SOCIALIST APPEAL AUGUST 10, 1940 TWORKERS Here he as Bed as in the South 16 Hour Day Would Boost Steel Employment One Third FORUM New Jersey in the 1940 Elections others in the family wanted work we would have to include the young girl.
So we were hired, and every morning at 5:30 a truck is sent to the neighborhood for us and about 25 others to bring us to the EDITOR: work in the fields. Many others, fields. Twelve or fourteen hours According to the newspaper, at including myself, live in the big later we are brought home more the recent Congressional hear cities of the North. When Sum dead than alive after having toiled By FARRELL DOBBS tions for six month advance maximum work week in the basic ings in New York on the condimer comes the relief authorities bent over under the hot sun. The stubborn fact remains that notice to workers who are to be mass producing industries should tione of agricultural labor in the cut down on our relief to make Though the owner is a good 30, 000 steel workers have already displaced through technological be reduced to the level of approxWrite to us tell us what going on in your part of the North. mayors, governors and bus sure that we will go to work on Christian and goes to church lost out in the industry and the change. During this period they mately 30 hours a week at the labor movement what are the workers thinking about. ell inessmen united in saying that the farms.
every Sunday, he sees nothing jobs of thousands more are im would receive vocational training prevailing earnings or more. How.
us what the bosses are up to and the men and the local copsthere was no problem in northern work on a farm that employs wrong in having us work all day mediately threatened. Technolo for other jobs. He further prop ever, Murray has resisted all and the Stalinists send tes that story the capitalist press didn agricultural areas.
1200 men. women, and children. Sunday.
gical change is wreaking havoc osed that job compensation be proposals to fight for this objec print and that story they buried or distorted our pages are open Well, am one of the tens of near the town where live. When We are paid at the magnificent among the steel workers. Deci naid where the new job, if found. tive.
thousands of agricultural workers went to ask for work a few rate of 17 20 cents an hour (min. sive action by the Steel Workers is at a reduced rate of pay. The slogan of the hour day to you. Letters must carry name and address, but indicale if you who work on the truck farms of weeks ago, the foreman asked me mum wage laws as well as most Organizing Committee is demand dismissal wage was advocated at hour pay has been repeatdo not want your name printed.
New Jersey, Pennsylvania and how many was in my family that other labor legislation do not ap ed to find a solution.
where a displaced worker is not odly discussed in the Swoc. Delaware who were not invited to could work. told him and then ply to agriculture. Accidents Last April Phillip Murray, reabsorbed in another job. put into effect it would be a long testify. If had been invited to he aked if didn have another and occupational diseases are swoc Chairman, outlined his. This practical plan is not or stride towards a solution of the RUSSIANS FIRST Albert Goldman recent article text ty could tell a few things chtid. Though we are bad oft. more prevalent than in most fac program before the Monopoly ered as the final solution. problem of unemployment in this :n the APPEAL, on How the that would contradict the other don want my youngest daughtories but we lack the protection Committee of Congress. We pro Marray told the Monopoly Com industry. Almost one third more HINTED CHANGE Workers Can Fight Hitlerism. testimony.
ter. age eleven, to go into the of workmens compensation laws. posed that provisions be made wittee. Congressional re jobs would be added.
OF LINE shows that democratie coun Thousands of workers come up felds. The foreman insisted that SN.
through collective bargaining begulation of the introduction of FIELD HAND tries aren any better in general from the South every Summer tol he was short handed and if the ween the union and the corpora large technological changes briment for this program among There was a great deal of sennecessary. These regulations, he the delegates at the Chicago conthan fascist countries. Goldman EDITOR: ends with: The workers must suggested. Should make it com vention of the Swoc. The union wish to call attention to an begin the struggle against their pulsory for the corporations to administration side stepped the oversight in your article in the own capitalism. But what conpay a dismissal wage. The fed issue by declaring it Impractical July 13 APPEAL on the tentative crete steps can we, the masses.
eral government would be requir gropings of the Communist Interlake to combat capitalism and es.
ed to provide for a vocational used instead a national unemploy.
at the present time. They proptraining program.
national toward a position of tablish a Socialist United States Measurement conference of leaders of gov. critical support of Anglo Amer. for the workers benefit?
would by Instituted to have in II.
thousand dollars are appropriated to investigate discriminaScan Imperialisin. The first indi dustry immediately absorb the groups.
ernment, industry, labor and farm There are many people in the In other words. no action. Thus the record is made and they have something displaced workers.
cation of the changing line was same boat as I am, who agree THE GRAND OLD PARTY tion not Amter speech which you with the 12 planks the Socialist to point to with pride. Then they bury the bill in commit Six month advance notice and It is not hard to understand cited, but an article in the organ Workers Party stands for. We Unlike the dull Democratic primaries where only Hague tee, they stifle the investigating committee, they give a couple a dismissal wage would be a dis how officialdom was able, at the of the Russian Young Communist aren active in helping your parcandidates have a chance, Republican primaries are heated of colored men jobs as janitors, and let it go at that.
tinct improvement over the pres SWOC convention, to veto any ac League, which appeared two days ty, for there is no breakdown into ent situation. The steel worker affairs which in recent years have shown the existence and Another recent dispute shows that the inner ar today finds himself dismissed or Woc organizers present.
ion 200 before Amter speech. The Rus an article was summarized by we might do small, concrete units of the work nature of two important wings.
guments are not over policy: short notice with little or no By the time Cold but a handful of them were there the New York Times (June 15) man education and organization The Clean Government group took over the party in During the primary fight the Regulars asked for support funds at his disposal. He is scon is delegates. Nearly a third of and printed in full by the Daily of the American masses for the 1937 after denouncing the Regular Republican practice of from the unemployed because the proposal to deprive relief broke and becomes dependent hose participating in the conven.
Worker which, realizing its im Kind of intervention that will upon a governmental relief allow collaborating with the Hague machine (and worse yet shar clients of their right to vote had come from Colonel Glover, portance, gave it front page really benefit the workers of this ance if and when he can get it. ion were, therefore, hired hands ing the spoils with it. The primaries last May showed they relief investigating committee director, and Essex Senator of the administration. Experienced Splurge.
country as well as the workers still had control when their candidate, Hendrickson, deciseve varliamentarians can easily man.
MURRAY PROGRAM It purported to be a letter writ throughout the world (June 15 Zink, both leading Clean Government men.
OFFERS NO SOLUTION euver as they choose with such ten by a French soldier from the article) gets going, the War Lord ly defeated Hoffman for the nomination for Governor.
Clean Government won the primaries and the Regulars The dismissal wage would, how.
a powerful bloc.
front. The letter signaled the will have sold the masse The primaries not only showed who was boss, but how issued a statement promising them full support in the general ever, not be a retirement fund.
Nevertheless, the administrabeginning of a switch to national another war. We have a race little the groups differ in program. In control of the Legisla elections. Forgotten now is their explanation about what a The corporation would fight to tion victory over the union mille defensism. We sons of the against great odds. small poor ture for several years, the party is responsible for what it has vote for the Clean Government ticket mcans. make it a very small sum. When tants was a hollow one. The probFrench people must defend the (in funcis minority groupie fatherland. it said. The tackling a well oiled machine done and failed to do. But it was only about the spoils they it had been used up the unem lem of existing unemployment and After the primaries, Mudd, a Regular leader, announced difficult struggle must be car argued, and about personal accusations, and about the charge bis faction proposal for the jobless: refuse relief to all able ployed steel worker would be the certainty of additional loss ried on on two fronts against Bronx, New York.
that Hague secretly supported Hoffman, and not about. bodied men who would not enlist in the Army.
right where he is now when dis of jobs in the steel Industry re.
charged broke and fighting to mains very real. The fight for those who betrayed the French THE RECORD ON RELIEF. Highlights of the In the uproar over this, Clean Government pretended get relier.
the hour day at hour pay people and are now planning disRepublican relief administration are: great horror. But when they reorganized the state relief body Vocational training for other is still the first step toward graceful capitulation. It was It is all too true that the war Lower state appropriations each year since 1936; a steady only after he got this signal from shortly afterward, replacing Mudd as director with one of jobs would have little meaningfundamental solution. The union the Kremlin that Amter made his mengers have tremendous reincrease in the municipalities share in state relief costs which, thei own men, they appointed Madd assistant director at The trend is towards a reduction officialdom has repeatedly told sources at their disposal and in available jobs. Technological the workers that the industry speech claiming that Soviet oc that their propaganda instrubecause most municipalities are bankrupt, means a penny the same salary he had before!
change curtails the number of must be more completely organ.
cupation of the Baltic was ob ments are far more powerful pinching policy and still lower standards for the jobless; in Recently Barbour has attacked Cromwell as a war mong existing Jobs far more than it Ized before there can be an ef.
jective aid to France.
vestigating committees set up to convince the public that the than anything that our revoer, and by two resolutions he has introduced in Congress has Paterson, creates any new jobs. The chances rective struggle against the boss.
lutionary party can mobilize less spent on relief and the more spent to ferret out the chise sought to build himself up as an advocate of peace. What for employment outside the stocles. Such talk is idle. Something But as powerful as the ruling lers. the better for everyone, including the unfortunate do these resolutions say?
industry are equally slim. The much more substantial is needed class seems to be it is not at all unbeatable. What appears people who really need relief. instructions to municipalities SJ Res. 286 amends the National Guard mobilization bill latest clo report on unemploy to convince the unorganized steel Our correspondent is right.
to be impossible now can easily to deny relief to strikers; orders that local administrators to permit exemption for dependency and other reasons similar most 11 million workers now look. THE ONLY WAY TO It was an oversight on our part occur within a comparatively cease recognizing and dealing with union committees seek to those in the proposed conscript bill. In other words, Bar ing for jobs. few of the dis WIN THE UNORGANIZED not to have noticed that the short time. Remember that the ing relief for their members; the residence law denying relief bour doesn quite go along, he introduces a few miserable placed steel workers would find Moscow dispatch preceded the The SWOC lost the 1937 strike Russian Czar looked very to people in the state less than five years, which has resulted employment under this arrange changes and seeks the anti conscription vote without himself in Little Steel by placing its refirst hint of a no new line in the powerful several years, or even ment, but it no solution for DAILY WORKER. In general several months, before the rein many deportations, especially of colored workers back to coming out against the conscription bill.
liance in treacherous employerthe many.
it may be said that over long the South volution showed how weak the Sj Res. 287 limits to one year the period under which loyal politicians. Since then, the The sliding scale of wages periods of time the Stalinist leadersh! has retreated constantCzarist regime actually was.
In Congress Senator Barbour gave the party line civil liberties and wage hour restrictions may be suspended by and hours is the fundamental ly before the pressure of the steel leadership in the United States There is no royal road to the on WPA by supporting the Roosevelt Woodrum bill which the President under declaration of national emergency. Barapproach to the problem of unand elsewhere knows as little cmployment bosses.
The maximum The workers have been socialist revolution. An individ cut wages, lengthened hours and abolished the union rate of bour is not against a dictatorship at home while soldiers die about Moscow intentions as prevented from making a direct hours of work should be reual who is anxious to solve any of us. The Kremlin bureaupay, and by consistently voting for the lowest figure proposed abroad for democracy. but he wants it for only a year at duced immediately to a point struggle against the corporations the problems of the working cracy prefers not to let its every time WPA funds were being appropriated.
a time. He is not against the Day laws, which permit the through trade union action. Inclass and agrees with our prowhere jobs would be made alackeys knows its tentative stead, the lenders continue to rely gram is obligated to join our THE RECORD ON LABOR LEGISLATION. President to increase hours and cut wages, thus wiping out vailable for all steel workers plans; and the lackeys dare not party and help us educate the The number of progressive labor bills passed by the Republiupon the political friends and presently unemployed. Thereovernight the hard fought gains of labor but he is for them the impartial governmental ask. Only when the Kremlin working masses. There after, the hours of work should no can Legislature is easily added up: there wasn one. True, a only a year at a time!
boards.
has definitely embarked on a again be reduced to compenother method. To work within state Wagner act, a state wage hour law, anti injunction bills, Behind this small change stuff, Barbour is as much for new course are the national sate for any further curtail. Among the workers is only a naApathy and lack of confidence sections notified.
the trade unions and wherever and acts regulating and taxing homework were introduced the war as Cromwell. He calls himself a big Navy isolation ment of jobs because of new there are workers, for the pur.
tural result of this policy. They Even then, they are not told by Republican friends of labor. But that was only so that pose of educating them to a ist. that is, he thinks the Western Hemisphere is enough technological changes. The must be shown a fighting union.
everything which the Kremlin realization of the true solution some Republicans could have the basis for asking labor suphourly rate of pay should be territory for Wall Street to get fat on at present. And so he They must see that the swoc proposes to do along the new of their problems, and of gett port for the party ticket. The fact is that none of them was has voted for every war appropriation and anti labor bill automatically increased whenmeans business: that it will enerever the hours of work are recourse. comical example of ing them struggle on all passed and for this the Republican party as a whole de passed this year. Once he has voted for the arms, how can he getically and intelligently apply this situation was provided durduced so that the workers will fronts is the only thing that serves the responsibility.
its own strength in the fight with ing the first week or two after vote against conscription to provide men to use the arms?
can be effective at the present suffer no loss in their total the corporations.
the Stalin Hitler pact was anTHE RECORD ON NEGRO LEGISLATION. Once he has helped establish the war size Army and Navy wages. The union should fight moment. In this period of reThe launching of a serious fight nounced. Browder and the action, it is difficult. The dif What good for labor is good for the colored people. That is, and the Day dictatorship, how can he tell the dictator how also for additional pay increas for the hour day at hour DAILY WORKER were caught ficulties, however, do not scare before elections, there are long speeches against Jim Crow. long to hold power? Obviously, Barbour peace pose is a es in order to raise the workpky will win over the great ma.
unawares. But of course they any revolutionist EDITOR. At elections one or two Negroes are put on the ticket to get ers standard of living.
phoney bid for stray votes.
jority of the steel workers to the said it was fine. Then they out the colored vote. After elections a Negro legislator is per. third article on the New Jersey elections will appear Murray timidly touches this support of the SWOC. Such supswore that the pact would connoint, in his statement to the port w! ll in turn assure victory mitted to introduce a few bills against discrimination. few tain the usual clause. it did next week. Monopoly Committee that the in the struggle.
not. They said it brought BOY SUICIDES peace. two days later came the war.
They declared it GRIST TO would not involve a change of HEARST MILL line; but within two weeks they were throwing the Popular Front line overboard. EDITOR: And so forth.
Last August, Southern California By CARL SHEA Union Defense Guards can be established then vide training camps for the unions where union Association can make such demands upon the The Stalinist lackeys are thus learned of the suicide by hanging in the awkward position of hav of a 14 year old Mexican boy. Ben and its propagandists have for years innoculated Big Business, its professional army officers a union can certainly go one step further and members can undergo military instruction, the War Department (upon terms, to be sure, that organize military instruction for all its members.
ing to guess in advance what jamin Moreno, inmate of Whittier government to stand the expense and the em prevent the masses from having any voice or their master is up to, in order State School for Boys.
the masses with the idea that it is far beyond a When one well known union set about to or ployers to continue paying the trainees their control in military training. certainly organized to be able to make the neces Last Tuesday Edward Leiva worker ability to grasp the fine points of the ganize a Union Defense Geard, it found a super regular wages while they receive such training. labor can demand that the War Department sary shift more skillfully when 16. hanged himself with a bed military arts. Oh yes, the working man will do abundance of talent and material within the Organized labor must demand access to all make available to the unions such equipment, it comes. At the same time sheet rope which he coiled quite well as cannon fodder to be regimented to union ranks, of the sort that is found in practhey dare not move in advance through the ventilator screen ir lay down his life in defense of the bankers and material. supplies and instructors as are retically every union in this nation. Within this forms of arms which the government must place at the disposal of the union machine guns, field quired for training purposes.
of their master in the Kremlin. the celling of his cell.
industrialists. But for large numbers of workers union were scores of military veterans exand coast artillery, calvary and tank and anti Even if maximum aid is not obtained from the Hence the spectacle of the Had this not been an clection to be trained to command troops and ships and Stalinist press these days: year, the tragic deaths of these planes, to learn the uses of all offensive and demachine gunners, ex calvary officers, sergeants, tank equipment, naval vessels, the materials of War Department, the union movement can still a signal corps officer, a former German army aware of some new skulldus two Mexican boys might have gone fensive weapons, to understand military tactics chemical warfare, equipment for engineers and make tremendous strides in organizing the miligery being worked up in the quite unnoticed. But Billie (the and strategy oh no! That must be left to the officer who had fled the fascist terror. There signal corps, not to speak of armories and drill tary training of its members.
Kremlin and therefore anxious Rat) Hearst, on the alert for amwere former tank men, pilots, even men owning grounds.
planes.
reactionary military caste, to West Point and to pave the way for a new munition for smear campaigns In such a nation of game hunters as the With the new simplified manual of arms now With such a nucleus, this union found it feasiturn; but at the same time re against his political rivals in Sac Annapolis, to the businessmen und playboys and United States, there is no obstacle at all in obble to organize and train hundreds of staunch in use, and the greatly simplified method of peating the old line and mixing ramento, saw great possibilities in lawyers who receive special training by the gov.
taining the simpler forms of arms. It is the rare handling troops in formation, any diligent union it up with hints of the new the boys deaths, ernment at Plattsburg and similar camps. unionists, to set up an Intelligence Department, worker who does not own at least one gun.
EDITORS.
could quickly train its members in these elements The workers of Los Angeles Within the union movement in every city This arrangement, whereby Big Business and etc. The members of the Defense Guard were of military work. Until the equipment from the now Hearst too well not to see its flunkies are able to order the workers around more than willing to devote one, two and three there are today scores of unionists with pilot through his fake humanitarian nights a week to training which they knew was government is forthcoming, the union could train licenses, some of whom own their own planes.
in much the same sort of way American troops ism. They also realize that 54 during war, tell them how, when and where they in their own benefit, under officers whom they The nucleus of an air corps could easily be PRO WAR TREND years of Republican administra must fight, and what to fight for, has worked could control and trust.
were trained in 1917 and 1918, with dummy formed from such trained union members.
GROWING; WHAT tions in California, which were out wonderfully for Big Business. But it has equipment.
Confronted with the certain prospect of unisupported by Hearst, did not worked out tragically for the working class. And In that period, often there would be just a Once the program were under way, actual versal military training within create better conditions at Whit. if the workers unions are to survive the Second CAN BE DONE?
very short military maneuvers could be practiced, involving tier and such places than has the World War and to defeat fascism, either the period, any sensible worker will much prefer few rifles, machine guns and larger pieces of scouting, communications and signal work, aerial present. Democratic administra native or foreign brand, organized labor must such training under the direction of his union, ordinance available for several thousand men.
photography, map work, coordination of the varEDITOR: tion.
These pieces were taken down and assembled rather than under the direction of the army and before the trainees, their uses and operations ious units, in short, all the staff work that conA recent Fortune Magazine poll the Plattsburg trained employers.
The real lesson of this tragedy demande decisive change in the direction of of American war sentiment con Jis to smash any illusion about explained. The men were taken in groups and fronts an army command under wartime condiFirst of all, it is essential that the union memcluded that more than two and a the Democratic administration tions. Union movements in adjacent cities might Away with the Plattsburg camps for the bossbership must understand the need of acquiring taught how to handle the arms.
cooperate in the conduct of such maneuvers.
halt times the number of Amerland its predecessors. The work es. What we want and need are special governmilitary knowledge, not in the bosses way, not It is within the scope of thousands of local anits within the union could begin to cans desire aid to the Allies, as ers must place the blame for thie ment financed training camps for workers UNfor the defense of the interests of American imunions to make an investment in such arms.
compared with the number last where it belongs on the decaying DER CONTROL AND DIRECTION OF ORGANspecialize in the study of certain branches of perialism, but in the union way, for the defense For years the Ordnance Department of the military art.
winter. Other sgures also show capitalist system which, by giv IZED LABOR, where instruction in all the milithat American sentiment to aid ins rise to ractal discrimination, tary arts from the most competent military inof the workers homes and lives and jobs against Army has sold huge quantities of condemned Organized labor in the United States must the Allies is rising.
first forced the two Mexican boys structors obtainable is available.
enemies at home and abroad.
and obsolete equipment to groups of American learn the lessons that have brought such a traOur enemies, it is plain, are into a life of crime. and then Once this need is grasped, the rest follows.
Legionnaires and other private organizations. gic fate to the workers of Europe. Not the active in whipping up war senti allowed politicians to so run its Is this progrnm practical?
Organized labor must demand of the government There is not the slightest reason why the trade Burke Wadsworth bill, not the blind alley of ment they crystallize opinion, institutions that the inmates If a union can organize its own Defense that it place at the disposal of the unions nothunions should not be able to acquire this military pacifism, but MILITARY TRAINING UNDER aprend propaganda in press, radio, prefer to kill themselves.
ing less than the finest military equipment and Guard against fascist attacks and some unions equipment at the same low cost.
TRADE UNION CONTROL. Here is a program etc. leading the people to think Los Angeles, Calif.
instruction available. The government must prohave already demonstrated the ease with which If the comparatively weak Reserve Officers we have a stake in this war, worthy of the best in the labor movement, CARL BECKER From Union Defense Guards To Military Training