The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 29, 1933, Page 1

Give a Fellow-Worker Your Copy of the ‘Daily’ When You Are Thru With it. Discuss the News With Him! (Section of the Communist International) America’s On | | Class Daily Newspaper ly Working WEATHER Eastern New York: ably showers Tuesd: Cloudy, prob- ay. Vol. X, No. 207 _ Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office at New York, N. ¥., under the Act of March 8, 1879, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, AUGUST 29, 1933 (Six Pages) _ Price 3 Cents WHALEN ARRESTS PICKETS UNDER NRA TO BREAK STRIKE 1,500,000 Jobless Cut ' Off All Relief Lists : Underwriting the Open Shop. “THE greatest piece of forward-looking legislation”, as Green termed the NRA when it was passed, has put the full stamp of approval on the open shop for the auto industry. The open shop clause for the auto code, before the code was signed by President Roosevelt, got the OK of William Green, John L. Lewis and other A. F, of L. leaders on the Advisory Board: Immediately the coal operators stuck the: open shop clause into their code. The A. F. of L. leaders had put their names to it in the auto code, an? stablished a precedent for the open shop under the NRA. Origine » NRA guaranteed the open shop, but under Sectfon 7 (a) it had » nded it with a lot of high-sounding, misleading phrases. When it came to action and life, the open shop was supported by the Wall Street-Roosevelt government, and blessed by the a. F. of L. officials. : When Green and Lewis had approved the open shop in the auto code, they issued a statement saying it should not be a “precedent”. But the bosses knew, as the coal operators showed in action, that this pious bemoaning and bewailing, this frantic shrieking to distract the attention of the workers, could not wipe out what was written in black and white under the president’s signature and what would be translated into action by a bloody offensive against all workers’ organizations. The open shop clause in the auto code, and now pressed in the coal code, says that the bosses have the right to hire and fire the workers individually, on the basis of their individual merit. This is just the NRA form of the yellow dog contract applying to all workers whether they sign one or not. The NRA, the much heralded “charter of labor”, as the socialists and A. F. of L. termed it, turns out to be the vilest. form of the open shop and yellow dog attack. The workers can thank Mr. Green and Mr. Lewis for it. Every boss who has signed the NRA can now add to the slogan “We do our part”, the words, “through the open shop”. HE steel, oil and lumber codes, though they do noj contain the open shop clause, can get the full benefit of it. It does not have to be writ- ten in more than one code. The A. F. of L. leaders can howl themsefves blue in the face. Having once approved it, they approved it for all the exploiters. And they knew they were doing it for all the bosses. The open shop for one means the open shop for all, if they cioose it. It is in this light that the coal miners should look at Lewis's antics now. Lewis is putting up the most hypocritical fight of his tong slimy record against the open shop clause in the coal code. But he kept his mouth shut and obeyed when the auto bosses asked him to put his name to the open shop. i No miner should listen to a word from Lewis—strikebreaker, liar, betrayer. He and Green will twist and squirm like snakes in an oil pool in an effort to wipe out the traces of their poisonous deeds. There is only one power that can help the workers, and that is their own organization and might. Hatching More Betrayals HE August 23 issue of the “Milwaukee Leader” has some gems of trick- ery so characteristic of the “Socialist” leaders. We quote: “The original mistake (of the German socialists) lay in taking over the mangled remains of the kaiser’s dynasty at the close of the war. It would have been better for them to have refused to try to bring order out of chaos, and to have left that task to those who brought on the chaos .. .” Here in black and white for every worker to see is the damnable con- fession that it was the German socialist leaders who saved German capi- talism from “chaos”, And what was this “chaos”? It was nothing more nor less than the proletarian revolution, the uprising of the German workers against capitalist exploitation, which was drowned in blood by the murderous police of the socialist state officials, Noske, Ebert. In 1918, the socialist leaders pointed with fear and trembling to the awful example of the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union, who had destroyed the fraud of capitalist “democracy” and had set up the rule of the work- ers, the dictatorship of the proletariat. To follow this example, they told the German workers, would lead to “chaos.” Only through capitalist “democracy”, they promised the German workers, could socialism come. And what they really did was to usher in capitalism in its worst form—the open fascist dictatorship of Hitler. OW these “socialist” saviours of German capitalism in 1918 are bitter at the ingratitude of their ruling class masters. But does that mean that they are not prepared to repeat their defense of capitaiism against the “chaos” of the proletarian revolution? Not one bit. Now, again, at the Paris Congress, they predicted “chaos” after Hitler unless their beloved capitalist “democracy” is restored in Germany. In other words, they are again preparing to fight off the Proletarian Revo- lution against Hitler in the name of restoring that very same “demo- cracy” that led to Hitler. The shameful treachery of the German Socialist Party does not mean that they are not ready to serve capitalism again. It is obvious from all their talk about restoring “democracy” as a barrier against “chaos” that they are preparing to prevent the workers from endifig once and for all the chaos of capitalism. The “Daily” at Work bah seach datteson Meo serena cia iagtor Uae etapa as the instrument through which the drop forge workers in the Nash Motors Plant in Detroit won their main demands. ‘The “Daily”, carrying an account of the workers’ demands, and an- mouncing that they were being organized in the Auto Workers Union, was in the plant. It reached the office, where the effect was so that the demands were granted by the company. This incident shows once more how the “Dally” can be used as & 1 organizing force, and as one of the main weapons of the work- ers in their eS nd ai for immediate Lazer re ; . DAILY WORKER is not always sed so. Some leaders of workers’ struggles still think that the place of the *Daily” in the background, no one can be more pleased than our enemies. buch opportunistic tactics have only one effect: they weaken the struggle. : “For Workers and Families by Federal and Loca Doomed to Starvation 1 Governments, While Millions Are Spent for Battleships NEW YORK, Aug. 28.—Despite the rising cost of living and the almost complete failure of the promised new families have been taken off State and Federal relief lists, in the last few | jobs to materialize, more than 1,500,000 months, a national survey just completed shows. For the three million families who are still on relief lists, appropriations Food Prices Advanced 2 Percent This Month; 18 Percent Since April) WASHINGTON, Aug. 28—The cost of everyday food necessities throughout the country leaped an- -other 2 per cent during the first three weeks of August, the United States Labor Department reported today. This is on top of the 8 per cent increase in the price of bread, milk, eggs, butter, etc., which took place during July. Food prices are now 18 per cent above the food prices of April, hav- ing shown a continuous advance since Roosevelt took office. Unemployment in Workers’ District DoubledThisYear Social Service Report Reveals Evictions and Misery NEW YORK, Aug. .28.—While all relief was being drastically reduced, unemployment doubled in a typical workingclass district, an official re- port of the Association for the Im- provement of the Condition of the Poor revealed today. ‘The report covers the living condi- tions of 5,296 workers families in the territory bounded by Bleecker Street, Broadway, Canal and the Bowery. Only 15 per cent of the workers had the jobs that they had at the begin- ning of 1930. Of the families dependent on out- side help for relief against starva- tion, about 33 per cent were being supported by friends or relatives. Cul of the 5,29 families, 1,066 were far behind in their rent pay- ments. Ninety families had been dispossessed at least once. Production of Steel Shows Sharp Drop for 3rd Consecutive Week NEW YORK, Aug. 28—For the third successive week, the index of steel operations shows a sharp drop, the magazine “Steel” revealed today. The index for this week shows that the steel industry is now operating at 48 per, cent of capa- city, compared with 59 per cent three of decline, “© are being drastically reduced, the report shows. Tennessee, for ex- ample, has recently cut its relief appropriations about 60 per cent. Colorado, Idaho and Rhode Island showed relief cuts almost as large. These sharp reductions in relief have been made under the pretext that all who have been cut off have received new jobs. Even official gov- ernment figures, however, indicate that during the last month, the pe- tiod when 1,500,000 workers were taken off the relief lists, hardly 250,- 000 workers got new jobs. And these figures do not indicate how long these jobs have lasted. Many jobs on the official lists no longer exist, as a result of the growing collapse of the recent inflationary “boom” in production. Navy Gets Money to starving workers and their fam- ilies take place simultaneously with an enormous increase in the expen- ditures for the Army and Navy, and with an increase of R. F. C. loans to banks and insurance companies. No Public Works Jobs Director of Public Works Ickes has authorized the Navy $238,000,000 for the building of new battleships and destroyers. In an effort to conceal the failure of the Roosevelt job-giv- ing program, Ickes yesterday re- peated his call for the speeding up of public works, but thus far, the only successful bidders for public works “|funds have been the militarists of the Navy. Hardly half of the $3,000,- 000,000 allotted for public works has been expended so far. The Roosevelt administration during the elections had made much of its promised $6,000,000,000 public works program as a method of creating new jobs. The nation-wide reductions in re- lief are in harsh contradiction to the $500,000,000 appropriation made by the recent Congress, supposedly for relief. Little of this money has gone into relief so far. Reports of social service experts from all over the country indicate an extraordinary increase in the suffer- ings of the unemployed workers. It 1s obvious that the slight in- crease in employment has been used all over the country as an excuse for sweeping cuts in relief payments for over a million jobless workers and their families. As a result of these cuts in relief, workers in many cities have devel- oped increasing resistance to the reductions in relief, and have or- ganized many determined struggles for increased relief and unemploy- ment insurance. Led by the Unem- ployed Councils, they have, in vari- ous instances, succeeded in getting the reductions withdrawn. These relief bureaus and city halls alone can stop the relief cuts. ‘The obvious policy of the Govern- ment is to doom the many millions of jobless workers to starvation. Against this the fight for unemploy- ment insurance must be waged with greater energy than ever before. Hold NegroWorker PHILADELPHIA._James Lew- is, 16-year old Negro truck driver, is being held in $5,000 bond “on suspicion” of having stolen four cents. A white gir fore Magistrate Pennock that he looked like the shadow of @ thief who forced his way into her house. These extraordinary cuts in relief | mass struggles of the workers before | testified be-| Th Yards Swamped by Pigs Butchered in Gov’t Price-Raising Plan CHICAGO, Aug. 28.—The livestock slaughter yards here are swamped by a record influx of pigs -and sows being brought to slaughter as a re- sult of the Government's recent plan to pay a premium for the premature killing of breeding sows. Rooseyelt’s Secretary of Agricul-| ture, Wallace, is now putting into | effect the Governmentg plan to raise city meat prices bY destroying the pig “surplus.” The Government | jis setting aside $55,000,000 collected | in taxes to pay the farmers for their | slaughtered animals. Planned destruction of cotton and wheat is also going on under the di- rect supervision of and with subsidies from the Government, WorléCurrencyWar | Breaking Out Again As Dollar Sinks Bank of England Try- ing to Meet Increased Attacks on Pound WASHINGTON, Aug. 28.—Signs | that the international currency war | among the three rival imperialist | powers, France, Britain, and the United States are looming up again, came to the fore today. The famous British Equalization Fund with which the Bank of England attempt- ed to fight the American deprecia- tion of the dollar has been aban- doned in the face of persistent sell- ing of the dollar in the international money markets. buying dollars to keep them from sinking too low. The dollar drop) ed | to 68 cents for a new low the other cay, - ‘ollowing on this important de- velopment, Norman Montague, head of the Bank of England, arrived here for conferences with Roosevelt and leading government officials. He is anxious to stop the American attacks on the British pound. His program of some sort of stabiliza- tion at the London Economic Con- ference was rudely brushed aside by Roosevelt, who was unwilling to surrender the advantages given to American imperialism by a depreci- ating dollar. At the same time news comes from France that France is face to face with a terrific budget crisis that threatens to sweep the country into some kind of inflationary med- dling with the currency, if not a de- parture from the feed st Moley FiredBecause of Hull’s Hostility, Officials Rumor WASHINGTON, Aug. 28.—With Raymond Moley definitely out of the political machinery at Washing- ton, it is now generally admitted that it was the discord between Mo- ley and Secretary of State Hull that is at the bottom of the whole affair. It was recalled that friction be- tween Hull and Moley existed from the very start of the London Eco- nomic, Conference. Right after Hull had refused to oa as to any stabilization propos- als, Moley arrived with a currency plan which he proposed to the for- eign delegates without consulting Hull. Roosevelt refused to accept Moley’s plan. Hull is too powerful in the South for Roosevelt to risk any serious breaches in the Democratic Party. erefore, Moley had to fe: foe Sheath Moley’s policies are not very different from the domi- nant Roosevelt policies at the pres- ent moment. |Green Says It’s Britain had been) AFL Heads Fearful! 6 Arrests Bare NRA As Strikebreaking Not} Right and Can’t | Be Sustained | WASHINGTON, Aug. 28.—Swash- buckling Grover A. Whalen has trampled on a hornet’s nest in arrest- shoe strike pickets in New York, and the A. F. of L. leaders here, support- ipe the N. R. A, are running helter- faelter to escape being stung. In carrying out the purposes of the N. R. A. Whalen began his attack on militant unions which are at pres- ent leading strikes against N. R. A. codes and for higher that have Communist leadership in some cases. His first step was to arrest pickets in order to make a test case looking to the complete outlawing of picket- ing, and ultimately the right to strike of all workers under the N R. A. William Green, to save the work- | ers’ illusions in the N. R. A., and | to hide his own strikebreaking activ- ities on the National Arbitration Board, issued a statement today against the arrests “That position,” said Green, “re- ferring to the arrest of the New York | shoe pickets, “in my judgment, is wrong and cannot be sustained.” Green, Whalen Agree | Green, whose views on the N. R. A. are not one jot different from those of Whalen‘s, however fears exposure of the A. F. of L. leadership's sub- mission to open shop codes at the present time. The arrest of the New York ‘pickets on Whalen’s order is recognized here as no local issue. Green and the Labor Advisory Board know that it will rally hundreds of thousands of workers behind the New York unions, and the right of all workers to picket, and may be a powerful lever in ex- posing the real intent of the N. R. A. They feel Whalen has blundered in too openly exposing his hand. In an effort to overcome this move, Green has asked the Labor Advisory Board to consider this case. “We have no sympathy for Com- es, munists,” said Green, restraining himself. “But the principal is highly important.” Green knows that the Commu- and picket. He is thoroughly in favor of Whalen’s anti-red drive. Coming to the support of Green, Donald Richberg, Counsel for the N. R. A., and an old hand at labor fakery, said: “Curbstone opinion at the N. R. A. challenged Mr. Whalen’s contention that guarantee of the rights of labor under the Clayton Anti-Trust act are affected by the N. R. A. Anti- trust restrictions are lifted only for the formulation of industrial codes, and do not touch the rights of labor.” By this statement, Richberg in- directly admitted that the Commu- nists were defending the rights of labor. Whalen insists that he is acting properly under the N. R. A. An important omission of Green is the fact that Matthew Woll, vice- president of the A. F. of L., is the chief labor advisor of Whalen on the New York N. R. A. committee. The move to arrest strike pickets was taken after a conference with Whalen and high A. F. of L. officials close to William Green. nists and the militant unions are de- | fending the workers’ right to strike | Dédsalive Agency Brings 25 Shoe NEW YORK. — Strikebreakers Washington Detective Bureau, 370 Seventh Ave., for some of the shoe shops tied up by the strike called by the Shoe and Leather Workers Industrial Union. Guarded by agents of the noto- rious strikebreaking firm, a char- tered bus with scabs recruited in Boston rolled up to the Grand Ho- tel, 30th St. and Broadway, yes- terday. The strikebreakers were housed there pending their “as- signment” to various shops. The eshine eae Detective Bu- reau, headed by J. J. Cohen has a long record of ‘strike. breaking activities. Some recent scabbing activities of the agency include the Foltis- Fischer strike, that at the Great Northern Fur Dyeing plant at Springfield Gardens, L. I., and the one at the Sunshine Dairy, New York. Blast Injures 11 in Oil Refinery, WHITING, Ind., Aug. 28—Eleven | | workers were injured, nine of them critically, in- an explosion today, which wrecked a stil in the refinery of the Standard Oil Company. The yefinery here is the largest of its | find in the world. lieved to be escaping gas in one of the units. Fire that followed the blast was extinguished by the fire brigade of the ot Writes, es, Pastes “Vote Red for Blue Eagle’s Fall” on NRA Signs NEW YORK —John Sprinter, an |umemployed seaman, angered by | Grover Whalen’s brazen attempt to) |smash the militant workers’ unions, wrote slogans on slips of paper call- ing on workers to vote Communist and pasted them over every blue| | gazle near Columbus Circle yester-| day. On the unprinted margins of the Daily Worker, Sprinter chalked in with heavy crayon, “Vote Red for| Blue Eagle’s Fall” and “Vote for Tammany Whalen and the NRA.” He spent his last: nickel for a bottle of glue. “I’m sorry I had to cut the ‘Daily’ up,” said Sprinter, but I saved the printed parts, and this is another in- stance where six pages come in handy.” Jim Gralton Tomorrow Begins Story of His Deportation in ‘Daily’ Why was Jim Gralton, Irish Communist, deported from his birthplace by the Irish Free State government? He had resisted evictions and organized workers and working -farmers to seize land in 1922. He organized neighbors to re- sist evictions in 1932 and 1933— this time local organizer for the Irish Revolutionary Workers’ Groups, builders of the Commu- nist Party of Ireland. Gralton tells the full story of the deportation in two interviews with the Daily Worker, The first will appear tomorrow. Whalen the Policeman Shows Up Real Purpose of N. R. A. By ROBERT MINOR Communist Candidate for Mayor of New York City VER A. WHALEN, chairman of| the the President’s “Re-employment Committee,” clubber of the unem- ployed, strikebreaker and protector of underworld crime, now has exposed the real intent concealed behind the hypocrisy of the N.R.A. Whalen announced Saturday the theory that, by suspending the oper- ation of the Laelag gigi oll tional Recovery Act, suspends also the right of workers to picket. Any workers whose proprietor has signed the “Blue Eagle” agreement, and who picket the plant, are criminals and must be jailed for ference with the President's plan for National Re- covery. The employer, according to Whalen, abolishes the rights of work- ers by signing the we agreement, oie ld top ta aclitas babes ot ‘ Tak. wil Sania ee workers must buy to live, to tax the beg food and clothing, to reduce purchasing power of the wage dollar — and otherwise to force the entire American working class into a condition of even more bestial slavery as a means of saving a dying capit- alist system for the benefit of a para- site class. In order to accomplish this, and included as a part of the tical rights of the working class. ‘The right to picket is the right to strike, There can be no such thing as the right to strike without the right to picket, S The intention of the N.R.A. is to abolish the right to strike! The N.R.A. is a general attack along the whole front, against the working class That is why New York is torn with a wave of strikes today in the needle, metal, shoe, furniture and celluloid indus- tries, and that a vast number of ae oe ers, agents of the capitalist class, who are supporting the N.R.A. attack upen the workers, such as Green, Lewis, Dubinsky, Hillman, etc.—are frantically trying to conceal. How can Green and Lewis continue to break coal strikes in the name of the Blue Eagle—if a police-minded Whalen openly reveals that the Blue Eagle is a bird of prey intended to tear out the entrails of the working N.B.A., is the abolition of the poli-| class? How can Norman Thomas, leader of the Socialist Party burocracy, which betrays the Socialist Party workers, continue to point out the “Socialistic features” of the N.R.A. if his working partner, the clubber of the unemployed of New York, open- ly declares that the N.R.A. abolishes the right of the workers to struggle against wage-cuts which are supposed | to be “forbidden” by the “Socialistic features” of the N.R.A.? « William Green made frantic efforts yesterday to “stop the fool Whalen from talking too mych.” Worried sick by Whalen’s in frankness, Green gave an interview sayingt ~ “Hig (Whalen’s) position is wrong A ‘ and cannot be sustained.” And now the whole capitalist press is busy proving that Whalen didn’t mean that the right to picket is abol- ished by the N.R.A., but that the six shoe workers arrested yesterday for picketing the Elco Shoe Company are Jailed only for “illegal” picketing. Mr. Whalen now explains, doubtless at the instigation of his “labor lead- er” lieutenants in strikebreaking, and to save their faces: “There is no desire on the part of the local NRA board to stop legal picketing by labor unions. The American Federation of Labor has been behind the NRA 100 per cent. The point at issue is one of defi- ance on the part of Communist groups to prevent the orderly return of workers to their shops. “They have even engaged in criminal assault. They have ter- rorized the homes of the workers. They have told the wife of one worker that her husband would be brought back in a wooden box if he went back to work in his fac- tory, - We are only trying to wipe out Red interference with the NRA program.” “8 ‘S is a return to the more con- ventional forms of strike-break- ing than can with safety be supported by corrupt “labor leaders.” The fact remains: the open chal- lenge to the right of existence of the trade unions has been flung in the face of New York workers. ‘We will meet it. It is not the first time that the New York Kage class has used the Tammany scab herder Whalen for the purpose of challenging their rights. In March, 1930, through the same Whalen as Police Commissi(er, announced the abolition of the right of New York workers to use the streets for the purpose of demonstrating their de- mands for unemployment relief. The New York workers met the challenge, and after a bloody battle on Union Square, established their right to the streets. Also in this case, the New ie nmin workers will meet and me be the New-York-pawastte clase; Scabs from Boston) were imported yesterday through | The cause of the explosion was be- ; Minor, Gold and Burroughs Against | Let Supreme. Court Pass on Right to Picket, Says Judge ‘Delegations of | Strikers Protest | at NR. A. Offices Celluloid nd |Shoe, Metal, Workers Dema Rights NEW YORI nphatic | protests against Grover Wha- len’s attempt to outl he right to strike and to picket which resulted in the arrest of 6 pickets yesterday at the Elco shoe shop on strike under the Shoe and | Leather Workers’ Union leadership were registered by big delegations of shoe, metal and celluloid strikers at | NRA headquarters at the Hotel Penn- sylvania. At the same time Judge | O'Dwyer, presiding at the trial of the | six shoe strikers at the Gates Ave. Court, Brooklyn, yesterday declared that the picketing may continue un- til the Supreme Court interprets the NRA code on the question of the workers’ right to picket The shoe workers’ delegation was the first to arrive yesterday noon at | NRA headquarters. At first intend- | ing not to meet the strikers, Whalen sent out a bullying deputy, Vanders- | lice who declared that the NRA would not repudiate Whalen’s statemer fu | would rather endorse it. He chi | his policy however when the s ers were firmer in their demand for a right to a hearing before Whalen as the chief prosecutor..of the six ar- rested strikers. Gathering the w ers into a corner of the waiting room, Vanderslice, not unfamiliar with the ways of a policeman, evaded the is- sue until he was finally forced to agree to arrange a hearing. As we go to press Whalen had not yet appeared although the strikers had been waiting for several hours. Following upon the heels of the | shoe workers’ delegations came strik- ers from metal shops and ftom cel- | luloid shops. The celluloid workers | manufacture NRA buttons and earn $5-$6 a week for 50 hours of work. ‘The arrest of the shoe pickets was deliberately planned as a test case by Whalen, who asked that the alien squad be sent to make the arrest, It was carefully prearranged, with Whalen signing the complaint in ad- vance, In a small courtroom packed with more than 350 workers, tue following pickets were heard: Leo |Meola, Herman Merson, Pasquale Muscaria, Tomy Capania, William Migliora and Austhel Lotterman. Jacques Buitenkant, attorney for the strikers, charged that Whalen is using the NRA as a strikebreaking agency. He exposed Whalen’s strike- breaking activity in 1930 and espe~ cially his attacks on the unemployed. Attorney Perskin represented Whalen and the Shoe Board of Trade. By the judge's ruling, the trial was set over until Wednesday at 10:30 am., the pickets having been placed on parole, In making his decision, the judge stated that the matter rests with the Supreme Court, and that the trial sets no precedent pro- hibiting the workers from picketing. A writ of habeus corpus must be pre- sented, according to the judge's ad- vice, and the case will then go to the Supreme Court. In a statement yesterday Whalen distinguished between legal and _il- legal picketing and indicated that he proposed to use the NRA against the militant industrial unions who are putting up a real fight to win !better conditions for the workers. He declared that “When reds picket and interfere with the government and use terroristic tactics we feel that they are interfering with work- ers in their constitutional rights to work.” The Shoe and Leather Workers Industrial Union yesterday disclosed that Whalen’s strikebreaking state- ment has caused the prolongation of the strike and made it impossible for thousands of workers to return to their jobs under settled condi- tions. “His statements threaten lockouts in 87 shops already signed up,” the union declared. The Trade Union Unity Council went ahead with its preparations to mobilize the entire labor movement to-support the right to strike and to picket and the workers’ right to join a w.ton of their own choice. A delegution from the Shoe and Leather Worksis Industrial Union left for Washington Sunday night to file a protest with Leo Wolman, head of the National Labor Advis- ory Board eaaiiat Whalen‘s strike- breaking action. Troops CalledAs Cuban. Bank Closes Its Doors HAVANA, Aug. 28—The Banco Commercial of Cuba suspended pay ments today, and closed ite doors.