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

Page Four Back Up the Hunger Marchers with the Mighty Thunder of Your Mass Sup The Soviet Union Is in Danger! Smash the Imperialists’ Attempts to Destroy theWorkers’ Fatherland! akness of in of w the assumptior hing like.a burst of ndividual be that c the Daily to point out -in ymptoms of a m fhe wona orker probe DATLY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1931 acifism © recognize the [Decisive Mass Action Will Save It, Says Michael Gold wants peace. It is; in the world toda: bitte will mak neces: to the Five- peace the mileu in 1 a free, co-operative Commu- world can be bu The capitalists want war. War them on to their destruction, Jezebel, with fair their panics, un- overproduction, ns of a cl eco- ry diseased s to solve enter this new y and blindly st chance history s-manage the w them to Tairs of humanity. r Soviet Russia is in danger. In- j terrupted in her peaceful building, millions “of tarians and ants. will flix with Undoubtedly, one of the considera tions tha med this new lea gue ii mutual fear and of the sucess of the five year plan Japen’s reaches toward an anti- r arouse no pro st ar and socialist: mimmesing. of the Leacue of Nat At} ‘evolutionary d and daring on he enemy, ve not allowed to build, th They will ist the invader a might and n. 1 choose to die rather than ‘ism ar lism to con- rv them again rt | ever sho’ ee peng: only against t hy Ru is in danger. d a nation of and! munist International { ing for a decade, the | rit that will If they but | that no nation in history has | | of the workers and peasants who have | been thrust into uniform and dragged |from their homes to fight Russian | | workers and peasants. There is a new force in the world, | greater than all the military plans | and big guns. Its name is Commu- | |nism. It exists in America, Japan, | | France, in every country on the globe. This force will fight for the Soviet | | Union. | | Every honest worker and intellectu- al in America will join the defense | |of the Soviet Union. It will not be merely as a gesture of sympathy, or | |a demonstration of loyalty to the workers’ fatherland. | It will be out of motives of self- pre: ation. Any threat to Soviet | Russia, is also a threat to American | trade unions, and the wage seale | here, and all indepedent thought. It | is not only 2n attack on Communism, | | | lit ts an attack on every inch of pro- gressive advance that has been made ‘here for the past fifty years. A war against the U. S. S. R. by| |the United States would be ushered | in with a massacre of every vestige | }of radical thought here, including | feven the mild Nations, Mercurys and | | the 1 It would mean a Fascist | dictatorship of an intensity never dreamed of by Mussolini. | The time has come to fight the | | war-makers and to defend the Soviet | | Union and defend the radical and | |labor movement at home, which will | be the first casualty in such a war. | | ‘The danger is real and near. 'There | |is no more time for quibbling and}! backbiting, we are in a crisis so| |enormous that 1914 pales into in- | significance. | The capintaltsts must not be al- | lowed to threaten Soviet Russia. | They must be informed, in clear and unmistakable tones, that millions of workers and intellectuals in every | | land are ready to defend Soviet Rus- |sia and themselves. Secret diplom= | acy -will not fool us; League of Ne~- | tions lies will not blind us; we are watching every move of the war makers and when the time comes to | fight, we will fight for our own cause, The American Delegation Pledges to Arouse the Masses to Defend the Soviet Union A Seaman Writes of the Impressions of the ses Through Berlin Deleg NEW YORE. of the Friends yesterday received a eablegram from | the American Workers Delegation at} Moscow, telling of their pledge of | solidarity with the Soviet workers. | The cablegram follows: | “Have pledged to the Soviet Workers the solidarity of the mili- tant American workers to fight the imperialist war plans to attack the | Soviet Union, We have seen some | of the great achievements of the | Five-Year Plan and we must rally | the working class not to allow the | destruction of these great achieve- ments. The war clouds are gather- | ing. Lithuania, Poland and Rou- | mania have been heavily armed by | American and French capitalism. | “We are leaving for a month’s | tour to Baku and all important | sections on that route. We will | make known to the American work- ers all of the progress that we wit- nessed. An earlier letter written by Roy B. Hudson, a marine worker and one of the delegation, tells of the impres- | and not for the cause of Wall Street. sion of the delegation while going tion as It Pas —The national office through Berlin. The letter says of the Soviet Union | part: | dren | healthy and intensely interested in | the wall posters depicting police “Went down to the Lieb!mecht house. The German workers show- ed special interest in our Nezro delegates. The headquarters were just reopened after ihe seizure by the police. We went up to the ex- hibition of the International Red Aid and was it impressive! The | Germans sure have learned how to use mass propaganda and speak the | needs and desires of the workers. “AIL organizations haye corners. The Friends of the Soytet Union had a giant corner depicting the revolution, industrial development, Five-Year Plan and the war dan- ger in such simpte graphic terms.” “We ran into a delegation of 25 Russian children, Pioneers, who | were touring Germany. Our firsi glimpse of Russia in Berlin—chil warmly clothed, well fee, beating up workers. Bread lines in America and all the misery of the capitalist countries. Contrasted by the splendid progress portrayed by | City and Pittsburgh, rt! ‘The Nat'l Hunger March Has Begun ! e Delegates from the Far West Are Now on the Way to Washington KANSAS CITY, Mo., Noy. 19. — Word has been received here that the Houston Delegation for the National Hunger March is on the way and will arrive in Kansas City, Mo., on Nov. 22 for the United Front| Conference. The Houston delegation is traveling in the truck that will carry the en- tire delegation from the Kansas Dis- trict to Washington. Additional delegates from Omaha, Council Bluffs, Sioux City, Oklahoma Kansas will leave Kansas City on the 27th for Washington, D. C., arriving at |St. Louis and joining the other delega- tions on the 28th. The San Fran- cisco delegation will arrive in Kansas City on the 26th and will proceed to St. Louis with the Kansas delegation. A branch of the Workers Interna- tional Relief is being reorganized in Kansas City. Their first activity will be the greeting, feeding and housing ofthe National Hunger March dele- gations arriving and leaving Kansas City. The W. I..R. will participate in the in | United Front Conference which will} the wall boards in thefr own coun- try. “Maybe it was just our imagina- tion, but everyone thought that | these children were different from other human beings’ children. They are the products and the fruits of the revolution—10 and 12 years old —and after all the revolution can ovly be 2 success if it creates a situation where the children can be brought into the world and not have to face the misery confront- ing them in a capitalist world. Tirst impressions are that the chil- dren have benefitted immensely by the revolation and all the delegates are looking forward to our first sight of Soviet land.” The Friends of the Soviet Unton les arranged for meetings in Balti- more, Friday, Noy. 20, and in Wash- ington, D. C., Sunday, Nov. 22. Mar- chel Scherer, national secretary of the Friends of the Soviet Union will speak at both meetings on the de- fense of the Soviet Union. they | By HARRY GANNES 'HE Kentucky Health Department distributes stores, where you are forced to buy with the scrip, is from 10 to 20 per cent higher than other “Diet and Health” in the Harlan Coal Fields and works hard. I put in his bucket today for him to go to work a little pumpkin, and what ed his Organized Protest Will Prevent the Destiuction of 14 Years’ Upbuilding of Socialism Revol ionary Artists and Write rs Issue a Call for Immediate Organized Mass Action l Wa) rages Manchuria. Not all| the loyal service of the writers, jour- the ut and intrigues of | nalists, artists, musicians, etc. it | the feague of Nations, Secretary | would have been impossible for the BStims in, h sm and the| ruling class to have fooled the | Japar,ese rv ique can hide the | masses for long. Now they are once fact drom the working masses that | more being mobilized to prepare and | with hell and shot’ the trail of im- | Justify a new world war—the war by | perialist conquest is being blazed | which capitalism hopes to “solve” the | through Manchuria and northward | economic crisis/and to “solve” it by | to the Soviet border. The reparti- destroying the only country that tioning of China has begun. The | knows no crisis, that has done away war to crush the Chinese Soviets has | with unemployment, with human begun. The war against the Union misery and degradation, the only of Socialist Soviet Republics is about | country that is building a new free | to begin. culture, the Soviet Union. The war | Despite the sharp wins pow: agai! the Soviet Union is a war) among the various’ imperialist--pow- }-2Sainst all workers, both manual and | ers, they are effecting a temporary | intellectual, throughout the world. It| truce for a unitéd-attack upon the|is a war to maintain the rule of a Soviet Union. Japan today is the | Corrupt and criminal system that has | spearhead of the ifperialist attack. | brought about not only the greatest Behind this spearhead is the mighty | ¢conomic crisis in the history of the arm of Wall Street. | world, but also the greatest cultural The American capitalist news- | cTisis. Papers, which were originally czitical| Quick action is essential. Only the of Japan, have now changed their | Organized protests of all those who tune inconformity with Wall Street’s| °ppose any attack on the USSR. | plans. Their bought-and-paid-for | Ca turn back the war tides that are | correspondents are now cabling reams | Tushing on. The John Reed Club of of anti-Chinese and anti-Soviet prop- |New York, and the other John Reed aganda designed to whip up the |Clubs throughout the country which lynch sentiment that made possible |@re affiliated with it, the organiza- the imperialist slaughter of 1914-1918.| tions of the Revolutionary Writers The stage is set. The directors are | 4nd Artists of the United States, call the Morgans, the Rockefellers, the|¥pon all writers, artists, teachers, Mellons and their puppets in the gov- | Scientists, musicians, etc., to refuse to ernment, The intended victims are | Participate in the ideological prep- Soviet Russia, Soviet China and the| aration of this criminal war. We working masses the world over. call upon them to turn the weapons The last war destroyed 10,000,000 | Of culture against the imperialist war- and maimed millions more of the| Makers. Demand HANDS OFF THE flower of the workers, peasants and| SOVIET UNION! Demand the with- intellectuals of the world. Most of | drawal of American troops and war- the intellectuals who did not fight for | Ships from China! Defend the world “democracy” in the trenches fought |°f tomorrow against the imperialist for the imperialist rulers with their | brigands of today! — brains and creative talents. Without} John Reed Club of New York, Philedelphia John Reed Club, Chicago John Reed Ctub, John Recd Club of Detroit, John Reed Club, Boston, John Reed Club, Chayei Hill, N.C. In the Soviet Union wage in- ereares and the universal in’~oduc- tion of the seven-hour do~ Am “ge culs and the to restaurants throughout the state an attrac- tive poster on “Diet and Health.” I saw one of them in a Pineville, Ky., restaurant, and it in- formed the readers (especially those who didn’t need the information, because they were planked down in front of a substantial meal) that to maintain health they should eat plenty of green vegetables, fresh meat or chicken, drink plenty of milk, eat oranges or grape fruit, take suffi- cient rest and eat slowly. Milk and fresh vege- tables, fresh meat, chicken and oranges! When @ miner's child in Harlan stops feeding at its undernourished mother”s breast it seldom if ever sees milk again. Only to the Southern coal op- erators’ government could it occur to paste up fancy posters with tantalizing pictures of green vegetables and fresh red meat among miners who count the beans they eat and who consjder the fight for a few more ounces of greasy fat-back and corn bread for their families a victory for which to risk their lives. To work in. the Harlan coal mines simply means you starve a little more slowly than when you are out of work or on strike. No miner in Harlan or Bell County, during the past two years, has been heard to say that eitha: he or his family had enough to eat. The Kentucky coal miners are a gaunt bunch. ‘The Southern ruling class and their pen-prosti- tutes call them “picturesque,” and the thinner the miners get the more “picturesque” are they considered. It is only when the miners put up a heroic battle against starvation, a class fight against hunger, that they suddenly lose their designation as “picturesque” Americans, Ridicu- lous as it may sound, the Southern coal op- erators label these old Kentuckians, Virginians and Tennesseans who consider a resident of a Western Kentucky county a “distant ferriner,” as “Roosian reds,” “New York snake doctors,” or as “foreign bolsheviks.” Wage-cuts and worsen- ing conditions are making the term “red” popular among the miners, d It is seldom that a Kentucky miner sees money. His wages are so low, the amount that the com- pany cuts out of his wages so high, that often after days of work the miners’ wives are refused company scrip and the miners must go to work without any food in their buckets. While rep- resentatives of the coal operators listened in, never once denying the facts, nor publishing counter-statements in their press, the Harlan and Bell County miners risked death to come before the Dreiser Committee and=relate their miserable lot. The following few instances, taken from the testimony of miners, can. be duplicated by the thousands. CALEB POWERS, 42 years old, a miner for 25 years, has a wife and six children and is a native of Kentucky. He said: “They kept cutting wages until you couldn't make scarcely anything at all. If a man worked he done well to make $40 or $50 a month, I was working for the Birdie Coal Co. at Wallens Creek. Some months ago I made as low as $30 a morsh. Out of that I paid $12 or $15 rent a month. They cut you for hospital $5 a monvh, for accident and for insurance and for burial. You hardly ever draw any money. You get scri>, and part of the time they have you in debt. T can never aber need 99 ta bey elether We her oy. our Clothes, The pitess in the company stores, so our dollar amounts to about 80 cents. I was fired because I attended a meeting of the National Miners’ Union. They charged me with criminal syndicalism. I don’t know what it means. All my ancestors fought for this coun- try. Now I am arrested for working for the National Miners’ Union and for collecting food for starving children.” CHARLES SCALF started mining when he was nine years old; a native Kentuckian. He said: “I get 35 cents a ton now and I make about $30 a month; last month I made $30.30. I have to work for that or starve. I was locked up and kept in jail for 20 days for working for the Na- tional Miners’ Union.” D One miner's wife, who risked her husband's job to tell her story of starvation, related the follow- ing: “My husband is a native Kentuckian. With our two children we live in a company town. My husband, when he works, does not average a dollar a day. Where he is working now he receives only scrip. We are not living, just ex- isting. I hed one dollar in the last three days to live on, that is, my husband, myself and our two children.” There was.no self-pity in her voice. She had that fighting determination which is typical of the Kentucky miners and their plucky wives. “We lived on beans and bread,” she continued. “We never get no dinner, We eat breekfast and then one more meal, if we can get it. I will tell you what my man eats when he works. T will tell you what I put in his Pe'l to send es the 9 ta 89. a hav dey's Wok J my ivan is a good coal*digver you folks call white bacon, that is, a little fat and bread. That is what he took for to eat. For breakfast he had water gravy (that is, water and some grease) and black coffee. The children don’t get no dinner unless we have bread. “We don’t get no clothes. This dress I got on was given to me and the shoes I have got were given to me. The coat I have on was bought six years ago. And my children are naked and can’t go to school. They are running around without any shoes on their feet and no under- wear.” This is the “home life” the American Legion is pledged to protect against the Na- tional Miners’ Union, i Dreiser asked her what entertainment the family had. “My children don’t know what the movies is,” she said. “They don't know about no such things. They don’t know what a radio is. For a while we got some food from the Workers’ International Relief soup kitchen, but the company thugs closed that down. “When my husband works our condition is no better. We get our money in scrip. The dol- ler is worth about 75 cents at the company store. For two whole days while my husband was working I couldn’t even get the dollar in scrip. My husband was never arrested, but they were hot after him over at the soup kitchen when two miners were shot down. “Right now I have no furniture. All four of us sleep on a bed Sister Jenkins gave me, and it has no mattress on it, My furnituye was taken away when we were evicted after my husband was fived for jeining the National Pines’ Union. We aia’. gob no chairs, but we sit on tin cans.” sy Hunger Hearings and Other Preparations Rapidly Go Forward be held at 104 East 8th St., Kansas City, Mo., Nov. 22nd. | Big oer Be | Chicago Raid Fails to Halt Prepara- : tions, | CHICAGO, Ill, Nov. 19.—The raid | Saturday on the Communist Party office was an attempt to smash the preparations for the National Hunger March to Washington, D.C. But the police and their government soon found that the preparations were going on with even greater enthus- iasm and more and more workers are becoming involved. Tag days have been arranged for) Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 21 jand 22, All workers should come down to the station nearest to their territory and participate in this tag day. Enough finances must be raised to feed the delegates and to buy gas for the trucks. We urge all women’s organizations, women’s councils, Mo- thers’ Leagues, etc., to help in this work, On Noy. 28 the mass send-off will take place at the Coliseum, 15th and Wabash, where the hunger marchers will be elected from amongst hun- dreds of delegates representing hun- dreds of thousands of workers and unemployed workers. Car eer Springfiel@ Organizes. SPRINGFIELD, Ill., Noy. 19.—The United Front Conference calied by the Springfield Council of the Un- employed took place Sunday, and had 45 delegates, representing organiza- tions with 4,000 workers and unem- ployed workers. Eighteen organiza- tions had delegates present. Eight of them were United Mine Workers of America locals and four were lo- cals of other A. F. L. unions. This representation was secured in spite of all sorts of lies and threats by union officials. The conference elected a delegate to the National Hunger March. It set Nov. 28 and 29 as dates for tag days to raise funds for the March. ‘The conference elected a committee of ten to be a permanent executive for unemployed organization in Springfield, and to prepare a mass meeting at Reservoir Park Nov. 26, and a city hunger march on Nov. 30. ‘The conference drew up demands for immediate winter relief, no evic- tions, no cutting off of water, gas or electricity from the unemployed fam- ilies, for hot lunches and shoes and clothes for school children of unem- ployed workers, and picked a com- mittee of eight to present these de- mands to the city council Nov. 16. SIG ue Fight Evictions. YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio, Noy. 19.— The East Federal St. Branch of the Councils jof the Unemployed mob- ilized a big crowd to resist eviction of two families here Noy. 18. The con- stable brought hired workers to throw out the furniture, but when spokesmen of the Unemployed had explained the situation to these workers sent by the constable, the men refused to take part in the eviction. if A meeting was going on with the porch of a nearby house for a ros~ trum, when the police, summoned by the constable, came down. Two speakers were arrested while the crowd grew. steadily angrier, jand booed and jeered the police. Then the cops gave up and drove away, leaving the rest of the speakers alone. Immediately after this, the coun- cil heard of an attempt to evict an- other family on Lowelville Road. A strong committee rushed down there, rand found that the workers of the neighborhood, without organization, had ‘put the furniture back already. ‘The committee found the porch of the house full of workers discussing unemployment, evictions, and what to do next. YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio, Nov. 20.— At a public hearing held by the Un- employed Council of Youngstwon, at 234 E. Federal St., Friday evening, 9 representatives of workers’ familes answered questions about their living stendards at the present time. It wes shown very plainly and effectively by these workers that fam- ies of 7, 9 and 11 people must live ‘on $1.00 a week, given by the Allied Council with a basket of rotten veg- atahles “which isn’t fit for pigs to 2at” as expressed by a mother of 5 children, e Most of these families have chil- ‘ren of school aze who get to schoo! only a few days a week for the simp!- on Nov. 2nd, made its‘demand on the County Commissioners. and the County Commissionérssent a letter to Governor. White. ~ Miss Murray, stayed one day and-did not investi- gate. pets The Unemployed Council is going to hold further publi¢™hearings. ‘Two delegates were nominated to be elected at a finalIneeting to be ‘held in December; to represent Youngstown in the National Hunger March on Washington, Dec. 7th, Oe fea) Barred From School HAMTRAMCK, Mich., Noy. 20.— The Unemployed Council held an- other public hearing, here Nov. 11. Eight families, Negro and white, tes- tified to a good sized.audience. One worker with four small childten told how, without food,.lights, coal, or winter clothes, he waited hour after hour in the Welfare Office, and was finally told they would do nothing for him. While telling of the misery of his children, this witness broke down and cried on the stand. But, he pledges to organize his whole block and fight these.conditions. A woman worker showed the audience the cheap canvass shoes. her children ° had for the winter,.and stated that the city refused to give others. They can not go to school. ‘When she went to one of the city ‘fathers” he told her: “Your children have enough education. Keep them at home.” Cases of evictions, -of::-houses’ nearly paid for and lost entirely. The city is plannig to lay off .116-employees. es: Cars Eleven Hearings CLEVELAND, Ohio, Nov. 20.—Ele- ven hearings were held in es many different parts of the tity by Unem- ployed Councils between Nov. 2, and Nov. 6. The total -attendance was ever 2,000. The results was a mass of evidence of misery; "afid revival of several neighborhood councils which has been inactive, eS Refuse to Starve PATERSON, N.J., Nov. 20—An open hearing held at the all of the Un- employed Council; Priday,at the Na~ tional Textile Workers’ Union Hall, brought 300 workers-to hear the tes< testimony of witnesses. sess A Negro witness at’tixe trial stated: “As long as I have'2 Hands, my chil- dren will never starve.” The entire Yaudience rocked the biliding with ap- plause at this statement: The cases broughtforward at the trial, will be followed up and the struggle for immediate relief be car- ried on. - ce ts Find City Guilty PASSAIC, N. J., Nov. 20.—Workere jamed the hall at 25‘Dafton Ave. Fri- day night, to overflowing and many could not get in to the Open Hearing of the Unemployed Council on starv- ation conditions. Many: testified. One Kittle girl told how here mother is so sick and “swollen up” and the city ad- ministration refuses relief and medi- cal aid. ". A workers’ jury ‘of’ 12, including Negro, women, and young workers, found the city government and capt talists guilty of deliberately starving the jobless here. They. ¢alled on the unemployed to organize, and the meeting elected three delegates to the Labor Conference, Noy. 20, at 8 p. m., at 743 Main Ave, in préparation for the National Hunger, March. * eee. INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.,- Nov. 20— The public hearing. held here on Nov. 16, after hearing the evidence of mass starvation of the jobless, sent a committee of .5 to.Mayor Sullivan, to demand that the-city feed and house the delegates-to-the National Hunger March when:they go through here on Noy. 30. rs a ST. PAUL, Minn., Nov. 20.—There was a big attendance at the open hearing on starvation! conditions held at the headquarters of the Unem- ployed Council, 303 Jackson St., Nov. 12. After the hearing; practically the whole audience joined the council, chek @ Worse Than’ Slavery. CHARLOTTE, N. 6, Nov. 20.—The Unemployed Council of Charlotte held its second Hunger ‘Hearing before a packed hall, Nov. 14“Many workers, both Negro and ‘#filte, took the stand and testified ‘to"'the starvation conditions under which they lived and suffered. ie One old Negro woman, who rememe bered slave days, told. how under chattel slavery there. was no uneme yloyment and no evictions for none vayment of rent. “We were worth something to the bosses then and took care of us,” ‘she said. “But yow, I declare, it {8 worse than slayery—they don't care what hape reason that the rest of the schoc! week they are too huncry. Many of them are always sick form lack of food and the city authorities do not care to take any action toward: allevieting this condition. This public hearing wes held, after Miss Murray, the State Welfare Azent, was delegated by governor White to go to Youngstown, and in- ves'igets the conai‘ors in Youncr- town, afier the County Hunger March xens to us.” The Workers Jury found the caple ‘alist class and their government quilty> of starving. the workers te death, condemned them as enemies of the workers, and.«lemanded that the workers organize..to force the bosses and their government to give ‘mmediate relief. Another Hunger Hearing will be id for the Young Workers on Nov. 25. 5