The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 20, 1935, Page 6

| } | t | } | | i | it Page 6 DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1935 JUDGES RETIRE FOR VERDICT AS LL.D. COMPLETES BRILLIANT APPEAL—CASE OF ANGELO HERNDON COMES UP IN MARCH—FUNDS NEEDED s in the Jourt has gone into a tw ne. » weeks’ recess. During this time the mass protest which alone of the mass movement, have exposed blocked the legal lynching of the nine innocent Negro boys, seized more than four years ago in Ala- crimination and oppression out of bama, must be redoubled. : framed lynch verdicts. The International Labor Defense emphasizes at Before the withering this time that it would be folly to imagine that now the Supreme Court judges have the case solely in their own hands The case, more than ever, rests finally in the hands e arguments of the I. L. D. attor- Scottsboro case appeals, the Supreme manding their liberation. of the masses, in the strength of mass protest de- The I. L. D. has waged a brilliant struggle for the lives of the boys. Its attorneys, supplementing the power in this court, holiest of capitalist helies, the vicious jimcrow dis- which grew the fire of attack, led by Walter Pollak, retained by the I.L.D., the Alabama Lieuten- ant-Governor Knight, with all the assistance of the jus- tices on the bench, could only retreat, giving no answer, The I. L. D. has been Daily, QWorker US.© (SECTION OF COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL) Daily Newspaper” uTRAL ORGAN COMMUNIST P “America’s Only Working Class FOUNDED 1924 PUBLISHED DAILY, EXCEPT SUNDAY, BY THE COMPRODAILY PUBLISHING CO., INC., 50 E, 13th Street, New York, N. ¥. ALgonquin 4-795 4. Subscription Rat By Ma except Manhattan and Bronx), 1 year, $6.00; 3 months, $2.00; 1 month, 0.75 cents. onx, Foreign and Canada: 1 year, $9.00; onths, $3.00. cents; monthly, 75 cents. 1, 1 year, $1.50; 6 months, 76 cents. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1935 = Miners and Labor Party - + full force of the government has been brought down upon the striking anthracite miners. Two strikers were killed. State troopers are raiding the mining communities. An injunction issued by Judge Valentine or- ders that the strike should be called off. Scabs are formed into ‘chain gangs” and escorted by troopers to the mines. Every miner can see now that the gov- ernment in that region is a club in the hands of the Glen Alden and other coal companies. The politicians in both Demo- cratic and Republican Parties are its strike- breaking agents. The Communist Party of Luzerne County has very clearly exposed Judge Valentine who as a member of the board of directors of the Wyoming National Bank is linked with C. E. Ash, vice-presi- dent and secretary, and T. H. Brooks, di- rector of the Glen Alden Coal Company, who are also on the board of directors of that bank. Judge McLean who heads the Regional Labor Board is a director of the First National Bank and with him on the board are also C. F. Huber, chairman of the Glen Alden Board and W. W. Inglis, vice-president and general manager of the coal company. Murder of workers and anti-labor in- junctions is all that can be expected from such “public servants.” Miners will there- fore not take seriously the proposals of some officials of the United Anthracite Miners that it is possible to beat the in- junction with a counter-injunction. Unity of all miners for a mass defiance, through more intense picketing and demonstrations will make the injunction worthless. The miners in the U.M.W.A. and the Anthra- cite Union should unite in joint commit- tees to fight in unity for their demands. Along with that the striking miners must once and for all break with the strike- breaking parties of the bosses. A move- ment for a mass Labor Party to fight for the miners’ demands should emerge out of this struggle. Hearst and the Vets EARST is attempting to enlist the vet- erans in his fascist campaign against the Communist Party and the labor move- ment. Hearst, who bitterly attacked the demands of the veterans for a bonus, now poses as their friend, in order to use the vets for his own reactionary purposes. Frank N. Belgrano, national com- mander of the American Legion, is doing his best to line up the men in the Amer- ican Legion behind Hearst. In the name of the Legion he has “declared war in be- half of America.” He is organizing special posts of school teachers to fight Commu- nism. Now, Belgrano was involved in a plot of Wall Street bankers to enlist 500,000 men in the American Legion into a fascist army. This was confirmed by General Smedley Butler in his testimony to the Dickstein Committee. It was reconfirmed by him in a radio broadcast last Sunday Thus when Bélgrano talks of a “war in behalf of America,” he really means a war in behalf of the profits of the Morgans and the Hearsts, and of all those who opposed «he demands of the veterans. The interests of Belgrano are opposed to the interests of the rank and file of the American Legion. He is a banker. He belongs to that small clique through whom, as General Butler admitted, the bankers control the Legion. It is they who have “tried to make the Legion a strikebreaking organi- zation.” But the rank and file have indicated in many places that they will not allow them- Ives to be used as strikebreakers. More id more of them are beginning to realize | that their place is with the labor move- ment, Veterans, rally to the support of the Communist Party and the labor movement. In the vets’ fight for the bonus it was only the Communist Party which supported their demands, when Hearst was yelling | that they were traitors. | Defeat the attempts of Hearst to use you for his own reactionary purposes and against your own best interests and the | interests of the working class. Repudiate Belgrano and the other reactionaries, who plan to make you the tool of the big bank- ers and the industrialists. | mia eka Gold ORKERS can easily tell what the Su- preme Court decision on gold means to them by the way the stock markets are | acting. Not for many, many months have the Wall Street parasite gamblers reaped such a harvest, as prices of everything leaped wildly upward. | The rise of cotton, wheat, corn, sugar, and all other commodity prices can mean only one thing for the vast majority of people of the country—increased poverty, higher cost of living, more hunger and suf- fering. The Supreme Court decision does more. It upholds Roosevelt’s whole New Deal policy of inflation, of increased dictatorial powers centralized in ever small groups. Roosevelt can now go ahead cheapen- ening the dollar at will. He will do this for two reasons: first, to increase Wall | Street profits by slashing the real wages | of American labor; second, to increase Wall Street’s imperialist fight for foreign mar- kets, This can only mean increased steps toward fascist reaction, toward imperial- ist war. The gold decision shows once again that the Supreme Court always stands at the service of its masters—Wall Street capital. The Daily Worker in The Building Strike pe HUNDRED THOUSAND copies of the special Building Service Employees Edition of the Daily Worker were put into | the hands of these workers in New York | City Monday night and Tuesday morning. The bosses’ press printed many columns | of strikebreaking material, attacking the union, demanding that the workers give up their demands, and using all their ener- gies to prevent the spread of the strike. The strikebreaking Mayor LaGuardia was given full support of the capitalist press | The Daily Worker was the only news- | paper in New York City which gave the | news from the viewpoint of the needs of | | the building service worke! The special edition ef the Daily Worker carried two full pages of news and editorials on the strike of the Building Service Workers. The Daily Worker special edition called | on all building service workers in the city | to reject the strikebreaking arbitration award and come out on strike at once. The strikebreaking acts of LaGuardia and the delaying policy of Bambrick, which weak- ened the whole fighting front of the work- ers, was fully analyzed. Every day the Daily Worker is a | weapon in the hands of the building ser- vice workers in their struggle for union wages and conditions. Push the Daily Worker Circulation Drive for 100,000 readers! Buy the Daily Worker! BOUT six months ago President Roose- +4 velt amended the Cotton Garment Code to give the workers a 36-hour week and a 10 per cent increase. So the union leaders agreed not to call a strike. The manufac- | turers, through injunction proceedings and | other tricks, delayed the increase. But finally they were turned down and Roose- | velt’s amendment is “law.” | But that still did not give much to the | workers. The increase was withheld. The | workers found out that they had to strike | after all. Since the court decision, thou- | Sands in cotton garment plants through- | out the country came out on strike to get | the 10 per cent increase. Ten thousand cotton dress workers are about to come | out in Chicago, This is another example to show that workers can only depend upon their own strength and struggle to win their de- mands, | nuclei; The Cotton Garment Strikes proven a thousand times cor- | Party Life We Must Invest | Effort To Build | New Cadres We publish today and tomorrow | the report of Comrade F. Brown, | made at the Central Comitttee Plenum of the Party, on Party and Young Communist League re- lations. Today’s article deals with the work of the various districts. Tomorrow’s article will deal with the building of Young Communist Shop nuclei and the role of the Party: earn HECKING on the control / task of the Party conven- | tion regarding the Y. C. L., we must state from the out-| set that very little progress | has been made in aiding the} | Y.C.L. in carrying out the, task that the Party has set. It was | decided to make the Party more conscious of youth work, to give the Y.C.L, more attention and guidance, | to assign young Party forces to the | ¥.C.L, for the purpose of strength- | ening its cadres, to aid the Y.C.L. jin becoming a mass organization, | by carrying on an increasing and | more systematic recruiting of young workers for the Y.C.L., and mainly to build the Y.C.L. shop nuclei where Party nuclei exists. New York has set an example for all districts. Immediately following | the Convention, New York took this decision seriously. A good number of young Party members were as- | signed to strengthen the Y.C.L. It | threw all its forces into making the | National Youth Day demonstration |of last year the largest ever held in New York. The young workers | could see in the thousands of Party | members and workers participating | |in that demonstration the solidarity of the adult workers. As a result of this Party aid and the impetus that was given by the demonstra- tion to youth work, there has been | a steady growth of the Y.C.L.. The Y.C.L. in New York grew from an | organization of 1,100 members at | the beginning of last year to more | than 3,000 today. It almost tripled its membership. Today in New York City, between adults and | young, we have a membership of | over 11,000. | hee San Alene is not the case in the other | districts. In the concentration | districts the Y.C.L. lags behind the |Party as much or even more than | before the Convention. In Cleve- jland, for example, while the Party is improving steadily and today registers 2,000 members, the Y.C.L. ;has only a membership of s ; Which means one-seventh of the Party. It has only three shop there is no conscious re- cruiting for the Y.C.L. No Party forces are assigned to strengthen the Y.C.L. cadres. z The Chicago District, which set itself a series of tasks for buildling the Y.C.L, only partly fulfilled them. The plan was to bring the League to 1,000 members by Sept. 1. But at present there are only 600 members. The Party has fifty-seven shop nu- | clei, while the Y.C.L. has only seven. It is true that forces were assigned | there, yet the results show the lack | of follow-up. . ES Pittsburgh there is a very sharp disproportion between the Y.C.L. | and the Party, not only numerically, but in the humber of shop nuclei. While the Party has a number of mine and steel nuclei, the Y.C.L. has none. The fact that the Party is weak is no excuse for not giving any aid to the Y.C.L., especially when struggles are approaching in two basic industries of the district, and the role that the youth will Play in these struggles is known. Strengthening the Y.C.L. means strengthening the Party. That is one of the handicaps that the Party | faces today for example, in Detroit, |and in other districts, especially in the East, its foreign-born. composi- | tion and its weak contract with the jlarge number of American born workers. Especially in Detroit, re- \cently, the Y.C.L. supplied a num- | ber of young cadres to the Party | which are of real help. Where will we get the cadres if not from the American born, from the American young workers? The Party will receive forces from the Y. C. L. yes! But that means strengthening the cadres of the Y.C.L., to build it up to a mass or- ganization if we want to get results later. The capitalists know that if they want to get dividends, they must invest first. We must invest forces in the Y.C.L. now to get results. Join the Communist Party 35 East 12th Street, New York | Please send me more informa- || tion on the Communist Party. rect in its policies, and has shown that one thing alone stands above everything in-its fight—to win uncondi- tional freedom for all the nine boys. The I. L. D. now stands as the defender of all the victims of capitalist terrorism and oppression. Its fight for Angelo Herndon, young Negro worker, sentenced to a living death in the Georgia chain gangs, has been one of the most glorious in the history of American labor. It has temporarily wrested Herndon from the chain gang. Herndon’s appeal before the Supreme Court comes up in March. The fight for Herndon and the Scotts- Urges Protest Favoring Relief Bill Amendment New York, N. Y. Comrade Editor: I feel that the following material presents an immediate issue which should be brought to the attention of readers of the “Daily” at once’ immediate issue now before Con- gress, The action of the U. S. Senate on the Prevailing Wage Amendment to the Relief Bill now before it, marks a grave crisis for the work- ers of America. amendment wil! represent the open admission of a national policy to starve the people into a state of peonage. The defeat of this amendment will be an approval of Roosevelt’s starvation wage policy. The pas- sage of the amendment over presi- dential opposition will be the ad- ministration’s first taste of defeat on @ wage issue and will serve no- tice on the administration that workers will not submit quietly to further attack on their present miserable wage standards. Further- more, where the prevailing wage rate is not the union rate, we will fight to make it a union rate. Mass pressure is the only way by which the prevailing wage amend- ment can be passed. Telegrams must flood the Senate. These tele- grams must demand of each sena- tor that he vote in favor of the prevailing amendment. Every worker must assume re- sponsibility. He must see that the question is raised in his organiza- tion and that every member of his organization wires his signed de- mand individually to his senator. The sheer number of telegrams is of the greatest importance. The time for effective protest is lim- ited, as the amendment will be considered the early part of this week, Bring telegraph blanks. to your organization's meeting and collect the funds to send these telegrams immediately. The cost of this demonstration of protest is very small compared with the loss which all of us must sus- tain if the administration's pro- gram is permitted to pass without our organized protest. J. L. W. inhabit it. | | Peed e een eneecenetes so that action may be taken in de- | fense of our living standards on an | The defeat of this | { | times.” “THE WISH IS FATHER TO THE THOUGHT” Letters From Our Reade Because of the volume of letters re- ceived by the Department, we can print only those that are of general interest to Daily Worker readers, How- ever, all letters received are carefally read by the editors. Suggestions and criticisms are welcome and whenever possible are used for the improvement | of the Daily Worker. | “Hunger and Revolt” Is History of Our Times Syracuse, N. Y. | Comrade Editor: When the other day I received my de luxe copy of Burck’s “Hunger and Revolt,” I went through it once, twice, three times, and I have gone through it every day since. It is a masterpiece! It is a complete | worker’s schooling in a brief 200 pages. No worker can fail to be con- vinced that a change is necessary. | No farmer can fail to see the way | out, after being shown this living, every-day history of capitalism. It carries more punch and power than many of our one-hour long | speeches, It is, as Comrade Browder wrote | —he always has the most to say! in the least words—‘“It is an es-| sential part of the history of our Ss. R. Revolutionary Art Always Supported By Workers New York, N. ¥. | Comrade Editor: | The opening statement in the ar- | ticle on the dance in the issue of | February 14 was incorrect, The statement said, “Five years ago no one would believe that workers would take such an interest in the | revolutionary dance.” Workers have always jammed theatres to see good dancing and especially revolutionary dancing. Before the Workers Dance League existed, several years ago, Carnegie Hall was sold out at a benefit per- formance for the Daily Worker by @ group of Moscow revolutionary dancers—I think it was a group of Duncan dancers. rotest Vital as Supreme Court Weighs Scottsboro Decision boro boys is a matter of honor for the American work- ing class, leading the fight for the liberation of the Negro people. Funds are urgently needed. Rush aid now to the International Labor Defense, 80 East 11th Street, Room 610, New York City. . The I. L. D. has issued to be sent to the Supreme special “Scottsboro cards” Court. They can be pro- cured from the above address or from any I. L. D. office or branch. These should be distributed everywhere, The supreme Court judges are testing the power behind the mass protest. Let them know that the eyes of the working class are upon them! by Burck| STALIN G NSSASSINATED Av rede, rs Proposes Chain Letter Exposing Hearst New York, N. Y. Comrade Editor: I am one of a group of young office workers who are acutely class-conscious. I am a daily reader of your paper and together with my fellow-workers believe that it is the only real, live and truthful journal appearing before the public daily. We were particularly enthused over your anti-Hearst campaign, and we feel that it is indeed a pity that your expose of this millionaire news |distorter and war-monger cannot |be brought before the eyes of the |many millions of workers who do not read the “Daily.” One worker proposed the idea of !a concise, but effective chain letter, jdenouncing and exposing “Blood- Sucker Hearst” to be mailed to workers who are not Daily Worker readers. We all thought that this was an excellent idea to bring about an effective boycott of the Hearst press, but along with this idea it was suggested that such a program of action will gain more mass support if it is also carried out by an organization already ac- tive in anti-Hearst work. L. R. Wants Pamphlet of Casey’s Hearst Series Chicago, Ill. Comrade Editor: As one of the readers of your paper, I found James Casey’s ar- ticles about W. R. Hearst very in- teresting. Can’t you publish them in the form of a pamphlet and flood them into every corner of the U.S. A? A.C, Editor Southern Weekly Recommends “Daily” Norton, Va. Comrade Editor: As Crawford's Weekly is ceasing publication, please take the Daily Worker off the exchange list. I want to thank you for exchang- ing, as I have read every issue with interest and profit. You may have noticed in a recent, issue of the Weekly that I recommended to my readers the Daily Worker and the New Masses. Sincerely, J.C. BRUCE CRAWFORD. Required Reading for Mr. Hearst “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing govern- ment, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.” : —ABRAHAM LINCOLN. (From Lincotn’s First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861.) World Front By HARRY GANNES C. P. Congress in Britain Main Issues Ceylon Plague Still Rages | ie reports on the 13th | Congress of the Commu. jnist Party of Great Britain, which was recently concluded, ; are not yet to hand. But re. ports of the first few sessions show what great strides for- ward are being taken in the present critical situation in Britain. “From Land’s End to John o’Groat’s,” said the London Daily Worker on Feb. 2, “the whole country is in mass fer- ment against the dastardly attack of the National Government on the unemployed whose scales of relief under the new regulations of the Unemployment Assistance Board have been cut to the bone.” In this situation, the Congress called for the development of a one- day national strike on Feb. 25 in protest against the cut in relief. The Cambrian Combine Committee (rep- resenting the Welsh miners) have already decided to strike in South Wales. Declaring that “the class struggle has reached the sharpest. point wa have ever known,” Comrade Pollitt, secretary of the Party, declared the supreme issue of the hour was the forging of the united front against war and fascism. The essential con- dition for the victory of the wérkers over the increasingly fascist policy of the National Government, for in- suring the united front, and for speeding the march to a Soviet Brit- ain, was the building of a mass Communist Party. ou BRetse imperialism instructed its C. I. D. known in detective stories as Scotland Yard, to keep Comrade Marcel Cachin, leader of the Communist Party of France, out of the country so he could not at- tend the congress. James Maxton, member of Parlia- |ment for the Independent Labor |Party, who attended the Congress |as a fraternal delegate, brought his | Warm greetings to the delegates, He said the Communist Party and the I. L. P. “had much in common, in principle and in aim, and objective and in recent years they had shared @ common task in the fight against fascism and war, and against at- | tacks on the workers’ standard of life.” He called for a united front strug- gle against the India Bill, the new Slavery act against the Indian peo- ple. He told of the refusal of the National Council of the Labor Party to meet with the Communist Party and the I. L. P. to discuss a united front against the new unemploy- ment relief scales. see weve | ee a few days, the American press carried some brief :tems on the terrible epidemic sweeping Cey- lon. They reported 30,000 had died of what they called “green malaria.” In fact, there are seven plagues gripping Ceylon. One in every five of Ceylon’s population is stricken, One million people are suffering, and in the background lurks famine for all, In the district of Kegalle, where the flercest plague, malaria, began, 7,000 inhabitants died in two months. Malaria was followed by dysentery, smallpox, pneumonia, and other diseases. Crowds of cater- pillars are sweeping the fields, con- suming crops that are not burned by the sun. The peasants are too weak to tend the fields. Cate | . Ne respite is expected until April, when the monsoon rains will cleanse the mosquito-ridden swamps which British imperialism does not find profitable to wipe out. As originally pointed out in this column, the main responsibility is on the heads of the British slave- holders. They did not find it profit- able enough to send sufficient qui- nine supplies to the malaria-infested districts. And at Columbo, where most of the imperialist administra- tors live, sanitation has made their haditations comparatively safe. Sen eA a ibe illegal organ of the Commu- nist Party of Italy, “L'Unita,” gives the following details on the expropriation of Greek peasants on the Dodecanes Islands by the Ital- jan imperialists: The Italian au- thorities on the Island of Seros called upon the peasants to pro- duce documents, by Oct. 1 this year, proving their property rights to the land which they are cultivating, otherwise the whole of their prop- erty passes into the hands of the Italian state. But since these peas- ants have never heard of property registers, or any other documents with regard to the distribution of the land, since the time of the’ Turkish rule, they will not be able’ to meet this demand, and are there- fore all threatened with expropria- tion. This gigantic bandit raid by Italian imperialism on the property a the esis of the Dodecan ps ‘urnishes cause of the recent peasant conflicts among these, islands. 5