The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 29, 1932, Page 7

Swinging Into Presidential ections By WILLIAM Z. FOSTER. je presidential election campaign is on. What is the main worry of the capitalists in this election of the third year of the economic cri- sis? The answer is clear. To make use of all weapons to pfevent the workers and uniting their forces during the elec- tions in a struggle against hunger What is the task of the Party? ‘The answer was given in the call of the Central Committee for the na- tional nominating convention to be held on May 28 and 29 in Chicago. Merely to quote the opening sen- tence of the call is the guiding line. It said, “for working class unity, the election campaign, against the hun- ger and war offensive of the capi- talists.” The bosses will raise all sorts of issues to blind the workers to the measures against their living qon- ditions. Demagogy will be used by all parties to make the government, regardless as to whether we have @ republican or democratic admin- istration, appear as a people’s gov- ernment, a government above classes, 3 There is no worker today who believes in the Hoover prosperity. The Democratic Party, the party which is serving the interests of Wail St. and which plunged this country into the last world war, is at the present time a safer bet for Se poor farmers from | | re nserNee Wall St. than the Republican Party which is becoming discredited in the eyes of the world, Is it not a fact that Norman Thomas, the presidential candidate of the Socialist Party, supports the so-called Block-Aid, the unemploy- ed hunger scheme of the Tam- many administration? And who else in addition to Norman Thomas made a radio speech and supported the Block-Aid System. None other. than Morgan himself. Here we have it. Agreement between the head of Wall St. and the head of the Socialist Party. When the bosses expect serious resistance on the part of the workers to their measures of hunger and war they cali upon the Socialists to put. it over. The chief enemy in the ranks of the workers is the socialist party, in the preidential elections we must concentrate our fire on the socialist Party, What are the main slogans which the Party is putting forward, slo- gans of struggle, in the election campaign. Here they are: 1. Unemployment and social in- surance at the expense of the state and employer, 2. Against Hoover's wage-cutting Policy. 3. Emergency relief without re- strictions by the government and banks for the poor farmers; ex- Sr emption of poor farmers-from tax- es, and no forced collection of | debts, 4. Equal rights for the Negroes, and self-determination for the Black Belt. 5. Against capitalist terror; against all forms of suppression of the political rights of the workers. 6. Against imperialist war; for the defense of the Chinese people and of the Soviet Union. The above slogans can become immediate slogans of struggle, Only on this basis will we be able to un- mask the social demagogy of the capitalist politicians and the So- cialist Party. The time to our National Nomi- nating Convention is short. The bourgeois election campaign is al- ready in full swing. The speeches of the various candidates for the presidential nomination are full of demagogy, already developing the campaign to divert to safer chan- nels the growing ferment and radi- calization among the masses. Are we up to the mark in meet- ing the election challenge of the capitalists? Not by a long shot. The last plenum of our Party has in all seriousness taken up the election campaign. The entire Party must take up the key note given by the Plenum—Comrades, with full swing, into the election campaign, ce, Page Three WILLIAM Z. FOSTER Presidential candidate for the Communist Party in 1928. Several organizations have already proposed him as Com- | munist candidate for president in the coming campaign. MAY DAY IN THE UNITED STATES By THURBER LEWIS For the forty-sixth time, the work- ers of America celebrate May Day. i6 was born in the early stages of growjng American capitalism. It comes again when this capitalism, Swelled to imperialism, is ringed with age, ~.ay Day originated on May First, 1886.° In August of that year Albert Parsons sat in cell 29, Cook County Jail, Chicago. On November 11th of the following year he was to die on the gallows of that jail. Three comrades, Fisher, Spies and Engel, were to be hanged with him, pe- cause they were the spearhead of the resentment the new proletariat of America was putting into the form of a nation-wide strike for the eight hour day. It was directed against the exploitations of Jay Cooke, Commodore Vanderbilt, An- drew Carnegie, the Senior Rocken- feller, Jay Gould, the founders of the packer families and the elder Morgan. A bomb, exploded by. police spy in the ranks of the 180 officers ad- vancing on a workers’ meeting in Haymarket Square was the vehicle for a couspiracy to break the back of a nation-wide eight-hour strike by railroading to the hangman’s noose it’s most revolutionary lead- ers. From cell 29 Albert Parsons wrote “The trade and labor unions of the United States and Canada, having set apart the Ist day of May 1886, to inaugurate the eight-hour system. I did all in my power to assist the movement. I feared conflict and trouble would arise between the au- s representing the employ- ers of Jabor, and the = Wi. who only I knew that defenseless men, women and children must finally succumb to the power of black-list and lock-out and its consequent misery and hunger enforced by thecame from the militiamen’s bayonet and the police- men's club, I did not advocate the use of force. But I denoun 2d the capitalists for employing it to hold the laborers in subjection to them and declared that such treatment would of necessity drive the work- ingmen to employ the same means in self-defense.” Parsons had lived through 77. A great railroad strike swept the coun- try that year. This strike embodied the protest of a “free people” who found themselves Struggling in the way of a newly risen monster. Par- son’s recalls its repercussions in Chicago: “I strolled down Dearborn Street. to Lake, west on Lake to Fifth Avenue. It was a calm, pleas- ant summer night. Lying stretched upon the curb and lying in and about the closed doors of the mam- month buildings on these streets were armed men. Some held their muskets in hand, but most of them were rested against the buildings. In going by way of an unfrequented street, I found I had got among those whom I sought to evade—they were ‘he first regiment, Illinois Na- tional guards. They seemed to be waiting for orders; for had not the newspapers declared that the strik- ers were becoming violent and, “the Commune was about to rise,” and that I was their leader! ‘The next | day and the next the strikers gath- ered in thousands without leaders or any organized purpose. They were in each instance clubbed and fired upo:. and dispersed by the militia.” It was about this first great trial of strenght that Chas, A. Beard : timidly wrote: “Other battles came in time, but none so wide-spread in their menace to the American social order.” “Order indeed.” For the first time a general strike move- ment swept the country. For the first time, the combined forces of militia and federal troops were bro- ught into play against the working class. The eight hour strike of 86, in the launching of which May Dey was born, stemmed from the upsurge of 77. It was called by a federation of labor unions which was the pre- decessor of the American Federation of Labor and received the support of the rank file of the Knights of Labor, though sabotaged by the weak-kneed leader, Terence V. Pow- But the seeds of reformism were Present in the Second International at its very foundation. These seeds | | aS Se cpp nena, shoots of compromise in those countries already embarked on capitalists careers. They appear- ed first in England. Very shorily they sprouted in the United States. They later flourished in France and came to full bloom in the Social- democracy of Germany, They were inherent in and neces- sary to the flowering of imperialism, Given a militant working-class, uncorrupted aware of the benefits of solidarity, imperialism could not be. How could the Opium wars be fought, “the brightest jewel in the crown of the Empire” be held for English trade, the Mahdi overcome and the Boars conquered, but for the vitiating influence of reform- ism which divided the workers, | Pevolutionary wing of the Socialist | Party which later in the years was ; © cut loose from the reformist leadership of Berger and Hilquit, took the lead. Cleveland was the strongest center of the left-wing. Under the leadership of C. E. Ruth- enberg, a great May Day parade, as much @ challenge to opportunism as to a victory-bioated capitalism, marched the streets of Cleveland. ; Twenty-thousand strong, a sea of red banners, men and women work- ers of Cleveland converged on Pub- lic Syuare in two great demonstra- | tions, one from the east, one from ‘the west. The Chamber of Commerce im- | ported 900 thugs from Chicago. Ma- chine guns bristed from the May roofs over-looking the square. Hune dreds of white collared A-P.L.’s (se- mi-official fascists working with the Department of Justice under the name of the American Protective League and Legionaires swarmed the streets. Army tanks, trucks and mounted cops moved towards the lines of march. The workers were unarmed. They fought bravely, but only a few got through to the square where Ruthenberg spoke. He was later. tried and acquitted for the murder of a worker shot by a de- tective while defending the Socialist Sunday School section from attack Scores were wounded. Notable de- monstrations were held in Detroit ,and Boston. It was time for capi- ' talism to mass its forces. a crn ee The deportations delerium ensued May Day 1919 is memorable. ‘The ‘Company and the Federal Building | the following winter, Railroad Workers Rall ss O _TUUL to ) Smash New Pay-Cuts (By a Worker Correspondent) NEW YORK—The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company is continuing the speed- up, lay off and wage cutting policy of the Hoover administration. The workers are seeing now clear- er than ever the lies told them through the capitalist press. They are beginning to see that all the Washington conferences and rail- way executives end the Chicago conference of executives and labor fakers (A. F. of L, and Brother- hood officials) are only for the pur- pose of fooling the workers while the Wall Street gamblers are col- lecting the profits. The president of the New Haven, Mr. J. J. Pelley, was one of the rail. way chief executives of the Hoover Washington conference that prom- ised no WAGE CUTTING. Soon af- ter this conference we find a con- tinuous series of lay offs until only skeleton crews are left in the shops not completely closed. The Reedville shops are working two to three days per week with less than a one- fourth crew. The Maybrook shops are still worse only a skeleton crew Bes In January the New Haven cut these miserably paid part-time workers 10 per cent. Skilled me- chanics, whose regular weekly wage was $24 had $2.40 taken from their pockets so that the fat bankers ae receive their dividends and profits. Do 5 Days’ Work In 4. To put through this wage cut an. | other lay off took place and those | left on the job were put on five days per week. A still further speed up took place. The bonus was con- tinually reduced. Slave driving speeded the workers until they did the five days’ work in four days. Old Workers Fired. Was this all? No. Workers that had worked faithfully for the com- | pany for years and had been crip- .pled for life (Snyder, Frank Scheu- er) and others were fired for no other reason than that they were too old. Mechanics were put on as laborers and required to report for work every day whether there was work or not. Skilled mechanics pay- ing car fare to report for work at 49 National Railroad Industrial League, They are getting ready to kick out the rotten scab company | eiton, the M.D.A. and the company Tats that are M.D.A. officials, The workers would like to know why | they should pay $5 initiation and 50 cents per month dues to keep these rats in office when all they get in return is speed up, wage cuts and |lay offs Furthermore, these M.D.A, | Officials have stopped all sick ben- \ efits to the sick workers. These company rats must get their $15 per day from the workers whether the sick live or die of starvation. But the workers are not willing to Starve so they are joining the Na- tional Railroad Industria} League, ;the only union that will help all railway workers to protect them- seves and stop the starvation pro- gram of the Wall Street bankers, | Ohio Publishing Co. Fires 200; Cuts Pay of. Those Remained (By a Worker C it.) SPRINGFIELD, Onin thaes ios getting worse in this town. We have & big printing plant here, th Co., which lai off 200 two weeks ago. This week this plant cut the wages of the who remained,