Τ Ε MILITANT Page Saturday, March 22, 1936 Seaman on Conditions The MILITANT unton which the rank and Ale will control through ship committees, the reality of the situation was expressed by Hines, the New York secretary. He told at a membership meeting, which was in revolt against the bureaucratic methods and lack of initiative of tho League officers, that the would run the League and not the seamen.
Mind you, had to ask several who were present at the meeting before could belleve it. That seamen are willing to organize and fight the hellish ship conditions afloat is obvious. Narrow Policy The Longshoremen are likewise disgusted with the grafting and sellout tactics of Joe Ryan and company. The Marine Workers League has made a little progress, in spite of its leadership rather than because of it. Right here are workers prepared to struggle. Drop the monkey business, and backstairs third period diplomacy. Encourage the rank and file to look after their welfare in the organization. broadening of the leadership is necessary. Seamen will certainly fight for better conditions, More attention to the everyday struggles of the seamen and less prominence to the latest contortions of the third period.
It is not enough to line up a member and then let him drift away. man be comes a member in haphazard and lackadaisical manner and then he is of no further interest or else he is informed that so and so are a bunch of sabotagers. This causes him to quit. Why not try to put some of the paper resolutions into practice?
Two years have passed and still no union, and unless the Party throttling grip is relaxed, then the new union will die. The situation demands action. Either the Party means business, in wnich event the bureaucratic methods now adopted will have to be dropped or else the Party and League will get nowhere. Seamen demand a showdown, as they say on the waterfront. JAMES RUSSELL Miners Conventions The Militant Dear Comrades: Shipping today isn what it was. It never is. The man who comes before the board in the Seamen Institute with his discharge in his hand and his heart in his mouth, every time the high priest comes out to chalk up a job, vowing that it he gets a ship that half decent. he will never be on the beach again, Had better get wise to himselt. There isn any such animal today as a half decent ship and the average seaman knows that.
o meet competition in this industry and to carve blmself a good hunk of profit the ship owner in Amerioan, as elsewhere, builds his ships so that they can be loaded and dicharged faster and cheaper, builds them with Diesel Engines and oil burners instead of coal burners, Iron mike and pneumatic chippers and spray painting outAts are installed. But he cuts his crew down to a skeleton (and some of them look like skeletons after a month or two on some wagons know. They are cutting below the level demanded by ordinary safety. In a word, he overloads his ships and overworks crew. Hence we have Vestris disasters, which will become more common in the future. Ramsay MacDonald who is chief spokesman and lord high Juggler for the British capitalists now has demanded a raising of the load line and what the British ship owners says, goes in the marine industry.
What does it matter to this highsouled blatherskite, it thousands of seamen are condemned to certain death, so long as it means an extra margin of profit to the class he supports. America, as a great imperialist nation, feels the need of a merchant marine, not only for peaceful trade, but as an useful Auxilia the leet in case of war. The Jones White Pact passed last year grants subsidies to American shipowners to build whips in accordance with the plans of the Naval Board, and shows which way the wind blows. Already shipowners are getting into action with the full support of the government and are preparing to fight a stitt battle for mercantile supremacy with Great Britain, Seamen Disorganized It the events in the marine Industry since the war are any criterion, one can see the ship owners have driven seamen back all over the world. The I, and once proud and powerful organ.
izations, now exist as a mere shadow of their former selves, pale ghosts who haunt the waterfront. The of Great Britain with its PC is in reality under the control of the shipowners. Everywhere, with one or two exceptions, seamen are demoralized, conditions aboard the ships are utterly barbarous. Bulldozing and hazing with blackjacks by the officers take place. The watch system is practically universal, with all kinds of dodges to get unpaid overtime work.
As for improvement in these conditions, look at what is happening. The new ships Europa and Bremen of the Nord Deutcher Lloyd symbolize the increasing tempo of competition for trade, fanning to white heat the already intense struggle.
The freight market has continually been dropping for years.
American finance spital intends to build a merchant fleet, and the cost price, with a profit attached, will be paid for by the blood and sweat and suffering of Amer.
ican seamen. For 50 per month meantime and later for less. The ship owners stand well organized, well prepared for the battle.
What leadership does the Party offer the seamen?
The policy of the Communist party in the Seamen League, has been a duplicate of that followed in the coal miners union and elsewhere. All non Party elements of any standing among the seamen are ousted or kept submerged. Anyone, even Party members who oppose or differ from secretary Mink are likewise ousted and attempts made to discredit them. While paper the outfit struggles to build a (Continued from Page 1)
wave of sentiment for union democracy Farrington was finally seated, after the provision for greater autonomy of the a stormy debate which consumed the great district organizations which was promoer part of two days, by a vote of 225 to 145. ted as a safeguard against the autocracy The fight over the credentials of this reac of national oficials made so odlous by tionary crook and grafter became the dom Lewis, opens the door for trouble from aninating issue of the convention. It sym other quarter. Such decentralization is, at bolized the elements of corruption and re betton, a step backward. In practice it action in the new union and the deter will weelten the national battle front of mination of the rank and file to uproot the urion and provide justification for them. The vote was, to a certain extent, strike breaking separate agreements by a measure of. comparative strength of the treacherous District officials of the Fishtwo forces on a show down issue, a measure wick type. Moreover, while it will tend that was weighted in favor of the roac to protect a progressive district against tionaries by the Left wing boycott of the the disruptive interference of a Lewis, it convention.
will also shield a reactionary and corrupt Farrington, formerly president of the district machine from the corrective inIllinois district and long a bitter enemy of fluence of the national organization. The all progressive tendencies in the union, was Fishwick Farrington elements undoubtedly exposed in 1926 as the paid employee of supported district autonomy with such conthe Peabody Coal Company under contract siderations in mind.
at 25, 000 per year. He was expelled in Already at the Springfield convention 1926 and re admitted recently into the the principle of autonomy on its face a union after the break of the Illinois Digstep forward was invoked in defense of trict with the Lewis organization. The Fishwick and Nesbit against the proposal case against Farrington is clear and unfrom the floor for their removal. John disputable. At the time of his expulsion Hindmarsh, speaking on these proposals, a letter written to him by Peabody was said that for the convention to meddle in made public by Lewis in which Farrington, the internal affairs of a district would protesting against Peabody instructions mean giving the new union officers the not to run again for the office of district power we are seeking to wrest from Lewis.
president, said: feel that can serve It was this argument that shielded them you better as an official of the Minors from the demand for an accounting of union. Despite this clear proof of his their administration of the district organperfidy, Fishwick, who had beca Farring ization. It also helped to squeeze through ton henchman and an accomplice in his the credentials of Farrington. It will have evil deeds, backed his credentials and jam similar implications in the future it Howmed them through with the weight of the at, as president of the national organizaIllinois district machine.
tion, disappoints their calculations to use What effect this action and the battle him as a harmless decoration of progress which centered around it will have on and militancy for their reactionary designs, the tortunes of the new union remains to Communists Adopt Isolntion Policy be seen. Farrington hailed the result as An Interesting feature of the Springa vindication of his honor. but he folfield convention was the re emergence of lowed it with the announcement that he the socialist elements and the assertion of would take his seat and participate no socialist influence in the now union. The further in the convention. Nevertheless, Socialist party, once a power in the United he remains power behind the scenes Mine Workers, has had no influence whatfa the Illinois district organization, the ever in recent years. Its place was taken strongest body in the union, and the foue by the rising Communist party which, remain3. The progressive rank and filo forces. consolidated themselves in the strusfighting aggressively and employing skillful tactics, gained influence over a big progle to unseat Farrington and an expansicn gressive movement of the rank and file.
of the new union in the coal falda wl! The Communists have lately manoeuvered create the conditions to broaden these themselves orto a side track by 111 advised forces and increase their strength.
tactics. toycott the Springfield convenProgressives Measures Brought Forward tion. and made no effort to assert themThe power developed in the fight over solvos in this new movement. The Socialthis question forced a number of progresists, who are no doubt grateful to the sive measures through the convention. third period for this opportunity, made Among them were the following: the the most of it to edge into a strong position amendmeat of the preamble to replace the at Springfield. The election of Germer demand for an equitable share of the as vice president of the new union is the fruits of their labor with the demand for symbol of a formidable socialist advance the full social value of their product. in one of the most important sectors of the the five day week and six hour day from American labor movement.
bank to bank; the advocacy of unemploy Next week Mutant will contain far.
ment Insurance; the reduction of officers ther detalled reports of the Springfield salaries by 50 per cent and restrictions of convention and the first of a series of an.
their powers.
alytical articles on the miners union and One measure, pushed through on the the tasks of the Left wing.
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Name Address City State SLX MONTHS, FOR REFUSAL TO SALUTE FLAG SAN FRANCISCO It will cost Henry Kelster six months of his life because ha refused to salute the American flag at a Washington birthday parade. He was jalled under the open charge of vagrancy later turned to contempt of court when Kelster maintained his refusal to salute the dag in Police Judge Steiger court and denounced labor conditions. He is held is jall under 250 ball pending appeal.