AnarchismCommunismStrikeWorkers MovementWorking Class

MAY 15, 1921 THE WORKERS COUNCIL 51 The Workers Council Vol.
New York, May 15, 1921 No. 52 52 61 MAY DAY FESTIVITIES TABLE OF CONTENTS Palmer no longer holds sway in his kingdom, Page but the spirit that he created lives on in our courts Going, Going, Gone. 50 bullying and bluffing in the name of the law, breakMay Day Festivities.
50 ing every safeguard that was ever invented to proThomas Comes to America.
tect the unfortunate defendant from injustice.
51 Truly, Mr. Palmer could ask for no more fitting The Liquidation of Labor.
51 tribute to his unholy memory than that which was The Game of the Imperialists.
rendered in the Tombs police court when the ComUnder New Colors.
rades Lindgren, Jakira and Amter were brought The Communization of Agriculture.
53 before Judge Rosenblatt on a charge of criminal Communist Difficulties in Germany and Italy. 55 anarchy. In spite of the fact that the entire matter Class Justice in the Courts.
was so obviously trumped up to supply the capital60 ist press with material for its annual May Day Provisions of the Anglo Russian Trade Agreement Put into Effect.
scare that even the Judge refused to take them seriously, these three men were grabbed and manTit for Tat.
62 acled as soon as they left the court room by detecInternational Notes 64 tives who insisted upon their right to do SO.
Investigation showed that these gentlemen were actPublished by the International Educational Association ing with no other authority than an unsigned document, BENJAMIN GLASSBERG, Secretary Editorial Board such as are often issued in large numbers to be used whenever illegal arrests are to be made.
WALTER Cook, Secretary Intern. Educ. Assn.
The First of May in recent years has been the occasion for red scares of one kind or another.
Bomb stories, the favorite method of the gentlemen Editorials who preserve law and order in this glorious country of ours, are becoming somewhat discredited. It is GOING, GOING, GONE!
risky business to recall too forcibly to the public mind that in not a single case the astute detectives, One by one the various liberties about which so who are so extremely well informed about the difmuch is said in the school text books as being a part of ferent Communist parties that they know the most America priceless heritage have by this time been dissecret data of every conference that was ever held, carded and decently buried. During the debate on the and have copies of every secret organ that was ever Immigration Bill, at present awaiting the President published, have been able to fasten the crimes that signature, Congress helped to bury another, namely the have been so vociferously attributed to the Reds right of asylumn. Ever since the United States was upon one of their number. So they celebrated this founded it has been our proudest boast that every May Day by springing the horrible story of a sevictim of religious or political persecution could find cret organization that was planning the undoing refuge in this country. Revolutionists were sure of a of the capitalist class of this, our United States. As welcome in America and might even receive the interif the existence of these secret organizations had ested attention of the best people, that is, if unlike not been an open secret to the police for over a Gorky, their marriage relations were quite regular. To year! year ago, during the trial of the 20 be sure the revolutions of the nineteenth century were men in Chicago, Detective Red Egan ostentanationalistic affairs and not class wars, and were not tiously read the report of the secret convention that quite so disturbing in their implications.
perfected the secret organization, in open court We have now officially declared to the world that and commented upon the things that happened that policy is a part of the past. On an amendment inthere, and upon the persons who attended that controduced by Senator Johnson providing that the limi ference in tones that made no claim to secrecy. To tations on imınigration should not apply to the victims bring out this information at this time, as if the of religious or political persecution, the Senate, followgentlemen in the service of the Department of Jusing the example of the House, voted No by 60 to 15.
tice had only just hearthed a deathly plot, proves Congress rose in its majesty and decided that no longer the truth of what we have always maintained, that shall the United States bé the cesspool of Europe.
the raids and the attacks upon Communist organGone are the good old days of before the war!
izations and individuals have become a part of Gone is another American liberty.
American governmental policy, not because our rulers fear for the safety of the capitalist system, When the boss shouts that there must be no job but because Mr. Gegan, and others of equally uncontrol it is, of course, implied that he is to be the savory fame, love their jobs too well to allow the exception to the rule.
American public to forget their importance.
THOMAS COMES TO AMERICA high time to rescue the American Labor movement The treason of the Triple Alliance has cut deep for the workers who compose it. American workinginto the heart of the British Labor movement. Friday, men! attend to your traitors!
April the 15th, will long be remembered as BLACK FRIDAY for the English working class. For it is THE LIQUIDATION OF LABOR beyond doubt the blackest betrayal in labor history.
The London Daily Herald, the labor organ, the day Labor in the United States, in South America, in after the surrender declared that it was the heaviest Europe and Asia is at present engaged in a struggle defeat that has befallen the Labor movement within for existence. Taking advantage of the industrial dethe memory of man. The old machinery, it declared, pression, employers everywhere have organized con had failed. The Triple Alliance, the Trades Union certedly to slash wages, and so liquidate the gains Congress, the General Staff, have all failed to funcwhich labor had been able to force from employers tion. We must start afresh, it went on and get a during the war.
machine that will function. What we need is a new Hardly an industry in the United States in which spirit.
wages have not been cut from twenty to forty per cent.
in the last year. The clothing workers were among the The organs of the British Communists and the first to bear the brunt of this conflict. For five months Shop Stewards all unite in demanding that THOMAS the Amalgamated Clothing Workers have been engaged MUST GO. There is no doubt now that Thomas was the arch traitor of them all; that Thomas very carein one of the most bitterly disputed industrial struggle of recent years. Rarely has a union met with so deterfully prepared the trap for Hodges into which he fell mined and so well organized an attempt on the part and thereby furnished the opportunity which Thomas of the masters to destroy it. Rarely have the courts was looking for the opportunity to throw the miners overboard and prevent the strike.
been called upon so generously to come in and help crush the workers. Needless to remark their reponse For months the Communist Press had been ham has been equally generous.
mering away at the leadership of the British workers.
New York City is at the present time witnessing For months they predicted that when the struggle bea struggle which may become as long and as bitter a came acute, the labor leaders would be sure to line struggle as that of the Amalgamated. The shipping up with the government, just as they did during the interests, in the effort to liquidate labor determined war. The virus of nationalism, it seems, is planted so to cut the wages of the 112, 000 men employed at the deep in their blood, that they are incapable, any longer, various ports along the Atlantic coast, 22, 000 of whom of any sort of loyalty to the workers who keep them are in New York City. The men promptly refused to in office.
accept the wage cut. Half hearted negotiations conThomas has suddenly taken fright at the volume ducted by the Government to prevent a strike failed.
of the demand that has risen throughout England that The result is a complete tie up of the entire coast. Thomas must go! And so he has decided to hasten The men claim that the cut in wages claimed by the his departure to America to which he was to come owners to amount to 15 per cent. is in reality a cut in June to attend the of convention at Denver, from thirty to sixty per cent. besides impairing workHe is coming a little sooner for the sake of his ing conditions. The seamen are thoroughly organized health. He needs a four weeks rest to get over the and are determined to keep the port of New York and strain of the recent events. Think of all the energy the rest of the coast tied up until a satisfactory settleexpended in defeating the workers whom he was sup ment is arrived at. The employers and the governposed to lead! And what a wonderfully appropriate ment recognize their power. They know that ships place to go to! The time was when every dethroned cannot move when the men fold their arms. They fear king would flee to England for safety. What more fit that in spite of the existing unemployment they will ting than that liberty loving America offer a haven be unable to recruit enough scabs to man the ships of refuge for leaders who have been discredited by and that a long strike would ruin our rapidly one treason too many! Let us hope that the immigra diminishing exports, they may therefore be expected tion authorities will place no obstacle in Thomas way to listen to reason namely, the power of the organand that Mr. and Mrs. Gompers will be on hand to ized workers, and modify their original intentions conreceive him and nurse him back to health. We can siderably.
think of no better aid in the recuperation of Mr. In another basic industry, the announcement of a Thomas than the climate of the of building wage reduction failed to result in any organized action.
in Washington and the company of the labor chiefs The dilatory tactics of the of in failing to at the Denver Convention. There, surely, he will find organize the steel workers when the opportunity was that sympathetic attention and understanding he needs ripe, as Foster suggested, left the workers of the steel so much.
industry unorganized and helpless virtual slaves of the No doubt the English climate is not particularly steel masters. The result is that when Gary announced favorable just now to Thomas, Hodges, Bevins, and a wage reduction of twenty per cent. the workers Williams. Years of effort could not have done as much were in no position to go out on strike and meekly to awaken the British workers to the necessity of a accepted the reductions. This cut, which will bring complete housecleaning in their ranks as this supreme wages down to the 1918 level, Gary says, must be made act of treason.
to reduce expenditures and is justifiable because of The Thomases must go. And while the British the decrease in the cost of living. Wages will thus workers are engaged in their housecleaning, let the brought down to the 1918 level although the cost of American workers turn to their Gomperses, Lewises, living is at least twenty per cent. higher than in 1918.
Hutchesons, Berrys and the rest of the outfit. It is The United States Steel Corporation which is so