The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 16, 1932, Page 6

‘times the Daily made this clear, but DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 16, 1982 d by the Comprodaily Publishing Co., Inc., daily exexept Sunday, at 50 E- New York City, N. ¥. Telephone ALgonquin 4-7956. Cable “DAIWORK.' and mail checks to the Daily Worker, 50 E. 13th St., New York, N. ¥. t 1 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: | Jeverswhere: One year, $6; six months, $3; two months, $1; excepting ffs ci Manhattan and Bronx, New York City. Foreign: ome year, $8; six months, $4.50. The Fight for the Rights of the Workers esistance on the part of the workers to the capitalist is spurring the ruling class to strain every nerve ights of the workers and especially to crush organizations. The terror is growing and spread~ te throughout the whole country and is taking every democracy, which is the concealed dictatorship is more and more being streaked with fascism torship of the capitalist rulers. government under capitalist democracy has xecutive committee for the ruling class, in all cases by the servile class of its servile conditions or at- ; up a non-servile attitude.” (Lenin). This iting in effect more vicious attacks against the nd its revolutionary vanguard, the Communist Party. 1 mounts. Not content with shooting down work- Kentucky, Pennsylavnia, Ohio, Chicago, Cleveland, ing up and lynching Negro workers and farmers, seen an increase in the deportation drive against ally directed attacks against working class lead- f the miners; Berkman, leader of the textile workers; employed. The police of St. Louis and Los Angeles d the unemployed, meetings of workers are banned 1e country, Doak’s agents invade the Workers’ Center to hound out of the country working class leaders a blow at the Communist Party. yeriod of months these increasing attacks have pursued one ngle the revolutionary movement, to smash the rallying cen- struggles against wage cuts, against hunger and r policy of putting through their predatory way out to illegalize militant working class activities, a special ned to the Department of Labor. This agency, headed by r railroad buregucrat, has been chosen as one of the chief » the reactionary attacks against the militant working.class cover up the real nature of these attacks. can Federation of Labor and the Socialist leaders are play- ple role in putting over the increased capitalist terror Matthew Woll has openly called upon Congress to unist Party. Norman Thomas persistently strives to talist nature of American democracy and never misses to accuse Communists of being responsible for: the. cap~ eainst the working class, thus furnishing the ruling class for further attacks. + York the official organ of the Socialist Party in its July 2 ticle openly appealed to the Tammany police to aid the crush “organized hoodlums” who created outbreaks of vio- of a systematic campaign ordéred by the Communist Bn- tting in plenum in Moscow.” ‘The socialists- are: fulfilling. sed to them by their masters as “social fascists— ground- ne establishment of the fascist dictategship. estone renegades, are crawling in the footpath of Thomas & by issuing mandacious statements to the capitalist: press that ts are breaking up” their meetings. With one voice the so- s and renegades bellow for the bosses’ police to attack Com- ugele against the capitalist offensive, the fight for the de- standards of living of the masses, the struggle against the efforts of the bourgeoisie to thrust the masses into deeper misery rty cannot be successful without taking up a stern and unyield- and the ‘The in burst of violence of the capitalists that will wear ftself-out. It is a definite, conscious, well-planned policy to cover whole historic period. It is the expression of the policy of civil war against the workers at home. it is an inseparable part of the preparations for war abroad. Hence our fight against it must not be merely in the nature of a campaign. It must be a systematic daily mass struggle against terror—a task to which the Party has not yet paid enough attention, ‘The fight for the rights of our Party to carry on @ legal existence ned with a more determined fight for all the rights of the work this regard the fourth plank of the’ Communist Party election platform must serve as the rallying signal for a broad mass struggle. This plank declares: “Against capitalist terror; against all forms of suppression of the political rights of the workers.” Around this demand there must be waged the widest possible united front fight, draw- {ng into the struggle large numbers of the rank and file workers of the ‘American Federation of Labor, the proletarian members of-the Socialist Party, and other workers within reformist organizations, the workers of the revolutionary trade unions, the organized and unorganized working masse: ‘This united front must take up the concrete struggle against. the Dies deportation bill and the outrages committed against the foreign ‘born workers. It must aim to repulse the attacks upon the Negro. masses, the lynch terror and the fight for the freedom of the Scottsboro boys. It must mass the forces of the oppressed to force open the doors and free Tom Mooney and other class war prisoners. It must.deal a blow to the injunction menace. The broadest masses of workers can be enlisted for the right for free speech, assemblage, the right to organize and strike. No matter to what extent the capitalist powers go in an effort to ~ erush us, we must fight to maintain every legal position we have while ‘at the same time preparing for any eventuality. In the matter of pre- paration to defeat attempts to destroy our Party there must be no yield- ng to legalistic illusions, The present increasing attacks are a warning signal that no time is to be lost in strengthening our organizational base so that capitalist raids cannot cripple our activity. The main source of our strength lies in our concentration more de- cisively than ever on the task of sinking the roots of our Party deep in industry. In the true Leninist sense every factory must become a fortress for our Party. These roots the bosses and their police and. thugs will not be able to destroy. The provocations and outrages against working class rights grow menacing from day to day. The masses must give their answer. rkers must defend their rights and the rights of their political party—the Communist Party. T arty must give the lead in the struggle. ‘irst, International Day Against Imperialist War, must be anization of the greatest mass demonstrations against capitalist The preparations for August First must serve to weld together r of the workers for carrying forward this struggle. Letters from Our Readers Steubenville, Ohio. Daily Worker: I want to criticize a bad action of | the National Miners Union. Here we have mostly steel workers and also miners. The Metal Workers Indus- trial League is not active, either. Many people are unemployed. We get no relief and suffer bad. Nobody does anything about it. Last week a man from the Com- munists told me that the National | Miners Union is calli Talso think that the Daily Worker | march for ‘Theaday Wicd oe sho carry a series of articles deal- very glad to hear that: somebody. was ing With the “socialist” leaders and|qoing something, and told. lots of explaining to the workers why the people fo come. Communist Party fights against the! On Tuesday I come to the court- Socialist Party. I know that many| house. 1 find some people have walked 18 miles. Nobody there from the NMU. What you think will hap- pen when you come here again? We never organize that way. —Worker, Dear Comrade: In the past the Daily Worker con- demned the Socialist Party without sufficiently stressing the fact ttha Communist Party’attacks the leaders and not the workers. I think that in the future when at- tacking the Socialist Party it should be specified that its leaders and not the workers misled by them are the ‘enemies of the working class. I stil maintain that a series of arti- eles as suggested shouli appear in A Young Worker, OUT OF THE SOUP! The “Sweat Box” The barbaric treatment of the. heroic Tampa workers by the? Southern bourbons, described in) this article, is part of the reign of terror being carried, on against! militant workers throughout the country. August First, Interna- tional Day against War. should be made a day of might protest against capitalist reaction, and for the freedom of all class war prisoners.—Editor, eee By HY KRAVIF 1 he capitalist press has been giving wide publicity to the murder of Arthur Maillifert, 22 year old New Jersey boy, by the “sweat-box” tor- ture in a Florida prison camp. The case is of particular im- portance to workers for several reasons. Several of the Tampa vic- tims of the capitalist class, them- selves went through the brutal sweat box. But their torture has not been given any publicity. Sec- ondly,.it has been shown again that convict labor-forced labor—is widely practiced here in the United States. All the hypocritical charges by the Wolls and Fishes against “forced labor” in the Soviet Union are now shown to be aimed at hid- ing these very conditions in the United States. Thirdly, the pris- oners confined to the Sunbeam Prison camp where Maillifert died, have been transferred to the Florida State Farm where eight of the 14 ‘Tampa victims are held.-- Frances Romero, Cardlina Vas- quez, Felix Morero, Felix Rodriguez, Mario Lopez, Jose Hevia and Jose Campo, are all serving one year sentences at Raiford. J. E. McDon- ald is serving ten years and Cesario Alvarez three years in the same hell-hole. ‘The case of these workers whose “crime” was that they gathered to celebrate the 14th anniversary of the Russian Revolution in Tampa last Nov. 7, is pretty well known. | At their “trial” on Feb. 1, 1932,— a travesty upon “justice” if ever there was one—the names of seven of the fourteen were not even men- tioned. ° Because a gang of police, K. K. K. and American Legionnaires attacked them as they were entering the Labor Temple in Tampa, they— the workers—were framed for “‘as- sault with intent to murder in the first degree, unlawful assemblage and rioting.” as, wU The McDonald. Case J. E. McDonald, serving 10 years at Raiford on the chain gang, has been a train dispatcher for about | 20 years and a member of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen. After a month of torture those who saw him said that he had lost 30 pounds; that his lips were blistered from fever and that his ruddy com- plexion was sallow. McDonald recsives the worst treatment. He was first placed in “solitary” (confinement). Although having recently passed through a severe operation for appendicitis, he was. forced to walk behind a mule eight miles a day. The bosses are specially bitter against McDon- ald because he is a native born worker who came to help:the to- bacco workers organize. Ajso he was on the committee which was refused a permit for the Nov. 7 demonstration. The reason for this refusal was that the marchers in- tended going through the Negro Political THE OLO HONEY Bowl. and the Tampa’ Prisoners Tampa Workers Now in Torture Camp ‘ section which would constitute a “breach of peace.” This is what the prisoners trans- ferred from the place of Maillifert’s death to Raiford will have to un- dergo. Life on the chain gang there begins at daybreak. After coffee and bread the men are driven at a fast pace on foot three miles to a place where they work in ditches at the roughest kind of work. In extreme heat they stop for half an hour to a lunch con- sisting of beans, usually filled with sand as there is no shelter at the eating place, McDonald has worked so hard at this back breaking work, that they were finally forced to put him in he group of semi-invalids. Invalids also work and McDonald was put in the steam shovel squad) At the “trial” of the Tampa . workers, his name was mentioned just opce, when a policeman testi- fied that he was not present at the Nov. 7 meeting. Despite this, however, he was framed. Another Tampa prisoner at Rai- ford is Jose Campos, a salesman who happened to walk by the Labor Temple at the time of the attack. He had never been there before and did not know what it was all about. His “crime” was protesting th> brutal’ beating of a woman who was defending her child. Visitors at Raiford, seeing that Campos was not among the others were told, at one time, by prison officials that this. was because he ‘wasn’t a red.” But later they saw Campos with the others and found that he, too signs the fraternal greetings sent out by other prisoners. The very respectable National Society of Penal Information in its book Handbook of American Pris- ons and Reformator‘es, reveals some of the litle known horrors at Rai- ford. It tells how the Florida State Farm at Raiford has now become the state prison. It tells of the vi- cious discrmination against Negroes. On the Reading of Party Literature By SAM DON ECTION 5 in the Bronx held a speakers conference on the elec- tion campaign. About 13 comrades were present. The question was asked how many of the comrades have read the Party election plat- form. Only-six comrades out of the tirteen present had read the Party election platform. Just think of it, the very comrades who are to go out to the workers and ex- plain to them what the platform stands for, have not even taken the trouble to read it! If we find comrades who are speakers, .who. wish to become speakers, have not even read the platform, how greater must be the percentage of the comrades who have not read the election platform throughout the Party generally. ‘ It has come to our attention that a number of comrades who ‘have been active in-leading positions in various strike struggles, were or- ganizers of strikes, have not as yet read the ECCI Resolution of the “Lessons of Strike Struggles,” which was also endorsed by the last 14th’, Plenum of the Central Committee. Any wonder then that we con- tinue to repeat mistakes in various strike struggles. This also explains why our self-criticism is very often superficial, without a basic anal- ysis of the source rnd causes of the mistakes, and only such self- criticism can be a real guarantee against a freqyent repetition of the very mistakes which we are con- demning so often. f Let us take another example in connection with reading of basic literature. In many. Districts, the circulation of THE COMMUNIST is absolutely negligible. Take for instance Minnesota, the circulation of THE COMMUNIST there is about 30 ccpies. This is not even enough for the top functionaries in the District. Cleveland takes about 50, at a time when there are more than 100 units in the Dis- trict. Not even a copy for each unit. Philadelphia takes only about 15 copies | of reading. | and. that the literature’ has no im- “against basic wrong manifestations We have raised here the question It is obvious that the importance of reading political lit- erature as a means for understand- ing the mass tasks of the Party is not taken. seriously, The habit for reading is-not. developed in the Party. Of course-reading, not from the angle of becoming book-wornts, but-rather from the viewpoint’ of raising the. politcal. level‘ of «the Party, for creating conviction and enthusiasm for the carrying through of thé, tasks facing the Party. . ‘What is one of the main reasons for the lack of interest: in» reading some. of the basic resolutions and political lterature? The fact that the “comrades look upon our read- ing material as frozen formulas, mediate relation’to their daily act~ iyities.. H&d ‘we carried on a sys- tematic and sustained © struggle which aré a- hindrance in the dev- elopment of mass work, had’ our self-criticism been ‘really: basic, the Party membership would feel the necessity of; acquiring a more thorough politice! understanding of the tasks and problems of their work. A political approach to our daily tasks would stimulate read- | ing. Increased reading would im-~ prove the political life pf the Party and approach to our mass work, Undoubtedly the poor coordina- tion and division of work which | exists, the many inner meetings— the lack of time—cannot be ignored as a reason for the insufficient, study and reading in the Party, However, this is not the real rea- son for the Isck of reading. Where there would be a political will, a technical way could be found. We hope that the comrades will in earnest consider this question raised in the article, We will cer- tainly be glad have the com- rades send in their opinons, what in their judgment are the réal ob- stacles for the development of the reading habit in the Party, and how to increase the circulation ef eur basic political literature, In 1928, the. book reports, there were 674 Negroes and 427 whites out of 1,101 prisoners. The Negroes are jim-crowed. Further this book states: “The growth of (prison) population, how- ever, resulted in an overcrowding as serious as found in any prison.” About the housing quarters the book says that they are “poorly ven- tilated badly overcrowded and pre- senting a serious fire hazard.” Also, “the tuberculosis hospital is one in name only.” Continuing, the book states. that the prisoners are “disciplined” by ‘solitary confinement or a diet of corn bread and water . . . up to ten days.” For escapéd prisoners, ‘leg chains: may be used for ten days.’ ” At the time of the investigation, ‘Salant and Salant of New. York had the shirt. contracts, and the Riverside Underwear Company of Jacksonville had the underwear contracts.” For this forced labor in the prison workshops, the prisoners receive-no compensation. Also in Raiford, are Frances Ro- mero, a 54 year old woman, mother of six childsen. Her daughter, Carolina Vasquez, is also at. the same prison for protesting the ar- rest of her 14 year old brother. The book quoted above, has this to !y on the women’s quarters: “The women prisoners are housed in a wooden dormitory in a sep- arate. yard. These quarters are frightfully overcrowded, and double beds are largely used.” Other Tampa Victims. Other Tampa victims serving one year sentences, are Angel Carbrero and Ismacl Cruz, the later a young worker. ‘They are in the Florida State Road Camp at Indiantown. Carbrero who is about 40, has kid- ney trouble and’ exzema on the hatid so that it is constantly bleed- ing. But he has to work anyhow. Both Cearbrero. and Cruz are helping to build a road in’ the disease-breeding swamps, of the Florida everglades with a road gang. This part of it has been dried and is now, like a desert. It is sandy and blazing hot.” There are-no tress, “Instead of using machines or horses, ° the state makes these prisoners grade the road way with Spades. Usually the prisoners wear striped uniforms, but here it is so hot that they ar? “graciously” al- lowed to don only’ pants. Guards | With. rifles stand*over, them. ‘They are not allowed to speak to each other except ‘in English because that is the only Janguague © the guards understand and they; are supposed to hear everything that it is seid. Since Carbrero and: Cruz speak only . Spanich, they.’ are doomed to silence, , : ‘The Handbook of Ameriéan Pris- ons ard Revornstericn, adds) this note on the Florida Siate road camps; “Some of them are -steel wagon cagts while others are cour- ty steckedes. The camps are crud?- “ly consiructed and in most instances overcrowded, There is only one en- trance to the building uset as living quarters. As this eppedrs inade- quate as an exit in an emergency, a serious fire hazavd is created. Florida must rank below Alabama, Virginia and North Carolina ih gen- eral road camp conditions.” Further light on Florida prison camps is given in the New York American (July 13, 1932). which publishes an interview with Michael | Jlancoy, another prisoner. ' the > Russian (Instalimnt Seven) It was an unusual and extraor- dinary thing to see Lenin in the park at Gorky, so much has the idea of him become associated with the picture of a man sitting at the end of a long table and ex- pertly and skilfully guiding the comrades in their work, with ‘the observant eyes of a pilot, smiling and beaming; or stanting on a platform with head thrown back, casting clear distinct words tothe hushed. crowd, before the eager faces of the people’ thirsting for truth. f His words always brought to my mind the cold glitter of steel shav- ings. From these words; with amaz- ing simplicity there rose the per- fectly fashioned figure of truth. His Moral Couraze. He was venturesome by nature, but his was not the-mercenary ven- turesomeness ‘of thé gambler; in Lenin ‘it was the manifestation of that exceptional mofal courage which could only belong to a man with an unshakable belief in his calling, to a man with a profound and complete perception of his connection with the world, and Perfect comprehension of his. role in the chaos of the world, the role of énemy of that chaos. With equal enthusiasm he would play chess, look through “A History of Dress”, dispute for hours with~comrades, fish, go for walks along the stony paths of Capri, scorching under the Southern sun, feast his eyes on the golden colour of the gorse, and on the swarthy faced children of the fishermen. In the evening listening to ctories about Russia and the country, he would sigh enviously and say, “I know very little of Rus. .,—Simbirsk, Kasan, Peters- burg, exilé in Siberia and that is nearly all”, , He loved fun, and when he laughed it was with his whole body, he was quite deluged in laughter and would laugh “some- times until he cried. He could give to his short, characteristic excla- mation “H’m, h’'m”, an infinite number of modifications, from bit- ing sarcasm to non-committal @bubt; and often in this “H'm, hm”, one caught the sound of the keen humour which a sharp- sighted man experiences who sees clearly through the stupidities of life, Stocky and thick set, with his | Socratic head and quick eyes—he would often adopt a strange and rather comical posture—he would throw his head back, inclining it somehow on to his shoulder, thrust. his fingers under his armpits, in his waistcoat. armholes. There was something deliciously funny in this Pose, something of .a triumphant fighting cock; and at such a -mo- ment he beamed ell-over with joy, a grown-up child in this accursed world, a splendid human being, who had to give himself as a sa¢ri- fice to hostility and hatred, so that love might be at last realized. Meat Again In 1918 ; I did not meet Lenin in Russia, or even.see him from afar, until 1918, when the final base attempt was made on his life. I cam@’ to him when he had hardly regained the’ use’ of his hand” and’ could scarcely move his neck, which had been shot through. When+I ex pressed my indignatiott, he réplied, as though dismissing something of which he was tiréd, “A brawl. No- thing to be done: Everyone acts ac- cording to his lights.” “oe ‘We met cn very friendly terms, but: of- course -thwre wes evident pity in dear Ilyitch’s sharp and penetfating glance; for-I was. one who had gone.astray.... eee ‘After several minutes he’ said ea- gerly,""He whovis not with us is against us. People: indevendent of the merch of events—that isa fan- tasy.. Even. if we grant. that such Feople did exist. ones, at’ present they do not’ and. cannot exist. They are’no\good’'to anyone. Alldown to the-Jact are: threwn ‘into:the whirt of an actuality which is more com- plicated than ever- before, You say that. I simplify ‘life.teo much? ‘That . this, simplification . threatens . cul- ture with ruin. eh?” Then the iron-. -jeql, cheracteristic “H’m, h'm”, ., His keen glanee sharpened,’ arid he» continued in a lower tone, “Well, and millions of peesants with riflgs-in (sir hends are not a threat to culiiurs according to you, eh? You think the Constitu- ent Assembly could have coped with that’ anarchy2 You who make. such a fuss about the enarchy of the’ country should be ablé to un- derstand our tasks better than others, ‘We' have got to put bofere masses something they, can grasp. The Sovists, arid Days with Lenin BY MAXIM.GORKY. Communism ate simple. A union of the workers and intelligentsia, eh? Well, that isn’t bad. Tell, the intelligentsia. Let them come ‘to us. According to you they are true servants of justice. What is the bother then? Certainly, let them come to us, We are just the people who have ‘undertaken the colossal job-of putting the people on its feet, of telling the whole world the truth about life,-it is we.who are Pointing out to the people the straight path to a human Iife, tho path which leads out of slavery, beggary, degradation,” He laughed and said. without any trace of re- sentment—"That is ‘why I received a. bullet from the. intelligentsia.” When the témperatire of the con- versation was more or Jess normal, he said with vexation and, sadness, “Do you think I quarrel with the essary to us? But you see how hos- tile their attitude >is, how badly they understand the need of the moment? And they don’t see how powerless they are without us, how incapable .of reaching the masses. They will. be to blame if we break too many heads.” About Intellectuals We almost always discussed this subject when we met; and al- though in what, é Said his atti- tude to the intelligentsia remained one of mistrust and hostility, in ac- tuality he always correctly estimat- ed the imporiance of intellectual energy in the reyolutionary pro- cess, and seemed to agree that in essence revolution was the’ burst- ing out of that energy unable to develop regularly ‘in the straight- ened conditions which it has out- grown. TI remembmer one occasion when I was with him and-three members of the Academy of: Sciences. The conversation was about the neces- sity of reorganizing one of the highest scientific institutions in Petersburg. When -he had seen them off Lenin said contentedly, “Now that’s all right. Those are clever men. With them everything is simple, everything is strictly for- mulated. You see.at, once that these people know-exactly what they want. It is simply pleasure to work with such people. I espe- cially liked —he named one of the greatest names in-Russian sci- ence, and a day, later even asked THi&, by télephone, “Ask S. whether he will come and work with us.” And when S. accepted.the proposal, he was sincerely glad, rubbing his hands together and saying joking- ly, “One after another we shall win over all the Russian and Bu- ropean Archimedes, and then the world will have to change whether it wants to or not!” Question of Specialists At the 8th Congress of the Party, N. I. Bucharin said among other things, “The nation—that is the bourgeoisie together with the pro- leteriat. To recognize the right of some contemptible bourgeoisie to self-determination is absolutely out. of place.” “No, excuse me,” retort- ed Lenin, “it certainiy4s not out of place. You appeal-to the process of the differentiation of. the »toleta= riat from the bourgeoisie, but let us wait and see how it will turn out.” Then pointing:to the example of Germany, tnd ty the slowness and difficulty with which the pro- cess of differentiatic develops, and mentioning that they would never succeed in planting Commu~ nism by means of force, he went on fo discuss the qusstién of the importarice of the intelligentsia in j-industry, in. the army, in the co- overative movement, I quote from ‘evestia”, from the debates of the Congres. - . . “This question must. be decided gt the eoming’ Conference with eompl: Mess. Ve ce build up Communism: when it has besome.. nicre> acseskible to the masses cy méans Of-bourgeois sci- etice end technique. For this; it is fettssary to take over the appara- tut from ‘the ‘bourgeoisie, to attract all the Specialists to work in this connection, Without-the bourgeois opécialists it. is inmpessible to ine case the’ forces ¢f production. They jtust be “surrounded by an atmosphere of comradely co-opera- tion,’ by workers’ -commissars, by communists; conditions. must. be created which will not allow. them to brook away, but they must be givén the possibility of working better than under capitalism, for otherwis? this, layer ich has re- ceived its é@acation from the bour- geoisi®, will nct. begin, to work. It is impossible te make a whole layer work by main force. (TO BE CONTINUED.) Tbsays: . “T was riding a freightyin Florida atthe time. I was heading for a job picking oranges along with a lot day and make us sing and dance for them.” These are the conditions under which thos> who tricd to organize the tobacco workers are subjected in Florida! Thes2 are a most im- portant group of our class war pris-. oners. Those who want to help them should send funds —even small amounts—to the Prisoners Reliet Fund of the: International Labor Defense, Room 430, 80 E, 11th St. New York City © of others. rn “We .were arrested outside of Tal- lahassee, Florida, when the train Stopped and we were.sentenced to from 90 days to eight months in the camp. Paes , “We were sent. to.the swamps to ng pens and lay rails. After 24 01 ere we prayed. for death. “If we did not we ‘ast enough we were whipped ‘The loud- er a man screamed the: more lashes he got. If we would keep quiet we would get off with 15 or 20, “After beating us all weak, Hig- einbotham (whip guards would idea that the intelligentsia is nec- _ y 4