The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 13, 1932, Page 4

oy New 1m Page Four Hahed %: Byer one { By DOUGLAS MCDONALD 2. WLLIAM N. DOAK came from his innc Win. through an adjoining chamber and then to the outer waiting room of Suite 702 in ment of Labor building with a look @ and hypocritical politeness on looked hastily around at the fifty in the Edith Berkman mn extended h hand in n Burlak, che ignored purpose of the meeting to be he release of Edith Berkman, nths without bail in a Boston with these workers as he tomed to have with such respectable aders as Wliliam Green and Mat He backed away a step, hesitant ad a luncheon engagement at ten o'clock,’ he suid, being very casual indeed, “and I just got back.” (It was then five minutes of three in the afternoon,—a five-hour “luncheon.”) “Er— just wait a few minutes.” Mr. Doak withdrew for his little hesitating conference with his advisers. The delegates waited, standing in line two by two, smiling. The little’ play had its amusing side....Some subordinate inquired, “How many are there of you?” Forty or fifty, he was told. In a few moments the doors of the inner office were opened, and the delegates filed in, and standing on the soft elegant rug that carpeted the office, ranged themselves along one side of the large glass-topped table at which Mr. Doak, a typical be-spéctacled business man, insolent but non- plussed, sat in desperate dignity. Across the table were ranged the reporters of capitalist newspapers, a few uniformed policemen, num- bers of secret service men and plain clothes detectives, and several of Mr. Doak’s legal and personal advisers. Mr. Doak leaned back and turned toward the press photographers so that they could get a nice picture of himself as the eenter of the scene. Then Ann Burlak of Providence, national representative of the National Textile Workers Union to which Edith Berkman belongs, and chairman of the deputation of fifty worker del- egates who came there to demand that Doak at once release Edith Berkman from the im- prisonment under which she has illeglally lan- guished without bail for seven months, took the floor. She first told Mr. Doak briefly the pur- pose of the visit, boldly charged him with using a “YOURE A miprodaily Publishing Co., inc, daily except Sunday, at 60 East Cable “DAIWORK.” e Daily Workee, 60 Hast 13th Street, New York, N. Y. c N. ebecks to Telephone Algonquin 4-7956. department to terrorize militant workers by trikebreaking and deportation, and demanded hat this policy cease and that Edith Berkman set free. Then she read her entire state- prepared beforehand, giving a history of he case and of the part played in-it by Mr. Doak’s Department of Labor. While Ann Burlak spoke, Mr. Doak was ob- viously nervous and ill at ease. He tried des- perately to appear nonchalant, to put up a front before the reporters. He scratched his left ear, stared at the electric light bulb over his desk, fingered some papers before him, scratched his ‘other ear, lit a cigaret with fingers. that trembled, tried ‘to appear bored, riodded with ponderous dignity when Ann read the part of the statement saying that Edith Berkman. was arrested on a warrant from his department. His stomach rose and fell with his hurried breathing. He smiled at Ann’s charge that the Department of Labor was a strikebreaking agency, hoping, no doubt, that he appeared very superior. His wife—a dowdy, simpering soft woman who sat down by him to keep up his courage,—also smiled with wthat-she obviously thought was a very superior and cynical ex- pression, though held too long and self- consciously to be convincing. Ann Burlak’s courage and generalship was dominant throughout the interview. She did not mince words. Denouncing him to his face with eloquence that rang, she left him no chance to slip in his legalistic evasions. Immediately after she spoke, Ann introduced Maude White, Negro delegate from the Trade Union Unity Council of New York, who showed Mr. Doak that Negro workers understood his policy of dividing foreign from native born workers, white from Negro, and that they were aware of the activity of his department in de- porting Negroes, too, from the country, and even from the northern districts to the south. In this jim-crow capital city, the appearance of Maude White before a cabinet officer with charges and demands was most effective. Then, in turn, Ann Burlak introduced to Mr. Doak the other seven speakers for the delegation who, for an hour and an half, set forth to Mr. Doak not only the complicity of his department in a crime against Edith Berkman and against the working class, but also the fact that ‘THOUSANDS OF WORKERS ARE AWARE of his attitude toward them, and are contemptuous of him and determined to expose the treacherous role he plays as a “labor” member of the Hoover cabinet. The third speaker, Fred Martin of New York, representing the Workers Ex-Service- Suppressed U. S. Army News By FRANK ROGERS. ef NE would think from reading the accounts in the capitalist press and the street corner propaganda on bill boards of the U. S. Armed Forces that all’s well and the workers in the army are perfectly satisfied. But is this so? Here is a bombshell of news, suppressed for a Jong time, about an event which was so serious incident but investigation followed to find out the ringleaders of the group who led the demand for the release of the arrested soldiers. Word was passed around to stick together and not expose or give up the leaders. The situation grew tense. Not only did the soldiers refuse to | give up their leaders of the “revolt” but the | whole discipline of the camp was undermined that both President Coolidge and General Persh- | ing went down on their knees before the angry armed soldiers of the U. S. Army in 1924 at Camp Riley, Kansas. This information was given by an ex-soldier, today one of the starving un- employed, to a member of the Young Commu- nist League. The story follows: It was pay day—a day of leave from long hours of hard work, drilling; and cursing from the | officers. A group of soldiers from the camp went to town for recreation; good meals, and a few drinks. They got into trouble with the town sheriff. Several were arrested and jailed. Other soldiers protested against this treatment by the sheriff and returned to the camp to report to the others. A little meeting was held and it was decided to send a note to the sheriff de- mending the immediate release of those arrested. ‘The sheriff ignored the demand. Another meeting was held and a demand was telephoned to the sheriff that if the soldiers were not released within twenty-four minutes they would blow up the whole town. Artillery was set up on a hill near the camp and aimed at the town jail. Officers were running around demanding that they submit to arrest: disarm, and leave their post on the hill. However, the soldiers refused to obey and sent a final notice to the sheriff. They forced the release of the arrested soldiers. It appeared that this would be the end of the and serious trouble appeared unavoidable. President Coolidge and General Pershing were | called. Both spoke personally to the soldiers. They demanded that the soldiers obey their su- perior officers and give up the ringleaders of the so-called “revolt”. Only the leaders would be court-martialled, said the officers. The President and Pershing told them to respect the uniform and the flag. “But the soldiers stuck together and WON OUT. They won over the President, Pershing, and the whole crew of petty officers! It was a great victory and the soldiers cele- brated. Strict censorship was clamped over the whole incident but it is a known “secret” among the soldiers of the U. S. Army. Bitter Feeling Towards Officers. When asked about the treatment of soldiers by the officers the ex-soldier told of several in- cidents showing bitter feeling between the of- ficers and privates. ‘The above report is only part of the talk with the ex-soldier. He has promised to write a series of articles in his own language for the workers’ press exposing maltreatment of soldiers in the U. S. Army. After attending several “study circles” of the Young Communist League in ‘Youngstown, Ohio, he now understands that the uniformed workers in the army and those in overalls are brothers—both should fight against the oppression of the boss-classand their govern- ment. AMENTAL to the carrying out of an elec- tion campaign based on the struggle of the workers for their daily needs is that it be cen- tered around the shops. In past election cam- paigns our agitation and election work in gen- eral has been carried out on a broad territorial plan, a method inherited from the socialist party. That is, we organized our mass meetings and demonstrations pretty much on a general city- wide or neighborhood basis. The shops were left practically out of consideration. This vague system was quite in line with our loose agitation of slogans and loose methods of work generally. But in the present campaign we must break abruptly with this incorrect approach. General meetings we must continue to have—city-wide, neighborhood, street-corner—they are very im- portant. But they cannot be the basis of our work. This must be the shops. We must take our election campaign to the factories. We must hold thousands of shop gate meetings and care- fully organized conferences of workers of given shops. Our shop nuclei must be activized in this sense. We must issue innumerable shop elec- tion leaflets and bulletins. We must build up “Vote Communist” committees on a shop basis. By the same token, we must also bring our campaign directly to the unemployed. Our speak- ers, national and local, must go directly to the breadlines, flop-houses, employment agencies, re- jlief stations, unemployment demonstrations, etc. (Wherever the unemployed congregate or live By WM. Z. FOSTER. the elections must be in evidence. The heart of this taking the campaign to the shops and to the unemployed is that in each instance our agitation deal with the specific problems of the workers involved. If a speaker Speaks at a shop gate his talk, carefully pre- pared, must deal with the conditions of the workers in that plant. More than that, he must give a very concrete plan of action. The same principles hold true with the work among the unemployed. Of course, such linking of the campaign directly to the workers in given shops or breadlines does not mean that it has to weaken in political content by dropping con- sideration of national political issues. On the contrary, the workers will the better under- stand these questions if they are hooked up with their most immediate grievances. The Question of Concentration From the foregoing it is already evident that the principles of concentration must be system- atically applied in the campaign. This is neces- sary for the general purpose of concentration in our work. The more determinedly and def- initely we apply concentration the more we will get away from the looseness and generalization which is such @ major factor in preventing our securing real mass contacts. The great mass election campaign must therefore have as one of its foundations a thorogoing concentration. ‘This concentration must be based upon and ex- tend the existing concentration work. It will be seen from the published tour dates of the proposed national candidates that a start ae Before the Conventions of Our Enemies Shop Work in the Election Campaign les LIAR, MR. Daily, US.A’ orker’ Party SUBECRIPTION RATES: By mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $3; two mont! of Manhattan and Bronx, New York City. Forsig: $1; excepting Boroughs y x montha, $4.50. — men’s League, who told Mr. Doak that his or- ganization, containing men who had fought for capitalist profits in the last war, were no longer willing to submit to such politicians as he. The fourth was George Primoff, of the International Workers Order, representing 60,000 workers, all of whom, Primoff said, demand Edith Berkman’s Telease. Then Marie LeGrand, little factory girl, re- presenting the National Textile Workers Union in Lawrence, Massachusetts, who had gone on strike there under Edith Berkman’s leadership, informed Mr. Doak that the union then built up would never let up in their demand for Berk- man’s release. “If necessary,” she said, “we'll march here to Washington, thousands of us, and demand at your very doors that the persecution of our leader be ended.” Car] Hacker spoke for the International Labor Defense, presenting clearly and convincingly the role of the De- partment of Labor in strikes, in every effort of workers at protest against increasing starvation. Jack Conroy, National Textile Workers Union delegate from Providence, R. I., read in full from the Congressional Record (issue of March 7, 1932) a letter from Mrs. Anna Tillinghast, one of Mr. Doak’s most active agents in the Bureau of Immigration, which stated explicitly that the aim of the Department of Labor in their de- portation campaign was to get rid of Communist. agitation which was now getting to be a serious Problem. Mr. Doak and his advisers were much distributed at the presentation of the letter. Conroy declared to Mr. Doak, “My ancestors fought in 1776 under a red flag, and I can tell you that I am ready in 1932 to fight under the red flag.” Saul Horwatt, secretary of the Council for the Protection of the Foreign Born and organizer ot the delegation, pointed out to Mr. Doak that he, as Secretary of Labor, was originally in- tended, supposedly, to act as a protector of labor but instead of that his whole time had been given—to what? To persecuting poor workers, dividing families, ruthlessly putting down every effort of these workers to better themselves— workers who had been working for years in our hardest industries, and had contributed their quota to American industry, had helped in fact, to build up the very buildings in which Mr. Doak’s luxurious offices were located. These workers it was whom Mr. Doak exerted all the power of his department to terrorize and deport. When Joseph North, editor of the Labor De-. fender, challenged Mr. Doak at the end of the interview with the fact of the class actuality of his department’s entire activities, pointing out that the deportation program was nothing other than part of the capitalist warfare against and oppression of the working-class, Mr. Doak, who had become increasingly angry at his exposure before the press, denied that he was opposed to the working-class. He was a union member himself, he said—in tke railroad brotherhoods, @ reactionary organization, though he did not explain this—and, he declared, “I never deport anyone just because he’s a Red, or because he has revolutionary ideas.” At this point Ann Burlak broke in again. “You said I lied when I stated that you had sold out your union,” she said, “but now I must say this, when you make the claim that you are not opposed to Reds because of their revolu- tionary ideas, you're a liar.” Mr. Doak leaped to his feet, shaking with rage. A policeman rushed across the room to seize Burlak. The delegates closed in around Burlak to protect her. An uproar threatened, But Mr. Doak’s legal advisers restrained him. He hesitated, waved the policeman back, sat down weakly. “This is our last spéaker,” Ann Burlak now said, “but before we go, we want a categorical answer from you, yes or no, will you do anything to help Edith Berkman’s release? You admit that you have the power to withdraw the warrant of her arrest, even though she is technically in the court’s hands. Will you do anything for her? Yes or No!” And she banged her fist on Mr. Doak’s polished glass-topped desk. Mr. Doak shouted back in uncontrolled rage, “Now” “That's all, Mr. Doak” said Ann, and the delegates walked out. But the workers will not accept this answer. Deportation Doak’s strike-breaking and labor- hating role is thus, by his latest action, further glaringly exposed. Throughout the country, in- creasing masses of workers and working-class organizations will demand the immediate release of Edith Berkman, now in tse sixth day of her hunger strike, While all the important industrial centers of the country are being covered by these two speak~- ers, their main. work is directed to our con- centration industries and localities. Periods of ten days or so are allotted for each in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Ptttsburgh, besides which long tours are arranged for the coal and steel districts. These tours will, in turn, be concen- trated upon the most important industries and sections of industries in the places involved. This concentration of the national speaking tours must be made to result in veritable mass cam- paigns with special leaflets and definitely involv- ing the unions, Unemployed Councils, etc., and build around the immediate issues of the work- ers involved. They must result not only in a large vote for the Party in these sections but also a big increase in its membership and a great strengthening of the non-Party mass or- ganizations and their struggles. The same principles of concentration should be applied in the individual localities. The gen- eral work of agitation must, of course, go ahead, bust the main stress should be placed upon the most: important irglustries and sections. In a given city it is not @ case of simply picking out one factory and concentrating upon that, de- veloping the specific demands and struggles, etc., at these points. Our forces are large enough so that we can concentrate upon many places. Our general work in the city, instead of being weakened by such concentration, will be strength- ened. Every city should have its election con- centration program, fitting into ang glaporallng _ anaps Scmempieaidep pepgraniy seh alta ON ¢ AT THE SIGN OF THE SCOTTS BORO U.S.A. formal approach to our work, and to the united front movements which we organize, leaders to the tendency to substitute the ‘Party } for the united front. Both, in the work of the Party as a whole and in the work of individual members, the tendency expressed itself in ef- forts to do things FOR the workers. This is of course, much easier than the task of mobil- izing the workers, leading and joining them in action, a Many examples of this can be cited. Party organizations instead of mobilizing the member- ship for participation in Unemployed Councils and committees, themselves take over the func- tions of these united front organizations. Where non-Party workers are attracted to our movement in such cases, they find themselves excluded from all participation in the actual work of plan-. ning and leading actions. Our movement thus remains an isolated sect, even though we develop some mass struggles. The initiative of splendid proletarian fighters is thus strangled. This de- spite the formal recognition of the urgent need for a broad corps of fresh leading forces with organic contact with the masses. Fear of the Masses—Lack of Faith in the Masses From this arises the conception that the mass- €s (whom we deny an opportunity to take lead- ership and initiative) are backward, As a re- sult, we become convinced that the masses can- not be trusted. We conclude that we must “‘con- trol” every phase of the work of a mass organ- ization. The logical result of this is that, since our forces are limited and it would be impossible for us to control in this narrow sense a real, broad, mass movement, we deliberately try to limit the movement to proportions consistent with our capacity to control. When the present line for the development of the unemployed movement on the committee basis was proposed, it met resistarice on pre- | cisely this ground. Some comrades stated quite frankly, “we cannot build more unemployed committees, because we haven’t enough forces to control more than those we have thus far built.” Thus, instead of orientating towards develop- ment of a movement consistent with the mass character of unemployment and the objective possibilities and needs, the tendency in many places has been to build a small, narrow move- ment, proportioned to the numerical strength of the Party. Formal “Immediate” Demands, All of us agree that the development of strug- gle depends upon our ability to raise immediate demands, such as will correspond with the most pressing, urgent needs of the workers whom we seek to draw into struggle. But, while every section of the Party has drafted numerous programs of so-called immedi- ate demands, we find that these seldom result in serious, sustained struggles. Why is this so? Is it because, as some comrades claim, the work- ers are too backward? Because they are not radicalized? Because they must become more hungry before they will be ready to fight? Of course not! ‘The reason why we have failed to rally masses for sustained struggle in support of these “im- mediate” demands, is because they are not the immediate demands of the workers. Every Party office has on tile many long forgotten programs of these “immediate” demands. The very fact that these programs and demands are so forgot- ten even by those who formulated them proves that they were never the urgent demands of the workers, J Immediate demands must be formulated in consultation with the workers. They will then be urgent and indispensable. They will not be forgotten, because the workers cannot forget something that they need immediately. Such demands will result in stubborn, persistent strug- gles until they are actually won. Formal Support to the Unemployed Council. We could continue to cite innumerable ex- amples to illustrate the devastating results of formalism in unemployed work. These could be extended to include our trade union work, our shop work, our ‘work in the struggle against war, We should like particularly to deal with the formal manner in which our slogan for “Un- employment Insurance” has been treated. In the interest of brevity we however close with one more illustration of formalism as expressed in (a get me ee SWASTIKA [§ rina 53 ae ot Paths. News Item: Resulting directly from the request by the United States Government of the German authorities to smash the strations of the German workers against the Scottsboro lynch verdict, one worker was killed, two fatally wounded by police Germiany. By BURCK CHEMNITZ, GERMANY Bacies Stas demon- in Chemnity DISCUSSION || Toward Revolutionary Mass Work (riz By H. BENJAMIN. Unions. ‘The October resolution of the C. C. which so thoroughly examined our unemployed work on the basis of the Prague resolution, definitely estab- lished the role of the revolutionary unions as the actual direct leaders of the unemployed move- ment. The writer shares responsibility for the slowness with which steps were taken to put this resolution into effect. But now, after the T.U.U.L. Board has finally adopted a plan for the application of the line of this resolution, we still find leading comrades who openly resist this line. ‘These comrades declare that any proposal to build T. U. U. L. fractions in the unemployed movement is impractical. “Our task,” say these comrades, is to build unions. We will give fra- ternal support to the unemployed movement, but are too busy with union work to take re- sponsibility for building the unemployed move- ment.” Here we have formalism, which separates the struggle of the employed and unemployed; which does not see that no revolutionary worker can abandon the unemployed; that it is impossible to speak of building revolutionary unions or waging successful economic struggles without 14TH PLENUM ‘Away with Formalism in Our Unemployed Work OF the unity of employed and unemployed. This policy, which proceeds from crass for- malism, would deprive the masses of unem- ployed, who lack experience in organization and struggle, of the leadership of the most advanced and experienced sections of the working class. it means to exempt the revolutionary workers from participation in the united front. This opportunist policy further supports itself on the argument that “the union membership is organized on the industrial basis, whereas the unemployment movement is primarily based on the neighborhood organization.” We are asked to believe that the members of the revolutionary unions and opposition groups are “too backward to be directed to participate in the building of the unemployed movement.” It is against such tendencies, concepts and practices, that the resolutions of the 14th Plenum of our C. C. directs itself. Our Communist Party, which has made some progress towards mass work and struggle, will undoubtedly hasten its progress and learn to advance more rapidly as the leader of the American working class, from the study and application of the decisions of this important session of our Central Com- mittee. > The Revolutionary Trade Unions and Unemployed Work The 14th Plenum Resolution calls upon the Party that “in the work among the unem- ployed the Party must concretize its daily work on the basis of the October’ resolution.” The October resolution on unemployment, which was not sufficiently popularized and discussed in the Party, will be reprinted in full in the pamphlet, which will contain all of the 14th Plenum Resolutions. ‘ Below we are publishing a section of the resolution on the revolutionary trade unions and unemployed work. ‘HE revolutionary trade unions’ and leagues should be encouraged and stimulated to take up more energentically the work among the un- employed. In addition to the general political and organizational guidance given by the Trade Union Unity League, the individual unions must actively participate in the building of the un- employed branches and councils, particularly concentrating on the workers in their industries, at the factories, among the part-time workers, etc., and endeavoring to utilize the unemployed and part-time workers to strengthen the present extremely weak work at the factories, the build- ing of the revolutionary unions, the preparations of strike struggles against wage cut:,.and the broadening and strengthening of the mass dem- onstrations of the unemployed workers by draw- ing in the workers from the factories and trade unions, ‘The unemployed demands, together with the exposure of the trade union bureaucrats on their sabotage of the struggle against wage cuts, must be made the basis for a very great strengthening of the work in A. F. of L. unions. In all unemployed activities and action, special consid- eration must be given to drawing the rank and file members of the A. F. of L, and through them developing the oppositional struggles against the A. F, of L. leaders. The organization work of the Party and the revolutionary unions, particularly among the unemployed remains impermissibly weak. This must be decisively overcome by utilizing such broad mass organizational forms as will conform to ithe need for 4 mass movement embracing millions of workers, who are ready to struggle for unemployment insurance and immed ate relief. The decisions of the R. I. L. U. and of the Prague Conference of un- and methods to be applied. In all places where the unemployed come together groups of unemployed members of the trade unions jand Party members, living near bread lines, employment offices, flop houses, etc., should be formed, and under the leadership of the nuclei, Party committees and trade union organs which should together constitute one fraction for this, and they should call meetings of unemployed workers, regardless of their polit- ical and trade union affiliation at the given employment agency, soup kitchens, etc. At these meetings the initiative groups should formulate the demands of the unemployed workers and prepare that committees be elected to organize and lead the struggle of the unemployed. TO GET THOROUGH .KNOWLEDGE OF CONDITIONS IN A FACTORY The main basis of the work and deyelop- | ment of the lower Party organizations is the work in the factory. Up til! now the Party has not found the fit methods for carrying on this work, The content of this work is not’ merely organ/zational detail routine, but is the whole str le oi t the capitalist offensive and against the policy of eformi: The first essestial condition for successful work in the factory is daily contract with the mass of workers in it and through knowledve of the position of the workers in the iactory and of the concrete conditions for’ struecle. The Communists must firmly grasy all the countless conflicts of ‘a minor and ma‘or character arisii : foremen, and ete., such as grievances of the y , inctuding women and youth, diser'inkn-*'on Negroes and foreign born, wish ro: wages, hours of work, working corditio: tionalization measures, infringements of work- ers’ rights, dismissals in case of arrests of workers, etc. It is the task of the Commu- nists to investigate very carefully the causes of any failures in its eff factories and to ‘enewed enotgy cn 73/8 cost: ~,