TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 1939 SOCIALIST APPEAL By Dwight Macdonald Toward the Party Convention Martin Strike Call SPARKS IN THE NEWS is Desperate Move New Directions Require New How George Dobbin Lost His Job am turning over this column to a guest conductor. George Dobbin, one of the Southern workers who tell their life stories in These Are Our Lives, an extremely interesting compilation made by the Federal Writers Project and published by the University of North Carolina Press. The story begin in the boom years of the War. Mills was beginnin to pay good, George continued. It wa t long till was makin 20 a week. We done some good livin then. Sally remarked. It seemed like we never had to study and contrive so hard. could buy all the milk my children needed. Groceries kept agoin up. George began again, and they took up most of the wages, but then we did have enough to eat. In 1919 we moved to Durham and first thing knowed was makin from 25 to 35 dollars a week. Times stayed good with us up to 21. When say times was good, don meant we done no fancy livin atali but we sat down to the table three times a day and always found somethin on it. Then one day went in the mill and seen a notice tellin of a twenty five percent cut and a shortenin of time to three days a week.
Hard times really set in like always but groceries never come down accordin to the cut.
Them was miserable days for us. Sally declared, and many a time my little ones cried for milk. And when it began to look like the livin wa t worth the worry of gettin along lost my job complete left without ary little piece of a job. It was human kindness that caused me to lose it too. body is hard put to it to understand how kindness can work against him sometimes but it sure happens. Word got out amongst the neighbors that we was havin a struggle gettin along with me one workin ward.
MEN AND WOMEN OF LABOR OUT OF THE PAST VINCENT ST. JOHN (1873 June 21, 1929) BUCKS GOVERNMENT (The following account of a great fighter life is from an article written at the time of St. John death by James Cannon, National Secretary of the Socialist Workers Party The Militant, July 1, 1929. Comrade Cannon worked with St. John in the glorious days of Wobbly militancy and activity. The death of Vincent St. John at San Francisco marks the passing of another of the great figures of the American revolutionary movement whose deeds helped to make its tradition and whose names will not be forgotten. The Saint, as he was known to those who knew and loved him, died at the age of 56 after a long illness complicated by high blood pressure. He will be sincerely mourned by thousands whose lives were influenced by him, particularly by those who belonged to the old guard of the in its bravest days when he was its moving spirit and guiding Intelligence.
Vincent St. John, like Haywood and Frank Little, was trained in the hard school of the Western Federation of Miners, that model labor union whose mighty struggles threw their shadow across the world in the latter years of the Nineteenth century and the first years of the Twentieth. metal miner by trade, he joined the Western Federation in 1894, and became one of the most militant fighters in its ranks and an influential voice in its councils. Despite his modesty of disposition, his freedom from personal ambition and his lack of the arts of self aggrandizement, his work spoke loudly and brought him widespread fame. His stirring deeds as a pioneer organizer became legends of the movement and remain such today. Until 1907 he was a member of the executive board of the and in that strategic position became the leader of the left wing in the looming struggle between conservative and revolutionary unionism which centered around the question of affiliation to the which the Western Federation had played a role in founding in 1905.
Led Direct Actionists At the second convention of the in 1906 St. John headed the revolutionary syndicalist group which combined with the elements to oust Sherman, a conservative, as President and to establish new administra tion in the organization with a revolutionary policy. He became the general organizer under the new administration, breaking with the on the withdrawal of the latter body and giving his whole allegiance to the He presided at the 1908 convention which saw the split with the and the elimination of the political clause from the preamble.
St. John was the leader of the proletarian Direct Action forces which defeated the political wing of De Leon. Thereafter he served as General Secretary of the until 1914, and undoubtedly did more than anyone to shape its course and prepare the ground for its later development under the active leadership of Haywood.
He withdrew from activity on leaving the office of General Secretary and engaged in a mining enterprise, doubtless with the illusory hope of acquiring a fortune to help finance the organization of the workers. Despite his retirement at the period, fear of his abilities, and the prospect of his return to the office vacated by the imprisonment of Haywood, dictated his own arrest and subsequent conviction with the Chicago group of wartime prisoners. He served two and a half and seven children lookin to me for a livin First thing we knowed a woman come out and as set to talk awhile with my wife. She asked Workers Refuse to Respond to Call her how we managed to live on what made By JAMES CANNON and the old lady answered we done the best we could. At different times three women (Continued from Page 1)
have not yet mastered the art of mass agitaA revolutionary party begins with an idea, impotent under the pall strike, tion and of simple day to day work in the trade unions and other mass organizations. Too first one, and Sally, she answered em all all but only a desperate ad who turned to the Communist an all conquering power capable of transformmany of our comrades, who can debate any of em. But it wasn long till baskets of grol the word around, and foiled find there bold and radical work of attracting the masses to the revolualike, but not ary times did she ever ask help venture, the men then spreadParty, because they hoped to Ing society when it permeates the mass. The question of the program at the drop of the hat, find difficulty in speaking the language of the ceries started comin to us and it seemed just Martin attempts to carry the leadership, are becoming rap onary program does not proceed along a like manna from heaven. That been goin strike to other plants.
unschooled worker who is ready for action and idly disillusioned. It is time for straight line by the simple repetition of propa on a few weeks when my boss told me Mr.
willing to learn.
Wilder, the superintendent, wanted to see me.
Martin Men Balk them to break with this reac ganda. If that were so, working class poliu cians would not be necessary: a good phono This is not said to disparage those who have At the Fisher No. plant, tionary machine.
mastered the program and the ability to de.
Smashing the Martin action graph or a sectarian, which is the same thing fice and told him Mr. Henry said he wanted stronghold, and where the sands of men in the plants who requisite for the socialist victory, is an ex Soon as could went to Mr. Wilder of formerly Martin outstanding alone will not satisfy the thou would suffice. The struggle for the support fend it against all opponents, nor to contrast to see me. He answered right quick, Yes, has not even chartered of the majority of the working class, the pre educational work to mass agitation. Far from have been disillusioned both by it. It is a question rather of supplementing the Dobbin, did. The comp ny decided all who local, the membership bitter the dragged out factional war. tremely complicated struggle, and one which, can live sumptuous on what they make at one with the other. The problem which presses iy denounced Martin dictatormoreover, is constantly changing and con hard today and will press harder tomorrow is this mouis toe begiven ten day notice. m ial methods, and refused to sup and by the foundering, union givin you yores now.
to interpret and expound the program in such port an action about which they leadership. These men want ent methods of work. It is nes wrecking policies of the present stantly imposing shifts in emphasis and differo keep away as to enable wider circles of stand what causin this. have never raised vance. At a meeting of the stered. breg want the 58 hour enough. The art of revolutionary politics con hitherto unacquainted with Marxist detal to understand it and act upon it. That is an Mr. Dobbin, it awful knockin on the attended by several hundred week at de chours pay they inte objective and of concentrating, according art which we must learn. We must put ourselves to school in the living movement of the mill, he says, to have folks workin for this men, attempts to speak by El with General Motors. And when to the military motto, all forces on the point workers. To do that we must get into it. In company that calls on the welfare and the mer Dowell, Martin Executive they see the get of attack. Only thus is it possible to move for Salvation Army for help. We don like to have Board member, were thwarted ting into action they will readspite of everything the water remains the only place where one can learn to swim.
the Salvation Army callin up this office and by boos and catcalls. molly take their places in the right link in the chain.
And Trotsky crammed Lenin spoke of the necessity of seizing the tellin us they like a contribution from us to tion to go out on strike in supranks of unton fighters.
Learning by Doing help them take care of our hands.
port of Martin move was looked at Mr. Wilder settin there behind manimously defeated. mo way in the auto field. and tence when he said the most important of all Whether Martin makes head all practical political wisdom into a single senThe workers mass movement is the source of power, and also of compensating Inspirahis desk and knowed he couldn help feelintion was then passed to poll the whether the company succeeds questions is what to do next. The tactical ori tion and enthusiasm for those revolutionary was tellin the truth when spoke. Before members of the local by means God. Mr. Wilder. said, to my ricollection of a referendum, on the ques. er. depends in smashing the union altogeth entation of the moment depends on Wat is militants who intelligently participate in it. It ve never spoke to a salvation Army man ortion of returning to the whether or not a militant or The Way Is Cleared entirely upon necessary and what is possible at the moment. will see it demonstrated once again at the convention that those comrades who are woman in my life and ve never been to no learning by doing in the mass movement are organization to ask for help.
Attempts to close the Chevro sanizational campaign is beOur goal is and has been always the same the least tainted with pessimism and discour But you ve been agettin help, ain you? let and Buick plants met with sun by the the winning over of the masses for the revoluagement, that sickness of isolated, helpless he asked dismal failure.
In Flint the leadership. tionary struggle for power. It was the same in and hopeless people who contemplate life with ve got help highly appreciate it.
In the Chevrolet plants where ard their army of Stalinist our formative days when we disregarded the out living it and see the world mirrored by said, It kept my children from goin hun. Martin had comparatively size: flunkeys, have distinguished mass work windbags, as later when we their own weakness.
gry.
able blocs, he was met with themselves by their timidity turned to broader fields of political activity The convention will do well to listen atten You ve got your notice, he answered me. rebut by his own members. and fear, lest they do some and broke with the sectarians. If we say totively to those comrades who come fresh from Here Martin red baiting reac thing to irritate the police. day with at least the formal agreement of the tionary program slapped him plan to hold colorful and mili whole party, that our work must now be conactive participation in the recent class battles in the face. In these plants tant rallies at plant gates, after centrated directly on mass work it is because the Briggs strike at Detroit, militant actions Martin had gathered around having been voted upon by the the road has been cleared for such a turn. The of the unemployed at Flint, the epic struggle of the seamen on the Pacific coast, the maghim all the worst reactionary Chevrolet Executive Board, rather sad fact that our practices in this reand anti union elements. These and passed, was quashed by spect have by no means caught up with our nificent campaign for the independent labor ticket in Minneapolis. The invincible power of men are against militant action Art Case, regional director, be resolutions does not signify any intention on our part to deceive ourselves by our unanithe laboring mass action communicates its enthusiasm and its confidence to its participort Martin strike under any have led to a little trouble with mous declarations. We mean what we say and circumstances, having joined the cops.
will learn how to act accordingly.
pants and they, in turn, will help to communicate it to the convention of the party and deBy EMANUEL GARRETT balting and class collaboration. Automobile Workers was not the necessity of a full concentration on mass with him only to indulge in red. Militants know the United Nobody at the convention will argue against termine its spirit and orientation.
We have every right to confidence in our fuyears at Leavenworth before commutation in men, but have dropped back bellycrawling attitude, but by and chew the fat once again with the sectarian ture, for alone, out of 15 year period of into their original roles of com told action.
brought his release.
unprecedented defeat and disintegration, have cliques who have theorized themselves into a From his earlier concepts of revolutionary pany stooges and finks.
secluded corner and remain there to every.
fought a way forward. Beginning with nothing socialism St. John, in revolt against the perIn the Chevrolet No. plant, body satisfaction their own, and ours and but revolutionary program and a handful of liamentary reformism of the Socialist Party where it happened that Martin that of the world at large. It is unimaginable people, we have become a movement, if as and the sectarian, ultra legal concepts of the had a half dozen men in key that anyone should suggest that we go back yet but a small one, and have swept all rivals from the field. Our party is the sole organizaSocialist Labor Party, developed along the positions, the plant was forced and fight over again the factional struggle line of revolutionary syndicalism, the path to shut down for about an hour, within a common organization with the Thomtion of the revolutionary vanguard. Our protaken by many of the best proletarian fighters but quickly resumed produc asite socialists. That chapter is finished.
grammatic disputes with the futile sectarians of the period. In many respects this repre tion.
What was once alive and revolutionary there of the right as well as the pseudo left unsented step forward from parliamentary In Buick there wasn a tinbelongs now to the American section of the avoidable in the struggle to clarify the doc.
trine of the movement and sift out the basic socialism, but the prejudices and theoretical ker dozen to support the buand adventuristic falsity of the syndicalist or industrialist posi reaucratic Showdown Fight Go As for the spurious unity campaign of the Fourth.
cadres, although they cost us precious years strike.
tion were storing up disasters for the future.
Instead of rallying of time and effort are finished and done.
to his side, Martin ing Full Blaston Lovestoneites Is it possible that any member The philosophy of the which St. John men They are things of yesterday and we shall not did so much to shape, was too simple for the clumsy and stupid tactics all West Coast ly. This petty strategem of the Lovestoneite return to them. Nothing is more foolish than complex situation brought about by the entrylenated even his own meager leadership. as transparently crooked as its to chase a street car after it has been caught.
of the United States into the World War. The forces. Continued from Page 1)
But Strike Is Warning authors is designed only as artificial stimugreat sacrifices and heroic deeds of its memWest Coast Sallors, lation for a doomed and dwindling sect with The Road Is Pointed Our road now points directly to the mass bers were unavailing against this handicap. In spite of its dismal failure, weekly, June 8, reports: its dictatorial methods, and its out program or prospects or good repute, and and were greatly discounted by it. The spirit Hiring Halls Issue movement and to the recruiting of hundreds a cover up for the real object of the maneuver of the died in the war, and not the thoroughly anti union charac Maritime Commission repunity with the Socialist Party and the Social and thousands where once we counted our new least of the signs of this tragedy was the loss ter. the strike nevertheless resentatives called on the Sail Democratic Federation. No, there is nothing adherents ones and twos. If we have been of faith of practically the entire body of the sharply calls to attention the ors Union and asked the Sec. there for us. Let the Lovestoneites unite ir suffering a certain stagnation, which we do not conceal from ourselves or others, it is priglory. St. John was among them. Spiritual to begin to do something about picket line around the ship waving Social democrats. That is their affair, marily because we have not yet made the death is the real death of revolutionaries.
the wretched state of organize when there was no crew on the and we have no objection: they all need a bit necessary readjustment of our work to new times and new conditions. From all indicaTo the great loss of the workers cause, St. ton in General Motors.
Martin knew very well that ought to let them load our own work the penetration of the workers tions there is every reason to be confident that John, and with him the great majority of the members were dissatis and said that meanwhile we mass movement.
leading militants of the failed to make tied with the timid and do noth could negotiate further in rethe convention will survey the situation realthe theoretical and tactical adjustments neces. Ing policies of their leaders. gard to getting repeat, if we have not been about this busiistically and give the signal for a speedier recrews from ness it is not from lack of conviction as to its adjustment.
and the Russian Revolution. Their limited in sef by playing upon this feelsitated by the experience of the World War and hoped to re establish him the representatives were don know how to begin in earnest. We have halls. Oh, yeah. necessity. It is simply that we hesitate or have not mentioned the struggle against dustrialist concepts remained unchanged. ing. This should serve as a told that the will keep more faith than works and faith without works the Stalinist Party as one of the tasks that are Communism, especially its American repre: strong warning, and faces the a picket line around the fink behind us nor one that can be separated from is dead.
effective work in the broad workers mass they could not swim with the current of the the task of showing their mem itime Commission sees rit to What We Still Lack movement. Indeed, it is precisely in the trade new movement. The enormous errors, pre bers, and the great number of get a crew from the unions that our militants encounter the Stalinsumptiousness and tactlessness of the com. men outside the unton, some Marine Firemen halls through ment has been long since ripe for a decisive The situation within the radical labor move ist machine as the greatest obstacle and the munist party leadership are partly responsible real action or suffer the conse the regular channels.
greatest enemy. Profoundly wrong are those for this calamitous state of affairs. American quences.
comrades who, in their commendable zeal to turn to mass work, and the objective circumThe communism should have been a natural showdown came when stances are becoming increasingly favorable. concentrate all activity on trade union work, Contrast with Briggs the Maritime Commission. What is lacking, primarily, is the necessary growth out of the soil of the pre war move The inspiring strike and vic Roosevelt appointed body, is psychological readjustment and change in try to jump over the Stalinist obstacle and constructive work to the unrelenting frontal early years of the Party were weakened and tory at Briggs body plant in nored the declaration of the methods of work imposed by the new tasks. attack against the party directed by degenerate turncoats. The party must be clear on movement, alienated from Communism, lost srms. The union must return to on the West Coast that is not dists and internal faction fighters of yester this. Otherwise it will not succeed in the mass its old time vigor and passed into an inevitable te bold and militant tradition mamnedhebungirews dispatched day that what we were and that what we movement. will take up this question in my next article.
degeneration and decline, conquerable force. The Briggs which the sailors have shed Tradition to Be Valued strike was successful because their blood to establish as the it was fought along the ofa, sole method of obtaining crews.
PICNIC But despite the tragedy of the after war militant lines that have always The Commission attempt to years, the earlier work of the milt won victories, and which the hire through non union chan On the Palisades FULL DAY OUTING AT THE BEACH!
tants and St. John in the front rank retains workers, particularly in Flint. nels is believed to be instigated Weenie Roast Marshmalknow they must use. The by the shipowners who, alall its validity. They wrote much of the traBriggs strike has done much though pushed into line during lows. Music. Moonlight dition of the American revolutionary move to reawaken desire for militant the strikes of the last few Camp Fire. Songs ment in letters of fire that will never be ex action; if followed up with a years, are still hoping to break Meet at the Lower East Side tinguished. The modern movement of Com militant campaign of organiza the union, Admiral Land, chairHeadquarters Restricted beach: Swimming, sun bathing, 163 Norfolk St. at P.
munisin, which is the heir to their achieve tion, it can point the way to man of the Commission, has tennis, handball, baseball, croquet, etc.
ward a complete rejuvenation openly defined the merchant or ments, should value this tradition highly and of the marine as an auxiliary of the honor the memory of the men who made it.
plus While Briggs, under an ants Navy, and appears to be deterDyckman St. Ferry at P.
The memory of Vincent St. John will always stalinist leadership, has made mined to try to reduce the merSATURDAY, JUNE 17 EXCELLENT HOME COOKED MEALS be a treasure to the revolutionary workers of healthy strides ahead. the chant sailors to the robot itke Subscription 20c (dinner and supper)
America in their aspiring struggle for the Plint o. locals lie military discipline of the Navy.
Entertainment, Dancing, etc.
workers world.
For those who knew the Saint as a man.
and friend, his untimely death brings a deep and poignant grief. He was a most admirable personality brave and resolute, loyal and Greet The Anti War Convention of the Socialist Workers honest. He was a gifted and inspiring leader and organizer who gave himself, throughout Party! Hear The Internationalist Position on War!
4909 Beach 49th St. ooklyn the years of youth and manhood prime, untiringly and unsparingly to the workers cause.
Chairman: JAMES CANNON And with the highest executive qualities he Reporter for the Political Committee: MAX SHACHTMAN SUBSCRIPTION 50 combined the rare gift of friendship, of warmly human consideration and concern for Speakers: DUNNE of Minneapolis, GENORA JOHNSON of Flint, GLEN Reservations are limited in number and must be sent in others, of loyalty in personal relations, which TRIMBLE of San Francisco, GEORGE CLARKE of Detroit, REUBEN ahead of time, no later than Thursday, June 22, 1939. Send bound men to him in life long affection. Those PLASKETT OF NEWARK, NATHAN GOULD, National Secretary reservations and remittances to Frank, 116 University Place, New York.
who were so bound to him, who knew the warmth of his handclasp, enshrine his memFRIDAY, JUNE 30, P.
Arrangements have been made to leave by boat from the ory in their hearts along with the best memBattery for a forty minute ride to Seagate for 15 cents.
ories of the great cause for which we live and Irving Plaza, Irving Place at 15th Street The grounds can also be reached by subway.
strive ADMISSION 250 MAKE THIS DATE MUST!
Hall and farewell, Soldier, Man and Friend!
SUNDAY, JUNE 25th MASS MEETING SEA VIEW MANOR