The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 2, 1933, Page 5

DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1933 Page Five Fight Lynching! Attend the Anti-Lynch Rally At Rockland Palace on Sunday _| “We Stopped Their Lynching,” Young Negro Woman Tells Relates How Negro Croppers and White Workers in South Carolina Dispersed Lynch : Mob by Determined Resistance | An Interview by Boris Isracl | } “It was my brother,” she tells me in a husky low tone, which carries ‘ She ts a young, clean-cut Negro woman, slender, supple, a strong mouth, neryous hands, and eyes which can fiash surprisingly into fighting flame in itself a whole world of bottled up determination. “That’s how I know | this so well.” | el through their softness. She sits¢ restlessly, telling me of how the work- ers in the Carolinas had actually stopped lynchings by action. Rape Accusation It was her brother who had been accused of attacking a white woman in Fort Mill, South Carolina. The ac- cusing woman had been meeting a friend secretly and, on the point of being discovered one night, screamed that a Negro had attacked her. A round-up was made and, pressed, she hed said, “I think that looks like the one.” Storexeepers closed their stores, bar- bers came out of their shops with their customers and loungers, the pool rooms were emptied, and the world flew through the town like wildfire. From somewhere a rope appeared. It was in the spring of the year and the word travelled, too, through the fields where the Negroes were chopping the cotton and plowing the fields. Lynch for Lynch “They threw down their hoes and they said it was going to be lynch neh.” It ell happened so quick- | But when the lynchers appeared | the jailhouse surrounded | by tae Negro workers. The orders} were announced: “You don’t come within a block of this jailhouse. You touch that boy and we will take care of that lying white women.” There was no lynching in Fort Mili! that day. “That was even before we knew how to organize,” it is explained. “We just organized for that time because we had to do it. Now we can do it better.” Comrade Mary Welch is now ® leader of the workers, she is a Bol- shevik. She tells again of Green-! ly. victim of the mob and hid him some- where else. “It was about thirty-five of us. Tt was twenty-eight men and two women, They crowded into the small, two- room home and each took what he or she could for a weapon. “We had chair backs and pieces of wood and hoes and the woman of the house, she had a shot gun in bed with her. “If they come in to mob us, we're going to fight till we die,” they de- cided. Comrade Welch gave instruc- tions. She explained that they could get guns from some of the mob. Defend Ourselves “When the fight starts. Just don't start nothing. But we can sure de- fend ourselves.” They waited. In that stifling cabin, packed in with a space about the door and papers tacked over the windows, they waited. Cars drove into the street and stopped. The Klan mob was out in force. There were between thirty and thirty-five autos, according to a count made. Two of the white mob leaders, a policeman one of them, threw open the door. “They was surprised to see us there. They thought they was just going to take that young boy out alone, beat up his mammy and papa and string him up to a tree. They wanted to know what was we doing there, “They started searching the men- folks but the man of the house he wouldn’t let them’ search him for his pistol. There was a little bit of a rumpus. Then the rest of the mob- men came up there. I Pushed Him Back “I jumped to the door and pushed | Producing Super-Profits for Wall Street Negro sharecroppers toiling on the cotton plantations of the South, where they are paid the most meagre starvation wages. Hundreds of thousands of these croppers are practically chained to certain landlords through the use of the landlords system of debt slavery. ville, S. C., where the Ku Klux Klan had been maintaining a reign of ter- yor avainst workers’ organizations. K. K. K. Stops Meetings “If maybe three or four of us women would stand and talk together on the street they’d come up and ask us what kind of meeting we was hold- ing, and what we was talking about.” Any mecting in a house was raided by these mobs, led by the police and | the cotton mill overseers. Then the) leaders would be taken miles away from the town, clubbed and beaten | and left in the ditch. “Anyways, we) kept growing and building the organ-| ization,” tiis comrade says, simply. | “Then one white storekeeper picks | on one bf our members, about his girl —says this young Negro '>7 has in- sulted him cause he went with his own colored girl. Talked Back to White “Our comrade, he took up for him- self and told the man so, and thai night they passed around the word to go get that boy and to lynch him.” Mary Welch called some of the mem- bers of the I. L, D. and the union together. They met in the house of one of the workers. “I explained to them what it was all about and what the white bosses was fixing to do. “We decided we was going to stop this here lynching. We said even if some of us do get killed we was sure we could get some of them. We got to defend ourselves.” They went to the home of the young prospective NOTICE WILL the comrade who lost his coat at the Office Workers Dance please adver- ze in Dally Worker, giving description, name and address. _ (Classified) FURNISHED Room, single, double, kitchen 315 F. 12th 8t i > Apt. 1, room unfurnished a) the first of them back and told them they better stay out cause we in- tended defending ourselves. They looked at the comrade in the bed with the shotgun raised up at them and then they saw another comrade | through the door and he had # gun, too, so they ran back to their autos. “Every one of us stood our ground.” ‘The two mob “leaders” begged to be allowed to leave, they begged for mercy, for their lives, they promised. ‘They left. “They couldn’t get out of there fast enough,” Mary Welch says, @ quick, flickering smile turning her Up-corners up and lighting her face. There is a note of triumph in her voice as she says, “After that time, they didn’t try to break up no more lynch the Y. C. L. organizer.” And when the lynch mob formed they were faced with workers, white and black, who told them: “You don't lynch him before you lynch us.” He Wasn’t Lynch He wasn’t lynched. explains. “Those men that carry you out and beat you up or hang yor @ tree—they don’t want to die more than you do. “Start right when they start, before they start, and organize forces against this ig. “If they can organize forces to mion Square; $45 or le: 237 E. 4and Bt., N.Y.C. aE 8 @ Negro out and lynch him, we organize enough to prevent them!” ANNOUNCING THE OPENING OF CHEERFUL CAFETERIA AND RESTAURANT 713 Brighton Beach Ave. near Coney Island Ave., Brooklyn CONGENIAL ATMOSPHERE, DELICIOUS FOOD, ROOM FOR PARTIES AND BANQUETS, SPECIAL DINING M. BALSKY, MANAGER 175-177-179 SEC 110-12 EAST 6th ST. Compliments of PUBLIC BAKING CO. BRANCHES OND STREET — 104 SECOND ST. 98% of Negroes in Columbia, S.C. | Are Out of Work | By a Negro Worker Correspondent COLUMBIA, 8, O.—Ninety-eight per cent of all Negroes are out of work in this city. This is part of the New Deal. At the present time 3,000 Negro children are out of school in Columbia, 8S. C., and also about 1,000 white children. The city is not giving relief, nor the State of South Carolina giving any relief at all. Ig there ever was a time that we need the Communist Party in South Carolina, now is the time. Gets 10 Years on Frame-Up Charge | of $8 Robbery (By a Negro Worker Correspondent) INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.—I went into the Superior Courtroom once, and listened to Judge Baker give workers from 10 years to life in Michigan City Indiana State Prison. The In- ternational Labor Defense had a case of a Negro worker accused of vag- rancy and of robbing a street car conductor of $8 on Sept. 8, and Judge Baker gave him 15 years, when this worker had witnesses to prove he was at another worker's home and stayed all night on the night of Sept. 3, oun never left there till 5 a. m. next ay. But Judge Baker took the officer's word, when the offiver pulled a pistol out of his pocket and said he found the pistol on this worker, and Judge Baker gave him 15 years in Michigan City, Ind. Prison. N anking in Mass. Arrests of ‘Reds’ as. New Civil War Starts. Taking Them to the Lynch Court A group of officers taking the Scottsboro boys from thelr cells In the | | | | }| i] | | Negro and White Solidarity Defies Terror of Bosses (By a Worker, Correspondent) | INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.—The In- |] ternational Labor Defense got the Unemployed Council Hall to start |}'a branch for the I. L. D. and |] they had an entertainment Nov. |} 25, and a crowd came and said they were going to run the Negro and white workers away from 740 N. Haugh St. next Saturday if they came and started a dance with Negro and white workers. But the I. L. D. had a crowd of 50 Negro and white workers for the first entertainment. The Unemployed Council is go- ing to have Chili supper on Dec. 2, and the Unem| yed Council is {| ready for those stoolpigeons to || start something. The Unemployed Council had a supper on Nov. 18 | for over 150 Negro and white workers at 740 Haugh St. Fire Dept. Lets | Negro Family Burn to Death | (By a Worker Correspondent) | CINCINNATI, Ohio (College Hill). |—Sunday morning, about 2:30 a. m., {I returned from a Daily Worker house party, Nov. 25th. Soon as I |got in bed, in the doghouse I live |in, I heard the subdivision fire bell ringing, but no engine, because in this Negro section, in spite of all its dog-houses and rat holes there’s no fire prevention. Thus it happened that at 3 a. m., Sunday, the wife of one of our com- rades, and his four children were burned to death, and comrade Bill Parson, the father of these children, died in the hospital later, at 4 Just across North bend road from E 2 the steel subdivision lines the lily. white bosses live in fireproof homes. Negro People Get 4 Jokers in “New Deal,” Says Expert |Negro Woman, Economie Expert, Jim-Crowed in NRA Bureau, Shows How Roosevelt Codes Aim to Divide White from Black Worker Daily ker, Washington Bureau) WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 he American Negro drew four cards from the New Deal—four jokers—and nobody is more acutely aware of it than Mabel Byrd. i | administration- has been Jim-Crowed! Her story nterviewed, but I t facts through anot A social ecor Europe as well an authentic source, ed d to| labor. These owners propose to pay $9.50 per week to white men, $6.50 to Negro men, $8 to white women, and $6 to Negro women. ations of code provisions, mis~ as the conditions would be at are occurring wholesale, For this story came to Miss Not far away they have fire sta-/} even do that d rd: a Negro delivery boy in At- weeks in the NF lanta earned $5 a week before the deprived bo of |NIRA was enacted; the code for his equipment dustry set the minimum wage for for Negroes and him at $12 a week; when it went into wasn’t allowed to ed | effect, the storekeeper agreed to pay for whites. She has discov anyone who studies situation, that under rece has been handed jokers: the delivery boy $12, but on condi- ertheless, as tion that the boy pay $7 a week for he Negro’s new | “rent” on the bicycle he used in his N.R.A. her work! So he actually received ex- four | actly the same numerical wage as he had before N.R.A. brought a great 1. N.R.A. stepped increase in the cost of his living. slowed down the disy ” Many hotel waitresses wrote into N. gro by white labor, w began in|R.A. headquarters and explained that 1929, the supposed “increase” in their 2. N.R.A.’s fixed policy of sanction- | Wages were more than eaten up by ing sectional wage differential: new requirements that they room and der the codes, which mea board on the premises, at prices far racial discriminations against above the alleged raises. Scores of groes. restaurant workers complained of the 3. Organized discrimination against |same thing. Negroes are occurring and are con- No Negro Representatives On Boards up Ne- Decatur jail to the courtroom, where District Attorney Knight and Judge Callahan are attempting to railroad them to execution. |ticns, but two blocks away a woman |and four little children burned to | death and the fire department, a few sistently tolerated by enforcing agen- | cies on which not a single Negro| Discrimination against Negroes in {s serving anywhere in the country.|the distribution of public unemploy- Fighting Reported on) Chekiang Border; Bonds Slump SHANGHAI, Dec. 1—Raids on| workers headquarters and mass ar-| rests of Communists were carried out | yesterday in several Chinese cities) Sharecroppers Unpaid After. | blocks away, did not come near. To Fingerprint All Destroying Cotton for Gov't Citizens, Proposal in an attempt by the Nanking gov- ernment to “pacify” the hinterland in preparation for a new civil war between various factions of Chinese warlords. At Peiping, North China, 200 Com- munists were arrested and sent by train to Nanking for summary trial by a special court. Together with hundreds of other revolutionary workers arrested throughout Kuo- Mintang China they face immediate execution unless saved by protest actions by the world proletariat. with organizing mass support for the Soviet districts and the Chinese Red Armies which, with the rift between the warlords, have gone over to the offensive against Nanking’s sixth campaign to exterminate the revolu- tionary masses in the Soviet districts. Unconfirmed reports describe the first armed clash near Chuhsien, on the Chekiang border, between Nan- king troops and forces of the new secessionist regime in Fukien. Gen. Tsai Ting-kai yesterday issued orders for the 19th Route Army immediately to attack Chekiang Province. The war news, together with rumors that Chiang Kai-shek was “resigning” as Nanking dictator, | caused a heavy slump in Nanking government bonds, In Fukien province, all banks are reported to have closed their doors to prevent increasing withdrawal of money. Reports from Hongkong state that Hu Han-min intends to form a sec- ond secessionist government embrac- ing the provinces of Kweichow and Kwangsi, South China. The move is The arrested workers are charged | | | Mass Meetings in Arkansas Held to Take Up Plan of Action; Alabama Croppers Refuse to Sign Checks for Landlords (By a Negro Worker Correspondent) CHICAGO, Il.—My sister is a sharecropper in Arkansas. As such, of | course, she with the rest of the sharecroppers, in Lincoin, )., and other counties, had to plow under their cotton, | My sister plowed under five acres, for which the Government was to pay | her, but she has not been paid to the writing of the last letter, which N \received only last week. ‘The share-@————— croppers were told that they would, small impoverished farmers together have to accept their share of the/into our union known as the Share- pay in trade. croppers’ Union. In this union a re- It seems that these Croppers had to find their cent decision was made and is being eck t |begun holding mass meetn some way out to allev |miseries. A lawyer Jone: believe, is the name, from Little Rock, came and |advised them to join the Red Cross. | This I learned by asking my sister to |tell me just what he said in his talk. |She did not know of him before or his} The Alabama Sharecroppe: | Tecord, | which has a memb 000, gets | This misleader Jones has the nerve | 'o7¢ es oman’s to |to come and ask the sh | be presented before signing the check |to join the same Red C; which |0r they do not sign. One of th | discriminates against Necroes as they | demands is that at leost one h |did for instance in 1931 during the | the check must be paid to the sig {drought and also in the flood swept | And other demands to suit their con- zone of several southern st¢ ditions. y can’t the sharecroppers of Ar- s organize a union of the Ar- sharecroppers. Unde the of the 2aguc carried out to refuse to sign the chi tha the Wall Strest Gov sends the blood-sucking ers inste work ton and then are forced to plow it under. 8 y Union | A Common Enemy | It is a fact that the do not care any mo nt | Negro sharecropper. Th C | pers of Alabama, Camp Hill end Tus- | caloosa and other counties, what are | they doing about precisely the same situation with which they are con- fronted. They are organizing Negro} landowners | kansas r the white| guidance co for 1th . Editor's Note: This situation has been drawn to the atiention of the Communist Party in Ar an organizer will no doubt get “busy _ of U.S. Senators Aimed at Activities|* of Militant Workers and Organizers WASHINGTON, Dec. 1—A _ pro- posal to fingerprint all citizens of the country will be carried by Sena- tor Royal S. Copeland of New York to the Senate, it was announced today. | Copefand is the Chairman of the | Senate Committee on Crime and | Racketeering. The proposal for a sort of Federal Scotiand Yard with universal fingerprinting has long been a favorite one with the Senate Committee. Despite its alleged pur- pose of curbing criminals, the speeches of many of the Senators of the Committee have given clear indication that the proposal is aimed at the activities of revolu- tionary workers and labor or- ganizers. Many of the Senators making the proposal ly connected machines | t zed crime and ri The use of universal will become another militant | The pro- nee of the e govern- Only your support can heip the Daily Worker continue. You like the enlarged and improved “Daily.” 4. Special discriminati against | ment relief is an old story—and Miss Negroes are the rule instead of the|Byrd has seen it increase with the exception in New Deal work relief.|New Deal, particularly on federal- “Couldn’t Find An Office” |aided projects such as the Public Miss Byrd was called to the N.R.A.| Works Administration and the new fi y of Chicago | Civil Works Administration programs. nt to Prof. /In Arkansas, hundreds of Negroes are “, gira sf still working in the fields of rich cot- ie antinns = pent 'ton farmers for a supposed wage of three years in Geneva as a native- 50 cents a day, and even this they labor expert in the International rarely receive in cash—while unem- |Labor Office of the League of Na. | | tt = ployed whites are going back to some |tions. She taught economics 7. 7 | Fiske, the Negro university in Ten- |Teeular Pay-envelope. Whites always |nessee, and for several years organ-|Come first in re-employment, Miss 15 s 7 att Byrd has found; it is the recognized |ized the Young Women's Christian ile | Association program among indus- | Policy of administration just as truly |trlal workers. She is a graduate of | 28 if there were a written agreement ; the University of W gton and | between local and federal officials. has made special stud the Uni-| There are N.R.A. agencies which versity of Chicagc should be dealing with at least some When she arv! in Washington /of these abuses, The N.R.A. officials last August, the first thing she learn- | Who hear and agree to code proposals ed was that she would have to take |might insist upon equality for Negro a desk with the Negro census tabu- | labor, but they don’t. And not.one | ators (who were already Jim-Crowed | Negro sits on these boards! The La- jon the top floor of the Commerce |bor Advisory Board can present de- | Department 2 as|mands for labor in the actual ap- | her super! they “just couldn't | plication of the codes, but the only where she was an a Paul Douglas in the di jeconomics. Previot jfind an office” for her. They told|“labor representatives” there are A. her this though there are hundreds | F. of L. leaders notoriously addicted f offices in the labyrinthine head-|to conscious discrimination against quarters of the vacant. Ni. \., Many then | Negroes. There are many Compliance Boards throughout the country which td settled down | could stamp out violations aimed at d a telephone | Negroes, but there again they don’t, 1 in charge of | and there is no member of the Negro & her she'd better | people on these boards to guard it white stenog! interests. All of these matters Miss Byrd has pointed out to her associates. But Miss Byra | ‘hey respond only, “Give us a memo~ ata Hay randum on it.” They sharply warn her that her work is mere “research.” In fact, when authorities gather to ~ settle affairs vitally touching Negro problems which she was called in to advise upon, she is kept out. This is what the New Deal means personnel, adv not use any of crs in the “ large group of s |the N.R.A. Th | abo train left, she was tel said to be supported by the Canton regime, To all Unions affiliated to the Trade Union Unity League. To all Independent Unions. To all Organized and Unorganized Workers. Brothers: trial of the nine Scottsboro boys is now going on in Decatur, Ala- bama. Although it has been proven conclusively that the nine Negro boys are innocent of the crime with which they are charged, the white lynch rulers of the South are determined that they shall be legally evidence that the ruling class is organizing mobs to lynch the Negro boys during or immediately after the trial. lynchings that have taken place in the last years and more so in the last months, is a brutal attempt on the part of the ruling class to stop the rising struggles of the Negro toilers in the country over, and espe- cially in the South, against the increasing impoverishment and exploit- | ation of the Negro toilers that is accompanying the ever deepening of the economic crisis, Not only the ruling class in the South, but the whole ruling class and the Roosevelt government are responsible for this growing lynch terror, This terror is part of the growing reaction that is being devel- oped all over the country against all workers, Negro and white, and the workers militant organizations. Only the united struggle cf the white and Negro toilers can successfully resist the terror and lynch campaign that is developed by the capitalists throughout the country, Only such a united struggle can defeat the increasing attacks on the white and Negro workers. The struggles of the Negro toilers and the capitalist attack against the Negro masses is inseparable from and is a part of the sharpening struggles between the exploiters and exploited the country over, : i koe Jeaders of the American Federation of Labor, through their dis- crimination against Negro workers in the trade unions, through their chauvinist policies and through their refusal to take up the fight for the To all Unions affiliated to the American Federation of Labor. | and white sharecroppers, tenant and! immediately, Trade Union Unity League Sounds Call to Save Scottsboro Boys and for Anti-Lynch Struggles! | lynched by the government of Alabama, Not only that--there is every | This trial, like the increased | Support if with your dollars, Rush them today. freedom of the Scottsboro boys, and against the increased lynchings, share with the whole capitalist class and the capitalist government the responsibility for the bloody lynch terror. They speak of fascist reaction in Hitler Germany but are themselves carrying through and condone the same Hitler policies in the United States. We call upon all workers to rally to the defense of the Scottsboro boys. To fight the lynch terror. Workers in the A. F. of L. untons— pass resolutions of protest demanding the unconditional release of the | Scottsboro boys. Go on record for and fight for equal rights for the Negro masses. Fight against ail discrimination against Negro workers in the trade unions. Fight for equal pay for equal work for ali Negro workers in the North and South. For the right of the Negro workers to all jobs in all industries, Workers in the T.U.U.L. and militant independent unions—make your | organizations an example of full equality for all Negro toilers. Increase your struggles for the demands of the Negro tollers, Increase your recruiting of Negro workers into your organizations. Organize mass | meetings to protest and mobilize the masses in your industry and city for the demand for immediate and unconditional release of the nine Scottsboro boys. Let your organizations be the first to raise funds to carry on an effective defense and struggle for the freedom of the Scotts- boro boys. Workers, Organized and Unorganized, Negro and white, join together everywhere for the fight for the freedom of the Scottsboro boys, against lynchings, fer full rights to the Negro people. Contribute yourself and through your organizations to the Defense Fund to free the Scottsboro boys. There is no time to be lost. We need your support and we need it at once, Send all funds to: International Labor Defense, Room 430—799 Broadway, New York City. NATL, EXEC. BOARD TRADE UNION UNITY LEAGUE JACK STACHEL, Acting Secy. P. S.—Since this appeal was written we have witnessed the beastly lynching of a 19-year-old Negro lad in Missouri, following upon the heels of the approval of lynch terror by Governor Rolph of California. This development shows the correctness and immediacy of this appeal. jorders not to go. TONIGHT | decided that the t Much later the proje: t NRA. Adminis a= on and the Lab: i Johnson had decided it Given By e “preposterous” to send a Negro into ‘ : |the South to study PINSKER BR. 20 So Miss Byrd was OF ae her research work from W: br They discovered an office, Admission 49¢. |vided her with a private s the only Negro secreta |N.R.A. Correspondence brought her some information, and she learned much from the hearings on codes, | Discriminating Against Negroes She knew that, from the beginning of the depression, Negroes had been | displaced through organized mothods on a large scale—and she found that |\N.R.A. actually stimulated this pro- |cess by giving employers an excuse. ippossdly higher wages, for firing in yrd found recognizes it ¢ will hoid down the wa | white and Negro workers. | The N.R.A. has not yet officially | approved of an open racial di ination, but it has giv amounts to the same ng ¢ providing big diff between the wages in the Ni the south, for the what in O.K.- Byrd found that the wide spreads exist in indus vhere the labor | one section is lominantly col- | The laundry industry proposes pay in the South, where most “‘aundresses are colored, $5.30 a wee ‘or 45 hours. Similarly, the lumber, he hotel, the iron and steel indu: s placed in their codes differe s far greater than those adopted industries in which the division tween white and Negro labor is ‘out the same in all sections, Now a specific racial discrimina- ion is proposed in the code presented | tor the textile bag industry in the! South. This code proposes one scal: | af wages for “normal” and another | scale, much lower, for “subnormal” | ‘abor. And the code’s definition of “subnormal” labor explains unmis- STUYVESANT CASINO 142 SECOND AVENUE Celebrate Reeognition ef U. &, 6. RB SATURDAY, DEC. 3, 1988 Concert and Dance—By F.S.U. BALALAIKA ORCH, —Part of Program— BERTHA KATE ELUSHA BERMAN Soprano, USSR. Russian Comedian RADIO STARS—NEGRO JAZ% BAND BALALAIKA ORCHESTRA Admission 40¢ HOLLYWOOD GARDENS 898 Prospect Avenue — Bronx ~ WORKERS--EAT AT THE Parkway Cafeteria 1638 PITKIN AVENUE Near Hopkinson Ave. Brooklyn, ®. . To Russia? HUDSON Army and Navy Store 135 TAaIRD AVE. (Corner 13th Street) Fives Honest Values in Genuine Horsehide Sheeplined Coats; Windbreakers, Breeches, High Shoes, Boots, Work Shirts, Gloves, Ete. takably that this word means Negro’