BUILD WORKERS DEFENSE GUARDS Socialist Appeal WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!
Official Organ of the Socialist Workers Party, Section of the Fourth International. Issued Twice Weekly VOL. III. No. 37 TUESDAY, MAY 30, 1939 3c a Copy PICKET LINES FORM IN DETROIT The Spirit of 1937 Cops Attack Coughlin Anti Coughlin Rally Agent of The Sixty Families Auto Workers Strike Five Briggs Plants Workers Boo Coughlin Police Stooges as Large Open Air Bronx Meeting Is Broken. Eleven Arrested for Collecting Crowd Detroit again Feels the Spirit of 1937 Strikes as Workers Rally to New Drive Company Stalls on Union Demands CANADA FOURTH INT LEADS JOBLESS FIGHT FOOD PREPARE FOR STRIKE ACTION high CONVICT TEN An Open Letter to LaFOR FIGHTING Guardia on Hounding EVICTION Of Anti Coughlinites crowd of five hundred workers participated in an By GRACE SAUNDERS Father Coughlin, anti Semitic DETROIT, May 27. Picket lines in Detroit agam!
anti Coughlin mass demonstration and meeting, organized priest, is a vital threat to the The splendid never say die spirit of 1937 is back on by the Socialist Workers Party on Tremont Avenue, the American working class bethe strike lines that have shut down the five plants of the Bronx, the evening of May 24 and became the object of cause he is first and foremost the agent of the reactionary Briggs Body Corporation tighter than a drum. The lethargy, a police attack.
American capitalists our own passivity and even disgust with unionism that characterized While the crowd was listen 60 families. This is his real the stagnating period of the factional wrangle in the Auto ing to Arthur Rosen, Socialist role on the American scene, Workers Party speaker and it is because of this that he Union seems to have vanished into thin air.
club swinging platoon of La constitutes a menace.
Thousands of workers, singing, cheering men and Guardia police drove into the Coughlin, it is true, borrows women, march in mass picket lines before the gates of the crowd, punching and seizing demonstrators and spectators.
his propaganda methods from Hitler and Mussolini. But he plants. At their head are huge union banners and fighting Rosen was jerked from the uses these borrowed methods militant slogans. Not a single worker stayed behind when platform and dragged into an to further the cause of fascism Local 212 of the United Auautomobile.
in this country. Anti Semitism.
Police then proceeded to attacks on democratic forms of tomobile seize Socialist Appeal salesmen government, demagogic apand those carrying anti Cough Unemployed in 34peals to the unemployed these scab has thus far made his lin placards. They were all taken by police cars to the Day Struggle against and the rest of Coughlin propappearance at the gates. The Bathgate Avenue precinct sta Conditions on Relief that aim is the grinding down Strikers at the Fisher Body Plant No. 1, Flint, Mich. helping a scab out of a car during one strike is solid. The morale is tion.
of American workers until they of the great strike struggles of the auto workers.
Cops Attack Again become the defenseless slaves This is the opening gun in Aroused by the sudden at By JORDAN of their American bosses, the tack of the police, the milling (Special to the Socialist Appeal) Girdlers and the DuPonts, the fight to re establish the workers booed and hooted the TORONTO, Ont. More than Obscures Course Fund for Organizing Auto Workers Union to the arresting officers. The work 2, 000 unemployed in Toronto In furthering this basic purers refused to leave the scene, suburbs are still in fighting pose, Coughlin tacks frequently Automats, Preparing prestige and strength it en1937. New union whereupon the police went into mood despite being forced back These maneuvers are designed Strike Is Voted enthusiasm, already mountaction again.
Massed police into slave labor on May after to obscure the fundamental dirushed the crowd, pushing the struggle led by the Socialist do not alter that direction.
thirty four days of a splendid rection of his course. But they ing, will reach new heights (Special to the Socialist Appeal)
workers onto the sidewalks and Workers League of Canada and march forth to battle the NEW YORK The cafeteria Chrysler and General Motors At the moment, Coughlin has workers of New York City Corporations if the Briggs down the street. Those dem. Fourth International. onstrators who were not ar Only when cut off relief al. some kind words to say about rested immediately took up the together and faced with star is imperative to bear in mind, Led Action packed the Manhattan Center workers win.
the Rome Berlin Tokyo axis. It Thursday, May 25, in a tremen Answers Boss Attack sale of the Socialist Appeal in vation did the strikers vote to however, that this support, ex. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, May 25, 1939 Against Eviction of dous rally called to answer the For almost a year the corEarlier in the evening, the and go to work for their miser temporary and superficial no New York, New York, Unemployed Family impending anti union drive of porations have been deliberateBronx Branch of the Socialist able dole.
the organized bosses. 6, 000 ing the union, undermining Workers Party had mobilized York and Scarboro town every land grab of his Euro Honorable Sir: members of the union, with hu. union conditions, violating se(By Start Writer)
on Tremont Avenue for mass ships, the largest working class pean fascist pals, whether Last Saturday evening, May 20, at approximately 8:30 NEW YORK For fighting an dreds turned away, beard the niority provisions, firing stewsales of the Socialist Appeal, municipalities in the Toronto these have come about as a re four individuals were arrested on Times Square while selling an eviction, ten members of the answer of the affiliated. Res ards and committeemen. The Coughlin banners and placards, spearheads in eastern Cana bullying. Mussolini seizure of Coughlin as a mouthpiece of Fascism in America.
anti. fascist. anti district, and traditionally the sult of a war or of strong arm issue of the Socialist Appeal which carried an expose of Father Unemployed and Project Work taurateurs to the demands of Briggs workers suffered under Immediately. hundreds orderly conduct before the selves ready for action if it was than the others. By this slow workers gathered about the were the first to meet head on (Coughlin word) of Albania The technical charge placed against them, as is the police Bronx Magistrates Court, Wed needed, to enforce their de war of attrition the company demonstrators, indicating their with Hepburn Ontario gov for the benefit Coughlin custom when they wish to infringe upon civil rights, was dis nesday, May 24. Nine of the mands and defend the union hoped to destroy the union. But sympathy with the militant sloernment in its April on again) of its million inhabl. orderly conduct. It is a matter of witness that the defendants unemployed union workers re 100. 000 defense fund was they met their match in the gans against the Coughlinites. slaught upon relief standards Demonstrators Answer Coughlin Hepburn slashed his rates antants; Hitler rape of Czecho were selling their newspaper and in no conception of the term celved a suspended sentence. voted, to be raised by a tax on Briggs local, by far and away Lining the street for a block, other ten percent and, backed against the workers and peas.
slovakia; Franco brutalities conducting themselves in a disorderly fashion.
and one. Bernard Ross, the the membership. to be used in the best organized local in the leader of local of the preparing a strike and organ International, with almost 18, the banners read by the municipal authorities, ants of Spain all these fascist At exactly the same time and in the same location, Times u. was fined ten dollars or izing the Automat cafeterias, 000 members, and led by a Smash Father Coughlin demanded that the unemployed activities are volubly cheered Square, numerous followers of Father Coughlin were selling three days in the workhouse. Stronghold of the open shop group of fighting militants Anti Semitism, Smash go on working at garbage and in the columns of Social Jus their magazine, Social Justice, which is loaded with venoheaded by Emil Mazey.
Coughlin Anti Labor Offen ash collection, street cleaning. tice.
The general contract of the Almost two weeks ago, Local sive, Build Workers Defense weed cutting, etc.
mous attacks against the Jews, Negroes, and other racial minor Monday evening. May 16, when For Danzig Seizure with Guards.
Below Health Standards ities, and which carries e program identical with that of Hitler the members of Local and union with the Affiliated Res. 212 opened negotiations Local of the Unemployed and Laurateurs Association and the the management to settle pendThe demonstration, the first Even before the cut, the on beforehand, endorsing Hitler and Mussolini just before they seized power, Project Workers Union moved independent stores expired on of a series scheduled, was in tario Medical Association had projected seizure of Danzig and ing grievances and negotiate a These followers of Father Coughlin were left entirely unmo the furniture of an evicted April 30, and protracted negoti new contract. The company answer to the provocations of declared relief to be 50 per a strip of the Polish corridor. lested by the police.
family into the Home Rellet ations have been carried on for stalled, refusing to agree to a the Coughlinites, who for the cent below minimum health In the matter of Danzig. Yesterday, on May 24, an exactly similar occurrence took Bureau. The union committee a new one. The union demands single demand of the union. In past several weeks have been standards. Unemployed the meantime, a company stool vading the predominantly now getting less than five cents no question but sooner or later peacefully selling the Socialist Appeal in the Bronx at Tremont family. Bernard Ross, the minimum of 18 per week for ents so y su estion bluusticerer there is place, when the police arrested eleven individuals who were then demanded an immediate a new one year contract with pigeon ecame provocative that several hundred union Bronx and shouting their anti. Hepburn government had just. Germany must, and win, and Marmion Avenues, and booked them on the same technical Committee spokesman, stated unskilled workers a sharp in men marched him out of the Jewish slogans as they peddled passed a new two cent gaso have her railroad and highway charge of disorderly conduct.
plant. Using this incident as a This is not the first time that your police have shown tender had promised the union com derpaid countermen, and a sev pretext to further obstruct neOn one of these coccasions the The York workers knew also see that Poland will be sacri solicitude and partiality for the fascists, protecting them while mittee that the agmanute mentareashour day for female employ Sotiations athe company tired identical shirts and military had tucked away 2, 000, 000 in Furthermore, Coughlin, like bringing police clubs down on the heads of the anti fascists. this promise was constantly Reject Boss Terms belts. They are always pro reserves, built up out of the Hitler, indulges in attacks upon on February 20 at Madison Square Garden your police protected broken.
He announced that The Affiliated Restaurateurs ton Ollenbrook, Edward McAve. plant: Peter Upper, Miltected by large contingents of 52, 000 yearly savings that the Versailles Treaty because a huge mass meeting of the Nazi German American Bund. The the committee would therefore responded after three weeks of Garry, as well as Bil Mazey, cops. Continued on Page Continued on Page 3)
in (Continued on Page a member of the local union Workers Want Action to make sure that those vultures enjoyed a successful meeting executive board.
Those who protested this insulting provocation to American Strike is the way!
labor were brutally attacked by your police.
It became clear as daylight ers to get action against the Coughlinites by the American The arrests on May 20 and May are only the latest indtto the union leaders and memLabor Party and the Commucation of the partiality of the police in attacking the anti fascists bership that the company was nist Party failed. These organnot to be talked into a new sponsible for their actions, and we hold you accountable for and protecting the fascists. You, as Mayor, are directly reagreement over the negotiatizations, tied to Mayor LaGuarthese police violations of the elementary rights of free speech ing table. Strike was the only dia, refused to act since LaGuardia police have demon Further developments in the the result will be war, and war and free press.
Why is your police so interested in protecting free speech The Roosevelt administration on April 12 and 13 has just been language they understood. In rousing, densely packed strike strated their benevolence to European crisis waited this soon.
ward the Coughlinites.
Value of Pact for the fascist forces in America? Why are they so interested is taking a direct hand in the published.
Lieutenant Ira Nunn and meetings the Briggs workers Street salesmen of the Social. week on the outcome of the AnThe British pact with Russia in denying free speech to the anti fascist forces in America. attempt now being made to Commander Albert Bledsoe voted almost unanimously to ist Appeal during the last weeks glo Soviet negotiations for is obviously worth a good deal And above all, where do you yourself stand?
push through Congress the speaking for the Navy, and Lt. shut the works down. And shut have been contacted by numer mutual assistance pact. more to Britain than it is to the On Wednesday, May 31, at 10:00 the case of the eleven most ironclad criminal syndi Colonel Smith and Major it down they did!
ous workers anxious to join in With obvious the Briggs workers. that is why the Brit. Bronx Henry, testifying for the When reluctance, struggle against the Cough Tory Britain came somewhatish have gone much farther Contdefendants is scheduled to be heard in the Magistrate calist law ever proposed.
at 161st Street and 3rd Avenue. On Thursday, June 1, at. as AM the case of the four Times Square defendants is the Smith Omnibus Bill tee record statements of lead stopped making automobile Many of these workers parorder to get it. With this pact, scheduled to be heard in the Magistrate Court at 54th Street 5138. would make it a Federal ing Cabinet officials ticipated in Wednesday night in alliance proposals. If Mos they hope still to wring a set and 8th Avenue.
offense, punishable by ten of the BIII. The Secretaries of mouth part of Dodge ten anti Coughlin demonstration. cow accepts Chamberlain lat tlement of some kind however If you are genuinely interested in safeguarding civil liber years in jail and 10, 000 fine, state, Army, Navy and Justice plants in all of the Chrysler At the height of the anti est plan, the result will be a temporary out of Hitler.
Coughlin demonstration, the tripartite Anglo French Soviet For the Russians the promise ances, then you will show it by conducting a personal investiga change in the American capi be enacted into law in order to subsidiary of Ford) and Bohn police arrived. They first or alliance.
of aid in case of attack is tion of these cases where civil liberties and democratic rights talist system, stop all efforts at agitation Aluminum were forced to close dered Socialist Appeal sales If this arrangement is actual worth about as much as Anglo were so flagrantly violated.
The Roosevelt administration within the national defense sys down for lack of parts. grand men off Tremont Avenue. In ly consummated, there will be French promises to Austria We demand, moreover, that you instruct your police Com is particularly interested in tem total of more than 75, 000 workLieutenant Nunn testifieders are affected by the strike.
answer Party set up a speakers plat contending camps in Europe. a new appeasement settlement Administration, to desist from provoking, attacking, and arresting it a Federal crime to ad that It was decided that afSocialist Workers a definite crystallization of the and Czechoslovakia. Assuming missioner, Mr. Valentine, and his Department of your city those sections of the Balmak Widespread Support form, and defied the police to If Hitler decides the odds which will enable Hitler once ing anti fascists who are courageously attempting to expose the vise, counsel, urge or solicit fairs had grown to the acute Hundreds of militants from Silence the only real fighters against him are too long, he more to turn his attention to insidious and great danger of fascism to the American people, any member on the terms and stage where it was desirable the Chrysler Corporation are against the Coughlin fascists. will engineer a series of new the east, just what will this particularly at this time, the danger of Father Coughlin Manfred Werner, the first but minor crises with a view pact be worth to Russia. It is high time you brought your opposition Fascism down faction with conditions in the Navy Department make as new found leisure on the picket speaker, called attention to the to extracting a fresh Munich Or can we assume that Jos from the nebulous clouds of oratory to the sidewalks of New service part of its legislative program, lines with their Briggs brothfact that Father Coughlin settlement out of England. If eph Stalin, like Chamberlain, York where fascism right now is fanning race hatred and foistHigh Officials Testify a measure which would give ers. William Marshall, Preslhooligans had complete police he sees a chance of splitting is also planning to wave the ing its poisoned literature on the people of New York City.
protection on Fordham Road in the peace front wide open by pact in front of Adolf nose in us ranking members of the armed Fal machinery for preventing pledged complete support. The the Bronx for their sale of the speeding up instead of slowing hopes of a little side deal of SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY, forces whose testimony before the circulation of certain sub International Union has author(Continued on Page 3) down the tempo of the crisis, his own?
Edward Frank, Organizer the House Judiciary Committee (Continued on Page Continued on Page 2)
Attempts are indienen voer War Camps Await AngloSoviet Pact Developments Criminal Syndicalism Law Pushed by Administration the