4 SOCIALIST APPEAL OCTOBER 12, 1940 size. During the past six years of epic labor WEST COAST Local 544 Defeats. FIREMEN GO Anti Union Suit devetion to union principles, and class conscious OUT ON STRIKE Nazi Pressure Outlaws Our Swiss Comrades. 12 We have just learned that many of our comrades in Switzerland have been arrested, and the Swiss section of the Fourth International out.
lawed, by the Swing government. The Swiss Trat.
skyists were active predominantly in the Germanspeaking section of Switzerland, their publications were in German, etc. and they constituted a base from which our exiled German comrades were able to carry on revolutionary work reaching into Germany. Undoubtedly this led to heavy Nazi pressure on the Swiss government to persecute our comrades and outlaw their organization. The following account of the arrests appeared in the bourgeois daily, the NEUE ZUERISCHER ZEITUNG. of August 26, 1940: Shortly before the news of Trotsky death arriver from Mexica this well known name rppeared in resolution of the Swiss Bundesrut. It enacted lew on August 8, outlawing all Communist organizations, the Trulskyltes, partisans of the Fourth International, are explicitly mentioned. group of accused (Trotskyists) were, consequently, brought before a military tribunal for preliminary investigation concerning breaches of military and civil law. Moreover, punishment will possibly come to more people coticerning the violation of military affairs in question. The facts about the intensive activities of the Trotskyites was the result of 15 house raids conducted by the federal pollee in collaboration with the local police. On June 11 twenty people were arrested and the group most guilty is still in prison.
The beginning of the foundation of the Swiss section of the fourth International is traceable back to the year 1933, in which year the Left Opposition became independent of the Communist International and founded an international secretariat in Paris. The leading porsonality. in Switzerland) was from ita inception Walter Nelx, originally a German, who in 1916 became citixen of 2berich. In 1931 Nelz entered the Left Opposition with a fow of his comrades.
His organization was first called Marxistische Aktion der Schweiz And published a newspaper called Marxistische Aktion. which sppeared irregularly until 1939. The real meeting place of the in 1937 was at Pfingsten, near Aarau, Branches of the existed ia various places: Zuerich. Gen. and Basel. They had sympathisers and literature was distributed at the following: Larzen, Solothurn, Biel, and Engadin. Besides their newspeper, they bad a weekly discusion magazine.
After the outbrvak of this war, the (Trotskyite)
propaganda began to express itself in sharper and more concrete terms.
It Up to the CIO MILITARY POLICY OF THE PROLETARIAT. The Sky the Limit SOCIALIST APPE AL struggles, Local 544 has been unsurpassed in the field of direct action. In this latest battle, fought in VOL. IV No. 41 Saturday, October 12, 1940 Pulled Wokly by the 544 BOCLALIST APPEAL PUBLISHING ASSN.
At 116 University Place, New York, NY.
intelligence. The begrudging acquittal wrung from Telephone: Algonqula 1547 a hostile judge is but an acided measure of the splendid achievements of Local 544, a hard won Editoriet Board: Testimonial to its unsullied record.
FELIX MORROW ALBERT GOLDMAN For the labor movement to view the outcome General Manager: of this case as an unqualified victory, however, is RUTH JEFFREY to invite disaster. The one real victory would be the complete rejection by the boss courts of any Subscriptions: 00 per year: 00 for six months, jurisdiction in this case. This alone might have Forel: 00 per year. 50 for a months, Dundlo guaranteed the elementary right of the labor move orders: cento per copy in the United Stata; conta per copy in all foreign countries. Singio coples: Soala ment to conduct its own affairs free from the threat of legal intervention by conployer dominated courts Reentered as socond claus matter December The fact of the suit constitutes in itself a sinisAet of Shres. New York, under the ter precedent. Through this procedent, we may be sure the bosses will soon again stretch their slimy Fight with the Socialist Workers fingers toward militant labor in Minnesota and elsewhere. Now any link or stool pigeon who suc.
Party for: ceeds in weaseling his way into a local union may JOB AND DECENT LIVING FOR EVERY concoct a case against its members and officers WORKER.
and drag them before an enemy court. OPEN THE IDLE FACTORIES OPERATEC The removal by court order of Carl Skoglund, THEM UNDER WORKERS CONTROL Local 544 president, is sheer judicial malevoleno TWENTY. BILLION DOLLAR FEDERAL a token of Judge Carroll eagerness to salvage in PUBLIC WORKS AND HOUSING PROGRAM.
retreat any brick from the wrecked edifice of the. THIRTY THIRTY. 30. WEEKLY MINIMUM links case to hurl at organized labor.
WAGE 80 HOUR WEEKLY MAXIMUM FOR ALL WORKERS ON ALL JOBS The anti alien clause in the International 30 WEEKLY OLD. ACE AND DISABILITY Teamsters constitution, which Judge Carroll used PENSION to oust Skoglund, is an archaic remnant of the EXPROPRLATE THE SIXTY FAMILIES. early beginnings of the International. It is as much ALL WAR FUNDS TO THE UNEMPLOYED. a living law as the Minneapolis ordinance, still on PEOPLE REFERENDUM ON ANY AND the statute books, forbidding the driving of an ALL WARS auto faster than 5 miles per hour on Minneapolis NO SECRET DIPLOMACY.
streets uniess preceded by a runner waving a red 10. AN INDEPENDENT LABOR PARTY.
flag. We might regard in better light the Judge 11 WORKERS DEFENSE GUARDS AGAINST concem for upholding the strict letter of union VIGILANTE AND FASCIST ATTACKS. law, had he instructed the fink plaintiffs to first 12. FULL SOCIAL POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC seek redress for their alleged grievances through EQUALITY FOR THE NEGRO PEOPLE.
the channels of the International, as laid down in the International Constitution. While resurrecting a single discarded clause, the judge summarily fosssed into the waste basket the entire constitti tion of the Teamsters International. That fact weck intensive activity in Washington has alone should put the workers on guard against the Tesulted in complete clarification of the govern precedents established by this decision.
ment policy toward corporations which violate the Wagner Act and decisions under that act by the National Labor Relations Board. series of state Assistant Secretary Patterson of the War Department, the Controller General (who all payCongress has approved an Excess Profits Law ments by government agencies. Attorney General which gives Wall Street iron clad guarantees that Jackson, and a spokesman for the National Demany millionaires will become billionaires and the fense Advisory Commission, have all taken the billionaries will just stop counting. The sky the identical position. That position is that the govern iimit. The scoundrelly business is wrapped around ment will continue to give contracts to corporations by 350 or more pages of technical monkeyshines, found guilty of violating the labor laws but the raw meat of it drips right through. This Not even Sidney Milithan can now pretend, law makes all previous bloocl profits secin like mere even for a moment that the governmental policy marble snatching.
is not crystal clear. As a matter of fact, when the The law accomodatingly provides two altergovernment spokesmen whom we have listed had native methods of freeing profits from government all put in their unambiguous statements, Hillman taxation. Corporations with high profit levels betadded one of his own. He was asked, at a hearing ween 1936 1939 can take those profit levels as their Tuesday of the Smith committee investigating the normal income. Industries like stoel, with low NLRB. whether he agreed with the statements rates of profit on huge capital investment. are made by the War and Navy Departments. And he provided with a minimum percentage of profil so answered: high that they will never have to disgorge more ve got to agree. The army and navy bave than a meager fraction of their billions of profit.
the power. Questions of all kinds come up every General Motors, for example, which has day, requiring sensible and constructive solutions.
averaged hundreds of millions yearly in profits In every case the first consideration is wherber it during the last three years, will not have to pay will help or larm national defense.
the excess profit tax on 95 per cent of this amount. Less than a week previously, Hillman had sent For the rest, it will only pay a maximum of 25 10 a telegram to the Pittsburgh meeting of 125 steel 50 per cent tax on profits ABOVE this already workers representatives who were considering the tremendous figure of average profits. Steel problem of Bethlehem Steel, which has been convicted of violating the labor laws but which has, will not pay the tax except on profits exceeding per cent of its total capital investment. which nevertheless, received well over a billion dollars means a guarantee of tax free profits running into war orders. Hillman had transmitted an infor a half billion dollars yearly. Older workers, who mal opinion from Attorney General Jackson recall how Steel and similar monopolies were which Hillman interpreted to mean that all gov.
put together, need rot be reminded that the capital ernment agencies must refuse war orders to cor investment of such combines is largely a matter porations violating the labor laws.
of slick accounting Yet five days later Hillman was telling the Smith committee that the army and navy could And in return for submitting to these excess profits Wall Street is rewarded with two pieces do as they pleased. Of all the backtracking Hillman was the most startiing, causing gasps among of candy. 1) an amortization clause which percomniittee members and spectators, the New York míts profiteers to divert all taxable profits within Post reported.
a five year period to pay for the entire cost of new Hillman is a vice president of the CIO. But he plants and equipment and (2) there is no longer doesn take orders from the CIO. He takes his any limit to the amount of profit which the fat orders from the army and navy: ve got to hoys can make on war orders.
agree, he whined. It was a very clever, foxy As Barron s, the Wall Street weekly, so aptly maneuver that he had cooked up sending that put it, Probably the worst business can be justly message to the Pittsburgh conference of the SWOC accused of is the normal practice of trying to drive to stymie any move toward a strike. But the men the best bargain possible.
who wield the power in the government and the Well, they drove it.
big corporations for whom they wield it, could not let Hillman move leave behind any ambiguity about the government position.
It up to the CIO now squarely up to the Butler Edict CIO leadership. The government isn going to push the law breakers into line. On the contrary, The president of Columbia University, Dr. Nicholas the government is going to join hands with those Murray Butler, has told the students and faculty of law breakers in pushing the unions out of the way, the largest educational institution in America what Three years and more of lobbying in Washingis expected of them in the coming war period. Aceton have proved utterly fruitless. It is time now demic freedom, he declared. is not for students, and for the CIO leadership to do the job where it has extends, 30 far as the faculty is concerned, only to the limita defined by millionaire university trustees.
to be done in the plants, organizing and preparAccording to the Butler defation, the ideal student ing the workers for struggle. The fight senceforth is one who uses his head for the sole purpose of supmust be a direct collision between the unions and porting steel helmet. The job of the ideal teacher the law breaking corporations. Direct action of the is to convince the student that no better use has yet unions to push the corporations into line that is been devised for the abode of the brain.
the only possible road for the trade union move Butler pronouncement was greeted with well.
ment nigh universal approval by the capitalist press. It is Chis ager approval, rather than the words of the in.
dividual Dr. Butler, which reveals how far along the mad to the complete suppression of democratic rights the ruling class is prepared to travel.
The Minneapolis General Drivers Union merits The political and technical requirements for imper.
the warmest congratulations for the unyielding 32. ialist war wipes out all distinctions of front or rear.
months battle it has waged against a frame up. Totalitarianism seeks to rule oqually the battle field, The detailed story, appears on page of this is production line, or college campus. Continued frora Pago 2) attorneys were enabled to examine Steam Schooners the spearhead since 2934 In estat only the inost pertinent records, Iishing Minneapolis as the best and under certain limitations Tied Up By organized town in the country. After a long whink expedition began on February 16, 1988. It was by the finks into the union re Walkout Siled in the name of five indepecords, the suit came to trial on dent track owners, who at on January 2, 1940, before Judge Cartime held membership in Local roll of the district court. From 511 Independeat Truck Owners the wart it was clear from the SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. Section. These links, for a contestimony of the complainant the Crews of Pacific Coast steam siderable period prior to files they came into court with dirty schooners walked off the ships the suit, bad been assoclated with hands. All admitted their host!
this week as members of the an employer ponsored Indepen. Ily to the Union and confessed to Marine Firemen, Ollers, Wipers dent Union, Local No. panced organizing an independent owl and Watertenders, went on strike by the Associated ladustrles ana Al with the express purpose o: following refusal of the employ closely tied to the Silver Sburts, fighting Local 514 and chiseling ers to consider any of the union a fascist organization.
down the wage scales. In add demands in negotiating a new The funds poured into the caretion, it was revealed that the in Agreement.
over two year period by thc aneing of the fink urlon canne Effective ut Friday, the plaintiffs revealed they had pow. from the open shop Associated in striko took men off 12 stcam erful financial backing, dustrial shooners, and craws of 20 more The first move of the plaintifts The link attorney bad pored were to hit the bricks as rapidly was to secure the union records. over the mountain of unlon re as the ships reached port.
Their attorney. Arthur Anderson. cepts and records for weeks HAX Secretary Malone of the complained that, We cannot prep. In any tiny foothold on which MWOW said 246 inembers of the are our cate without examining to build a case. For months in union on steam scooners control the unlod record an adalaslon the court he wrangled over and led by the Shipowners Association Instituted without any real ert the case dragged on interminably, from the alart that the suit was disputed every little item. while of the Pacific Coast would wat dence and solely as a means of The Assocleted Industries au rected.
with members of other unions, smearing the union and its milillone to smash Minneapolis la a total of about 2, 000 men are aut officers and of exposing its bor: but the Local 544 treasury affected.
internal business and membership was limited, Bats to the Associated Industries.
The bosser last offer was reMinneapolis labor. which han neval of the present agreement This move was blocked by the given its unqualified support from or, as an alternative submission Anion for over a year with the the start of the sult to Local 54 of the montre matter to arbitra challenge. We do not propose to and Its officers ir jubilant over tion of grins already made by the prints of the Associated Indus recognized that an adverse rating union and was refused.
trles to soll our clean records, nor might have established legal pre.
permit their fou no es to procedents in every sphere of prog The Union Demands into the internal afiatrs of organ reasive labor malou policy malionDnale demands of tho Mpow and labor.
ully, which would have medl.
are: The final result of the phasetely crippleil the entire Mio. Adjustment of wage scales of the right was the Minnesota sota labor movement and to restore the differential that hou State Supreme Court ruling, in wrecked all the magnificent ains existed for five year between October, 1938, against the union of six years of bitter struggle stenm schonners and offshore yes plea, but retructos the district gains which have won Minneapo Pols. Work on steam schooners court to modly considerably 11 the title from the Deport has always been better paid. order to turn ovor the union yameol o: Labor of the beat organ2. Sacurday afternoon oft. This cards to the finks. Tbc finks lized city to America.
enjoyed by the Armen under all other agreements. Tanding of working rules and Dennitics while vessels are ia port this matter was raised by the shipowners) under the samo regulatione prevalg on the off.
shore vessels. During the last four years, Secretary Malone wrote in let.
ter to Myors, president of the shipowners Association. Continued from page Chere has been differential in the objective of persecutions and assassinations is to terrorize the wides between offwhore and others. Nobody can terrorize us. We will try to be careful, but steain schoonor fromen Amounting mot atrala.
to 50 per inonth. In the last year, however, with had an interesting talk with Comrade Dobbs about these the raino or 15. 00 granted by the two dangers o! nervousness and carelessness. He agreed with me steam schooner operatore, when that filterinens worse than carelesne careless man, the offshore people kranted a he said, is good as long as he lasts, but a jittery man is no raiso of 19. 00, this not only TC good at any time. That is profoundly true. We must use the duced the attorential of the fire men to 2, 50 per month but necessary caution and save ourselves as much as possible. But widens the cap of the oilers on If you create an impression in front of the workers that you fear offshore vessels and steam schoon the hazards of the struggle you can never lead them. You can is to 50 per month in favor do without a lot of things in a revolutionary party but you can of the offshore oftere.
get along without courage. National Defense Bunk Now then, ou the other hand, we heve to check up on carelessness We want to know who is who in the party. We don That the employers are going to A phoney ational de want to have any universal spy hunts because that is worse that fense sur became apparent the disease it tries to cure. Comrade Trotsky said many times when San Francisco newspapers that mutual suspicion among comrades can greatly demoralize reported some of the lumtur en movement. On the other hand, there is a certain carelessness the steam schoonvald boen in the movement as a hangover from the past. We haven probed headed for vital detenso Indus. doeply enough into the past of people even in Icading positions.
tries. Under the pressure, Mal. where they came from, how they live, whom they are married to.
one in an interview, offered to etc. Whenever in the past such questions elementary for a operate these steam schooners carrying lumther to ational de revolutionary organization were ralsed, the petty bourgeois opfense projects.
position would cry. My God, you are invading the private lives Meanwhile the Sallors Unton of of comrades! Yes, that is precisely what we were doing, or, the scific has voted to open the more correctly, threatening to do nothing ever came of it in the team schooner agreement for past. If we had checked up on such matters little more carefully amendment, and with the SUP the we might have prevented some bad things in the day ligono hy.
employers also have refused any We are proposing that we set up a control commission in the concessions Principul demands of the saltors parly. We are fully ready for that now. This will be a body of ponsi are for Saturdny afternoon off.
and authoritative comrades who will take things hourly ralo on working cargo, in hand and carry every investigation to a conclusion one way eight mon in the bold while work or the other. This will do away with indiscriminate suspicions ing cargo, ring in wages, and on the one side and undue laxity on the other. The net result clarification of various clauses. enn only be to reassure the party and strengthen its vigilance.
the agreement which have been We think the whole party now, with the petty bourgeois riff raft Le source of contusion and budt out of our way, is ready for the appointment of such a body, vidual beers.
We have to strengthen our professional staff. We don preArbitration Danger tend to be a party of gloridled rank and flors. The only reason Malone declared to the presa we haven got ten, twenty, thirty, or forty more people devoung that the MFOW was not in favor their whole time, their whole chergy, to the party is that we of arbitration because it had not lack the resources for st. We need more money to engage more worked out in the past. What functionerles fall time. This conference has to decide how big will happen when the steam is a forward step this direction it feels able to take. We are Lurned ou from Sidney Hillman not coming here with a proposal for specifie quotas. We want of lee romains to be seen. The Arenten, however, will soon have each delegation to conter and decide what they can raise in opportunity to clarify their way. two months time. Ons general plan is that, as several position on this question What branches have suggostod, we raise a Trotsky Memorial Fund they will not only affect con.
to build the party. We think it is a good plan. If it meets with ditions on steam schoolers, but the approval of the conference we can adopt a resolution to that will have serious consoquences for effect the future of all Beam We want to build the party henceforth in a more balanced way than in the past. In the past we gave an inordinate amount of our resurees to the press. We had to do that. Propaganda Subscribe to the had to go ahead of organization and prepare the way for it. 11 Fourth International the next perlod we want to bend the stiek a little for organization on the general principle of dollar for dollar one for press and one for organization Since the last convention we have taken certain steps in this Just Opened! Just Opened!
direction. You com ades in the auto held know we maintained qurished comrades in the field continuously. The same 18 true Armenian Restaurant San other Melds. The important step taken in St. Paul will have Enjoy the best there is in lational meaning for wl of us. It shows the growing tendency delicious Armenian food. Pric os serious comrades to regard the party as the most important es consistent with the prole thing of all. refer to the action of Comrade Carlson In resign tarian tastes and pockets of ing ber elv! service job and accepting a pontus party organizer.
yourself and your friends. This is a good example. We sbould raiso as much money as possible to put to work for the party on a full time basis a CHARLES great number of qualified party workers. It is appalling how Armenian Restaurant many capable people we have who devole only a small portion 137 East 27th St. of their time to the party because the necessary Job of making Between Lex. arid lyd Ave.
ving trkes so much of their time and energy. That is right for the old party, but not for us.
REACTIONARY REGIME IN ARMY An article entitled Frontbericht (News of the Front) characterizes the Swiss key as a great na tional concentration unmp. The soldier honored with barrage of glowing phrases, is in reality among the most oppressed people of the country. He is a slave. The majority of the soldiers possess nothing and have nothing to defend. Our military command isn inuch better than the Polish Military command.
The organization is bed. The equipment is bad. The orders thwart and contradict one another. The of heers corps has become demoralized to a considerable extent.
Some reniarks on discipline appear in the follow.
ing sentences: The most severo breach of discipline is mutiny. Therefore the main aim of keeping discipline is to hinder mutiny. The offieers. corp is absolutely powerless against united troops held together by firm will. Troop solidarity has the power to strike the whole oppressive state apparatus to fragments. further passage from the Frontbericht. Our position toward the bourgeois army is ono of unconditional defeat. Our Swiss army is part of the imperialist war. Our aim is to generate a feeling of troop solid.
ality on a proleurian class basis. Such troop solidar.
ity reduces to ruins the whole bourgeois spectre. The aim is to tear the armed troops front the bourgeois state structure and to lead them over into the camp of revolution. This princess, in general, will take placa as a battle between the endres of the soldiers and the officers corps, whereby we shall witness a few officers joining the ranks of the revolution and a few soldiers deserting to the ranks of the bourgeoisie.
Propaganda in the my, dangerous to the stato, the formation of givupe who seek to undermino military discipline and who insult militury dignitaries slwuld. alter the result of the criminal proceedings be allowed to be punished under the military code.
The followers of the Trotskyite International come from varied milieu. Workers, functionaries, emig.
ranta, also a few women accused in the action and also young intellectuals. Tuolsky has more attractive power on young people with higher education than the Stalinists, who have fared badly in their propagands with the Swiss social democints.
The criminal proceeding against the Trotskyites was onded the later part of July.
In San Francisco woman get a divoree from her usago manufacturer hushond when he threatened to cut her up and make sausage of her. Ever since read Sinclair Jungle. m ready to believe anything when it comes to making sousage.
In Minneapolis over 75 percent of the volunteers for navy service have been rejected for various reasons. The bosses are certain predicament: if they feed the unemployed adequately this cuts into profits; if they doo We unemployed are too weak to hold a rifle.
Congratulations to 544 You cannot hope to bribe or wistThank God. the British journalist.
But seeing what the man will do Unbribed, there no occasion to.