The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 19, 1934, Page 1

NO MATTER HOW SMALL! Order a Daily Worker Bundle for Sale To Those You Know Vol. XI, No. 120 > * Mew York, N. ¥., under Ms celenis Storm Ship Loading War RRA RRs | Material Break Up Police Lines, Board Japanese Ship, Drive Off Scabs PROTEST MURDER Ryan Stays in N.Y. to Halt Strike Spread SAN FRANCISCO, May 18 ..Striking longshoremen broke through a police line at the Municipal Pier in Oak- land, ran over a string of freight cars and boarded the Japanese freighter Oregon Maru, which was loading scrap iron to be used as war materials in Japan, and ordered strike- breakers to get off the ship. A furious battle ensued as po- lice reserves attacked the strikers It is reported that one of the scabs went over the side and was later foshed out of the bay frightened, like a half-drowned rat. Strikers also stopped two bus- Joads of scabs who’ were being taken to the waterfront in Ala- meda, a port adjoining Oakland. Meanwhile Edward J. McGrady, Assistant Secretary of Labor, who flew here from Washington, D. C., began negotiations with Roose- velt’s Mediation Board and lead- ers of the International Long- shoremen’s Association to cook up a scheme to break the strike. The men, however, continued their militant picketing, paying little attention to McGrady’s state- ment that “definite progress had been made toward settlement of the dispute.” RYAN IN N. Y. TO STOP STRIKE SPREAD NEW YORK.—Joseph P. Ryan, President of the International Longshoremen’s Association, let it be-known yesterday that he is re- maining in New York to avert the spread of the longshore strike in s port, although Senator Wag- : had asked him to go to the cifie coast to try to halt the rike there: Ryan_ indicated that he was try- ing to limit the strike activities in New York to the Clyde Mallory Line Piers. So far there have been no picket on the docks, despite the fact that the vy eg press reports that three shifts of pickets are patrol- ling the piers. (Special to the Daily Worker) SAN PEDRO, Calif, May 18— Chamber of Commerce was forced to cancel its harkor celebration, called by the big business men ores) Militant Picketing Of Stockyard Men Keeps Strikes Solid A.F.L. Leaders Are Now Negotiating With Darling Co. (Daily Worker Midwest Bureau) CHICAGO, Ill., May 18.—Negotia- tions between American Federation of Labor leaders and the bosses of Darling Company are under way. The bosses are reported to be will- ing to setile for forty-five cents an hour, and to grant either union rec- ognition or back pay at the new rates for the time since the N.R.A. code took effect. Militant action by rank and file members in stopping scabs from en- tering the plant is the only thing that has so far saved the strike. Union bureaucrats have consistently refused to organize mass picket lines. As a result some scabs have gotten into the plant, and the posi- tion of the strikers somewhat weak- ened. Murphy, leader of the Stockyards Labor Council, has assisted the company by refusing to give direc- tions or assistance to the members of his union who are on strike with the Amalgamated workers. Fewer strikers are around the plant today than on previous days. Scab herding by relief authorities was exposed yesterday when officials were forced to admit that appeals for scabs had been made to the workers by the night manager of the flop house near twenty sixth and Wabash on Monday. A leafiet was issued to strikers today by a committee of rank and file strikers. It proposed the elec- tion of a rank and file strike com- mittee by all strikers regardless of union affiliation, the establishment of mass picket lines, to reject arbi- tration and demand that the strike settlement be submitted for approval to’a vote of the strikers. The leaflet raised the following demands as ones to be fought for: 1. Forty-six and a half cents an hour wages. 2. Payment of back pay since last August 3.E° mination of speed-up. 4 Recognition of the union. To Japan. Federal Court Denies Application for Writ to’ Free Tom Mooney SAN FRANCISCO, May 18.— Flagrant denial of the constitutional rights of Tom Mooney by California state courts is not a question which @ federal court can consider, the district federal court ruled yester- day in denying an application for a writ of habeas corpus for the fa- mous class-war prisoner imprisoned for the past 17 years for his work-| ing class activities. | \Gen’l Aare Head Hints New Wage Cuts Problem Is Not to Live Up to Code, Official Declares at Banquet | By A. B. MAGIL | (Special to the Daily Worker) | | DETROIT, May 18.— Broad hint |that Automobile manufacturers in- tend to ignore or scrap provisions of itheir own slave code, with its 43 cents an hour minimum wage, was contained in a speech made last night by William S. Knudsen, exec- utive vice-president of General Mo- tors, at the annual dinner of the Detroit Industrial Safety Council in the Statler Hotel. “The biggest problem before us,” Knudsen said, “is not whether we live up to all the rules and regula- tions put up as trial balloons. If industry is to be salvaged. it must look after its own house.” Dr. Leo Wolman, “impartial” chairman of. the Automobile Labor Board, who also spoke,. chimed in with this spirit by declaring: “Our labor problems can be solved by the old methods. Those of Western Europe and England are not solva- | ble by the same methods.” “Old methods” are of course. methods of open shop, of vicious stool pigeon system and the labor- smashing program of the million- aire auto kings. Knudsen spoke demagogically con- cerning the necessity of “coopera- tion, which resulted in boosting General Motors profits last year 5,000 per cent, while the real wages of workers in comparison with living costs declined. | Discussing the question of the nu- merous accidents in the auto indus- try, Knudsen placed the entire blame on the workers, attributing most} accidents to lack of skill. Every worker knows, however, that the terrific speed-up and failure of com- panies in their mad rush for profits to provide proper safegrards are responsible for the tremendous in- crease in the number of workers killed and injured in auto plants. | Newark Fascists Get Permit to March in Uniforms, With Arms NEWARK, N. J., May 18:—Police permission was given to the Amer- ican Union of Fascists, incorporated under the laws of New Jersey, to parade here with uniforms, armed with clubs and rifles. The parade, approved without hesitation by Chief McRell, was led by a U. S. Army officer, The same chief of police McRell has been cracking down on Communist meetings. When in view of these facts, John Franklin and Rose Chris, vice- chairman of the American League Against War and Fascism visited the Socialist Party headquarters at 1085 Broad Street Wednesday night to extend an invitation for an anti- | steel workers in the same manner| |as Green, Collins and company have} IN. Y. nel Heston Cops Make Savage Attack on Workers Marching In Anti-Nazi Protest | Negro, White Workers Daily ,QWorker CENTRAL ORGAN COMMUNIST PARTY U.S.A. (SECTION OF COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL ) Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office at the Act of March 8, 1879. Take Steps To Prepare | Steel Strike) Industrial “Union Board Welcomes Action of Rank and File PITTSBURG, Pa,, May 17—The National Executive Board of the) Steel & Metal Workers Industrial Union, in a specially called session, presided over by the National Pres- ident E. P. Cush, held in Pitts- burgh, May 13, made decisions lead- ing towards the development of a mass strike of the steel workers) during the coming weeks. Mem-| bers from all districts of the S. M.| W. I. U. attended. James Eagan,) secretary, made the main report. The Board welcomed the action of the rank and file of the Amal-| gamated Association of Iron, Steel & Tin Workers (A. F. of L.), for the development of a strike for im-/| proved conditions and the right of organization, as passed by the re-| cent A. A. convention over the heads of the Tigh-Leonard ra | ship of the A. A. Weaknesses of Opposition Leadership Thé Board warned all steel work-| ers, especially the members of the’ A. A. against the maneuvers that will be made by the A. A. leadership | to prevent the strike and defeat the done in the auto industry with the aid of arbitration, the intervention of the government, Labor Board, etc. The decisions of the A. A. con- vention, the Board pointed out, which provide for a month’s notice to the steel companies before action is taken, make possible in this sit- uation such maneuvers on the part of the A. F. of L. bureaucrats, The Board further pointed out that while the convention of the A, A. expressed the desire of the rank} and file for struggle, the leadership} of the opposition in the A. A. con- vention, has as yet given no indi- cation of a definite stand on the burning question which will deter- mine the outcome of the struggie. These are: 1—Efforts on the part of the A. F. of L. machine to limit the pres- (Continued on Page 2) | Chicago Court Inflicts Savage Terms on Six Who Demanded Bread | Get 1 to 5 Years | (Daily Worker Midwest Bureau) CHICAGO, May 18.—One to five vears in the penitentiary, and $750 fines were the penalties handed down by the boss court to six Negro and white workers for fighting for bread. This verdict, the climax of a vi- cious frame-up begun a year ago against these workers for their par- ticipation in a demonstration at Oakwood's relief station, was handed down today by Judge Allegretti, after an all-white jury had been hand-picked by the prosecution to ensure conviction. The defendants, Poindexter, Coe, Hampton, Smith, Page and Wer- nicke, were charged by the police with attempted murder and con- spiracy. The arrests took place at: a dem- onstration in the Negro section of Chicago, in January, 1933. Police, commanded by Captain Mooney, de- liberately set a trap. . The International Labor Defense is appealing the case and bonds have been set at $750 each. The International Labor Defense, in a statement issued to the Daily Worker, states: } “This verdict, handed down by the Fascist Judge Allegretti, is an attempt of the ruling class of Chi- cago to separate Negro and white workers and to smash workers’ or- ganizations. The greatest possible mass protest must be developed. and resolutions, telegrams and let- ters must be sent at once to Judge Allegretti, Criminat Courts Build- fascist parade on May 6, they were told they would not be admitted. ing, Chicago, and to Governor Horner in Springfield. By HOWARD BOLDT “Direct relief as such, whether in the form of cash or relief in kind, is not an adequate way of meeting the needs of able-bodied workers. They very prop- erly insist upon an oppor- tunity to give the community their services in the form of labor in return for unemployment benc- fits"thus, Roosevelt’s statement of February 28, in announcing the now “work relizf’ program, laid the basis for the various foreed labor schemes in operaticn throughout the country. In prac- tice, it has meant the launching of forced labor on a national basis and the lowerins of relief stand- ards below the sub-marginal Strikes Are Answer of U.S. Jobless to Roosevelt Attacks standards which previously pre- vailed. Translated into action, it has brought the deepest stirring of the unemployed masses expressed in s‘rikes and stoppages of relief work, and mass demonstrations and marches. Yet, federal relief expenditures throughout the country are to be drastically slashed during the com- ing months. In the past week, Roosevelt placed before Congress his “relief and recovery” budget to supplement that which he asked on | January 3, and to be operative from j duly 1 until “sometime in 1935.” Including in the “relief expendi- tures” of Roosevelt are such items as naval construction, war funds for the frankly militaristic C. C. C. camps, restoration of the federal NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 19, 1934 When Cops Aided Nazis by Clubbing Workers One of the workers who was brutally slugged by police when al- most a thousand Socialist and Communist workers and young workers demonstrated against the Nazi meeting in Madison Sq. Garden, The police, quick to defend the Nazi hoodlums, aped their methods by in- discriminately and bloodily attacking the anti-fascist demonstrators, Resist Police for An Hour Near Nazi War Vessel (Special to the Daily Worker) BOSTON, Mass., May 18. Twenty-one men and women were arrested yesterday late in the after- noon for participating in an anti- Fascist demonstration at the Char- lestown Navy Yard, where the Nazi Karlsruhe is docked. e The demonsiration demanding freedom for Ernst leader of the Communist Party of Germany imprisoned by the Nazis, | was attacked by the police at its very start. The workers resisted and the fight continued for one hour, Slogans, placards and leafiets were showered over the crowd of | who had gathered the demonstration. 2,000 people around or in Shouts of “Down with Hitler!” resounded through the streets. “Free Thaelmann!” was echoed throughout the demons:ration. The demonstration smashed the plans of the Nazis to attain the American people’s “good will” by the sending of the cruiser. It was called under the auspices of the Committee to Aid Victims of Fascism, and the Marine Workers Industrial Union as well as the National Students League took a prominent, part in its organization. Clothing Workers At Convention Tell Of NRA Speed-np Refute Sec’y Perkins Tnvited by Union Officials ROCHESTER. N. Y. (F.P.)—In- dustrial unionism, the 30-hour week, and the N.R.A.. pro and con, were high points in the discussion at the 10th biennial convention of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America in Rochester, N. Y. Declaring that craft unionism is obsolete, the Philadelphia delegation asked the convention to indorse in- dustrial unionism and to urge it on the A. F. of L. at its forthcoming convention. The same delegation urged the support by the A.C.W.A. of an independent farmer-labor political party. Secretary of Labor Frances Per- kins to!d the convention that she was convinced that the Wagner- Lewis bill to encourage state unem- ployment reserves schemes, to take care of future, not present unem~ ployment, would be passed. Reports from Washington have it that the bill will die. Although Perkins cited official figures to show gains in employment and payroll increases in the men’s and women’s clcthing industries, and in millinery, boots and shoes in the year March 1933, to March 1934. Many delegates told from the floor tales of privetion, speed-up and wholesale unemployment in union shops in the shirt, sheepskin, mackinaw and single pants indus- tries. An attack was made on the N.R.A., as practiced by the Cotton Garment Code Authority, by a dele- gate who told of increased business in non-union shops violating the; code. The convention unanimously adopted resolutions backing the 5- day, 30-hour week, increased mini- mum wag? sca‘es and classification for skilled lebor in the cotton gar- ment industry and transferring of the single pants industry from the pay cuts in the Independent Of- (Continued on Page 2) cotton garment to the men’s cloth- ing code, x —| against Jews and Communists pre- Thaelmann, | \grewing solidevity of the starving /Communists, Socialists Beaten, Arrested at Garden Meet NEW YORK.—With a lynch spirit | dominatine, the sneaking advance {of fascism in this country was | strongly evidenced Thursday night, | when 22,000 people, called by the | Nazis under the title of “Friends of | the New Germany” met at Madison | Square Garden to protest the boy- | cott. of German goons. Speakers sought to whip the pro- Hitler mob into a screaming frenzy with inflammatory tirades against | Marxists and Jews, always linking the two groups. | The Garden was decorated with | swastikas and banners, calling upon | those present to join the D.A.W.A. and “Boycott the Boycotters.” Uni- | formed fascist storm troopers lined each aisle and with police, guarded the lobby and other entrances to the building. Cops in Bloody Attack Outside the Garden, LaGuardia’s nolice took up the cudgels for the Nazi fascists and the result was one of the most bloody and brutal at- tacks on anti-fascist workers in the history of New York. With over 1,000 cops mobilized foutside Madison Square Garden, where the “Friends of New Ger- many” had called a meeting to rally their supporters to the fascist Hitler, aided by several hundred uniformed Nazis, the slightest voice raised against the bloody regime of “Der Fuehrer” in Germany was ruth- lessly attacked and clubbed. Communist and Socialist workers. most of them members of the Young Peoples Socialist League and the Young Communist League, who ed spontaneously in a demon- stration against the Nazis were beaten by the police and arrested. A group of several hundred held an orderly meeting for a half hour on the square at 47th St. and Broad- way, until the police charged and broke it up. When the workers started to march away, shouting (Continued on Page 2) WEATHER: Fair, Warmer CCRT a SE AMERICA’S ONLY WORKING CLASS DAILY NEWSPAPER (Eight Pages) Price 3 Cents Roosevelt |New World War Plans New Demagogy Forthcoming Messa ge to Spout Empty | Promises WASHINGTON, May 18.—Within a little more than a week Roosevelt will release a new demagogic blast to Congress in the form of a mes- sage on which, however, he does not want Congress to take any action. The real aim of the message will be to try to explain away why many promises to the workers were not carried out, to keep back strike struggles and relief actions, and to provide a program for his Congres- sional supporters in the fall elec- tions. Among the questions Roosevelt will treat in his message, according | to press reports, solely for the pur- pose of stalling the masses from forcing through any action by the| present Congress, are the following: 1. Creation of a permanent Labor Board, within but independent of the Department of Labor. This will be the substitute for the present Wagner strikebreaking N. R. A. Labor Board. 2. A promise of Federal unem- ployment insurance, but no details are given. It is specifically pointed out that Congress will not be asked to take any action now. 3. National old-age pensions. The same applies to this point as to “Federal unemployment insurance.” 4. Nation-wide insurance against | sickness among industrial employes. (Put forward as another demagogic | trick.) | 7. Amendment of minimum wage | provisions of the N. R. A. to relate wage rates to living costs. (Under this same slogan Roosevelt tried on many occasions to keep the workers | from striking, in order to prevent | them by their own actions from forcing increases in the slave code minimum wages.) The cafitalist press, properly taking its cue, is blazoning the new hypocritizal, demagogic campaign of Roosevelt as a promise of “far- reaching reforms, both social and economic.” Right of Asylum Bill To Be Pushed At Meet Sunday Delegation to Demand Citizenskip Again for Emil Gardos NEW YORK. — Scores of or- ganizations will be represented at the conference called tomorrow at 1 P. M.. at Irving Plaza, 15th St. and Irving Place, by the Com- mittee for the Protection of For- eign Born. A Bill for Right of Asylum for political prisoners will be presented by the Committee for passage by the conference. The Communist Party has endorsed the program. At the conference a delegation will be elected to demand from the Attorney-General that full citizenship privileges be returned to Emil Gardos, whose citizenship was taken from him because he took a leading part in a textile workers’ strike, and to demand from Secretary Perkins the can- cellation of all deportation orders against those so threatened be- cause of their parts in workers’ organizations. The statement of the Commu- nist Party reads in part: “The struggle against deportation and persecution of the foreign-born is one of the most important issues in the fight against fascism and Looms, Inflation Cuts Value Of Savings 15 P.C., Wall St. Banker Says NEW YORK.—Admission that the Roosevelt inflation policy has already robbed millions of small savings bank depositors of more than 15 per cent of the buying power of their savings, was made yesterday by James P. Warburg, Warburg, a wealthy Wall Street banker, vice-yresident of the Bank of Manhattan Company, has his own ideas as to how the workers ought to be fleeced. In his criticism of Roosevelt he lets the cat out of the bag re- garding the real meaning of Roosevelt's inflation as it affects small savings accounts. Vets In 5 Mile Trek Through Washington “Give Daddy Bonus; I Need Milk,”’ Child’s Banner States BULLETIN There will be a final rally of | vets at Post 191, W. E. S. L., 69 | East Third St., New York City, on Sunday night at 8 p.m., to send off the latest contingent of vets going to Washington to join the National Convention fight for the | bonus and the Three-Point Pro- | gram, | All vets who still have not | signed up for the bonus march | are urged to attend. | . Ry SEYMOUR WALDMAN | (Daily Worker Washington Bureaw) | WASHINGTON, May 18.—| About, 800 Negro and white| ex-soldiers, here from 44 states, for the Veterans’) Rank and File Convention, | presented America’s Jim-! Crow capital today with a} stirring exhibition of working class idarity. | Led by Grand Marshal James J. | Beatty, former Marine sergeant, the | smartly stepping veterans sang their bonus songs through five miles of Washington's streets un- | der a punishing sun. The five-mil trek ended at the| tents where the vets, eager for| “chow,” clambered into government buses which were waiting to take | them back to Fort Hunt, Virginia, their camp and convention head- quarters. ‘The veterans’ leading commit- tee included George Alman, well- known Oregon bonuseer; Harold (Continued on Page 2) Austrian Barricade, Fighters on Hunger Strike for Freedom | LSE | (Special to the Daily Worker) | WARSAW, May 17 (By radio).—| A workers’ paper here states that the participants in the February | battles in Austria who are now) jailed there have declared a hun-| ger strike, the majority are political prisoners who have not yet been examined. Their demand is for im- imperialist war. mediate examination or release. | | since he took Admits Pres. Roosevelt Calls for Armament Agreements In ight On Rivals ARMS NAZIS Peace Talk Hides Usd; War Measures TON, May 18.— which course WASHIN In a public ststement may affect the of the United in the immediate future, Roosevelt today made the ominous ad mission for the first time office that the men- ace of another world imperialist whole States | war looms dangerously close. Roosevelt made this admission in a statement in which he calls unon the Senate to ratify the 1925 Ge- neva arms convention decision re- garding vlacing embargoes on ship- ments of arms to countries engaged in war. Talking in pacific language. but, in reality attackine the war prepa- rations of the rivals of Wall Street imperialism, Roosevelt stated “The private and uncontrolled manufacture of arms and mopni- tions and the traffic therein has become a serious sonuree of in- ternational discord and strife. “Some suitable infernational or- ganization must and will take action. The peoples of many countries are being taxed to the point of poverty and starvation in order to enable governments to engage in a mad race of arma- ments which if permitted to con- tinne may well result in war.” His statement is itself sure symptom that imperialist war is now no longer a auestion of the fu- ture, but is already in the minds of the leading imperialist governments elready on the order of the day. a Hides Own War Measures Cloaking the extreme sharpness and tension which has been reached in the tension of the world imperialist antagonisms, especially between the United States, Britain and Japan, Roosevelt late today asked for the authority to negotiate international agreements on the subject of arms embargoes. The essence of Roosevelt's pro- posal is for international agree- ments between the maior imperial- ist powers to stop shipments of arms to warring countries “where such action would prevent unjusti- fied warfare.” It is obvious that this proposal, far from being a proposal strength- ening peace, actually is a direct move to align groups of imperialist powers against one another through the agreements to refuse ship arms to imperialist rivals engaging “in unjustified wars.” Disregarding his breaking war preparations, amount- ing to almost two billion dollars in the last year, Roosevelt sought to place the danger of another world own record- |war on the activities of the muni- tion makers. Records of the Department of Commerce reveal that the United States Wall Street munition mak- ers have been reaping fortunes sup- plying Japanese imperialism and German Fascism with munitions. Japanese imperi record-breaking shipments of war material almost daily from the United States, and Hitler's govern- ment has been spending millions in the purchase of munitions from leading American manufacturers. ism is getting By JOHN HOWARD LAWSON WISH to make an urgent) appeal to every worker and every honest intellectual, to) all working class groups and all mass organizations, to as- sist in mobilizing nation-wide pro- test against the oppression and ter- ror which threaten the white and Negro workers of Alabama. Birmingham, the center of the industrial empire of Alabama's rul- ing class, has the distinction of be- ing the first openly fascist city in the United States, I mean this lit- erally: safeguards which are sup- posed to protect individual liberty have been abolished; the police make no pretense of legality in making arrests. Illiterate thugs have been organized in the White Lesion (a new name for the K.K.K.); these gangsters work openly with the po- lice and make lynch threats in the courts of justice. Negro and White Stand Solid The reason for this lies in the massés of the South. Heroic Negro and white workers are standing shoulder to shoulder on the picket lines against the rifles ‘Lawson, Noted Playwright, Calls for Nationwide Protest Against Open Fascist Terror in Alabama of company deputies and the ma- chine guns of the national guard. The Southern ruling class is frightened into a sickly panic by this revolutionary upsurge of Negro and white masses. A desperate attempt is therefore being made to raise the race issue in order to obscure the clear lines of the class struggle. Southern newspapers are screaming provocations against the black race, blaming the militancy of the work- ers on “ignorant” Negroes misled by agitators, These attempts to stir the flames of race prejudice are a direct appeal! to the lynch spirit and a shocking denial of the rights of workers to meet and organize. Describes Own Arrest My own arrest is a clear instance of the terroristic procedure in Bir- mingham. When I left the Bir- mingham court house with Alex- ander E. Racolin, we were arrested on the direct orders of White Guard | plug-uglies, who (in our hearing) ordered the police to pick us up. This arrest was completely illegal. Racolin was atrested because he ing as lawyer for Commu- nists; I was arrested solely because I was seen in conversation with Racolin. After being finger-printed and mugged, the single word “Com- ‘y munist” was written across our identification cards. I am proud of this identification, but it is import- LOUISE THOMPSON Negro organizer of the Inter- national Workers Order, whose re-arrest is ordered following col- lapse of vagrancy charge. ;ant to note that police Captain Mullins, (who brutally ordered us to get out of town) knew nothing | whatsoever about our political opin- |ions. He asked no questions and permitted no answers. Further- more, Captain Mullins has no more |right to arrest a man or woman | for being 2 Communist than he has \to arrest them for being elks. There is no law under which such an ar- rest can be made. In a word, the police of Birmingham are com~ jpletely lawless: if a White Legion gunman points his finger at you, you go through the police mill and are kicked out of town, And when the cops get through with you, their buddies of the Legion are ready to take you for a longer and hotter ride. C. P. Is Target For Attacks My own case is illustrative and incidental. The main purpose of this terror is to keep the workers at their present starvation level and to wipe out the solidarity of Ne- gross and whites in the cless strug gle. The Communist Party is the target for this murderous campaign, | because the ty is gaining the ‘jeadership of the awakening work- ing class. In Judge Abernathy’s (Continued on Page 2) epic 2