WORKERR THE MILITANT OF THE WORLD.
UNITE VOLUME VII, NO. 21 WHOLE NO. 225 NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 26, 1934 PRICE CENTS Weekly Organ of the Communist League of America MINNEAPOLIS SHOWS THE WAY Learn From Minneapolis! Militant Mass Picket Line Routs Scabs, Cops, Special Deputies and Thugs and Stops All Commercial Transport Building Trades in Sympathy Strike; Womens Auxiliary Active in Fight; General Strike Sentement Growing; Workers Spirit Soars to BIG TODAY the whole country looks to Minneapolis. tion. This policy, employed so effectively by the Great things are happening there which reflect the Progressive liners, is bringing rich results also in Influence of a strange new force in the labor move Minneapolis. To involve tbe women in the labor ment, an intluence widening and extending like a struggle is to double the strength of the workers and spiral wave. Out of the strike of the transport to infuse it with spirit and solidarity it could not workers of Minneapolis a new voice speaks and a otherwise have. This applies not only to a single new method proclaims its challenge.
union and it siugle strike; it holds good for every It was seen first in the strike of the Coal Yard phase of the struggle up tu ils revolutionary coucluDrivers which electrified the labor movement of the sion. The grand spectacle of labor solidarity in city a few months ago and firmly established the Minneapolis is what it is because it includes also the union after a brief, stormy battle of unprecedented solidarity of the working class women.
militaucy and efficiency. Now we see the same union THE SYMPATHETIC STRIKE moving out of this narrow groove and embracing The strike of the transport Workers look an enortruck drivers in other lines.
mous leap forward and underwent a trunsformation (TELEXRAM TO THE MILITANT. By Mail Special to the Militant)
Behind this, as was the case with the Coal Drivers, MINNEAPOLIS, May 29. In the most imposing display of labor when the building trades union declared a sympaMinneapolis, Sunday, May 20th: Against the combined forces of ere are months of hard, patient and systematic thetic strike last Monday. In this action one of the solidarity and militancy Slimeapolis has ever seen a mighty picket the bosses, their legal thugs in the police department, augmented by routine work of orgunization. Everything is premust progressive and sigullicant features of the entire line of the General Drivers Chion, tive thousand strong, swept through thousands of deputies and imported gunmen, together with the American preu. Then an ultimatum to the bosses. swift, movement is to be seen. When uuions begin to call the Wholesale Market today, clearing the place of every scab, cop and Legion and the yellow press, the General Drivers Union, Local No. 674 sudden blow. Inuss picket line that sweeps every strikes, not for immediate craft gaius of their own deputy and putting a complete stop to every attempt to move com is heroically defending the very right of the workers to organize. This thing before it. The building trades come out in but for the sake of solidarity with their struggling mercial trucks except thowe authorized by special permission of the struggle is the result of the intolerable conditions forced upon the sympathy. The combined forces, riding with a brothers in other trades, and when this spirit and union.
workers by the truck owners, produce companies and all commercial mighty wave of moral support from the whole laborattitude becomes general and taken for granted as ing population of the city, take the offensive and Today action followed daily pitched battles on Saturday and delivery bosses. The issue of unionization of Labor has been 80 tue proper thing, then the paralyzing divisions in drive all the bosses thugs and hiretings to cover in thie trade union movement will be near an end aud Monday in which the cops and special deputies slugged and arrested sharply raised that the fate of the entire trade union movement hangs memorable battle at the City Market.
Lrade uuionist will begin to mean unity.
men, women and children on the picket line. With the entire laborou the balance. Never before has Minneapolis seen such a battle. The The whole country listens to the echoes of the struggle. The exploiters hear them with fear and The union of the truck drivers and the building movement roused to fury by these attacks the striking drivers, remembers of the Coinmunist League ure in the vanguard of the fight, in trepidation. Weaving the net around the automobile trades workers is an iuspiring sight. It represents enforced by other unionists, returned to the scene of coutliet today and the union and its leadership, on the picket line, in the militant Women workers with the aid of treacherous labor leaders a dynamic idea of incalculable power. Let the ex took back to union leadquarters the badges of all the rats serving as Auxiliary they are everywhere, permeating every aspect of the struggle with the spirit of Bolsbevism.
they ask themselves in alarm: It this spirit spreads smpre spread, let the idea take hold in other cities special deputies who failed to get out of the market in time and otuer trades, let the idea of sympathetic strike wbut will our schemes avail us?
Tonight the strike is one hundred percent complete. Not a truck The strike was called Tuesday, May 15th at 11:30 It came as And the workers in basic industry, vaguely sensing accion be combined with militancy and the mass the power of their numbers and strategic position, hvor will be a heud taller and immeasurably stronger.
is to be seen on the streets that does not carry the special authoriza a result of the failure of the bossess metood of the Minneapolis tighters and American tion of the union.
to grant recognition of the union night. But the least move to go and an increase in wagey.
The out on the street would cause afteen can hardly help asking themselves: If we should go On Monday 35, 000 building trades workers declared a strike in strikers massed five thousand strong or more picket cruisers and trucks Those who characterize the of unions as le politik ng caule ponython est une bourgetop company wnious and want to build new unions at sympathy with the drivers. be Communist League las raised that the large garage that served as to be at the doors with hundreds striking transport workers are a mighty any price will derive very little consolation from the slogan of general strike throughout the twin cities and sentiment for strike Headquarters and des of pickets. Each bakery boss depower in Minneapolis today. But that is only a small fraction of the power of their oxumple for the viuneapolis strike. We arve always maintained that it is spreading like wildfire.
putched pickets to strategic points cided individually, despite the incheated and betrayed workers in the big ludustries ue Lorm of a labor organizatiou, while important, is After today bitte a 24 hour truce was acceptod by the union throughout the city and brought all Structions of his Committee of of the country.
LOL decisive. Minneapolis provides another confirm under the terms of which the employers agreed llut all transporta trucking to a stand still, with the 25. not to let his trucks out.
THE MESSAGE OF MINNEAPOLIS ition, and a most convincing one of this conception. tion in so far as it concerns those represented by the employers exception of the milk, Ice and beer Battle at the Market The message of Minneapolis is of first rule impor Here is the most militant and, in many respects, the committed skill detse. Melu while negotiations are under way. The drivers who are organized and have The Farmers angle as different.
tance to the American working class. careful exmost progressively directed labor struggle that has union is demanding recognition and wage increases. If the negotia permission operate.
Leen seen for a long time. Nevertheless it is all Flying The County Sheriff swore in seventy amination of the method from all sides ought to be comlucted within the framework of the of tions fuit a general strike of sympathy with the drivers may result.
squads of pickets, toured the city deputles. They were to convoy the put as polut oue on the agenda of the labor moveThe Drivers Union is a local of one of the most Class lines are tightly drawn. Over two hundred pickets have pulling out all gas station attend por farmers into market.
ment, especially of its most advanced section. Business was going to use the small study of this epic struggle in its various aspects, conservative of Internationals, the Team Dern arrested. The union is organized for all emergencies, even to All Transport Stopped farmers to pull their chessnuts out can be an aid to their application in other tields, and, sters. the building trades, out in sympathy with the extent of removing injured pickets and providing medical attention of the tre for them by using there The city was isolated from all by that, a rapid change of the position of the AmeriLlie drivers, are all unlous, and the Central for them away from the hospitals where pickets previously taken for Labor Union bucking the drivers strike and the treatment were arrested. Cruising squads of militant pickets cover truck traffic, in an out, by mass they wanted the farmers to de can workers.
There is nothing new, of course, in a fight between possible organizing medium of a general strike, is a ordinate unit of the AF. of The local untong every strategie point. The appearance of a truck on any street brins picketing on all highways. Tbeometbing that the big produce immarket was closed like a tomb.
strikers and police and gunmen. very strike of of the of provide a wide theld for the work inmediate action.
any consequence tells the old familiar story of the great feature of the strike is the militant participation of the terminals und warehouses.
Like wise the oil tank yards, truck porters and distributors, the packing trust, the fruit trust, and the Over hounding, beating and killing of strikers by the hired revolutionary militants if they know how to work thugs of the exploiters, in and out of uulform. What telligently. This is especially true when, as in the strikers women on a mass sealo. On Monday seven hundred women, shadowing this all was a constant milling trust did not dare do tremselves. In a running battle that is out of the ordinary in Minneapolis, what is most Alinneapolis example, the inilitants actually initiate members of the Drivers Union Auxiliary, marebed on the mayor threat of the street car men going important in this respect, is that while the Miunealle organization and take a leading part in developing obice demanding the withdrawal of the special police. They carried out to get the reinstatement of men asted over an hour, the Sherif polis strike began with violent sults on the it at every stage.
lwers reading Take away your hired thugs and similar slogans, discharged for unlon membership. men were defeated, partly by being strikers it didn end there.
THE BOLSHEVIK MILITANTS Mrs. Grant Dunne, president of the auxiliary and Mrs. Farrell Dobbs, The strike was so effective that stopped, and partly because the tarmers left them and went back In pitched battles last Saturday and again on workers in the factories gave it Further development of the union, and perhaps secretary, led the demonstration, hearty cheer and began to talk home. Only three farmers trucks Monday the strikers fought back and held their own. even of the present strike, on the path of militancy In a move to head of the general strike the Regional Labor Board, organization and strike in the most Bot to market on Saturday mornAnd on Tuesday they took the offensive, with devas may bring the local leadersblp into conflict with the on direct orders from Washington, is attempting to bring about a practical manner. The frightened ing tating results. Business men volunteering to put reactionary bureaucracy of the International and also settlement. Dunne, Skoglund and other militant leaders of the union small middle class people began to Bosses Try Terror the workers in their place and college boys out for will conservative forces in the Central Labor Union. luve consistently explained the strike breaking role of this agency and deplete the shelves of the retailers When these two tactics of the a larkus special deputies to say nothiug of the This will be all the less apt to take the local leaders are warning the strikers now to watch out for any trap it may set by stocking up with supplies. The bosses failed they turned to the only uniformed cops handed over their badges and tied of the militant union by surprise, since most of them for them.
bosses and bankers and all reaction tactics left brutal terror. The in terror before the mass fury of the aroused workers. have already gone through the school of that experiAnd many of them carried away unwelcome souvenirs ence. In spite of that they did not turn their backs Everything the union has gained, since its inception with a small ary forces began to scream at the Mayor doubled the police force, then tripled it. Gunmen were imported to of the engagement. Here was a demonstration that on the trade unions and seek to set up new ones nucleus of Coal Yard Drivers, has been the result of its own strength strikers in their yellow prese the American workers are willing and able to light get after the leaders of the strike.
Under the leadership of their Deteraninei attempts were made to artiticially.
and militancy and the direct mass action of its members. These in their own interests. Nothing is more important Even when central class organization, the Citi breuk through the picket lines on came to organizing a large group of workers have been steeled in heroic battles for their rights. They zen Alliance, the leading business Priday night and Saturday. Two than this, for, in the last analysis, everything depende workers, hitherto outside the labor movement, they have learned some lessons. It will not be easy to fool them. It can men of the City called a mass sath Lundred arrests were made.
on it.
selected an of union as the medium. The be said with assurance that the Automobile settlement cannot be Jering in a huge hotel, at which they heavy clash occurred in the city Here was a stern warning to the bosses and their results of the Minneapolis experience provide some put over here. corralled the small independent bus Alarket before three wholesale vans hirelings, and not only those in Minneapolis. Trans highly important lessons on this tactical question.
fer the example and the spirit of the Minneapolis The miserable role of the Stalinists in the present iness men for frenzied struggle got through.
Twenty pickets and strikers to the steel and automobile workers, for against the labor movement, situation, their complete isolation from the great gin police were sent to the hospital.
examplo, with their mase numbers and power. Let the rulers of America tremble at the prospect. They union. This meeting elected a comspecial police rushed a truck load in general and their trade union policy in particular.
will see it! That is what the message of Minneapolis The General Drivers Union, as must be the case mittee to conduct this struggle. It means Erst of all, with every genuine mass organization, bas a broad was composed of the largest bank of women pickets on the newspaper MASS ACTION ers, industrialists, utility and commending tive to the hospital. It is row and beat them unmercifully, and representative leadership, freely selected by second feature of the fight at the City Market democratic methods. Among the leaders of the union New York City. Challenging the on the Committee as splitting the mercial leaders of the city.
This these tactics of the police that inwhich deserves special attention is the fact that it move was made because they were spired the striking drivers to fight are a number of bolshevik militants who never con bosses Memorial Day. imperialist united front.
was not the ordinary encounter between individual cealed or denied their opinions and never changed war preparations and the growing Notwithstanding this attack the confident that they had the support all the harder and puts to shame strikers and individual scabs or thugs. On the con them at anybody order, whether the order came wave of Fascism, the United Youth United Youth Committee continued of the Mayor office and the Police any workers that stand on the side trary take note the whole union went into action from Green or from Stalin.
Committee Agaiust War and Fasto approach the American League Department. The trump card they inc.
on the picket line in mass formation; thousands of The presence of this nucleus in the mass move cism calls upon the young workers conference for common action. The decided to play was to be the farm. Ployd Olsen, the Farmer Labor other union men went with them; they took along the necessary means to protect themselves against ment is a feature of the exceptional situation in and students of the city to demon Letter of the Committee was an art and track gardeners use of the Governor, attempted to bring the May 30th. swered by the Youth Section of the City Market, together with the bosses and the strikers together to the murderous thugs, as they had every right to do the other aspects of it. The most important of all Despite efforts to achieve a common American League addressing itself. movement of bread from the baker This was an example of mass action which points prerequisites for the development of a militant labor demonstration with the youth con through the Dally Worker, not to Broad trucks were loaded and Bosses refused to make any concesthe way for the future victorious struggles of the movement is the leaven of principled communists. ference called by the Youth Section the Committee itself, but to the lined up to go out on Wednesday sions whatsover and demanded that American workers.
It is not a strike of the men alone, but of the ideas intelligently they are invincible. The labor Fascism, there will be two demon League for Industrial Democracy! the May 31st Naval Maneuvers in clared their willingness to negotiate When they enter the labor movement and apply their of the American League Against Circle League and the student perialist War and Fascism, Protest cla.
Governor Olsen call out the MILThe Strikers committee women also. The Minneapolis Drivers Union pro movement grows as a result of this fusion and their strations in the city. The Stalinceeds on the theory that the women bave a vital Influence grows with it. In this question, also, Ists have rejected the most elemenThe terms stated in this letter Defend Thaelman and Torg and demanded that the police be interest in the struggle, no less than the men, and Minneapolis is showing the way.
tury conditions for such a united mit any mention of the decisive ler, Defend the Four Deported Ger called of it negotiations were to be draws them into action through a special organiza JAMES CANNON. front: a common acceptable name questions common leaflet and a man Youth, Protest the Murder of taken up again. This has resulted for the demonstration, a common common name other than National the Cuban Masses by the Agents of in a deadlock, with each side massNon Partisan Labor Defense Protests Police Attack on Workers Leaflet, a joint committee represent ferred to although it is clear from the Reactionary Attack on the sto settle thelr point on Monday Youth Day is not even re American Imperialism, Remembering for the big attempt of the bosses ing both conferences representatives of the Stalinists Yipsels last Memorial Day, Smash morning. The swift developments (I :ess Service of Non Partisan and the Provigional Committee for Brooklyn, a member of the Stalinists Force Split that they will not retreat from this Fascism by forging a United Front of the strike are putting the GovLabor Defense)
Non Partisan Labor Defense which Every possible concession was position.
of Workers and Students Organizernor on the spot. Whether or not New York Charges against the represents several individual com The attacks occurred in the lobby made by the United Youth Commit Mobilize for May 30 ations, the demonstration will be a to call out the Militia he can deNew York police will shortly be plainants, announced today that of the courtroom presided over by tee to achieve this common action. This unscrupulous attempt to great step torward genuine unlted cide. No reliance can be put upon laid before Police Commissioner they have sent a letter to the Police Magistrate Burke, where a number To no avail! The Young Commu place the responsibility of the spilt front. The young Socialist, Com the Governor or the Labor Board to Ryan as a result of incidents Commissioner requesting an ap of persons were to be tried for par nist League in essence proposed that on the United Youth Committee munist and Student groups repre settle anything favorably for the which occurred Thursday night in pointment.
ticipating in an anti Naul street this Committee either join their a piece of arrogance that must be sented in the United Youth Commit workers. This is tirelessly erthe West Side Night Court. Spokes The letter charges that police on meeting in Times Square. When National Youth Day or no united exposed. The Committee will issue too are determined to begin the unit plained by the militant leadership Party, the duty in the court attacked specta the cases came up some fellow. front would be achieved. Even a public statement on the negotia ed struggle against capitalist re of the strike. All energy and all Communist Lengue of America, the tors and bystanders without provo demonstrators in the courtroom in while the United Youth Committee tions. The next issue of the Mil. acton, Imperialist war and Fascism, hope is directed to the mass picket Young Peoples Socialist League, cation, beat them with weapons and curred the wrath of the Magistrate was still considering, with the know. tant will contain the statement of Assemble at 136th St. and st. line, the largest and most militant and the Spartacus Youth Club Ats, restrained them Illegally by voicing thelr objection to the ledge of the Stalinist committee, the Spartacus Youth Clubs. Nicholas Ave. at 12:30 Minneapolis has ever seen. Dew which led Thursday night counter from leaving the court, and in one proceedings. number of skirmways of overcoming the obstacle in An militant youth must be mo March in solid ranks to 110th st. type of labor struggle is unfolding demonstration against the pro Hit case drew a pistol on Dave ishes between the police and spec the road toward unity, the Dally Dilized in full force for May 30th and 6th Avenue for the mass meet hero. The bosses and their biroling ler Madison Square Garden Meeting Schwartz of 1463 Ocean Avenue, tators ensued.
Worker already contained an attack Under the slogans of: Against Im ing! All out on May 30th. Continged on Page 1)
una sortugee, is the poslate nelonies of the Youth Demonstration Against War. The leveral beren saturday night te lopend And Fascism on May 30th dethe James Cannon Speaker The Socialist Party owned 4th International Sunday May 27, IRVING PLAZA 15th St. and Irving Pl.