The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 26, 1933, Page 1

eee ae Get Your Unit, Union Local, Branch or Club to Challenge Another Group in Raising Subs for the Daily Worker! Vol. X, No. 231 -—* Entered ss second-class matter at the Post Office at New York, N. Y. under the Act of March 8, 1879, \(Section of the Communist International) | Class Daily ] America’s Only Working Newspaper | | | Eastern New York: WEATHER Cloudy, slightly warmer, probably showers Tuesday. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1933 (Six Pages) Price 3 Cents TORGLER DECLARES HIS INNOCENCE IN NAZI COURT Changing Servants IS obvious that the coming mayoralty elections in New York City will not be an ordinary affair. The steady, remorseless advance of the economic crisis has brought hunger and suffering to literally millions of men, women and children in this city. And where these starving workers have demanded bread, they have received only the brutality and clubs of the Tammany police. The hungry workers hate Tammany. Similarly, the thousands of small home owners, the thousands of Civil Service employees, the small business men, the vast majority of the city’s population have felt the the hated load of Tammany graft, wage-cutting, racketeering, and plunder. They too, want relief from the Tammany rotteness, This tremendous antagonism of the masses against Tammany has brought forth from the real rulers of the city—the Rockefeller-Morgan clique at Wall Street—a demand that their political agents be capable of 4 more subtle, more refined, more cloaked and hidden methods of con- tinuing the old capitalist plundering of the city’s population. It is this necessity for getting new ways to fool the people, while, at the same time, satisfying the Wall Street money masters that explains the rifts in the Republican-Tammany machines, and the present effort to bring forward the Roosevelt-Flynn-McKee clique in place of the Curry-McCooey-O'Brien rule. McKee will be run as an “opposition” to the Curry-Tammany machine. Actually he is part and parcel of Tammany Hall. Last year he repeated time and tume again his declaration of loyalty to Tammany. “I am a Tammany man,” he said scores of times. And the most damning proof of his Tammany loyalty is that as the Tammany President of the Board of Aldermen, he served as a faithful and silent servant of the Walker-Tammany regime. McKee is fully as loyal a servant of the Rockefeller-Morgan bankers as the Curry-O’Brien gang. At present, he is a $50,000 a year Vice-Presi- dent of a Morgan bank, the Guaranty ‘Trust Company. His whole clique, headed by Roosevelt, has close, personal connections with Wall St. While he was temporary mayor, while he was President of the Board of Aldermen, he fought just as loyally as O’Brien to protect the bankers’ loans and interest payments. McKee is the lightning rod that the capitalist city rulers put out to draw the tremendous shock of the workers’ anger at their government oppressors. How effective he will be depends on how well we direct the workers’ anger at their real enemies—the Wall Street bankers and their political agents. In the coming elections it is only the Communist Party candidate for Mayor that the Wall Street bankers fear, For they know that only the Communist candidate fights to make them pay for the starvation and suffering of the workers and their fam- ilies—that the Communist candidate alone fights to make them pay for the hideous economic crisis of their capitalist system. Who Doesn’t Know is open resistance of comrades engaged in trade union work to the selling of the Daily Worker during strikes and at union meetings must be met by the most determined political struggle in every trade union fraction and District Bureau. By persisting in this policy, openly op- portunistic in character, they are not only hampering the growth of the “Daily;” they are jeopardizing the success of the strike and retarding the revolutionizing of the workers. What this means in practice can be seen from the following incident reported from Philadelphia: A Party member, active in the strike of the automobile workers there, came to a meeting of strikers. He found a representative of the Daily Worker present, and above all, he found that this representative had just addressed the strikers. This Party comrade became indignant. These were his remarks to the “Daily” representative: “What are you doing here?” “What, you spoke here? Who gave you the floor? ... These people don’t know about the Daily Worker. ‘There is only one reading it, and he don’t know what it’s all about.” UT it was not the workers who did not know “what it was all about.” It was this trade union comrade, blinded by an opportunist outlook, who didn’t know what these auto workers were thinking. What had really happened this comrade didn’t know. Before his arrival the strikers had endorsed the Daily Worker, three had subscribed for it, two others gave their names declaring their intention of subscrib- ing as soon as they got back to work, all of them asked that the paper. pe sold at the strike headquarters daily during the strike. ‘We ask every comrade, every unit, every fraction, and the leading Party committees to join in a determined effort to break down such tendencies as are represented here by this Philadelphia comrade. “No Room” for Strikes jocal American Federation of Labor leaders are coming forward quite openly as strikebreakers in the strike of tool and die makers at Flint, Mich. George L. Starkweather, president of the Flint Federation of Labor, openly declared: “The A. F. of L. would not recognize the strike and takes no part one way or another.” This is fully in accord with the statement of William Green that “there is no room for any other labor movement in the United States” besides one sanctioned by the A. F. of L. bureaucracy. Behind such statements these leaders actually serve the manufacturers. . erin) . dir Flint strikers are organized in the Mechanics Educational Associa- tion, local body unaffiliated to either the A. F. of L. or the Trade Union ‘Unity League. This association has pulled the tool and die makers out of the Buick, Chevrolet, and A. C, Spark Plug plants, in a strike for higher wages. The Auto Workers Union, affiliated to the T.U.U.L., is actively sup- porting this strike, even though these workers still retain this independent association. The A. F. of L. leaders declare it an “outlaw strike” and refuses support, The A. F. of L. went still further. It called a meeting in Flint one day after the strike of tool and die makers was called, And there, at this meet- ing, under the pretense of “organizing” the production workers in the plant, these leaders undertook to establish a division between the workers, to prevent the mass of the workers from taking joint action to improve their conditions. Such a policy has its roots in the N.R.A. Labor Board's approval of the open shop clause in the auto code. That document, despite all of Green’s mock wailing and gnos!inz of teeth, bears the indelible signature of John L, Lewis and William Green. i a aaa a the action of the A. F. of L. leaders the strike is spreading, with “A. F. of L. members joining the independent union in the demand for higher wages. The Auto Workers Union correctly urges all workers to aid the strikers, correctly calls for a united front of auto workers, regardless of union affiliations, to win this strike, NAVY GIVEN FREEDOM TO ATTACK CUBA Commanders Need No Permission; Grau Arrests Reds WASHINGTON, Sept. 25.—Wash- ington’s preparations to turn U. 8. guns on the Cuban masses were brought near their climax yesterday as instructions were sent to com- manders of the 30 warships which en- circle the island to land troops on their own initiative in any “emer- gency.” ‘This decision folloyed reports from government representatives in Cuba that the Communist Party there is highly organized and taking the lead in many of the workers’ struggles for minimum living conditions of 80 cents to a dollar a day, and for an eight- hour day. It also follows the decision of the Roosevelt government that the Grau San Martin regime must take into the cabinet representatives of the | openly reactionary capitalist-landlord | parties before it will be recognized. This decision was made public in the form of a report by A. A. Berle, Jr., U. S. financial adviser in Cuba, a member of the “brain trust,” and a close associate of some of the larg- est American sugar corporations with properties in Cuba. Berle told the President that the Grau San ‘Mar-} tin government was a “shell of a government,” without support. Although Grau San Martin is in the lead of the anti-working class forces in Cuba, by virtue of his po- sition, he is regarded as still too weak by. the American..and .Cuban. captialists and landlords. ee ee HAVANA, Sept. 25.— Mass arrests of Communist leaders of the Cuban workers has begun. Several Com- ‘ munists were arrested in Pinar del Rio today, and in Cruces, where a workers’ and peasants’ committee of action is in oharge of the municipal- ity, two Communists, Valentin Fer- nandez and Rafael Bena, were ar- rested and brought to Havana, where they were put in Cabana fortress. Capt. Juan Blas Hernandez, who Jed an “insurrection” against the government last week, conferred with | President Grau today, and declared that it was all “a mistake.” Workers in many parts of the island continue to hold the sugar plants they had seized when the own-| ers refused to consider their strike demands, ‘Untermyer Asks That Wall Street | Taxes Be Scrapped Spectators Applaud Minor, Communist, for His Attack on Banks NEW YORK, Sept. 25.—Almost im- | mediately after he had hinted at im- | pending wage cuts for city employees as well as new taxes on top of the re- | cent water rate increases, Samuel Un- termyer, at the hearings before the Board of Estimate today, suggested to Mayor O’Brien that the taxes on the Wall Street stock exchanges be “re-considered.” This suggestion is equivalent to killing the “Wall Street taxes.” Ear- lier in the year, Untermyer admitted the impossibility of enforcing such | taxes. Robert Minor, Communist candi- date for Mayor in the coming elec- tions, stirred the hundreds of spec- tators into the only burst of applause of the session when he rose to de- clare: “These are not taxes against Wall Street. They are only a vaccina- tion to make Wall Street immune from taxes.” At this point, Mayor O’Brien at- tempted to confuse Minor by asking what taxes he proposed. | Ina flash, Minor roared back: | “Tax the Rockefellers and Morgans. This will be the blackest winter of joblessness and starvation since the crisis began.” Again the spectators yburet into applause. 200 Cops Protect Scabs In Coal Truck Strike NEW YORK.—Two hundred cops were ordered to protect scabs deliv- ering coal today when drivers and helpers in all coal yards went on strike demanding higher pay and union recognition. Radio cars are being directed to all co Minor Faces Court 10 a.m. Today; Urge Workers to Attend NEW YORK.—The International Labor Defense called on workers to attend the trial today of Robert Minor in the 10th Magistrates Court, Pennsylvania and Liberty Aves. at 10 a.m., where the Com- munist candidate for Mayor will face the charge of picketing against an injunction. The Furniture Workers Industrial Union, which is leading the strike against the Progressive Table Co., an N.R.A. firm before which Minor was arrested September 6, also called upon its membership to at- tend the trial. (To reach court, take 14th St. crosstown B.M.T. subway to Atlan- tic Ave., change for Fulton St. line to Pennsylvania Ave.) U. S. Is Forced to Reverse Decision, Admit Tom Mann Mass Pressure Wins Victory for Anti- War Delegate NEW YORK.—The United States Congress Against War scored & smashing victory when the United States Department of Labor reversed its decision excluding Tom Mann, veteran British labor leader, from this country and sent a cable to the Consul General at London that Mann would be admitted into the United os zis Some of the jurists who in London found Torgler and the other Communist leaders on trial in Germany victims of a fascist frame-up in the Reichstag fire case. Mme. Dr. Brakker-Nort, Holland; D. N. Pritt, K. C.,England; Belgium, as éhey appeare” at the preliminary meetin g of the Old Court House, Carey Street, London. Left to Right: Senator G. Branting, of Sweden; Vald Huidt, Denmark, and P. Vermeylen, States for a 15-day period to address the Anti-War Congress, whose three- day session starts in Mecca Temple and in St. Nicholas Arena, Friday evening, September 29. The sessions will be open to the public. Mass Pressure Forced Admittance ‘Mass pressure in the form of pro- test wires, letters, cables from lead- ing working, class.and, other organiza». tions and individuals in this country and from abroad, and the personal protest of a delegation recently in O’Brien’s Secretary 3,000 Mass at City Hall While Shoe Strikers _ See Mayor’s Sec’y NEW YORK, N. Y.—“No more police interference, WHERE | THERE ARE NO INJUNCTIONS.” NEW YORK.—An anti-war mass meeting in Times Sq. will be held today at 12:30 noon, under the aus- pices of the Communist Party. The meeting will be a protest against United States intervention in Cuba, a call to the Anti-War Congress | | | | - Mistrial Declared Lindberghs Arrive in | Moscow: Acclaimed By LUSCaloosa Negro Promises Strikers Tremendous Crowds, Taken From Home, Police “Protection” MOSCOW, Sept. 25. Complet- | ing their flight from Leningrad, | Col. and Mrs. Charles A. Lindbergh landed their seaplane on the Mos- | Is Found Lynched cow River. | i A throng of 20,000 crowded both Had B ky Out On Bail shores, cheering wildly as Lind-| On Minor Charge; bergh negotiated the dangerous | in } rating She Third Lynching TUSCALOOSA, Ala., Sept. 25. — | was free on small bail following un- supported charges made by a white woman, was early yesterday morning German Communist Leader Sweeps Judge Aside, Assails Frame- The World Court That Convicted Na Up Against Party TORGLER WAS CHAINED DAY AND NIGHT Leo Gallagher, Ti Lawyer, Arrives in Leipzig | months I have been in confinement and I mean to tell the world that I am absolutely innocent.” This was the dramatic declaration in the Nazi supreme court here to- day by Ernst Torgler, for many years chairman of the Communist depu- ties in the German Reichstag. Torg- ler is being tried with three leading Bulgarian revolutionaries — George Dimitroff, Blagoi Popoff and Vassil Taneff—on framed-up charges of set= ting fire to the Reichstag building. ‘When the presiding judge tried to silence the Communist leader on the pretext that he first wanted to “es- tablish identification,” and that “we can discuss politics later,” Torgler said: Chained Day and Night “T must first of all say I have been in jail for seven months, for five of them chained day and night. I was forced to keep silence, and I must take this first opportunity to get my | message to the world.” “I am absolutely innocent,” Torg- ler repeated vehemently as the pre- siding judge tried to halt his testi- mony. “I protest out of disgust that I am being accused directly or indi- rectly of any connection with this monstrous and unspeakable crime, or that my party is. “I gave myself up to protect my party. For seven months I have been in confinement, and during these months I have been under the fire of a continuous cross-examination and five of these months I was which opens in New York Friday evening. It will also be a protest against the persecution and torture of Ernst Thaelmann, Ernst Torgler, and the other Communist leaders of Ger- many by German Fascism, This was the answer of Sec-| retary to the Mayor, Mr. Fox, when | |at 2 p.m. yesterday a variously es- |timated crowd of from to to three thousand workers packed City Hall Square, backing their committee of fifteen who entered the City Hall| In Trial of Anti- Nazi Demonstrator NEW YORK. ecause Edward | | Dennis Cross, a young Negro, who | | |taken from his home and lynched. | | His body, found at dawn near the | chained day and night. ‘Tuscaloosa.’ Oourity Arrested When’ Protesting dled with bullets. “I did not endure it because my That the charge against Cross was| health was equal to it, but because I a minor one is clear from the fact| am innocent, and I want to do my that the defendant was out on bail| part in clearing my party of this Club, was rid- parts of the city ‘Where strikers at- tempt to dissuade-scabs from making coal deliveries, Washington against Mann’s exclusion forced the United States Department of Labor to reverse its stand. D. W. McCormick, Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, sent |to protest to Mayor O’Brien on the police department. unwarranted arrests and raids by| with showing prejudice, in Kings At the present time there are | st the following wire on ‘Tom Mann: |65 shoe and slipper shops out on| strike. Thirty-five slipver \already have issued injunctions against the strikers, and fifteen big factories of the shoe trade also have injunctions, Steve Alexander, chairman of the |committee which conferred with Secretary Fox stated: “We, striking shoe and leather workers, |understand well what the promise |of Mr. Fox means. Mayor O’Brien | will continue to cooperate with the shoe and leather bosses as he has done in the past. only win by our continue] mili- “State Department sent telegram one to Consul General at London this af- ternoon that Tom Mann would be admitted for a 15-day period to de- liver an address on peace at the Unit- ed States Congress Against War.” Public Session Friday Tom Mann is affiliated with the Red. International of Labor Unions, and is a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He lives in London. Speakers at the opening public ses- sion of the United States Congress Against War on Friday evening, Sep- tember 29, in Mecca Temple and in St. Nicholas Arena, will also include F Henri Barbusse, famous French au-|t@ncy on the picket lines, and our thor, who arrives this Friday on the |continued effort to spread our o S. Berengaria for his first visit to, strike, and smash the injunctions.” the United States; Earl Browder, s General Secretary, Communist Party, | ie a ha ith Me aie aes US.A.; A. J. Muste, of the CPLA. | she lot Emil Rieve, president of the ‘Ameri. | 2nd ealled them to a mecting last can Federation of Full Fashioned Night at 6:30 p.m. in Arcadia Hall, Broadway and Halsey Sts., where he reported on the conference. (Continued on Page Two) the | We strikers will, length, at {lightly of the whole proceeding. Kuntz, attorney for the International rare’ afeieeh ‘g —a rare situation when a Negro is Labor Defense, charged Judge Novo] involved, ¢ ee anneal Third Lynching » Schmerhorn and Smith} cross is. the third Negro to be atter yesterday declared | ,_ as 1 in the case of Fred Gey- lynched here in the past few weeks. var-ald woodworker, held on} On August 18, Dan Pippen, A. T. | Harden and Ernest Clarke were tak- a frame-up charge of lonious as-| sault” growing out of his arrest with) en.from the county jail by masked thi men and shot. rers at the demonstration in} ving wi Taub and lyn on May 15 ‘against Hans| Ving Schwab, Allen Y 'S! Frank Irvin, International Labor! Nazi envoy to the Chi-| terense attorneys, had been driven | out of Tuscaloosa and threatened | with lynching after Judge Foster, before whom the three Negro boys | were being tried, barred the IL.D./ attorneys from the defense. Lynching Via Law Sheriff R. L. Shamblin, following the lynching of Cross yesterday, “ex- | plained” that the Negro youth had been seized by “a group of men posing as officers” who came to his home at 2 a.m. and said he would have to go} County Cou The judge's decision to declare a mistrial came a little after about 4:30. p.m., after all the evidence had been | heard The I.L.D. attorney clashed fre-| quently with the judge who insisted} on questioning defense witnesses at the same time making Two policemen were the only wit-| hesses against Geyzer. They testified that the young worker, who is frail! to the sheriff's office to make a big- | and delicate-appearing, attacked | ger bond. 1 them. Geyzer, on the other hand,| That the county police officers were directly involved in the lynching of supported by a number of eye-wit- | Harden and Pippen was charged by nesses, told how he was viciously | beaten when the police made an un-| the I.L.D., and the present wanton | provoked attack upon the demonstra- | murder of Cross bears a striking re- tors at the pier. | semblance to the earlier lynching. Response, But Still I nsufficient Don’t. Wait ‘for the Danger Line in $40,000 Drive | A beac are some excellent, even inspiring responses to the appeal of the Daily Worker for financial assistance. When we read these letters we feel confident that our $40,000 goal will be reached. When we total up the returns for the day however, we are con- fronted with another picture, Yesterday, for examole, the day’s total was only $185.11. The “Daily,” comrades, needs not less than $1,000 per day if it is to raise the $40,000—in fact if it is to live! This situation cannot go on, Every reader of the paper, every work- ers’ organization, and particularly every Party unit and leading com- mittee, should realize that the very existence of the Daily Worker is in jeopardy. , We cannot continue to publish the six-page paper and retain the new features recently added unless the response to our appeal for funds is quickly brought up to the $1,000 needed daily for the re- mainder of the drive. We give fair warning to our readers and to the workers’ organizations. It is up to you to show by the size and number of your contributions and by the speed with which you respond to the campaign, whether or not you wish to retain the improved paper. sf 8 S WE stated, there are many nspiring responses from organizations and from readers. ‘The Downtown Section of the Communist Party in Seattle, Wash., sends in $17.50. After congratulating the editorial staff on the improve- ments in the paper, they declare their intention of working energetically \ to save and build the “Daily,” concluding their letter: “Our activities in the future will prove our appreciation for the changes made.” Another letter: “The John Reed Branch No. 546, 1.W.O, (Chicago) recognizes the importance of the ‘Daily’ in the great struggles of the working class and pledges $100 to the sustaining fund of the Daily Worker. Enclosed is $25, the rest will follow in a few days.” Then Mike Gold's letter to Julia H. brought in $10 and not from Julia either, but from another reader, Ira Benson. “It is sent as a tribute to the beautiful reply,” she says. | Another group of comrades, forced to live in Bethlehem, N. H., because | of hay fever, collected $20.60 for the “Daily.” “This can be done every- where,” these comrades correctly emphasize. UT, comrades, it is hot being done “everywhere.” Therein lies our difficulties. Many of our readers are doing fine. Many organiza- tions are also doing fine. But the mass of our readers, the majority of the workers’ organizations, including Party units and sections, are too | slow in their response. Comrades, speed up the drive. Collect in the shops, in the unions and in your neighborhood. Send in your personal contribution. Help us reach the $1,000 needed every day. | onment and torture, | monstrous accusation.” Neither he. nor the Communist Party of Germany had the slightest connection with the Reichstag fire, Torgler declared, and called atten- tion to the fact that he had gone te the Berlin police headquarters on February 28—the very day after the | flre—to protest against the Nazi al- | legations that the Communist Party was responsible. Both Torgler and the attorney who accompanied him were at once arrested. Torgler Worn and Thin Torgler looked worn and emaciated as a result of the months of impris- but he never- theless spoke with great fervor. When he asked that he be permitted to speak without standing up, the Nazi court had no alternative but to grant it. The Communist leader gave a full account of his life and of his activi- ties in the German revolutionary movement. During his testimonyhe spoke with great feeling, although it was evident that it was a physical strain upon him. Leo Gallagher, attorney for the International Labor Defense in the U. S., and counsel for Tom Mooney in his recent San Francisco trial, arrived in Leipzig today and is ex- pected to be in the courtroom when the sessions open tomorrow. Vassil Taneff, 36-year-old shoe- maker and associate of Dimitroff, Bulgarian revolutionary leader, whose | bold and defiant testimony on Sat- urday had electrified the courtroom, testified today just prior to the call- ing of Torgler. Taneff Declares Innocence His father, Taneff said in response to a question by the court, had been killed in a revotutionary insurrection in 1906 in a national uprising of the Macedonians against the Turks, In February, 1933, he testified, he in- tended to return to Sofia and trave eled via Berlin to visit some friends, including Dimitroff and poff. He arrived in the German ital a few days before the fire was arrested the day after the fire in a mass raid, together with Dimitroff and Popoff. $ Asked by the court whether he had talked with the Nazi - teur, Van der Lubbe,. Taneff replied eharply, “I can’t understand a word ef German.” This endangers our paper. | Interorcter Garbles Testimony Later Elene Dimitroff, sister of the veteran Bulgarian revolutionist on trial with Torgler and the other Communisis, testified that © her brother's activities were concerned mostly with the struggle in Bulgaria. On several occasions she vigorously Yesterday's receipts . $185.11 Previous Total . » 2241.30 TOTAL ccceesecccsceeseuvesnrae seteeeeee eee $2426.41 ad ‘Continued on Page 2)