SOCIALIST APPEAL AUGUST 13, 1938 Pinning em Down SOCIALIST APPEAL Vol. II No. 33 Saturday, August 18, 1988 Published every week by the SOCIALIST APPEAL PUBLISHING ASS at 116 University Place, New York, Telephone: National Office: Algonquin 8547 Subscriptions: 00 per year; 00 for six months. Forelgn: 50 per year. Bundle order cents per copy. Single copies cents.
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MAX SHACHTMAN Editor HAROLD ROBERTS GEORGE CLARKE Associate Editors STANLEY Business Manager Appeal JAW STALINISM Judge Orders But.
Unable to destroy the militant and successful Minneapolis Truck Drivers Union by a direct attack, the Minneapolis bosses are now pro ceeding in an indirect manner to accomplish their most cherished aim, the complete destruction of Local 544 and with it, of the entire Minneapolis trade union movement.
Suffice it to say that the Minneapolis truck drivers who won brilliant strike victories in spite of thugs, gunmen and murderous police officers, will not permit their union to be destroyed by a legal maneuver ostensibly initiated by alleged members of the union, but actually, from the very beginning, the result of the initiative of the Employers Association.
Five finks who claim to be members of the union filed a suit in the District Court of Minneapolis, alleging that the officials of 544 were dishonest, and demanded an accounting of the funds collected and expended. It was easily proved that those who complained to the capitalist court were not members in good standing, and that some of them were actually participating in the organization of an opposition union, recognized by all the workers of Minneapolis as a fink union. That alone should have con vinced any impartial tribunal that the suit was not instituted in good faith, but Judge Frank Reed is a notoriously labor hating judge and he did all that could be expected of him by the employers.
The complainants in the case filed a petition, asking for an order of the court permitting them to go through all the records of the union in order to prepare their case. When they made their false and malicious charges, they did not have a particle of evidence to support them; so they asked the judge for permission to look through the union records in order to find some evidence to support their charges. travesty on justice if there ever was one.
Judge Reed granted the finks the order they asked for, but from what we know of the of ficers of Local 544 it will be a long, long time before the finks get to see the books and records of the union, order or no order.
There will be enemies of the union who will ask with an assumed air of innocence: Why shouldn the union officials offer the union records for inspection? What have they to fear?
No intelligent worker will be taken in by such AMERICA PERMANENT DEPRESSION. III Roosevelt Smiles on the Unemployed When Elections were som er en met de hond the folder where every Roll Around; But WPA Scales Are Lower Than Ever.
for the bosses court that co operates so en Made By Union Labor thusiastically in the work of attempting to de stroy the union, and they will show their con tempt by fighting to the last ditch to preserve LOS ANGELES their organization and the wonderful gains By JAMES CASEY that came to them through that organization.
MID SUMMER MARRIAGE Mexican People Speaks The Communist and Republican parties of New York City have just married, with American Labor party officiating To the insolent and provocative note Corover the revolting, but not unexpected, ceremony. It is the very same Republican party which, according to the Daily Worker in dell Hull, President Lazaro Cardenas of Mexico the last election campaign, was inextricably tied to Hearst and the Liberty League and was mercilessly driving the nation to last week addressed a reply which spoke with to fascism.
the authentic voice of the Mexican people unit Now, just a few short months later, Stalinists are firing their propaganda furnaces with new sophistic fuel, and soon they will ing in their determination to resist the exactions be telling New Yorkers that, to save civilization from the Demoof imperialism.
cratic bourbons of the South, they must unite for Republican candidates in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and possibly, the Rejecting Hull thesis that expropriations Bronx.
could be carried out only when full and immeIn return, the Republicans of the staid and respectable Tory clans will peddle votes among Social Registerites for this happy diate cash payment was made for the proper collection of Stalinist candidates: ties expropriated, Cardenas reasserted the right Vito Marcantonio, president of the Stalinist Internaof the Mexican people to take whatever steps tional Labor Defense, for Congress. We wonder if Marin relation to property that they themselves cantonio nomination had anything in common with the found just and necessary for their own welfare telephone conservations over a long, long period between Mr. Earl Browder stooge and Mayor Little Flower and freedom.
LaGuardia. Cardenas note pointed out furthermore, that Alan Taub, ambitious lawyer and activist in the for State Senator. In 1931 Mr. Taub was assigned it was also for the Mexican people to decide how by his Communist Party unit to work in the.
LLD. After and when payment was to be made. He exwinning some distinction for losing cases, Taub was transposed the hypocrisy of Great Britain and the ferred to the United Front Supporters. When that fly byUnited States by showing that through the boy.
nicht mass organization passed out along with a half. for cott they have set up against Mexico, they make Peace and Democracy. From there he went on to fraction entirely impossible any payment at the same work in the Labor party. time that they demand complete and immediate Jacob Rosenberg, head of Local 802, Musicians Union, payment of L, for Congress. Rosenberg is an old hand at carrying out the party line, regardless of how often or Cardenas courageous action will, we are conhow crazlly It gyrates. He would be an Ideal representative fident, meet with the support not merely of evin Washington for the Polburo. ery revolutionary socialist, but of all militant Carlo Eugene Connolly, division leader, for Congress.
703 CTTO workers and anti imperialists. Connolly is an ardent follower of Michael Quill, Stalinists trade union spokeman, and therefore safe for Mr.
The issues now being raised by the WashBrowder. ington Administration offensive against Mexico Quite appropriately, as part of the alliance vows, the Staare of crucial importance to the labor move.
linists and Republicans will campaign for Tammanyite Congressment in this country. Here is no foreign fasbaiter with the possible exception of Earl Browder himself. Supcism or foreign capitalism about which it is port has also been pledged by the Stalinists to Democratic Con easy to pass resolutions. Here is the hand of the gressman Celler, protege of the late (Boss) John MoCoocy of enemy at home, of the great democrat and Good Brooklyn.
As has been noted, the People Frontist nuptials of Stalinists Neighbor, Roosevelt himself, being raised aloft with Republican and Democrats, too, come not as a surprise.
in order to strike down, if possible, the hopes They merely bear out Browder testimony before the recen State and aspirations of our Mexican brothers and comrades.
preserve the institutions of capitalist democracy and against those who would undermine our government and further, that The demand of American labor must be diwe must not be compared with the Trotskyites and Lovestoneites, rected more firmly and loudly against the Roosewho proclaim the opposite opposite of those policies which have described. So spoke Mr. Browder, Stalin official mouthpiece, velt Hull policy of imperialist intervention into and it is in the record.
the affairs of Mexico. American workers must By ART PREIS tion for was four billion per month paid unskilled work dollars. Unemployment in the fall ers in large industrial centers in make clear their support of and solidarity with Someone has said that man is of 1935 was about 11 million. At the north eastern states, where BROW DER SEVEREST CRITIC the Mexican people in their struggle to achieve the only animal who can con its peak in February, 1936, unionism and unemployed organBut Molswaye Olgin, Browder official blographer and the their own full social, economic and political vince himself that things are not employed 3, 863, 000 workers. From izations and mass actions were editor of the Communist Party Jewish organ, has said in public freedom by shaking the incubus of the exwhat they are, but he would like that date until July, 1937, almost extensive, were offset by the print, also for the record, the following: them to be.
though unemployment had de incredible coolie wages paid in ploiting imperialisms.
The history of the federal relief clined less than 25 per cent ac the South and the rural areas. The system we are living under in the United States can hardly be called a democracy even in name. Even the More concretely, we return again to the pro program from 1935 to the present cording to the government own demonstrates this fact. Much of consus, the was reduced, At its peak, wages, in pretense of representative government has been abanposal previously put forward in these columns the cheering for Roosevelt is through systematic and ruthless cluding the wages of the skilled doned. Congress has ceded the prerogatives of law making one man, Roosevelt, who is a virtual dictator, acting Why cannot the cooperatives, some of them of based on the completely false wholesale dismissals, by more and professional workers, averconsiderable size, now engaged in refining and idea that there has been a sub than 50 per cent, to 1, 800, 000 aged only 15. 91 per month. This through a number of boards appointed by him.
stantial improvement in the con workers.
is less than the highest averages distributing gasoline and other petroleum prodof those who would argue for working class party joining ditions of the unemployed during for unskilled laborers alone duructs, begin the breaking of the unofficial boycott, Contrast the present one and a ing the and For with capitalist parties for progressive measures. Brother Olgin the past three years. Actual facts has aald without equivocation: in line with their own statutes and principles, by and figures prove there has been quarter billion dollars WPA three years, the pala You will not be surprised If we call these reformists with original purchasing Mexican petroleum? At this stage, a gradual and subtle decline in workers in certain southern areas four billion, and the maximum of as little as 19 per month. The traitors to the working class. They are that. And there is when Mexico is fighting against tremendous the living standards of the unno fundamental difference in this respect between reformemployed BS whole during the 12, 800, 000 jobs provided under the security wage is a ghastly joke, odds for economic life, even comparatively present fund with the almost unless it implies merely security ists belonging to the Republican and Democratie parties period of the and the reformists belonging to the Socialist Party(or small purchases would be of incalculable value, four million jobs at the 1936 peak. trom immediate starvation. It story is related of the scient. There are, variously estimated, the Communist Party Olgin continued not less because of the splendid demonstration William Green or John Lewis, Matthew Woll or they would give of anti imperialist internaist who experimented with frogs. two to five million more unem certainly cannot mean freedom He placed them alive in a pan ployed now than in February, from anxiety, want or poverty David Dubinsky, Edward McGrady or Sidney Hillmanin the dictionary sense.
Ho matter how different their coloring may be, they are tionalism of water over a very low flame. 1986, but a million less birds of a feather.
The pan was sufficiently shallow jobs, and an appropriation that Recently, minimum wages on to permit the frogs to hop out. will last no further than January, were raised to 40 per That is pretty plain speaking and, as if in reply to Browder But so low was the flame that it 1939.
month. This act has been pointed attack on the Trotskyites, Olgin roundly denounced the views Stalinist Thievery took days for the water to heat.
of the general secretary, saying: For anyone not blinded by out as a great humanitarian deed The rise in temperature was so The capitalist state is a glaring fact. It is flesh and by Roosevelt. Few have asked We have stated many times before and shall gradual that the frogs failed to personal or political considerawhy this noble deed was not done blood of the capitalist system. It stands in the way of continue to assert that there is no crime on notice it. Eventually, they boiled tions, the above figures, cited workers progress toward a new, freer life. Can It be three years ago, at a time when abolished by gradual transformation? Those who say it the books which the and other Stalinist alive. If the pan had been near from government sources, re Roosevelt had the national legagents will hesitate to commit in order to deradio with the assuring tones of veal a startling fact. The total islature eating out of his hand, can are the stanchest supporters of the capitalist robbers and the most active promoters of imperialist wars. gushing forth, the frogs and why this concession was so stroy their opponents. Persons seriously inter might have boiled to death with benefits for the unemployed as comparatively casy for him to Brother Olgin climaxing lambast was this: ested in the labor movement will by this time a smile.
a group have been reduced in Their theory is not harmless Indeed. It is a poisonous secure now from an increasingly take it for granted that the has prac This story demonstrates the the past three years, particular hostile legislature.
theory. It is a smokescreen behind which cruel capitalist tically no other purpose than to guard Stalinism distinction between the Hoover exploitation is hiding.
ly when contrasted with the noand Roosevelt methods of treatof course, the foregoing attack on People Frontism was against its opponents from the left.
tual number of unemployed at ROOSEVELT NOBLE written in Why Communism before orders arrived from Mosing the unemployed. Hoover threw the unemployed into a red hot any given period.
Lovestoncites have been close to the top cir.
SENTIMENTS cow to toe the new Stalinist line. Nevertheless, it is perhaps well for Brother Olgin that he has been denied a vise to the Soviet pan of outright starvation. Roocles of the administration of the United Auto WAGES GRADUALLY Just how much Roosevelt has sevelt supplies just enough re Union. After all, there is no firing squad at 50 East 13th Street, mobile Workers. The Stalinists, desperately in Hef jobs to keep the unemployed REDUCED been moved by political consid although frame ups abound like mosquitoes in Jersey amp.
erations as contrasted with nobler need of creating a diversion during the trial of from jumping out of the pan. further startling fact is that sentiments in his unemployed some of their members and stooges in the that is pacified by a cradual real work relief wages, on the policies we can observe accurate THE DARLING OF BIG BUSINESS process of becoming accustomed average throughout the country, ly. Both in the fall of 1984 and saw a grand opportunity to do so if to lower standards and by a form have suffered a gradual reduction that of 1936, just prior to the While on the subject of reformists and their oscillations, they could get hold of the private correspond of stabilized poverty.
one cannot overlook Thomas Dewey, high powered prosecutor from the program to the general elections, a sharp inence of Jay Lovestone. For the skilled of New York County and the national pride of the Republican present set up. crease was noted in federal STARVATION IN in kidnapping and murder, to break into a pri PROGRAM Party, the ALP. and the Stalinist progressives.
paid an average vers about particularly apparent in Septemwage of work relief employment. This was vate home is a simple job. Who else could have 15 for unskilled Within a few days Dewey will have on the witness stand Not that Roosevelt has serupled 565 monthly. The orig ber and October, 1936, when Jimmy Hines, endeavoring to prove that the Tammany lender possibly been interested in breaking into Love had given police and court protection to the late Dutch Schultz to discontinue relief and jobs alinally paid an average weekly Roosevelt reversed his polley of polley racket. Dixie Davis, once counsel for the slain racketeer, stone home and stealing his private letters? together when it suited his purwage to laborers of 12, or 50 mass A, lay offs while unem has turned State witness, is prepared to spill the dirt and, The Daily Worker published some of the lief families, 22 million men reduced wages on to the packed the projects. Few poses. Five and a half million re monthly. The administration then ployment was declining, and with the corroborating testimony of two other associates of letters stolen before Maurice Sugar, Stalinist atSchultz, will help Dewey achieve a signal legal triumph.
There is every reason to believe that Hines will be convicted, torney, indicated that they would be offered as right starvation between June rect relief budget, the worst old ones were double and triple evidence on behalf of the expelled officials of and November, 1985, when the form of forced labor for emer shifted, and two or three Tammany judges decisively discredited. How ever, neither Davis nor the other witnesses will tell the story the This will not help the officials but Roosevelt administration discon gency relief orders. The disconthat the public should know.
tinued direct reller. Of these five tinuance of this forced labor pol Immediately following Rooseproves conclusively that the Stalinist agents were What the people of New York and the nation should and a half million unemployed icy was not effected by the ad velt re election, 400, 000 be told is: Just what is behind the Hines trial. That responsible for the theft.
breadwinners, over 1, 750, 000 never ministration without considerable workers, most of them atill disIn the Soviet Union the openly raids They subsisted at best on ployed. Hundreds of strikes received employment on the mass persuasion from the unemotons, were fred en masse. Within Hines has been associated with racketeers for many years Is not news to anyone having even passing acquaintance the living quarters of suspected oppositionists; with New York political life. Back in the days of District meager allotments of state and ripped the work pro six months of the elections, almost three quarters of a million political opponents are murdered with or with local governments.
gram wide open.
Attorney Crane, the prosecutor office had evidence These millions, together with workers had received the (which later disappeared from the files) that Tammany out a farcical judicial proceeding. In other the additional five million more When the began, Roose reward of blind political faith in district leaders were giving protection to racketeers who countries the Stalinists have to do their work unemployed families estimated to velt did not make the mistake at the form of pink dismissal slips. In turn, received millions of dollars from New York inby stealth but because of their immense re have required relief in the past dustrial Interests for breaking strikes, engaging thugs to We are approaching another club pickets, disrupting union activities and attacking sources, they are not greatly handicapped by year of depression, today face a quickly covered that one revealthat necessity.
relief crisis unparalleled in the ing glimpse of his actual ruth election. Again jobs are labor in sundry other ways.
past six years. The breakdown of less purpose with a great bally on the increase. couple of hun.
It is quite probable that former District Attorney William No opponent of Stalinism is safe. The only relief in Cleveland, Chicago and Walling hourly rates of pay un advantageously placed on hoo of security wages and pre dred thousand workers will be Dodge, Dewey predecessor, had similar evidence. The advent other centers has revealed conof the first capitalist crisis forced the business interests to rebel effective weapon is an open, united and remorseditions as der the The actual amount rolls for a few weeks prior to against the steadily rising and Insolent demands of the racketeers.
less struggle against the Stalinist criminals. It thing known under Hoover as rotten almost as anyearned by most workers the first Tuesday following the When the Tammany leaders were found to be so closely linked to goes without saying that we do not include These crises flow from Roose was more than could be secured first Monday in November. Then the gangsters as to be unable to meet the appeals of merchants, on direct relief. But, as always, we can confidently predict that amongst them the thousands of rank and filers velt direct relief policies.
manufacturers and others, a mighty civie crusade was launch what the administration gave the will follow its timefor elean government.
who are devoted to the labor movement, but SLASHING RELIEF with one hand, it withdrew with hallowed custom of Aring hun Thus LaGuardia and Fusion got hold of City Hall. The captwho have been hoodwinked by Stalinist propa. APPROPRIATIONS the other.
dreds of thousands after the taliat civic groups, with the aid of newspapers, also threatened ganda.
The federal government is By discontinuing direct reller, votes have been safely recorded. by the racketeers, rallied the voters for more and more gains (The next article of this se and, finally, found in Dewey an able and willing instrument to Our political opposition to Jay Lovestone is gradually liquidating its obliga the federal government was able, tions to the unemployed. First, it with little additional cost, to give rles will be discussion of the continue the clean up started by the Seabury investigation.
well known. This will not deter us, however, slipped from under the responsl slightly higher benefits to a New Deal unemplyoment pollDewey will vanquish Tammany and ride to higher of from uniting with the Lovestoneites and other bility for direct relief. Since then, smaller group of workers.
fice over the political graves of Hines, Dodge and a number it has slowly decreased the ap.
cles in relation to the entire political opponents for the purpose of cleaning Further, the established of others. But his victory will be the victory of Big Buslpropriations for work rellet In re wide wage differentials for areas Roosevelt program of saving the vile disease of Stalinism from the labor ness, substituting one capitalist political wing for another lation to the total number of un of varying populations within to do Its bidding.
the capitalist system and premovement.
employed. The original appropria these regions. Thus, the 56 60 paring for Imperiallat war. Once again the masses of the people of New York will be left holding the bag.
questions.
In the first place if the Union should yield in this one case, what will prevent the bosses from sending in other stool pigeons with instructions to file another suit for accounting?
One can see how easily it would be for the enemies of the union to tie up the books and records in court actions and paralyze the efficient functioning of the organization.
In the second instance every intelligent worker understands full well that there are many things which a union cannot possibly divulge union is an organization not only for peace time but for militant strike activity. It has its secrets which the bosses would like to acquire regardless of price. Under no circumstances can a union account for every penny to a capitalist court.
Does that mean that union officials are free to do anything they please with union funds and then use the pretext that those funds were expended for the good of the union, without furnishing an accounting? By no means.
Union officials must be ready at all times to give a strict accounting of all union funds before proper committees. In case of any question, they must be ready to show all their records to any committee of loyal members of the union or to any committee of the general labor movement.
The books of Local 544 have been audited by accountants of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The officials of Local 544 have proclaimed their readiness to give a full and complete accounting to any responsible body of organized labor. Under the circumstances anyone who wants any more and suggests that the Lo cal officers open their records to finks and a capitalist court is either a fool or a knave.
The whole organized labor movement of Minneapolis is solidly behind the officials of the Truck Drivers in their fight against the employ.
ers and their court. If the labor movement of the whole country will regard its true interests, it will come whole heartedly to the support of Local 544.
There is danger that the militant leaders of 544 will be held in contempt of court and sentenced to jail. Undoubtedly the truck drivers of Minneapolis have a very healthy contempt