The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 6, 1932, Page 4

(o5¢ our _ Dail Published by the Comprodaily Publishing Co. | Canada: One yea 13th St., New York City, N. Y. Telephone ALgon Address and mail checks to the Daily Worker, eae a = = SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $3.50; 3 months, $2; 1 month, Ibe excepting Borongh of Manhattan and Bronx, New York City. Foreign and 9: 6 months, 35 &_months, 33. Daily Worker Dern the Hunger Marchers OBERT MINOR, scenes of struggle of the ington. The entire capitalist front with the polic Hoover hunger government of the interests of the millions of It is only the Daily Worker, the and central organ of the which is defending the Hunger workers in this co munist Party of the Marchers as the ing workers and th and. women, young onalities, defend your ary intry, revolut the Daily Worker! PREAD the Daily Worker! Drive! nediate winter relief, for the Order al bundle act the poisonous lies and v speci know that you will not sta to the finnish for your rights. Negro Farmers Fight! — ‘ational By MOE BRAGIN (The following article is especial- National opens ly timely in view of the Farm Conference which tomorrow in Washington). HREE-FOURTHS of the in the Black Bel The blood men, wor the land whi these dippers mal fort Dipping lasts five yea The rest of the colored worker is told to e a hog or die. Harvesting he's lucky to get as much e—fifty cents a day. For thirteen hours a day peach pickers Were making seventy cents while the grower was getting four dollars a bushel last season. Where he used to make three dollars harvesting tice, he gets now a dollar. Seventy cents a day is all the wages for cut- ting cane. Under a sun like a ter- rible leech, cotton pickets are lucky to make fifty cents working from dawn to dark. There are places in the Black Belt where pickers work out under the moon to make ten cents more Conditions Grow Worse As the crisis deepens, conditions become worse. Cotton falls below six cents a pound. Rice ,cane, to- bacco sell below cost. Share op- pers, tenants and small farmers are forced off the land. Hunting work, they are forced to pit themselves against the hosts of unemployed. If they are .able to hold on by the skin of their teeth, the shadow of the cotton-picking machine begins to darken their days. Experts say it will be on the market soon. It willbe able to pick a bale at one- fifth what handpicking costs. It will drive more farmers out into ‘the road. Negro workers and farmers are rousing themselves against such Savagery and exploitation. Th are beginning to fight the landlords anq buyers who cheat them at the seales and sugar mill and lynch them when they protest. They are beginning to understand that or- ganization and resistance are two barrels of a shot-gun more to be trusted than even such “kindly” whites like Ramsay in “Georgia Nigger.” In Elaine, Arkansas, Oct 1919, Negro sharecroppers organized the Progressive Farmers and House- hold Union and fought bitterly against the plantation owners. When Coney marched down to the town of England, Ark., to demand food, Negro farmers marched with him. What happened in Camp Hill, Alabama, will go down in the his- tory of the American working class as one of the most militant of its struggles. In this district during the crisis the larger landlords be- gan to steal the holdings of the Negro farmers. One landlord in- creased his holdings from 280 acres to 14,000 in two years. This drove thousands of Negroes off the land to beg or fight for the little work left to do. To protect themselves the Negro farmers formed the Sharecroppers’ Union. By July, 1931 there were eight hundred farmers in it. The Union demanded relief, cash settlement for the season at cot- ton picking, right of cropper to have his own garden, right of crop- per to sell his produce for cash where and when he pleased instead of turning it over to the landlord for division, nine months Negro school with free school bus. The sharecroppers were attacked, Ralph Grey, one of their leaders, was killed. Four other croppers “dis- appeared.” When the sheriff was asked by the newspapers what had happened to thoes four croppers, we gai “Foor went off to cut internationally ) writer, left for Washington by port to the readers of the Daily 3,000 Hunger press has formed army and armed thugs sent out by the to terrorize the representatives representatives of families. and old, w ious lynch campaign raised by the capitalist press’ against the representatives of the mil- lions of unemployed now in Washington. Demand your constitutional right to petition Congress and let the representatives of the W rve quietly, but that you will fight Farm Conference Is, Indication of) Rising Struggle of the Farmers Line up behind thé circulation Help bring the news of the struggles of the un- employed to the thousands of workers in this country and develop and strengthen the fight agai FROM MISSIS known revolutionary plane yesterday to re- Worker directly from the Marchers in Wash- a solid united starving unemployed. voice of the revolution- Com- these millions of starv- | Workers eve men | all races and nati- rgan, your spokesman, rywhere, ers of ainst starvation, for im- right to live. Get subscriptions! Counter- | all Street government wood.” In spite of the terror, the cropp2rs won a number of their de- mands. jOTHING can gi a better pic- ture of the conditions of the Ne- groes than what they themselves | haye to The following letters and women working ik Belt. They ¢ because they vard of the toiling masses are ex- pressing themselves forcefully about ihe hell they are ground down in, | FROM TEXAS, JULY, 1932 j Dear com | Pleas ‘ade these few words in your paper, I am a widow woman, live on my own farm but have been crush down so by the boss class of | peoples till I can hardly get enough food to eat. I go about among | peoples, and I find them in he same shape that I am in for food and cloth. We can scarcely receive a good word from the mer- chants ang landlords. They take what we make and give nothing for it, and we haye to pay a big price for everything we get, and it make it hard for us to even pay a small m dept. I am praying and hoping for a better d Fone Ce FRO! ABAMA, AUG., 1932 Dear Comrade T am a woman living in the Black | Belt, with no one to help me. I | have been trying hard to make an honest living farming. But all of my stock was took from me and by crop is not mych good. So I can hardly keep latd, gravy and fat back meat to eat. And | most of all my neighbors and friends | are in a terrible condition for cloth- | ing, shoes. And something to eat. We all are in a needy condition. IPPI, OCT., 1932 Dear Comrade: I am writing my complaints of how I am treated on the farm. I am tending a one-horse farm on half and the boss furnishes me | $1.60 worth of food a month and we are three in family and he fur- | nish us no clothes at all and my | feet is bare and back also, And my wife and child is almost cloth- less—bare feet and the boss does not. make any arrainment to get us any. Although I asked him he won't heed to me and my wife be- come sick. T went to him for a doctor and he became angry and would not, stand for it and when we gather our crops the bosses tuke it all in hand and treat us as if | we were dogs. My wife washes and | irons for the boss and 7 are in the family for 2 gallon of milk and 1 pound of butter and for day labor they don’t allow us but 40c. a day | and 25 cents for picking a hundred potinds of cotton and they pay that in a little spoiled meat and lard | enough to last about three days | and won't allow us no money at all. If we don’t want to work for that they take us out and whip us. They treat us so dirty. | FROM GEORGIA, NOV., 1932 Dear Comrade: K-—, a good comrade, a renter lives on a landlord place with the name of S—. E has six children in family and have worked hard and made a pretty faire crop and paid what he owed 8. And because K belong to the union and cleared a part of his crop, 8 went to K's home last Monday morning and said he come to kill him and begin shooting at | K and shot one of K’s children through the leg. And at the same | time cursing the Communist Party to the hell, and said he hated all God-dam Nigros. Also another share-cropper and | @ renter on another landlord place. | What Is the Communist | Stand on Cooperatives, | kind of forced labor, JAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, Letters from Our Readers Is Worker's Question Deming, N. M Dear Comrades: Tt has often been suggested that we form ourselves into groups, co- operatives, and artels for the pur- pose of farming idle land, canning and conserving foods and fruits which are going to waste, and so Save ourselves from starvation I know that these co-operative ventures have failed in the past, as is seen in conditions now at the Llano Colony in Louisiana, yet I have never seen the Communist position as to artels explained What is the correct answer? ANSWER. Within limits co-operatives un- der capitalism are useful to the workers; for instance co-operative publishing houses to produce work- ing-class literature, It is a danger- ous illusion, however, to imagine that by forming co-operatives it is possible to make inroads upon the capitalist system, or to enable the working class to escape the effects of capitalist crises. Co-operatives launched upon guch a basis inevit- ably degenerate into capitalist ventures, with an individual or group of individuals getting the benefit. Co-operatives cannot grow into a socialist society. Such vent- ures as the Llano colony are at best utopias, at the worst petty rackets of such adventurers as Job Harriman, the former S. P. leader in California. Certain aspects of current agi- tation for co-operatives are a menace to the working class. Such, for instance, as the demands of Chambers of Commerce, “citizen's leagues”, and the Socialist Part that the unemployed orkers should farm idle land. This is just a deception to hold back the work- ers from mass struggle against the hunger program of the capitalist class. At a time when hundreds of thousands of farmers are being driven by hunger from the land it is criminal to propose to workers that they get out of the industrial centers and starve like stray ani- mals on the land. Of a similar deceptive nature is the proposal of Norman Thomas that workers operate “idle factories” and exchange goods with each other. Under such procedure the workers would get a few miserable articles instead of money for their | work, while the factory owners would get their dividends, rent or | interest. It would be the worst | with a Soci- label. Fred Beal, Gastonia Strike Leader, Hails alist Pari | New Novel of South RED BEAL, well-known leader of the Gastonia strike of 1929, in a letter sent from the Soviet Union, hails Gathering Storm, a novel by Myra Page, just published by In- ternational Publishers, as an out- standing contribution to proletarian literature. “I have been looking forward to the time when some writer would give us a real ‘Working class story about the exciting class struggles taking place in the South. Some books have been written by sympathetic authors, but they seemed to have failed to take in the motive power and guiding spirit behind the class drama. “Myra Page, in her novel “Gathering Storm”, has done this. A history of the lives and struggles of these workers is shown from the time they leave the mountains and low-lands on through the dark days of leng grinding hours in the mills at pittance wages “T took part in the first major fight in the South—the Gastonia strike. All her characters are real ones. So real that when I turned each page I knew this one and that. I suffered along with one and shed angry tears with ariother until finally I vowed to continue until the whole ugly thing that caused this was wiped out. “FRED BEAL”. ‘The popular edition of Gather- | ing Storm selling at $1.00 will be ready in a few days and will be obtainable at all workers’ book- shops or direct from Workers Library Publishers, Box 148, Sta. D., New York. This comrade name R. The land- lord sent the law to his home last Saturday for taking his livestock and crop while he was off from home assisting with a diseased per son that died in his community. ‘The indebtedness they claim against, R is $100. The claim was made in 1929. And R have went off and serve a sentence in the peneten- tiary, he say for the same indebt- edness. And many others outrageous crimes is committed here against the colored people that I could mention. Yours as a faithful worker fore better condishuns. I ee E letters help to explain the Scottsboro case, why Orphan Jones is being dragged to the gal- lows, and why only a week ago Ed Dunlap was brutally lynched when he demanded his wages from a white foreman. They show that the murdered Negro croppers of Camp Hill did not go off to cut wood for nothing. The wood they have cut will destroy ultimately the barbarism that crushed them. ‘These letters show that Henry Lowry did not suffer hell in vain because he dared ask his landlord for wages withheld from him for two years. Burned like a pine knot to an ash, his body in its last ag- onies has thrown out a light to help Negro farmers in their bitter strug- gles. These letters show cleary why Negro farmers will be at the Farm Conference in Washington shoulder to shoulder with the oppressed white farmer, ta battle for their rights. | class on the is THE RIGHT TO PETITION _ DECEMBER.., 1932 —By Burck | S.P. and A.F.L. Maneuvers to Stop Revolt Against Hunger | Utilize Unemployment Insurance Issue to Divide Labor' and Demobilize Mass Movement ly. By BILL DUNNE IN CONSIDERING the problems of the struggle against the new ambitious efforts being made by the Socialist Party and the bureau- cracy of the American Federation of Labor to n ad the working ues of compulsory unemployment insurance and the Shorter work day and week, it is indispensable that the general con- clusions reached by the Twelfth Plenum of the Execuptive Com- mittee of the Communist Interna- tional on the question of fascism and social fascism to be applied in practice in America in the detailed questions arising as a result of these maneuvers: “3. Both fascism and social fa- scism (social democracy) stand for the maintenance and strength- ening of capitalism and bourgeois dictatorship, but from this posi- tion they adopt different tactical views. Ins view of the fact that the position of the ruling bour- geoisie of every country is one of inherent contfidictions at the present time, which compels them now and again to maneuver be- tween a course for determined struggle against their enemies at home and abroad, and the more prudent course, this inherent contradiction in the position of the bourgeo’ is also reflected in the position taken up by fascism and social fascism. The social fascists prefer a moderate and “lawful” application of bour- geois class coercion, because they do not want to contract the basis of the bourgeois dictatorship; they guard its “democratic” drap- ings and strive chiefly to preserve its parliamentary forms, for with- out these, the social fascists would be hampered in carrying out their special function of deceiv- ing the working masses, At the same time, the social fascists re- strain the workers from revolu- tionary action against the capi- talist offensive and growing fa- scism, playing the part of a screen behind which the fascists are able to organize their forces, and build the road for the fascist dictatorship.” (My emphasis.) “4. To the extent that the eco- nomic policy of monopolist cap- ital is adapted to the special con- ditions and difficulties of the eco- nomic crisis, social democracy... adapts Ns ideology to ihe require- ments of the crisis policy of the . financial oligarchy. The social democratic leaders are again un- earthing their threadbare slogan of nationatization of certain branches of industr (The “so- cial ownership” — nationalization under capitalism — plank in the S. P. election platform for basic industry and banking, the A. F. of &. adoption of the Davis-Kelly bill for federal control of coal mines, ‘Thomas’ coucern over “the grave danger” io American dem-~- ocracy, the constitutional amend- ment proposals of the 8 P. Thomas’ insistence on the possi- bility of “socialism in a genera~ .. tion,” by “peaceful processes,’ etc., the continual denunciation of mass actions organized and led by Communists by the S.P, A. F. of L. press, their joint attempt to confine the struggle for unem- ployment insurance to voting and lobbying—all show the correct- ness of the E. C. C. I. analysis as applied to American conditions.) A_WEAKNESS OF DEMAGOGY ‘The demagogy of the A. F, of L. bureaucracy and the 8. P. leaders on the issue of compulsory unem- ployment insurance (and still more recently on the shorter work day and work week), carries with it a certain danger for the capitalist class and system they are trying to fortify against the inroads made by the crisis, the increasing con- sciousness and militancy of great sections of the working cluss, and the agitation, propaganda, organi- zetion work and mass struggles led by the Communist Party and revo- Jutionary mass organizations, THE PRESENT EMERGENCY It is because the working class is responding with a sure’ revolu- tionary instinct to the program of mass action and mass organization of the Communists for these de- mands that the S, P. and A. F. of L. leaders find it necessary to pol- ish up their tin swords. to don the shining armor of militant and even revolutionary phrases, and pose as defenders of the interests of the hungry masses. THE VANCOUVER DECISIONS The widespread mass suffering that already existed a year ago did not impel the A. F. of L. officialdom to change its program of deter- mined opposition—to the point of expulsion of local unions and building trades councils favoring it—against all forms of compulsory unemployment insurance. In the Vancouver convention compulsory unemployment insur- ance was denounced as a menace to “the traditional freedom” of the American worker. It was attacked and defeated as “desttuctive of unionism.” Vice-President Matthew Woll said: “I think we (the com- mittee) should be commended for pointing out the dangerous features of a system of this kind.” Presi- dent Howard of the International ‘Typographical Union opposed com- pulsory insurance because it would “result in taking away from the American worker some of the free- dom he has exercised in the past.” Olander of the International Sea- men’s Union opposed compulsory unemployment insurance because: “There is nothing new about the government giving such things to people. For nearly a hundred years a large part of our popula- tion was under just that sort of system, carried to its ultimate, where the employer under the law was compelled to guarantee food, clothing and shelter and employ- ment. We called it slavery, and a million lives were sacrificed to put a stop to it... . ..” President Green said in Van- couver: “. Let us make our- selves strong before we engage in experimentation and inject into our moyement, through the adoption of an unsafe policy not sufied here, that which will pull at our vitals and destroy our trade union struc- ture.” a See HE A. F. of L. did not grow stronger after the Vancouver convention. It has grown weaker through loss of membership, but especially was the prestige of the leadership seriously weakened by its open policy of reaction, by its cynical neglect of the interests of the gigantic army of unemployed workers, including in its ranks at least a million members of A. F. of L, unions. ‘The social base of the bureauc- racy was being narrowed rapidly. The crisis has to a great extent restricted the economic base of the labor bureaucracy. Mass unemploy- ment (as high as 90 per cent in the building trades, which makes up more than one-third of the A, F. of L. membership), the capitalist offensive in the form of wage cuts and speedup created a situation where the surrender policy of the A. F. of L, bureaucrats (endorse- ment of stagger and share-the- work systems, opposition to unem- ployment insurance sabotage of strike struggles, “labor manage ment corporation,” etc.) no longer was able to effectively cajole im~- portant sections of the member- ship. ’ A revolt of the membership began, led by the New York Rank and File Committee for Immediate Relief and Unemployment Insur- ance. In spite of under-estimation of the importance of work within A CORRECTION | -An important typographical er- , Tor crept into one of the quota- ; tions in Comrade Dunne’s third ‘article published Saturday, Dec. 3, in the third column in’ the quotation from Standard Trade and Securities which should read: “Easing of credit, will make ptssible the installation of speedier, and more efficient machinery ; which will ‘make it more difficult ;for the re-absorption of displaced _ workers.” { a anne unions by Commu- ists, and the rather general ne- glect of this movement by our party for a considerable period, it grew by leaps and bounds. Not only was there a great rallying to the de- mand for relief and unemploy- ment insurance at the expense of the government and bosses, but issues such as reduction of the huge official saiaries, no dues payments for unemployed, and trade union democracy became widely popular. More A. F. of L. unions and mem- bers were taking part in the scores of local struggles of the Unem- ployed Councils, its mass demon- strations, hunger marches. OF INFLUE BY THE BUREAUCRATS Something had to be done to draw the teeth of this growing revolt or the bureaucracy, espe- cially that section of it from the unions hit hardest by the crisis and the revolt (miners, building trades, etc.), and their masters in the Republican and Democratic parties visualized still more rapid dissipation of their influence. The demagogic program adopted at the Cincinnati convention, and its enthusiastic endorsement by the Socialist Party leaders and press was the maneuver decided upon. ret ae DAL Fh Tay UT this maneuver, by the very facts of the acute crisis and rising mass struggles, in a certain measures legalizes the fight for compulsory unemployment insur- ance for which a few months ago the A. F. of L. and its unions were expelling members and organiza- tions. NOT AN EASY TASK It is clear that the revolutionary struggle for federal unemployment insurance and immediate relief at the expense of the government and employers is no simple matter. These enemies, the Socialist Party and the A. F. of L. bureaucracy, in their drive to check and hamper the mass struggle and divide the working class forces, are the chief obstacles to the organization of a mass movement powerful enough to force the demands of the unem- ployed from the capitalists and their government; powerful enough to stop wage cuts, to raise the liv- ing standards of the masses from the present pauper level and to de- feat the expanding drive of polit- ical persecution and destruction of elementary political rights di- rected especially against the Negro and foreign-born workers—and de- signed to suppress the militant or- ganizations and struggles of the entire working class, EXTENDING THE UNITED FRONT ‘The united front from below must. be broadened to defeat the social- fascist. splitters and bureaucratic sabotage. In pariicular is it neces- sary to watch carefully. analyze and expose the activities of the Muste wing of the A. F, of L. Its task is, by still more revolutionary phrases and a platform over which the crimson banner of the class struggle is draped askew, to patch ‘up the weak spots in the demagogic offensive of the official leaders, to appeal directly to revolutionary- minded workers; even at times to claim to be Communists or “more revolutienary” than the Commu- nist Party. peti Nae On this point the statement of the Twelfth Plenum of the E. C. C. I, says: “Only by taking fully into ac- count the variety of forms of the policy and maneuvers of the so- cial fascists in all their concrete- ness will the Communists be able really to expose and isolate the social fascists. Only by directing the main blows against the social democracy, this social mainstay of the bourgeoisie—will it be pos- sible to strike at and defeat the chief class enemy of the proie- tarist—the bourgeoisie, And only by strict differentiation between social democratic leaders and workers will the Communists be able, by means of the united front from below, to break down the wall which often separates them from the social democratic work- ers, ..(In this country also Repub- national oppression of the Negro to the white roling class term. TIMID ones, fearful of punishment. ceased their cries. Others, fearful of being singled out by their voices, stopped. Only an un- dercurrent of whispers and indis- tinct, muttered protests sounded in the Negro cage. “Git some torches an’ open that door!” the warden ordered angrily. Two bright flares burst hissing and sputtering, throwing a weird light on the frightened faces peer- ing through the bars. ‘HE night guard swung the door open. “Pile out! All o’ you!” he shouted. ‘They came, barefooted, half- naked and huddled together in front of the cage, silent and ap- prehensive. “What the hell happened?” Bill Twine demanded. ‘No one answered. “Who started this? Talk now, God damn you! or I'll stretch yall!” “T got scairt, Cap'n,” the Negro who had uttered the first ery said, his teeth chattering. “He's daid in dey!” HOW IT HAPPENED A rush of words came as though he feared being stopped before he explained why he had shrieked. He had started for a pot. Con's hand. hung over the rim of his bunk. While bending to avoid an outstretched foot from an upper bunk, his chest brushed the hand. It was cold, and the horror of be- ing locked in with the dead had terrified him. “So that’s it, eh? That's why you woke the camp an’ raised all this hell!” “I didn’t mean to st suh. I was scairt. art all dat, Dey'll be nig- PREPARING TH torn from their sockets. consciousness in Jess than an hour. personally supervising this torture. Thousands of unemployed Negro and white workers, whose delegates are now in Washington, presenting their demands, are sentenced to the chain gang on fake vagrancy charges and subjected to these savage tortures. (Copyright by John In Spivak, author of “Georgia Nigger”.) NEGRO SLAVERY TODAY Jobn L. Spivak’s Stirring Novel "GEORGIA NIGGER” NOTE.—"Georgia Nigge~’ is 2 smashing exposure of the hideos persecution 2nd treatment of Negroes which it symbolizes, erder te paint » true pictore of these horrible conditions, he considered St meoessary to nse this term as otherwise he would have put into the mouths of the boss lynek- ors terms of respect for Negroes which INSTALLM: bay do not use.—Etiter. ‘The Daily Worker is relentleesly oppesed and to the oppression and contemptuous The author shares this view, bat. in Se T . the Negro’s wrists and tied a long rope to the links between the cuffs, “Come on!” he said, yanking the © rope anes rm 'BENEZZER turned to the warden again. “Cap'n, ‘scuse me, please suh, but ain’ you gonter have somebody set up wid Con? He'll ha’nt us sho if he ain’ waked, suh.” “Alright. You set up with ‘im if you want to— “Yes, suh. Be glad to, suh. Kin I git some salt an’ ashes f'um de cook fo’ his sickness, too, suh?” “Yeah,” Twine said, and walked to the stunted concrete post to which the guard was already tying the convict. Throvgh the bars figures could be seen moving silently and swiftly before the white post. The war- den, an absurd figure in his un- derwear, held a flare high. The unresisting Negro, with his back to the post, was laced to it from ankles to hips with a rope and the one tied to the cuffs slipped about the second post. The guard pulled sharply. The convicts's torso jerked forward, bending at right. angles, his arms outstretched. His head drooped between the arms. ‘The sweat on his back and arms glistened in the light, “Stretch!” the warden ordered harshly. ‘The guard pulled until the rope was as taut as a tuned violin string. “Oh, Jesus!” the Negro screamed. “Yo' pullin’ my arms out!” PR Laas 'HE rope was wound around the post and tied, leaving the con- vict stretched so the slightest movement threatened to wrench his shoulders from their sockets. TORTURE—A Negro prisoner on the Early County, Ga., chain gang being laced to a post in preparation for torture by stretching. After he was laced, a rope was tied to his handcuffs and the other end pulled around a second post till his arms were nearly He was then left under the blazing sun, losing Warden J. D. Williams is shown gers dyin’ here'bouts now.” “I dunno ’bout the dyin’, but there'll be a nigger stretched for startin’ this!” “Please, suh, Cap'n — I didn’t mean to start nothin’. I was jes’ scairt slapped to death, suh——” “We'll see if we kin scare you enough to keep yo’ damn mouth shut in the future,” the warden returned viciously, “Jesse, git the cuffs an’ ropes!” mee WE night guard handed the torch to a trusty.and disappeared into his shack. “Bartow! Sam! Git that nigger out of the cage an’ put ‘im in the blacksmith shelter.” ‘The two convicts carried the dead boy from the cage. “You stay here!” Bill Twine or~ dercsd the still trembling Negro. he rest o’ you git back in there an’ don’t let me hear any mo’ of? that God ciamned noise. The nex’ time I'll stretch ev'ry one o you!” Ebenezer approached Twine. “Cap'n, please, suh,” he pleaded, “cain’ you put a couple o’ pennies on Con’s eyes so’s he won't look at us w'en we’s sleepin’?” TWINE AGREES Twine's fists clenched, but there had been enough trouble without terrifying the Negroes more, and he growled: “Alright. I'll have a couple 0’ coppers put on ’em.” Ebenezer scraped gratefully. The night guard came with a pair of lican, Democratic and non-party workers. But the Presidential vote of the S. P. shows that it has several hundred thousands of worker supporters.) The launching of the energette and widespread campaign on the issue of compulsory unemployment insurance by the A. FP. of L. and the 8. P. leaders makes the imme- diate application on a big scale of the above directives of vital im- ce, Since the above was written the American Federation of Labor con- vention has reversed its former position, denounced the share-the~ work plan and endorsed the 30- “One hour!” the warden sald curtly and extinguished the torch. Over the moans of the Negro on the rack sounded Ebenezer’s cries. He was a vauge shadow rocking on his haunches, waking the dead while arranging the plateful of ashes and salt under the body cov- ered with burlap bags. His voice was indistinct, but as his emotions rose it came clear: “Po’ Con! Po’ black boy! You done lef’ us. No mo’ cage. No mo’ chains. No mo’ cough an’ no mo’ blooa Come on, Consumption, an’ git into dat salt an’ ashes an’ leave dis po’ black boy alone! Leaye'm alone so's he kin enter de bright gates o' heayen all. good. an’ whole, Po’ black boy! Yo’ free now-——~ Like a red breast. last in de sky. AN OLD “LULLABY From somewhere in the recesses of his memory rose an old lullaby he had crooned to his children: OY cow, o'l cow, Whey is yo’ calf? ‘ Way down yonder in de meadow! De buzzards an’ de flies A-pickin’ out h’s eyes— Oh, de po’ li'l thing eried ‘Mammy!’ “Jesus Christ!” a voice from the white cage shouted. “Can't somes body hush that nigger.” shiny handcuffs, snapped them on (Continued Tomorrow) EEE eee, : ad week—without reduction im pepresident Green called loudly ig his closing speech for “some tant union to take the lead” in movement for it. He advoca the use of “forcible measures” {o cbtain it. He called for, not only the meintaining of living standards of workers but for raising them, Norman Thomas had already en- dovsed the shorter work day and week slogan of the A. F. of L.—long before it was amended. This action places some new problems before the Communist Party and Geserves the most earee ful examination, v f a ee Tae