The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 30, 1933, Page 6

Published by the Comprodaiiy Publishing Go., Inc, dafty except Sunday, at mS. loth &., New York City, MN. ¥. Telephone Algonquin 4-798. Cable “DATWORE.” Address and mall chacks to the Daily Worker, 80 B. 18h St., New York, M. ¥. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By -Mafl everywhere: Ons year, 96; six ths, $8.50; 3 months, $4; 1 month, 7s, excepting Borough ef Manhatten and Bronx, New York City. Foretgn and Canada: One year, $9; 6 months, $5; 3 months, $8. What Is Democracy When Government Is In Bosses’ Control? AUGUST 20, 1938 —By Burck Conscript Army J Against Nazis —By Michael Gold —— : ‘ ca aa =a em and | Powers Support Treaty Breaking—Nazi Kid- Reply to ‘Boston Herald’ Shows That Capitalist « Sarbivttntams | nap Man on Swiss Soil—Denmark Fears Democracy’ Is a Mask to: Hide the Raid to Annex South Jutland VIENNA, Aug. 20.—Breaking the military clauses of the peace treaties for the first time since they were signed, Austria, with the consent. of Great Britain, France and Italy, will begin at once to raise a conscript army, General Karl Vaugoin, minister of war, announced yesterday. I wonder whether some of our | comrades know what is really meant | by the word “sectarian.” This busi- | Ness of sectarianism has been the | chief bane of the American revolu-| tionary movement. It s held back Dictatorship of the Ruling Class a | THE BOSTON HERALD is engaged in a not too subtle attempt to sell thues” workers a political philosophy with a “liberal” face and a reactionaru- capitalist heart. ‘ee , it isolated the Communist Party, it has even introduced new styles in hairc T hayen’t a di ionary handy, but in a neighbor's t rus I find that some of the synonyms for sect are: species, tribe, caste, clan, breed, set, assortmént, birds < a feather, of a kidney, set and ty does that beg plainer? Species @ spec species of human ik we'd all admit they are about as good or bad, in- dividually, as most other human be- tmgs, except perverts like Hitler. Tribe; caste: clan: Are Communists a caste or clan? Are they a special breed, a type, a set? Alas, alas, the answer is: In the US.A., we often try our hardest to be a little caste. Around New York for a time young Communists never wore hats and never patronized the barber. The result was that at every demonstration they presented first- class targets for the cops Worse than that, they were regarded by other young serious-minded workers as a species)-not of revolutionist, but of freak. Nobody will listen seriously to a freak, or accept his leadership in a struggle. And so wheels began to work within wheels, commissars and gay pay oo men with Moscow gold to make mat- Pa wove a dizzy dance, a secret wire-| less station on Second Ave. received | a secret code message from the/ Kremlin, Comrade Stalin the bogey- | man of bourgeois liberals dictated @ most terrible piece of dictatorship, nd lo and behold, the Komsomols of Union Square commenced to have | their hair cut and to wear hats. | The fact of the matter is: the change we advocate is so new, so far-reaching and world-important, that it is trivial for us to bother with minor customs. Our originality is of the mind. And anything that isolates a Communist from his fel- Jow-workers, be it a loud necktie or a loud manner, a vegetarian complex or an obsession with Inprecorr words, is ‘another small defeat for the rev- olution. The social revolution is an act of werld health. It is the most normal yy out for a sick and mad society. ; us keep ourselves as normal and effective as possible, even if it means giving up the vanity of long hair and lonzer words. Vaim as a Peacock Of course, the real curse of sec- \iarianism is this vain and foolish Superiority toward the rest of the orld. He has the truth, he alone will saved, the sectarian feels. But Communism is a truth that isn’t a truth until the great mass has put it into effect. And the Communist who refuses to teach and work with | Mounted policeman in a fall from) others patienjly is no Communist, Sometimes it is hard to be patient; one is hurt by all the vast stupidity, malice and brutality in the capitalist world. And Sec- tarianism is poultice for one’s ‘wounds; one retires into one’s cozy sectarian shell, and lets the world! go by. It is easier to be a sectarian The Watchtower Sect Sects, very often, are possessed of @ little fragment of truth, which they mistake for the whole, and defend as bitterly as a police dog defend- ing a moldy old bone America has always of the most variegated cial and sexual sects. It is fascinating to study them. Beyond a doubt, every troubled era is reflected by its sects, and a study of America’s sects would be a social and economic study of the nation. Today the sects are stronger than ever. One that has interested me and that deserves a more careful essay, is that of the Watch Tower. ‘This is the sect that was founded by Pastor Russell, and was formerly known as the International Bible Students. Many of the young stu- dents went to jail for opposing the late war, and today many of them are being arrested for anti-govern- ment talk. Really, if I were ever tempted to become a religious sectarian, I would this one. It is the most won- derful and logical lumacy I have heard of to date. Based upon exact quotation from the Scriptures, the students prove to you that in 1914, ‘with the outbreak of the World War, the Devil in Person came down on earth, and took charge of things. The Devil now rules in all the churches and governments of the earth. Judge Rutherford, the bible students’ leader, puts it this way: “These reverend gentlemen pose be- fore the people as the representa- tives of God and Christ Jesus and His kingdom. I charge that they in fact represent Satan, the Devil.” And in a pamphlet on the crisis by the good Judge, you see a page cartoon f a capitalist with a high plug hat, priest in full black robes smoking cigar, and a gunman with a royal crown, his holster having on it, “In God We Trust.” These three worthies are boozing it merrily away, but above them a very indignant angel in red is about ito smite them down with a great ring sword. It is very thrilling and satisfying as a picture, even if there are no real angels in this ‘world. been a land religious, so- Beg | Can the American government en- dure? Judge Rutherford asks in an- other essay. No, he answers, it will fall, the Devil will be booted out Are Com- | In addition to the regular army, from 18,000 to 20,000 new conscripts will be trained each year, each for a: six months’ period. This is a part of the powers’ an- swer to the increasing Nazi aggres- sion in Austria. Despite all prom- ises, the Nazi’s anti-Dollfuss propa- ganda is constantly being intensified. eae Fee Counter-Demonstrations in Saar SAARBRUCKEN, Aug. 29.—Thau- sands attended mass counter-dem- |onstrations here and in Neukirchen, called by the Communist and Social- | ist Parties for the day when the Nazis held their demonstration across the border at the Niederwald Mountain, at which Adolf Hitler de- clared that Germany would never |give up its claim to the Saar. | Geoffrey C. Knox, League of Na- tions Commissioner for the Saar, |said he would make a protest to the | League against Hitler's demonstra- | tion. Kidnaping On Swiss Soil BERNE, Switzerland, Aug. 29.—A Czechoslovak citizen, Hermann Weber, was kidnapped in Ramsen, Switzerland, by three German Nazis, and dragged across the border into Germany last Sunday morning. A Swiss customs guard, who attempted to protect him, was beaten. | This is the climax of a series of almost daily demonstrations and provocations by Nazis at the Swiss border. The federal government has sent a note of protest to Berlin, but expects a rebuff from Germany. Switzerland has 35,000 “Gray Shirts,” Swiss Nazis, ing for all the Nazi slogans, and for union of German Switzerland with | Germany. | Fear Seizure of Danish Land |_ AABENRAA, Denmark, Aug. 29.— Fear that the Nazis will occupy South | Jutland in a surprise raid is wide- |spread in this territery. Great Nazi jactivity is going on at the border, Nazis have marched through Dan- |ish border towns, and anti-Fascists pen to them “when the change takes | Place, which will be soon.” In this |town, with only 1,000 German resi- |dents, 15 new German schools have been opened this year, and over 150,000 kronen spent by the German government for a rowing club, stu- dents’ hotel, and school buildings. |Six Canadian Strikers |Facing Life Sentences TORONTO.—Six of the 27 work- ers aprested in a strike of unem- are facing life imprisonment at their coming trials. The death of a Royal Canadian |his horse during an attack on the | Strikers is being used to frame Art |Guay on a |while five other workers are charged | with injuring the chief of police. |The rest are held for rioting and as- | Sault. The Defense Committee of the Saskatchewan District, Canadian La- bor Defense League, has called for widespread meétings to demand re- lease of these workers and to collect defense funds. Anti-Nazi Appeal On German Music Records | PARIS.—If you buy a music record on the streets of Berlin, the chances |are you won’t hear much music when you put it on your phonograph, says “Paris-Midi”, a popular Paris after- noon paper. “You buy an operatic record for 20 pfennigs,” says this newspaper. “When you put it on, you will hear the first few bars, perhaps — but suddenly the music turns into an anti-fascist speech.” apace ia bipereABET ochh from pulpit, factory, and govern- ment, cannot be done by any human means. God alone will do it, says the Judge. All that we little men can do is stand by, sell pamphlets, talk on street corners and be “Jehova’s witnesses.” There will be a great change, a revolution, and then the establishment of a kind of religo- communism on earth. Jehova will let us survive. Nine-tenths of the human race will be wiped out, but we, the chosen tenth, will live, and live in the flesh forever. * 8 * So there’s a sample of sectarian- ism. It sould all be a joke if there weren’t some two million people in America, mostly workers, who are folowers of this particular sect. ‘They have several radio stations, they pub- lish a magazine in some seven lan- guages, including Esperanto. They are against Fascism, they have thou- sands of propagandists in the field constantly at work, and they are in deadly earnest. Why don’t we get in and bore from within? Certainly these wildly anti-capitalist religious plebians are closer to the real thing than a com- fortable Morris Hillquit or Norman ‘Thomas. All one would have to prove to fhe two million bible students is that the Devil, as incarnated in preacher and capitalist, is immune to hard words, and needs a pitch- fork in the rear, a physical ‘pitchfork, This is all the Devil understands, And a new Jerusalem in America will come only if it is built by human hands, Maybe the bible students of Washington, with al) his cruel and ive “commercial power.” But ‘this, the casting out of the Devil € could also be persuaded even to admit their own mortality. Or am I deviating again® who are agitat- | |have been warned of what will hap- | ployed single men in Saskatoon, Sask,, | manslaughter count, | (700 Prisoners Go | On Hunger Strike In Latvia Jail Protest New Criminal | Code Legalizing | Torture RIGA, Latvia—Seven hundred po- | litical prisoners in Latvia have gone on hunger strike in mass protest | against the introduction of a new) criminal code surpassing in strin- gency the Tzarist criminal law of} | 1908, in force until now. Mass sup- |port to the strike is being organized by the Latvian I. L. D. ‘The new code provides increase by | half of all maximum sentences; that after a prisoner has served his term the court may decide he has not. yet been “reformed” and imprison him |for another ten years on that basis, without trial or new accusation; irons and handcuffs, and their use on pris- oners in jails is legalized; new and | special punishments for the offenses jof “rioting” and “breach of. the ”; lowering of the age of chil- |dren to be tried in ordinary crim- |inal courts to 12 years; and a new) | statute imposing more severe legal! “disciplinary punishments in the prisons.” At present, the essence of these measures is more than surpassed in |the Latvian prisons, where politicals |are denied medical assistance, and frequently tortured. A woman poiit- jical prisoner, Lena Paulina, was re- |cently tortured to death. The legal- ization of these tortures means in- tensification of the illegal tortures and measures against politicals in proportion. 5 ILD Members Held for Deportation on \Charge of Labor Spy SPOKANE, Wash, Aug. 29.— Five workers members of the In- ternational Labor Defense, are: be- ing held for deportation in the county jail here, as the result of activities of a “New Deal” Depart. ment of Labor stool-pigeon, who worked himself into the organiza- tion. ‘ The charge made against the | five, Ray Carlson, John Angstrom, |John Ballas, Don Agalos, and Led | Grubich, by Frances Perkins, is membership in the I.L.D.. They | were picked up on the street and in raids on workers clubs, and their rooms. /Roumanian Red Dies | Under Jail Torture }- TEMESVAR, Roumania—The well- | known revolutionary, Enscel Mauri- jciu, “hanged himself with his shirt sleeve” in jail here, according to | Press reports. Tt was found, upon investigation by the International Labor Defense, however, that his shirt was not torn. This is not the first case of -“sui- | cide” in the prisons of the Siguranza, ' Berrte Young Ford Worker | Chosen for Youth Anti-War Congress Detroit Y.C.L. to Hold Rally to Finance Trip to Paris DETROIT, Michigan. — The De- troit organized young workers are going to send a delegate to the World Congress of Youth Against Fascism and War which will be held in Paris, September 22. It is significant that the delegate who has been selected to go is a young Ford worker. The Ford Motor Company made $37,000,000 profits in the last imperialist war of 1914-1918. Today the conveyors of the Ford Company are once more prepared to turn out shells, tanks, cannons and airplanes, on two days notice. The Delray unit of the Young Communist League (Ford Section) is arranging an anti-war rally in con- nection with International Youth Day, with a dance, concert and other features. This rally, which will help to raise. funds to send the delegate to Paris will be held on Saturday, September 2, 8 pm, at 8419 Vanderbilt Ave. Admission is only ten cents. Soviet Worker Sets New Glider Record KOKTEBEL, Crimea, U. S. S, R— A new world gliding record was set here recently when a young worker, Judin, piloting an airplane-drawn glider, covered 2,174.7 miles in 38 hours and 56 minutes, despite ex- tremely poor weather. Matsuoka, Red Hater, May Be Japan’s New Envoy to Washington TOKIO, Aug. 29—Yasuke Matsu- oka, former Japanese representative atthe League of Nations, may be named Japanese ambassador to the United States, it was reported here today. Matsuoka recently visited President Roosevelt in Washington, and issued an appeal for a joint offensive of capitalist powers against Commu- nism, and especially against the Chi- nese Soviets. Chinese Officials Cut Dykes; Flood 300 More Villages SHANGHAI, Aug. 22. — Officials of 18 counties of Western Shan- tung have wired to Nanking charg- ing that officials of Honan prov- ince cut the dykes of the Yellow River in order to divert the flood to other provinces. The floods, which cover an im- mense area of China, are now threatening Tsinan, the capital of Shantung province, a city of 600,- 000. The water is now only two inches below the-top of the dykes at Lokow, seven miles from Tsinan. Five hundred more. villages are under ten feet of water after an- other break, at Changchinghsien, north of Tsinan, and at Tunga, 50 miles north. A new rush of water is coming toward the: plains of Honan, Hopei and Shantung prov- inces, Twenty thousand peasants have been ‘impressed to’work at forced labor on the dykes of the Lieutang Japanese Warships Rushed As Chinese Reds Capture City American Consul Asks For Gunboats As Yenping Falls FOOCHOW, Aug. 29.—Three Japa- nese warships are.on their way to this city from Formosa, after the Chinese Red Army seized Yenping, 100 miles up the Min river from this port, and were reported preparing | to advance on Foochow. The American consul here has also asked the commander of the United | States Asiatic Fleet to send warships here, All Americans in North Fukien Province have ben warned to evacu- ate the interior and most of them! have now arrived in Foochow. | Nazis Engage Chinese For. Anti-Soviet Film AMSTERDAM, Holland.—One hundred unemployed Chinese sea- men have been hired by the Ufa film company to go to Berlin to act in an anti-Soviet film. A protest meeting held by Chi- nese seamen, sent a delegation to explain the intentions of the Ufa to those hired, and to persuade them’ not to. go to Germany. The police prevented the delegation from speaking to the seamen ‘at the ‘station, injuring two, and ar- resting. two of - the: delegates. On Saturday the Daily Worker has 8 pages, Increase your bundle order river in northen Kangsu. for Saturday!: Recently it even predicted “some but without the rule of the workers, Now, in its August 25th issue, it: delivers the following gem: “Only those who have explored in detail the Soviet system, can understand the difference between the dictatorship imposed in Mos- cow and the great experiment now under way in the United States . . The Russian revolution vested ab- solute authority in one man... The government here depends upon public opinion . . . The courts are open. The press is free. Any paper may express whatever views it chooses, and any citizen may get his opinions into print...” These, of course, are the old, fa~ miliar fiction of capitalist “demo- cracy”. How glibly this capitalist paper talks of “democracy”. But where is it? What happens during any strike? Does not every worker know that the whole repressive apparatus of the government is immediately mob- ilized to defend the interests of the employers, the ruling capitalist class? Is not this exactly what happened in the recent milk strikes, the recent coal strikes, the recent strikes? Liberty of the press! Who owns the press, who owns the paper sup- ply, the printing apparatus, etc? The employers, not the workers. How then can oné speak of “liberty” of the press? The Boston Herald is fully aware that practically every newspaper in this country is domi- nated by the employers. Every man in the street knows that. Public opinion! Who controls the agencies of public opinion, the radio, the movies, the newspapers? Wall Street, the capitalist class. Under stich conditions, all talk of democracy is a delusion. The recent Morgan investigation just scratched the surface of things. Yet it showed unmistakably the capi- talist domination of the government, it showed that Wall Street controls the “representatives” of the people. ‘The Boston Herald speaks of the NRA as a democratic experiment. But the NRA forbids the workers the right to strike. It is being used to stop all picketing by the workers. To enforce it, the government is ready to send troops and police. The capitalist class and its hireling news- papers talk of “democracy” only so long as the workers do not resist their exploitation. But the capitalist rule of force, the capitalist dictatorship, appears as soon as the workers fight against the exploitation of the employers. ae GAINST the fraud of the Boston Herald, we place the following statement made by Lenin in his masterful polemic against the “soci- alist” Kautsky, who attacked the Soviet Union with arguments very similar to that of the capitalist Her- ald. Said Lenin, in words that every worker knows to be the exact truth: “Is there one single country in the world, even among the most democratic capitalist countries, in which the ordinary rank and file worker, the ordinary rank and file village laborer or village semi-pro- letariat (in other words, the over- whelming majority of the popu- lation) enjoys anything approach- ing such LIBERTY of holding meetings in the best buildings, such LIBERTY of giving utterance to his ideas and of protecting his in- terests in print by means of the best printing works and the larg- est stocks of paper, such LIBERTY textile |. sort of Sovietism” in this country— without any Communists. of appointing men and women of his own class to administer and to organize the state, as in the Sov- jet, Union? ... “The workers instinctively...» + sympathize with the Soviet Union, because they see in it a proletarian democracy, a democracy for the poor, and not a democracy for the rich, as is the case with the every bourgeois “democracy”, even with the best.” “We are ruled by, and our state government is run by, capitalist of- ficials, by capitalist legislatures, by capitalist judges, such is the simple, undisputable, and obvious truth which is known and felt, through their daily experience, by tens and hundreds of millions of the exploited workers and farmers in all capital- ist countries, no matter how ‘demo- cratic.” ‘In the Soviet Union .. . the work- ers and peasants have set up their Soviets which replaced the capital- ist government apparatus, and set up @ much more popular representation +» The Soviet form of the dicta- torship of the proletariat is a million times more democratic than the most democratic capitalist republic”. * 8 * These words of Lenin give 4 true picture of the real difference between the Soviet form of government and our capitalist “democracy” which is. only a fraud to conceal the fact the real power in this country lie in the hands of the capitalist class which owns the press, the radio, the banks, the factories, etc., the capitalist class which controls the government. ~So-long as the workers in this country are exploited in the factories by their capitalist employers, the legal forms of capitalist “democracy” are only a mask to hide their wage- slavery. Only when the workers themselves, through their own state power—the Soviets—control their own govern- ment and the means of produttion, the factories, etc., will they have true, proletarian democracy. But the Boston Herald is very anxious for the workers not to know that. Hence its hypocrisies about “our democracy”. Thirst | Drives Berber Tribe to Surrender to French in Morocco PARIS, Aug. 29. — Cut off with their wives and children from water or food, in a temperature of 120 degrees in the shade, one of the hitherto unconquered Berber tribes fighting a French imperialist army of 25,000 in the Atlas Mountain re- gion of Morocco, surrendered yes- terday. Two other Berber strongholds, at Youb and Amesksou, are still fight- ing. Despite the overwhelming superiority in numbers of the French army, the Berbers have inflicted much heavier casualties than they have suffered in the most recent campaign of France’s 30-year at- tempt to subdue the mountain tribesmen of Morocco. pies aes Help improve the “Daily Worker.” send in your suggestions and criticism! Let us know what the workers in your shop think about the “Daily.” State to England By By MARTIN MORIARTY I. NEW YORK.—The roots of Com= munism are laid in Ireland, Jim Gralton, deported from his birthplace by the Free State Government of Fianna Fail, says. “The workers and working farmers are reading the writings of James Connolly, Ireland’s Socialist martyr murdered by the British for leading the 1916 insurrection. The workers are reading the writings of Lenin. There’s unemployment, people are hungry. So they're curious about the tactics of the leaders who brought about the First Workers’ Republic.” Gralton says you must go back to 1921 and ’22 to understand his de- portation, In 1921 he had returned from Am- erica to fight with the Eighth Bat- talion of the South Leitrim Brigade, Irish Republican Army, against Brit- ain’s black and tans. Then the: re+ publican war was sold out by the. Free Staters. The compromise gave the big capitalists concessions, rich farmers gratefully accepted a few crumbs from the bankers’ tables. The workers and small farmers—they who bore the brunt of the fighting—were left stranded, their fate in every pre- vious Irish insurrection. The Sinn Fein opposition led by De Valera fought the treaty. De Valera at- tracted the support of the poorest farmers and town laborers, but. his was more the platform of a discon- tented middle class. “ “We'll back De Valera in the fight against the treaty,” Gralton told his neighbors. “But we'll have to do more than that. We'll fight the treaty by resisting evictions and tak- ing over the land ourselves. Repub- lican leaders won’t go that far.. SO the workers and small farmers must Deported Red Léader Fought Betrayal of Free Organizing Farmers To Resist Evictions, Seize Land Pain} light for something for themselves.” “The workers and small’ farmers must fight for something for them- selves.” To the cattle ranchers, the big land-grabbers and the priests who supported them, this program was “the demon of Communism, the anti- God campaign.” There were evictions, laborers were hungry. In Gralton’s neighborhood— the Gowel area—there were repub- lican arbitration courts. These were “rebel” courts which ignored British laws during the trouble. Eviction cases were tried by these courts. “But the decisions they handed down on eviction cases were more like deci- sions handed down in line with the old British property laws. “We brought 400 people to a pub- lic meeting, fired the judge and sec- retary and set up a workers’ court. Our program was for breaking up the big estates and giving the land to the poor farmers; no rents; no rates; no evictions; re-instatement of evicted families. “We had a Direct Action Commit- tee to enforce that program. We built a hall with volunteer labor, Pearse-Connolly Hall, to replace a hall burned down by the 'tans. The priests bitterly opposed us. They warned their congregation to keep away from the hall. But we had mass movement. The poor people supporting us were devout Catholics, but they refused to listen to the priest when he preached ranchers’ politics from the altar.” * Committee swept into action. An evicted family was re-instated on the land of a notorious grabber. Soldiers—they were later the local nucleus of the Free State Army— commanded the eviction-resisters to Fight on Landlords Roots Communist Party in halt. The priest accompanying the soldiers warned the 300 people back- ing the committee to turn’ back. The soldier's officer, with his rifle at the trail, said: “The first man crossing the ditch to the land will be shot.” “If you take your hand off the Point. of balance of that rifle,” Gral- ton warned him, “you'll be with St, Patrick forthwith.” The crowd swarmed past the soldiers over the ditch. The land was re-claimed. A cattle ranch was broken up, the land made public property. Vaugh,” the Direct Action Commit- taking over this land you've held for these many years. You took the land away from ‘the es ‘The mcf is on our inate ere was a fierce pulpit- against the workers’ courts. Prieats denounced the courts, Pearse-Con- nolly Hall, and the leaders from the altar. Gralton was arrested, held for ten days. The courts still car- Tied on, but the Free State Army was getting stronger and stronger. Military broke through the barbed wire surrounding the hall, seized the building and mounted Lewis guns to hold it. Many workers and small farmers were arrested. “We had: few arms then. Local LR.A. leaders had gone over to the Free Staters. They had had charge of the dumps where we hid our arms during the truce. Before they sold out they collected any guns not yet in the dumps. I held on to a Thomp- son machine gun as long as I could. In the end I-had to surrender it, “Many of us were on. the run now. We had cleaned up most of the land- grabbing affairs-and I could see our usefulness was coriing to an end. We, escaped from the encircled area — there had been orders to shoot us at sight. es We reported to Rory O'Connor, then in charge of the four courts in Dub- lin where the LR.A—the steadfast original owners by | Te! republicans — were “quartered. Civil war hadn't ‘begun, but it was easy to Praga bnte pd We asked O’Connor tee said to the owner, “we're after| Dick ublican war; “He told us: “You're just a mob." “We. offered ‘to stay in the Four Courts The civil war began.” Rie Me 'O years ago Gralton's brother died. Jim hed to go home to take care of the small farm. in Leitrim, as in every county in Ire- ie, building the Communist Party. Of course, Gralton joined the Groups. Pearse-Connolly Hall was re-opened. ‘To the ranchers and priests, resisting evictions was criminal in 1922. But fr same program, strengthened now the an-open Communist Party—this aroused the most. savage hatred of cattle-men and their clerical Ireland, Says Gralton Direct Action Committee Defies Soldiers and Priests, Cleans Up Land Grabbers, Fires Judge and Sets Up Workers Court agents. ryan Baal 9 Te old lies about the Soviet Union tripped off the priests’ tongues. “But though many people were fooled into -believing those lies, many fol- lowed us,” Gralton says. The poor people said this: The same priests told lies about the Irish Republican Army boys. Why, they could tell lies about Russia as weil. And what's wrong for the workers to have dances and classes in Pearse-Connolly Hall? What's the sin in advocating a higher standard of living for the Irish work- ers and poor farmers? “The priests’ campaign was car- ried into the schools. Children of parents who attended the hall were boycotted by teachers. My niece, who went to the convent school, was told by the nuns that if she went to the hall she'd have to leave the class. She left the class.” ‘There was no intimidation of Com- munists and sympathizers by armed bullies incited by the ranchers and the priests. Refused a license for a rifle, Gralton armed himself with a’) shot-gun and home made bombs. He was forced to hide at night. Pearse-Connolly Hall was shot up by thugs. On Christmas eve it was bombed and burned to the ground. Gralton was served with a deporta- tion order. No trial. No charge. He was, the government considered, “a menace to public welfare.” “I thought I had a right to live in the country I was raised in. escaped and took to the hills. The priests said the people were opposed to Communists. But poor people— devout Catholics — looked after me. ‘The roads were painted with signs like “Down with imperialist coer- ly Gralton! Up Communism! Deport the ranchers! “Local relief workers demanded a wage raise. They also demanded the deportation order be cancelled. I Stayed six months in my own coun- ty—that proves the people were with the Communists, otherwise I would have been informed on long ago. But the case was attracting attention all over the country. It raised the ques- tion of Communism for Ireland. People are finding out about Com- munism now. The Communists are the only party giving the poor people a lead, They're the most feared and hated group —hated by the British imperialists and Trish capitalists—in Ireland. - “Many Irish workers and farmers are reading Marx and Engels on the Irish Reyolution; the Irish Case for Communism; all of Connolly's works; the writings of Lenin, “Do the workers and farmers fol- low the news from America? Yes. They know about Tom Mooney of course. They know it was a frame- up, just as the British framed the leaders of the Land League in Par- nell's days. Thsy were interested in the case of Pat Burke, the young Trish unemployed organizer deported from the Coast back to Ireland. His age happened about the same time T went on the run. One capitalist ing an Trtch worker “Trish acwivilies in America mean @ lot to the poopie at home. Bspe- cially since the crisis. Before the crisis, boys and girls returning to Ire- land on vacation from America used to tell their friends what @ grand cion! Justice demands a isa for | country America was,