The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 23, 1934, Page 5

DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 193 Gna Retuon for the I. L. D. Berean J When the unemployed demand bread and york, the policeman’s billy is the bosses’ first answer. Only the broadest, organized masa | struggle in defense of workers’ rights can stem the tremendous growth of fascist terror, By JOHN HOWARD LAWSON | FEW years ago, a young Negro named Angelo Herndon, penniless and unemployed, happened to pick up a crumpled handbill on the streets of Birmingham, Ala. handbill asked, “Would you rather fight—or starve?” and announced a meeting of the Unemployed Council in the heart of the city at three o’clock,¢——— the part of the workers that I owe | Tt was almost three and Herndon rushed to the meeting. “All the way, I said to myself, ‘it’s war, it’s war... So I might as well get in it now as any other time’.”. From that moment Hern- don became a fighter in the class war; and from that moment cap- italist “justice” wanted to destroy Herndon as it wants to destroy every worker who dares raise his voice against starvation and oppres- sion. He was arrested again and again—in Birmingham, in New Orleans. Then came his arrest in Atlanta and the savage sentence of eighteen to twenty years on a Georgia chain gang. I mention Herndon because his case is representative of thousands of others. In every part of the United States, workers are rotting in filthy jails; others are toiling on chain gangs; others are beaten, lynched, deported; like Herndon these men and women learned the significance of the class struggle from a handbill, a pamphlet, a meeting; like Herndon, they entered the fight against starvation; and they found that the whole ma- chinery of the capitalist State is designed to wreak bloody vengeance on those who dare protest, who dare ask for food for themselves and their children, clothing to wrap around their shivering bodies, or milk for their dying babies. The Front Line of Defense In every case of ruling class op- pression, the I. L. D. is the front line of defense. In its nine years of existence, the I. L. D. has fought epic battles. Its history is an in- tegral part of the revolutionary growth of the toiling masses. The I. L. D. was formed on June 28th, 1925, at a National Confer- ence in Chicago. The New York district was the first to come into existence, being organized on July 14th, 1925. By the end of that year, theré were 128 branches. At present there are 800 branches. In the first issues of the Labor De- fender (January ist, 1926), the I. L. D. announced that it was han- dling 1,060 cases. During 1933, over 7,000 cases were handled, of which more than half grew out of strikes and unemployed aétivity. Prior to 1925, several important campaigns had been organized on behalf of political prisoners. But there had been no continuous mass base for this activity. “Such defense work as there was in those pre- I. L. D. days was of a sporadic and temporary character,” says Robert W. Dunn one of the founders of the I. L. D. The I. L. D. fulfilled the need for permanent organiza- tion. But the most vital factor in the work of the I. L. D. is the principle which has guided its Policy from 1925 to the present day: the principle that mass activity must be the basic of militant de- fense. To rely on legal technical- ities In any case in which the class struggle is involved is simply to guarantee defeat. The anger of the working class must be mobilized; the voice of the working class must be raised in a roar of organized protest.” Why Sacco and Vanzetti Died I myself was one of those liberals who went to Boston in August, 1927, to assist an abortive, hectic last-minute attempt to save the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti. It was too late. There had been too much reliance on ruling class “fair- ness” in the long struggle for the lives of thése two martyrs. They could havé been saved by direct and continued -working class pres- sure. Their murder was due to the weak-kneed compromise tactics of the liberals. Bill Haywood, writing to the 1. L. D. in 1926, spoke of the intense meaning of militant pressure to men who are behind bars: “It was to an expression of solidarity on One Day’s News of the Fight Against Terror .in $8,000 bail each (or twice that | my life. We, then in prison, ima- gined we could hear the measured tread of millions of workers; count- Jess voices shouting, ‘They shall not die’!” Those countless voices have saved the Scottsboro bovs through the years of the fight for their liberty. In Birmingham recently I discussed this case with many upper class liberals: it was interesting to note that these people now claim to be convinced of the innocence of the nine victims. But they speak of the I. L. D. with horror and anger: “If these radicals would stay out of the case.” said a prominent clergyman, “the boys could have the best criminal lawyer in the South and would be sure of fair treat- ment.” As he spoke it seemed to me that I could see grim shadows of the Tuscaloosa victims, of share- croppers killed in Talapoosa Coun- ty, of hundreds of other lynched and murdered Negro workérs who had trusted the “fair treatment” of Scuthern liberalism. What Scottsboro Means I had followed the Scottsboro case carefully, but, until my trip to Alabama, I had no real concep- tion of the depth to which it has stitred the South, and the extent to which it has affected the class struggle. The masses have spoken; | the challenge of Negro rights has been thrown in the faces of the} slave-holding aristocracy. Every | black worker, and every white work- | er, walks with greater boldness to- day, because the power of the lynch- ers has been challenged. Scottsboro is one of the storm-| centers of I. L. D. activity; one of the great causes which has served to awaken the mases of the whole | world. There have been many other outstanding campaigns: nine years of crowded bitter magnificent strug- gle; there was Passaic in 1926; Col- orado in 1927; New Bedford in 1928; Gastonia in 1929; Impérial Valley in 1930 and later; Harlan, Kentucky in 1931; the tobacco workers in Florida in 1932; the Ala- bama share-croppers, Herndon, the Atlanta six. The I. L. D. has also waged vigor- ous fights against fascism, against deportation of militant workers, against State criminal syndicalism laws. In the international field, the I. L. D. has organized a vital part of the world protest against the degenerate reactionaries in Ger- many, Austria and other fascist countries—a protest which is now culminating in the gigantic cry for freedom for Thaelmann. Day to Day Drama These major campaigns have stirred the world. But it seems to me that the day-to-day and hour- to-hour work of the I. L. D. is equally dramatic. The record of the class struggle is a record of count- less heroic incidents. These heroic incidents are so numerous that many of them are neither publicised nor mentioned. But wherever men and Women are struggling against. oppression, the I. L. D. is their shields; its forces are prepared for instant mobilization. In Coney Island, a strike leader is taken from his bed in his own home by police without a warrant, and horribly beaten, his eyes gouged, his hair torn from the top of his head. In Hillsboro, Ill., 11 workers are held amount for each if they can’t pro- duce the bail in cold cash) for tak- ing part in an unemployed dem- onstration. In Birmingham, Ala., eight homes of Negroes are burned to the groun@. In California, 200 Imperial Valley strike leaders aré herded into a cattle corral, then brutally driven like animals from The | | make it stronewr and better able to} | lynch mob, and won their freedom. | boro case a center of protest not ILD While Réccive Mass Financial Support in Its Struggles | By EARL BROWDER E of the chief organiza- tional instruments which | the working class has created to solve the problems of the |class struggle is the Interna-| | tional Labor Defense. With | the sharpening of the class struggle, this organization, which | will celebrate its ninth anniversary | on June 28th, occupies an increas- | ingly important place. As the at- tacks of the bourgeoisie against the working class increase, and the vic- | tims of the struggle multiply, the ILD. must receive greater atten- tion than ever before, Without a well organized and solid I.L.D.. with a broad mass support, the diffieul- ties of the workers will be much greater. It therefore bécomes a| major task to build the IL.D.} among the masses of workers and carry out its tasks. The LL.D. Has Won Victories The IL.D., in the nine years of its existence has conducted tremen- dous campaigns of historic signifi- cance and has won many important victories. Outstanding among these is the Scottsboro case, which has become the instrument of the mass struggle for Negro rights. every- where. In our struggle to save the lives of the nine Negro boys we have had arrayed against us the most formidable united front which fought with the most desperate means. Arrayed against us are not only the white landlords and lynch- Jaw rulers of Alabama. but all the “respectable” ovganizations of the bourgéoisie and petty-bourgeoisie,— churches, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Socialist Party, the Lovestoneites and Trotskyites, the leadership of the A. F. of L. By our mass struggle, by rousing hun- dreds of thousands to protest every- where, we smashed through this united front of lynchers and their reformist lieutenants; we prevented the execution originally set for July 8, 1931, and again thereafter; we forced the case into the Supreme Court of the United States and se- cured a new trial, and now after the second trial and conviction of Heywood Patterson are again fore- ing the case into the U. S. Supreme Court. The LL.D. has made the Scotts- only for the workers of the United , but for the workers of the This case has become one of the most important, most famous of the whole history of celebrated cases in the world struggle against a against bourgeois “jus- tice.” In the mass struggle for Negro rights, led by the LL.D., many sig- nificant achievements can be re- corded. In the defense of Euel Lee, as well as in the Scottsboro case, the ruling class has been forced in three Southern states to grant Ne- groes the right to sit on juries— a constitutionally guaranteed demo- cratic right which has been denied to the Negro people for more than fifty years. In the more recent period the International Labor Defense has rallied the workers to the defense of Hardiman and Johnson, two Negro workers whom the ruling class of Minneapolis was attempting to frame because they had resisted a They have similarly saved John Askew and Russel Gordon, Negro workers charged with rape and murder in Virginia from legal lynching. In these and countless other cases where the LL.D. has come to the defense of the Negro People, it has established itself as the outstanding champion of the rights of the Negro masses, and has won the allegiance of hundreds of thousands of Negroes, The Atlanta Six and the Herndon Case Ranking with the Scottsboro case in their importance to the struggle for Negro rights and to the strug- gle of the workers everywhere is the Herndon case and the case of the Atlanta Six, both of which are based on a revived slave code of 1861, which provides the death penalty for “inciting to insurrection.” Under this infamous law Angelo Herndon, militant young Negro leader of the unemployed of Atlanta, Georgia, has been sentenced to 20 years of living death on the Georgia chain gangs. Under this same law six organizers of the Communist Party, Ann Burlak and Mazy Dalton. white women; Henry Storey and Gilmore Brady, Negro men, and M. H: Pow- ers and Joseph Carr, white men, are facing trial with the death penalty demanded. The Georgia ruling class has stated its determination to “burn Communism out of Georgia.” Only the most determined and stubborn fight by the working masses of America will free Angelo Herndon from death on the Geor- gia chain gangs, and save the six working cliss leaders. The fight for Herndon and the Atlanta Six must be intensified. Only a strong and] of powerful I.L.D. can mobilize the masses of America for this fight. The ILD. since its origin has always actively supported every step in the struggle to win the freedom of Tom Mooney, who has been in prison for 16 years, victim of a frame-up by the capitalist class and its agents. The I.L.D. has brought the Mooney case into all its cam- paigns, and since 1931, when Mooney issued his appeal to all workers’ organizations to take up (Continucd on Page &) The Party Must Support and Build the L.L.D.,S Haywood Patterson, Of Scottsboro Nine, Greets His Defenders Kilby Prison, Montgomery, Ala. May 30, 1934. | My Dear Comrades and Friends: || Your letter at hand. I sin- |) cerely hope the 9th Anniversary |) of the Organization will be a | great success. I want all of my friends and comrades to know that I appreciate everything that they have done for me, And to my mind I believe that this Or- ganization some day will become one of the greatest bodies that was ever organized for the bet- terment of the laboring class. And I sincerely hope that I will be able to take part in the next anniversary (Signed) Haywood Patterson. campaign for his release, It has revived the Mooney case on an in- ternational scale, arousing the work- ers of Europe and Latin America on his behalf. | It has taken up the fight for| James McNamara, who has already | spent 23 years in San Quentin, one of the worst of the capitalist pris- | ons, for his activities as a working class leader on the Pacific Coast. The ruling class wants to keep Mc- Namara, one of the finest and brav- est fighters of the working class, buried for life in San Quentin. They } thought he hed been forgotten, un- | til the I.L.D. brought his case i light. Now the demand for thé freedom of McNamara has become | a part of every protest of the work- ing class of America and the LL.D.| will not cease its activities in his | | behalf until his freedom has been | | won, | In these cases also, the I.L.D. has demonstrated that it is an indis- pensahlé organization; that without | it. thé needs of the class struggle of the workers could not be fulfilled. | The LL.D. in Strike Struggles In the thoué@nds of strike strug- glés waged throughout the country, the LL.D. has played a leading role} and proved itself an invaluable weapon of the working class. This was particularly evidenced in the Utah and New Mexico coal strikes, where the terror against the strik- ers took the form of criminal syn- | dicalism charges, with enormous/ | bonds set for those arrested. At} | one time more than 400 pickets were | hatd in jail, and the entire strike leadership was held under criminal | syndicalism charges. The IL.D., through mass pressure and legal ac- tio forced the ruling class to re- lease all of the prisoners, Inv the California fruit pickers | strike, the Aeronautical strike in| Buffalo, where the I.L.D. forced the | | release of 11 strikers, the knit gbods strike in Philadelphia, in the strug- gles of thé miners and steel work- ers in Birmingham, as well as in all of the struggles of the farmers and of the unemployed, the LL.D. has been in the forefront of the struggle, rallying the workers for mass defense, supplying legal aid, raising funds for the class war pris- | oners and their families, and mak- ing itself an Inséparable part of every struggle. The Fight Against Deportations Although the Roosevelt regime announced that it would abandon the policy of intensified persecution and deportation of foreign born workers inaugurated by Hoover, the attack on the foreign born, especi- ally on the leaders of the workers’ struggles has not ceased. This was evidenced in the case of Emil Gar- dos, whose citizenship has been re- voked by the capitalist courts, be- cause when swearing allegiance to the American Constitution, he had “mental reservations” of allégiance to the working class. Hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers, with “ve connivance of the Wall Street, controlled Mexican government, are béing deported to Mexico. The de- portation of militant foréign born workers to fascist European coun- tries is a common occurrence. The achievements of the I.L.D. in halting and delaying this depor- tation drive have been of invaluable service to the movement. Hundreds of cases have been won, the lives of many workers have been saved, and the services of hundreds of valuable leaders preserved for long periods, even when final victory was impossible. More important of all, the mass protest against the de- portation policy, roused and organ- ized by the I.L.D. have forced the Government to hesitate to apply it as ruthlessly as they wish. It is clear that only by strength- ening the I.L.D. can we hope to crush the growing fascist attacks of the ruling class on the foreign born workers. The LL.D. Fights for the Work- ing Class of the World The International Labor Défense is all that its name impliés. It fights not only for the working class of America, but for the workers of the world. It roused mass protest for the Rueggs imprisoned by Kuo- mintang China; it fought for the freedom of Difnitroff, Torgler, Pop- and Taneff; it fights for the freedom of Thaélmann and the anti-fascist fighters imprisoned in the concentration camps and jails of fascist Germany; it carries on a strugglé for the prisonérs of Polish reaction; it raises funds for the vic- tims of Austrian fascism; it estab- lishes patronage over political pris- oners in the fascist prisons of Europe, and through its organ, the Labor Defender, fights for interna- tional solidarity in every struggle of his battle, has waged a continuous the working class throughout the world, ays Browder | dous role played by the I.L.D., 4 | also of the fact that if the ILLD.| f Capable feading Forces Must Ge Given to Build LL.D. The Ninth Anniversary of the In~ ternational Labor Defense makes us| conscious not only of the tremen- of its fundamental importance, but is to fulfill its task in the important | struggles which face the working| class, it becomes necessary to really | solve the problem of building a} stronger and more powerful I.L.D. | The ILD. is not receiving the] support and cooperation which the | importance of its work demands.| _ The trade unions, the workers’ clubs, | the mutual aid societies, the Party | organizations, all absorbed in their special daily problems and work, as- sume that the existence of the I.L.D. relieves them of all- responsibility | for the problems of defense. They turn these problems over to the I.L.D. and proceed to other busi- ness. But this will not work. The LL.D.} does not consist of the few com-/ rades placed in the offices to handle its business. If we leave thése prob- lems to the unaided efforts of these few executives, then the I.L.D. will surely break down, it will not be able to handle the terrific load that | is being piled upon it by the sharp- | ening struggle. And that is exactly wh/T is happening now. This condition must be remedied. Every Party committee and unit, every member, every trade union and club, must be made to realize that it is a part of the LL.D. a most vital part, and if these parts | do not work and take their share! of the burden, then our LL.D, will! break down under its load Every clase conscious worker and organization must really be interested in the LL.D. and brought into active cooperation in its work, Every committee must begin to discuss and decide the problem of what it must do to help the LL.D. te perform its most important tasks. | Build a Mass Financial Support | The I.L.D. cannot fulfill its tasks | without funds. The problem of finding the necessary money has become a critical one. The economic | crisis has reduced the size of con- tributions. This must be compen- sated for by increasing the mass of contributors. That is easily pos- sible, because the workers are ready and willing to support the LL.D. But it requires much more organ-| ization than ever before; mass con- | tributions cannot and will not come into the LL.D. spontaneously, but only as a result of organized efforts. The LL.D. suffers also from the attacks of our enemies. The So-} cialist Party, the N.A.A.C.P., the} Civil Liberties Union unite in their slanders against the I.L.D. We have | been able to meet these attacks and to defeat them politically in a most smashing and satisfactory manner. But the cost of these attacks has been very great. These slanders have hurt the ILD. financially, which was their main intention. Our enémies hoped to create a fi- nancial breakdown and thus defeat us when they could not do so po- litically. And they have succeeded in creating tremendous difficulties for us. At the most crucial points of the Scottsboro cats, for example, financial collapse was only averted by the LL.D. calling directly upon the Communist Party and borrow- ing several thousand dollars of the Party’s meager funds, which were vitally needed elsewhere. The same condition exists, more or less, in all| other cases, in every locality. | This problem must be solved. It} can and will be solved by the same means which are necessary to build | and strengthen the LL.D. in all) phases of its work, as a broad mass | non-Party defense movement. | First of all, the I.L.D. must be given capable leading forcés from its supporting affiliated organiza - | tions. Secondly, nationally and locally the ILD. committees must be broadened, drawing in the best sup- porters, mainly workers, but also sympathizers of whatever origin. The majority of all committees should be loyal non-Party workers who will fight and work for the ILD. Third, a broad recruiting cam- paign for members in the branches, and for affiliation of organizations must be carried out. The affiliating organizations should give regular financial support, send delegates to committees, conferences, etc. Fourth, mass collections for the I.L.D. campaigns and cases, and for relief of prisoners and their de- pendents must be made in every shop, factory. mine, workers’ club and organization. The dimes, nick- els and pennies of the workers must be drawn into a mighty stream of defense for the class war victims. Fifth, the most exact financial responsibility and accounting of all funds must be guaranteed, nation- ally, in every locality, controlled by auditing committees containing a majority of non-Party workers, giv- ing the most complete réfutation of all the slanders of our enemies. Sixth, the I.L.D. must be really taken seriously and given all the help, political, organizational and material, needed to build the LL.D. into a real broad mass organiza- tion, solidly based among the work- ers in the shops and capable of carrying forward our defesse or- ganization to new and _ higher achievements. The nine years of the LL.D. were years of glorious struggle and great victories. We must all unite to in- crease its power and strength, and to make its future as the victorious defender of the working class cer- tain and unassailable. Hail Nine Years of Workers’ Mass Defense Led by the I.L.D. When Workers Siihe Page Five Some of the National Guardsmen thrown into the Alabama ore fields last month to terrorize the iron ore strikers. Organized mass protest can force the withdrawal of the state's armed strike-breaking forces, By Popularizing Its Work, I. L. D. Can Win Broad Masses for Struggle By WILLIAM L, PATTERSON National Te now sary. Its dues paying membership is approximately twelve thousand Its influence reaches perhaps 2 quarter of a million. For at least five years its membership has varied only slightly. Yet during this period especially the later part of it, its influence has extended widely. The I.L.D. is the defense arm of the working class. It defends work- ers’ rights, their democratic rights, their constitutional guarantees, their right to fight for working clas democracy. This general statement is as generally understood. But if we are going to build the 1.L.D., if it is going to escape from the or- ganizational standstill into which it has slipped, we must be very par- ticular concerning the tasks of the ILD. Before going into any detail let us put the question of its tasks as Secretary, International Labor Defense International Labor Defense reaches its ninth anniver- generally but from a more positive | angle. The ILD. fights against any restriction of workers’ rights, against the curtailment of demo- cratic rights, against the violation of constitutional guarantees and against the suppression of the workers’ struggles for working class democracy. From the very beginning it should | be “Obvious that no class struggle) organization has possibilities of a wider range of activity or a broader social base. Its membership—dues paying membership—should num- ber hundreds of thousands of work- ers, farmers, intellectuals and lib- erals, white and Negro, native and foreign born. The basis for such a statement is not hard to see. Tasks of the LL.D. ‘The carrying through of the gen- eral tasks mentioned calls for the developmen’ of many broad cam-| paigns. Together with our national and international campaigns for the release of Thaelmann, Herndon, the Scottsboro boys, Mooney and Bill-| ings, we must develop the growing struggles. A carefully prepared and decisively carried out campaign against injunctions, restricting workers’ rights to picket, to strike, to organize with leaders of their own choice, etc.; a campaign for recognition of the political status of prisoners victimized for attempt- ing to exercise their rights; cam- paigns around the defense of Negro! victims of class and national per- secution; campaigns against the de- portation and general persecution of foreign born workers; campaigns in defense of poor and middle farm- ers struggling against mortgage foreclosures, “plow under” robbery and usurious loans, etc, Particularly does it demand a continual cam- Labor Defense Head WILLIAM L, PATTERSON paign against the victimization of hese workers, farmers and their symvathizers in and by the courts and poiice It can be scen that the tasks of the I.L.D, flow from the activities | of organized and unorganized work- ers, impoverished farmers, student intellectuals and liberals. Its mem- | bership should by no means con-| | sist entirely of members from class | struggle organizations. To entertain uch an idea is to regard the LL.D. an extsemely narrow and sec- tarian organization. LL.D. and Clause 7-A In keeping with the specific tasks of every class struggle organization, the attacks of the ruling rlass hasve @ peculiar significance. More con- cretely, clausé 7-A of the N.R.A has brought more company unions into existence than this country ever saw. What specificaliy dces this méan to the I.L.D.? It means that on this particular fleld the rights of the working class have been restricted as never before. Therefore, the I.L.D. not only} fights against the direct curtailing | of workers’ rights but must also| clearly show the link up between | | executive action and judicial action | and must thoroughly expose the class character of the courts. Let us examine the demands of | | the steel workers, a six hour day | | and a five day week, for a minimum wage and $1 per hour, for union recognition, for no discrimination against Negroes, for abolition of the speed~ and for the passage of the Workers Unemploymen: Insur- | ance Bill H. R. 7598. These are no exorbitant demands, none that ex- ceed the democratic or constitu- tional rights of the workers. Refusal on the part, of the bosses to grant tl demands—and we must remember tha‘ these demands | differ little from those of workers | sive | to consolidate its ranks, in other industries—means the fure ther worsening of the conditions of the workers both on the job and in the home. For the I.L.D. many tasks arise out of a refusal. The Negro question is involved, the de- nial of constitutional guarantees becomes an issue, etc. And when the industrialists hire armed thugs to prevent the workers from realizing these rights and state and federal authorities and their armed forces are mobilized to aid the private armies of the industrialists, talk of impartial democracy, the state rep- resenting all of the people alike, becomes easy to expose. LL.D. and the Courts Behind this come the court persee cutions, The I.L.D. must lead the defense struggles. It should not be difficult for it to approach the best of lawyers who only see in all of this a miscarriage of tice but who are ready to active. protest such “flagrant miscarriages” of juse tice. Wi rata of liberals and ine is can be interested in in- ual cases. This is the task of }the IL.D,, to create the broadest sible united front around each This is the method by which the LL.D. will root itself into the ranks of the working class. Upon the basis of its exposure of the role of the courts and the armed forces it will prove to workers the class nature of the state. It becomes an inesti- mable aid in awakening the class consciousness of a worker. Out in Illinois, through correct tactics in strug the LL.D. won over several locals of the Progres- Miners of America. What was the significance of this? Not only that these miners were won to the program of a working class organi- ation but that this organization was inseparably tied to all other class struggle organizations. The Special Role of the LL.D. The task of the ILD. is to bee come a mass united front organiza- tion of the working cl to stop the tremendously heavy fluctuation, The tasks of popularizing the LL.D. and of clarifying its role is the tasks of the whole movement. Until this is serie ously approached the LL.D. cannot | grow. The 10th anniversary of the ILL.D. should see it more than double its present size. But the LL.D. is a loosely com- posed organization. It must not ex- pect to involve all of its members in active front line work. It must not expect all of its members to accept at once the whole of its program, it must not exact rigid discipline. Its official organ, the Labor De- fender, must become not only @ mass propaganda and agi‘ational organ but a mass organizer as well, It must win wide strata of the pop- ulation to the struggles of the work ing class. It must neutralize dreds of thousands of others. is an anniversaray perspective for the building of the IL.D. into a broad, powerful mass organization, UR NINTH ANNIVERSARY finds the I-L.D. faced with a serious financial emergency which criti- cally endangers our burning defense tasks. standing among these is the fight to defeat the renewed drive of the Alabama ruling-class lynchers to burn the nine innocent Scottsboro Boys. With your aid we succeeded infamous maneuvers of the Ku Klux Judge Callahan and Attorney General Knight to terson and Clarence Norris of the right of appeal and to rush them to the electric chair. has been made to the Alabama Supreme Court. But as the statement from the chief defense council, Joseph Brodsky, shows, we must pay at once the balance of $2,118.19. The recent decision of the Supreme Court Georgia upholding the sentence on the chain gang upon Angelo Herndon forces us to appeal the case to the U. S. Supreme Court. To save this heroic Negro working-class leader, who led the struggle of starving white and Negro workers for relief, from death by torture, we must raise immediately $2,000. The Atlanta Six—Ann Burlak, Mary Dalton, Herbert Newton, George Powers, are being rushed to trial on the “insurrection” slave law, to the electric chair. To renew the bond for those militant union leaders, we must also raise $260.00. In addition, we must secure funds for the vital mass campaign to free these workers, Ernst Thael- mann and the many other class-war prisoners, whose numbers have increased fascist drive against the working-class and the op- pressed Negro people. In the next few days, we must raise at least $6,090 to carry through these defense struggios, which are of the greatest significance and urgency. We have no other recourse than worker, every oppressed Negro, every person who Out- | | | in defeating the rob Haywood Pat- The appeal EXPENSES: Stonographic trial of records of 18 to 20 ytars South | Stationery, grams, Carr and Storey— Expens¢s Legal services ....--. telephones, laneeus Balance needed SHORR, BRODSKY & KING 100 Fifth Avenue New York International Labor Defense é | 80 East 11th St. | New York City. | | . New York Dear Comrades: It is imperative that the following balance due in connection with the appeal of the Scotte- boro Boys be paid at once: minutes of the and printing of and brief $4,229.31 Railroad fares and expenses of attorneys while in 1,050.72 585.00 tele- postage, miscel- 350.16 $6,215.19 CONTRIBUTIONS TO MEET THIS: 4,097.00 $2,118.19 Fraternally yours, JOSEPH BRODSKY. with the growing to appeal to every | is opposed to the murderous, fascist suppression of the toiling masses to make the greatest sacri- fice to meet this urgent need. RUSH YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS—THE UT- MOST THAT YOU CAN—NOW! INTERNATIONAL LABOR DEFENSE, 89 EAST lith STREET, NEW YORK. A