The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 28, 1933, Page 1

Socialist Workers! On May Ist! Daily Let Us Demonstrate Our Proletarian Solidarity! How revealing have been the recent actions of the New York Exec~ utive Committee of the Socialist Party! Here before the eyes of the working class of America stands the So- sialist Party in open alliance with the capitalist class. On May Day, the day which belongs to the workers of the world as the symbol of their struggles against capitalist exploitation—on May Day, the workers’ in- ternational day of struggle, made rich by the memories of more than half a century of international demonstrations of working-class solidar- ity—on this day the Socialist Party stands side by side swith the police arrayed against the united front of the workers. The New York Socialist Party leaders were invited by the United May Day Committee to join with all workers for a historic May Day de- monstration. $ Who is this Committee? Is it a Communist Committee? This com- mittee is composed of official representatives from the Conference for Progressive Labor Action, from the I.W.W., from the Trade Union Unity Council, from the Unemployed Councils of New York. It is a genuine united front committee. This committee made certain proposals to the leaders of the Socialist Parity. What is there in these demands that caused the Socialist leaders to spurn them contemptuously? Here are the demands of the United Front Committee, which the Socialist leaders would not accept: Unite against Rooserelt’s hunger and war pres-2m. Unite in a fight for Federal Social Insurance and for immediate adequate cash relief. Unite to demand higher wages and more relief to meet rising prices. Unite to force the immediate safe release of the nine Scottsboro boys, Tom Mooney, Warren K. Billings and all other class war pris- oners. Unite against Hitler's fascist terror against the revolutionary Ger- man masses and the Jewish people. Unite for struggle against imperialist wars and for the defense of the Soviet Union. How did the Socialist leaders react to this invitation from the United Front Committee? They rejected these proposals, Instead, Julius. Gerber, Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party, wrote to the Tammany Police Commissioner as follows: “T request you to comply with our request and not allow the Com- munists to come through Union Square in order to avoid trouble.” ° . ° The Socialist leaders thus called upon the Tammany police to keep from Union Square those workers who would come to Union Square to demonstrate on May Day in response to the call of the United Front May Day Committee! Particularly, they ask the Tammany police to keep the Communist Party from Union Square. In this demand they find themselves in strange company. Who is it that singles out the Communist Party for special at- tack? It is the Tammany police. It is the Department of Justice. It is the cossacks of the Pennsylvania State Police. It is the venomous red- baiters of the National Security League and the Army and Navy clubs. In short, it is the capitalist class, which knows that in striking at the Communist Party, it is ing at the true revolutionary leader of the working class, at the Party that leads the working messes in their every- egies egainst humger and misery. It is in this company that the leaders of the Socialist Party, find ‘Ives when fhey concentrate their hatred against the Communist | What did Gerber say to the Tammany Police Commissioner? With ingratiating servility, he writes: “As you know, I do not want any friction and trouble and I am al- ways ready to cooperate with the department I want to congratulate you on your appointment to the head of the department, and wish you success.” e This is how Gerber, the Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party, a Party which pretends to base itself upon the revolutionary teachings of Marx and Engels, which pretends to continue the fighting tradition of Debs, talks to a notorious Tammany police agent! Who is Bolan? Bolan was chief of the police forces wisich under the infamous Grover Whalen mercilessly clubbed working men and women at the March 6th demonstration in 1930. Bolan personally directed the polite cossacks who on that day clubbed and arrested Israel Amter, Wm. 4. Foster and Robert Minor. For his efficient direction of this capitalist brutality, for which hundreds of workers paid with bleeding heads, Bolan is now rewarded with the office of Police Commissioner. And all that the Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party can do on May Day is to rush his personal congratulations to the new police com- missioner and proffer him his good wishes for success! ° 2 : What does it mean to be @ “successful” police commissioner? The workers of New York who have felt the clubs of the Tammany police when they resisted the eviction of their families into the street, the workers of New York who have been clubbed by the Tammany police on the picket dine, the workers of New York who have seen the Tammany police in action ®t the doors of the Tammany relief bureaus—the workers of New York know the answer. To be # “successful” police commissioner is to be an ef- ficient guardian of the profits and property of the capitalist class. Workers know that the police are the armed fist of the bosses, “We congratulate you and wish you success,” writes the Executive ®ecretary of the Socialist Party to a capitalist police chief. And before this Tammany police chief, see how the Executive Secre- tary of the Socialist Party curries favor. “We have always co-operated with the police and have not attacked them.” “We have always co-operated with the police!” This is a boast which the workers of America will not soon forge. Let these words be re- membered. Here the leaders of the Socialist Party shamelessly proclaim their collaboration with the armed forces of the capitalist dictatorship. Gerber is not alone in his adulation of the police, and the capitalist rulers. Was it not only a few weeks ago thet Norman Thomas and Mor- ris Hillquit presented themselves at the White House to offer their con- gratulations to President Roosevelt, on his prompt action in averting ‘nancial crists, and a disastrous increase of unemployment? But the most dastardly action of the socialist leaders comes to light in their desperate insistence that the Square be cleared of al) socialist workers before the demonstration of the United Front Committee be per- mitted to begin. The socialist leaders openly ask the assistance of the ‘Tammany police in keeping the soctalist workers apart from the workers of the United Front Committee. Gerber calls upon the Tammany police to break the unity of the workers! And in doing this, Gerber calls upon the Tammany police for inter- vention in the “dispute” between the socialist leaders and the United Front Committee. He says, “the police are the ones who should control the streets of this city”. This utterance is sinister in its provocation. It was exactly with these words that the Socialist-Berlin police chief, Zoergiebel, ordered the Berlin police to fire upon the assembled German workers on the bloody May Day of 1929, murdering 29 workers in cold blood. Gerber calls upon the Tammany police to act as the arbiter in this “dispute”. How are the Tammany police accustomed to settle disputes among workers? With injunctions, with clubs, with brutality, with third- degree torture. Gerber goes to the capitalist enemies of the workers for protection and advice. He looks to the police as the beneficient arbiter of “working class questions. Of all this, the Jewish Daily Forward, leading socialist paper, is “proud”. Gerber's letter, it says, “is of such a nature that every class- conscious worker can sign it with pride”. . . ° Socialist workers! You who know what Capitalist exploitation is. You whose wives and children are suffering from hunger and lack of proper care. You who sweat in capitalist factories to make profits for the bosses. You who have felt the clubs and fists of the Tammany police, We call ‘upon you to repudiate this rotten slander. We know that you are not proud to sign such a letter as Gerber's, We know that you are not eager to congratulate the Tammany police chief upon his appointment, nor that you wish him success, Socialist workers! We extend to you our hands in proletarian solidar- ity. We wish to unite with you, cur comrades in the struggle against capitalism, on May Day, the day when we pledge ourselyes to go forward to greater struggles against capitalist misery, - PROLETARIAN COMRADES! SOCIALIST FELLOW-WORKERS! WE INVITE YOU TO REMAIN AT THE SQUARE AND DEMON- STRATE JOINTLY WITH Us. WE BELONG TOGETHER—ONE UNITED WORKING FOR A UNITED MAY DAY WORKING-CLASS FRONT! CLASS ARMY. | Central WAGE CUTS, RELIEF CUTS, FORCED LABOR, CUTS OF VETERANS COMPENSATION, HIGHER COST OF LIVING, SALES TAX—THIS IS ROOSEVELT’S NEW DEAL; ‘DEMONSTRATE ON MAY FIRST AGAINST ROOSEVELT’S HUNGER DRIVE! = Orga (Section of SPECIAL SUNDAY MAY FIRST EDITION OF THE DAILY WORKER! the Communist International) Vol. X, No. 102 <> ntered as second-class matter at the Post Office at New York, N. ¥., undeb the Act of March 3, 1879. ‘NEW YORK, FRIDAY, APRIL 28, 1933 CITY EDITION Price 3 Cents --% OFF RELIEF IN NEW YORK ‘Gen. MacArthur Asks | 4,000 Army Officers For Labor Camps Figur THE RELIEF CUTS” 'Haverhill Prepares for Mass. Hunger March | aE | | NEW YORK. — The Emergency | | Work and Relief Bureau will lay off | 7,000 unemployed men and women at} | the end of the month. Many of them) | have large families. All are depend-| ent on the relief bureau to exist. Wil- | liam H. Matthews, director of the bureau, admitted that thousands of protests are coming in. | The program of cutting relief and with one stroke ti thousands of families from is part of en wage cuts to federal employees, cuts on veterans allowances, and force’ {labor this is Ronsevelt’s federal aid. have beaten back many times the attempts to cut relief, will once again resist this new attack. The starva- tion throughout the country, raises/ the question of federal umemploy- | ment insurance as a life and death} question for the workers. Demonstrations and protest mass, meetings have been organized in the| past month by the City Committee! of Emergency Work Bureau Em- | ployees, 799 Broadway, Room 303, re-| presenting groups organized in the) various work relief projects and a} large number of discharged E.W.B.! workers. They demand immediate re-hiring | of all those fired or transfer to City) | Work or Home Relief without delay or re-investigation. | Many of the protests are from} working-class organizations rallied by | the committee. The committee will | launch a vigorous campaign for this | demand, they said, Gen’l MacArthur Asks 4,000 More Officers to Run Labor Camps WASHINGTON, April 27.—General) Douglas MacArthur, chief of staff of the United States army, told the House Military Affairs committee that at least 4,000 aditional army of- ficers. were needed to “direct and train the 250,000 reforestoration re- cruits.” ‘These are the victims of Roosevelt's forced labor scheme, whereby unemployed workers are} | herded into lumber camps, in prison/ | garb, under forced labor conditions| for any amount the government or | the timber magnates see fit to pay.| Roosevelt recommended a dollar a, | day. But the “recruits” are compelled | | to buy tobacco and other needs from | cantonements set up in the camps jand the prices are always boosted that in reality they are cheated oui of their military pay. The request} | of MacArthur reveals again the mili- | tary nature of these eamps, and) | chows that conscript labor is being) | put in effect accompanied by military | | training. It also flatly contradicts} the Roosevelt sdministration state- | ments that the camps will not be mil- | itarized. SALES TAX ADDED TO PRICE OF SUIT, United Retailers Think | aan") Trick Buyers NEW YORK.—The one per cent New York state retail tax which goes into effect Monday morning will not be listed separately on price tags or sales checks, but will be included in the price of goods and passed on to the consumer. This was the decision reached by the Retail Dry Goods As- sociation of New York. Thus the consumers are forced to bear the whole burden of the additional tax Poor people will be hard hit because on every commodity, prices at even a few cents the penny sales tax will |have to be included. Walter Ham- mitt, president of the retail mer- chants sald, “The merchants reachec’ the conclusion that the simplest and the best way to pass the tax burder along will be to Include it in the price of without specific statement, at tax on prices tags,” 4 Provocation at Ohio S.P. Meet in Reply to Plea for United Front by | Cleveland Tom Mooney Conference Trent Longo, A. F. L. Delegate on Local Mooney Committee, Says | Was ‘Dumbfounded@’ to Hear Fram ed Charges Repeated by SP Chiefs Mooney Congress Best Their Lieutenants Among Leaders of Socialist Party! SAN .FRANCISCO, April 27—Tom Mooney from his prison cell in San Quentin penitentiary today scored the action of Judge reason the holding of a militant demonstration before the court building. Mooney declared that “at the time of my first trial there were demonstrations, too, but nobody stopped the trial because they intersfered. But those, of course, were demonstrations against me.” This statement gives the lie to capitalist press reports published yesterday which declared that Mooney “regretted” the demonstration held in his behalf. CHICAGO, April 27.—In a declaration before the Ohio State convention of the So- cialist Party held in Cleveland the national Roosevelt program. The the party, openly declared for the continued imprisonment of Tom | |nouncing the famous labor prisoner in the language of the state prosecutor who originally | | framed Mooney in 1916. This amazing information was revealed in-a report by Trent Longo, The unemployed in New York who| an official of the Painters Local Union No. 765, A. F. of L., of Cleveland, who had appeared at the Socialist Party convention in the name of the Cleveland “Free Tom Mooney Confer- ence to ask support for the Mooney Congress which opens in Chicago on April 30. These revelations were made by Trent Longo in a report to the Free Tom Mooney | | United Front Conference in Cleveland. Longo, who is a leading member of the American | | Federation of Labor, is a member of the Building Trades Council of Cleveland. Senior, national secretary of the S. P., dumbfounded the convention by throwing off | | all pretense which has so long been maintained by the Socialist Party leaders that they are | working to liberate Mooney alt MEETINGS LEAD TO SCOTTSBORO | NATIONAL MARCH NEW YORK.—The wave of Scotts- boro mass meetings continues to) Sweep across the country, being held in many cases in sections of Ameri-| can cities where mass demonstrations| of workers were never before seen. Recruits for the march on Washing- ton are being signed up at such meet- ings in Richmond, Va.; Boston, Mil- waukee, Chicago, Kensas City and St. Paul, One thousand Negro and white workers jammed the Fifth Ave. Bap- tist Church in Richmond, Va., April 27 to hear Richard B. Moore, of the International Labor Defense, talk on the Scottsboro case under the aus-| pices of the Richmond United Front | Scottsboro Defense. | The crowd voiced enthusiasm for} the march on Washington set for| May 8. J. E. Moore, professor of the | Virginia Union University, declared that he was “not frightened by the red bogey, and, if the Communists are the ones who are fighting for the Scottsboro boys, I am willing to fight along with them.” Yirst Time In Boston. For the first time @ workers’ dem- onstration was held April 24 in the} South End of Boston. Beginning with a meeting in Madison Park, the demonstrators paraded through the South End to Douglas Square, where 1,500 took part in another mass meet~ ing. Hundreds of Negro and white work- ers lined the streets and waved from the windows. The demonstration lasted two and a half hours. It was organized by the Scottsboro Neigh- borhood Defense Club, and drew in, on a united front program, leading ministers, clubs, improvement asso- ciations, liberal Negro lawyers, and William Monroe Trotter, editor of the Boston “Guardian.” Seymour Stedman, Ss. P. Old Guard, Jailed As Swindler CHICAGO, UL, April 27.—Sey- mour Stedman, who ran on the | Socialist Party ticket for vice~ | president of the United States in in 1920, was found guilty yester- day of taking money from deposi- tors for the City State Bank when he knew that the bank was Insol- vent, Stedman was vice-president | jof the bank. ® SOCIALIST PARTY NAT'L SECRETARY REPEATS MOONEY FRAME-UP CHARGE; CALLE ‘DYNAMITER’ SCOTTSBORO FLASH! BIRMINGHAM, Ala., April 27. —The nine Scottsbore boys were today brutally attacked by prison guards in their cage on the Eighth floor of the Jefferson County jail. An army of prison guards was mobilized by the warden who drove the young Negro boys into a large corridor known as a “day room,” a bare dungeon. Workers! The lives of the Scottsboro boys are in danger! Wire at once to Gov. B. M. Miller, Montgomery, Ala., holding him responsible for the safety of the Scottsboro boys! ~ CONVICT 5 TALLAPOOSA _ NEGRO CROPPERS; 1.L. D. ASSAILS ALA. PEONAGE International Labor Defense Appeals Case; Workers Must Rally to Aid of Croppers BULLETIN DADEVILLE, Ala., April 27.—Vicious sentences were today meted out fo the Tallapoosa sharecroppers, Ned Cobb was sentenced to the state penitentiary ior 12415 years; Judson Simpson, 10-12 years; Alf White and Clinton Moss, 10-12 years; Sam Moss, 5-6 years, Bail was refused for all except Sam Moss. In sentencing the defendants, Judge Bowling revealed | clearly that the basis for vicious sentences was hope of crushing the Share- | croppers’ Union. 3 c | DADEVILLE, Ala., April 27.—“Guilty”—this was the verdict brought in today by the jury in the Tallapoosa case against the five Negro sharecroppers charged with “assault with intent to murder.” Judge Bowling announced from the bench that he would fix sentence soon. Fourteen other croppers had also been indicted, but have not yet been put hough unwilling to join in a united front for this purpose. | The croppers, Judso Simp-|as well as the workers in the cities of Senior is officially reported by Delegate Trent Longo to have son, Ned Cobb, Sam Moss, Alf|the South. Replying to Helfin wh een Answer to Action of California Jailers BULLETIN. Louis H. Ward in postponing his trial until May 22, who gave as his (Special to ine Daily Worker) By ROBERT MINOR April 23, Clarence Senier, naticnal Executive Secretary of Mooney, savagely de- Calls Mooney Dynamiter ays * |appealed for the maximum penal declared to the Socialist Party convention: | ae. pal eens pony we [ere uaihe aes MEH ced oe “We were compelled to expel Tom Mooney from the So- |i¢ 29 years on each of four |Schwab said that “the most brutal elalist Party because of his advocacy of violence and because of his use |counts. They were arrested after |crimes in history have been commit- of dynamite.” These statements of Senior’s are false. The fact is that the Socialist Party Jeadership of California in 1916 attempted to have Mooney expelled by his branch on the ground that Mooney was antagonizing the old line leadership of the San Francisco Labor Council aa branch membership, however, refused to expel Mooney. |sheriff’s deputies attacked Cliff James|ted in the name of law and order land other members of the Share-|citing the attacks on the Bonus and croppers’ Union who resisted the at-|Hunger marchers and pickets on tempt to seize James’ mule, cow and | strike. other stock for an alleged debt due | 17 Negroes Testified |W. S. Parker, a landiord-merchant; A significant aspect of the trial ri of Notasulga, Ala. | was the appearance of no less than 17 Senior further told the Ohio convention: | To Appeal | Negroes who testified for the defense, “After Mooney was expelled from the Socialist Party, he was compelled | Irving Schwab and A. W. Smoerieon | Ned Cobb, one of the leaders of the to join a Hungarian branch of the S. P., and the National Executive Com- | attorneys for the International Labor | Sharecroppers’ Union, testified openly mittee of the Socialist Party then advised this branch to expel him.” |Defense, immediately announced that |that he and Clift James and others It is true that Mooney had to join the Hungarian branch of the So- | they would carry the case to the Ala- | told Deputy Cliff Elder that he could cialist Party in order to prevent his being expelled through pressure from |bama Court of Appeals. — jnot take the stock, and admitted the state. leaders of the party. | The jury brought in its verdict | waiting for the return of Elder and |after “deliberating” one hour and jother dep Pies after their threat that Secret Letters Sent Out i . 2 : twenty minutes after listening to | “we're coming back and shoot all the It is recalled, in this connection, that Mrs. Lillian Bishop Symes, then | speeches by ex-Senator Thomas g.| niggers in this crowd.” one of the leading officials of the state organization of the Socialist Party Heflin and Prosecutor Powell which} The condemned Negro croppers ex- of California, sent out secret letters to many leading members of the S. P.|pore a striking resemblance to the| pressed faith and confidence in the throughout the country, advising them to see to it that the party should/ranting, venomous speech made by} Workers and farmers, as represented not support Mooney’s defense, declaring that he was not a socialist, but an | Solicitor Wade Wright at the trial in | by the I. L. D. fight. anarchist, “and probably guilty.” This letter thus repeated the arguments Decatur of Haywood Patterson, one X De TA NS of Martin Swanson, the private detective of the Pacific Gas and Electric |Of the Scottsboro boys. | (See speciat feature story on Cor Ww e f . Exposes Slave System | Page 2 on the background of the mpany who engineered the e - ey—t y pan, ngin entire frame-up of Tom Mooney—all of fo tt a in his| Tal nde which were false charges. i i ti a i} light of| correspondent on the scene.) In his speech to the Ohio convention, Senior added the excuse that #4" Sere arg eueres Ob) eorrnene “the Congress is being controlled by the Communists, and this is why we will not participate in it.” a GERBER INSISTS POLICE This declaration by Senior means that the national secretary of the | Socialist Party has finally come out into the open and exposed himself and | T ‘@ the leadership of his party as cooperating with District Attorney Fickert CLE A R U N 10 N SQ. M A and the United Railways Company of San Francisco in railroading Tom | DAY TO PREVENT UNITY Mooney off to prison, a charge which was made by Mooney’s friends in San Francisco im 1916, at which time the Soclalist Party refused to take any public stand on the frame-up. |Socialist Heads Break 2nd Agreement and Demand Half Hour Between 3:30-4 p. m. te Drive S.P. Workers Out Before Unity March In his report to the United Front Mooney. Conference in Cleveland, Brother Longo stated in part as follows “The chairman of the conference this morning elected Brother Davis and myself to go to the State Convention of the Socialist Party which was held at E. 147th St. and Kinsman Rd, to ask why they were not NEW YORK.—Wiggling in and out of agreements in a desperate effort to prevent workers from joining the United Front May Day demonstration, at police headquarters yester- day, with representatives of the United Front Committee pre- participating in this Free Tom Mooney Conference, and also to attempt | to persuade them to send delegates to this conference. | \sent, Julius Gerber and August Classens, Socialist Party exec- utives, after again agreeing to¢— “We were shown sufficient courtesy to be granted the floor and pre- sented our credentials, as well as asking that they send delegates to the Free Tom Mooney Conference. Nevertheless, we were somewhat surprised to find that the Socialist Party—the party which claims to be of the working class went ‘on record to refuse to participate in this conference nor to take part in the National Congress to Free Tom Mooney, Uses Fickert’s Language “I was dumbfounded to find that the national secretary of the So- cialist Party, Clarence Senior, took the floor in the name of the conyen- tion and stated: “I am not speaking for the general public, but to the convention of the Socialist Party.’ He branded Tom Mooney in the same language a8 the prosecuting attorney did in San Francisco, ‘Therefore, Senior implied, if Tom Mooney is not guilty of this crime that he is charged with, he may haye been guilty of other crimes, and, therefore, | he should be kept in jail, “We were somewhat surprised to find that the Socialist Party—the party which claims to be of the working class—went on recortl as re. fusing to participate in this conference, not to take part in the national Free Tom Mooney Congress. . . . I stand here before you as a member of the Provisional Committee of the Free Tom Mooney Conference in Cleveland. 1 think enough of the case of Tom Mooney to attend this | Along with Alexander L. Jerome, another vice-president, Stedman |must serve one to three in years jail, and pay a fine of $210, the inry ruled. conference even if there are Communists among the group. Iam not a Communist, yet I am here. ¥ give the Communists credit for paving the way and Instead of condemning the Communists, they should be given credit. Any working class organization should be sshamed tm rafuse to participate in this conference.” t ‘adjourn the Socialist May Day meeting in Union Square at 3:30 p.m., insisted at the last minute that the police clear the square of all workers before 4 p.m. when the Unity parade should be al- lowed to enter. Representatives of the United May | Day Committee, Winter, of the Un- employed Councils, Muste of the Con- ference for Progressive Labor Action and Secco of the Industrial Workers of the World, were summoned to | Chief Inspector O'Brien's office yes~ | terday afternoon. On arriving there they found Julius Gerber and August Claesens of the Socialist Party. The admitted before that time. The United Front representatives reminded the Socialists of their prior agreement to adjourn their meeting at 3:30 p.m. and protested any effort to clear workers out of the Square, Inspector O’Brien finally dictated to his stenographer the line of march and details agreed upon. On Ger- ber’s suggestion O'Brien stated that the Socialists would hold the Square until 4 p.m. Winter objected, stating that the agreement was that the So- cialist meeting adjourn at 3:30. No objection was offered by the Sociale ists at this point. Later in the con- ference, however, after a whispered consultation between Claesens and Gerber, the latter reopened the ques- at hold tion and insisted that the Front tro ths United ae