The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 1, 1932, Page 4

Page Four DAILY WORKE EW YORK, URDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1932 Dail Published by the Comprodaily Peblisht Clty, N.Y. eheeks to the Di SUBSCRIFTION RATES Wy mall everywhere: One year, 96; six months, we months, $1; axsopitar Bereugh of Manhatian snd Bronx, New York City. Foreign: ene year, $3; six months, $4.50. 75 cents _per_month Canada, $8 per year: Defeat the Ryan Wage Cut Agreement OSEPH RYAN, President of the International Longshore- men’s Association has signed an agreement with the ship owners which cuts the wages of the longshoremen on straight time from 85 cents to 75 cents an hour and the overtime rates ¢ from $1.20 to $1.10 an hour. (As a matter of fact, they put in very little overtime and dockworkers seldom have more than 2-3 days’ work a week). There are other items in the agreement that have not as yet been brought to light, which will mean more layoffs and greater speedup, Throughout the negotiations it was clear that Ryan was acting in the interests of the ship owners. From the very beginning he ma the overtime rates the main issue, yielding, at the o the ten cents per hour cut time which the em- y accepted. No doubt there m the very beginning he empl the ers and Ryan through which he could . by making the issue one of own by Ryan to a question be- asked or $1.10 an hour which He tried to mislead the longshoremen appear ighter” for overtime sue Was narrowed tween $1.05 + he coi Ryan offered from the be panies first nn ng) and take on the appearance of a fighter for them, But in spite of this Hid. not t workers and throughout the negotiations the jot consulted. AFTER t ment was signed Ryan nd his henchmen organized | to get al” sanction of the agreement by the workers. But he niet a wall of determined ovposition from the rank and file. In Balti- more the workers overwhelmingly voted aganist the agreement. In Phila- delphia where the rank and file is in open revolt tgainst Ryan and his | lieutenant, Baker, the labor fakers faced with an unexpected majority against them adjourned the meeting without giving the workers an op- portunity to express th opposition, In New York City the gangster guarded meeting hurriedly called without the knowledge of the mass of the longshoremen “voted” for the agreement. In all’ not 5 per cent of the Ic en in the Eastern ports have been consulted on the agreement an has no mandate to speak in the name of the lon- shoremen e shows that they are a: st the new sellout agree- ment The workers must demand that before the new agreement goes into force a referendum vote be taken of all the longshoremen, If the LL.A Jeadership refuses such a vote the rank and file committees must them- selves organize such a referendum and make this a mobilization for the fight against the agreement. At the same time the rank and file committees must be called to- gether to decide on what actions can be taken to stop the agreement from ito effect. The fight of the longshoremen of Baltimore, Phila- w York and Boston be united. * © unemployed s for ir The rank and file move- nediate relief for the unem- it forward demands against the dis- ng of jobs, Of special importance is the vhite longshoremen. The Marine Workers In- @ and again exposed Ryan as a lackey of give full support to the longshoremen in e last weeks carried on extensive work to and its press, The Daily Worker calls upon to watch closely the struggle of the longshore- rs and the Ryan bureaucracy and to give the t support to this imporiant battle. Stop the Deportation of Nels Kjar! JELS KJAR, the militant leader of the Chicago unem- ployed, has been in Cook County jail for nearly four months. He vy re-arrested by Doak’s henchmen on June 13 when his original bail set when he was arrested two years ago, was cancelled by the Immigration Department. ery effort of the International Labor Defense to compel he hail has been without success, so far. he events precec Kjar’s arrest point clearly to the he A. F. of L. officialdom as the moving spirit behind the bosses’ he foreign-born workers. Kjar, as one of the out- cago un ployed thousands, and as a militant zo bosses and Shortly before Kjar’s rearrest, he led before the Chicago City Council, placing be- ands of the Chi ing masses, At this the Chicago Federation of Labor vice-president yy Council—and a Thompson henchman—bitterly and threatened him with “consequences” for his militancy. This has come forth promptl: Deportation Doak, who in July attended the Republican convention ded the advice of Nelson. A letter was at once written to Kjar and his bondmen, ordering Kjar’s immediate surrender for deportation to Denmark, * * * 'JAR’S case clearly reveals before the masses the role of the AF.L. in the bosses’s hounding of the foreign-born workers. The entire de- portation drive is directed by Doak—a “bona-fide reformist labor leader” whose whole political make-up personifies the A.F.L. bureaucracy. The immigration hounds, from Doak down, are working hand in hand with the A.F.L. bureaucrats in every locality. The misleaders need only point their Judas-finger and a militant worker is jailed for deportation, Nels Kjar’s case comes up October 4 before Judge Samuel Alshuler, U. S, Circuit Court of Appeals, Post Office Building, Chicago. The ILD calls upon the workers throughout the land to thunder their demands to this court for Kjar’s immediate release, registering at the same time ® vigorous protest against denial of bail for Kjar. * * * EVERY workers’ organization must act at once. Mass action will be the force that will compel Doak and Nelson to let go of their victim! Fight for the release of Berkman, Borich, Mills, Kamenovitch and all workers in the clutches of the immigration. hound Defeat the bosses’ deportation drive! Demonstrate Oct, 8—on International Scottsboro-Mooney Day! How the Socialists Supported _ Imperialist War of 1914-18 previous issues of the Daily Worker we published excerpts from speeches and articles by leaders of the Second (Socialist). Interna- tional, in support of the imperialist war of 1914-18. Yesterday we printed a statement by Abraham Cahan, Socialist leader in the U. S. and editor of the Jewish Daily Forward, The following shows how Philip Scheidemann, German Social- t and executioner of the German Revolution (colleague, in the Second International, of Norman Thomas and Morris Hillquit) boasted of the Kaiser's praise for his work in recruiting the German masses in the imperialist slaughter. * * * “In that year (1917) we began the preparations for the Peace Con- ference in Stockholm in good time. Ebert and I were the main driy- ing forces in Germany, and we acted in complete agreement with the “We left behind a memorandum which was unanimously adopted by our delegation and which was afterwards praised by the Minister for Foreign Affairs as a first class piece of work, and even the Kaiser was compelied to declare during a casual meeting with me in the house of Herr Helfferich: ‘A la bonheur, Herr Scheidemann, you fenced brillant- ly im Stockhoim'.” ‘4 —Sehetdemann, in eviience at » public trial in October, 1925, | erature at their open-air meetings | "Literature Department | Chester, incl Wilmington ...$ 1915 PARTY LIFE Literature Sales In Dist. 3 By JAMES WATSON NE is greatly elated wien he hears the excellent reports our section and unit organizers make on the sale and distribution of lit- and house-to-house canvases. Ac- cording to their reports, our district has achieved in the literature field the objective of the 14th Plenum of mass sale and mass distribution of our literature among the toiling masses, WHAT CHECK-UP REVEALS A check-up reveals that these comrades have stretched their im- agination entirely too far. rese! duplicate receipt for every pe worth of literature sold to the sec- tion or units. Our record points out a deplor- able situation in the sections and units in the actual sale anq distri. bution of literature. Let us exam- ine literature sales in our district rationally and free from an inflated imagination. What do our dupli- cated receipts show: Literature Sales, Philadelphia proper, for two months (June and July, 1932) Section 1 Section 2 .... Section 3 .... Section 9 .... Section 13 ... Section 14 ... Total ...0+ Out of Town Section, Same Period Baltimore, incl. Washington, D. C. ($138) ....ceeeceeess 178.98 Minerville Section ... ees 5,00 o7) Se HAT conclusions can we draw from these figures? a) In comparison with literature sales for two months previous there has been slight improvement. (2) Sec- tion 14, with three shop nuclei and approximately 100 members pur- - chased only 50 cents worth of liter- ature for two months. The only bright spots are Chester and Baltimore. While in the pre- vious two months Chester sold practically no literature, today it is the beacon light of District 3. Chester must share this honor with the unit in Wilmington. The Baltimore Section in the last two months set the pace. Over three times as much literature was sold there than in the entire dis- trict combined. Of course some of the comrades will say that an ab- normal situation was existing there —that there were 20,000 ex-soldiers concentrated there. This is true. Certainly, 20,000 ex-Soldiers camp- ing around the capitol is not a every day event. But precsely because the comrades approach the selling of $178 worth of literature by the Baltimore section in two months as phenomenal that our lit- erature sale is not of a mass char- acter. Why should not the Baltimore section or any other section sell $178 of literature every two months? They could with ease, if they would change their methods of approach. Today the workers must “nag” us Communists to se- cure our litterature—they must come to our headquarters—they must come to our bookshop—they must come to our meeting or else they don’t get our literature, MUST GO TO WORKERS’ HOMES If we are to give life to the de- cisions of the 14th Plenum as ap- plied to literature, certainly we must mot depend solely on the workers coming to us. We must go after the workers with all our might. Visiting committees to workers’ homes should be supplied with literature and given definite instruction how to sell literature | while making contacts. Broad Neighborhoog Study Groups should be organized. Our sections and units must draw them closer to us through our literature. A pamphlet or a book will get us acquainted with each other. * . * BOVE all, our comrades should get into the habit of carrying a pamphlet or two with them at all times. On many occasions we meet sympathetic workers, but we are in a hurry, we thereby lose that con- tact, but if we were to reach in our pocket and sell the worker a suit- able pamphlet with our unit or section headquarters’ stamp on the back, we would be able to win a large percentage of these workers. Each section should analyze its literature sale as given in this article.. Thus they will see in black and white that they are not even approaching the carrying out of the 14th Plenum decision of mass sale and mass distribution of our litetrature. Current Issue of ‘Rebel Poet’ Fights BossWar |ANIFESTING a more cleancut class-struggle attitude than in past issues, the new September Rebel Poet, just off the press, is billed as an “Against Imperialist War!” number, The keynote of the magazine is set by a grim No Man’s Land photograph on the cover and a linoleum cut by John C. Rogers, showing a bayonet- armed worker opposing the capi- talists’ next imperialist war. In the future The Rebel Poet promises to be a far more power- ful proletarian magazine, as it will be supervised by an editorial board’ of six, including three New York John Reed Club members. Many significant writers are being re- cruited now to contribute to a “Sov- jet Russia's 15th Anniversary.Num- Hoover, I Win —Roosevelt' You Lose! seabed —By Burck They Speak of Him With Affection Capitalists Have Nothing to Fear From S. P. Candidate, Writes Leading Republican By SAM DON ry ge bourgeoisie is taking Mrs Norman Thomas, Socialist can- didate for President, to its bosom. His “Alma Mater,” Princeton Uni- versity—subsidized by the leading plutocrats of the country—has con- ferred an honorary degree upop him. Society considers him one of its very own. The scribblers of the capitalist press are discovering in Mr. Thomas the noble features of @ real aristocrat, one who is logic- ally fit to represent the interests of the bourgeoisie, But certainly it is not a question of Mr. Thomas’ physical features. The praise extended to him by our open class enemies, the conscious building up of Thomas as a “na- tional figure,” has for its purpose the building up of Thomas and the Party he represents—as the bosses’ agent within the ranks of the workers, ‘Tear off the heavy layers of ab- ‘ stract and mystical discussions about the personality of Mr. Thomas, as indulged in by the bourgeois writers and what do you find? An undisguised joy in his pro-capitalist services in the ranks of the workers, A REPUBLICAN ON THOMAS Current History, a magazine pub- lished by the New York Times, car- ried, in its September issue, a “study” (as they call it) of Frank- lin D. Roosevelt. The autho- of this article, Claude M. Fuess, con- tinues his “studies” with an article on Norman Thomas in the October issue. Who is this Mr. Fuess? An edi- torial note says that “Mr. Fuess is known primarily as one of our leading biographers, is a Repub- lican in politics, and was a delegate at this year’s national convertion of his party.” Let us examine what a leading Republican has to say of Mr. Thomas and the Socialist Party. The key to the entire article i: found in the very first paragraph: “For many years the word So- cialist has held for the majority of Americans a sinister conota- tion associated with bombs, riots and assassinations, but Mr. Thomas has somewhat changed all that. Even hard-boiled re- actionaries mention him almost with affection.” ae OW is it that “suddenly” a Re- publican writer is willing to abandon the lying, vicious slander cultivated for years by the bour- geoisie against revolutionary or- Ganizations as being associated with bombs and assassins? The Socialist Party has long ago ceased to be a Party serving the interest of the workers. Therefore the bourgeoisie does not find it necessary to slander it; on the con- trary, it deserves and gets the Praise of our ruling class, In faet, Thomas is considered so dangerous to the interests of the oapitalists cna af oaaity eg that, in the words of Mr. Fuess, “eyen hard-boiled ‘reactionaries mention maga iromceyy with affec- tion.” The af lpn,jsyindeed well deserved. ' “eo: Neiby “SOCIALISM RESPECTABLE” ‘The writer takes special pains to point out that: “Indeed under Mr. Thomas’’ magic, Socialism has grown respectable,” What does it signify when a Re- publican writer speaks of Socialism becoming respectable? It simply describes a Socialism which has respect for private property and the profits of the ruling class; So- cialists who use words to pacify workers, to prevent them from fighting for relief, to break strikes of workers. Mr. Fuess explains in his article with joy what he means by the Socialism made respectable by Thomas. He says: f “.. . When a resolution was submitted at Milwaukee adyo- eating confiscation of private property, Mr. Thomas took the floor and declaimed so forcibly that it was rejected.” Here is a picture of respectable Socialism. Thomas declares that he is against capitalism, that he is for Socialism, but heaven forbid— don’t touch the private property of Morgan, Ford, Rockefeller, etc.! It is sacred, and it is contrary to the laws of human nature! CONFISCATION? OH, NO! Thomas is against confiscating | Use private property of the rich, but he is in favor of a controlled inflation which taxes the poor, raises the cost of living to create billions of dollars for the Recon- struction Finance Corporation, to pump billions of dollars into the bankrupt American _ industries, banks and railroads. Thomas, the Socialist, is horrified at the idea of confiscating the property of the ruling class, but Marx and Engels long ago answered the apologies for the bourgeoisie when, in the Communist Manifesto, they wrote: “You are horrified at our in- tention to do away with private property, but in your existing so- ciety private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population. Its existence for the future is solely due to its non existence in the hands of those nine-tenths.” The ruling class praises Mr. Thomas for being horrified at the confiscation of their private prop- erty acquired through the exploita- tion of the working class, oe je y= Mr. Thomas is horrified at the confiscation of private prop- erty of the rich, but with decep- tive words of “Socialism” he sup- ports the program of the capital- ists to get out of the present crisis at the expense of the poor. Thomas’ role is to make it appear to the that, the Hoover program way tion Finance Corporation are pre- sented to the workers as samples of the government going into busi- ness—laying the basis for building Socialism, “SOCIALISM” A LA HOOVER Thomas in his recent speeches, speaks of “Hoover putting the gov- ernment into business” as a sign of Socialism. Is it not quite evident that this Hoover program of put- ting the government into business is nothing else but saving the bank- rupt industries from collapse? ‘Thomas, however, does not mention the role of the government as the executive of the capitalists when it makes increasing use of the Na- tional Guard, of the army, and the whole state apparatus to ¢rush the growing struggles of the workers against Hoover’s program of hun- ger and war. ‘Thomas has the gall to say that Hoover put as much government into business as Stalin did. Here Mr. Thomas attempts to picture the Soviet Union, where the work- ers and farmers rule, as performing the same function as the capitalist government in the United States. Here Thomas consciously slanders the toilers of the Soviet Union. More than that, the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union —which has done away with the private property of the rich, which laid the basis for the building of Socialism, which through its state power in the form of the Soviets,” is building a classless Socialist so- ciety—is pictured by Mr. Thomas “as another government in busi- ness,” a la Hoover's administra- tion. DEBS VS. THOMAS The “Current History” writer, speaking of the affection of the American ruling class for Mr. Thomas, rightly remarks: “Such sympathy was seldom shown by cap‘talists toward the late Eugene V. Debs.” Debs, the leader of the great railroad strike, the militant fighter against imperialist war; Debs, the supporter of the Bolshe- vik revolution, could not possibly receive the praise showered upon the head of Mr. Thomas. Debs, by remaining with the Socialist Party, and, due to his lack of revolution- ary theory (despite his great revo- lutionary zeal), could not bring himself to break completely and decisively with the social patriots, But Debs the revolutionist belongs to the working class, and Norman Thomas, the social-fascist, belongs campletely to the class from which he comes, the bourgeoisie. The revolutionary instinct of Debs, already as early as 1911, pre- dicted (though in a confused man- ner) the fate of the Socialist Party, At that time he said: “It (the Socialist Party) may become permeated and corrupted with a spirit of bourgeois reform to an extent that it will prac- ore | THE NEGRO REDS OF CHICAGO By MICH: INSTALMENT TY. “{ AM no damn traitor,” was the young Communist’s brief answer. Captain Stege of the police came in, to add pathos to the capitalist side of the argument. “Young man,” he said, “I want you to promise me sometime, to visit the fields of Gettysburg. There Jook at the tomb of my grandfather who died that colored people like you might be his equal.” “Yes,” answered young Light- foot, “if you will visit Boston Com mon, to look at the statue of Cris. pus Attucks, a man of my race. He was the first to fall in the revolu- tion. He died that your ancestors might be free from England, while Negroes like us remained in slay- ery.” The Negroes, like workers every- where, have to break through many crooked paths of illusion before they reach the broad highway of revolutionary thought. LEONIDAS MAC DONALD. Leonidas MacDonald, candidate for Governor of Illinois on the Communist ticket, was a Moham- medan only a few years ago, He joined that sect, which finds a fer- tile field for proselytes among the Chicago Negroes, after he had be- come disillusioned with the Garvey movement and the Christian re- ligion, There are several Arabian and American gentlemen in Chi- cago who have made quite a racket, out of this Mohammed. But Mac- Donald took it seriously; once he fasted 40 days. “It appealed to me on rate grounds”, he said, “I had seen so much of the brutality and hypo- crisy of white Christians. Moham- med was colored, and I thought maybe if was more fitting for us to follow him. Anyway, I can’t tell what I expected, but one day I started to read the Koran. It was the same old bible bunk—Adam and Eve and the rest of it, T quit about a month after I had finished studying the Koran.” He was ever searching for a way out for his suffering Negro race. ‘Tall, lean, humorous, always neat but out at the elbows and knees, MacDonald is one of those born intellectuals who come out of the working class. Some betray it, sell out to the capitalists, others are loyal to their class and lead the fight for freedom. ORN in Jackson, Tenn., in 1897, MacDonald's father was @ rail- road brakemen earning $35 a month, “swell money, big money”, and there were eight children. The parents were ambitious to give all their brood a first-class education on $35 a month. But Leonidas went to school only two years; then the THE STRUGGLES ON THE SOUTH SIDE EL GOLD, and freedom, and the bold Babbit- ty three-minute men made their fiery speeches—well, comrades, I could not resist, and joined up for the slaughter.” He served in the 307th Infantry, a Negro regiment attached to the 10th French Army. He went thru the battles of Soissons, Metz, the Argonne, and was wounded and in- valided home | Much t his regret at the time: “the war wasn't so bad, I wanted to be @ soldier.” He was mustered out in July, 1919, year of the race riots in Chicago. These made a deep impression on him; killed some of his orthodox faith in Christ, and roused his race consci- ousness, MacDonald had been ‘working for years as a butcher in the Chicago stockyards when Garvey came to town. The man swept him. off his feet; he was ready for this mes- sage, and sobn became an active speaker and organizer at night, rising to the position of Colonel in Garvey’s fantastic empire “Whatever the crimes and mis- take of this misleader Garvey, t learned @ lot about organization from him,’ ys MacDonald. “I was completely upset when the whole thing collapsed, and I learned of Garvey’s secret deals. I could see, too, that all this talk of returning: to Africa was a false solution, Li- beria, was slave-holding colony controlled the United States government; the rest of Africa was | owned by other white imperialists. We were as enslaved in Chicago as we could hope to be there; like the Jews, we would have to fight for our freedom in the pl lived.” BEWILDERED FOR A TIME. It was then MacDonald joined the Mohammedans. When that failed to satisfy his clear, hungry mind, he felt lost, bewildered. In his bewil- derment he took to the soapbox and every night, after his day’s work, he talked to the south side crowds. He .was thinking aloud, trying to find his way. He discussed the racial problem, the social problem, he read every book or pamphlet that came to his hands. One night some heckler shouted at him, “You talk like one of those damn reds.” “Do 1?” Mac answered in amaze- ment. “Do I? If so, I am going to study the matter, and see whether I am a red.” This taunt opened his eyes to the work of the Unemployed? Councils. Now he first began to see the mass funerals, the dem- onstrations of the Reds, Re bes gan to discover Lenin and Marx, it all beat on him like a cloud- A recent demonstration of Negro and white workers against ime perialist war held recently in Chicago, inevitable proletarian tragedy. The father was killed; the child was left with a large family. He was six feet tall at the age of fifteen, and tried to join the ar- my, but was rejected because he was a Negro. He drifted north, working in all the southern states, then came to Chicago in 1916 and held a swell foreman’s job in Thompson's commissary for some years, ‘The war came and he volunteered. “One bright and shiny Tuesday afternoon on Jackson Boulevard, when the bands were out, and the pretty society girls talked of Huns, burst—the new world, the new world was being born again in another proletarian mind. Scottsboro, the funeral of the three Negroes murdered at the evic- tion— Quoted Mac: “‘If the white man suffers, the Negro always is made to suffer twice as hard.’ That is proving true in this depres- sion. But where did Oscar De Priest th» Negro landlord fit in? He wasn’: suffering, he was causing Negro workers to suffer. Class in- terests weré stronger than race.” TO BE CONTINUED ee ganization. ... The working class and revolutionary character of the Socialist Party are of first importance. All the votes of the peeple would do us no gocd is we ccase to be a revolutionary party.” es ee TNDER the cloak of pacifism, Thomas and the party he rep- resénts, cover up their active sup- port of the imperialist policies and war preparations against the Soviet Union. The revolutionary Debs said: “I am opposed to every war but one, I am for that war with heart and soul, and that is the world wide war of social revolu- tion; int that war I am prepared to fight in any way the ruling class mzy make it necessary, even to barricades.” It is true that Debs’ limitations as a Marxist-Leninist made it im- possible for him to be consistent to the end in his revolutionary senti- ments, but what a world of differ- ence between Thomas, the social- fascist, and Debs, the militant working-class leader! S. P. SLANDERS SOVIET UNION Thomas attacks the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union while singing the praises of bourgeois democracy in the United States, which is only a fig leaf for fascist terror. Debs at the out- break of the October revolution dee clered: “I am a Bolshevils from the crown of my head to the tips of my toes.” And to the jury at his « Canton trial he said defiantly: “I have been accused of expressing sympathy with the Bolsheviks of Russia. I plead guilty to the charge.” PROPHETIC WORDS Debs once said that when the ” bourgeoisie begins to praise a work- ing-class leader ther: is surely + something the “matter with him. Prophetic words, indeed! ‘The praise for Mr, Thomas on the part of the bourgeoisie is well deserved. They know their lack eys. 3 The bourgeoisie speak of with affection—the working ¢ l {