The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 7, 1933, Page 3

Forms Answers with with His Pencil When I. L. D, Attorney Traps Her By JOHN L. SPIVAK ABTICLE Iv. (BDITOR’S NOTE: This i the fourth article of = series of four by John L. Spivak who attended the Decatur trial of Heywood Patterson as special correspondent for the Daily Worker.) 8 ‘HE court's refusal to wait for the deposition of Ruby Bates, seriously sick in a New York hospital, was com- parable only with the attorney gen- eval’s deliberate and open coaching of Victoria Price on the stand which every newspaperman in the court room as well as Judge Callahan saw. , It was while Victoria was testify- ing, insisting as she had at the spring trial that Patterson and the other Scottsboro boys had raped her. Throughout her testimony as at the former Patterson trial Victoria kept her eyes glued on Knight. Whenever Leibowitz asked a question that she could not answer she would repeat it after him while weiting for Knight to form the answer with his lips. Knight had done the same thing at the Spring triel but this time it was more obvious. It seems that he did not care what the rest of the world noticed about his coaching the wit- ness. Victoria Tells Fantastic Tale. Victoria, in telling her story, drew a vivid picture of the Scottsboro boys climbing, over the side of the gondola, Patterson with a gun in his hand which he used to clip her forehead making it bleed. (Even state witnesses contradicted her testimony that she was bleeding from cuts on her head.) “That there defendant Heywood Heywood Patterson hit me over my head with the butt end of the re- volver,” she intoned in her metallic voice. “Which end of the gun is the butt end?” Leibowitz asked sweetly. Victoria looked at him, a startled light appearing in her eyes. For a long moment she was completely sil- as though caught, she y chuckle, looking at Knight's ruddy An embarrassed suddenly he held his right hand up : the tak opened and closed i 1S ‘al times around a he held in his hand. t end of the gun is the part you hold jn your hand,” Victoria said in desperation. Knight sank back in his chair with a@ sigh of r tay Daniell, Allen Raymond of the N. Y. Herald Tribune, Tom Cassidy of the N, Y. Daily News, who were sitting at my left, turned to me with Jooks of amazement on their faces. “Did you signal to her?” “You bet I “1 The Southern newspapermen kept thelr eyes glued to their copy. If they saw—and I cannot imagine how they could have missed it—they were saying nothing about the deliberate coaching of the witness. Certainly the jury saw it. It was impossible to have missed it if a man had his eyes open. Judge’s Partiality Crudely Obvious. Judge Callahan did not say a word. ( Throughout the whole trial Calla- 4, han’s partiality for the prosecution was so obvious that it was ludicrous. “What the hell is he trying to do?” one of the Northern newspapermen said at one time, “Is he trying to give the defense s record a thousand times better than the Horton case for ap- peals?” Decision after decision, ruling after ruling from the bench, had made it inevitable for the higher courts to overrule. This was particularly true whenever Leibowltz, pressing wit- nesses for answers and the witnesses found themselves caught in cleverly Jaid traps, was stopped from continu- ing his questioning. “That’s enough now,” Callahan eried repeatedly whenever he saw a witness about to break down. Once Leibowitz, goaded to fury by |ing the Judge's deliberate interference with witnesses’ answers, protested Progressive Coal Union Heads Play Into Hands of Knight Openly Coaches Price Girl on Stand at Decatur Dede ap Lips, Signals to Her that it was not enough. “That will do!” Callahan roared, slapping his palm down on the bench. “That will do, Mr. Letbowits. I said that will do!” Leibowitz, knowing that the judge was aching for an opportunity to hold him for contempt of court, desisted. There was nothing to be gained by going to jail—and the record showed the prejudice and unfairness of the judge. Judge Fails to Consider Possibility of Acquittal, Alter three days of this sort of farce that Alabama calls justice came the court’s now world-famous charge to the jury. For one and a half hours he read from notes. He touched upon everything that the jury needed to convict Patterson and not ONE word did he utter of instruction should the jury want to acquit the defendant. It was not until both Letbowitz and Knight rushed to the bench and called his attention to it that he added a few weak words of instruction should they find the de- fendant innocent. ‘This charge in itself is undoubtedly the rawest charge that was ever made in this country, scene of so many raw cases. But at least in the Tom Moo- ney case, in the Sacco-Vanzetti case, in a host of other cases, the judges, no matter how prejudiced they were against the defendant, made a pre- tense to law. Here there was not even the slightest pretense to law or justice, Patterson was 3 “nigger” and it didn’t matter. Southern Correspondents Soft-Pedal Raw Deals. If Northern newspapermen had not been present at the trial the world would never have known how utterly disgusting was Alabama's “justice” in this case. Only the Northern report- ers told what was happening in the court room. The rest of the world, getting its news from the Associated Press, United Press and International News Service, got the facts in the case, with the most important facts buried in the heart of the story in a paragraph or two, It was that way during the Spring trial with the exception of the Inter- national” News Service which had Carter Brooke Jones covering it. This time the deliberate burial and sup- pression of news was so evident that even conservative reporters Daniell and Raymond could not avoid noticing it and commenting upon it. The first motion Leibowitz made for a mistrial on the ground that the judge was deliberately prejudicing the jury against the defense happened some ten minutes after court one morning. Present were David Davenport of the Associated Press, Ralph Hurst of the Birmingham News Age Herald, Ben Cothran of the United Press and myself. Daniell, Raymond and Cassidy did not come in_until some fifteen minutes later. When Daniell asked me if anything had happened I told him about Cal- Jahan’s accusations against Leibowitz, that he was trying to implant “vici- ous” ideas about Victoria Price’s chas- tity into the minds of the jury, Leibo- witz’ move for a mistrial and Calla- han’s apology, Ben Cothran edged over and offered Daniell his running story of what had happened. A. P. Buries Story of Jury Roll ries, Forge: That Leibowits had made a move for a mistrial was given in a line. There was not a word about Calla- han’s using the word “vicious,” Leibo- witz’ protest and Callahan’s apology. Neither was there a mention of it in the A. P. or Hurst’s copy. During the entire trial this delib- erate overlooking of important news that was against the state was evi- dent. When the jury roll forger- jes came out it was @ national story. Here, for the first time in Southern history, the South had confessed that they deliberately discriminated against Negroes on jury rolls by try- to forge the names of Negroes. Yet that very story and the actual facts of the forgeries were buried Try to Discredit Workers’ Rule in the Soviet Union; Jibe at Abolition of Unemploy- ment, High Wages By MILTON HOWARD i SOT RT Pe ey DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1938 NEWS BRIEFS Doetor Shot; Widow Is Held LOS ANGELES, Dec. 6.—Dr. Dewey | Wightman, prominent physician, was found deed here fn his home today. | His widow was held for questioning despite her protestations that he com- | mitted suicide. Kansas to Remain Dry WICHITA, Kan. Dec. 6.—Kansas will remain dry despite national re- peal, it was reported here today. Re-| ports from Utah are to the same| effect. | Fate of Husband in Wife's Hands | HEMPSTEAD, L. I., Dec. 6.—George L. Schmidt, who was convicted of as- sault on his wife, will be sentenced by her, providing it is within the law, a Justice of the Peace stated toda! Schmidt has been married for fifty years. Ride Victim Identified NEW YORK, Dec. 6—The body of & victim of a gang slaying, who was found in @ ditch near Yonkers, was Mentified as Tony Russo, # criminal, who has served sentences on two oc-| casions, Two Killed, Seven Injured in | Train Wreck FREDERICKSBURG, Va., Dec. 6— Two trainmen were killed and seven | others were injured this morning) when a Seaboard Line passenger train crashed into the wreckage of a freight train coming in the opposite direction, which an instant before| had been derailed by a landslide. deep in the A.-P. story which went to the entire country. Hurst scarcely | touched it until subsequently, when | the handwriting expert testified and he could not avoid it. When Callahan’s amazing charge to the jury was made every Northern newspaperman there realized its grav- ity and importance. Daniell had made arrangements to take the whole thing down verbatim. He suspected | in view of Callahan’s decisions that the charge might be a bombshell and wanted every word of it. The other Teporters wrote furiously, taking} down the salient points. The Southern reporters sat back, taking occasional notes, When the charge was finished Daniell turned to Raymond and me, his eyes round with indignation: “I never heard anything like it,” he said. “This s—- of a b—— just like | told them to come in with a verdict of guilty. It’s so raw that it makes sure of one thing: these boys will never burn in the electric chair.” The papers that afternoon carried the Associated Press story. The Bir- mingham News Age Herald carried opened | the story. But all they carried was that the judge had charged the jury. Not a single word of the rawness of | the charge. Not a single word of Callahan’s forgetting to instruct the jury in the event they should decide to acquit the defendant. Daniell talked to Davenport in the corridor of the county court house. We were all around. Daniell said he could not understand how the Asso- ciated press didn’t carry the story of the judge's forgetting to instruct on acquittal, Davenport returned: “Oh, I wrote the whole thing, including the high lights of the charge. But I guess some copy reader cut it out.” It was so funny that the Northern newspapermen walked away dis- gusted, convinced that the Associated Press, let alone the ‘liberal” Birming- ham News Age: Herald, had deliber- ately suppressed news not only in this pence but throughout the whole It 1s difficult to write of these things without feeling a growing sense of indignation and hatred of the farce Alabama just put on in Decatur. No matter how calmly one tries to look at it, the crudeness of it, the utter callousness of the deliberate rail- roading of Patterson to the electric chair is so brazen that certainly one is convinced there is no hope for justice in Alabama unless terrific Roosevel profits of Wall Street. monopoly cap- ital oe Jecrstla td the main dan- ger ist reaction in America. pressure and condemnation is put Label taken from a can of peaches marked “Below U. 8. Standard,” which was served at the Protestant Slice Dine at Waldorf for $10; Beans at Mission — Bt ai a MIU BAKER'S CALIFORNIA! LLOW CLING PEACHES f YE GOOD FOOD-NOT HIGH GRAD Episcopal City Mission Camp in West Park. Mass pressure forced camp officials to withdraw such canned food from the menu. at Elegant Waldorf Astoria NEW YORK.—A special repeal dinner is being offered by the Wal- dorf-Astoria, featuring the appro- priate wines, course by course, with the world famous service arranged by Oscar of the Waldorf, for the all inclusive price of $10. The features that make the Wal- dorf outstanding among hostelries for those of elegantly sensifive and refined tastes are the Empire Room | with its langorous afternoon dances and tea and aperitif services daily, music by the famous orchestras of Madriguera and Cugat; the New Lounge Cafe, which will be opened to ladies and gentlemen who may idle leisurely and chat; and the Empire Room with its modern cock- tail service bars, where one may slake his thirst after a feverish day at Wall Street, The Waldorf fs at 30th Street and Park Ave. CWA Projects to Elect Delegates to Jobless Meet Visitors Will Be Seated in Baleony of the Irving Plaza NEW YORK. -— The balconies at Irving Plaza will be thrown open to the public at the Convention Against Unemployment this Sunday at 10 a.m, The all-day conference will prepare @ plan of action for the coming win- ter. C.W.A, projects are electing del- conference and elect delegates. The widest possible United Front has been called for this important conference, and reresentatives from the Association of Single Unemployed Women wil attend. The Socialist L. TI. D. leaders of this group were forced by the membership to recognize the conference and elect delegats, Locals 2 and 3 of the Workers Com- mittee on Unemployment have also elected delegates, Revolutionary unions and a few A. F. of L. locals have also elected delegates. Relief workers in Brooklyn are circulating petitions to delegate themselves to this conference, which will represent every group under the Roosevelt pro- upon those officials responsible for this outrage. gram. 9 Wine, Dance and Dine ‘Hunger March to Give Ordinance to Richmond Mayor | Masses of Workers to) | Be Mobilized Behind the March RICHMOND, Va. — Registrations! jfor the Dec. 23 Hunger March| | which will present the Richmond} | Workers Relief Ordinance to Mayor| | Bright, are increasing rapidly. The} ordinance, which was presented re- cently at the hearings before the Finance Committee, is arousing great} interest among the workers. It provides for ten dollars cash re- lief to each unemployed couple, two dollars to each dependent, seven dol- lars to each single unemployed. It provides for union wages, conditions, and workmen’s compensation on all Telief jobs. It provides for a com- plete cessation of evictions and re-| Possessions during the entire period of the economic crisis. It provides} against discrimination, especially | against the Negro unemployed. It de- | mands that all relief funds shall be ‘collected by special taxes on the wealthy and that there shall be a complete moratorium on the enor- mous payments by the City to the bankers during the’ period of the crisis. It provides for the administra- tion of relief by elected committees of the workers. Finally it points out that all these measures are purely/ temporary, and demands that the City Government immediately memo- Tialize Congress for the passage of the Workers’ Federal Unemployment and Social Insurance Bill. Tremendous enthusiasm has been aroused among the.workers by this ordinance. This enthusiasm has been strengthened by the-series of public] mass trials of the.City Government and the relief agencies held in vari- ous sections of the city. STUDY CIRCLE CONTRIBUTES | POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y¥.—During| its existence of six weeks, the Study | Circle here has realized fully the| role that the Daily Worker plays in organizing the workers. The the “Daily” in its financial plight | and promise not only to continue its support but also to increase the | | cured the right to organize them- | members contributed $5.10 to help} circulation of the Daily Worker. Marked ‘Below U. S. Standard’ WEST PARK, N. ¥.—Mass pres- | sure exerted under the leadership of @ group of men at the New York Protestant Episcopal City Mission camp here, forced the officials to promise not to serve any more can- | ned peaches marked “Below U. S. Standard,” and not to use the cheap coarse salt that was affecting the bladders of the men. The camp is run to “uplift” home- | 5 less and unemployed men and boys who were starving on the streets of New York. They are served, beans for supper, undrinkable cof- fee, and eggs, which everyone leaves untouched on their plates, Drink- ing water, into which a bit of lime | and alum has been thrown, is | taken from the Hudson River, As @ result of all this the men com- plain of unusual loss of appetite. In addition to the promises not | to serve the peaches and cheap salt, the men fought for and se- | selves in the camp. Schools in Michigan Town Are ClosedDown; |Teachers Left Unpaid | SAUGATUCK, Mich.—The schools} in this town have closed down indet- | initely, leaving eight teachers with- out jobs and the children without means of further education. In| closing the schools, the School Board | announced that its cash resources were $9 and it was $10,000 in debt. | The last salary the teachers drew, | only a few days before the shut-} down, was $15, which the eight teach- | ers had to divide among them. They | have been unable to collect about! $5,000 that is due them in unpaid | salaries for last year and this. | What has happened hefé is only} an acute expression of the general | situation throughout Michigan. Ap- propriations for education are being | drastically cut, teachers’ salaries are | being slashed, while many schools are | threatened with a shutdown. The} Comstock “New Deal” state govern- ment, while placing sales and head taxes on the masses of the people, refuses to tax the rich in order to get funds for schools, | Shortage of Liquor Curbs | Gayety | NEW YORK, Dec. 6.—Due to the dearth of liquor in this city, all avail-| able supply waS exhausted before midnight last night, strike, know this menace real, and not a “bugaboo.” It is precisely the increasing use of the state military apparatus by the It government to protect the tion of the Roosevelt government and the coal operators by soothing the fighting spirit of the miners with soft phrases about “no danger of Fascism,” at the very moment when the capitalist Fascist reaction is 1 do the editors of the Progres- sive Miners choose this time to launch their attacks against the Communist fight against advancing Fascism in America? It is because the deepening crisis is bringing ever greater active con- American workers into active con- flict with the Roosevelt Wall Street government, because the American particularly the coal miners, are demonstrating ever greater will- ingness to struggle against capitalist exploitation. And in these struggles the masses are looking with ever-growing sym- pathy to the line and leadership of | Declare That Martial Law, NRA Strikebreak- ing, Johnson Threats Against Miners “No Fascist Danger” “orlental philosophies” is the loyal defense of this capitalist dictatorship, the defense of the Wall Street coal operators’ private property. ‘The editors of the Progressive Miner sneer at the “oriental phil- osophy” of the Communist Party. ‘They deliberately charge that the Communists raise the “bugaboo” of Fascism in order to preach this “ori- ental philosophy.” Double Service to Wall St. The double service that this line does for the Wall Street coal oper- ators is clear. On the one hand it disarms the miners before the coal | operators and the Roosevelt Wall Street attack, and, on the other hand, it is an attempt to keep the miners Fascist Menace the Communist Party fights here. It is against such a workers’ rule that | | the Progressive editors and officials | fight, | torship, the rule of workers in the Soviet Union, accomplished? It has destroyed the rule of the capitalists. It has abolished unemployment for- | ever. It has abolished the exploita~ | tion of such capitalist groups as the | coal operators, It is steadily raising the wages and the living standards | of the miners and the toiling masses. | It is for a similar workers’ rule that | How can these officials truly de- fend the immediate interests of the | miners, when they are trying to | keep the miners from fighting | against the Wall Street capitalist was shown during the ri | Central Committee | to send delegates to the Fourth An- | rainstorms caused floods, | Vice was interrupted. | Write to the Daily Worker about In Support Page Three Railroad Workers Act of St. Paul Packing House Struggle Railroad Unity League Men to Prevent Trans breakers, and to Help ST. PAUL, Minn., I nt strike of erhoods’ when the Railre om within the Invites Delegates to Red Center Banquet EW YORK.—An invitation to all Tr: ons and organi- has been extended by Committee of the Communist Part; quet to be held nual Red Center unday evening, 24, at 7 pm.| the Workers 0 B. 13th St.,| New York Ci It is ne to $10,000 in order to save the Workers Center, the Central Committee states. Delegates} are asked to come with money or| pledges, | Rainstorms Cause Damage in Ttaly CATANZARO, Italy, Dec. 6.—Heavy landslides, | and damages in this region. Several houses collapsed and telephone ser- every event of interest to workers in your factory, neighborhood or city. BECOME A WORKER COR- RESPONDENT. | CHICAGO | FIRST ANNUAL DANCE given by THE FUR DEPARTMENT of the Needle Trades Workers’ Indust. DANCING—8 "TIL 2 A. M. MIRROR HALL, SAT., DEC. 9th |! 1136 N. Western Avenue Union OMT Onn TD O-WVN| AFFAIRS FOR THE Daily, Worker Akron, 0. Dee. 9th: Entertainment Concert and Dance at Ukrainian Workers Hall, 562 Corice Street. Philadelphia Dee. 9th: Red Press Night arranged by John Reed Club of Philadelphia, Art sketches, chalk-talks, entertainment, Whittier Hall, 140 N, 15th St. at 8:36 pm, Scranton, Pa. Dec. 9th: Soviet Film showing of “War Against the Centuries” at International Hall, 427 Lackawanna Aye. at 8 p.m. Ad- mission 25c. Auspices, United Front Comm. of All Mass Organizations, —An outs Pledged to Mobilize sportation of Strike- Raise Relief Funds standing example of class solidarity the Armour Packing house workers Unity League, a rank and file or- Labor Unions, issued an appeal to the rail- Following reports that the railroads were nghouse strike, the Unity g strikebreakers to smash oad Brotherhoods to discourage solidarity, but instead’ scabbing by one craft the action of the League in support of the packinghouse strike is an ex- mple of solidarity to be followed by membership of the Brotherhood . F. of L. unions in future TOMORROW FRIDAY DEC. 8th at 8 P.M. The Symposium of the Season ® John Strachey Author of “the Coming Struggle for Power.” © “The Menace of Fas- cism”; Treasurer, Brit- ish Anti-War Council ® Fenner Brockway Author of “The Bloody Trafic”; Chairman Independent Labor Party of Great Britain ® Dr. Israel Goldstein of Temple B’nai Jesh~ urun; Member, Gov- Org. of America. “THE MENACE OF WAR & FASCISM” CHAIRMAN ROGER BALDWIN MECCA TEMPLE 135 W. 55™ St. TICKETS: Fifth Ave., Room 1610. Telephone: AL, 4-7514 AUSPICES: AMERICAN LEAGUE AGAINST WAR and FASCISM — 20 TART ALL SEATS RESERVED — Box Office Opens Friday,6 pm. CLEVELAND COMMUNIST PARTY: RED BAZAAR DEC. 9 COSTUME BALL 8 Fascists at the International SATURDAY AND SUNDAY CONCERT SUNDAY AFTERNOON and 10 ATURDAY NITE ruil course Dinner, served Sua~ day, lL to 3 p.m. :—: Fall Hine Saison See Hitler, Mussolini and other | the Communist Party, and the revo- lutionary way out of the crisis. Particularly among the coal miners, where the influence and the leader- ship of the Communist Party has been growing, where the Communist Party has led successful strikes in the New Mexico and Utah coal fields, where it has established roots among the miners of Pennsylvania, the ex- ample of the Soviet Union has found increasingly warm sympathy. And it is this sympathy for the Soviet Union, for the growing influ- ence of the Communist Party and the revolutionary way out of the crisis, that the Progressive Miner editors fear most of all. Because, behind all their “radical phrases,” these editors and officials are faithful defenders of the cap- italist dictatorship, which is masked under the forms of capitalist “democracy.” Behind all this sneering talk of Circus : of Groceries and Canned Goods dictatorship that is engineering the i+: Bargain Sales N. R. A. wage-cutting drive? And in actuality, the Progressiv | officials do not defend the best in- terests of the Illinois coal miners. ‘The way in which they treacherously deserted the recent unemployed min- |! ers’ Hunger March to Springfield is | gressive editors warn the miners? | an example of how they pretend to It is nothing but the Dictatorship | right for the miners, and then betray | of the Proletariat, which the toil- | thom. | ers of the Soviet Union have estab- | lished. It is the rule of the work- The Communist Party has alrea ers and farmers, with the greatest | Shown its capacity to lead the min democracy in the world for the toil- | in struggles against the coal opera- ers; not the fake capitalist “dem- | tors’ Wall Street dictatorship. ccracy” of the Roosevelt govern- | The Communist Party in its fight | ment, | where Wall Street owns | against the Roosevelt Wall Street everything, but real, proletarian, | program is tearing the mask off working-class democracy, where the | these yadical phrase-mongers of the workers own and control every- | Progressive Miners’ Union, whose thing. major task is to disarm the miners U. S. 8. R, Ralses Wages before the Fascist attacks of the What has this Proletarian Dicta-| Roosevelt government, away from that which is feared by the coal operators more than any- thing else in the world—the revolu- tionary leadership of the Communist Party with its program of the revo- lutionary overthrow of capitalism. For, what is this “oriental phil- osophy” against which the Pro- Prospect Auditorium 2612 Prospect Avenue i INTERNATIONAL LABOR DEFENSE BAZAAR e TORO asi wee REE SUNDAY, dé Eg DEC. 15 DEC. 16 DEC. 17 PEOPLE’S AUDITORIUM 2457 WEST CHICAGO AVENUE PROGRAM: Singing, Dancing, Choruses, Ballets, South Slay and | Bulgarian “Kolo” nd many more attractions, Pe PROCEEDS: Defense of Class War Prisoners.