SEPTEMBER 14, 1940 SOCIALIST APPEAL WHERE LABOUNDEDE KARL The Lies on Trotsky Murder Exposed; Housing Crisis Negro Struggle Daily Worker Manufactures Statement To Be Part of War Boom by Robert Birchman Goldman Shows How Stalinist Organ Attributes Quotation To THE DEATH OF JESSE THORNTON Lie Machine of Trotsky Guards Would Give Lives Mexican Labor Confederation which Is Operated To Keep Assassin Alive. To Talk Is Proved To Be a Fabrication Absolutely no one who is not ately took advantage de chienointa dastrine, but that not until the statement and for Cardenas him against Cardenas the language of thing As the war armaments program slowly gets Jesse Thornton, a negro farm worker, about under way, the problem of housing the arma27 years old, was living in Luverne for about ment workers begins to loom. Recollections of five years. It the county seat of Crenshaw the frightful housing conditions in shipbuilding county, Alabama. Jesse and his wife were runnand steel centers, munitions areas, etc. during ing a chicken farm for a white man. They were MEXICO CITY, Sept. A By WALTER ROURKE the last war, and the resultant dissatisfaction of By ANDERSON typical Stalinist technique of disknown as hard workers.
MEXICO CITY, Sept. We rubbed our eyes in bewilderment MEXICO CITY On the day that Jackson was brought to when the Sept. issue of the DAILY WORKER arrived from New the workers, are troubling both government and That Saturday the day the farmers gather torting the facts about the murwar industrialists.
the scene of his crime, in order to re enact the tragedy for the York, carrying a big story about organized labor in Mexico sharply in the county seat to barter and trade and talk. der of Trotsky was exposed today Mexican judge and the police. all of Trotsky guards and secre condemning President Cardenas for his statement pointing to the However, the proposals being made to solve Jesse came downtown to a Negro barber shop. in a statement issued by Albert Stalinists as the murderers of Trotsky this problem, the various commissions now studyAfterward he stood outside the barber shop, Goldman, Trotsky attorney. The taries were requested to disarm, and the arms were placed in a room and padlocked. The Mexican authorities feel strongly their We compare, below, the DAILY WORKER story with that ing the housing problem in connection with the statement said talking with friends. Down the street came a war industries, are simply a repetition of idenpolice officer. Jesse said softly to his friends: which appeared in EL POPULAR, the newspaper published by LomIt will, am certain, be of great responsibility in preserving the life of the man who can reveal the tical moves made during the last war and will There comes Doris Rhodes, boys.
interest to the Mexican people to mechanism of the complicated and sinister death machine oper bardo Toledano, head of the Mexican Confederation of ated from Moscow.
Labor. learn how American Stalinists in get no further than the same moves got last But the cop had been looking at them as he time, But the guards of Leon Trotsky, far from making any at.
came along, and he overheard Jesse. What did charge of institutions that furnish DAILY WORKER Sept. information to the American tour tempts upon the life of the assassin, are ready to risk their own EL POPULAR, Sept. When the war boom got going in 1916, the you say? he asked sharply.
ists and to a section of the Amer lives to save his, for, given time, they feel that questioning him (Headline) MEXICAN (Headline) FRANK EN.
workers drained from the central and middleJesse hesitated. He knew where he had made ican press (mainly Stalinist will provide clues to reveal completely the GPU masters whose UNIONS SHARPLY CON DORSEMENT OF THE PRE western states and brought to the eastern inhis mistake. He tried to rectify it. said there press) distort the truth about the instructions he followed.
DEMN CARDENAS FOR SIDENT STATEMENT BY dustrial centers found no place to live when they goes Mister Rhodes. he said.
murder of Trotsky and attempt to ANTI LABOR INCITE. THE Jackson, the clever and skillfully trained professional assas.
arrived. The cities to which they came had been. No you didn t, said the cop. You left off the cover up the responsibility of MENTS. Quotation from the state even under normal conditions, tenement infested, Mister. heard you. You re just a lying nigger.
Stalin GPU sin, carried out his instructions successfully; he murdered the ment of the Jesse bristled. All right, did say Doris statement issued by Mexican great revolutionary, Leon Trotsky, whom Stalin feared and hated. Organized labor in Mexico overcrowded. With the sudden influx, living con the National Committee ditions, became utterly unbearable.
Rhodes. That all he ever had a chance to say.
Labor News appeared in the But something went wrong with the rest of the plan Jackson today vigorously condemned of the considers the Rhodes knocked him down with his blackjack, lished by Jack Hunt. The Mex custody. Now it is necessary for the GPU murder ring to close Mexico City Daily Bulletin pub neither escaped nor was he killed. He lived to be taken into police Tenements which had been condemned and statements made by the PrePresident Lazaro Cardenas for picked him up by the collar and started off to the sident of the Republic, General his statement attempting to awaiting destruction were reopened and put back can Labor News is edited by one into service, although they were manifestly unfit Lazaro Cardenas, just, strictly jail with him.
in upon the man who knows too much and who can reveal everyHarry Block of the Workers Unt thing to the world which watches and waits. He must not be smear the Mexican labor in keeping with our laws and for human habitation. Ramshackle old houses Near the jail door Jesse tried to get away. versity of Mexico, an individual questioned too long nor too closely.
movement, the Mexican Comperfectly based on the purest were remodeled into apartment houses.
But stones struck him as he did so, he stopped, who consistently follows the Stalmunist Party and by inference revolutionary morals regard Shacks were thrown up, made from junk heaps.
and Rhodes had him again. crowd was quickly Inist line. The statement is an The only question is how soon and by what means? Cer the Soviet Union because of ing the necessity of clarifying tainly the time is not far off, for every day that Jackson remains Most of these dwellings had either no sanitary gathering, from it had come the stones. buddy excellent example of the distor the assassination of Leon the responsibility and placing of Rhodes, Nolan Ellis, came along and took tions and fabrications that all alive is another day of tormenting fear for the GPU that he may facilities at all, or were so poorly equipped that it on those who participated in Trotsky.
Stalinists recourse to.
Jesse by the other arm. As they walked along slip and reveal the truth. Even at this moment, in their hidden the crime perpetrated against they were literally disease traps. It was quite The subject matter of the real places, we can picture the GPU heads planning the means for The statement of the Conwith Jesse between them, the crowd followed on Leon Trotsky.
usual for ten to twelve families to use one toilet.
lease is the statement by the federation of Mexican LA. The actual quotation) Fintheir heels, ugly. Jesse feared his end had come.
Jackson death. They never depend upon one method one might Health standards fell as fast as rents rose. Mexican Confederation of fail, and as in the case of the attacks upon Trotsky, they strike He broke away again and kept going, though Labor) dealing with the appeal of bor. declared that Cardenas ally the National Committee The workers, dissatisfied with the hovels they of our Confederation wishes to five shots had to live in as well as the unbelievable rents vere fired at him. He sprinted for President Cardenas the work immediately with the next weapons they have already prepared.
utterance makes the nation raise its protest against the nearly three quarters of a mile. The loss of blood ers of Mexico on the question of head appear as a man who they had to pay, deserted their high paying counter revolutionary elebore him down and he sat down in a field. the position of political refugees changed his revolutionary path ments which have attempted jobs and moved, again and again, hoping to find white womait nearby saw him take out his hand in Mexico and of the murder of applies as well to the heads of moved from the mystery surround and at the end of his term to capitalize to their own addecent living quarters in another city. But they the who issued a state ing the Trotsky case, the solution Trotsky.
kerchief and mop the blood from his face.
justified the criticism of re vantage on the statement of always found the same horrible conditions. They Soon the mob was nearing the field. Jesse laration that the death of Leon sald about the responsibility of struggles among the Trotskyists The release begins with the dec ment in which nothing at all is will be found in the internicine action by mouthing concepts the President of the Republic, continued to move on, however, hoping against tried to move on. Sheer exhaustion slowed him, not expressed in his previous making the nation head ap hope.
Trotsky has by no means put an the GPU for the murder of Trot. themselves. This statement is declarations.
finally made him just stay where he was, and pear as a man. etc.
end to the mystery that surround sky. But this is a matter which not only vicious but utterly stu.
The consequent labor turnover was phenothe mob overtook him, ed the Trotsky case, nor has it will be dealt with elsewhere and pld. Even those who are slightly menal. Normally an industry expects, at worst, It was one of those new streamlined, hushed in any way cleared up the mysat some other time.
acquainted with the history of the the mention either the for the May 24 attempt on TrotNot once did the statement of filiations of those awaiting trial about a 300 change in its employment lists up lynchings.
tery of the two attacks on the Nails False Statements socialist movement know that year. During that period in many places the rate there have been innumerable Union. Not once did it have any press of the Communist party, Communist Party or the Soviet sky, etc. not even the official From beginning to end the whole thing hadn exile life, the second of which was 100 week. It wrought havoc with the taken more than 25 minutes. Jesse was shoved was successful.
According to the statement of splits amongst revolutionary sothing but praise for Cardenas La Voz de Mexico, dares to use the Mexican Labor News, the cialists on questions of political armament program, and became one of the chief into a small truck and carried off to a dead May 24 Guilty Known secretaries of Trotsky immedi worries of the government.
end street in the town; dragged some paces of Stalinism were false sell.
the Daily Worker.
from there into a swamp. Then the shots. a friend of the GPU could possibly Lion to blame progressive labor hoods, violence and murd Vain Attempts to Solve Situation introThe crude invention of the The whining tone of the offithe Members of the mob then went to City Hall claim that there is any mystery circles in Mexico for the murder. duced as a method of political consumption in the United States. ciently indicated by this para situation by decentralizing industry, letting conThe government sought one way to Daily Worker was needed for cial Stalinist defense is suffwhere they talked with Mayor McKing. Maywhatever about the assault on This, of course, is a cynical faise struggle.
be it was at his advice that they went next to Trotsky on May 24. The whole hood. The secretaries of Trotsky And so as Stalinism does when graph from the statement of the tracts throughout the middle and far west. This the Negro barber shop, learned where Jesse had world knows by this time that blamed Stalin GPU and named It is highly significant that the ever it has to the Daily Worker Central Committee of the Mexic had sharp limitations. Shipbuilding and steel lived, and went there. Where Jesse. they de every one of those detained in those people who have been con. Same people who are now trying simply invented what it needed. can Communist Party, printed in centers, etc. could not be moved. Moreover, to cover up thpt bu by attribut: What is a little case of forgery the latest issue of La Vox de connection with the assault is asistently defending the actions of manded of his wife. When she said he was in Stalinist, and that only a few of the GPU as merely responsible in the murder to a political to these killers!
whenever contracts were let, these smaller comMexico: town, they threatened her if she did not tell them have not confessed. Nor is for the plot. These people can. ganxation, were also anxious to munities simply repeated the pattern of the inthe truth. Later that night, they took her out there anyone, outside of Stalin by no stretch of the imagination convince everybody that the ashere it would have been impossi one or more members or sym.
In the existing atmosphere If investigations prove that dustrial eastern cities. Rents skyrocketed as in a car where they kept her practically all CPU, its defenders and friends. be designated as progressive sault on Trotsky on May 24th was ble for Toledano and the landlords charged all the traffic would bear.
night, threatening her life if she revealed anywho could possibly cialm that We shall not discuss the false organized by Trotsky himself. It executive committee to say what pathizers of the Communist By 1918 the government was attempting to Party intervened in the prepa encourage industry to build houses for workers, with the murder of Trotsky. It to the effect that Jackson was a known Stalinists in connection saying, despite the fact that Toration or execution of the at: That was Saturday, June 22. The next Friday setting aside, as a beginning, 10 million dollars tacks against Leon Trotsky, is fact, known and accepted by member of Trotsky organization with this assault, and the discov ledano remains, torlay as always, Stephen Thompson was fishing. Coming along for that purpose. The Army and Navy spent violating our fundamental printhe whole world that Mornard or and high in Trotsky confidence. ery of the body of Robert Sheldon the tool of the Stalinists. His own he scared up a drove of vultures. When he came some 35 millions to build dwellings for governciples, they will be expelled Jackson is an agent of Stalin for nearly a year. According to Harte, that these friends and membership would have repu.
to where they been he saw what they been GPU.
Jackson own testimony, he was from the party as elements ment shipbuilders.
eating and pulling at.
It follows as night does the day not a member but undoubtedly he ent about the theory of auto as Stalinist tentacles in the very dangerous to the working Early the same year a commission was set up The town officials had Negro prisoners make that those who attempt to deny succeeded in deceiving Trotsky sault.
class.
to study the problem and it recommended: a box, took them to the scene where Jesse half that fact, or issue statements and many of his friends, as to his the membership as a whole un In this situation, it was un1. The creation of an organization with decomposed body lay, ordered them to put it in about the murder ignoring that real identity and mission. Nothing will help the agents doubtedly agrees with Cardenas doustedly by agreement with the enough permanency and broad enough powers to to the crude casket, carry it to a Negro cemefact, convict themselves of con Do the falsifiers expect that a and friends of the GPU. The whole in piacing the responsibility for Stalinists that Toledano issued borrow and loan money to industry for housing tery and dig a grave and bury it. After it was sciously attempting to cover up GPU agent would be instructed world is too firmly convinced of Trotsky murder on Stalin the fawning statement asserting purposes.
all over, somebody told Jesse wife.
the real authors of the murder by the GPU to inform Trotsky the truth that directing the hand GPU. Here, where the facts are his complete agreement with Financial aid directly to industry for housThey also convict themselves and his friends of his real iden of the murderer of Trotsky was known, where every Mexican Cardenas. Control of the ing construction.
Jesse was the fifth Negro lynched this year. supporting the circle of those who tity and mission?
Stalin through his GPU. The worker knows the murderous is too valuable a weapon in the The decentralization of industry in letting The fifth, that is, where an investigation this made the intellectual preparation It is generally believed. as venal friends and agents of Stal. three year campaign against hands of the Stalinists for them one by the National Association for the Advance for the GPU attack serts the writer of the statement. in can do nothing to eradicate Trotsky conducted by the Stalin to risk losing it by attacking government contracts.
ment of Colored People was able to establish Naturally, would say that this that when the veil is finally re. this truth.
lists, and knows the Stalinist af Cardenas at this juncture.
Little, however, had been done in any directhe facts. At least four others are known about, tion to alleviate, much less to solve the problem, before the war ended.
but not yet investigated for lack of funds. And who knows how many more? Now that the lynchWhy Nothing Will Be Done ers don call the county together to make a big show, but murder speedily within the hour of moment thought will explain why. Mr.
the incident.
Smith, holding a government contract and unable Senate Majority Leader Barkley refuses to to keeň production up to the level required by bring up the Federal Anti Lynching Bill. Bethe government order, might have been frantie at the thought of his enormous labor turnover.
cause consideration of defense measures is more He would have liked to cut down that turnover.
important at this time.
But to build cheap and good housing. No! For By SAM MARCY the fact that the index of retail be the landlord of the plant and the people who pay the taxes. We cannot sent to allowing the same Mr. Smith, as often as not, owned some confidential government re sales for the first six months of the Chrysler Corporation the But the example of the Chrys. our own patriotism to interfere RACE RIOT DANGER IN TOLEDO rickety tenements, or was a stockholder in a bank port now secretly circulating this year is only above that tenant.
ler Corporation obtaining a rent with our duties as trustees (of deeply rooted in real estate. Or if Mr. Smith TOLEDO, Ohio. proposed WPA housing among top notch officials in the of last year, which was a low How much rent should the free plant is not likely to be an stockholders. didn have these interests, the equally opulent project here for white families in the Negro disRoosevelt government, states that year, and already the buying by Chrysler Corporation pay for ap isolated case but rather the gen. Who were the stockholders? The the profits of the capitalists thriv. wholesale distributors of consum proximately 113 acres of land, a eral rule.
and influential Mr. Jones had those interests, and trict is stirring up a wave of racial antagonism Du Ponta! So, when Du Pont ing on war orders for the first er goods has dropped about 35 floor area of about 800, 000 square It seems that the contract be stated that it is his duty to his the need of Mr. Smith workers for housing was which may well end up in a race riot.
half of this year are 50 higher below the buying of last fall, feet, where it will be able to em tween the War Department and stockholders to prefer profits to not a problem to Mr. Jones but a golden opporThe Future Outlook League, basing itself than the comparable period of which indicates that they, the ploy between four thousand and the Du Ponts, whereby the gove patriotism, he is voicing the true tunity to cash in on their need by making them upon the most exploited and oppressed among 1939 and is approaching the peak wholesalers, do not expect a riae Sve thousand men? How many ernment is to finance the build sentiments of the industrialists, pay good money for bad housing.
the Negroes, is demanding the complete eliminareached in 1929.
in the purchasing power of the millions? Exactly one dollar a ing of a 33, 000, 000 powder plant, bankers and munitions manufac real housing program to insure adequate tion of the entire slum area along John Street.
This information comes from masses.
year! Yes, one dollar!
is another example. Only here turers. Such is the true role of housing for the workers must necessarily mean Failing this, they want no slum elimination an authoritative Washington dis All of this merely proves that The government is landlord to we do not know what the rental America Sixty Families in war against the landlords. No housing program, whatsoever. The CIO, opposing this onesided propatch to the Journal of Commerce, the so called National Defense thousands of small home owners is, inasmuch as the rental was launching the so called National no matter how conciliatory to private landlords. Wall Street daily, in its July 15 Program, which the people are under the Home Owners Loan not disclosed. But it is hardly Defense program. It is a program gram, has challenged the Future Outlook league has ever satisfied the landlords. For the landissue. When one remembers asked to believe is a patriotic en Act. They pay rent. Thousands likely that the Du Pont repres calculated to accumulate billions to justify its position in a debate. This debate that the year 1929 marks the peterprise in the interest of all of these homes are foreclosed entative would drive a worse bar of dollars out of the intense ex lords will not accept any sane basis as adequate may end up with the CIO and Future Outlook riod when capitalist profits reach classes of society, is merely a every month because of default to gain with Defense Commissioner ploltation of the workers, farmers compensation for surrendering their tenements league fighting each other.
ed their Wighest peace time peak means for pumping millions into the payment of interest on mort. Knudsen than his colleague from and lower middle class.
and permitting new public housing to replace Despite the justified mistrust of Negroes to in American history, we get a the pockets of the bosses while pages which the government the Chrysler Corporation. great deal of confusion is the old death traps especially when the prospect foreclosures fair Idea of what an orgy of the rest of the country remains holds. To forestall ward the WPA housing program, which has eliSuffice it to mention that for deliberately fostered by the press is for an influx of workers who will be forced profiteering the bankers, indus in the same poverty stricken con and evictions, these small home th first half of 1940 the minated only 24 of the more than 20, 000 subto the effect that the army and to pay any rent demanded them!
trialists and munition makers are aition it was in before. owners created many organiza Du Pont de Nemours Co. earned navy staff are in bitter opposl standard homes here, nevertheless a policy of But no capitalist government can war against already having at the expense of graphic example of how the tions, which sent delegations about 17, 500, 000 in profits tion to the effort of the capitalists fighting the CIO instead of cooperating with it the landlords. For the landlord is, generally, the toiling masses of America. big bosses manage to clean up Washington in the hope of ob from its investments in the will boomerang back on the Future Outlook to reap millions out of the arms another corporate designation for the banker, The report also reveals that millions of dollars on war orders talning some relief. After months General Motors Company. This ment program. Nothing could be industrialist, businessman. Through the mortgage League. The stand either the elimination of the production in the light goods in was furnished by the War De of lobbying and negotiations, all is significant in view of the further from the truth! The atentire John Street area or no slum elimination dustries is about the same as partment when it awarded a that was obtained was a reduefact that Knudsen, who is De titude of high army and navy network the banking system is inextricably linked at all will degenerate into a stand against 1939. This is a most revealing contract to the Chrysler Corporation in the interest rate from in its interests to the real estate interests, and fense Commissioner, is also the officials was accurately expressed cleaning up one half the area. And this latter bit of Information, since production for the mass production of to can mobilize all sectors of business enterprise to head of General Motors. The by Captain Fisher of the tion in the light goods industries Lanks. Here is a case where Such was the attitude of the stand may find a picket line of white workers, fact that Knudsen resigned do its bidding.
Navy Department during the content for the moment with eliminating onereflects the chasing power of the government or rather the capitalist government to the plight from General Motors before course of testimony before We can flatly predict in advance, therefore, half of this slum, breaking up a picket line of the people. For instance, the people, in the long run will give of the millions of small home assuming his position in the House sub committee on May 16th, that no matter how troubled the various admini.
Defense Commission ought to 1940. Here is what he said: sovernment report indicates that the Chrysler motor magnates 63. owners. How different was the black workers from the Future Outlook League. the same amount of textiles, 500, 000 for tanks. But in return attitude of the government to strators are, no matter how scared they are of a deceive no one. He may have In these perilous times, Mr. repetition of the 1916 18 labor turnover, no matBut if the militancy of the Future Outlook shoes, and automboiles (for con Chrysler will only give 893, 500. Keller, president of the Chrys resigned his post, but he still Chairman. we should make the ter how much they would like to remove this League its mass meetings, demonstrations and sumer purposes) were produced 000 worth of tanks. The other Jer Corporation, who went to has huge stakes in General Mo government business most atpicketings is geared into a concentrated attack sore spot of housing, they will not do so. Removthis year as last year.
twenty million will go for plant Washington to negotiate with tors; so, too, has Du Pont. The tractive.
ing this sore spot would involve removing its against those responsible for slum conditions: Knudsen, Defense profits in this company is their This simply means that the and equipment. That is, the William How attractive can be seen masses of people have not earned Chryler bosses will obtain the lo Commissioner in charge of purch main concern, not patriotism.
Big Business and Government, it will find the from the administration sponsor parent capitalism.
more this year than last and concation of the plant, build and asing and production. As one Mr.
CIO and other progressive groups, white or black, Pierre Du Pont put Ited bill to wipe out the previous And that, needless to say, will not be done by sequently have not been able to equip it, and then transfer the motor magnate to another, they bluntly when he had occasion to per cent limitation on ship and a capitalist government. The frightful overon its side, accepting concessions as they are buy more this year than they did itle of the plant to the govern. found common interest in plund. with the same question in aircraft profits. But even that crowding of 1916 18 is about to be repeated in Won, and continuing the fight for more. last year. This is borne out by ment. So the government will lering the government, or rather 1917. He wrote then: is only the beginning.
even more terriblo circumstances.
Government Report Shows Profits On Arms Deals Are Soaring Sky High