Evening Star Newspaper, July 2, 1936, Page 24

B2 RED MENACE ADDS TONEXCANSTRFE Showdown to Come When Cardenas Is Forced to Act in Labor Crisis. LABOR troubles in Mezico, and the ever-present menace of communism, are described here in the fourth of a series of six articles on Mezico’s changing social order, written by an expemigneed mews- paper man who has traveled widely in the Southern Republic. BY GORDON GORDON. MONTEREY, Mexico, July 2 (N. AN.A)—Torn by labor dissension, Mexico is averaging one new strike & day, a record for a nation which is predominantly agricultural. In attempting to free itself from | a feudal age and to mold a powerful proletariat which would dictate to commerce, Mexico is skimming | perilously close to economic chaos. | Such is the opinion of most financiers in this and other major industrial centers who are convinced that, un- less President Cardenas acts this Sum- | mer to moderate the outbursts of the | workers, the financial structure will | crack. The threat of disaster which impends in the countryside over theg socialistic schools is paralleled in the | cities by the violent labor turmoil. The government is openly allied with the workers to “resist the rapa- | ciousness of the wealthy classes.” The | six-year plan, providing for Mexico's course from 1934 to 1940, states clearly that the government shall throw all of its weight with the syndicates (unions) against the capitalists. Until recently, the Cardenas ad- ministration was following the six- | vear plan to the very letter, but| then the President stopped a strike | on the Mexican National Railways in | “the interests of the public good.” His decision was acclaimed by busi- ness leaders as the first step toward a return to sane government, but the dictators of labor, who acceded to the President’s request because “of his long record in the interests of | the working man,” prophesied that Cardenas would not change his policy of 18 months of favoring the unions, and numerous judgments of the labor boards since that time apparently | confirm the statements of the syndi- | cat eheads. There is no evidence of a | change by the Cardenas administra- | tion in its radical labor policy. | Labor Assured Victory. The strike circle is like a Mother Goose jingle. The owner of a busi- | ness may employ only syndicate workers, who may strike whenever they wish. If they do, he takes his case to one of the Labor Boards, hand picked by the government, and the labor arbitrators, unless the | workers are demanding so much that | the amount would bankrupt the busi: ness, rule against the owner. He ap- | pears to the courts, but the justices | are also selected for their loyalty to | “revolutionary principles.” As punish- ment for not settling with the workers | in the first place, he may be ordered to pay the workers a certain sum for their expenses while they were idle. Here are a few recent examples: 1. After a five months’ strike at the | Guanajuato Mines and Reduction Co. | in Guanajuato, the dispute finally | reached Genaro Vasquez, director of the federal labor department, who | ruled for the workers and assesed the company 50,000 pesos, about $14,000, | which was to be paid the strikers ror} losses suffered while they were not | on the pay rolls. i 2. In the Huasteca petroleum strike, : the labor boards decided that, pending \ settlement of the dispute, the com- pany must employ 44 per cent of the ' strikers as “watchmen.” | 3. The electric light and power com- | pany of Tehuantepec reached the point where it couldn't “co-upcrltei with the workers™” and the government agreed that the workers should take | over the property. 4. The wealthy hemp owners in Yucatan refused to allow the aml]ll producers to borrow their equipment, whereupon Yucatan declared every- thing used in the sisal industry a | public utility, subject to the direction of the state. The hemp barons are | now virtually poor land tenants. Business Seeks Relief. Business leaders appeal almost daily to President Cardenas for relief. *“The number of strikes occurring daily, with the consequent damage to industry and the nation's credit, is alarming,” they protested recently in a petition. | The president’s blunt answer was | epochal for a chief executive of a | republic. He said: “Employers who‘, are tired of the social struggle may | turn their industries over to the work- men or to the government.” ‘ Infuriated, business leaders issued | @ scathing denunciation of the gov- | ernment’s course. They declared: “We | will not, nor can we, turn over our factories, our business, and our com- panies, because ours is a trust and a | responsibility, because the laws pro- | tect us, and because, in the majority of cases, we are no more than trustees | of the property of others.” The Presi- ident replied with a threat that the | masses might rise up if wages were hot greatly increased. Entangled in the question of strikes and wages is the one of communism. ‘The Communists, led by the fiery Her- nan Laborde, oppose Cardenas’ plan for a peaceful formation of & strong proletariat, although they are not above riding on the band wagon of his {deas, realizing that the federal gov- ernment is sowing a crop of thoughts that they may reap. Bivouacked here in this Northern | outpost of Red propaganda, only 150 miles south of the American border, the Communists are dreaming of the day 10 years from now, when they hope to give the United States a lusty slap. , Plan Expansion. Cockily, they expect to take over | Mexico within the next five years and to swallow up the Central American Republics during the following five years, giving them an empire which would stretch from the American border to the American Panama place them m our moth-proof storage vault by a modern process. Cost Per Season Fur Coats, $50.00 Value $1.50 Fur Coats. $100.00 Value $2.00 for valuations over $100.00 add 50c for each additional $50.00 valuation. Canal. Such a country would pro- vide a convenient headquarters for Red agents operating in the United States. But, more important, in case of.8 world war with the United States pitted against Russia, such a nation might throttle the Panama Canal, severing the Atlantic Fleet from the Pacific, and send a million Russian- trained soldiers along the Rio Grande to keep the United States occupied at home. The dream sounds fantastic, and it is, but there are a few fragments of reality about it that are worrying Mexican financiers. The Communists are numbered at 75,000, not counting a large body of symapathizers, and they are growing at the rate of 2,000 to 5,000 every month. From headquar~ | ters here, in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Vera Cruz, Red leaders are di- recting 500 paid workers and several thousand volunteers. Their educational program has been well handled by Laborde. “The In- ternacionale” is sung from the Ameri- can to the Guatemalan border. School children hum it on the strets of even the isolated rancherias in the fmountains and jungles. The school children also observe November 7, the anniversary of the Russian revo- lution, and many schools close in ob- servance of Lenin’s death. To many of the Mexican peasantry, Stalin is a hero. Cardenas Favors Capitalism. Cardenas and Emilio Portes Gil, di- rector of the all-powerful National Revolutionary party, have consistently protested that they are not only op- posed to communism, but that they favor the capitalistic system as the best one for Mexico, and that their desire is only to build a proletariat which may share in the .profits of industry, not take over the industry itself. Even the booming confederation of workers is fighting the red propaganda. The influential Vicente Toledano, who heads the confederation, realizes that | the workers lack the capital and | technical ability for such destruction of capitalism and that Mexico does not possess the men, the raw supplies, or a temperament for the Soviet system. But the financiers here ask, “Can Cardenas stop the ever increasing demands of the workers before they swing definitely to Communism?” In i THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, 'D. _C. THURSDAY, JULY 2, 1936 T a statement sent to the President recently, the nation’s industrial lead- er's declared: “The insistent and fre- acks of unions against in- s—moved by a desire of acquiring a part of the property and even of the rights of the proprietors— will end in bringing about a social and economic state akin to that of communism.” Cardenas engineered his break with Gen. Plutarco Elias Calles, the former dictator, on the support of the workers, When Cardenas took office in 1934, labor was wallowing in the depression. Primarily a country of small farming communities, which are self-sufficient for virtually all their wants, Mexico suffered comparatively little fyom the world economic crisis. Only the work- ers in the cities felt the blow. Wages, already extremely low, shrunk 30 per cent within two years. The average city laborer received 15 pesos & week, about $4.20. He was able to exist on this, because of low living costs, until prices began to rise in 1934. Encouraged Strikes. Cardenas saw in the economic sit- uation an opportunity to win the sup- port of the masses for himself, which would enable him to end the 16-year dictatorship of Calles. He encouraged strikes, personally advised syndicate workers how to carry on their dealings with employers, and saw that men of his own choice were on the labor boards. The wages of the syndicate work- ers in the year and a half have increased, but living costs also have climbed. Some divisions of union labor have benefited from 10 to 40| per cent, but the great mass of labor has not yet found much difference in the ratio between the weekly pay check and the weekly living expcnses. Cardenas is rapidly moving toward a choice of roads. The communists | are growing more brazen as they grow stronger numerically. Unless he moves to curb them, they will either threaten his administraiion with disaster or will force him to go along with them. As the crisis moves into the Sum- mer, the workers and employers are deadlocked. Cardenas soon must act to end the continuous succession of strikes which are damaging the in- | dustrial life of the nation. (Coryright, 1036, by the North American Newspaper Alliance, wne.) Phik U Staest Pbl)bl‘ll Barwesn F &G it's back o black Of course, the true so- phisticate never forsakes black . . . This sheer black mousseline over taffeta is simple enough to pass any acid test . . . just @ white braid collar and cuff and pearl buttons relieve its dark sheerness. Also navy and brown sheers ot SI 6.95 EDGAR T0 TESTIFY AT BALM SUIT Watchman Describes How He Watched Love Scene Through Window. Ey the Associated Press. MIAMI, Fla., July 2—James Edgar, jr., said by a night watchman to have joined several hotel employes peeking through open windows at a bed room love scene involving Mrs. Edgar, was called as a witness today in his $300,- 000 suit against a wealthy oil man. Edgar, a Detroit resident, charged Lewis E. Mallory, 3rd, of Bradford, Pa, with seducing Mrs. Kathryn Crawford Edgar, former film actress from New York, and alienating her af- fection. The Edgars were divorced last Friday. Watchman Describes Scene. Edgar was sworn as a witness along with three employes of the Deauville Hotel who testified yesterday that they watched a number of meetings between the Mrs. Edgar and Mallory in the latter’s room last March. William Holstrunk, the night watch- | man, told of encountering Edgar out- | side the windows one night. | “Of course there always had been s0 many people there I thought it was some one from the kitchen,” he sald, explaining that half a dozen of | the help congregated and peeped on | 5 to 10 oecasions. | “Do you mean to tell this jury that| Edgar stood outside there and watched his wife having relations with another man and did nothing about it, made no outery?” asked John M. Murrell, counsel for Mallory. | Dragged Edgar Away. “Mr. Edgar was so nervous he couldn’t say anything,” Holstrunk said. | Ve COATS LINGERIE PRICE SALE DRESSES “I dragged him with all my strength away.” The watchman still wa® under cross- examination at adjournment. Mrs. Edgar, a trim, blue-eyed bru- nette, was called as the first witness for her former husband. She acknowledged wiring Mallory in Winter Park, Fla.: “Nothing worth while without you, my dear. I love you with every fiber of my soul and will pray every day you are away that you will come back free of heart and mind. Such is my love for you.” Cross-examined, however, she ac- cused her husband of daring her to have an affair with Mallory—“one of his pet tricks,” she called it—and said she drafted the telegram in Edgar's presence, . Picture Man Puzzles Police. Police of Prague, Czechoslovakia, are trying to learn the identity of a man with a picture of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden tattoed on his chest. He is the victim of an automobile accident, and is & walking picture book. On his left arm is & man wearing a top hat. On the right arm are three female figures. His left thigh bears a portrait of | Christopher Columbus and the right ' GLORIOUS 4’l‘ll “PUT YOUR HEAD . IN HANDS" 1019 Connecticut Ave. NAtional 8188 PRE-HOLIDAY SUITS —and we mean “A ROUSING SALE” ... 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Despite his months of criticism of the national administration and his i0 Twelfth St. . just in time CLEARANCE opposition to Roosevelt's nomination, | the Governor has denied any intention of bolting his party in November. The Atlanta Constitution predicted | in a news story today that Talmadge would seek the Senate seat held by | Richard B. Russell, jr., stanch admia- istration supporter. ‘The paper also said Charles D. Red- | wine, State Senate President, would be the Talmadge candidate for Governor. | Some friends of the Governor have | indicated he might not run for any office, but would take the stump for candidates he indorsed for the gover- norship and other State offices. Talmadge has sald he would “open | his campaign” in a speech Saturday a McRae, his home town. Entries for the September primary close at 11 a.m. | Saturday. ! for the 4th! Gold Field Expands. The famous Witwatersrand gold fleld in South Africa is to be extended. 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