The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 12, 1933, Page 1

ll Out to Union Sq. Today for Workers’ Right to Strike! by Specially Selected Workers to See If Their Service Is Satisfactory ! | | Subscribers Should Be Visited Vol. X, No. 219 <ED % Ettered 06 seconsi-ciass mattor at the Post Office at Rew York, N. ¥., under the Act of March 8, 1879, (Section of the Communist International) ZWorker Party U.S.A. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1933, _(Six Pages) America’s Only Working Class Daily Newspaper | WEATHER Eastern New York: Fair Tuesday. Price 3 Cents WAVE OF STRIKES GREETS U. 5. WARSHIPS IN CUBA Intervention Is War ET there be no confusion in the minds of American workers as to the meaning of American intervention in Cuba. Tt is war! The fact that’guns have not been fired, that the massed engines of death of the American navy have not yet begun to spill blood does not change the central fact that in sending its forces to Cuba the Wall Street government is waging undeclared war against the Cuban masses. The only powerful hand against the revolutionary masses of Cuba is the mailed hand of American imperialists, which shows itself with shining steel in every important port of the islands. This is the only force which may prevent the masses of Cuba from throwing off the crushing load of Wall Street’s exploitation, the only real force behiff the new regime which hastened to acknowledge its slavery to Wall Street as its first official act. No such insolent interyention could have been made in any independ- ent country without precipitating at once all the bloody horror of com- plete warfare, Aus intervention in Cuba is not only warfare against the Cuban masses, It is a blow in protection of American financial and trade interests in all of South America, which would be quickly grabbed at by America’s European rivals as a sign of American “weakness” in any part of its semi- colonial empire of Latin America, It is also a blow in protection of one of America’s principal strategic outposts in the coming world war. The Caribbean sea, with its chain of American naval and air bases, is the main defense of the Panama Quiz Is ‘ Is “Promised” On Killing of if Negro HOMICIDE BUREAU ACTS | "AFTER ‘DAILY’ EXPOSE OF WELFARE ISLAND MURDER Supreme Court Jud Judge Joins Joins ‘Prison Officials | in Passing B Buck on Hospital Records “Too Near Election” To Risk Showing Public | Records, Says Warden Schleth By JOHN L. SPIVAK. Author of “Georgia Nigger”. Aged par Sablets | He Commits Suicide BUTTE, Montana.—Godfrey An- derson, 53, of 116 Eveland Court, com- | mited suicide through drowning re- eo Anderson was formerly em- loyed as a trucker in the Chicago | nd North Western railroad’s freight station. Unemployed for some time and despondent as a result, he jump- jed off the Riley and Hinker coal dock into Green Bay. 6 PICKETS ARRESTED IN | Child Dies Because Hospital Denied Aid BEMIDJI, Minn.—As a result of |the refusal of the Lutheran Hospi- | tal here to operate for appendicitis on a girl until her unemployed father raised enough money to pay all expenses, the girl died from poi- soning. It took the father a day to borrow the money, but her appendix burst, and he was too late, LODI DYE HOUSE SHUT WORKERS DEMONSTRATE AGAINST IMPERIALISM DESPITE DEATH THREATS |Havana Workers Strike as" as New President Declares “Foreign Influences Have Been Thrown Out” Special to the DAILY WORKER HAVANA, Sept. 11.—The first legal Communist demon- Sonag in Cuba since the beginning of Machado’s reign of Vigor, International Youth Day was celebrated Friday by a mass meeting in Central Park and a parade to the Board SHOE STRIKE’ BY PICKETS A few hours after the Daily Worker story on the brutal | Canal, and a key point in naval wartare. | * x, " | murder of James Matthews, North Carolina Negro, on Welfare | of Education to present the demands of the students. Three Every blow at Wall Street’s grip on the toilers of Cuba is a blow against American preparations for war on a world scale. . > . . jh task of supporting the struggle of the Cuban masses against Wall Street is a central task of the workers of America, and a major phase ot the American workers’ struggle against war. America’s intervention in Cuba brings the war danger close home to all workers in America. It puts squarely before the workers, and particu- larly the trade union workers, the question of the immediate struggle against war. It particularly puts the anti-war struggle squarely before the revolu- tionary trade unions, the affiliates of the Trade Union Unity League. At the United States Congress Against War, which is now little more than two weeks off, there must be hundreds of trade union delegates, aroused and prepared to lead a concrete, effective, mass struggle against | war preparations and war. Murder on Welfare Island IN yesterday's issue the Daily Worker laid before its readers the grue- some story of the wanton murder by Welfare Island prison officials of james Matthews, a young Negro. ese revelations were the result of painstaking investigation by a special writer for the Daily Worker. Incidentally, the manner in which the report of the killing first reached us is striking testimonial. to the Daily Worker. Having seen the paper in the prison some time previously, an eye-witness to the murder wrote to ite Worker Correspondence de- partment of the paper. The sworn affidavit, a close check up and the present investigation followed. Every obstacle was placed in the way of getting access to the hos- pital records at Welfare Island. From the ward of Correction Hospital and Commissioner of Correction William J. Cahill to the Tammany Supreme Court Judges Julius Miller and Erwin Untermeyer—every effort has been made to keep peering eyes from the records. These records un- reveal the responsibility of the prison officials for the murder thew The Daily Worker has formally laid the evidence before District Attorney Crain. So far stone silence—merely a verbal “promise” by the Homicide Division that it will “begin an investigation.” . . T TE killing of James Matthews on Welfare Island is symptomatic of the continuous persecution of Negro workers—more and more of whom are suffering untold privations by the crisis which has thrown millions of them out of unemployment. ‘The last few days has seen an organized attempt on the part of the New York press to whip up a lynch frenzy against Negroes. News stories are appearing which savor strongly of the rope-and-faggot incitements of the Southern landlord press. The provocation is a dubious, police-in- spived report of a “wild” Negro who is attacking white women in Central Park. White workers should actively participate in exposing these lynch plots. When Negroes are in danger of attack, white workers should be the first to come to their defense. * * * We shall not be content with empty promises from the District Attorney's office. Action against the slayers of James Matthews can only be forced by the mass anger of the workers of New York. Resolutions de- nouncing the murder of this young Negro should be adopted at all meet- ings and demonstrations and forwarded to District Attorney Crane. Halt the frame-up and murder of innocent Negro workers! What They Return to ‘HE schools re-opened yesterday in the midst of a government campaign to insvire patriotic hysteria for the NRA slave codes. + A conservative group of educators, the National Educational Associ- tion, has just issued a report.on the situation in the nation’s schools. ~ ‘+ presents a picture of a school system in the process of decay, Almost 20 per cent. of the country’s schools will not open at all this ear. More than 300,000 new pupils and 15,000 fewer teachers, a school system in crisis—such is the picture painted by the National Association. And what lessons the workers’ children will get in the schools can be easily observed in the announcement of the New York Superintendent of Schools, William J. O'Shea, who said yesterday: “We should set ourselves resolutely against disseminating alarm- ing reports concerning the soundness of private, financial and gov- ernment institutions .. . we should not in any way encourage anti- social or anti-governmental demonstrations or doctrines . . .” It is as a place to breed capitalist poison into the minds of workers’ children that the capitalist “educators” look upon the schools. In New York City, 1,500 to 2,000 working class school children have already given the er answer to this “educator” who wants to poison the minds of the children with slavish devotion to that very capitalist system that exploits their fathers and mothers in the factories, and dooms them to follow in the same path of wage slavery, These working class children have gone out on strike. They demand more schools, better equipped. They are not cowed by the brutal bullying of their pompously patriotic “educator”. And it is this kind {of answer that alone can wrest new schools, better equipment, adequate fiacilities from the city “economizers’ and defeat the Sanit NRA a in the schools. ~ thousand took part in the par- Island, appeared yesterday, the Homicide Bureau of District | Attorney Crain’s office opened an investigation into his death. | | James T. Neary, chief of the Homicide Squad, shortly ——*after publication of the Daily 15,000 Needle Union Members Will Join Demonstration Defy Cops’ Clubs and ‘Anti-Intervention Bombs; 1,590 Group Refused by - on Sicike ade, and 5,000 in the demon- | stration, A delegation of members of the Young Communist League and vari- ous unions had visited the police Meetings Protest Murder of Negro on Welfare Island ‘Harlem Workers Are) of Prisoner protest and arrangement for a dele- | gation to call on Mayor O'Brien to demand an explanation of why the | | records of James Matthews’ murder are bejng suppressed by Tammany brutai beating to death of the inof- | | fensive North Carolina Negro. Nine meetings were held last night in Harlem at which speakers pro- tested against the vicious crime and demanded the arrest and prosecution | of the guilty guard. At every meeting Negroes stood around aghast at the evidence of vicious brutality and de- | manded the whole city penal system be thrown open for investigation. The New York district of the In- ternational Labor Defense telegraph- ed Mayor O’Brien demanding “an | immediate and thorough investiga- | tion into the murder of James Mat- | thews on Welfare Island with arrest | and prosecution of all guards and | officials implicated.” The ILD district office also pro- | tested vehemently in the telegram against Commissioner William J. Cahill of the Department of Corres tion blocking the Daily Worker's in- vestigation of public records. To Commissioner Cahill the ILD wire protested against his blocking the investigation and promised #o “rouse the masses to action to force punish- ment of all responsible for the Mat- thews murder and all those who seek to shield them.” Simultaneously George W. Harris, editor of the New York News and Alderman from Harlem, announced that “we will co-operate with the Daily Worker and anyone else to bring the official fiends who mur- dered James Matthews to justice.” The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sent a telegram of protest to Mayor O'Brien and Commissioner Cahill, after the story appeared in the “Daily.” editor of the Obie McCollum, Amsterdam News, said he would wait to see what District Attorney Crain did before his publication Stirred Over -Killing« Meetings in Harlem, telegrams of | officials followed swiftly upon the, | Daily Worker's publication of the | Worker’s story along with |Mark Shahian’s affidavit testi- | jfying to witnessing the mur- der, announced that the Bureau would conduct a thorough in- | vestigation and submit its findings ed the District Attorney, “We through Shahian’s ana Matthew's rec- ords, including will go hospital repo rts | cer=| and death | tificate and quiz those persons con- | nected with this | | alleged crime,”, Neary informed the “Daily.” District Attor-| ney Crane,was away from his “office on a short | JOHN L. SPIVAK vacation. Joseph Durkin, his secretary, stated that the Sha- hian affidavit, sent to Crain by the Daily Worker, in the routine of the District Attorney’s office, had been | sent to the Homicide Bureau, which would handle the investigation. tensive efforts on the part of Com- missioner of Correction William J. Cahill to keep the “Daily” from see- ing the public records. ‘The Supreme Court of the State of New York was used by Tam- many officials in their desperate ef- fort to suppress the facts about the Matthews murder, Supreme Court Justice Julius Mii- ler (former president of the Borough of Manhattan and a staunch Tam- many man) and Supreme Court Jus- tice Erwin Untermeyer, son of Tam- many's advisor, Samuel Untermeyer, | have both refused to make public the Matthews Hospital records, though the law specifically provides that they do so, “Too Near Election Time” As Warden Henry O. Sghieth of Correction Hospital, where Matthews died, expressed it: “Perhaps there) wouldn’t be so much objection if “| wasn’t so near election time.” bot hj NEW YORK.—The arrest yesier- | day of six workers picketing at the | Fit-Rite Slipper Co., 627 Brea | where a strike is in progress w ich jis part of the 8,600 who e strik- ing under the leadership of the Shoe and Leather Wo: rion, as well as arrests and junctions againsi ‘strikers in other industrial and American Federation of Labor. Whions, will bé protested at a hugé demonstration today at Union Square at 5 p.m. A leaflet signed by unions. appeals to the “workers of New York” to protest at this dem- onstration “the injunctions issued by |the courts agaii furniture, ther indus! 4 hoe Repair Men Parade Four hundred shoe repair workers paraded on 14th St. and Union Square yesterday Klein’s store and were attacked by |cops. A number of the workers were beaten up and one of them, M. Sigari, was ar ed. Shoe repair workers are str ig against sweat- shop conditions in the trade. While thousands of workers will] march from their shops to the Union | Square demonstration, the N. R. A./ Announcement that the Matthews’ | chiefs from their palatial headquar- | killing would be probed followed in-| ters in Pennsylvavia Hotel are using | the American Federation of Labor officials and the bosses to coerce; thousands of workers to join the strikebreaking parade tomorrow. Headed by Major General Noral, bankers, Tammany officials and labor fakers, thousands of exploited men and women will be forced to march up Fifth Ave. tomorrow after- noon. 15,000 Needle Workers in Line The Needle Trades Workers’ trial Union reports that 15,000 needle trades workers, a large number of them marching direct from their | shops, will participate in today’s dem- onstration. The Central Committee |of left wing groups in the Interna- | tional Ladies’ Garment Workers’ | Union has appealed to all members lof the I. L. G. W. U. to join the} demonstration. The gains made in the needle trades has come as a re- sult of struggle and in spite of the N. R. A. attacks, says the groups’ | appeal. It therefore calls on the the industrial | afternoon _ before | Indus- | PATERSON, N.J., Sept. 11— Despite tear gas bombs the wounding of three worker: one by the bombs and two by police clubs, the huge picket line of 5,000 here forced the boss of the Lodi dye plant, the largest in |.the country, employing 4,000 work- bore, to ‘promise to close down this | evening. ‘This will swell the strike to 15,000 under the leadership of the National | Textile Workers Union. The workers are striking for higher wages and union recognition. Picket- ing began during the early hours of the morning. | The picket line was led off with | signs of the N.T.W.U, calling on the s to fight against the bosses’ act. A commitice was chosen | among the workers to see the | from ; boss. This committee included a member of the A. F. of L., an unor- ganized silk dye worker, one from an independent local of the silk dye| and Moe Brown, secretary of the N.T. W.U. in Paterson. This committee, under Brown's leadership, went to see the boss, and told him that unless he closed down his plant, the com- (CONTINUED ON PAGF 3) Indiana Harbor Standard Forging GARY, Ind., ‘Sept. 11.—A commit- tee of 15 elected by strikers of the | Standard Forgings Company, led by Joe Weber, organizer of the Steel and Metal Workers Industrial Union, was dent Swanson of the plant to discuss | their demands. Swanson, at first denied the in-/| terview, but had to agree to meet) the elected representatives of the men after the workers inside struck | 100 per cent. The superintend the board of directors’ meeting, which and | Workers Strike granted an audience by Sunerinten- | ent announced that tion of $13.15 was taken up, to be | headquarters to discuss the question of the demonstration. From there | they were referred to Sergio Carbo, a member of the Junta Revolucion- Pres. Roosevelt, Delegates in Capitol , aria of five. He made a long speech ct is an seeing at coul not con- to Demand “Hands | ‘ince the delegation to call off the Off Cuba” demonstration, consented to its be- ——— eee NEW YORK.—Workers demon-. strating in Union Square tomorrow afternoon against the NRA will be called on to make the demonstra- tion also one of protest against Am- erican intervention in Cuba, and to demand hands off Cuba, nullifica- tion’ of the Platt amendment, and | cancellation of Cuba’s Wall Street | debts. | The Anti-Imperialist League has called a mass meeting of protest WASHINGTON, Se Sept. 11.—Presi-| dent Roosevelt today refused to see| a delegation which called to protest against American intervention § ia/ Cuba, and demanding the withdrawal | of U.S. forces from Cuba, the nulli-| fication of the Platt amendment, and | the cancellation of Cuban debts to| Wall Street banks. The delegation included William Simons, Anti-Imperialist League; Wil- liam Patterson, International Labor | Defense; John Lorenz, Marine Work for tomorrow night, at 8 p.m. jn | ers Industrial Union; Harold Hi Park Palace Hall, 2 West 110th St erson, Workers Ex-Servicemen’s| Among the speakers will be Robert League; Gibby Needleman, United Dunn, James W. Ford, William Sim- Front Supporters; Manuel Marsal,| °"S Frank Ibanez and M. Lamar. U. S. correspondent of “El Pais,” big} Cuban newspaper. ing held. In the morning a delega- Whei. Col. Louis Howe, Roosevelt’s | tion called again, and permission ceretary, sald the U.S. warships were | again given. At noon permission wes for “protection of American lives,”| Withdrawn. Troops with machine William Patterson, of the LL.D., de-| gums trained in all directions oceu- manded to know why the govern- | pied the Central Square and’ tHe ment sent no forces to protect Amer-| Parque de Fraternidad. Machine ican lives in the Alabama lynch dis-| Buns were placed against the doors tricts, or where miners and fees | the Institute, the Normal Schoo), the Art School, and the union head- are striking. * . quarters. NEW YORK.—Word was received Army Threatens Demonstration of many meetings throughout the| Rumors circulated stating that ‘the country, protesting against American @t™my was going to shoot down the intervention in Cuba. demonstrators. The reactionary Direc- Several hundred workers led by torio. Estudiantil and the ABC “rad- Robert Minor, Communist candidate | leals” went around in cars calling for Mayor, demonstrated at noon | Upon the worl be aitend. Arai Monday in front of the Federal Pee rocps. ead ee groups visited ing, Broadway and Park Row. Man: factory after factory threatening more crowded around as speakers pd | slaughter if the manifestation ‘took manded “Hands off Cuba!” Place. All day long the official radio One thousand workers, including | ape called upon everyone to stay rit off the streets and stated that a mas- le pee demonic ats Dey era | sacre would take place if the demon- | night on Fifth Avenue at 10th st.,| ation dscagsncerl the tae and voted to sent telegrams of pro- Ps & test to Roosevelt and af greetings to| Wavering position of the Commie the Cuban workers. Robert Minor | Which was headed by the ¥ | Communist League and had del and Frank Ibanez spoke. A collec | from over 40 unions, factories® the Ala Izquierda Estudiantil, military commander, yielded and gave d used to support the Cuban workers’ | struggles, The efforts of Commissioner of union members to demonstrate today Correction William J. Cahill to keep|and not to participate in the N.R.A. the facts of the Matthews murder | strikebreaking parade tomorrow. and the other crimes on the Island) Among the speakers on the Square from becoming public are an amaz-| will be Fred Biedenkapp of the Shoe ing chapter in Tammany’s indiffer- Union; Ben Geld, Needle Trades; ence not only to the law but to pub-| Jack Stachel, of the Trade Union lic welfare. Unity League; George Powers, {Editor's Note:—Cahill was ap- Rubin, as well as Robert Minor and L] will take place today will consider | the strikers’ demands. The entire) first shift of 150 is out, while the| are picketing the plant, carrying bane | other two shifts totaling 500 will) ners, join the str! Over 300 have already joined the The strikers demand an increased) Steel and Metal Workers Industrial minimum of $20 a week for Union. Others are constantly visit- no overtime, 8-hour day,| ing the union headquarters to sign guaranteed basic day rate for ham-| up. The union called mass meet- | the permit. at 3.15. Victory for Communisis Many thousands of workers were | intimidated and did not come. But | the fact that the demonstration did take place was a victory for the re- volutionary youth movement led by the YCL of Cuba and for the Cem- munist. Party. The government ter pointed Commissioner in May, 1933, by Mayor O’Brien, as a Tam- took any steps in the matter of the murder of James Matthews, (Continued on Page Three) Mrs. W, Burroughs, respectively, candidates of the Communist Party |for Mayor and Comptroller in the mersiniths and heaters of one dol- lar an hour, helpers 80 cents, machin- ings in Gary, Indiana Harbor and! ror was defeated. The leaders of the South Chicago tomorrow in a cam-/ Directorio Estudiantil and the ABC ists 85 cents, inspectors 70 cents and| paign to organize the workers in the) ‘fall elections, recognition of the union. The men ' Steel industry, ' (CONTINUED ON PAGE Two) Yad spirit which dominated the Daily Worker Conference, held in New York Sunday evening, could well be a model for the districts in other sections of the country, in the drive to raise $40,000 urgently needed to maintain and improve the 6-page “Daily.” At this conference more than 300 delegates, representing 58,000 workers in 200 organizations, met to take up in sober, business-like fashion the task of putting the fighting organ of the American working class on a more sturdy foundation. plete frankness with our readers and without hysteria. With the circu- Aation of the paper growing, and with letters coming to us from all parts of the country praising the improved “Daily,” it would be @ crime against the workers to withdraw valuable space from the front page of the paper for extended, lengthy and frantic appeals. We are therefore putting the situation before our readers simply and concretely: THE DAILY WORKER NEEDS $40,000 TO ENSURE ITS MAIN- “TENANCE AND TO CONTINUE TO IMPROVE ITS CONTENT. We plan to conduct the present drive for $40,000 in a spirit of com- | OW can readers help in this drive? The following directives are valuable suggestions from the “Program of Action,” adopted by the New York district: 1. Every central body is requested to immediately elect a Drive Committee of three or more, which will be responsible for conducting the drive in the entire organization. 2, Every branch should immediately set a date for an affair for the | Daily Worker, preferably a house part; for smaller organizations. 3. Wherever at all possible, branches should arrange Red Press Sun- days, for the canvassing of the workers in their neighborhoods. In the canvassing, additional attempis should be made for the raising of funds for the drive. 4. During the period of the drive, the chairman of all meetings, whether indoors or outdoors, lectures, forums, etc., shall be instructed by the branch to say a few words on the Daily Worker, stressing its im- portance, and an attempt should be made at these meetings to get financial and circulation results for the Daily Worker. - | | i New York Conference Shows Way of Raising $40,000 ‘Daily’ Fund 5. All trade unions shall set up a committee of 3 to conduct the drive for the union. The work of this committee shall be the centering of the financial and circulation drive in the shops, factories and the markets of the particular trade. 6. In every shop, in every factory, a real attempt shall be made to select a Daily Worker representative or committe to conduct the drive, * i ‘ THIS program is followed out with enthusiasm and intensity, there 1s no doubt, comrades, that we will succeed in achieving our goal and raise the $40,000, now so urgently needed. Previously received Recetved Monday * * > $171.62 TOTAL received -