U. RECORD IN HAITI: Otherese THE MILITANT Weekly Organ of the Communist League of America Opposition VOL. II.
No. 21 NEW YORK, Saturday, December 21, 1929 PRICE CENTS Illinois Miners on the March. Accorsi Frame Up Is Smashed PEA CE SOUP LA HOOVER Cossacks Used, but the Miners Don Scab By Arne Swabeck The crude frame up against Salvatore Accorsi has been shattered. After being out for 18 hours, the jury in Pittsburgh returned with a not gullty verdict in the case.
With this verdict ends an attempt by the coal and fron kings of Pennsylvania to add another name to the long list of working class militants who have been legally murdered by the American capitalist class.
Accors was arrested and tried for murder in connection with a mass meeting in Cheswick, Pa. on August 22, 1927, to protest against the impending execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. While the workers were gathered at the meeting, a troop of state cossacks rode mounted into the meeting and began beating men, women and children in a most bestial manner. Scores of the workers were severly injured and many of them disabled. Not a single one of these uniformed thugs was ever called to account for the attempted massacre of the workers, But Accorsi, who had been at the meeting and later on moved to Staten land, New ork, was apprehended and held for the alleged killing of one of the state troopers, Downey by name. The chaos created by the charge of the troopers had, of course, made it virtually impossible to indentify any one who might have killed Downey. But the vengefulness of the Pennsylvania master class thirsted for a victim, and sought to sent Accorsi to the electric chair.
Evdence Is Too Shabby The evidence against him was so obviously trumped up, that it was found dieficult to send him on the path of Sacco and Vanzetti, The release of Accorsi is no sign at all of a softening of capitalist class brutality or Justice in Pennsylvania or any other part of the States. The fact of the deportation proceedings against John Topalchanyi, of Herminie, Pa. for the sole crime of belonging to the Communist Party, is sufficient to undo that notion.
Nevertheless, the victory gained in the Accorel case should be followed up rapidly and with greater efforts in a country wide campaign to release the rest of the class war prisoners. The imprisonment of Mooney, Billings, the Centralia the threat that hangs over the heads of the Gastonia militants, Malkin, and numerous others call for united action, photos Labor Fakers Sold Out Mooney!
On the very first day of active strike of the Illinois coal miners, called by the National Miners Union, military forces were at hand to attempt to crush it. At Taylorville the strikers, men and women, led by Freeman Thompson, fought a splen ald battle against a combination of the Peabody coal company and their flunkeys, the Fishwick Farrington administration of the United ne Workers, flanked by six hundred national guardsmen with fixed bayonets and machine guns mounted at the mine shaft, Before this battle was over the strikers received encouraging ren inforcements from all the members of the of employed at four Peabody mines at Taylorville, Tovey, Kincaid and Langley, who refused to go to work while soldiers were on guard. The strike became 100 per cent effective in these mines.
Capitalist Solldarity The soldiers were brought there from Decatur and Springfield, the latter section traveling in buses furnished by the Illinols Power Company manned by their rega ular drivers. In this manner the company could show its solidarity with the hard pressed operators.
At Pana, the two mines were closed down tight. The coal diggers had no pas tience with Frank Davis, whose efforts as the representative of the old union offclaidom and the coal operators, went all in the direction of preventing a strike. He was kept out of the meeting where the strike vote was taken. At Auburn, at the Panther Creek mine, at Buckner and at one large inine in the Belleville sub district the miners responded and downed tools, with other points, at the time this is written, expected to follow.
At Auburn occurred the next example of the combination of forces against the strikers. Representatives of the FishwickFarrington administration called a meeting of the local of ot which all the miners are still members. Only the members who were in opposition to the new union were admitted. The vote to return to work naturally carried. Immediately the state government came into action to play Its part. Mobilization of two score highway patrolmen was ordered with instruction to clear the roads leading to the Panther Creek mine. The pickets were dispersed and those miners who did return to scab thus met no opposition.
Wholesale arrests ie but another means used against the miners fighting a desperate battle against desperate conditions. It is not the leading elements alone who have landed in jail, charged with inciting to rlot, disorderly conduct, unlah ful asemblage, etc. to be let out only under exhoribant bail. No, those arrested have been carried off in truckloads, deportation proceedings to be instituted against all non citizens.
Prior to the actual beginning of the strike the sheriff of Franklin county issued a proclamation of his intentions to use all the armed forces available against the strike. He recognized only the United Mine Workers Union and its contract with the operators. It chimed in well with the proclamations of the guardians of this notorious contract, signed by Harry Fishwick, assuring all and sundry that la any event the contract would be lived up to. The Illinois Coal Operators Association has filed afidavits in the courts pledging its readiness and forces to uphold contract. All of them agree to fight this contract. No wonder that the miners take the bpposite view. Th this contract represents Continued an.
Prosperity As Usual Simultaneous with the news that the in prison. Under these conditions, it could California state prison board is taking the hardly be expected that he would be case of Tom Mooney under consideration, any great haste to reach a decision.
following its reference there by Governor Young, comes an extremely important Why was labor opposed to Mooney?
He had gone over the heads of the labor orstatement on the role of the of ganizations in San Fransisco and had himfakers in the historic frame up case made by Fremont Older, editor of the San Franselt officially empowered to organize the platform men on the the street cars by the cisco Call, and interested for years in the release of both Mooney and Bilings. Union. He made a number of efforts to International president of the Carmen Older, who cannot be charged with form them into a union but never suc.
any Communist taint. recounts how one ceeded.
governor after another washed his hands of the case, refused to have it reconsidered The Fakers Private Opinion in spite of the mountain of evidence that All he got out of it was the bitter hathe two labor organizers were framed. He tred of the labor heads, who, while publicthep remarks: ly urging his pardon, privately opposed it.
Mooney the Trouble Maker The feeling among the leaders of the la think the chief reason for the timbor men was expressed to me by one of them many years ago. They have got the ity of the previous governors was the fact right men vith the wrong evidence.
that labor, or at least the labor leaders. New York World, 12 15 29. were against the pardon of Mooney and Billings. They looked upon Mooney as a Coming from Fremont older, the trouble maker and a disturber, and they truths he voices in his statement are doubfeared if he were pardoned he would go ly impressive, particularly since he has about the state and possibly the nation ben intimately connected with virtually denouncing the powerful people in the laevery phase of the Mooney Billings case bor movement.
for the very first. His remarks prove the If at any time during these years lacontention expressed by the Communists bor could have been solidified behind the for years that the professional sell out artists of the of bad, to all intents appeal feel confident that they would and purposes, just as much of a hand ir have ben released. Even now do not think keeping Mooney and Billings confined in the labor leaders personally have much use California dungeons as the Manufacturers for Mooney, but their organizations are Asociation that framed them up. The going on record strongly demanding par chief function of the labor leaders. from don, Compers to Green, was to crush every When Gov. Young took office and the spark of fighting spirit that existed in the Mooney case was presented to him he ranka of the workers. The continued insoon learned that tabor was indifferent to prieonment of the two victims is the sharp.
what happened to Mooney and Bininga, est condemnation of the miserable and and the powerful capitalistic class was treasonable role.
of reacvery well satisfied to have them both rot tionaries played in the case. decline of 13 percent in women wages in American cotton manufacturing is shown to have taken place in the period from 1924 to 1928 by the annual report of the Women Bureau of the Department of Labor at Washington.
In 1928, the average full time earnings per week of 38, 00 women in 158 cotton mills in the eleven states included in the survey by the bureau ran to the magnificent sum of 15. 66. This figure does not even pretend to take into acount the fact that thousands of these workers are never employed an average of a full week durnig the year, thus cutting their miserable wage down further. Not one of the 12 occupations for which women earnings were reported in 1928 escaped a decline from the 1924 figure, a summary of the report cays. The more than 10, 000 spinners slowed a decrease of 14 percent in earnings, and the 8, 100 weavers a 13 percent reduction.
The chivalrous state of Alabama is at the bottom of the list with an average wage of 11. 88, wbile the noble and cultured state of Masachusetts heads the list of those that declined. in percentage, showing drop of 18 percent in four years.
Prosperity as usuall