The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 12, 1932, Page 4

| | Ree _VAILY E WORKER, NEW YORE, FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 1932 Was Yorker’ Dail Central Porty US.A Published by the Comprodaily Publishing Co., Inc., 48th St., New York City, N. ¥. Telephone ALgonquin 4-7956. Address and mail checks to the Daily Worker, 50 E. 13th St., New York, daily exexept Sunday, at 50 Cable “DAIWORK. a N.Y SUBSCRIPTION RATES: | By mail everywhere: One year, $6: six months, $3; two months, $1; exeepting Borough of Manhattan and Bronx, New York City. Foreign: one year, $8; six months, $4.50. The World War Draws Nearer eparations of the bandit t the Soviet Union and e Tibetan armed 8 red by the British imperialists, with the announced objective Mongolia t Mon- ng puppets it has offered no resistance to uh Province, in north- ia, to reach the borders now has to cross Inner Mong h-organized and inspired attack is rating huge forces in Manchuria on tiers of Soviet Mon; other Japanese troops are an attack on the southern borders of Soviet Mongolia. The are also carrying out huge troop concentrations at Chincohw, a, with the object of testing out their imperialist rivals reat to invade and seize North China. These troops can be inst North China or against Jehol Province and Soviet sharp diplomatic clash between Japanese and American r the Japanese threat to seize North China—a threat American dollar control over China—indicates that the t policy is aimed not only at protecting its robber ng Japan to make war ow the Soviets. invasion of Soviet Mongolia is aimed to extend the military base viet Union. It is evident that the British-inspired Tibetan was aimed to coincide with the Japanese drive through Jehol a drive which has been somewhat held up by the tremendous onary upsurge of the Manchurian masses, Japanese are conce The id to the acute danger of a new world slaughter into which war mongers are now rapidly moving to plunge the toiling of all countries. The invasion of Soviet Mongolia is one of the teps in the plans of the imperialists for a general onslaught on the + Union, on both the Eastern (Manchurian) and the western (=d- ropean) fronts. War on the Soviet Union, war for the re-division of the world—this is the desperate move of the imperialists in seeking a capi- talist ay out” of the crisis. A capitalist “way out” at the expense of the lifeblood and misery of the world working class. Workers! Answer the war-mongers! Elect delegates and give mass support to the World Con- gress Against War which will convene in Europe August 27. Defend the Soviet Union and Soviet Mongolia! Defend the Chinese people and the Chinese Soviet Republic! Stop the production and shipment of arms to the Far East! Demand the withdrawal of all imperialist armed forces in China! Demand hands off Soviet Mongolia, hands off the Soviet Union, hands off the rising Soviet Power in China! The Fight of the Illinois Miners Against Wage Cuts HE report of the stealing of the ballots by the officialdom of the Uni- ted Mine Workers in the referendum of the Illinois miners on the question of the wage cut, shows to what length these bureaucrats are go- ing in order to carry through the will of the coal barons. The Illinois miners since April of this year have stood out against the attempt to reduce their wages by twenty-five per cent. The first referendum on the- wage cut was overwhelmingly defeated by a four to one vote. The second referendum which occurred in the last few days has met the same fate. The officialdom of John L. Lewis, Walker, who work hand in hand with the coal barons and the state government, have been driven to thése brazen methods in order to accomplish their ends. John L. Lewis has an- nounced that an “emergency” exists in Illinois because of the stand of ‘he miners and has openly exposed his wage cutting policy by calling for the opening of the mines on the basis of the wage cutting agreement. The Illinois miners have had to face a complete united front of all reactionary elements, The Republican administration, headed by Gov- ‘rnor Emmerson, cut down relief to drive the miners back to work. Re- lief has been denied by many government institutions and where the Red Cross extended relief, it was in many cases in the amount of five cents per week per family. The relief committee set up by John H. Walker, district president of the U.M.W.A. was headed by his appointee, the re- actionary Trotskyite, Gerry Allard, who did not lift a finger to raise money or food for the miners. It was in every sense a committee of tarvation. The miners have nevertheless stood firm. In Johnson City miners “greeted” John H. Walker, who came to put through the wage cut by driving him out of town. John L. Lewis could speak to the miners only with the protection of a specially deputized gang led. by the sheriff of Franklin County. The officialdom has operated not only with violence and starvation, but also has used the special weapon of demagogy so prevalent in the Tilinois coal fields. Pat Ansbury and Jack Allen, local leaders, are follow- ing in the footsteps of Ray Edmundson, who betrayed the miners by posing as a progressive. These local leaders speak the “language of the miners,” engage in radical talk, but take no measures to organize a real mass fight against the coal operators. They are moving along the same path of Edmundson who time and again betrayed the miners’ struggle and today stands exposed as a camp follower of John H. Walker. The Illinois miners who have shown such stubborness and militancy in resisting the wage cut, must organize their fight better if they are to succeed. The militant miners must take the lead to expose Ansbury and Allen and drive them to the wall, showing to the masses that with such ‘eadership it is impossible to conduct an effective fight. The miners of Illinois must answer the new attempts to drive them back to work by spreading the strike to every mine and by drawing in the unemployed workers into the struggle under the banner of the fight against the wage cut and for immediate relief and insurance to the un- employed masses, by uniting the Negro and white workers in a common fight, by engaging in mass picketing and militant demonstrations and by organizing wide spread relief work, But for this purpose it is necessary to establish rank and file com- mittees in the mines and to put at the head of the fight militant lead- ers. The rank and file miners must learn the lessons from the betrayals of Edmundson and Howatt and from the tactics of Ansbury and Allen. ‘The miners must rally to the banner of the rank and file opposition that stands on the platform of the Trade Union Unity League. The Trade Union Unity League and the National Miners Union have repeatedly warned the miners of the coming wage cut. They showed that the tactics of Walker in calling for a shorter work day and the adoption of radical planks at the Springfield convention was only intended to divert the miners from a fight against the wage cuts in order to put through the policy of the employers, By putting forward leaders who can carry through a militant fight against wage cuts, and by building a militant opposition to the Walker and Lewis leadership, the miners will be building up a powerful organi- zation capable of destroying the Walkers, and is defeating the attacks of the coal operators, A FREE LANCE FRAUD ‘The Daily Worker has received a leaflet entitled “Marx and Crises.” {ts contents are unworthy os discussion, as it is a jumble of disconnected ‘deas, not substantial enough to deserve § discussion. It is only important because the publisher of the leaflet, Katsiolis, also addresses himself as the United Communist Party of America. From the leafiet it appears that the United Communist Party and Katsiolis are one and the same. ‘The author of the leaflet is a free lance fraud and Chicago workers, among whom such leaflets have been distributed, should be warned against. him, He was in the Party and has been expelled, Victims oF BLOODY THURSDAY’ pate reste enor ry The writer of this article, Grace | Lumpkin, is a white southerner, born and raised in Georgia and a descendant of an old southern family who settled in 1670 in the heart of the south. She is the author of “To Make My Bread” which will be published in Sep- tember. This article shows the common interest of the Negro and white workers in the south in the fight against their oppressors. It reveals the hideous methods of the southern lynchers to keep the Ne- groes in oppression by the cry that the Negroes are committing rape against the southern white women. While the appeal raises the de- mand for equal rights of the Ne- groes, it unfortunately fails to bring forward the demang for the right of the Negroes for self- determination in the Black Belt. Workers, Negro and white through- out the country will welcome the appeal of Grace Lumpkin.—Editor. rae ae By GRACE LUMPKIN WAS born in Georgia. Later my family moved to South Carolina where we lived both in the coun- try and in a city of 60,000 inha- bitants, On the outskirts of the city, there are several cotton mills, one of them the “largest under one roof in the world.” I can see long rows of identical shabby frame houses, and the streams of people coming out of the mills after the six o’clock whistle. THE “SUNNY SOUTH” In the country, there are’) many share-croppers, Negroes and whites, but mostly whites, for the Negroes work out by the day. Both Ne- groes and whites are poor, and all illiterate, except the children of the whites, There are no Negro schools in that part of the coun- try. In other parts of the coun- try and state, there are Negro schools, but they are always in bad repair, and do not run for long during the year. But there are chain gangs where the adult and near-adult Negroes go to school. There they learn many things, among them how to work in a broiling sun digging a clay road, with heavy chains drag- ging at their ankles, In the South, the poor whites have one advantage over the Ne- groes. They are gsupposed to be superior. When the Civil War came and changed a system of chattel slavery into a system of wage slavery, many whites still had their little pieces of land. So they felt superior to the Negroes who had just come out of slavery and were forced to work as day laborers. But when the northern industrialists, cooperating with the southern industrialists, brought, machinery into the south, they persuaded thousands of poor white farmers, who were not making a livelihood on their little farms to desert them and go into industry where they were promised fine wages. By going into the factories and mines, the whites became day laborers like the Negroes. .. .. . Politicians Foster Race Hatrea | But the attitude of superiority of the white workers was not per- mitted to die out naturally. This attitude has been and is cunningly fostered by the democratic poli- ticians, who want the “factory” vote, and who aim, above all, to keep these two races of workers, who have so much in common, apart. The cry of “rape” used against } Negroes by the masters in the Big By BURCE Politicians and Landlords of South Foster Race Hatred to Divide Workers House is an old weapon to scare black workers, and to keep white and black workers apart. (In the North, the Republican politicians are not any more anxious than the Democrats to promote an under- standing between the workers of the two races.) For, just as it is to the interests of the upper classes of our country to keep all workers in ignorance, so it is to their in- terests to keep workers divided. For the further apart workers are kept, the more secure becomes the position of our gentlemen bosses. THE WATCH DOGS OF THE BOSSES It is true that gentlemen Negroes and whites (those. who are “lib- eral”) have a sort of gentlemen’s agreement. They say to each other, “You keep your people on your Side of the fence and we will keep our people on our side.” They are the watch-dogs of the gentlemen Letters from How Not to Conduct Open Air Meetings Bronx, N. Y. Dear Editor: One of the best ways of popular- izing the election program of the Communist Party is the open-air meeting. But if these meetings are not planned ahead of time and are not properly organized they lose all their value and sometimes even con- fuse the workers in the audience. On Thrsday night, July 21, unit 8 of section 5 of the Party held such @ meeting at 161st St. and Prospect Avenue, Bronx. The platform was too small and there was no sign on it to announce what party was holding the meeting. The speakers, who were new and inexperienced, had not prepared their speech. They spoke in general with- out touching on the miserable local conditions and one speaker repeated what the other said. Saying that a worker has no coun- try, except the Soviet Union, with- out explaining it fully is just an empty phrase. ‘The sale of literature at this meet- ing was not organized. The whole thing looked like a “fire sale.” If you make a collection in order to distri- bute the papers free, you can’t make another collection right after Jt for the Unemployed Council. Later one of the speakers asked how many will vote “red”? Very few raised their hands, not because they were against our party, but because some of them were not ‘voters and others did not want to expose them- selves so early during the meeting. The very important task of asking workers to join the Party was done in a poor way. The speaker asked those want- ing to join to raise their hands or step up to the platform, The workers thought this would expose them, A very important part of the meet- ing is the answering of questions. ‘These questions should be answered by the most developed comrade who does not have to be a speaker. All workers’ questions should be ans- wered, especially rank and file, Comrades and sympathizers should not start discussions near the meet- ing, but should take the workers on a side. All comrades and sympathiz- ers should take the initiative to keep the meeting in order and form a de- fense corp in case of an attempt to break it up. S. Sheinbaum Me 9. L. anes No, 2. ‘The criticism made ‘in the above letter is justified, not only about the meeting referred to by the comrade, but other meetings as well. More con- sidered attention to meetings apd Our Readers their political and organizational re- sults is a vital necessity for the ad- vance of our movement. There is altogether too much primitiveness in our methods. Lenin alwas com- batted such primitiveness.. He said we must avoid the methods of “war- riors who march to war like peasants from the plough, snatching up a club,” Workers attending meetings expect light on their situation, on what is to be done, politically, organization- ally. They are too often left high and dry and bitterly disappointed because our agitators engage in general ex- cursions of talk, both pointless and aimless, The content of the talk must be filled with the vital events of the class struggle, given from the Com- munist standpoint. Our agitators must be better prepared to render this service and not left too much to their own resources to get the information as they go along. But all around the meetings must be organized and the Party organiza- tions must all serve that end. And in that way the best results can be achieved. We particularly want to emphasize the criticism made in the above letter on the failure to discuss the local conditions concretely and a tendency to deal with issues of the election campaign in a general and and abstact manner. ry Editor. TO STRENGTHEN THE SUB- SCRIPTION LIST OF THE DAILY WORKER > Chicago, Ill. Daily Worker: Constructive criticism is never de- trimental, therefore I am offering this suggestion, that some way shall be devised whereby members and non-members of the Party, fellow sympathizers and readers of the Daily Worker, be gathered at a spe- cial meeting. At this meeting groups from various districts or neighbor- hoods are to be assigned to various tasks for strengthening the subscrip- tion list of the Daily Worker. More stress should be laid upon the distribution centers: the news- stands, periodical stores, etc., where lists of readers should be gathered, Let us have some action, from the corner news-stands as well as the members of the Party. ‘ R, F. M. The suggestion of this non-Party worker for gathering of non-Party workers, sympathizers and readers of the Daily Worker for a drive for subscriptions, as well as building up other means for spreading the Daily Worker, should be taken up more systematically by the Chicago and other districts. Tar Why I As A White Southern Woman | | Will Vote Communist bosses, yapping the white and black workers back into their sep- arate folds, trying to keep them | quiet and contented, so they will not disturb the slumbers of the gentlemen in the Big House. There are Republican and Democratic watch-dogs, and some who are called A. F. of L. There are So- Cialist watch-dogs, too, hanging about uncertainly between the big houses of the rich and the pens of the poor. They bark a little at the Big House, warning the mas- ters of the discontent in the pens. By MYRA PAGE Our Correspondent in the Soviet Union. Part Seven BIG TASKS AHEAD Although much has been accom- plished at the Podolsk plant, Varo- nin tells us, he and the other workers are far from satisfied. Much stil remains to bé done. For, in spite of the factory’s rapid de- velopment, it. has fallen short of the mark set by the Five Year Plan. In this respect, our Podolsk Plant is not typical of most Soviet Plants today—it is lagging behind in its rate of growth! . The pro- gram for output in 1931 was carried out only to the extent of 85 per cent, with the output of industrial machines falling particularly ‘short. of the plan. Costs of production due mainly to the low output per worker and large proportion of waste (7 per cent) are still too high. Luckily, the reasons for these shortcomings are well understood by the workers’ management, as well as how they can be overcome. Besides shortages of metal and other raw materials, the struggle to. get along without imports, of needed machinery, and measuring instruments, and the problems of converting thousands of former peasants only recently come from from the village into skilled me- chanics, there are certain ineffi- cient and wrong methods in the plant’s inner organization which are at fault which are in process of elimination, and quality, which is equal to Singer's, is being further improved. sai Reet CAN SOVIET WORKERS MASTER TECHNIQUE? 'E PASS through the old Podolsk foundry, gloomy as a cave and brooding with fumes. Men, strip- ped to the waist, down whose darkeneq badies sweat courses in zig-zag patierns are feeding growl- ing, ravenous furnaces. Crimson lava floods into waiting vans, sput- tering its steel fire on the earthern In the south, we are learning that these watch-dogs are not friends of the workers. We are waking up to the fact that the Negro steel-worker in Alabama, the Negro and white share-croppers and small farmers, the white fac- tory workers in North Carolina have the same interests, the same masters. “Through misery and un- employment and wage cuts ,we are Jearning, gradually, that we can rely only upon ourselves to shorten our hours of work, raise our wages, protect, ourselves from unemploy- ment, and make a living from our small farms. Our gentlemen bosses are cer- tainly not interested in doing these things for us. And their watch- dogs, who are fed from their hands, are not interested in us. We must rely upon ourselves. THE COMMUNIST PARTY MUST LEAD But who is to lead us? As a white southerner, I have learned from my experience in the south that the Communist Party is the only party that is wholly and com- pletely for the workers. It is the only party that gives us any hope. that stands completely for equal rights for Negroes and whites. And this last is not an idealistic dream. The Communist Party knows that only through equal freedom of Ne- gro and white workers can any sort of freedom for all workers come to pass. The white worker needs the Negro just as the ek) needs the white. ‘The Communist Party tells us to become class-conscious, This is a fine word, and has a fine mean- ing. To become conscious of my class. To know where I belong, not with those who have brought this world to its present state of chaos and misery, but with those who are working for a world in which each will have a share of the good things of life. — When I vote Communist in the next elections, for Foster and Ford, I will. be doing a thing that is The Singer /EFORE the revolution, the work- ers in the Singer plant in Po- dolsk were subjected to merciless exploitation, starvation wages, long hours, speed-up, and periodic lay- offs. Dixon, manager of the Po- dolsk factory in the days before the revolution—and manager today of the Singer plant in Elizabeth— threw a cordon of spies around the Podolsk plant. Workers who com- plained against the short pay and the long-hours, workers who were discovered to be members of the workers revolutionary party, were made short shrift of by Dixon. This is the Singer factory in Po- dolsk of pre-revolutionary days in Russia, The Singer factory of to- day in Elizabeth presents the same sensible and natural. For who does not want, both for himself and others, a share of the good things. of life, and time in which to en- joy them? The gentlemen bosses fight for themselves, each one grabs for his own big pile of riches. The work- ers, Negro and white, must fight for each other and for a better world, And what is why I shall vote on November 8, under the hammer and sickle, for William Z. Foster and James W. Ford, the Communist candidates. “The struggle against militarism must not be postponed until the moment when war breaks out. Then it will be too late. The struggle against war must be car- tied on now, daily, hourly.” LENIN. picture, THREE WAGE ; CUTS During the present economic crisis, the Singer employees have had their wages cut three times, All. Singer employees who have worked for the company more than 20 years are being discharged because they are no longer “effi- cient”, Last year the Singer plant employed 6,700 workers, today it, employs 2,300. In 1930, while the living standard of the Singer work- ers was at a starvation level, the Singer company made a clear prof- it of $19,905,262. A STARVATION > LEVEL While the average profit of the Singer company on every machine that it sells is 737 per cent, the wages of the workers are as low as $7 and $10 a week .These work- ers in the Singer plant in Eliza- RED PODOLSK The Former Singer Sewing Machine Plant Near Moscow floor. ing metal, where machinery could serve much Humans tug away the boile spending their labor better. Nearby are the moulders, bent almost double over the sand and crude moulds. Everywhere, materials and men used extravagantly,.for want of machines. Old and New. This is the foundry which the Podolsk workers inherited from the American capitalist, Singer, In a few weeks’ time, it will be closed forever. After thorough recondi- tioning, it will be converted into an up-to-date tool department. Feodor Trefanov, who has cast metal here for a quarter of a cen- tury, leads us to the new foundry, “Our Palace of Labor”, he calls it. Most of the smelting and casting has already been transferred here, With an output capacity of 34,- 000 tons a day, or twice that of the old plant, and a working force of 1,500, this cement and steel struc- ture, in layout, and equipment, has only four equals in the world. “It cost us two and a half mil- lion dollars”, Feodor says, “and is the 519th plant to be opened by us Soviet workers in’this, the third, decisive year of our Five-Year Plan. For me, in my old age, it is a great.thing to see.” We pass along asphalt floors from one de- partment to another, through rooms that stretch far and high. Wide aisles run between rows of animated machines — glistening, powerful. Overhead are the cranes, manned by youth and girls in red kerchiefs, Through the sky-light ceilings so much light streams in that we wonder if the sun could have broken through the gray-cast sky of Northern Russia’s winter. Every conceivable deviee which science has so far invented ds at its post, doing with rapid ease the work at which men once strained and swore. Conveyors, ‘under ground, overhead, and on a level with the human hands manning them, click forward, collecting and depositing materials with precise Elizabeth,N.J., U.S.A. A Contrast of the Factory Under Capitalism and Under Socialism efficiency. (7o Be Continued) The Red Triangle of Podolsk Machine Factory, U.S.S.R. Left to right: Director Voronin, Trade Union Secretary Sergieff and Gommunist Party Secretary Kleminson. They are studying a new type of industrial sewing machine produced in the plar’, “Number Thirty-one.” Plant in beth are subsisting on a starvation wage level. When they do work, their labor is back-breaking, and when they are laid off—about half the time—they starve, The thou- sands of workers who have been discharged and who have found no other jobs, are not covered by un- employment or social insurance, When they are sick, they either live or die according to the rules? of the jimgle—if they are lucky and unuswally strong, they live; expert medical care except in un- usual cases is a luxury that only the Singer stockholders, Mr. Dixon and other exploiters can enjoy, Vacations after the killing work in the Singer plant are not to be thought of cither, These, too, are rare luxuries for workers in a capi- talist country. CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM Tt will be seen that the descrip- tions of the Podoisk plant in the pre-revolutionary days in Russia end of the Elizabeth plant in 1932- United States, are altogether inter _ changeable. Misery, starvation, un- employment, speed-up and the life of a wage-slave are the lot of workers in both plants. But in the _ Podolsk plant in Russia, there oc- curred a tremendous upheaval in 1917. lives of workers in the Podolsk The difference between the | plant in present-day Russia and — the lives of workers in Elizabeth today is a difference between night and day, between happiness and health and between misery and starvation, between workers’ rule and bosses’ rule—in a word, bee |