The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 4, 1933, Page 4

Wa rerew nares: S f ° by the Comprodaily Publishing Co,, Ime Sunday, at Atm Page Feor eit eget 5 ae : ug 7 ne Pap L-1058. Coble “DATWORK” Dail orker Sy Mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $5.50; 3 months, 9; 1 month. Wwe th St,, New York City, S , neuin : ie Address and mail checks to the Daily Warker, 66 X. 13th Bt. New York, N. ¥ excepting Borough of Manhattan nx, New York City. Ferelgm and Contra Pory USA. UNCE ASIN G MASS HE SCOTTSBORO case is entering a new phase. legalistic trappings are being torn aside and grim to face. The resolute and indomitable spurred on to heroic heights is manifested in and Negro spectators in the c 5 PROTE) More and more the forces come face of the Negro ma on of Negro witne: enge to the age- rapidly forcing The Southern rulins class has no illusions about the real meaning of the challenge symbolizeci by the Scottsboro trial. Relentlessly the trial is rapidly moving toward a climax. On both sides the intensity of class feeling is rising, the unbridled brutality of the South- ern bourbons on the one hand, against the determined national revolu- ionary resistance of the Negro masses on the other. : * * * E ee conflict of forces will not be soleiy confined to the court room. ‘The 6. forces of lynch terror are gathering and concentrating, waiting for ti opportunity to unleash bloody terror. The air about Decatur is sinister with lynch preparations | speedily organize. The toilers of the U. S., in every part of the country must now rally in tremendous numbers behind the Negro masses. Organize and fight for: 1—Immediate unconditional release of these nine innocent Negre boyr. 2.—Disbanding and disarming of the boss lynch gangs around Decater. 3. Protection of all witnesses for the defense. For Negroes on the jury. . No reliance on lynch courts—mass action. j. Unity of Negro and white workers for the defense of the Seotishore of the southern slay is now being revealed in of lynch gangs in and nd Decatur where the trial outhern rm ig class, in their attempt to maintain lynching 2 ‘ national oppression upon which top at nothi rising challe ses thi sees being held. The of slavery. e been for so long javagery to stem the egro masse ese legal and extra-legal cter of the case the Scottsboro trial is the nch preparations n anything’ else cus of profound class angi One fighting protest of white toilers with Negro people fec the defense of the Scottsboro boys. rom juries evidence which throws 2 icate that g s of southern uling class lynch just nas been swiftly chosen liberation struggles of the Negro m sses against their oppressor?. Against these murder preparations, the Negro and white (oilers oo must 8. Hold mass meetings—send protests 10 the Governor of Aiabamed THE STORY OF THE: Portrait of Decatur, Ala., Scene of the Legal SCOTTSBORO FIGHT 1931 March 25—Nine Negro boys, the youngest 13, the oldest 21, were ‘ain at Paint 'S gang and APRIL st expose of the Scottsboro up appeared in the Daily Worker. tests and mass meetings w April 6—The trials of tt boys began at Scottsboro before Judge EB. A. Haw April 7—The j rned the erdict of “g n the case of Haywood Patterson April 8—Ozie Powell, Eugene Wil- tar Olin Montgomery, Andy Wright, Willie Robertson declared guilty, ‘aye of Roy ht, age 13. The Internati Labor Defense en ered the cas April 9—Death “ 0 Wrist Nudge ot Ro 10—First bi mass meeting Luke April Proiest Harlem at Si April Hall telegram of rope arrived from Transport Workers from he = «Berlin big Scott May 3—First big Southern 7 Meeting was held im C! hattanooga, ‘Tenn. May 6—Amended es filed 16—6,000 we tsboro in Dresden, Germar June 13—The solicitor state of Alabama for the state in the cases nine boys June 17 — Demonstrations were held before the American Em for filed affidavits the of the a Leipzig, Germany, _ prote against the Scottsboro fr June Judge Ha ruled ail motion® for nev d he ¢ a dune 27~5,000 Negro and white ied through by the LL.D. January 21—The Supreme Court of Alabama heard the cases of rs of the boys in the court house at Montgomery, Ala MARCH e Supreme Court of motions for | pheld the judg- | of the Circuit Court of Jack~ | son County. | March 25—Petitions were filed in | t jupreme Court for a new hear- nev ment trials—and APRIL ter H. Pollak e he case to carry the appeal jpreme Court United Stat April 13. were over- and an ¢ e cution 1g Supreme ri gian' of execution. of th boys until June 24, pa Apr 27—Ada Wright and J. i 1 eral Secretary | . sailed for Europe an international Scotts- st campaign. They were invited by Aid. he International Red MAY May 7—A huge Scottsboro protest | demonstration was held in Chem- nitz, Germany. JU June 15—Ada Wright was smug- gled over the Belgian border to ad- ss a protest meeting of 5,000 e 15—Walter H. Pollak, 1.L.D. y led a petition in the eme Court at D. for a stay of xecution until the Supreme Court “could hear involved in the record June 19 — The Court issued a writ of certiorari and an order suspending the death U. 8S. Sypreme sentences and a stay of proceed- | ings in the cases of the seven boys. JULY A demonstration of 150,- rs in the Lustgarten in listened to the ight, to save the rs. Wright and Eng- the Amsterdam Congress which passed ution protesting against the Anti. Ww | up and demanding freedom | a resi Scottsboro boys. gust 22—Ada Wright and Eng- il were arrested in Brussels, Bel- and deported from the coun- SEPTEMBER September 5—Ada Wright and Engdahl were arrested at Prague, | Czecho-Slovakis, and then deport- ed after being held in jail for four days. OCTOBER October 3 — An “All Civil Rights Conference at Birmingham. Ala., delegates present United rd the casey ation-wide Scot ons The LL.D. vention opened ir Ohio, with Scottsboro Southern was held with 300 October 10 States Su eme Cou Cleveland catur, Battle for Lives of the Scottsboro Boys" Day-to-Day Actions Thruout the World Led to Three Negro Sections Mounting Protest Which Halted Hangmen in Southern Town; Many Jobless (Special Correspondence) CATUR, Ala., where one of the ost matic and_ significant battles in the history of the colored race is being fought, sprawls flatly under @ warm, spring sun. There are three colored sections in this town, two consisting of a few bare unpaved streets, and the third, where most of the population lives, of unpainted shacks, weather- beaten, rickety, with sagging porches staring bleakly at a cloud- flecked sky. Little black children play in front of their porches, while the adults stare stolidly at the white passer- by. It is only with their own color, their own people, that they feel safe and at home. Soms of the homes are so bad that one can almost look in through the cracks in the walls or the broken window panes, NO WORK FOR THEM Here a good portion of Decai colored population have lived most of their lives. They work at labor deemed unfit even for “poor trash whites. And in these times when even whites are out of work in v numbers, the pressure is felt even more keenly by the blacks. Even in good times much of the work in the mills around here was closed to those whose skin happened to be defense as the key October 18—Tom behind the bars of appealed to all workers to ight for the freedom of the Scotts. boro boys. ney from 2 Quentin NOVEMBER November 7—International Scotts- boro Day. over the world. November 7—Picketing and dem- onstrations were held before the United States Supreme Court. Six- | teen were arrested and many were beaten and clubbed. November 7—The United States Supreme Court granted the boys @ new trial. November 8—Judge Hawkins set the new trials for all nine boys for March, 1933, term of the Scotts- boro Court. November 2i—J. Louis Engdahl died in Moscow, where he was at- tending the International Red Aid Congress, 1933 January 8—Samuel Liebowitz en- tered the Scottsboro case, January 23—The letter written by Ruby Bates proving that the police forced her to lie at the ‘original trial, was ordered produced in court by Chamlee and Schwab. MARCH March 6—Hearing was held in the original court room of Scotts- boro, Atabama, before Judge Haw- kins on two motions—one for a change pf venue and a second to quash the indictment against the boys on the ground that. there were no Negroes on the jury that orig- inally condemned them. March 7—Change of venue'to De Als., was ordered. Demonstrations all | | IN BATTLING FOR THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS AND NEGRO RIGHTS—Negro and white workers in militant demonstration before the U. Supreme Court, on Nov. 7, one hour before that body, under pressure of mass protest thruont the world, reyersed the Alabama lynch verdicts against the Scottsboro bors. elubs and guns against the workers. Washington polices used gas, colored Where the whites live the streets are wide and spacious, with cozy. well-built one-story homes front ing the paved sidewalks and con- crete streets. Lawns green with early spring grass spread before most of them. Many of the working population of some 15,000 ate unemployéd, and those few who are-working in the mills average $10 to $12 a week for a 12-hour day. Even the well-to-do whites seem to be harassed, thin looking though dried by the southern sun. The few main thoroughfares, where the town’s stores offer a scanty selection of goods. almost empty. are URING the Scottsboro trial the center of interest is in the two-story yellow brick court- house, separated by a lawn from the two-story red brick county jail where the nine boys are guarded by Sheriff Bud Davis and state miilitia- men always on duty, in the vermin- infested. jail. On the courthouse lawn, stretah- ing for a hundred feet in all direc- tions, Negroes in overalls loll about, lying lazily in the sun or standing about in little groups of two or three, talking earnestly in low tones. None gather, consciously or unconsciously, near the white mar- ble statue on the |; to the memory he in- Nor do they Shes near the statue of Justice nearby, which looks old, worn and bedrageled. TH: COURTHOUSE Within the courtroom are large, spacious corridors dotted with spit- toons resting on round, rubber pads. But the inhabitants and hangers- on do not seem abie to hit them, for the surrounding area is lit- tered with cigarette and cigar stubs and wet with tobacco juice. Curious clerks stand about in the doorways and stare at the crowds of Negroes and’ whites surging throigh or standing about idly. Occasionally @ White woman ventures in, but that is rare. Negroes are in the majority among those crowding close to the two militiamen keeping them away from the courtroom door with rifles and fixed bayonets, ‘The Negro faces are a study. Here, pressing against the wooden bench beyond which they may not pass, | is a white-haired Negro. A battered rumpled hat sits carelessly on his frizzly white hair, His overalls are oid and dirt encrusted. In one hand is & can of bait and in the other a long fishing pole which he tries to hold unobtrusively, but which seems to get in his neighbors’ way. He leans forward peering al the door some feet away into the ding smoke: filled courtroom where the tral is going on. His eyes strain in an effort to see, and | closed tight, failing, he turns to the militie- man watching him with an odd shake of his head, sighs and turns to the emaciated little colored girl beside him. He whispers to her, and she looks up at him with rmind, wondering eyes. All about him the crowd crushes forward, still and silent as though they realized the full import to their lives and. the lives of their people in the dramatic scenes be- ing enacted in this court. ‘They rarely speak to one another, and when they do, it is in whispers. N EITHER side of the courtroom two high, narrow windows, half- covered by yellow shades, hide the sunlight. Three windows back of the Judges bench are completely shaded. The benches to accommo- date 425 spectators are filled. The air is foul, for the windows are though they have screens over them. Spectators, lawyers and newspapermen smoke during adjournments, and the place | has @ grayish haziness over it. Whites sit in the majority of the seats, mostly young boys out of work. Here and there are lean, bony men of the South, with hard looks in their eyes, staring steadily at the defense counsel and the judee. The Negroes have been allo- cated a section among the spec- tators’ seats, and they sit quietly seldom talking or whispering. There is a noticeable grim look in their eyes. Many of them have been getting up at'5 o'clock in the | morning to be at the courthouse sufficiently early not to miss the procedure. The same faces are here, day in and day out. They are men who went to know what is going to be done to their brothers. Near them are two colored news- papermen, William N. Jones of the Baltimore Afro-American and P. Bernard Young, Jr., of the Norfolk Journal and Guide. They watch every move the attorneys. make, swiftly noting their observations, indifferent to the hostility apparent in the eyes of the most poorly dressed whites. When a white | newspaperman talks to them all | eyes are turned upon.him. THE DEFENSE TABLE The defense table is at the. leit with chief trial counsel, Samuel S. Liebowitz and Gen. G. W. Cham- lee keeping Haywood Patterson be- tween them. Joseph Brodsky chief counsel for the International Labor Defense, is at the left of Chamlee, watching the trial carefully, fre~ quently bending forward to make & suggestion to the counsel ques- tioning the witness. Captain, J. W. Burleson, spruce and span in hii officer's uniform sits with one’ of his soldiers near the toilet door, while two of his men sit, near the window even with the judge's bench The prosecution's table at the right is filled with law books. At | torney General Thomas FE. Knight, on, is at the farthest corner, with ‘scenes at : Courthouse | observations, listen for a few hours | | over the fateful trial, sits in soli- | and give man s complete world ont- Described by Our | Correspondent | his assistant, Thomas Lawson, and two county solicitors. Behind them at the wooden table arranged for them is the array of newspapermen covering the trial. | T. M. Davenport of the Decatur Daliy covers both for his paper and the Associated Press. Beside him is Ralph E. Hurst of the Birmingham News, who clatters his’ “noiseless” typewriter as he writes his story during the trial. Both are Southerners and fond of telling stories about white women, who have been “raped | by Negroes,” and what happened to the Negroes. Beside Hurst is Rey Daniels of the New York Times. He files more than anyone, averaging 3,000 words a day. Everyone is friendly to Daniels. He represents a power- ful, influential newspaper. What he says will influence national pub- ic opinion. The Attorney General, Claranet N a tired, harassed or worried, always has a friendly special smile for him. Tow Cassidy of the New York News is next in line. A hardboiled newspaperman, “for nothing and against nothing.” There are several correspondents fsom the neighboring cities and tkwns, who do not seem to have a yJermanent seat but go wandering about the courtroom, like Benson, adjtor of the Scottsboro Progresive Age, and magazine writers from ‘The Nation, The New Republic and Common Thege make their i: | and go off to write their pieces. Judge James E. Horton, presiding tary loneliness on the high judge's bench facing the attorneys and spectators. Tall, raw-boned, with his hair rumpled, he peers through tortoise shell eyeglasses at the witness in the center of the space between the two counsel tables. | Pisin ina SPITE the bitterness with which each side contests the other's motions, there is a surface attitude of amiability between the opposing counsel. Almost everybody active or reporting the trial has moved to the Cornelian Court Apartments. It is no unusual thing for » con- ference of Tnternational Labor De- fense lawyers io be going on in Joseph Brodsky’s apartment, and scarcely twenty fect across the lawn of the Court, for another confer- ence to be progressing in the At- torney General's apartment. “The teachings of Marx are ali- powerful because they are true. They are complete and symmetrical look which cannot be reconciled with superstition, reaction, or de- fomse of hourgents oppression. It is the tawfnt heir of the host that was created hy the human mind in the 19th centure ox represented by German philosophy, British poli teal ceonomy and French socinl- igre.” —LENTN. | selves, “WE SAW THE BOYS IN DECATUR JAIL” | Dramatic Interview in the Southern Prison With the Innocent Negro Boys ~ ae ATOR, Aia—You climb thir- teen iron steps worn smooth by colintless feet, while the shadow of 2 hangman's noose follows you at each step. On the thirteenth step you stop and hesitate while a sick- ening feeling sweeps over you, for not six inches away the gallows jloom horrible in the electric light | of the Morgan county jail. You mount the last step and you stand on the brink of the trap door through which men, praying or cursing, have been hurled into eter- nity; and as though to. mock them forever, the shadow of the gallows ring dangles over the halo on the head of a painting of Christ at Gethsemane—a remembrance to a the good Christians of Alabama. Some Jong since forgotten convict had painted it in his last agonized hours on the wall back of the: spot where he was to die. As I looked upon the gallows, I became aware of eyes staring at me and beyond me to the stark black shadow of the noose, motionless on the wall, as though etched forever on it with bitter tears. The eyes were the eyes of the Scottsboro boys. Only seventeem eyes, for Olin | Montgomery is blivd in one, and he peered between the heavy three- inch steel bars with his one good but near-sighted eye at the shadow on the wall. ef 4 wa-< ce HE bull pen where the boys are kept isfullof shatiows. Shadows of soldiers moving about under t! glaring light. Shadows of them- shuffling dispiritedly and frightened in the cells. Shadows that loom and climb over the once white-washed walls. But all shad- ows are obliterated, seem to be for- gotten, and only one remains from which they cannot tear their eyes— the gallows facing them when they open their eyes in the morning or to haunt their dreams: at night when they hide in their cells to forget it. I stood and talked with them in the doorway to their cells. They crowded close to the bars, but their eyes kept wandering from mine, kept passing beyond me to that shadow motionless on the wed. It was this shadow that kept the boys up the first night they were brought into Decatur and locked in the jail. Even Olin Montgomery, with his one nearsighted eye, could not help -seeing it as he wearily climbed the stairs. That was why he could not sleep that night. He paced up and down the few feet of space between the cells, peering frightened through the barred win- dows into the darkness of the spring night, pausing in his walk to strain his ears for signs of the mob they expected, & mob that would throw another shadow of a hangmen's noose on some tree ouf- side the jail. That shadow has etched itself deep into the consciousness of the boys. cells in Kilby prison they stared through the bers at the electric chair where the stato of Alabama hoped to tie them with mazks around their faces and straps across their chesis and see the smoke curling from their hea and knees . 6G |. ee now, when once more the activities of the Internationa’ Labor Defense has given them a new hope on life, a new hope that millions of blacks. and whites throughout the world are deter- mined that they shall not burn, they are placed in cells looking upon.the disused gallows to remind them that lynchings have occurred in Alabama. ‘The Morgan County jail is filthy. Eyen while the Scottsboro boys stand talking to you, they scratch themselves incessantly, for vermin overrun the place. One holds one's hand against the dirty, greasy bars and pulls it away quickly as a roach strolls by, crossing from celi to’ cell. “The bedbugs, they’s the worst.” explains Andy Wright, noting the look of disgust. “They get in our clothes and we got no change. Just this prison sult. And we can’t get rid o’ them. We got powder and tried to clean the mattresses, but them bugs just eat the powder and coms back for more.” Even with the light, turned on, # is difficult to see inside the cells, ranging four in a row on either side, It is dark, dingy, and the ancient smell of the jail is in the air. The cotton mattresses are so like the dark floor and the dark bed that you look twice before you make out the outlines of either mattress or bed. “Yeah,” explained one of the boys, “them beds is just full o’ bugs, climbing all over you and bothering you when you sleep. We tried to disinfect ib, but it don’t do no good.” There are nine windows to tte bull pen, which is on the second story of the jail, and each window has eleven bars of inch thick steel, Over the bers are 2 coarse ‘and a fine screen, so that what litthe lighs can get in is dimmed pity “ OLTE POWPL 2 thm string is stretched Hag ber te nr ion. fe | {Efex HOW JUDGE HORTON TRIED TO “INFLUENCE” WRITERS FOR NEGRO PRESS Sere s:raise bi July 4=Mrs, Patterson, mother of . “What will you do ‘when you ave fe tnd tbe Naionsi" Convention st | — Sensational Charges Revealed by Correspondents Show Real Meaning of “Southern Justice” and “Fair Play” es Datei heareaking lock o July i2—Albert A 2 et es Shy Lx Montgomery seized one of the an appeal demand of the nine Scottsboro boy July 17 — Ralph Gray, Negro sharecropper was killed, and 5 others wounded at Camp Hill, Ala., as @ result of a Scottsboro Protest meeting held there. AUGUST August 5—Chamlee filed bills of exceptions with copies of all the evidence, motions and all proceed- ings, in the clerk's office at Scotts- boro. NOVEMBER November 10 — Judge Hawkins signed the exceptions cer- bill of tifying the BER December 29 Clarence Darrow left Birmingham, Ale., having re fused to work with the TLD. 1932 January A-9-] Nationa) Sectee vero 2 were organised and eer Special Correspondence) \ DECATUR, Ala—Efforts to influ- | ence Negro public opinion that the Scottsboro boys faced no danger | and that they would get a fair trial were personally made by Judge James E. Horton, now presiding at the trial of the boys. At the same time Judge Horton arranged with the Decatur Ministerial Union, | composed of colored preachers, to use their personal influence to achieve these aims. These sensational charges ware made to the International Labor Defense correspondent by William N. Jones of Baltimoye Afro- American and P. Bernard Young f the Norfolk Journal and Ir, 0 Guide tudge Hortons move, it appeared with startling clarity to the I. L. D. correspondent, was a complete copy | of thoos made be Welter White and William Pickens, national leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored biland who attempted with their public statements to create the impression nationally that Alabama would give the boys “a fair trial,” and that no mass protest was needed to save them, APPROACHED BY JUDGE When Judge Horton learned that the two large Negro newspapers planned to send reporters to cover the trial, he approached members of the Ministerial Union and urged them to impress the colored news- Paper men with the belief that the trial would be fair and that the Scottsboro boy would face no danger, It was quite obvious to Jones and Young, id, that, there had been a complete rehearsal of wh everyones was to say and how thev ‘were to act towards them, for min- ister after minister called upon ‘sen ane in pious tachion remeated | in almost the cxact words what the others had said. Simultaneously, immediately upon their arrival, the Negro correspon- dents were surrounded by Negro stoolpigeons, who have dogged and are still dogging their steps. These colored spies have been trying to pump the newspapermen in efforts to establish some sort of connection with the Ynternational Labor De- fense. A number of them, Jones said, who were pointed out by trust- worthy friends as stools have ap- proached him and wanted to know how they could join the Interna- tional Labor Defe-se branch in Decatur. This, he pointed out, was | obviously an effort to find out # there ts 2 branch m this town. Others have come to the colored | correspondents, and, assuring them | nt their semeecievion af what the - I. L, D. is doing not only for the | théy could contribute money to the Negro race but for the Scottsboro boys in particular, asked whether local group, with emphasis on “to whom.” JIM-CROWED IN COURT Jones assured all of them that he knew nothing about any branches of the I. L. D. in Decatur, as a Negro promptly showed up with the announcement that he was from the Birmingham branch of the I. L. D. who wanted to discuss the Scottsboro case with them. Jones checked on the man’s statement and found that be was a@ Decatur Negro obviously sent by unidentified persors to establish contacts with him, Jones and Young have been jim- crowed in the courtroom. They be been given # little table near section reaerved for colored hsotassre itis is) Capone sits! ot | the seam from whee the wits «or. . ve now they want to go home, “The Communists fight for the aims, for the enforcement of the | momentary interests of the work- | ing class; but in the movement of the present day they also re- Present and take care of the ta | ture of that movement” | sthetmmemt ef ths Smemediege ~~(Comemeniet Weretitentyy, opt ants