The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 26, 1934, Page 1

Demand Removal of Militia from Toledo and Minneapolis NO MATTER HOW SMALL! Order a Daily Worker Bundle for Sale To Those You Know ->* New second-class matter at the Post Office at under the Act of Daily -<QWorker CENTRAL ORGAN COMMUNIST PARTY U.S.A. (SECTION OF COMMUNIST INTE rch 8, 1878. NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MA Y 26, 1934. ATIONAL) yj / ° AMERICA’S ON CLASS DAILY LY WORKING * NEWSPAPER WEATHER: Fair. TROOPS AGAIN FIRE ON TOLEDO STRIKERS; 40,000 WORKERS REJECT OLSON'S PLANS: Georgia Bosses Plan Death for “Atlanta Six” FollowHerndonDecision | With Move Against 6 Other Organizers ATLANTA, Ga., May 25.} — Death in the electric chair for the “Atlanta Six” and all workers daring to organize! Negro and white workers to-| gether in joint struggle! against starvation, terror and Negro oppression, was threatened; today by a white ruling-class'cele- | prating its decision, handed down) through the Georgia Supreme Court. | upholding the savage chain gang) sentence of 18 to 20 years against | Angelo Herndon, herbdic” young Ne-| gro organizer of Atlanta white and) Negro unemployed workers. | Rev. John A. Hudson, ‘State Pros- | ecutor, announced he would imme- | diately resume the drive to send the | “Atlanta Six” to the electric chair. | The six working class organizers, Ann Burlak, Mary Dalton, and two | white and two Negro men, were in-# Gicted on the same resurrected Slave ; Code on which Herndon was rail- | roaded to the chain gang. Hudson, speaking for the white | ruling-class whose fears and rage | have been excited by the growing | unity of Negro and white workers being achieved under Communist ‘leadership, declared, “Georgia in- tends to rid itself of Communism.” In its ruling against the appeal of the International Labor Defense for a new trial for Herndon, the Georgia Supreme Court upholds the systematic exclusion of Negroes from Georgia juries and the use by the prosecutor and other court officials of the insulting term “darky” dur- ing the trial of Herndon — issues raised by the I.L.D. in its appeal. ee ae ae NEW YORK.—The fight to free Herndon will be carried immediately to the U. S. Supreme Court, the In- ternational Labor Defense an- nounced yesterday. The organization issued a call to all its branches, all trade unions and} organizations of the unemployed, fraternal bodies, etc, to rally to the defense of Herndon and the “At- lanta Six.” It announced at the same time that a court-order had been forved by the I.L.D. in Atlanta for a com- plete physical re-examination of Herndon; X-rays of his stomach and lungs taken under a previous court order were found, despite ef~ forts of Grady hospital officials te conceal the fact, to have been un- successfyl.. The Herndon Defense Committee is arranging a protest mass meet- ing at the Imperial Elks Hall, 160 W. 129th St., on June 13. Benjamin J. ‘Davis, brilliant Negro Interna- tional Labor Defense attorney in the Herndon case, will be the main speaker, Tass Denies Japanese Air Attack on Soviet; Fiction Started in US (Special to the Daily Worker) MOSCOW, May 25 (By radio).— Tass, Soviet telegraph agency. pub- lishes denials in connection with re- ports of Havas, French news agency, and the newspaper “Ezho de Paris,” alleging that Japanese airplanes at- tacked Soviet territory and de- stroyed a number of villages, killing thousands. The denial says these reports, em- en-ting from the United States, are ve coarsest fiction from first to last, \ NAZIS’ ROBBERY LONDON, May 25. — Pembroke, , Stephens, corresfondent of.the Lon- con Daily Express, who recently ex- posed German armament prepara- tions following his arrest and release at Magdeburg, says the German} government is preparing a general order confiscating property of Jews “to compensate for trade losses oc- ry Ala. Supreme Court Bars Wires as Hearing on Scottsboro Opens BULLETIN NEW YORK.—The Alabama Supreme Court has threatened to bring legal action against the telegraph companies if they de- liver any Scottsboro protest mes- ges to the court, the Western Union and Postal Telegraph in- formed the National Committee for the Release of Political Pris- oners yesterday. The telegraph companies now say they will refuse to accept any Scottsboro protest telegrams to the Court. This action of the Supreme Court and of the Telegraph com- panies is a direct violation of the constitutional right of protest and petition. MONTGOMERY, Ala., May |25.—Hearing on the appeal against the lynch death ver- dicts against Haywood Pat- | terson and Clarence Norris, the first two of the Scottsboro boys to be re-tried under the decision wrested by the world-wide mass protest.from the U. S, Su- preme Court, opened before the Ala- bama Supreme Court today. Osmond Fraenkel and Samuel Leibowitz are arguing the appeals for the International Labor Defense. The vicinity of the court was crowd- ed by Negro workers as the latest chapter in the historic mass fight against lynching and Negro oppres- sion, opened in. the old capital of the slave Confederacy. wires, demanding the release of the boys, are pouring in on teh court from all parts of the world. Systematic. exclusion of Negroes from juries, forgery of names of Ne- groes-on the Scottsboro panel in an attempt to show that Negroes were considered for jury service, will be among the issues raised by the | LL.D. attorneys in demanding a re- versal of the death verdicts and new trials for the boys. Protest Action Delays Murder of Framed N.C.Negro Goy. Forced to Order 30-Day Reprieve for Young Edwards RALEIGH, N. C., May 25.—Barely a few hours before he was to be | electrocuted, the militant action of @ group of Charlotte workers rep- yvesenting the Edwards Defense Com- mittee wrested John Lewis Edwards, young Negro worker, from the elec- tric chair and forced a 30-day re- prieve after this day been originally denied. Execution is set for July 6. These Negro workers, among them the boy’s mother, were at first barred from presenting their demands to Goy. Ehringhaus. They were ad- mitted only after militant insistance on their right to lay before him the facts proving the case. a vicious frame-up. Workers’ and farmers’ organiza- tions, churches, lodges, etc. are urged to send protests at once, de- manding the immediate ~release of Edwards, to Gov. Ehringhau and Parole Commissioner Gill, both at Raleigh, N. C. JAIL 14 COMMUNISTS IN INDIA BOMBAY, May 25.—A call to all industrial workers to join 170,000 striking textile and spinning mill operatives in battling the police dur- ing the recent troubles with strikers led to the arrest of 14 Communists, casioned by Jews abroad.” police explained here today. Protest | “CRACKING DOW. | By EARL BROWDER General Secretary, Communist Party, U.S.A. | ROOPS firing on striking workers in To- | ledo kill two; a score of workers dead from the bullets of thugs and police. in | Alabama, New Orleans, San. Francisco; martial law in fact in Minneapolis—these events give # measure of the “social. temperature” of the United States. The Class struggle is growing hot. Why do the capitalists al- ready turn to mass murder. of strikers? They are shooting men who demand that the bosses recog— nize and deal with their unioh. The employers will shoot down their workers before they will deal with the Union. This is the first lesson of these struggles. It is the final Earl Browder Section 7A, which was hailed by the A. F. of L. and Socialist Party leaders as “a new charter for Labor.” The shooting of workers is to enforce the prin- ciples of the Roosevelt-Green auto settlement and establish this pact as the standard for all indus- tries. The A. F. of L, signed this pact. The workers are forced to face gun-fire to protect. their right to organize, because their leaders sold them out, be- trayed them—that is the second lesson. But the workers — “conservative,” “backward” Americans —are fighting with a heroism that is rousing the whole working class to admiration and emulation. That is the third lesson—that the Amer- ican working class will not surrender, that it can- not be enslaved by N.R.A., misleaders of A. F. of L. and S, P. combined with employers and State. The workers go into battle over the heads of their leaders. A great wave of struggle, largely spontaneous, sweeps their ranks. Great masses go into action im solidarity strikes to support their brothers who are attacked. Thousands of new lead- ers are rising, simple poeeerss out of the class bat- tles. Already in Toledo and “Minheapolis votes are being taken on a Local General Strike to win the right to organize. Such general strikes will occur— and they will move in the direction of a National General Strike. It is the duty of every class- conscious worker to give more and more conscious leadership to this rising mass general strike Guardsmen! Don’t Attack Your Striking Fellow Workers exposure of the reality behind the N.R.A. and its. movement, to take hold of it, to organize it, to lead it to victory. That is fhe fourth lesson. * Out of these preliminary battles the workers are already gaining economic and political victories. After a year of N.R.A. which drove down their real wages, the workers are now, by heroic battles, be- ginning to force some substantial concessions. They begin to break down the terror by mass actions— in Alabama, San Francisco, Toledo and Minneapolis, the workers have already shown they oan win vic- tories and overwhelm the company union employers, their thugs and troops, and the A. F. of L. leaders, by mass action. That is the fifth lesson, A great light of understanding of class relations, of class policies, is thrown upon the United States by these struggles, Every worker engaged in these battles is prepared to understand the Manifesto of the Communist Party, issued by our Eighth Na- tional Convention, which shows the relation of fighting for and winning immediate demands with the revolutionary way out of the crisis. The battles open the minds of millions of workers to the pro- gram of Communism, Whereyer we work system- atically now, and make mass distribution of the Manifesto, of the Daily Worker, and recruit into the Party, there the Communist Party is becoming . strong, and the workers gain more victories. ue ness Alabama. That is the sixth lesson. The.rising wave of class struggle confirms hee correctness of the decisions of the Eighth National Convention of the Communist Party. These deci- sions must be carried into life, into action, into organization and struggle. These are the first steps to a working class solution of the crisis. Communists must everywhere be in the fore- front of these struggles. They must he the best organizers, the best fighters on the picket line. They must be the leaders of the mass-defense of the workers against the bloody attacks. They must be the unifiers of the ranks of all workers in these battles, The hundreds and thousands of workers ‘everywhere rising as leaders must be won for the Communist Party. There are tens of thousands of fighting workers in Toledo, Minneapolis, Alabama, San Francisco, who tomorrow will be Communists if every mem- ber, every unit, fraction and committee does its duty. Only the iron army of millions of workers, steeled by the experience of a hundred battles, led by a Communist Party, in the ranks of which are the trusted leaders of the masses, can defeat the grow- ing vicious attacks of American bosses and bosses’ government. Only Communist-led workers, millions strong, can lead the country out of capitalist anar— chy of growing bloody fascist terror, to an America ruled, not by bankers and their gunmen, but by the working class, Minneapolis Strike To! Continue Until Union | Is Recognized | By SENDER GARLIN | (Special to the Daily Worker) MINNEAPOLIS, Minn., May 25.— Strike leaders informed your cor- respondent that all negotiations with the Regional Labor Board and the U. S. Department of Labor) mediators are off and that the) strike of the 40,000 building trades workers and truck drivers will con- tinue until union recognition is won. | | The truce is off at nine o'clock | tonight and the workers mass pick- | | eting and attempts of employers to |move the trucks will be resumed. | ‘The rank and file is solid against | \the “truce” methods and at-/ | tempts to end the strike in arbitra- | |tion before the demands are won. Last night they booed the an-| nouncement of another 24-hour | truce which ends tonight. | The fleet owners and operators | }and the strike committee were | meeting in executive session almost continuously for the past twenty- four hours, with the Farmer-Labor Governor, Floyd Olson, rughing | from one meeting to another, in an effort to compromise the strikers’ demands. The employers were | pressing for a board of arbitration which would have blanket powers | to “adjust all differences between the employers and employees in the | future.” The 5,000 striking truck men at a meeting at five o'clock this after- noon voted to continue the strike until recognition is won. The truce |which began after the strikers had |inflicted a crushing defeat upon 1600 | hastily deputized “citizens.” In the meantime the 3700 na- tional guardsmen, called out by the Farmer-Labor governor, are being | (Continued on Page 2) Bill Against | Strike Pushed By Roosevelt Senate Rushes Through | Revised Stikebreak- ing Wagner Act By SEYMOUR WALDMAN | (Daily Worker Washington Bureau) | WASHINGTON, May 25. — To| supplement and aid the militia| | against the series of growing strikes throughout the country, and to prepare direct participation of the Roosevelt government in all of these struggles, the Senate Labor Committee worked at great speed today to rush through the revised Wagner strikebrealtng bill. The action of the Senate com- mittee is the“speedy answer to President Roosevelt's order yester- day to Senator Wagner and Senator Walsh to rush the new Wagner Bill, revised to meet all the needs of the big trust, out of committee as/ quickly as possible. Under pressure of the widespread attack against the workers, and the threat of a general steel strike, | Roosevélt hopes to rush the bill | through with a minimum of ad- vance publicity to avoid mass indig- nation. Originally attempted to be palmed off as an anti-company | union bill, the revised measure clearly is formulated to strengthen and bolster company unions, as against the genyine eles of the workers. Even eure observers pointed out that the new bill is a continuation of the President's automobile sell-out in that it gives employers ways and means of breaking up workers’ solidarity by actually tying employers groups | (Continued en Page 2) (Eight Pages) Price 3 Cents SCORES HURT STRIKE SOLID Workers Ho. Giant Pa oa ‘Toledo Street Battles _ Spread; Mpls. Picketing Again On as Truce Ends bade ‘Thewagh Business Section; Guardsmen Spread Through Downtown Section Protest Strike Terror, New York workers will hold Square, Monday at 4:30 p. m., agai Union Sq., Monday! a mass demonstration on inst the strike-terror now going on Union in Toledo, Minneapolis and other strike areas throughout the coun- try. The call for this demonstra by a number of local organizations. tion was issued jointly yesterday A special New York City edition of 50,000 copies of the Daily Worker will be off the press and ready for distribution at 8 p. m. to- morrow, to rally New York worke Square. rs to the protest meet on Union For full details see story on page 2 today. BULLETIN TOLEDO, Ohio, May 25. National Guard troops fired with pistols upon mass picket lines of the Toledo strikers at Elm near Michigan St., where thousands of workers were gathered. The National Guardsmen continued to fire deadly volleys of poison gas at the workers. The number, of wounded by pistol fire is not known. Injured included a small child, Rita Jane Hills, poisoned by poison gas bombs, and a 60-year old invalid, Emma J four hours from poison gas. Many men. Workers’ homes. and porches w johnson, who has been unconscious are being arrested by the guards- rere used as barricades in the late afternoon fighting, which extends toward the downtown area, and the workers are defending themselves wi The workers hurled back poison they exploded. The soldiers running and hurled them at the strikers. COLUMBUS, 0., May 25—Gov. ith stones. gas hombs at the guardsmen before out of poison gas, picked up bricks White is being flooded with protest telegrams from all parts of the country, demanding the withdrawal of the Naticnal Guard from Toledo and protesting against the shooting down of strikers. One of these telegrams, from the Steel and Metal Workers Industrial Union at Youngstown, signed by Joseph Dallet, states: “We demand your pledge n: ot to use troops against the steel workers when they strike next month.” . . 2 TOLEDO, Ohio, May 2 poison gas attacks, bayonettin, National Guardsmen, all last 5.—In the face of intermittent gs, rifle fire, from reinforced night and today the workers of Toledo staged a great demonstration and parade through the main centers of the city this afternoon, maintaining their mass picket lines around the Electric-Auto Lite plant. Sharp fighting continues. AFL Auto Union Head Deserted Strikers Facing Rifle Fire NEW YORK. — — Thomas J. Ramsey, business agent of the Automotive Federal Union (A. F. of L.), openly attempted to stem j/ the militancy of the striking To- ledo workers at a moment when |) the embattled strikers were facing the rifle fire of state troops, according to United Press dispatches in the World-Tele- gram yesterday. The dispatches also showed that at the critical moment Ramsey deserted the workers and crawled behind the militia lines. The World-Telegram story states that Ramsey “tried to argue with the mob.” He was || jeered. ‘ | “There's going to be more || trouble,” he told a companion. “Let’s get out.” | “They sought safety behind a |} Chicago Workers Plan Mass Meeting to Help | Strikers; Hit Terror (Daily Worker Midwest Bureau) CHICAGO, Ill, May 25.—Chicago workers will mass next Friday, June 1, to demonstrate their solidarity and support of the heroic strikers of Minneapolis, Toledo, the West Coast and Alabama. The meeting will be held under the auspices of District Eight of the Communist Party, in the North Hall of the Coliseum, 16th and Michigan Avenue. Noted working class lead- +P | breaker, | guardsmen line of troops,” according to the pon a.great demons U. P. A twelve year old boy, John ren, was shot in the head by a guardsman’s bullet. Street fighting has spread hrough the downtown area. The National Guardsmen have overrun downtown Toledo. In the gigantic parade, the surg- ing thousands of Toledo workers caught and beat up a known strike- stripped him naked and forced him, without clothing, to head the parade. Squad cars of the DETROIT, Mich.—A conference of Detroit workers to protest against the murderous attack on the Toledo Auto-Lite strikers will be held on Moriday evening, 8 p. m. at Finnish Hall, 5969-14th Street. Party units, all workers’ organizations and neighborhood meetings are urged to elect delegates. ——_—_—_——— = police and fascist gangs rushed thru the streets of downtown Toledo, infested the area with but the wo ion only one block from the point around the |plant where the national guards- |men had slaughtered at least two workers yesterday and wounded many with their rifle fire. All night long the workers kept up their mass picket lines around the plant, in the face of another rifle attack of the national guards, whose guns wounded a number in \the night attack on the picket lines. | This afternoon, the parade of | strikers, shoving the strikebreaker before them, passed directly in front of the police station. At the cen- tral station the strikebreaker was rescued by police and national guardsmen, who surrounded the station with fixed bayonets. Five |workers were arrested late this afternoon, and taken inside the drawn bayonets, ers will speak. (Continued on Page 2) ! ¢