The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 20, 1932, Page 4

" DAILY WORKER, NEW, YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 1932 yu, Worker ‘the-C Ra Porty USA xept Sunday, at 50 E. . Cable “DAIWORK.” + TION BATES: f six months, $8; two months, $1; excepting ‘New York City. Foreign: one year, $8; + Years After ched August 22, 1927, to protest the Monday to observe the fifth an- h again and hurl back upon the ed by their electrocution of these two y Publishing Co., ir, because as they said, “we were nd oppression of man by man.” the system which answers with nding bread. In the fiendish Vanzetti, American democracy revealed capitalist democracy f ; sg us heights. A picture of this awit es published by the International nternational Labor Defense is the American vorld killed, tortured or sentenced to long nd revolutionary activity: 1925: 120,055; 1929: s jumped from 5,000 in 1930, to f 1932 show 6,000 arrests already of gling against the Hoover Hunger govern- azetti case has arisen in the South in the boro boys, also.framed-up:for a crime they vere TevO- had black ement of unity between white and Negro der to try to’cow the nation of 12,000,000 mers kept enslaved in this country. \— his execution said, “What I wish more in this our case and our fate may be understood in s A TREMENDOUS LESSON.” The working ever is learning the lesson. The fact that vented the electrocution of the Scottsboro boys boro boys goes before the U. S. Supreme: Court ndous lesson” of Sacco and Vanzetti has been e working-class must recognize that the Supreme tribunal of capitalist justice—is at the beck of ht of the International Labor Defense in the nd can only become effective if greater millions demonstration—in mass protest—on behalf of the United States must realize this. No faith in the Supreme Court. Remember Sacco and Vanzetti! role of the liberals who urged the workers to have ice. Remember the role of the socialists who trail liberals and sabotaged the mass fight for the free- ‘Vanzetti. Remember the role of the liberal judges refused to stay the hands of the executioners and ow his true class color in his refusal to hold up the Berkman to murderous Polish fascism. Sacco and Vanzetti must be commemorated by widen- born workers. The fight against Doak and deportations the defense of the elementary rights of the labor move- sstrations and parades that will be held on Au- Saar rl as of Freeda for the Scottsboro boys! and Berkman! Down with the deportation of ! Open the doors to all class war prisoners! Au- to strengthen the Communist election campaign, one g planks is “Against prpent terror; against all n of ti olitical rights of workers.” st the pens of the capitalist class is the fight against ‘by its overthrow will the workers be liberated from the nd terror. . Y. Furriers Shake Off Five Years of Oppression Workers Gain Numerous Victories Under Rank nd File Militant Leadership first on the front trenches of the Needle Workers to gain the 40-hour, 5-day week, to organize a real mili- tant union and raise the standard of living of the fur workers. They had won the victorious strike which had an inspiring effect on | the trade union movement. The N the furriers at the time of the | strike, mobilized the Socialist Par- ty, labor fakers of the A. F. of L., the underworld and the police, and broke the militant organization of the fur workers. 5 YEARS OF TERROR For five successive years, the of terror. wi carried on e fur ‘workers. A yellow Passport system was established in the trade, where the boss demand- ed/from the worker a book from the company uhion which was con. trolled by the bosses. The combination of pdlice, un- de Id, Socialist labor fakers and bosses terrorized and starved the workers out. Nothing remained of the victories of the 40-hour week and other gains. ‘The work was given out to the contractors and sub-contractors where workers were exploited at $15 to $20 for 2 70-hour week. A cutter who used to earn $90 to $100 2 wéek in 1926 worked for $35 and $40.in 1932, Women workers, fin- ishers, who used to eatn $60 and $702 week in 1926, for 40 hours’ work, receive only $20 to $25 for 50 hours’ work in 1932. The terrific speed-up has driven thousands of © gi 4 workers from the trade. The au- t thorities of the company untion, in- stead of taking up complaints of the workers, had @ system of re- Porting to the employers any com- Plaint coming from a shop, with t reets ops are silenced rs of the name of the worker complain- ing. RANK AND FILE LEAD After five years of militant struggle and heroic effort, the fur workers have actually succeeded in taking the situation into their own hands and have formed a rank and file committee in the shops and d us to get union. by the bosses. ed the bosses | buildings, and are now marching it in 1932 we | toward victory for the 'gonditions the job and which they fought for and won in 1926. But the fur workers know that in order to hold on to their an agreement on t cut the dog- victory, they must have an organ- ne cutters. | ization of their own, and must rid sweet life he | themselves of the treacherous com- r answered. “That pany union outfit, so the workers orked a day in his are building now the Needle Trade Wotkers Industrial Union which | ds leading the strike to victory. 4 ‘ur workers were the } gyre ger bosses, while they could not divide . By BURCK The “Tremendous Lesson” of Sacco and Vanzetti By JOSEPH NORTH “What I wish more than all in this last hour of agony is that our case and our fate may be under- stood in their real being and serve as a tremendous lesson, so that our suffering and death will not have been in vain.”—Vanzetti on the day of his execution, August 22, 1927. OT having time or space here to recount how it was, and where, | that in 1928 I chanced to encounter the executioner of Sacco and Van- zetti, that fearful representative of capitalistic justice, Robert Elliott, whose fee is $250 for each man he electrocutes, I will repeat only his statement in reference to the ex- ecution of Sacco and Vanzetti. “That case,” he said (he referred to his electrocutions as “cases,” like an ydignified doctor or lawyer) “was bad on my nerves. Those fellows made a speech from the chair.” He shrugged his shoulders. “It's hard to pull the switch when they talk like that. They shouldn’t allow them to talk like that when they go to the chair.” “They shouldn’t allow them to talk like that!” Judge Webster ‘Thayer and Governor Fuller would have been profoundly happy if the | fish .peddler and the shoemaker hadn’t spoken from the chair. American capitalism foung it hard to silence these men, whose words circled the globe; who spoke to hundreds of millions of workingmen from that death chamber up near Boston. BUT THEY SPOKE! ‘The day Sacco and Vanzetti were burned, every great city in the world teemed” with demonstrations. Machine guns were swept aside like toothpicks when the millions marchéd in London, Ber! Tokio, Buenos Airés. But the workers were electrocuted. The mass pro- test. was not yet strong enough had been divided over the long periog of seven years by the tactics of the: Socialists, liberals, the an- atchists, the bt s in capitalist “justice.” J But those two workers spoke. T Id heard their message — fate may be understood and rve as.a tremendous lesson.” ‘That the lessén is remembered we will see by the mass outpourings on Mohday, August 22.°° How much of the lesson has ben learned we can judge by the fact that the working class of America and the entire world have three times prevented the electrocution of the niné Negro Scottsboro boys in Alabama. Has capitalist justice been unmasked? Has . Vangetti’s . “suffering and death”: been in vain? The Scotts- boro boys are still alive chiefly he- cause back in 1927 Sacco and Van- zetti went to the electric chair— and spoke to the workers of the world from the forum capitalism has pfepared for workingmen. On that dey. many workers learned what to expect of boss justice. “REMEMBER ALWAYS THESE THINGS” Five. years have -pessed since Vanzetti: wrote,.“Remember always these things: we aré’ not criminals; they convicted us on a frame-up; they denied us a n2w. trial; and if we will be executed after seven years, three months and seventesn days of unspeakable tortures and wrongs, it is for what I have already told you, because we were for the poor and against exploitation and oppression of man by man. Decades of events in more nor- mal times were crowded into the teeming years of 1927-1932. The capitalist’ crisis throughout the world; 15,000,000 jobless in Amer- ica. heing converted into walking skeletons through Hoover's Hun- ger government. The munitions factories. alone are not suffering depression. Ships leave the ports of the United States and other industrig] countries’ almost daily pouring instruments of death into Japan, . for the: care- | letters to the Daily Worker, | “Because We Were For the Poor and Against Exploitation and Oppression.” August 22 Meets*to Fight Growing Terror, Demand Class War Prisoners’ Release . fully planned attack on the Soviet Union. Parallel with war preparations runs the terror against the world working class. The nearer to the explosion of war, the greater the terror in order to try to halt the anti-war movement. of the masses. The International Red Aid (of which the I. L. D. is the American section) has published the follow-- ing statistics, which every working- man must read and understand: Workers throughout the world, arrested, tortured, killed, or sen- tenced to long prison terms— \ + 120,055 91,548 sl... se In “demiocratic” U. S.A. alone | the graph of terror has risen “as follows— 5,000 000 The first six months of 1932 have netted capitalist justice 6,000 arrests of workers fighting for life’s neces- Why We Fight Against the S..P. and Arguments Used (Letters from Our Readers) Brooklyn, N. Y. Daily Worker: That the Socialists are liberals and reformists, that the fault of the Socialists is unthorough- ness and their role negligible, this thas been the content of a féw recent There- fore, some workers proceed to tell us, we, the Communists, must stand forth as more courageous, more per- Sistent leaders of working-class struggles and not spend our wind criticizing them (the Socialists). But is the Socialist Party so negli- gible? Is it merely a group of indi- viduals whose intentions we need only disagree with or ignore? Is it not a political party, with a set of tactics whose results have meaning in terms of class relationships? Isn't Socialist action that of one class against another; doesn’t its support come from various classes? ‘The Socialist Party is the party of the petit-bourgeoisie and some highly pajl skilled sections of the working class. This class sees “injustice” in the present order of things; it feels insecure in a society where dog cats dog. But ‘it is: just as.much afraid of revolutionary ac- tion as it-is of highly concentrated capital. This class speaks of capi- talist “planned economy,”. where lgbor and ‘finance capital will com- Promise their differences and make its position, 1. e. the position of the petit-bourgeoisie, permanently se- cure.’ They may be best character- ized by the phrase Marx used about the Germa nmiddle class of his own period—“grumbling at those above and trembling in the face of those below.” They forget only two little things—capitelists co not compro- mise their profits and workers will not deny themselves the privilege of revolutionary action towards emanci- pation. And when this revolutionary action begins to take a mass charac- ter, when bourgeois government be- gins to shake, the Socialists become anything but individuals whose opin- ions we may ignore. On the one hand they «maintain their demagogy and their revolutionary phraseology. On the other they combine in polit- ical action against the revolutionary movement. They become a reaction- aty force with the frankly capitalist parties. They turn into a two-faced monster, drawing. workers’ support for action against the working class movement. This is not conjecture. The work of the 2nd International the world over proves their historic reactionary Tole. In the few months that Social- ists held power in Russia, they Proved to be the most dangerous force against the Workers and Peas- ants Revolution of 1917. In Ger- many they compromised with Hin- denburg and will soon compromise with Hitler to break the tevolution- ary movement. Let us also not for- get Ramsay Macdonald, late of the 2nd International and now of the National Coalition Cabinet. Our “own” Norman Thomas supports the Block-Aid at a time when’ rent strikes in the Bronx and the Unem- ployed Councils show revolutionary spirit on the part of the unemployed. | Was be asleep when Police Commis- sioner Mulrooney told Block-Aiders to beware of people who speak of Unemployment Insurance and Un- employed councils?” Cant he see the Block-Aid as a’ weapon in the hands of the reigning political party of the city? Too many of our comrades jhaintain that this action was merely demagogy, a bid for support and nothing, more. But Norman Thomas is not so dumb! ‘It was a very eon- seious political manéuver against’ the Unemplpoyed Councils—A. Shapley. ree. * The above letter is a good answer + to some of. the questions raised gin recent letters to the Daily Worker. writer shows clearly that he understands full well the role’ cf the Socialist Party and the neces- sity of fighting it. Only on a few points does the letter show some _ unclarity, For in stance, the So- cialist Party is not merely a “po- litical party witha set of tactics whose results have meaning in terms of class relationships.” It is more than the tactics of the S P. alone; their basic policy and theo- ry is anti-working class. Lenin’s Analysis, In discussing the surrender of the Sccialist Parties to their bour- secisie during the war, Lenin ex-, plained that this was the flower of pre-war opportunism. He showed that it was not merely a question of a mistaken policy but because “There has ripened a social layer ef parliamentarians, journalists, labor movement officials, privileged office holders: and some small groups of the proletariat; this layer Dourgedise and. has, boon appre: appre- ciated and ‘assimilated’ by it. It is not possible either to turn backwards or to stop the sities. The statistics of lynchings 43; 1931, 79. These are conserva- tive figures from bourgeois sources- The actual numbers are far greater if one judges by the fact that in the winter months last year in Birmingham we have authentic in- down and Killed. How does the world working class reply to this fearful splurge of murder, of imprisonment? Particularly fitting is it to an- nounce on the anniversary of Sacco and Vanzetti’s martyrdom, that the International Red Aid has 68 sec- world; with a total of 9,530,935 in- dividual members. The bulk of the membership is of course in the Soviet Union, where there are 8,232,669 workers and farmers who struggle on behalf of the class war prisoners of the world. Collectively affiliated with the 1,278,274 in all other countries are 3,295 organiza- tions, with a combined membership of 2,019,240 Of the 68 sections, 26 are legal; 36 illegal and. 6 semi-legal. In China, where death is the penalty workers and poor farmers are ac- tive members. Has the lesson of Sacco and Vanzetti been learned? In the U. S. A. today we have a case even more “flagrant than Saco and Vanzetti: the Scottsboro case. Sacco and Vanzetti, who were killed for a crime they never committed, were both revolutionary fighters. | To capitalism that was crime | enough. But that charge cannot | boys. Their only crime is that of having a black skin, For that and that alone they have been con- demneq to dis. The I. L. D. in this country, with @ membership of 9,500, is now pre- paring for its Fifth Annual Con- vention in Cleveland, October 8 and 9. The two years passed since the fourth convention have szen bitter struggles and great victovias: the fight to free Mooney and Bill- ings; Scottsboro; “Orphan” Jones, Imperial Valley, the Paterson five; the deportations scheduled to fascist, diands which were halted by the Teb.D: But as the terror grows (Tampa, Ohio, Kentucky “and Tlinojs. coal fields, etc.) the defense organiza- tion must strengthen itself for the greater battles ahead. zt “The tremenduos lesson” of Sacco and Vanzetti—have we each of us learned it thoroughly? The’ workers of the U.S. A. must on August 22 mark the ‘memory of these two class-war victims “by ‘dsmonstrat- ing; by rapidly building their de- give us this picture: 1929, 33; 1930, | formation that 75 Negroes bumming | rides on freight trains were shot tions in the lands throughout the | for belonging to the I. R. A., 100,000 | | be brought against the Scottsboro | A STORY OF WORKERS’ CHILDREN A HOMESICK (Last Installment) And then a strange thing hap- pened. Little Pete’s face twisted like a baby’s, and great tears rolled | down his pale cheeks. He Was cry- ing. He suddenly began to talk, while sobs, shook his tense, meagre | _ There was a great yell from the body. Pioners when he finished; they “I wanna go home, Comrade | stood up, and shouted the Pioneer Laura! I never wanted to come to | Tesponse, “Always Ready!” They camp! All the Paterson kids are in | Shouted it again and again, joy- the strike, and they need me! I | fully militantly; and all the moon- wanna go home! We gotter win | lit hills and the dark American that strike, Comrade Laura! I’m | Sky semed to echo their cry of here with a bunch of sissies who | “Always Ready.” 2 only play baseball all day! I don't Comrade Laura’s ‘readings had wanna play baseball; I wanna help | never aroused such enthusiasm. win that strike!” Yes, the national organizer had Comrade Laura felt moved by | been right; here was the social this revelation of the loyal heart of | task, the portion of real life and a worker's child. She came over to | duty these children’s minds had litle Pete and stroked his hair ten- | wanted. Children were never to be erly. He did not resent it, but put | underestimated, Comrade Laura his face in her lap. realized in the next few weeks. “Comrade Pete,” she said, “you | They were not meant just to be are a real Pioneer. But you must | lectured at, but to be led into stay here until you are strong and | action. They were really an im- weil, so that when you go back you | portant section of the revolution- will be a better fighter in the strike. | ary army, and must, be treated as tt won't be time wasted, either, | such. Comrade Pete. You've given an} ‘There was a nearby camp of adult idea I was looking for. While you | core The Dito era Faved a are here, you will organize and lead | baseball game there one afternoon, our Pioneer camp in the social task taking up a collection from the of ‘helping the Paterson strike. | spectators. This formed the first Isnt that a great idea? We can | fifteen dollars in the strike fund. raise at least a hundred dollars | Then they originated a whole vaud- and buy lots of food for the strikers. | eyille show, with their own sketches, Pete looked up at her, his eyes | costumes, music, all on revolution- glowing. = é % ary themes. For two weeks they ‘Can we?” he asked, in a faint, | talked, rehearsed, worked eagerly hopeful voice. :, on tht learning about history, T'm sure of it, Pete,” said Com- | economis and the class struggle rade Laura. “Will you iet me help | while doing it. They gave the show you organize it? in the adult camp again. Com. Pete Why, of course, Comrade Laura, | made stirring collection speeches, “he stutters eagerly. 38 scars fi ling of the “Let's shake hands on it( Com- aeene So ae sat r Yes, . these Pioneers talked, He,sprang to his feet, and shook | greamed, argued and learned all her hand with all, his strength. the realities of their proletarian ens fathers’ lives. The stories of Soviet Russia, Germany, China and other places where workers fought for freedom now became very vivid to them when related by Comrade Laura, for all these events re- minded them of Comrade Pete and the Paterson strike. Swimming, baseball, hikes and campfires con- tinued, but the Pioneers were proudest of what they were doing for the strike- * Laura wanted him to stay her a few weeks, she said, and raise some money to buy food for the strikers. Would the Pioneers help him? Were they ready? * *@ Next morning Comrade Laura announced at breakfast that some- thing unusual would happen at the campfire that night. Instead of her usual reading or story-telling, Comrade Pete would relate his ex- periences in the Paterson strike. The Pioneers hadn’t even known | that Pete was from Paterson, and | when they heard the news they | | cheered and yelled for the sirikers. Pete’s face flushed with pride when he heard them cheering his people. Cates 3 And Comrade Pete found that these Pioneers were all his good | He made a wonderful and ¢lo- | comrades. They were not sissies; | quent speech at the campfire. It | Abe Gross, whom he had hit, had lasted for almost an hour; this | helped his own father .in two strikes; and Ruby Martin, the Ne- gro comrade, had a father in jail for making Communist speeches in Harlem. So the pinched white face tan- ned, the frown disappeared from the little striker’s forehead, the starved body expanded in the sun and wind, and grew sturdy again. When Pete left the camp after three weeks he was fifteen pounds heavier, and his heart was filled with a great affection for his Comrade Laura and Comrades Ruby and Abe and the other Pioneers. They marched down to the bus to see him off, having their red bandanas. They sang all the Pioneer songs for Comrade: Pete, and kept on yelling. “Hooray for the Paterson strikers!™ ee starved little son of Ukrainian im- migrants had.a natural gift of lan- guage. He told of the hunger in Paterson; the wage-cuts, the union meetings. His father worked by day; his mother at night in the textile mills, ‘so that she might care for her children by day. Still there Was never enough food or shoes. Pete told of the fights on the picket lines, the gas bombs thrown by the brutal cops and the death of two strikers. He showed the Pioneers his shaved head in the firelight, and told the story of each of the three: ars, and of the lump that looked like an onion. Each scar had been made by a cop's club, and the lump had come from the cruel blackjack of a uniform murderer. The Pioneers shuddered, and then they laughed when Pete told of how the cops had chased him and other kids off the picket lines, and how the kids had called the thugs such names’ that all of them turned red and blue with rage. “Those cops hate us kids as much as they hate our fathers,” said Pete, “because they know we're not scaréd of them.- They call usa lot of fleas, because we bother them so much, and bite their hands and legs when they atrest us. But we don’t care if they calls us fleas, 50 long as we're helping win the strike. He had been arrested seven times. He had been put in the hospital twice.. And he was still game, and he. wanted to go back there and keep.ion fighting. But Comrad: | Pete leaned out of the bus win- dow just before it left and yelled at them, “Hooray for the Pioneers!” He took the check out of his pocket that Comrade Laura had given him. It was the money they had all rdised- He was to presént it to the strike committee to buy food: Not a hundred dollars, but almost two hundred dollars had. been raised, an incredible sum. As Pete waved the check at the boys and girls, he yelled, “Stand ‘em on their heads; stand ‘em on théir feet; Pioneers, Pioneers can't be béat.” The kids took it up, and then all the hills woods and skies,repeated the jolly triumphant cry of there plucky workers’ children. TEE EN BIG TEXTILE P20FITS Mills Working on Army Contracts (By LABOR RESARCH ASSN.) Delaware Rayon Corp. for first six- months of 1932. made .net: in- come, after all charges, of $16,349. Kendall Co. for first'six months the year reported net income, after | all charges, of $17,083... Riverside end Dan River Cotton Mills where of $77,779 for the -first-six months by this SIN enous at ravRREE y this mill amo at Py $6,188,480. In rerort to Hocbholde ers, company says its profits. ate due in ‘part to the Prion , achieved, ‘including 2 teductien in wages and ‘salaries’ Pate of history—it is possible and it is necessary to go fearlessly ahead, frem lawfully existing preparatory organizations of the working class, which have been captured by the opportunists, to revolutionary or- ganizations thet know how NOT to confine themselves to legality, that are capable of making themselves immune against opportunist be- trayal—crganizations cf the vre- letoriat that undertake the ‘strug- gle for power, a struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie,” From this Lenin concluded. that “It is impossible to carry out the tasks of socialism at the present time, it is Ampossible to accomplish a really international unification of the workers without radically breaking with opportunism and without mak- ing clear to the masses the inevit- ability of its fiasco.” Since then’ these opnortunists have merged more and more with the bourgeoisie. It leadership’ is becom- ing more and more integrated with the bourgeois state apparatus which itself is becoming fascized—thus the Socialist Parties have become social fense organization. Sacco and | workers were beaten in the big American 2d Co; for... will not “have been in vain.” strike of 1920-1931, showed a profit | ended. March. 31,. all charges Hur ‘ i fenorts net profit of $147,423... . Dwight Mfg. Co. reports a net, prof- fascists.’ ; If al of tius were, not. so then many workers would ‘be correct’ in arguing that the difference between the Communists and the’, Socialists is purely ofle of tactics and that it is Possible to “reform” the §. P.' by changing~its tactics, ; &. P. Now Workers’ Enemy: Secondly, the comrade spsaks as though the Socialist Party must be fought for the sake of its future dan- ser to the working class. But he |speaks of the S. P. “becoming” a re~ jactionary force, of it “becoming” something ‘we cannot ignore, of it “turning” into a two-faced monster, etc. This may lead to the conclu- sion that the Socialist Part yis now an enemy of the workers but may be. come so in the future. On the con- trary, the 8. P. is already @ reaction- it of $131,529 for last fiscal year. It closed down its .Chitopeé, Maés., plant and -concsntrated. ae aie Aisha | City, "Ale Durhags jabama, A pai Hosiery Mills for six months ended pies 30, showed ‘net. income ot Co. an 9 Pape of New York. The is buying’ three more mills in Masse- chusetts, those of the Griswold Co., Wnthrop Mills €o., of: 7 paare at Rear oe operat » 8. Me blanket manufacturers of Le 5 Maine A movement is also ary force, is already a two faced chee raat nse asteeanenied 2 monster, As to how much of an en-| the introduction of wage cutting emy it will “become” in the future— and speed up for the ‘workers. ‘3 this depends on how well we will be] “American Woolen has been able to unmask it before the entire working on an army for 87% Working class—as an alien and enemy | 099 yards of olive drab, ani i force doing the service of capitalism| yards of elastic cloth, D ‘ in the ranks of labor. ~ |-dery’ Mills is working . —(EDITOR’S NOTE.) | contract for 334,000 pairs of : -wause PIONEER | {