The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 3, 1934, Page 1

While day-to-day expenses of the Herndon-Scottsboro appeal and defense mount, only $5,735 has been received of the $15,000 needed. Rush funds to In- ternational Labor Defense, 80 E. 11th St, No Y.-C. Daily,.QWorker CENTRAL ORGAN COMMUNIST PARTY W.S.A. (SECTION OF COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL) Vol. XI, Ne. 211 Says Prices Will Go Up Jobs Down Third Report Covers Up Food Cost Rise, But Shows Relief Cuts (Daily Worker Washington Bureau) WASHINGTON, Sept. 2.— Donald R. Richberg, Execu- tive Secretary of the National Emergency Council of the N. R. A., expects a continued sharp increase in mass desti tution during the coming winter, according to the text of the third section of a report transmitted by him to President Roosevelt yes terday. * “Relief of Destitution” is the fairy tale tile of Richberg’s report which, he says in his letter to the Presi- dent, condenses and reviews “the reports of progress made by the various federal departments and agencies engaged in the national program of cmergency relief and economic recovery.” The Richberg- Roosevelt “eco- nomic recovery” also reveals that the administration is expecting a continued rise in unemployment and retail food prices. Richberg’s first fantastic report dealt supposedly with “Economie Recovery” under the N, R. A. The second was entitled, “Relief of Agricultural Distress.” This third report is like the first two in that the stark facts admitted herein fail to support the Pollyanna conclu- sions on “the period of economic resevery” the $12,000-a-year Rich- berg, middle western “progressive,” professes to see. “Negligible” Relief to Strikers Richberg’s employer viewpoint is emphasized in a supplementary statement, issued a day after the dispatch of the woolen and worsted strike orders to nearly a million workers, which hastens to reassure the textile magnates who are so worried over the slim possibility of strikers getting federal relief. “The amount of federal relief payments which can be attributed to strikes has been almost negligible,” he de- clares. He also repeats the year-old saw of Secretary of Labor Perkins. “According to all precedents” labor controversies “rise rapidly during a period of economic recovery.” But remembering Perkins’ sad expe- rience when she attempted to prove her point by comparing this year with 1921, a period when strikes were decreasing, he fails to men- tion what “precedents.” Referring to Federal Relief Ad- ministrator Hopkins, Richberg de- clares: “The administrator states that it is probable that the trend of relief will be upward in the course of the next eight months; and that the severity of the drought situation and the usual seasonal increase in relief during the winter point to a probable relief load of 5,000,000 fam- ilies in February, 1935.” According to Richberg “more than 4,200,000 families were receiving relief from public funds when the Federal Emergency Relief Admin- istration began operations in May, 1933.” Obviously, Richberg’s “re- covery” has passed the worker and little farmer by. Near Starvation On E. W. R. “As a result of the closing of the Civil Works program,” Richberg reported to Roosevelt, “relief rolls increased sharply in April, 1934, when 3,864,765 families and 582,738 single residents or a total of 4,447,503 cases, were found on relief, cover- ing 16,825,975 persons... .” The additional hundreds of thousands not “found” on the relief rolls, in view of the steady increase in un- employment during the last few months, are not discussed. The wage figures reveal the near starvation C. W. A. and lower E. W. R. level enforced by the Roosevelt admigistration. “About 1,600,000 case out of the total of 4,200,000, are now benefiting from the work program—their monthly earnings averaging slightly over $30 per fam- ily. ‘Under the Civil Works pro- gram average weekly wages had ranged from a high of $14.82 for the week ending Jan. 11, 1934, down to $10.47 for the week ending April 5, the last week of large employ- ment in C. W. A.” The average C. W. A. salary was about $12 a week, according to Hopkins. The slash in the scals p2id under RISE IN DESTITUTION DUE, RICHBERG AD | | | Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office at vow York, N. ¥., under the Act of March 8, 1879. NEW YORK, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1934. 000,000 OUT ON STRIK SHARP 2 New York Sections Exchange Challenges in ‘Daily’ Fund Drive NEW YORK.—Pledging itself to raise $1,000—$250 more than its alloted quota—in the Daily Worker $60,000 drive, the Sec- tion Committee of Section 15 of | the New York District yesterday challenged Section 8 to a social- ist competition. The quota: of Section 8 is also $1,000. In Section 15, socialist compe- tition has started among the units. Unit 13 has challenged Unit 12—both quotas $50. Unit 13, however, started the competition with an immediate collection of $6. In the spirit of socialist com- petitions being waged by the sec- tions and units of the Party and the branches of mass organiza- tions in the New York District, which has a quota of $30,000 in the Daily Worker drive for $60,000, the “Daily” will publish stiadigai themedoees ce | Two Students Slain As 2,000 Rally in Cuba (Special to the Daily Worker) HAVANA, Sept. 2. — Yesterday 3,000 young workers in Havana stopped work for a half-hour halt- ing all textile shops. Young Com- munists seived the principal radio station and spoke for ten minutes, At the demonstration in the after- noon hundreds of young workers marched four blocks before being dissolved. Simultaneously continu- ous clashes occurred between stu- dents led by Lefts and police as students protesting assasinations of the night before seized street cars of the Havana Electric Co. Numer- ous power lines were cut off as im- perialist Minister Steinhart de- manded more energetic action from the police. All police pursuit cars nearing the university were forced back by a shower of rocks and pistol shots. Until now the government has not withdrawn university autoncmy. Two revolutionary anti-fascist students were murdered in cold blood b; Police Lieutenant Powell while b: transported to Principe. A third was left for dead and now lives to accuse the assassins. One of dead is Ivo Fernandez, brother of Leonardo Sanchez, well-known New York Communist. Police sought Leonard to include him in the death car. A Communist Party statement accuses Batista and Caffery and calls for a united front mass struggle against the terror. Minor Speaks Today In Pittsburgh Lyceum (Special to the Daily Worker) PITTSBURGH, Pa., Sept. 2—Bob Minor will speak at 5 p.m. today at an all-day Labor Day celebration in International Socialist Lyceum, 805 James Street, marking the open- ing of the Workers Book Store at 1638 Fifth Avenue, NEEDLE TRADES MEETING : TONIGHT : NEW YORK—An emergency meeting of all Communist Party members and all fractions in the needle trades will be held tonight at 5 o'clock sharp at Irving Plaza Hall, 15th St. and Irving Place. All Party members in the needle trades ate asked to be present without fail. WHAT COMMUNISTS FIGHT FOR IN TEXTILE STRIKE AN EDITORIAL RANCIS J. GORMAN, U. head, certainly expects blind credulity from the textile workers if he thinks they will accept his anti- Communist ravings at face “We will have to fight not only the employers and their hired thugs,” he declared on Saturday, “but the Communists who are now trying to take advantage of this situation to promote their own philesophy.” Mr, Gorman, in this statement, makes.two points. He implies a readiness on his part to fight the employers and their hired thugs, and charzes that ig ‘Vote Action At Maritime ‘Conference \\North Atlantic Unity Convention Adopts Program for Workers By HARRY RAYMOND (Special to the Dally Worker) BALTIMORE, Md., Sept. 2—Plans for mass action on a large scale in the North Atlantic ports were worked out and unanimously ap- proved today at the final session of a two-day North Atlantic Unity Conference of maritime workers. The conference, which was at- tended by seventy-five delegates, representing 5,682 workers in the marine industry on the East coast, drew up a plan of action to be sent to all marine workers on the ships and docks and to the unemployed. The document calls on all maritime workers to unite, regardless of poli- tical affiliation, into a solid fighting | front for higher wages, better con- | ditions, union recognition, and | egainst the company union plans of | the shipowners, Historic Gathering | This was by far the most impor- | tant united front gathering of mari- | time workers held on the East coast of this country. Thirty of ‘the dele- gates, who represented thousands of workers on the ships and- docks, came from the Marine Workers In- dustrial Union, nine came from the American Radio Telegraphists As- sociation and twelve came from locals of the International Long- Shoremen’s Association. They came from New York, Bal- timore, Boston, Buffalo, Toledo, Norfolk and Philadelphia. The dele- gates upon their arrival here, were greeted by a tremendous overflow mass meeting at the M.W.I.U. Hall, 720 South Broadway. The confer- ence held its sessions and food was served to the-delegates in two large halls at 209 South Bond Street. Most of the delegates were dressed in their working clothes, for they came directly from the ships. Proposals for the plan of unity action in the ports came from Roy Hudson, national secretary of the M.W.LU., Hoyte Haddock, president of the Radio Telegraphists Associa- tion, delegates from the Interna- tional Longshoremen’s Association, and dozens of rank and file dele- gates, Demands Worked Out The basic demands worked out by the conference were for a $75 wage scale for able seamen, $75 for oil burning firemen, $90 for coal burn- ing firemen, and for a centralized shipping bureau controlled by the rank and file seamen in each port. Demands for the six-hour working day and the thirty-hour week were put forward for longshoremen. Wage demands for the dockers are $1 an hour. for general cargo and $1.50 an hour for all overtime. The long- shore delegates, upon return to the docks, are pledged to fight against the gang system of hiring and for the rotation system to be controlled by the longshoremen through union halls. A longshoremen’s unemploy- ment insurance fund was demanded by the conference, funds for which are to be raised’by the taxation of one cent on every hundred pounds of cargo handled. The main resolution authorized the calling of a national confer- ence to spread the work of uniting (Continued on Page 2) workers’ strike? T. W. strike considerable Tek periiltling value. by the U.T.W. 2) the demands as formulated by the textile workers themselvés are won, More specifically, so there can be no doubt as to our stand, the Communist Party will fight with all its energy to aid the textile workers in winning the following demands: (the demands as worked out 1) Hours: two shifts of thirty hours per week, with no exemptions, Diferentials: mirimum wages. Uns‘silled—S12.00 per thirty hour week. Semi-skiiled—318.00 per thirty-hour week. © Shut Tight as All Workers Walk Out CHEER UNITY CALL Press Raises ‘Red Scare’ | as State and Legion Plan Violence By CARL REEVE (Special to the Daily Worker) BOSTON, MASS., Sept. 2. —An effective general strike of cotton, woolen, worsted and, most probably, silk tex- tile workers, in all the New England states began last night. Mass meetings of the textile} workers in these departments of the textile industry voted yesterday to join the walkout. A vote of Con- necticut silk workers decided to strike 40,000 silk mill workers there. The Amoskeag Company in Man- chester shut Plants only after 13,000 workers had already walked out solidly, declaring that the strike was on in the mill. This halts huge government order for bed ticking. Lawrence, Mass., woolen workers voted to strike 15,000 workers with 10,000 additional unemployed giving support. Mass meetings where Ann Burlak, Secretary of the National '! Textile Workers’ Union spoke were heavily attended, one New Bedford meeting having more than 1,500, with enthusiastic response to her unity plea. The centers of strength of the strike preparations are New Bed- ford, with 30,000 in 25 large mills, mostly cotton; Fall River, with 22,- 000 cotton workers; Lowell, 10,000 workers with 6,000 in cotton; Law- rence, 18,000 wool workers; Salem, where loom fixers are already strik- ing; Worcester district, 10,000 work- ets; Eastern Connecticut, 35,000, mostly cotton; Pawtucket and Blackstone Valley, R. I., 7,000 cotton and 30,000 silk and rayon; Man- chester, Nashua, N. H. District, 20,- 000 workers. Legion Officials Strikebreaking The “red scare” has intensified. As predicted in the Daily Worker the “red scare” is’ being turned now not only against Communists but against all strikers. An example is the statement of head of the New Hampshire American Legion, Charles Green, offering Legion members as armed guards to break the strike. Green said, “The Legion will place its moral and physical support -be- hind the State and city officials in th? forthcoming emergency.” Today’s Boston Record states “Green said the Legionaires are prepared to combat the Communist menace in the Granite State.” Thus as the Daily Worker pre- dicted, every striker becomes a menace and the prey of fascist armed gangs. Thousands of textile strikers are veterans and Legion- aires, and should protest. Hearst papers continue to lead “red scare” against the textile strike, using the same strikebreak- | New England Mill Towns! Tomorrow’s ‘Daily’ Will Be a Special Textile Strike Issue Tomorrow’s Daily Worker will be a special Textile Strike edi- tion, containing special articles covering all phases of the present strike, which stands out as the largest in the history of the country, with more than 1,000,000 workers involved. A description of conditions in the textile mills, an analysis of the problems within the textile unions, the background of the textile industry, profits, wages, hours, the problem of achieving unity among the textile workers in the strike, the demands of the workers, the story of previous historic strikes in the textile in- dustry, as well other important features will be included. In view of the tremendous im- portance of forming a united front of the workers in the Na- tional Textile Workers Union and ion in the face of the “Red scare” ion in the face of the “Red scare’ raised by the employers and the U.T.W. officials, tomorrow's issue takes on additional significance. Every effort should be made to distribute the issue in the lead- ing textile centers. Special bun- dle orders should be arranged for by the Party Districts and Sec- tions. All workers are urged to send news of happenings throughout the country in connection with the strike. The columns of the Daily Worker are open to work- ers desiring to send reports on the walkout. ‘Daily’ Prints Textile Strike Demands List WASHINGTON, Sept. 2.—Follow- ing are the complete demands put forward by the United Textile Workers’ Union, based on the sched- ules reported at the recent National Convention in New York: 1—Hours: Two shifts of thirty hours per week with no exemptions. 2—Differentials: The establish- ment of four minimum wages: Un- skilled—$13.00 per thirty hour week; Semi-skilled—$18.00 per thirty hour j week; Skilled—$22.50 per thirty hour week; Highly skilled—$30.09 per thirty hour week. 3—Machine load: The revision of all work loads on the basis of rea- son and ordinary common sense. Differential Groups Carding department: Unskilled— Doffers, sweepers, cleaners, oilers; Semi-skilled—Picker men, strippers, drawing hands, roving men, comber tenders; Skilled—Grinders, slubbers, intermediate jack or fly frames, third hands, Spinning Department: Unskilled —Oilers, sweepers, cleaners; Semi- skilled—Ring-spinners, skilled dof- fers, ring-twisters; Highly-skilled— Third hands, mule spinners. Preparation Department: Un- ing tactics used against San Fran- (Continued on Page 2) It can be put very simply: Stop every spindle and loom; continue the strike, with- a single mill to reopen, until all convention) : the establishment of four skilled—Tying-in girls, cleaners, hed- (Continued on Page 2) 4) No discrimination against longing to the organization; reinstatement of all workers victimized becatse of unien membership; recognition of the union, * * * INSURE victory for the textile workers, the Communist Party further proposes: 1) Solidarity actions by all workers, employed and unemployed, Socialist, Communist and non- Party, textile workers and non-textile workers—a solid united front of all workers against the textile bosses and their allies. 2) Mass picketing to close, and to kee} wool, sik, every textile mill (cotton, until victory is assured, Paterson Lona of NTW | Conditions | tion of Silk Workers Speed ‘Daily’ $60,000 Drive Fund! Friday's Receipts .. aes $317.04 Total to Date . $1,477.71 Press Run Saturday—62,900 Votes to Join UTW | Silk Workers ‘TWO ON EXECUTIVE, Full Membership and No Discrimination Unity (Special to the Daily Worker) | PATERSON, N. J., Sept. 2. —The Paterson Local of the National Textile Workers Union. at a special member- | ship meeting voted to merge} with the American Federa- (OE. | W.). The membership meeting en- | dorsed the decision of their execu- | tive board which had entered into |negotiations with the executive | | board of the other union. | Among other demands, the Na-| tional Textile Workers Union has | won the right to have two members on the broad silk executive board. A committee of the American Fed- eration of Silk Workers spoke at this meeting and were well re- ceived. Moe Brown and Valgo, both local organizers, were elected to serve an the executive board. All other proposals of the National! Textile Workers Union were adopted by the Executive Board of the American Federation of Silk Work- ers, but referred for final adoption to the general membership of their union. The following is a list of conditions that the National Tex- tile Workers Union is proposing, and on which hasis it has agreed. “1, To merge our membership with the membership of the Amer- ican Federation of Silk Workers. “2. Full rights, same as old union members enjoy, for all members of the National Textile Workers Union | who went into the American Fec eration of Silk Workers. The shall be no initiation fee, all Na- tional members to enter per ex- change of-books. For representa- tion on the strike committee and the executive boards. “3. Against any expulsions of union members for their political beliefs and affiliations. “4. All members of the National Textile Workers Union to have the right to run for offices in the American Federation of Silk Workers. “5, For immediate preparation to join the general strike. “6. For the establishment of a strike committee to draw up local; strike demands and new agreement. “The National Textile Workers Union in making this proposal feels that it answers the desire and the great need of the silk workers in the present strike situation. It is confident that the members of the American Federation of Silk Work- ers as well as all workers in the industry will welcome and endor: such a decision and help to put into effect. “We appeal to the whole mem- bership of the American Federation of Silk Workers fo make it possible for us to unite all the silk workers into one union—with one strike committee and with one set of demands.” any worker be- right. to ings, freedom of 5) mill elétted by elected rank an center, represent: or otherwise, un! with the sctid werking class. No final 7) WEATHER: Cloudy. control of the strike in their hands. 6) No settlement of the strike by arbitration are granted; until all the demands, as listed above, ar2 unconditionally granted, the strike is to go on — 8 Pages Price 3 Cents MIT A. F. L. TEXTILE CHIEFS IN WASHINGTON MOVE FOR CONCESSIONS AS WORKERS GET READY FOR MASS PICKET LINES Strike Situation | ‘We Want io Help Bosses 1 Brief Make Dividends,’ Says McMahon More than 1,000,000 workers Are from Maine to Alabama now in- || ‘MANY FINE BOSSES’ velved in strike call.. Leading New England plants |. , iD aecre Will Not Stick to All the Convention Demands already shut down, with Amos- keag plant in Manchester, N. H., forced to stop work on govern- ment orders as 15,000 workers Hoses alt / He Declares New Bedford. — Ann Burlak, het Mosiresi speaking to enthusiaste meet- By SEYMOUR WALDMAN ings, warns agenst “Red scare | (Dail Worker Washington Bureau) provocations of U. T. W. officials WASHINGTON, D. Gy, and employers, and urges unity || ¢ 2 __Woek. y Of all farces in fight for strikers’ || "CPt: 2-—-Week-end confer eine, ences between the National United Textile Workers offi- || Labor Relations Board and cials send telegram to Governor || ,, aE j z Eli of Maseachusetts asking for |; the United Textile Workers “protection against reds,” thus ||(A, F. of L, Special Strike condoning and encouraging use ‘ of National Guard against mili- tant workers. Tremendous mo- bilization of police and militia. ailed to arrive at Committee fz Atlanta.—National Guardsmen (| ton, woolen, “prepare for trouble,” with 150 | ted workers through soldiers on duty. land and the South Greenville, S. C. — Situation rallied their strike ranks for. what is expected to be labor's greatest general strike @gainst employers and their gov- resume operations, with strike- breakers. Walkout complete. 0" Stony Point, N. C. — Workers vote 100 per cent for strike to begin Monday. Marion, N, C. — Strike call is- sued on placards all over city, stating “No more juggling around while the Government Boards ; give us the runaround. Emplo; tense as millowners threaten to The general d the recent N convention voted st | call for the ab’ out on which LOW. 490 to9 ion of the stretch- ed up), reduction of hours per week with no reduce tion in pay, and recognition of the union. ment is lowest since the N. R. A. codes were approved.” These general provisions, however, are based on specific technical de- mands adopted at the U. T. W. n emp oyed Convention. They provide specific- / ally for e scales Textile Strike. ‘a ir ition Orders he U. T. W. strike leader- ship plans ‘to disregard these rank and file technical convention orders was made clear today in an inter- view given by President Thomas FP, MacMahon to your correspondent. “Don’t get me wrong. Our techs nical demands are broad enough so that reasonable men can sit down and give away here and there. Un- derstand, I mean that we're not go- ing to insist on crossing all t’s and dotting every i. “We want the empl that they have a pi NEW YORK.—The National Un-| Thet t employment Council of the United States has issued a call to all its! affiliated organizations everywhere to rally in support of the textile workers who have begun a nation- wide strike. Pointing out that the government and employers are brazenly pro- posing to starve the textile workers and their families into submission to intolerable wage and working conditions, the statement declares that the organized unemployed | must join in concerted action with the strikers to force relief author- : Seats * hands and that we want to help ities to provide adequate relief. | them make dividends. For, if they “The latest statement of Harry| don’t make dividends we get no Hopkins, Federal Relief Adminis-| pay, sce? There's an oppo-tunity trator, indicates that the govern- ment has decided to abandon even a@ pretense that it will provide ré lief to the destitute textile strikers. Mr. Hopkins, acting on the demands of such spokesmen of the employ ers as John E. Edgerton, president of the Southern State Industrial Council, who declared thet if the government withholds relief ‘the proposed textile strike would prob- ably not last for more than one week,’ Mr. Hopkins who has up to now pretended that relief should be given to those who need it ‘wholly | for the employers and us to sit down together.” “Telegrams crystallizing the workers’ strike sentiment from all | parts of the country and from all sections of the textile industry con- tinue to come irregularly,” Francis J. Gorman, strike committee chair- man, informed the press yesterday, | just before dispatching the order eagerly awaited by many thousands of silk workers. In a speech delivered over a Na- | tional radio hookup, he declared {that “the workers are on strike to j enforce decent treatment, to end in- tolerable abuses, to vindicate the law which guarantees them the right of collective bargaining.” He referred to the N.LR.A. under the | sections of which the company union |has not only thrived but been le- galized. The supposed guarantee of coliective bargaining is an animal seen alive in action in Wash- ton er anywhere else. German voiced the General John= (Continued on Page 2) t, and for the ms | +1 ctat 4G | son anti-strike tactic re the worlers’ civil rights (right to hold strike meet- gocd ai ore gitar Bn . Ge workers’ press, etc.). | “chiselers,” t whom the work- Rank and file strike committees in every | Ts’ Carts must “Now, there are many fine men engaged in the textile industry, as propzie- tors and managers but these men are driven by the machines they own and operate and by — the ‘chiselers’,” said Gorman oyer the microphone. His theme called for “the control of labor saving machinery.” Greet Red Baiting Legion The proposal mede yesterday to George L. Berry, . R, A. Administrator the workers thems: d file committees in every textile ing all the mills, and with complete til all the demands of the work and active support of the entire | Settlement of the st en any C.W.A., of course, is increased ap- preciably when it comes to the amount of food the worker can buy. More significantly, “further in- the Communists, “who . .. promote their own phil- osophy,” are an obstacle in this fight. What is the Communist Party's “own philosophy” which Mr,-Gorman considers an obstacle? What is the Communist’s Party’s position on the textile wed anti-strike president of tional Printing Press- men’s Union, for an arbitration , Doard of three members to be ap- 3) Unity of employed and unemplcyed to forces the immediate payment of adequate relief to the textile strikers and to the unemployed. 4) United struggle of all workers against de- peroneal 2G. Neuen eee Portations, against interference with the workers’ (Continued on Page 8) | (Continued on Page 2 , ¥ Y Skilled—$22.50 per thirty hour week. Highly skillod—$30.90 per thirty hour week. 3) Machine lead: the revision of all work loads on the basis of reason and ordinary com- mon sense, ba: until the proposed settlement has bo: s+ mitted to the strikers, ample time siven to the strikers for consideration of the pro@:als, and an pas ‘Continued on Page 2)