The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 31, 1932, Page 6

The Celebration of the a a g 4 4 » : oie eiiisa a wane Page Six Daily, Published by the Comprodaily Publishing Co., Ine., 18th St., New York City, N. ¥. 1 By mail everywhere: One year, $6; stx months, $3.50; 3 months, $3; 1 menth, Wwe excepting Borough of Manhattan and Bronx, New York City. Foreign and Canada: One year, $9; 6 months, $5; 3 months, $3 ‘Telephone ALgonquin 4-7956. Cable “DAIWORK.”. Address and mait checks te the Daily Worker, 50 E. 18th St., New York, N. ¥. TRE: PREP Fors orker Party USA daily exeept Sunday, at a8 E. Anti-Soviet Lies Aimed to Mislead Farmers VERITABLE avalanche of dire prophesies about the Soviet Union flood the columns of the capitalist press. Headlines now screech that STATE FARMS FAIL IN SOV- THT PROGRAM. A reading of the articles under such heads, however, show just the opposite. for example that the d: the rapid incr In each instance, such, the story in the New York Times of December 22, we see itch is based not upon a decline in production, but upon se in productiveness of the state farms. According to the capitalist reports, these farms did not reach the quota required in the plan. We presume the kept press figures that few of its readers go farther than the headlines, so they can print one thing in big type and even the direct opposite in smaller type that tells the story. Then, when this same story reaches the farm papers in thé country is it so twi: in the Soviet U; ion. ed as to make it appear that farm production is decreasing These farm publications and small town papers, following the lying lead given by the biggest capitalist papers, try to create the illusi as is agricultur decaying capitalist system. s e mn that Soviet farming is in the same horrible condition in the countries still suffering under the blight of the 'HE kept press is careful not to state that the difficulties encountered in Soviet farming are difficulties of growth—that are being conquered by the tremendous creative energy of the Soviet masses—an energy that cannot manifest itself in the crushing atmosphere of the capitalist coun- tries and which was unleashed and given full play by the proletarian revo- lution which shattered the class rule of the capitalist class. In the Sov- iet Union all energy is directed toward increasing production, toward laying the material. basis for continued security, increasing comforts, the raising of the cultural level of the masses. The contrast between Soviet farming and that of the capitalist world is plainly brought out when we consider that all the capitalist press of New York carried news that Wall Street is rejoicing because poor weather and abandonment of 20 per cent of the farms will reduce the wheat crop and might bring prices up a few cents. Thus Wall Street mocks the starvation of the masses of this country who are suffering because capi- talism denies them bread. | Seaaais capitalism is gleeful over poor crops: the living, growing virile Soviet society which is building socialism bends all efforts to- ward increasing production. The lies about the farmers in the Soviet Union are like the lies about the workers and haye the identical motive. They try to restore confi- dence in capitalism and to deceive the ever-growing numbers of workers and farmers who are coming to realize that the only way out for them is to follow the revolutionary path of the workers and farmers of the Soviet Union, under the leadership of the Communist Pary. Daily Worker Tonight EW YEAR'S EVE. (tenight) at the Bronx Coliseum will witness the celebration of another milestone in the life of THE DAILY WORKER. On the night when the world of capitalism “sees the the old year out ‘and the new year in” and endeavors to forget in a few hours of revelry the uncertainties of its existence at the end of capitalist stabilization, the class conscious workers, the readers and supporters of THE DAILY ‘WORKER will celebrate the Ninth Anniversary of our daily. The pro- gram arranged will enable those who attend to have a good time. But this celebration is not something isolated from the every-day fight against capitalism. heavier blows against decaying capitalism. It is @ political act, enabling the working’ class to ‘deliver Every Party. member, every fighter in the ranks of the industrial unions, of the revolutionary oppo- sitions in the ranks of the A. F. of L. and other old-line unions, of the Mass organizations should be there and bring as many other workers as he or she can influence to come, ‘This will make larger the army that supports the Daily, and hence make the Daily a more powerful weapon in the fight against the Wall Street program of hunger and war. It will be a political demonstration for the revolutionary press and fagainst the foul and lying kept press of Wall Street, the poisonous “liberal” press, the social-fascist sheets of the Socialist Party, the coun- tér-revolutionary sheets of the renegade Lovestone and Cannon right opportunist and ‘Trots! front of the my press. The succ vist groups—in a word against the whole united s of this celebration will strengthen the Party and the press that fights for the hundreds of millions of workers, Negro and white, ‘unemployed and part time, native-born and foreign-born, who are today walking the streets and highways or sitting in their tenements and hovels cold and hungry while the holiday celebrations are going on. To make these DAILY WORKER celebrations big successes throughout the whole country is to bring nearer the day when the masses will rise and tear to pieces the whole ruling class edifice that exists today on the hunger and misery of the workers and farmers. All out -tonight! Make this the biggest of all celebrations and help the Daily fulfill its role in the mighty revolutionary upsurge that is the chief factor in the end of capitalist stabilization! wee ye These sketches of the life and struggles of Negro and white workers in the Sonth are taken from ‘GATHERING STORM, a novel describing the background of the great Gastonia textile strike of 1929. Myra Page is her- self a Southerner and at present is the correspondent in the Sov- jet Union of the Daily Worker. The novel has just been pub- lished by International Publish~ ers, 381 Fourth Ave., New York— EDITOR’S NOTE. . ¥ BACK ROW ACK of the mill, alongside the railroa@ tracks and separated from the section of Row Hill where Marge lived by @ field through which meandered a foot path, stood another group of company dwellings. In these fifteen shacks, huddled together and slanting to- ward one another as if seeking support, also lived families who worked at the mill This colony, known as “Back Row” and “niggertown,” was bare- ly two hundred yards from where the Crenshaws lived, in space as measured by the feet. But if the distance had been two thousand miles instead, Marge and the people on her side of the village and thosé on this could scarcely have known Jess about one an- other. For on Marge's half lived white mill’ hands, while here yi i ae the dip by the railroad tracks, d Negro families who also help- FROM THE BLACK BELT By MYRA PAGE. ed to transfer cotton fluff into cotton cloth at ten cents a yard. The field of daisies and wild grass was like an invisible gulf which yawned between them, and whieh those on both sides took largely for granted, as the gulf had been there when they came into the world. Only a few shacks were needed at Back Row, as the colored men and women were restricted to do- ing manual labor around the mill —hauling and cleaning cotton, washing the windows and sweep- ing the lint along the floor—and this required a scant two score hands. Back Row shacks were far poorer than those lying across the field. Two thinly-boarded rooms stood flat on the ground; a smoke stack of tin poked through each roof. In the rear there were two sets of outhouses, swarming with flies and hornets... Near.the .door~- stoops of the shacks a few morn- ing glories and sun flowers strug- DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1932 PARTY LIFE ‘Keeping New Members in the Party- By S. U. CARBONE. OW that the Communist Party is beginning to expand and pen- etrate in a definite progress in America the problem of keeping new members becomes acute. New members, especially young ones, re- quire individual care. We cannot generalize a formula that will ap- ply to all when they first enter the Party or become sympathetic. We must always bear in mind the period of transition—of change from capitalistic illusions to Com- munist reality. ‘This period of change may still be in progress while one is actually a Party mem- | ber. This is a period of minetal revolution. This is a period when the influences of a lifetime react against change and clash with new ideas. It will be a struggle of Communist realities against social- democratic illusions—traditions, re- | ligion and education and the daily contact that the new Party mem- ber may have with reactionaries. OUR GUIDANCE | WILL DECIDE Which side will win will be de- termined largely by our guidance. To neglect this feature of mental change and accept the theory that the progress of new comrades will be of an evolutionary character in which the comrade alone thrash- es out his or her problem is a fallacy. In some cases this may occur but we Communists must be- ware of hit or miss methods. How then, will we treat this problem? The following are from my personal observation but do not by any means cover the entire subject: 1. Our education in Party work and theory must continue unabated as a prerequisite towards answer- ing intelligently and convincingly all questions. 2. Personal friendship developed with new comrades as a basis for @ more sympathetic exchange of opinions. 3. Study new comrades’ short~- comings; strong points, etc., and work accordingly. 4. Become a sensitive barometer of change in new. members as they evolve or involve. 5. Their Party education and ideology developed as quickly as Possible. 6. With careful deliberation select simple tasks at first—the thrill of creative satisfaction will do much. 7. To encourage and to use tol- erance and to keep all forms of bureaucracy in absolute suppression is a necessity. Vile Conditions in the Jails of Ohio; Girl Prisoner Raped TRONTON, Ohio.—The capitalist class of Ohio, through their lackeys, the police are putting forth every effort to break down the fighting spirit of the workers. The condi- tions inthe jails: are something fierce. The Ironton-jail is crowded and unsanitary. Food is served without even a paper spoon. The Chespeake jail is a shed unfit- to keep hogs, much less humans. In the Fairfield County Jail the pri- soners are shut \up in small unyen- tilated cells and not furnished proper food or medical attention. They are also deprived of legal advice. Recently a 20-year old girl was raped in the Fairfield jail and noth- ing done about it. Simply passed over as a matter of no importance. Wandering Willie. gled up through the red clay, and | little brown bodies in one-piece garments busied themselves, dig- ging in the mud. There was one pump which ail fifteen families used. In wet weather, the ground before the houses was turned ioto a small pond as the water filled the dip, while even in dry weather there were muddy spots, and shal- low pools in the rear where dish water seeped into the ground, since there was no other place to throw it. ee ee MORGAN and his two young- est were sitting on their door- step, watching the fire-flies dart hither and thither across the fields, while Pa strummed his banjo and hummed under his breath. From inside came the sound of soft talk and laughter, as Ma and Marthy finished the evening dishes. When Ma laughed, her broad hips and generous bosom shook gently under her blue calico dress, and her black eyes glashed and sent dancing lights across to her companion. “Thar, now, Marthy, we's all done, ’n can go outside. You shore is a help to your Ma, honey. I doan know what I'd do without you.” She put an arm around the girl’s firm shoulders. “Why, Ma, you know I ain’t leay- in’ you-fer a long time, yit.” “Wal, mebbe, mebbe, she gave Marthy a teasing look. “We gals in our family allys marries young, ’n you're plum size fer your age. Look mo’ like twenty than sixteen. ’N Jim, now, I ‘low he's pullin’ at the bit, ain't he, ’n pressin’ you to set the day?” Martha smiled back and lowered her eyes. “Quit your joshin’, Ma. ‘You know we ain’t a-marryin’ yit. Besides, Jim’s got to git a raise, ’n we-uns mo’ saved up afore we could start out.’ “Wal, he's a good boy, up right ‘n hard workin’, ’n I ain’t bebrudg- ‘n-you to him. But I ain’t hurryin’ ‘long the day, nuther.” (To Be Continued) “The struggle against militarism must not be postponed until the moment when war hreaks out. Then it will be too late. The struggle against war must be car- tied on now, daily, hourly.” LENIN. “FEEL MY MUSCLE, BOSS!” ~By Burck Nia Bute. (By NAT ROSS) I \N Dec. 19 a sharp battle took place in Reeltown (Notasulga), Tallapoosa County, just 15 miles from Camp Hill, scene of the his- toric struggle of the Negro crop- pers and farmers in July, 1931. Reeltown is a continuation of the Camp Hill struggle on a much higher political and organizational plane. At Camp Hill the armed mob broke into a mass meeting of the Share Croppers’ Union held in a church, the result being the kill- ing of the Negro farmer, Ralph Grey, and an unknown number of others, and the arrest of 30 other croppers. The nation-wide . pro- tests, the release of all arrested, the forcing of immediate conces- sions from the landlords in the way of relief and extension of credits, showed the Negro people that the way of revolutionary mass struggle was the correct way. In the Camp Hill struggle the Sheriff's force succeeded in get- ting large numbers of poor white farmers in the lynch mob with the lies that the Negroes wanted to take the land and women away from ALL the white people. But the poor whites began to realize their mistake when they saw the concessions forced on the landlords by the struggle. ORGANIZER SENT INTO FIELD In. the summer of 1932 an or- ganizer was sent into the field, the Union: was re-established on a cor- rect -organizational form with a committee of 10 or so based on the plantation or locality forming a local. Mass meetings were discon- tinued except on special occasions, such as Anti-War day, when the meeting was held illegally. All meetings were to be held illegally until the Union was strong enough to come out in the open. It was not long before many locals were organized in Tallapoosa, Macon, Lee, Chambers and Elmore Coun~ ties, composed of Negro farm work- ers, croppers and tenants, their wives and children... Leaflets were distributed and the croppers be- gan to move against hunger in the most elementary forms_of struggle. Every struggle forced a conces- sion, because the landlords well knew that the croppers were or- ganizing to fight and not to starve to death. On one large plantation the croppers won the important right to sell their own cotton. On another the landlord was forced to give a cropper and his family an order for clothes as well as cash relief. On another plantation, the landlord, George Harper, demanded that many croppers move off his place and leave all their belong- ings, but after the increased activ- ity of the union, withdrew his threat and cancelled all debts, some of them running up to $300. ‘The landlords then tried to halt the growth of the union by trying to frame Euther Hugley for dis- tribution of leaflets, but this scheme was defeated by mass de- fense. At the same time (Dec. 5) the farmer-delegates from the five counties named were leaving for Washington to attend the National Farmers’ Relief Conference. The white farmers were drawing closer to the Union, which they began to see was fighting for the needs of the entire poor farming population. o/s 6 ET us for a minute glance at the beastly economic, political and social oppression of the Negro peo- ple. Quotations from some letters from this “Black Belt” section will explain the condition in the words of the croppers themselves. “We work on a farm this year and I and my children are naked and barefooted and my husband can't get any clothes at all. We work hard and don’t get any- thing out of it.” “My wife is ordered to go to the fields (to work) sick or well.” “My boss lady she claim to be sick and got me stay 2 weeks and the pay she give me is an old dress and told me she would look up something else sometime.” “I work for Mrs. Clary Pogue for wages and my wife has a crop and Mrs. Pogue is trying to run me off so she can get the crop, She don’t pay me at all and her brother tried to jump on me and I can’t stay at home at She the ae she The Significance of the Present Struggles in Alabama will shoot me, And my wife work at her house and she don’t pay her anything and told her she was going to let her have a little meal and she better not slip me none 0° it. I worked all the week and wsked for some gro- ceries for next week and her brother came and cursed me and told me I had not done a damn thing. And Mrs. Clary got the sheriff and he came after me on Monday and I dodge him. He left word that if I don’t move he would lock me up and I ain't got nowhere to go.” “I made two bales of cotton. Ihave to pay rent out of it and the and my family have to live out of what was left this winter. If I buy food I won’t have noth- ing to buy clothes with. The landlord would not let me have a foot of land to plant corn. I have been working for $5 a month to feed 11 in the family. I am planning and studying to see what way can be done to have me a crop next year and I want some information on what to do. The Jandlord don’t want to rent me no land. He wants me to share crop and I want to work different from that.” “Our children want to go to school and have no clothes to wear and have no shoes and no fit food for lunch and live a long ways and have to walk out on the road and ditehes and in the field to let the white school bus pass by. We have no money to buy our children books and the white children get them free. The colored school ain't started yet and the superintendent says it won't start.” This, in brief, is the objective situation in which the battle of Reeltown took place. THE SHERIFF ARRIVES On Monday morning, Dec. 19, Deputy Elder came to the farm of Clifford James, a Negro farmer, with an order gotten out by Waiter Parker, rich merchant of Nota- sulga, who had a mortgage on the farm, to take away his mule and cow. James, backed by about 10 mem- bers of the union who had gath- ered, properly refused to give up his last and only means of liveli- hood. It seems from reports that the merchant had no legal right even according to the capitalist law, to the animals. The deputy left saying, “I’m going back to get some more men and kill you all in a pile.” ‘When Deputy Elder returned with three other armed white thugs, about 50 Negroes had gathered in James’ shack, determined not to give up the live-stock. After all, they thought, it was better to stand: together and’ insist on the right to live than to die of star- vation; for that is it what it meant. for a poor tenant to be without a mule and cow. It was then that the battle began. © Of course, according to the press reports which came only from the deputies themselves, the Negroes were first’ to: fire. ‘Elder said that two Negroes came out to tell the deputies they would not yield the animals and: then as they returned to enter the house the Negroes in- side opened fire and wounded a couple of the deputies. The depu- ties returned -the fire, killing Jim McMullin inside the house and wounding about fifteen, including a 12-year-old boy. Even in this story the obvious lie that the Ne- groes started firing stands out. Why did the two Negroes come out to speak to the armed depu- ties? How come that the Negroes were killed and wounded inside the house? How about the threat of Elder? How is it that the deputies were slightly wounded when it is clear that the armed croppers were’ » able to shoot to kill if they wished? Why did Sheriff Young forbid newspaper men to approach the shack after the battle and even destroyed the photographs of the Birmingham News reporter, which action seemed so obviously raw that even the lynch press criticized the stupid sheriff for his indiscre- tion, It was clear from the outset that the murderous deputies came and shot into the croppers delib- erately and the croppers answered shots self-defense, in de- fending the right to live, in refus- ing to give up their stock even at the point of an armed attack of the agenis of the oppressors. . ‘HE landlords and their armed thugs were infuriated. The Ne- gro masses had shown that they were ready to defend their lives and means of life. They were or- ganized solidly into a revolution- ary union. This must be crushed. A call was made for the whites to join the posse to put down the “race riot.” Sheriff Young refused to say anything to the press ex- cept that .“they hadn’t started do- ing anything yet.” The sheriff, following orders from the land- lords, was planning on a real massacre of the Negroes in the vicinity. This was as clear as erystal the afternoon of Dec. 19. The sheriff informed Governor Miller that the situation was grave and to hold the soldiers ready. The adjutant general rushed to the scene of action. POSSE GOES INTO ACTION. In the meantime the posse went into action. They numbered about 100 to 200 and they came from five counties. The posse included the sheriffs and deputies from four counties, but almost no white poor farmers, The posse hunted the Negroes everywhere, chased them over hills and into woods and swamps. This barbarous and fever- ish man-hunt continued for 24 hours, the result being a dozen Ne- groes arrested and charged with in- tent to murder, and an unknown number killed and wounded. While the latest statement is one cropper killed, this is probably untrue, since Sheriff Stearn admitted see- ing three dead himself and a re- port to the adjutant was that four were dead. It is probable that as many as a dozen Negroes were killed and certainly at least five. After the first day the sheriff of Elmore County announced that only one of the three arrested were in jail, the other two “may have been released.” No doubt they were shot dead in the dark of the night by the Elmore deputies, * After all the terrible threats of Sheriff Young, in charge of the man-hunt, it is well to ask why all of a sudden the lynch mob was called upon to disperse? UNITY OF NEGRO AND WHITE First, the white ruling class and its armed murderers—despite all their shouts of race riot—despite all their lies about the threats against the Negro farmers by the white farmers, could not enlist the poor whites to join the man-hunt. The outstanding fact in this strug- gle was the remarkable unity of Negro and white farmers, a thing unknown in the ‘Black Belt’ hereto- fore. After calling this struggle a race riot, inter-racial clash, etc., the Birmingham Post is forced to come out in its feature editorial on Thursday, headed “No Race Riot,” saying: “It would be ex- ceedingly superficial to regard the disturbance as a race riot. ‘The relatively small extent to which race prejudice factored in the af- fair is one of the things that im- pressed newspaper reporters most deeply” “The cause of the trouble was esesntially economic rather than racial, The resistance of the Ne- groes at Reeltown against officers seeking to attach their livestock bears a close parallel to battles fought in Jowa and Wisconsin between farmers and sheriffs deputies seeking to serve evic- tion papers. A good many white farmers, ground down by the same relentless economic pressure from which the Negroes were suffering, expressed sympathy with the Negroes’ desperate plight.” A news item in the same paper states; “while farmers in the vi- cinity do not regard the disturb- ances primarily as a race riot although it was incited by Commu- nist literature (!) The literature has been distributed in the mail boxes of both white and Negro farmers for the past 18 months and urge radical action by white and Negro farmers alike.” _) (10 BE CONTINUED), oe > By SAM KRIEGET (Organizer Column 4, National Hunger March) “W7HERE are we going, fellow workers?” sings out the col~ umn leader, “ON TO WASHING- TON,” is roared by the high spir- { ited hunger marchers who have pushed through the barriers of dep- utized thugs that are blocking the entrance to the police-flooded cities on the line of march, In many cases the marchers are forced to spend the night in a cold, open field near (‘= city where a recep- tion for them had been arranged by the local workers. The_elected delegates on the hunger march had left it up to the workers in the cities they were approaching wheth- er or not the march ywpuld fight for the right of the delegates to enter. If the local workers were | strong enough to meet the march- ers at the city limits and escort them to the center of town, then the marchers were willing to fight shoulder to shoulder with them for local immediate cash relief as well as for federal unemployment insur- ance. This was the message brought by the Hunger March and left with the workers in the cities through which it passed. TRIUMPHANT MARCHES Triumphant marches through the main streets and big meetings at the city halls of some cities were followed by a show of extreme po- lice terror in other cities which the local workers and hunger marchers could not overcome. Con- sequently, the Hunger March re- corded many local successes and reverses and finally wound up in the victorious entry of the columns into Washington, our objective. Then followed the significant Na- tional Unemployment Conference on the wind-swept open prison pen of New York Avenue, and the next day the march on the Capitol itself. ‘The delegates though very tired and many of them suffering from colds and sore throats, were ready to do it all over again. Our aim was achieved; we pushed through to Washington in spite of every- thing and placed our demands be- fore Congress. We made our na- tion-wide protest against the star- vation of men, women and children, the most important question on the agenda of the United States Sen- ate for that day and also caused a number of Congressmen to visit our Hunger Camp to get first hand information from our own delegates as to the plight of the unemployed and the need of immediate win- ter cash relief and unemployment insurance. Also, the very capitalist newspapers net only in Washing- ton but all over the country in their very efforts to hurt the Hunger March helped only to dramatize our struggles for relief in spite of the poisonous darts which they kept shooting at us throughout, . ot a ee UR Western delegates turned homeward bound, light in spirit though tired in body. The return trip was to be an occasion for con- centrated organizational activity. Every marcher was enrolled as an organizer for the Unemployed Council and was pledged to bring recruits into our ranks for the struggle ahead. The delegates were to return home in the same march- ing order as they came to Wash- ington. Mass meetings were being arranged in the chief cities on the line of march to hear the reports of the returning delegates and to learn what immediate steps had to be taken to broaden our unemploy- ment struggles, Here was our chance to follow up on the gains we already had made. Here was our opportunity for active recruitment and concrete organizational results. But a cog slipped. We forgot to give even greater care to the return of the delegations in an organized and disciplined manner, than they had arrived. The authorities were quick to take advantage of this, “DIZZINESS FROM SUCCESS” We were prodded to leave Wash- The Return from Washington -Weaknesses inHungerMarch ington, it is true. But we should not have taken for granted that this prodding was only the desire of the Washington politicians and cops to get rid quickly of their hun- ger fighting antagonists. In our haste to leave Washington we laid ourselves open to ambuscade and attack, a chance that the Maryland and West Virginia police were re= vengefully waiting for. The come bined Western Columns had brush= ed the police aside like so many flies on the way to Washington, We were traveling together.then. Now on our return trip we.mist have had an attack of “dizziness from our successes” for our. fast. cars and trucks were trying to-oute do each other in their haste to. get to Uniontown, Pa. The slower ve~ hicles were proceeding to Cumber- land, Maryland for the night stop- over. But less than thirty- miles out of Washington there ceased-to be fast and slow group of cam and trucks and instead there form- ed a long straggling line of vehicles which extended a distance of near- ly fifty miles from Winchester, Va. to Romney, W. Va., 28 miles south of Cumberland, Md. The Maryland and West Virginia. State Police were quick to realize the predicament of the isolated del- egations which were running out of gas and were having tire and motor trouble, and pounced down upon them tooth and nail. Com- rades were beaten and chased out of their trucks which were shoved off the road or taken in tow by the W. Virginia police. Other com- rades in cars traveling alone were at the mercy of the vindictive po- lice who insulted and threatened them and gave them bum steers up blind mountain trails. ‘There were more than 25 cars and trucks stranded and strewn over the Shen- andoah and Allegheny Mountains that Wednesday night, Dec. 7th, with a cold sleet coming down. Our comrades built fires and: tried to fight off the icy cold méuntain winds. Some slept in stalled trucks and waited for help. Other dele- gates abandoned their vehicles and took to the highways where they were later picked up by our.rescue. crews. Still other groups made. their way to railroad tracks and hopped freights for home. 2.8. 8 T Uniontown and Pittsburgh the comrades who reached there first in the fast vehicles stopped to reform their broken columns and to send back mechanics -with money and tools for the cars-in distress. The National Committee of the Unemployed Councils at Washington also sent immediate help in the form of salvage crews and finances to the stranded del-.. egations, but the line was past fix- ing so each delegation was aided to get home individually as best it could. As a result of our smashed lines, our delegations were not able to arrive in their respective cities on schedule so that many meetings were called off and in several cases no food or lodgings were prepared for the returning marchers. It is true that the returming Western Columns were smashed by the police, but it was within our power to prevent it by maintaining our marching discipline of staying together at all times which we fol- lowed on the way to Washington, WARNING FOR FUTURE While this condition as far “as. I know was true mainly of Columns 1 and 4 with which I was associated, I believe the facts revealed must be brought out in order-that we tition in the future. that the workers who experienced the above, will know how to perfect better organization in the future. No doubt this is a small incident in the big campaign we. carried through against great odds and in the fact of victories we achieved along the whole front. But we-must learn not only from our-victories but also how to overcome even:small defeats. We are preparing for big» ber struggles. We must strive -to be better equipped, better = ized and “always ready.” > “4 Letters from Our Readers SAYS “DAILY” SAVED CHAIN GANG FUGITIVE New York. Editor of Daily Worker: Dear Comrade: I am moved to write you after reading of the refusal of Governor Moore of New Jersey to grant ex- tradition papers in the case of Robert Elliot Burns, the fugitive from the Georgia chain gang. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the whole matter bears the indelible impress.of the agita- tion of the Daily Worker.‘ Of course, Governor Moore would not admit anything of the sort, but the fact nevertheless remains: The Daily Worker was—and is —the only English in these United States that has exposed the chain gang system with pitiless ac- curacy. It has been precisely this agitation+and all. the agitation \that has gone along with it in meetings, speeches, lesser periodic- als, etc., that has influenced this decision of Gov. Moore. This agit- ation and, of course, the organiza- tion work that has gone along with it. ‘ . The victory, in a sense, goes to the Daily Worker. An editorial on the Burns case should be written. This should be made the starting point for a nation-wide campaign against the chain gang system and for Jegal and human rights for the oppressed Negro and white masses, with particular emphasis on equal rights for the Negro masses. This is not. a measure of reform; it is part of the revolutionary strusele which the Datfly Worker must lead, It’s not a campaign of the day; it’s a constant struggle. Particue larly in the South will it help ‘to win many Negro and white-farm= ers and even liberals to Ur bats ner, aera —ROBERT WILSON” RICH SWINDLER. GETS OFF EASY Ex-Bank Head Given Soft Job in Jail ~ OXFORD, Miss.—I shall do every- thing I can to expose the unbelieve- able conditions existing on the prison farms and chain gangs, Let me start with telling you how capitalist crimi- nals are treated at our convict farms, A few months ago Mr, Smallwood of Oxford, Miss., was sentenced to serve three years. Mr. Smallwood was a bank president, and one pretty day he walked out of the bank with $47,000 in cold cash. He hid the money. and refused to explain where it. was, However, that didn’t get. him: the three yeurs, What got him in bad was the fact that he had swindled some big out-of-town bank. . But Smallwood didn’t serve on the 5 gang, Oh, no! Smallwood was aN a responsible position on the far1 anda private car. He used to to Oxford every Sunday in order attend church services with his fé ily and influential friends. mee i, ‘The other day honorable Mr.. Small. Wood ied of heart trouble. But: wife and children are not for he stole all in all $123,000, But many a poor farmer ha¢ let the sheriff take his home for on that very account, ig Ne cs Png