous contribu- tion.” Next door to us boards a girl. whe recently got a job in the A and B Tea plant for the magnificent sum of $12 per week. (Try and live on that in New York). But that’s not all, The bosses who clip dividends decided that that pay was far too much for a girl, that such a “high standard of living” might demoralize her; so she was told one morning that she was working ona piece work basis. The girl worked on, standing all day long, nine hours a day, and when she looked in her envelope on Sat~ urday found exactly $5.45 for the week. Well, she wept, received the “kind” permission of her immediate superior to go and enquire in the pay office and was told “no mistake” had been made. There was no mis- take made, the bosses knew what they were doing. The only mistake made is by these girls who don’t get to- gether to stop this wholesale robbery of their health, their youth, yes, their very lives. After paying rent, carfare, and buy- ing @ few rags to keep her bones together, can this girl have anything left for food to keep “good blood” flowing in her veins? Ask Mrs. Bel- the grievances the public had against | ———————__— nnn mont! Red Troops On The March Starves to Death in Charity Flophouse Pittsburgh, Ps. Dear Comrades: ‘The terrible conditions the unem- Ployed in this Mellon city are forced to stand for is shown by the death of Frank Lehman in the Helping Hand Slop and Flop House. This fellow worker's deatu was caused by the terrible ition re~ Nef handed out to the of this city. Two plates of weak soup with @ couple of pieces of bread are the meals fed day in and day out until the jobless weaken and die like flies from pneumonia and outright star- vation, Pittsburgh «Worker, UST SMASH BOSS-CLASS VENGEANCE AGAINST THE MINE STRIKERS OF PENNSYLVANIA of the house, taking care of the family and her 9-year-old sister, Wanda.) Meadow Lane, Pa, Dear Comrade: As soon as you left the I. L. D. was doing their best to help the de- fendants. So we were out every day for several weeks getting bond, which, by all means, isn’t a light task. Finally, one by one, we were getting the comrades out’on bond. But when we came to Leo Thomp- son, to get him out, things began to happen. We collected $9,000, which was $1,00 too much, and made an attempt to get Leo out. We were all very glad, as we thought we would get Leo out now. But the court gave us an excuse of “investi- gation.” They told us that they had to see if all deeds were O.K. So of course we could clearly see the be- ginning of a frame-up. They had detained the decision of the new trial for over a month. But when they saw that we were going to get Leo out they gave the decision im- mediately and gave Leo's sentence 8 soon as possible and then shipped him off to two years in Allegheny County Work House. A regular bosses’ frame-up! But all along I knew we would get no new trial. ‘The next Monday, which is today, they gave the others their sentences, which, every time I think of it, it nearly breaks my heart. I will give the sentences pronounced on inno- cent comrades by the bosses’ courts: Stella.. Tom Boich..1 yr, 8 mo, Workhouse Louis Fazzio 1 yr. 8 mo. Workhouse Harry Stark.1 yr. 10 mo. Workhouse W. McQueen, 1 yr. 10 mo, Workhouse Mike Sklorski 3 to 6 yrs, Workhouse Andy Skraupe, 10 mo, Workhouse Lewis Walezyk. Anna... ..1 yr. 6 mo, Workhouse Mike Terras......4 mo, Workhouse Julius Hollis, 1 yr, 8 mo. Workhouse Joe Getto. years parole Edgar Jones, 1 yr. Ed Green, 1 yr, 10 mo, Workhouse HK. Boswell, 1 yr. 6 mo, Workhouse Geo. Bollar. The three who pleaded guilty, Mike ‘Turk, John Zigou, Steve Saver, re- eeived three months in jail. That's fustice for you in the bosses’ courts, All this is making better fighters of the working-class people. I would like very much to read # Jot of the Marxian literature, but I can't get hold of any. Stella and Mom took their sen- tences bravely, but I can’t get over how they gave Mom such a stiff sen- tence. Dad is taking the sentence very hard, but he'll get over it soon, I'm sure, ‘The only thing I can say for Wanda is that she says: “Mom and Stella will be with Leo.” T am closing with the heartiest greeting from all comrades, Comradely, Mary Rasefske. Workers’ ie ds the backbone of the revolutionary press, Build your press by writing for it, about your day-to-day ‘strugglo.”