The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 11, 1932, Page 4

Comprodaity Publishing Ca, ine, dally egeept Sunday, at 60 East y. N. ¥. Telephone ALgonquin 4-7956. Cable TWO WORLDS-SCOTTSBORO, AND STALINGRAD USA, | ks to the Daily Worker, 50 East 13th Street, New York, N, ¥. “DAIWORK® | | U.S.S.R. By CHARLES GARRIS (New York Negro bi r turned rrest they ¥ e prostitutes n. Fifty days later, 4 here of lynch terror, 1d icited by landlords, bi and press, howling for the death of the and “defended” by two drunken lawyers, of the Ku Klux Klan, who cynically helped to convict them, eight of . sentenced to death, this means the ruling class attempted semblance of a “fair trial’ to the an capitalism, finding itself in the throes to extricate itself. are more than 12,000,000 unemployed while 8,000,000 more are working onl; me. The only “relief” available to the § masses is bourgeois charity. Millions more work under hellish conditions in the f tories, shops and mines. Drastic and, sweeping wage-cuts are taking place, the working day is | being lengthened, the speed-up is being intensi- fied, and the standards of living of the masses are being worsened from day to day. The crisis has found the most acute expression in the Southern States, bringing intense suf- fering to the tofling masses especially to the Negro toilers. Millions of Negro peons, share- croppers and tenant farmers are slaving under the worst forms of capitalist forced labor; the | Negro agricultural workers work under indescri- able conditions, from sun-up to sun-set, receiving as low as 25 cents to 50 cents per day. The | Negro sharecroppers and tenant farmers, tied to the land by debts, robbed by the double book- keeping of the white landlords, are compeiled to | slave from year to year with hardly a chance to ape their bondage. They become virtual prop- of the landlords. If they attempt to escape are brought back in chains, tortured and ‘d into worse slavery. Woe to the Negro worker who even asserts his most elemental rights | as a human being, or the Negro share-cropper | | | who dares to question the white landlords honesty in his bookkeeping. A sudden and horrible death is sure to befall him, The acute agrarian ciris has resulted in the intensification of the misery of the toiling masses of the countryside, The fall in the price of | cotton by $854,000,000 in 1931 compard with 1929 has greatly accelerated the impoverishment of the masses in the Black Belt where cotton is wing revolutionary movement led st Pa and Red Trade Unions. and parasitic Negro bourgeoisie has ow its servility to the American Negro reformist organizations the National Association of Ad- of Colored People, the Urban League, , are carrying on the most vicious and ious attacks against the Communist Party e International Labor Defense (American Section of Mopr) which is leading the defense the eight Scottsboro victims. Misery, unemployed, starvation and death the copntryside. The increasing activity of Negro masses in the developing class strug- in the U. S, A. in strikes, demonstrations, , he struggle for unemployment relief, and for 1 liberation, is striking terror into the | I ss of the ruling class. The Negro and white | mases are uniting as never before and are strik- | ing back at their oppressors. To stop this grow- | ing unity, to stem this rising tide of revolutionary | struggle, the white ruling class of the United | States are resorting to the most brutal error. | Scotsboro is symbolic of this reign of terror. ee ee In the summer of 1930 in Stalingrad, U. S. S. R. | two American white workers, poisoned by the | white chauvinist propaganda of the boss class of | America, were sentenced to two years imprison- Later this | ment for striking a Negro worker. sentence was changed to deportation from the Soviet Union. In the U. S. S. R. where all forms of capitalist oppression have been eliminated with the result that there no longer exists a basis for chau- vinism, elements such as these are ruthlessly dealt with, During this. trial in all the factories throughout the Soviet Union meetings were held by the workers denouncing this act. of white chauvinism and demanding the most severe steps to be taken against those guilty of this act. These are the two worlds. On the one hand? Scottsboro in the U.S.A., the country with the highest capitalist “culture,” with its intense ex- ploitation and robbery of millions of the toiling masses and ruthless suppression of a National Minority, On the other hand, in the other world—Stalin- grad, U. S. S, R., the only country where the workers are in power, where with the continued success of the mighty five year plan and the | rapid 2onstruction of a socialist society, the well- being of the toiling masses reaches ever-higher | levels. Cooperating in this task of the construc- tion of socialism are many -National Minority within the borders of the U. S. 5. R. who live as equals, in peace and unity, exercising their right to self determination. This tremendous contrast between the two worlds exercising as it does a profound revolu- tionary influence upon the working-class and op- pressed peoples of the whole world is one of the chief reasons why, today, the imperialist powers | of the whole world ate preparing at # feverish pace a war of intervention against the Sovici Union in order to crush this vanguard of the op- pressed peoples of the whole world. The present offensive against the toiling masses and the reign of terror now raging in the U.S. A., exemplified most clearly in the recent murders of | the striking miners in Harlan, Kentucky, the the chief product. The landlords are now seiz- | ing practically the whole of the crop as their share. A wave of bitter discontent is sweeping throughout the South and particularly in the Black Belt. Individual gun battles between Negro and white share-croppers and tenant ners on the one side and the white landlords on the other, are a regular occurrence, In Ar- kansas the starving Negro and white farmers demanded and secured food at the point of the gun. In Camp Hill, Alabama, the Negro share- croppers organized in the revolutionary Share Croppers Union, compelled the landlords to ex- tend the relief which was threatened to be with- drawn, who aitempted to lynch them. The lynch justice, segregation and Jim Crow laws, which have so far acted as a weapon in the hands of the ruling class in keeping the Black and White masses divided, are being broken killing of the unemployed in Detroit, Chicago and Cleveland, and the two members of the National Executive Committee of the Y, C. L., in the tre- mendous growth of lynchings and the proposed | measures to drive the Communist Party of the U, 8, A. and all revolutionary organizations into illegality, all constitute parts of the general drive of American imperialism in its efforts to extri- cate itself from the crisis at the expense of the masses and its preparations for war in the East and aaginst the Soviet Union. Under the leadership of the I. L. D., the toiling masses both black and white are being mobilized. | in defense of the eight Negro |boys, against | lynchings, and all forms of white terror employed | by the American ruling class against the toiling | masses. But the fate of these eight Negro boys | and the struggle for liberation of the Negro masses in the United States, depends not only on ths toiling masses of America but also on the tolling mases of the whole world. Now, as never before, must the internations] solidarity of all the oppressed and toiling masses be welded in bonds of ateel! Demand the unconditional release of the eight Scotsbore working youths! Down with the brutal white terror of Am- erican imperialism Defend the Soviet Union—the inspiration of the Oppressed peoples of the whole world! Meet Mr. Mills By LABOR RESEARCH ASSOCIATION. millionaire Mellon was recently appoint- ed ambassador to Great Britain another mil- lionaire took his place as Secretary of the Trea- sury of the Wall Street governmient. His name is Ogden L. Mills. ‘Who is millionaire Mills? He has been under- secretary of the treasury since 1927. Before that he had been & member of Congress where he had Tepresented well the interests of his class, For he himself is a capitalist as was his father before him. His father was Ogden Mills and he accumu- lated so much money in the course of his long Career as an exploiter that the property efter his death was administered through what is known ‘as the “Mills Estate, Inc.”, of which Ogden L. ‘Mills is now the president. The father’s connections included some of the biggest Wall Street corporations such as the New York Central Railroad and at least two of its subsidiaries; the Southern Pacific Company, an- other of the largest six railroad systems of the country; the Niagara Falls Power Co., which. is now absorbed in the Morgan utility is involved in the St. Lawrence power fight; the Cerro de Pasco Copper Corp., a com- | pany close to Morgan which exploits the mine workers of Peru; the United States Trust Co. a | Morgan-dominated bank; and the Farmers Loan @ Trust Co., since merged with the Nationa! City ‘Bank of New York. The son, Ogden L., inheriting the loot from these companies, has also been @ capitalist in his own right. He has been a director of the Atchi- | gon, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, one of the largest and most profitable rail systems in the | country; of the Mergenthaler Linotype Co., of | which his father had been vice-president; of the tredded Wheat, now combined sy 3s | Wiergts Gay, of the Cree Carnet Say ie. New York Trust Co., a powerful bank on which He is also a director of the New York Herald Tribune, reactionary New York Republican daily. At the time when Mills, as @ Congressman was fighting any attempts even to “regulate” the power companies in their stealing operations, it was revealed, much to his chagrin, that he his family were interested to the $1,862,000 in the Niagara Falls Power Stock of which jumped up when it with @ larger company. Perhaps his most important connection, from Power Co., with subsidiary companies employing thousands of lumber and paper workers in Maine, New York, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Alabama, Wisconsin and Canada. In a strike against the International Paper Co. at Corinth, N. Y¥., in 1921, the New York State Police were called out and resorted to evictions, terrorism, arrests, and other outrages to break the strike af paper workers. According to an offi- cial report made on this strike the troops “drove their horses on the sidewalks clubbing citizens right and left, and riding down women and chil- dren.” ‘The company has also used labor spies and a blacklist system to smash unions of workers and to prevent workers from organizing. This is the background of Mills and the Millis’ fortune. This is the sort of agent Wall Street can rely on to serve it in its crisis and war drive against the Soviet Union and the Chinese So- viete. Cleveland’s Man- a-Block Prosperity Part YI. (Conclusion) YN i rele eh ye th was announced a success, Whereas there were 180,000 unemployed before the plan was put inte effect, now through their untiring efforts they have placed 222 family men at work, leay- ing & mere 149,778 still out of work. They have already started the statistics going. It's been figured out that these 222 jobs, re- present 44,000 hours, work in 2,200 homes, etc. Now that we've got this depression licked, we are already for the next one. Our tired busines: men can go back to their golf and summer re- sorts, after being momentarily distracted by the ordeal of helping solve that re-occurring prob- lem—the unemployed. No more do they have to fear Soviet Russia and her Five Year Plan for taking care of their unemployed, for housing her citizens and seeing that they get the, best of food. schooling as wellasold age pensions, social and unemployment insurance and other welfare be- nefits. No, none of that do we need for our workers, we have the “Man-A-Block” plan, that solves all such problems, and keeps our workers on the new American standard of living. I say new American standard of living be- cause the old one was too high. If you recall during the “high prosperity” year (1928) about 75,000,000 people were living on an income far below the minimum required for food, clothing and housing as required even by capitalist au- thorities. Even in 1927, 22,000,000 people here | in these great United States were living on a poverty level. Is it any wonder a new standard ‘ving had to be devised that was lower than old poverty level? But how does the worker himself fare under this Man-A-Block plan? Let us see. A man at the head of a large family—five to be supported —was given a card addressed to the director of the. “Man-A-Block” plan, located at the unem- ployment bureau at City Hall. After waiting around awhile he is given a card to fill out Pa ? At nine o'clock, after a wait of one hour and twenty minutes he shows up and says he knew at his home, putting in two hours of painting window sills—thereby knocking a painter out of two hours work at $1.37!4 an hour—and saving the owner $1.75. Next I move over to another home and haul logs (that the owner has cut down also for ex- ercise) down to the basement. Here they are more human, They invite me into.the kitchen, where I ei given dinner, and seeing the poor condition of my clothes, with a benevolent gés- ture he gives me a cast off coat and vest (God large. to the third home | THERE IS NO DECLINE HERE | f i) ( By GROPPER for children’s playgrounds — where I washed flower pots for two hours in @ green-house, where a florist is employed to cultivate flowers and grow plants for the exclusive use of “My Lord.” That for one day. Back home I hiked the distance much slower, Tuesday on the job again at 9 a.m. Cleaned up the garage and picked up the trash on the estate of another one of our leading citizens. After working about an hour, the owner having ‘eft the house, the cook called me to the door and gave me a ham sandwich and a cup of cof- fee, telling me to eat it in the garage, for fear her employer would return, in which case the cook would be fired. The cook went on to tell me that her mistress gave them all strict orders not to give any hungry men anything to eat and let all the food that is left be thrown in the garbage. From there I travelled up three blocks to an- other home where the Lady of Leisure had the work all mapped out for me. I was to wash and polish up one automobile and polish another | machine, then clean all the garage windows. (She had it figured out 90 that she would save at least $2 on the job). Wednesday, with still plenty of ambition, my. first two hours were taken up scrubbing two floors and a marble hallway, which took up every last minute of my time. The next two hours I was picking up what the dog on the estate was leaving behind beside the papers and broken twigs. I also washed the garage windows. Here the cook managed to give me a meal of corned beef and cabbage. Thursday morning my first job consisted of dusting the cellar pipes and washing the whole basement. Here the home was as beautiful as it was large. The owner told me that she did all the work herself, only hiring a maid for a day or two when she expected company. She said further that she was very strict in how her work must be done, and very economical; no electric lights burned unnecessary, so that when I was in one part of the cellar the lights must be out on the other side. She frankly stated that she ran the estate as though she had not washing and polishing two machines, cleaning the garage and sweeping the walks, Friday, the last day of my employment, 1 began by cleaning a cellar that had plenty of accumulated dirt and large enough to take up the full two hours. The last two hours of job was devoted to picking up dog excreta. Here the owner had an estate oc- cupying # full city block. sad news that he could collect only eight dol- lars of the amount (and that’s among our mil- lionaire friends), would have to walt until Monday, when I would start the same process over again and so on until my ten weeks will be up. By that time, dear comrades, everything will be running smoothly again. I talking with the hired help I found that very few are making a good living; that all the help’s wages were cut the first of the year; that there is plenty of food wasted in these homes— but not a meal for a poor man, The homes have plenty of food both domestic and imported; their garages are well stocked with automobiles; reception and parties are given with as much frequency as of yore and that the mistresses idie their time away having their chauffeur’s drive them from one millionaire friend to an- other. And so my unemployed friends, that is the way the unemployed problem kas been tackled Sy malt everywhere: Oxe year, $6; siz months, $3; two mont! of Manbattam and Bronz, New York City. GUBECRIPTION RATES: Foreign: one y. $1, excepting Boroughs » $8; wiz monthe, $4.50. a The Lock-Out of the Illinois Miners By BILL GEBERT April 1 the contract between the UWMA and the coal operators expired. The coal operat- ors closed down the mines in an attempt to force wage cuts on the miners. The officialdom of the UMWA, both factions, Walker and Lewis, in co-operation with Edmundson, and others, are not doing anything to turn this lockout into a strike. On the contrary, they welcome this situa~ tion. The union bureaucrats, under the district convention in Springfield, went on record for the six-hour day, five-day week, and for a 331-3 per cent increase of the prevailing scale, $6.10 a day to $7 a day, t ‘These demands were formulated for the pur- pose of misleading the miners, The Walker, Lewis and Edmundson factions had not the slightest desire to fight for the demands they adopted. Its aim was for fooling the miners. It “showed” that the bureaucrats are “very” revolu- tionary—they placed high demands and there- fore the miners put their hope and faith in the union bureaucrats and everything will be hotsy- totsy. ‘That this is the policy of the union bureau- crats is clearly indicated by the fact that no preparations were made to organize and develop a strike. Nor have any demands been formulated for the unemployed and part time miners, and without this, there can be no struggle waged against the coal operators. The officials of the UMWA know this very. well. At the same time at the convention they adopt- event that the Scale Committee is unable to secure the full demands adopted by the Con- vention, they are authorized to make the best agreement so initiated shall be made only as a tentative agreement and shall not be accepted until it receives the full vote of, the member- ship.” Thus it is amended to the Scale Commit- tee, composed of bureaucrats, to accept wage cuts and to railroad them through. ‘The coal operators, at a conference in Chicago, proposed as a basis for the acceptance of the new contract & “union day wage scale” as accepted by the UMWA in northern West Virginia which is $2.40 a day and 221-2 cents @ ton. The coal operators showed that the union wage scale of the UMWA innorthern West Virginia is $2.40 a day and that the same to be endorsed in the Illinois coal fields. At the present time, the Illi- nois union proposes a $4 wage scale. With the lockout they attempt to force the miners into submission, and in some of the mines, for in- stance, in Dowell, Illinois, the coal operators defi- nitely propose a wage cut to the miners. Others are carrying on propaganda for a wage cut by the coal companies, ope mines temporarily at the present scale. All these are indications that the coal oper- ators, with the support of the bureaucrats, are Preparing @ wage cut. In this situation, the main task of the Illinois coal miners is to defeat the wage cuts, and to achieve its aim, it is necessary first of all to carry on @ most merciless struggle against the union bureaucrats, Walker, Lewis Edmundson factions and to rally the miners around the slogan—Defeat the Wage Cuts, and Immediate Relief for the Unemployed Miners, and organize them into strike committees, in ; every mine, local UMWA and rank and file com- mittees to’ be set up to take up a campaign to take the leadership of the miners in the hands of the representatives of the miners themselves, organizing a movement on 2, sub-district and dis trict scale in opposition to the bureaucrats of the UMWA. This, at the present time, is the main task. To carry out this task the miners should or- ganize mass meetings, pass resolutions to defeat, the wage cuts and organize strikes, and the pres- ent lockout must be turned into a strike in every Illinois mine and defeat the attempt of the coal operators to split the miners of Illinois by agree- ments of individual companies and mines, fight- ing for a state agreement. The victory for the miners can be achieved | only under the leadership of the rank and file committees in the UMWA for the purpose of | defeating the aims of the coal operators, stated in a pamphlet, widely distributed among the min- ers, called “An Appeal to Reason”, “the only re- maining chance is to reduce the wages received in order that the company can sell to the con- sumers at cheaper prices.” Thus, the miners have no other choice than to fight against wage cuts, which means @ fight against starvation. At the present time more than 30,00 miners in Illinois are unemployed,— ‘ a week jobs here in Cleveland. The plan has been tried in twenty cities with about the same results. In Buffalo they have @ paid executive directing the work. Al Smith has recently been offered three thousand dollars to make a radio speech applauding the “Man- A-Block” plan. It seems as though a great deal of money has been used to boost the plan but hardly a cent has gone for unemployment relief. Just an after thought—the state allows the county commissioners fifty cents a day to feed stray dogs, but only forty-five cents a day to feed unemployed workers at the Wayfarers Lodge. Workers! The only way to fight this mockery of the workers; the only way to fight against this fake “Man-A-Block” plan of slow starva- tion is for all unemployed to form unemployed councils, There are twelve million men who willing to work, who want to have the means whereby they can support their starving fam. ilies. Protest against evictions. Demand unem: ployment insurance. Derfiand all war funds be Since this was written they have placed 120 For the other three dollars I | | More men to work on the man-a-block jobs; | the charities have reduced the allowance for a | family of five from five dollars a week down to | three-dollars and twenty-five cents and will not send coal to a fuelless home until an inspector has visited the house to find out if it is warm enouth without heat. Most of the cools have received a second cut in wages since the first of the year; unemployment is on the increase (just today they laid off 1,200 men at the Col- linwood Locomotive Shops of the New York Cen- tral Railroad). The A. C. reports show that they were giving some sort of relief to 22,000 families during February, and that they would have to. prepare for an increase to 45,000 families by December, which shows that they themselves have no hope for a change for the better. Last week over 1,500 homeless men slept in the Walfarer’s Lodge. Seventy-five per cent of the 1,300 taxi-cab | drivers are married men with families to sup- port and most of them are averaging eight to ten dollars @ week. 6,500 school children who were receiving free milk in the schools on ac- count of being undernourished lost that crumb of relief $er “lack of funds” j ed a resolution which states as follows: “In the | a more than 40,000 miners who have been employed till April 1 work only part time. The present wages the miners receive are starvation wages already and further reductions in wages means misery, starvation and death to the miners and their families. Under the leadership of the rank and file committees in the UMWA the policy of the boss= @s, supported by the bureaucrats, can be de= feated. The miners can achieve their victory by showing their militancy and struggle against the bosses attack and against starvation wages. _ The Children Are Fighters, Too! By HELEN KAY 0 May First thousands of workers will pot? into the streets to show their solidarity with the workers the world over, and to demonstrate their determination to defend the Soviet Union, May First, International Day of Struggle. May First, beginning of International Chil- y dren's Week, in celebration of ten years of the, International Children’s. movement (1922). All are events of rejoicing and solidarity for the workers of the world and their children, AND May First marks the first year of the NEW PIONEEP. Fer the workers’ children of the United States ‘inis added reason for rejoicing. For the past twelve uio2‘1s th eNEW | PIONEER has been comi regularly to the agreement possible, it being understood that any | rapt homes of from 15,000 to 20,000 working class families. In the past year the NEW PIONEER has increased its circulation, has spread its sphere of influence, has attracted hundreds of workers’ children to the revolutionary movement, The NEW PIONEER has shown these chil- dren what they can do for the cause of the workers, and how to do it! It has accomplished to a great degree among the children what a workers’ revolutionary chjl- dren’s magazine should, it has been an organizer, an agitator, and a propagandist. New Pioneer a Guide. Besides the great love the children have for their organ, comrades from the field, workers and organizers, have written laudatory letters, In the mining fields the magazine is known by the miners as the only magazine you “read from cover to cover” * ‘Children Suffer—Fight. The day has gone when workers keep their towers. Children are suffering. Children are starving. Children are fighting. And they have proved that they can fight! When the class battle between the miners and - the coal operators raged last summer in the Pennsylvania-Ohio region thousands of magae zines were shipped to the strike area in the Kene tucky strike, in the textile strike of Lawrence, Mass., the NEW PIONEER was tight on the picket line with the strikers’ children, In the Hunger Marches, children and adult, in the de mands for Unemployment Insurance, and imme- diate relief, the NEW PIONEER, was there with the demands of the children. In the fight against dim Crow and segregation, in the fight to save the nine Negro boys in Scottsboro, the maga zine is ALWAYS READY. Our shortcomings are many. We have no maile ing rights. Funds are scarce. Our circulation though showing a gain, is actually Umited in sphere of reach. There are millions of workers’ children whom we must reach with our message of solidarity and struggle. There are thousands . of child laborers whose ranks we hardly even touch with our magazine. CHILD LABOR ON INCREASE, On April 4th, the National Child Labor Committee in a release to the New York Times, summarized the status of child em- ployment; “It is conservative to say are 1,000,000 minors at work who school. It is a grim jest that boys should be deprived of needed education, adult bread winners are desperately in need of jobs these children hold.” : While we know that child labor as an institue tion is part of the whole capitalist system, and as such can not be wiped out until the whole system is wiped out, still the fight against child labor is carried on and these child laborers must be reached. And by whom? By the NEW PIO. NEER. Z Even the palatial porch of the White Houss conference on Child Health and Protection comes the admission that “5,630,000 school children arg physically handicapped to an extent requiring special attention.” President Hoover, in his hypocritical speech on child welfare and’ health while he denies the right to live to the parents and their children by refusing Unemployment Insurance, was forced to admit that 3,500,000 children are out of school, In the Kentucky mine fields where officials | never bother to take statistics, children of eight to fourteen go into the mines to help their dadg joad coal. Such facts are not taken into account, That is not “child labor”, they are merely helpe ing their parents load and pick the coal, Miners are paid by piece work, and every lump counis, Miners’ asthma, coal dust on the lungs among children is rampant in every Tennessee, West Virginia, Kentucky coal mine town. Flux, pellae gra, tuberculosis, hunger diseases, are wiping ous the children of the working class. All such conditions of the increasing misery of the children is exposed—where? By the Boy Scout magazine, Boy's Life, which organizes the Boy Scouts to aid Morgan his “Block Aiders”? By the American Girl? Decidedly NO! Only the NEW PIONEER, magazine of the workers’ and farmers’ children, exposes the truth, A World for the Chiidren. With @ war agaist ihe Worsers’ Fatherland any day, the only land in Uke world were the Workers children have all, waere child health day, is every day, Where a world is being built jor the WolKers cliluyen, Where there are no hosses and tuere is no exploitation, adult work- .“ ers must support and build the NEW PIONEER, | You mus tsupport the magazine which shows ,the workers’ children what they must do to help defend the Soviet Union, what they can do te expose the war mongers’ vicious plots. We want to come out thirty thousand strong, so that twice as many wovkers’ children can hear the reverberation of joy, of solidarity, of struggle, and of victory of the workers of the world. H In order to come out with thirty-two pages, and thirty thousand strong, we need your sup~. port. Send us a greeting, Renew your subseripy lion, Get more subscribers. Greetings can. range anywheie from 25 cents up ° Show your solidarity to the workers’ Support and spread their magazine, the | ‘children away from the struggle in Mttle ivory ( 1 , |