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

| An Article by Maxim Gorky’ “Making New Men,” Begins in Tomorrow’s ‘Daily’ (Section of the Communist International) Vol. X, No. 206 —_—- Unchanged was the usual blarney, now so intimately associated with his name, that Roosevelt handed out in his latest back-porch speech at Hyde Park. But he did make two statements that require passing comment. With the loftiest indifference to the facts as published by even the eco- nomic experts of his own governmental machinery, Roosevelt took upon himself the unenviable mantle of Hoover, He proclaimed the end of the crisis. He said: “The downhill drift of America has definitely turned and be- tome the upward surge of America.” On the second page of this issue, the absurdity of this statement is set forth in detail. We confine ourselves to another significant utterance in Roosevelt's speech, where he said: “I think it is the first time in our history that the nation as a whole, regardless of party, has approved drastic changes in the methods and forms of our government, without destroying the basic principle.” This talk about “national unity” is of course, the most hypocritical kind of falsehood. The wave of strikes in coal, shipbuilding, tobacco, textiles, etc., are sufficient testimony against Roosevelt’s effort to waive j away the fact of the bitter resistance of the - . THY does Roosevelt talk so glibly of “drastic changes?” Because he knows that the workers are seeking a way out of theif misery. They want a change. Therefor, Roosevelt pretends in all the “drastic change,” the “basic principle’ remains unchanged. For, what is this “basic principle?” the fundamental principle of the right of the capitalist class to exploit the working class for profit. It is the right of the capitalist class to own and control the means of production for their own private profit. It is, the right, of capitalist exploitation. This is unchanged and sacred, for the capitalist class, declares Roose- velt, And he is right. Under the NRA codes, beneath all the rotten enthusiasms of the William Greens and the Norman Thomases, this rockbottom fact remains. The workers of this country have in Roosevelt's speech the real kernel of the “New Deal’—the maintenance of capitalist exploitation, the continuation of their wage slavery. This gives the workers an ef- fective clue as to what action they have to take. workers, . 2 Steel Strike Victories re splendid strike victoriés were gained on tjie same day by the Steel and Metal Workers Industrial Union, In McKees Rocks, 500 strik- ers of the Pressed Steel Car Co. won a series of demands including higher wages and vastly improved working conditions. In Buffalo, sev- eral hundred workers of the Wickwire-Spencer Steel Co. won wage in- creases, improved conditions, no discrimination, and recognition of the shop committee. In both strikes, the right to elect shop committees off the companies’ premises was won, as well as the right to organize in a union of the workers own choosing. These brilliant victories should be an inspiration to all steel work- ers. - . . . ORE significant still are these victories because they took place after MA the codes of the big steel trust was adopted by President Roosevelt and approved by William Green and other A. F. of L. officials. The strikes led by the Steel and Metal Workers Union won condi- tions far above the fake increases offered by the code. And they won the right of the workers, through organization and their shop commit- tees, backed by the rapidly growing Steel and Metal Workers Industrial Union, to see that the power of the workers themselves was behind the carrying through of these demands. Nothing could be more inspiring to the workers throughout the coun- try, now harrassed by the slave conditions of the NRA, than to witness the remarkable unity of employed and unemployed in both these strikes. Though these strikes were comparatively small, involving together not quite 1,000 steel workers, they actually were fought with the support of thousands of steel workers. In the Buffalo strike the whole suburb of Riverside was aroused and mobilized behind the strikers. Though men in other mills were not out, they were behind the strikers, watching, suvporting, learning. In McKees Rocks, 4,000 workers, men, women and children, despite police terror strengthened the ranks of the 400 strikers, smashing the fight through to victory. * * . THE news of these steel strike victories should be spread throughout the steel centers like the blazing roar of the furnaces. While the A. F of L. meets with the steel bosses, the Steel and Meta! Workers Industrial Union is out in the field, hammering out a powerful union as the only guarantee of fighting back the steel trusts’ offensive under the NRA. Thousands are joining this union, When the news of these strike victories echos through the steel mills, in hurried talks during working hours, in conversations after work, in the hundreds of meetings that will take place, more thousands will join the union. It is by this means that a mass union in this most important of basic industries is formed, and the revolutionary @forces rooted in this strategic center for the struggle against capitalism. The New Deal a Lynch Deal wun the last three weeks, four Negroes have been lynched in Ala- bama. ‘Two were lynched in Tuscaloosa, and a third was seriously injured; one Negro was lynched in Decatur, and three attempts were made to lynch a second; in Benton, a Negro was whipped to death by a landlord gang which is known to have whipped ten Negro men and three Negro women to a bleeding pulp this year. In each instance, the Jocal judges and officials were directly in- volved. y . . . Wars behind this new weve of terror?~ The Negro masses of the South are resisting more and more the increasing oppression by which the bankrupt Southern ruling classes are trying to get out of their crisis at the expense of the Negro toilers. The Negro tenants and share-croppers are robbed by the program of plowing cotton under, for which the landlords pocket the government. bounty. The Negro factory workers of the South are placed below even the starvation minimums of the codes, they are fired wholesale, ex- cluded from unemployment relief. The Southern newspapers reflect the desperate fear of the South- ern ruling class that the Negro masses will not submit to this new and savage offensive against them in the name of the Roosevelt New Deal. Already Negro and white workers are striking in Birmingham, in the steel and coal industry, and on the forced labor gangs. This new wave of lynchings is a calculated drive of the Southern \ Tuling class to terrorize the Negro masses into subjection, and to smash all unity of Negro and white toilers. ° | . . | bases else Ua Reeth ale raion Cnc haa del coomt ‘The struggle against the NRA must be equally a gigantic, nation- wide campaign in support of the Negro masses, against the Roosevelt policy of national oppression. Mass meetings must be held, protests must flood the federal, state, and county officials. Committees of action must be set up. The con- ference on lynchings and persecution of Negroes which is being pre- pared in Birmingham must be supported Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office at New York, N. Y¥., under the Act of March 8, 1879, NEW YORK, MONDAY, AUGUST 28, 1933 America’s Only Werking | Class Daily Newspaper WEATHER Eastern New York—Partly Cloudy Monday. (Six Pages) Price 3 Cents to give it to them. But | }man of the first session. © It is nothing more nor less than {| | “Inflation |ers in the shops and Unions and jurge them to answer the | by | for | surance. jillusions about the NRA. He said| j in the revoluti WIN STRIKE VICTORY IN 500 DELEGATES MAP FIGHT ON NRA AT UNITED ACTION CONFERENCE IN CLEVELAND Stachel, TUUL Secretary, Answers A. J. Muste | On Question of Work Within A. F, of L. By N. HONIG (Special to Daily Worker) CLEVELAND, Ohio, Aug. 27.—The conference for United Action opened | cook on it. Unity League unions. | here Saturday afternoon at the Locomotive Engineers Auditorium with | | over 500 delegates present from A. F. of L., Independent, and Trade Union James Ford, member of the national board of the T.U.U.L., was chair- J. A. Muste, secretary of the Con- | ference for Progressive Labor Action, was chairman of the second session. An executive for the conference of 13 members was elected from various organizations represented. Minerich and Johnson of the Ohio Unemployed Leagues were elected permanent seécretarites, “There never has been any time when need for unity in the strug- gles of the workers against the Roosevelt program was greater than now,” said Chairman Ford, opening the Conference. He out- lined the program for action. The secretary of the prepara- tions committee, Weinstock, said that though the delegates may differ on political questions it was necessary and possible to work out @ common program of struggle against the Roosevelt attacks un- der the NRA, and against the A. F. of L. bureaucrats. He analyzed Roosevelt’s attacks. “The Roosevelt scheme of forced labor camps at the scale of a dollar a day is a move to smash down wage standards,” he said. is another means of lowering living standards.” Section 7 (a) of the NRA, Wein- stock said, was hailed by the A. F. of L., but is being used_ by the bosses to smash trade unions and set up company unions. He pointed out to fight the NRA it was necessary to go to the work- NRA | king out a fighting program eir own proposals. “The workers must organize and fight for substantial wage increases, a minimum guarantee of $25 a week, a full year’s work,” he said. He added that the fight must unite employed and unemployed around the demand for unemployment in- A. J. Muste spoke of the millions | of workers who were filled with| it was a mistake to urge the workers not to join the A. F. of L. unions and criticized the con- ference for lack of A. F. of L. delegates. Jack Stachel, acting secretary of the TUUL, said that the largest section of the workers regret that William Z. Foster was unable to attend, but that he would soon be back in the struggle. * Replying to Muste, on behalf of the TUUL, Stachel said thata the arrangements committee of the conference did all in its power to bring A. F. of L. delegates, and was the only organization that did bring them, implying that the Conference for Progressive Labor Action, had done little to rally forces for the Conference. Answering Muste on urging work- ers to join the A. F. of L., Stachel said we are against this, except in certain cases like the Railroad Brotherhoods, as the A. F. of L. is organizing the workers for be- trayal and not for struggle. The TUUL, however, is not abandon- ing the A. F. of L. workers but organizing them for struggle. | Muste cooperates on top, he said. But in Allentown, it is with the unemployed, and not with the (CONTINUED ON PAGE THREE) Three-Quarters of Record Soviet Crop Already Harvested | MOSCOW, Aug. 27.—Three- |quarters of the Soviet crop, the biggest in 30 years, had been harvested by August 20, it was announced today. Record after | |record has been established in all the main wheat-growing sections for speed. in harvesting, for thoroughness in the work, and for the quality of the grain, marking a triumphant victory all down the line for the policy of collecti- | vization. Hays Calls on Nazi Torgler Defense to Accept Trial Help \Judge Forbids N. Y.| Lawyer to Act for Reds in Court NEW YORK, Aug. 27—Arthur Garfield Hays, New York attorney, will go to Leipsig and help in the defense of the Communists who will be tried there on Sept. 21 on the framed-up charge of setting the Reichstag fire, if the Nazi- appointed German defense counsel will consent, he announced yes- terday. He had just received word from Dr. Bunger, presiding judge of the Leipsig Supreme Court, rejecting his application to act as defense counsel for George Dimitroff, Bla- goi Popoff and Vassil Taneff, des- pite the fact that he has been retained in behalf of their families. In addition to these three, Ernst Torgler and probably other Com- munists whose names have not been made public will have to stand trial. He wired yesterday Teichert, counsel: “Note from your letter to Branting that defense lawyers are free and independent. Delighted to hear this. Will you consult with me and other foreign law- yers if we come to Leipsig, and permit us to help in the defense?” The letter from Bunger refused Hays a copy of the preliminary proceedings of the trial, and said the question of his being allowed to attend at all would not be de- cided until after the trial starts. KKK Burns Cross ‘WASHINGTON, D. C.—Five hun- dred members of the Ku Klux Klan, in full regalia, burned a 75 foot cross at Martinsburg, Md., Aug. 17, to “impress the colored population” of the section, Many of the mem- bers were armed, to [Explosion of Stove | | \Kills 3 Celebrating) | |Relief Order Arrival) | | CHICAGO, Il].—Andrew Szezerba | with his wife and four children, had | their gas shut off in his home re- cently. Andrew wasn’t going to let that stop him from feeding his children with the relief groceries given him. He built a home-made gasoline stove. | Recently the relief order was held back; just for one day. The family went hungry. Andrew thought it | a shame that after he had gone through all the trouuble to build the They were going to eat. Everybody jing mother prepare for the party. In the midst of the cooking the overtaxed little gasoline heater ex- ploded, killing father, mother and baby, leaving three children orphans. The Chicago Hunger March takes | place, Aug. 30, 10 p. m. from Twen- | aoe and Wentworth and Union ark, London Pact Will Raise Bread Prices, ‘Officials Admit It | Liverpool Prices Have} Jumped 38 Cents a | Bushel | LONDON, Aug. 27.—As a result | jof the tentative agreement of the| 31 nations assembled here, to re- | strict the production of wheat, the |price of wheat options rose 1.’ cents |a bushel. Liverpool rates rose 3.04 cents. This will inevitably mean increased retail costs for bread, pointed out, The United States has not yet given its approval to the wheat re- ducing pact, since Wallace, the Sec- retary of Agriculture, is eager, to | sell America’s enormous surplus at |the expense of the other countries. erican farmers on a wheat reducing program of at least 20 per cent of last year’s acreage. Raymond Moley, Chief in His Resignation HYDE PARK, Aug. 27.—The | resignation of Raymond L. Moley, |chief of the Roosevelt “Brain Trust” was accepted today by President Roosevelt. Moley said that he wants to start a magazine with the millionaire Vincent Astor. Moley’s resignation had been a scource of rumor ever since his open rift with Secretary of State Paul | Nazi-appointed defense | Hull at Conference. Four Escape from Jail in Detroit; One Still At Large After Break .DETROIT, Aug. 27.—Three out of four prisoners who escaped from the Wayne County Jail this morn- ing were in custody tonight, au- thorities announced. The prisoners took advantage of the chapel service and escaped af- ter slugging a guard. One was captured a few blocks from the jail after a gun-battle with a deputy sheriff, two others were apprehended as they attempted to register at the Leno Hotel. The fourth, Steve Andrews, still at liberty. All four were serving sentences for robbery. the London Economic is | gasoline heater, he had no food to | The check came the next ay. The | | whole family felt relieved and happy. | | Was running around the house help- | officials | But, he, too, has launched the Am-| lof ‘Brain Trust? Hands| TWO SEE WHALEN FOR PROTEST Plan Monster Mass Meet At Madison Square Garden TO VISIT MAYOR 0’BRIEN Conference MapsFight for Unions Rights NEW YORK.—Immediate send- ing of mass delegations from each | strike led by a revolutionary union to see Grover Whalen, head of the New York NRA administration to- day demanding the right to picket | and protesting the violation of the right of workers to belong to | whatever organization they choose, was decided ‘upon yesterday at a special conference Trade Union Unity Representatives of 14 organiza- tions and unions were present at the meeting, including the needle, | metal, furniture, celluloid, and shoe. All of the revolutionary unions are on strike at present. A monster demonstration plan- ned for Madison Square Garden will be organized by the trade un- ions involved in strikes together with the International Labor De- fense and T.U.U.C. The represen- tatives were enthusiastically in latter part of this week. After the delegations lodge their protests with Grover Whalen they will proceed to City Hall to inter- iew the May A central delega- tion of 3 to | the strike halls of each industry will go Tuesday o the Mayor de- manding that he repudiate the statements of Whalen. |. Ben Gold, speaking at the meet- | ing pointed out the experience of his recent trip to the Washington Administrator of NIRA. He showed how only a militant fight without silk words at the capitol won a hearing for the revolutionary trade union delegates. It was necessary to treat Whalen the same way, he concluded. The resolution of the conference | follows: threats to arrest all pickets and to reinstitute injunctions in a new form and under a new name in an| effort to smash the workers organi- | zations and rive them of their} elementary civil rights. “We demand hat Whalen and local NRA cease interferring with | rights of workers to choose what- | ever organization they wish to be- long to as this right is supposedly | guaranteed in Section 7 | NRA. | | “The Conference calls upon trade | unions whether affiliated to the Trade Union Unity Council or the | American Federation of Labor or independent unions as well as other labor organizations as well as li- beral and professional people to join in this protest and adopt protest resolutions and telegrams to the New York NRA, to General John- son in Washington and to Mayor O’Brien and insist on the right of the workers to choose their form of organization and right to strike and picket and bargain collectively | with the employers without inter- ference by police or judicial ma- chinery. The conference calls upon all strike meetings to elect mass delegations to be sent to the NRA administrators and to Mayor O’Brien on Monday and Tuesday and to continue with closed ranks conference of trade union representatives together with the Trade Union Unity Council. STRIKERS 10 favor of holding the meeting the | | STEEL PLANTS Picket Line of 4,000 Backs 500 in Strike AtMcKeesRocks, Pa. |\Expect Thousands to|Wickwire Strikers | Join Steel and Win Splendid | Metal Union Victory PITTSBURGH, Pa., Aug: 27. By BILL DUNNE |—The strike in the McKees| (Special to the Daily Worker) | Rocks Pressed Stoel Car Oo.| BUFFALO, Aug. 27.— The ended yesterday with a victory WickwireSpencer atrikeme {for the: workers: % |have won a splendid victory The company signed an} and will return to work Mon- agreement last night agreeing| gay in a body — solidly or- to reinstate all men discharged | ganized in the Steel and Metal for union activity, and all men | Workers Industrial Union. The jlaid off. The strike was led! strike lasted eleven days. |by the Steel and Metal Work- | = a | The settlement was made on the ers Industrial Union. | basis of the company officials agree- A wage increase of approximate- | ing | to the following demands pre- ly 40 per cent was won in some SPUies Cand. Steed Gera Rad departments. In other smaller in- | DOUr mesting of the negotisiipa creases were gained. committee with General Superint- The company agreed to give the| |endent Johnson today. : ©! 1) The recognition of the elected Fant Ge Averett whet committee and its right to take up were. wetting. below. the fMiniwum. jand meet with company representa- seine - | tives on all grievances arising among They agreed to take smaller pay- | Wickwire workers shall be full, com- ments out of the wages for rent | Defend unrestricted , beset ads pede ie ay | 2) There shall be no discrimina- AHI : t ler _|tion against any striker or com. A whole series 0c smaler de-|mitteeman and that the guarantee mands, such as lockers, showers, | o¢ this shall be the replacement of improvements of sanitary condi-| aj] strikers and committeemen upon tions, was granted. |the jobs they were working on in Five hundred workers were on|the same departments before the strike. The company was forced to | strike. negotiate with the strike committee; 3) These two points are to mean workers elected in| “The conference protests against | Grover Whalen and the city policé| of the! and sign the dmands on Saturday when a picketing line of 4,000 the day vrevious were ‘on strike. Un- ex: piuyed and employed, men wom- en and children, as well as workers from other plants; joined the picket lines when the company made a thrtat to bring in scabs. The chief of police had fired at one of the strike leaders: A mass protest march paraded the streets. Huge mass meetings were held, that showed the company in no uncer- tain terms that the workers were determined to win. The agreement to end the strike is signed by C. W. Wrenshall, works manager of he company. At the mass meeting Friday night the strikers voted to accept the S.M.W.I. union one hundred per cent in the company and all other plants in McKees Rocks. John Meldon, secretary of the union, and Jimmie Egan, met with the strike committee. They spoke at the strike mass meeting last night, attended by 1,000. The union has he perspective of bringing in thousands of new mem- bers on the basis of this victory. 679 N. Y. Park Men Get 10 P. C. Wage NEW YORK.—A 10 per cent wage cut has been given to 679 day to day Park laborers in Manhattan according to reports. The cut was given them in the form of a 4 1+2 day week with an equivalent de- crease in wages. The Park Department said the wage cut was given on account of the need for economy, NEGRO BEATEN, ARRESTED BOSTON. Joseph Antones, Negro worker, was placed under srrest here on charges of “drunk- enness” after he had been beaten by a white man who resented re- marks against the South made by Antones. white man who made the assault. Long, Active Career Has Won Him Vast Popularity By EDWIN ROLFE Michael Gold, whose books, stories, sketches, poems and plays published press for more than a decade have won for him a vast popularity among the workers of America, today becomes the Daily Worker's new columnist. Beginning on page six of this issue, his column “What # World,” will be @ regular, daily feature of the new six-page “Daily.” In it he will dis- cuss in his own vigorous and lively style, topics of current interest, as well as literature and various aspects of the life of the worker, thrown in relief against the background of the class struggle. Mike Gold is admirably equipped to| do this column. The son of a Rou- manian immigrant who spent his life sweating in the factories, Mike was born just before the turn of the century on Delancey Street, near the Bowery. ‘This was the crowded ghetto, the stifling East Side of New York which he described so’ well in “Jews Without Money” and where his mother, who came here from Hun- gary, still lives, Went to Work at 13 Brotght up in the atmosphere of countless thousands of children of immigrants, Mike Gold went to work in a gas-mantle factory at the age of 13. In the next few years he worked at about 20 different Jobs; was # street-photographer for six months, a night-porter for the Adams Company, in the West 47th St. depot, for a year and a half, a shipping clerk in various cloak and suit houses. For a time he worked in the oil fields of Mexico. In these and similar jobs he spent his youth. Mike Gold described his early in- timate contact with the class struggle in a symposium, “Why I am a Com- munist” which appeared in the New Masses of September, 1932. “In 1914 thgre was an unemploy- Gold} ment crisis in America,” he wrote, “and I was one of its victims. I was 18 years old, a factory worker and Michael Gold Joins Daily Worker | Staff As Colu fatherless family. Unemployment was | MICHAEL GOLD shipping clerk with five years’ experi- ence, and the chief suppor} of hi Rt Ach i ag A NNN EAHA Nisa lm tateeRC RSL tne arena moms ac | no academic matter to me, but the | blackest and most personal tragedy.” H Knocked Down by Cop | He goes on to describe a big Union) | Square meeting in which he partici-| ' pated, and which was broken up by | | police. “I saw a woman knocked | down by a beefy cop's club. She) screamed, and instinctively I ran across the Square to help her. I was knocked down, booted, and managed to escape the hospital only by sheer \luck. | “I have always been grateful to that | cop and his club, For one thing, he introduced me to literature and re- volution . . . Now I grew so bitter that I... discovered history, poetry, selence, and the class struggle.” "Became Newspaper Man at 22 At the age of 22 he began doing newspaper work and kept it up for “the next eight years or more.” For two of these years he worked as copy- reader for the old New York Call, where one of his associates was Her- man Michelson, now active editor of mnist Today Took Part in Numer- ous Struggles; Jailed Many Times Pennsylvania coal flelds. But the newspaper profession could never be divorced from the class struggle—not for Mike Gold. He joined the I.W.W. in its early militant days, took active part in many strikes around Boston, and “in one long- shoremen’s strike in Providence, R. I., where I was assistant leader or some- thing.” Gold was at the famous Playmouth cordage strike where Bartolomeo Vanzetti first became an active fighter in the class struggle. Years later, he was jailed twice for picketing in Bos- ton during the last soul-stirring week before the legal murder of Sacco and Vanzetti. He picketed in the Passaic textile strikes, several furriers strikes in New York City, in the Brownsville Pa., coal strike of 1922, His stories and correspondence remain bright the New Masses and recent Daily Worker correspondent from th ~ Wontinned on page ®), | Cut; Work 4 1-2 Days’ No action was taken against the | no new physical examination of strikers upon their return to work. | 4) The right of Wickwire workers |to organize in a union of their | choice is recognized fully. 5) The above conditions being agreed to by the company and the elected committee, the strikers shall return to work on Monday, Aug. 26, | in a body. 6) That within 24 hours of this action the elected committee shall | meet with the company represen. |tatives and take up all -disupted questions regarding wages and hours with a view to reaching a basis of agreement in favor of the Wickwire workers. 7) All working conditions agreed | upon, or changes in working, condi- |tions which raise wages, shall date | from the beginning of the strike. | The yeport of the negotiations |committee was received and en- |dorsed with enthusiasm at the | meeting of strikers. It was decided that the fifteen or twenty men in |the plant who did not strike, were |to be given one week to join the union. The 335 strikers are ai? members of the union. The Wickwire victory comes on |the eve of two big meetings of workers in the Donner plant of Re- public steel for which 1,250 admis- sion cards have been distributed and will have a strong influence in consolidating the F among the hundreds of these workers who have signed epplications for mem: | bership. i} Indiana Steel Men Meet; Join Union, Draw Up Demands GARY, Indiana, Aug. 27.—One ; hundred standard forging workers met at an open meeting in Audi- torium Hall in Indiana Harbor Sat. urday morning under the auspices of the Steel and Metal Workers In- dustrial Union, a joint committee of unorganized, and A. F. of L. welders. They drew up demands for wage increases and a guaranteed basic rate. Everybody except the welders | joined the Steel Union. | The men booed the A. F. of L. organizer who tried to speak. They were determined to organize for struggle to win their demands, | They elected shift and department committees, and made final prepara- tions for presenting the demands to the company. The Ilinois Steel men at Gary, In- diana, in the wheel mill, and the merchantmill, signed a petition de- manding increased pay, abolition of the lunch hour at workers’ expense. As a result, the company union representative, Thatcher, in the me- chanical department resigned. : Last Wednesday, 200 men in the opening department of American Sheet and Tin Plate Co. met at the end of the shift in the washroom. They expressed their disgust with the steel trust code which resulted in wage cuts for them. They called an open meeting of both shifts in the department at the Legion hut on Saturday. The standard forgings and hammersmith departments or- ganized a two-hour stoppage on Thursday afternoon demanding extra pay on welding jobs. Clarence Hathaway, editor of the Daily Worker, speaks in Gary on Thursday, August 31, under the auspices of the Communist Party, at Roumanian Hall, 12 and Adams, the NRA. ee -2 7+