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Page Six THE DMTWOaKIB Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, 111. Phone Monroe 4712 SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mail (in Chicago only): By mail (outside of Chicago): SS.OO per year $4.50 six months $6.00 per year $3.50 six months $2.50 three months $2.00 three months Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Illinois J. LOUIS ENGDAHL j . WILLIAM F. DUNNE \ Editors MORITZ J. LOEB Business Manager Entered as second-class mail September 21, 1923, at the post-offlce at Chi cago, 111., under the act of March 3, 1879. 290 Advertising rates on application. Freedom in France . It is interesting to note that Paul Painleve, the French premier who is responsible for bringing Caillaux into the government, a man accused of carrying on illegal commerce with the Germans during the war, is also the man to order the arrest of leading French Com munists on the charge of treasonable conduct with the Riffian tribes men, who are defending their native land against French imperial ism. Painleve isr called a socialist and holds office with the aid of the socialist party of France and the old left bloc which placed former Premier Ilerriot in office. Painleve is a member of the left bloc, so-called, but like Herriot in the German situation, he has shown that when the interests of French imperialism conflict with his professions of loyalty to what is vaguely called liberty, he acts exactly like a member of the nationalist group of Poincare. France claims a big section of North Africa. The other preda tory powers also have their share. While Spain was wrestling with the Riffians the French looked on with expectant eyes, hoping that Spain's loss would be their gain. But when the Spanish were left with a precarious toe hold on the Mediterranean, the Riffians turned on the French and showed that they had no intention of selecting French colonial efficiency rather than Spanish incompetence. What they wanted from the imperialists was to “get to hell out.” The French imperialists had long boasted of their success as colonists and of their ability to make their subjects contented with their rule. But the present Riffian campaign explodes that myth very effectively. After the Riffians had disposed of the Spanish, the erstwhile unconquerable French army was showing as clean a pair of heels as ever the Spanish did. This caused the French imperialists at home to sit up and take notice. Then Painleve was forced to come to the defense of the im perialists or take the count. Altho committed to a program of peace at home and abroad he took a trip to the scene of hostilities and came back with the decision that France must fight to save her prestige in Morocco. The only opposition came from the Commun ists. The socialists either supported him or like cowards abstained 9 from voting. The Communists, from the beginning have carried on a vigorous fight against the war on the Riffians. They openly called on the sol diers not to shoot those people who were only struggling for theii freedom from foreign rule. The Communists did other things. The.' showed by documentary proof, that while the Riffians were fighting Spain, former Premier Poincare was negotiating with Abd-el-Kriui Riffian leader. So serious was the crisis created by the exposure of the Com munists, that the alleged left government of Painleve decided to sup press the Communist agitation by hook or by crook. The government which contains the war-time traitor Caillaux as finance minister, is now hounding the Communists for courageously defending the right of the Riffians to freedom from foreign domination. The man who communicated with the mighty,German empire at a time when the fate of capitalist France hung in the balance, cannot with good grace charge the Communists with treason for taking the side of a small people struggling for the right of self-determination. The difference is, that Caillaux, in bargaining with Germany during the war was the agent of one group of French capitalists, and the Ponicare- Ciemencau forces were the agents of another opposing group. The Communists on the other hand are the foes of the entire system and insist on the unconditional withdrawal of French imperialism from Morocco. The action of the Communists in France is in harmony with the policy of the Communists in all countries, who recognize no national boundaries. The socialists of France like their prototypes in all countries have gone over body and soul to the enemy and can no longer be distinguished in action from the official servants of the bourgeoisie. Lewis and the Operators John L. Lewis has written a book about the mining industry. The theme of this literary masterpiece is that the small operators should get out of business and leave the field to the big fellows. Also, that there are “00,000 too many miners in the industry. Those unneces sary workers can lay down and die for all Mr. Lewis cares. While Mr. Lewis is worrying about the mining industry from the operators point of view, the men who control the biggest chunks of the business are conducting their own investigations. They are not worrying about the interests of the miners. The Index of me New York Trust company points with pride to the fact that today only JO per cent of bituminous coal mined in the United States comes out of union mines. The proportion of union • mined coal fell from GO to 40 per cent last year and the fall has been steady ever since, according to the trust company’s report. The sad feature of the story is that it is true. The anthracite fields are 100 per cent organized, according to the same report. But there is a sly hint given that this condition should not be considered everlasting. Evidently the operators are prepared to open n stiff fight to smash the union in the anthracite fields as they have done in the soft coal territory. This is what is taking place while the pompous egomaniac and traitor. John L. Lewis, writes books advising the operators at a time when one of flu* greatest struggles ever waged on the American con tinent is fought out at the coal pits in Nova Scotia. la*wis is carry ing on a war on the militant elements in the union and crushing those * who believe in lighting the o|>erators, not eo-operatitng with them. But the bosses only make peace with the miners when sujierior force compels them to. The report of the New York Trust company shows that they are not sleeping. We predicted that Dr. Norman Thomas would emit a socialist gurgle of satisfaction over Calvin Coolidge's anti jingo platitudes, lie did it in the following manner: “To his credit President Coolidgtf has done something against, this militaristic pressure, lie kept the navy from elevating the guns on the ships. lie is reported to Is* ajiVrse to the Australian trip. He refused to turn armistice day into defense day. He gave wholesome advice on the road to peace and the pro|»er attitude to other nations in addressing the graduating class at Anapolis.” And then he threatened Mexico with war! The Peking Reorganization Conference By TANG SHIN BHE. WHEN last year Tuan She Sui was still in Tientsin, he promised to fulfill the people’s demand and call a people’s assembly. At the same time he invited Sun Yat Sen to Peking to. discuss with him the formation of this assembly. Sun Yat Sen issued a public proclamation, claiming that the people's assembly should be composed of all strata of the population, chiefly of course, of peasants and workers, as they form the majority. The chief duties of this assembly were to be: the repeal of unequal and partial treaties, the demand for the return of leasehold territory to China, the abolition of military governors, dis armament on a large scale and the setting up of a constitution. Previous to the people's assembly a prepara tory conference was to take place which in the same way was to be composed of all strata of the popula tion and was immediately to take over the government. When however Tuan She Sul came to Peking in November, he immediate ly declared that he recognized the treaties, that is to say that he imme diately disregarded Sun Yat Sen’s most important proposition. At the end of December, Tuan She Sui an nounced that he would not call a pre paratory conference, but a reorgan ization conference, in which the fol lowing persons might take part: 1, persons who had rendered the re public great service; 2, military chiefs of the anti-Shili parties; 3, military and civil governors of the individual provinces and districts; 4, politicians and scholars invited by Tuan She Sul himself, their number not to ex ceed 30. The most important tasks of the conference were to be: 1, the passing of resolutions with regard to the promised people’s assembly; 2, passing of resolutions regarding the reorganization of the army; 3, regulation of financial questions; 4, dlscussioti on questions which were -till to be put by the government. HYMAN, SPEAKING FOR I. L G. W. MEMBERSHIP, WARNS BOSSES NOT -TO SIGN UP WITH JOINT BOARD (Continued from page 1) which deal with the May Day meeting arranged by the unions, are mere pre texts and camouflage. But underneath ill the struggle runs the vital issue >f the bread-and-butter demands of he workers versus the policy of sur ender to the bosses of their national “leader^.” There is the issue or enforcement of the dressmakers’ agreement. Last year an agreement was signed which partially granted the demands form ulated by the left wing forces and adopted by the reactionaries at the Boston convention to cover up their expulsion policy against the left wing. The membership was suspicious of this agreement, because the bosses agreed to it without a fight; when, therefore, the agreement was never enforced, it became evident to all that there had been a se'cret arrangement with (ire bosses to that effect, which allowed the agreement to be used as a flgleaf for Sigman and Co., while it cost thfe employers nothing. The de mand that the agreement shall be en forced has been constantly - growing, and the refusal of the Sigman ma chine to do anything to this end, to gether with the militant struggle put up by the officials of Local 22, to force action, has been one of the motive forces behind the entire upheaval in the needle trades. Surrender in the Governors’ Com mission. When Hlllquit, socialist attorney for the Sigman machine, filed the notori ous brief to the governors’ commis sion, surrendering all the vital de mands of the cloakmakers that had been placed before that body—only then, in May, did the workers realize the truth of the warning given them long ago by the left wing, that the governors’ commission was only a screen behind which Sigman & Co. could surrender to the employers. The principal problem before the union in the industry today is the question of control of relations be tween jobbers and sub-manufacturers. The growth of the contracting system, whereby the jobbers distribute their production among union and non union shops indiscriminately, is under mining the whole power of the union. To meet this the union has adopted the left wing demand to make all jobbers responsible for their sub manufacturers, and this demand was presented to the governors’ commis sion along with the other union de mands. It is this central and vital point that the Hlllquit brief sur renders. On page 8 of the brief Hlllquit says, speaking for Sigman: "The union furthermore does not propose that the jobber have all of his work done by steady sub-manu facturers. He is to designate a reason able number of such sub-manufac turers and to provide them with work In the first Instance. Having done so, he may distribute the surplus of his work to any number of eafc-manufac turers toward whom he has assumed no obligations." Surrender of the 40-Hour Week. One of the fundamental demands of the workers is for the 40-hour week. The Sigman machine has had no in tention of ftxhting for this demand. THE DAILY WORKER XTT’HEN this decree became known, ” the people vehemently opposed it, raising the objection that this would only be a military conference. Sun Yat Sen sent a letter to Tuan She Sul In which he said that the name of the assembly was Irrelevant, it could equally well be called reor ganization conference, but representa tives of all strata of the population must take part in it. Tuan She Sui being a clever man, neither accepted nor rejected this proposal. In his character of representative of the people, he invited to the conference economic and social organizations from all the provinces as experts. Thereupon Sun Yat Sen at the end of January, issued a decree tnat no one from his party was to attend the con ference. Consequently the confer ence which had been fixed for Feb. 4, could indeed be dpfened, but could not sit, as none of the delegates who were Sun Yat Sen’s ! adherents ap peared. Tuan She Sul, in all haste, nominated other delegates and on Feb. 13, the conference began. Various parties were formed among the members of the reorganization conference: 1, Tschang Tso Lin’s party, about 36 persons; 2, Feng Yu Hsiang’s party, 25 : persons; 3, the Anfuists (Tuan teui’s party), 24 persons; 4, partisans 6f the federative republic, 20 persons. All the delegates with the exception of the anfuists, re garded this conference as merely a farce of Tuan She Sui. Feng Yu Hsiang and Tchang' Tso Lin there fore were only passive participants; the adherents of the federative re public however directly attacked Tuan She Sui in order to gain advan tages for themselves. Tuan She Sul handled Tchang Tso Lin especially with great care; as president of the reorganization conference he had nominated Tchau Orl Sun—former imperial governor of Manchuria— whom Tchang Tso Lin especially re vered, because Tchau Orl Sun had accepted him, the ex-robber chiet as a non-commissioned officer in his army. * But they accepted l it formally, and it was only thru their own stupidity that they were exposed in all their naked ness, so that the world could see that they had not the i slightest idea of fighting for the 40-hour week. This exposure developed' in the following manner: On the question* Of the guarantee of a certain number (if weeks work per year, the left wing put forward the de mand for a 36-week guarantee. The Sigman machine accepted a 32-week guarantee, and denounced the left wing demand as demagoguery, citing the results of the'governors’ commis sion investigation afe showing the aver age amount of wdflk per year was 32 weeks, and declaring that a demand for a larger guarantee meant to throw a number of workers out of the in dustry altogether. (See Justice, May 8, official organ Sigman & Co.) They forgot entuely the very im portant fact -that 32-week average established by the gpvernors’ commis sion investigation [Was based upon the 44-hour week, and when they adopted the 32-week guarantee this meant that they had abandoned the demand for the 40-hour week. Blacklisting the Worker*. In these three issues It Is clearly shown to the entire membership, that the fight now going on is not a fight between factions in the union—it is a fight between the rank and file, demanding that their interests be pro tected In struggle against the em ployers, as against the bureaucracy of the union, which Is In alliance with the employers. This is the broad economic basis of the inner union fight now centered around Locals 2, 9 and 22. Many, many other issues have em bittered the fight; For example, the Sigman machine is' proceeding to throw left wing Workers out of the shops, and establishing a blacklist against the militants. One of the out standing instances of this was the case of Stanzer. chairman of Local 2, who was driven from his job in the shop by order of Slgman-Perlsteln combination, altho the employer said openly that StanfcWr was one of his best workers, and'the other workers in the shop are violently opposed to such discrimination. The workers in the shops are up Ih arms against this blacklisting game, and undoubtedly there will soon be stoppages and strikes to put an end to this official terrorism. A Mass Movement to the Left. It would be a mistake, of course, to assume that the 30,000 workers en gaged in the struggle are largely Com munists, or that this is strictly a Communist fight. The Slgman-For ward combination fry to make Com munism the Issue, hoping thereby to frighten away the more backward workers from the struggle. But there are not more than 1,000 Communists among the 30,000 workers, and in the executive committees and officers of the three locals who are under charges, there are only 24 out of 77 that are Communists. As a matter of course, the Communists have been among the most militant fighters for the vital of the workers, and have taken a leading part in this fight. That is why the vast masses rpHUa the reorganlaztlon conference began on Feb. 13, and sat unin terruptedly for a month, was then prolonged by 20 days and In the mean time adjourned once for a fortnight. Up to April 16, i.e., four days before the end of the conference, not a single resolution had been passed. All the business was done during the last four days, April 16-20. Among other things the plans were accepted for the formation of a military commis sion and a finance commission and for a bill for the calling of a people’s assembly. Tuan She Sul was mainly interested In the last point being set tled. He would have nothing to do with the finance question and that of military affairs. Even the two great military Tchang Tso Lin and Fen Yu Hsiang were opposed to It. When the regulation of military af fairs was to be discussed, Tuan She Sui presented an army list of 1919! A commission of enquiry was then formed which demanded that every general present should himself state the number of his troops. Tuan She Sui however openly protested against this proposal. Thus a regulation or reorganiaztion was out of the ques tion and the matter was handed over to a commission which against con sisted only of governors and generals who were given no time limit within which their business must be com pleted. The adherents of the federative re public proposed two resolutions. The first "was to depose the present and appoint a new provisional govern ment. The second was that the con ference should agree to me iorm of the federative republic. This caused Tuan She Sul to get cold ree:. Fear ing that the conference would take a course unfavorable to him, he im mediately issued a decree that a sen ate should be formed, again consist ing of military chiefs and governors. Two special tasks of the senate were to be that of raising internal and ex ternal loans and increasing the taxes' NEVER REFUSED TO BE TRIED, SAYS HYMAN - • i> i -, Only Another Trick of Sigman Gang NEW YORK CITY, June 22.—Deny ing that the suspended members of the three I. L. G. W. locals, No. 2, 9 and 22 had refused to stanii trial as claimed by the Sigman gahg, Louis Hyman, spokesman to the joint com mittee of action of the three locals, I charges that the trial had first postponed the trial a week, <abd then had attacked the suspended members for “failing to appear” on the original date. 4, |T “It is an illustration,” he “of the joint board’s whole campaign that they should come out with o,- public statement that we refused to. face the special grievance committee,',. They postponed this trial; we are willing and ready to appear whenever they want us, although we knots that the trial committee is packed with 'our enemies and this whole thing is staged for propaganda purposes and not because of actual complaints against us. Members “Welcomed” With Blackjacks * "President Sigman’s rosy picture of activities at the headquarters of locals 2 and 9, which his agents cap tured by force and now hold, is just as far from the truth as his other statements. If any member of those locals dares to appear there, he is im mediately set upon by thugs and thrown out without a moment’s hesi tation. “These locals are simply not func tioning at aft. Our mass meetings held last Tuesday prove that the member ship Is back of us 100 per cent, 1 ' and all the joint board holds Is the empty shell of the local organizations. Bulk of Members Counted Out "It Is useless for President Sigman to claim that our union has anything approaching proportional representa tion to conventions. Our constitution itself works against this, and when ever there seems a chance of having the present system changed, the offi cers of the machine employ every ruthless method possible to unseat delegates and prevent us from put ting a more democratic system in force. j Machine or Membership Control “As we have maintained from the beginning of this fight, the whole pro blem is to curb the Joint board offi cials who have for years been usurp ing power and depriving the workers of control of their own union. All the charges that have been piude against us are simply a bluff to hide the real issues, and they themselves now ack nowledge this. It Is a question of con trol of the union—control by the ma chine, or control by the members themselves." Train Wreck Dead Arrive. Thirty-three coffins were unloaded at the Dearborn street station here, hearing the bodies of some of the victims of the Lackawannu railroad wreck at Hackettstown, N. J. Tchang Tso Lin also violently op posed the second motion of the feder alists for he wants to unite China under his dictatorship and completely to exclude all other military chiefs. On account of this proposal, his dele gates withdrew for a short time from the conference. The adherents of the federative republic were not only in significant In number, their leader* are far away from Peking (largely in the southwest), for which reason both propositions had to be dropped. THE law for the formation, of the people’s assembly had been worked out by Tuan She Sui himself; the conference only agreed to It. The whole law consists of 30 paragraphs, the most Important of which are sum med up as follows: The people’s assemblyAnust consent to the constitution and to the law for the carrying out of the constitution. The drafts for the constitution and for the law are worked out by a spe cial commission which will be com posed as follows; each civil and mili tary governor of a province ancr each governor of a separate district can nominate a representative. Tuan She Sul can nominate 20 persons. Four representatives of Mongolia and three of Tibet will be admitted. The com mission must complete its work In, st the outside, three months. The fol lowing are entitled to send delegates to the people’s assembly: nine prov inces 16 delegates each, four provinc es 18 each, one 19, one 20, two 22 each, two 24 each, one 26, two 27 each. Five ditsricts send eight dele gates each, Mongolia 30, Tibet Tsinhai five and the Chinese living abroad 16. All men of at least 25 years of age can have a vote and can be elected. The following are ex cluded: 1, those who have lost civil rights: 2, the mentally diseased; 3, illiterate persons. rriHE composition of the commission shows that the draft constitution was drawn up by militarists. Since women are not enfranchised, 200 mil lion Chinese are excluded right away; NEW YORK I. L. G. IV. LOCALS, UNJUSTLY SUSPENDED, ISSUE AN APPEAL TO UNION MEMBERSHIP (Continued from pago 1) is still kosher) and Juliet Stuart Poynts, who is an honorary member of Local 22 and had been honored with a special resolution or thanks for her good service in the local as well as the International. The program of speakers was printed six days before the meeting, which proms that we made no secret of this meeting. In the case of Local 2 Perlstein, the su pervisor, signed a check in payment for the hall. “The official charges are so sense less and ridiculous that it is not worth discussing it. “What are the true causes for. this shameful suspension? Why such sud den and vicious attacks? What are the real facts? “For a period of six months, our thrqe local unions had been a bitter pill for the officialdom to swallow. We stubbornly refused to remain quiet about the misdeeds committed against the interests of our membership. We put up a vigorous fight against the -increase in dues, which was carried thru, over the heads of the member ship. Locals Opposed Hired Gangs “We have carried on a bitter fight against the old methods of organiza tion work, conducted by professional strong-arm squads, and nave succeed ed in drawing our membership into' the organization work. These activi ties have endangered the domination and control of the joint ooard offi cials, who mainly depend on these elements to maintain tnemseives in power. “We have carried on a flgnt against fake stoppages, which result in demor alizing the ranks of the workers, and in squandering great fortunes of our hard earned union funds. Where are the $500,000? “We demanded an accounting for the half of a million dollars spent dur ing the last stoppage in the cloak in dustry. * “We were informed that the joint board has debts amounting to $400,000 and is financially bankrupt and therefore a new tax was to be levied. We emphatically declared our oppo sition to placing any more financial burdens on our membership. “We issued a call for a conference of the three locals in order to de crease the weekly dues to 40c. The joint board forbid the holding of such a conference and compelled our locals to collect 50c. dues. “We then decided to abolish special payments for the sick benefit fund. This decision threw the officialdom into a panic. "To sirve the Interests of me mem bers, to lighten their burdens consti tutes a great crime in the eyes or our officials. The Underground Socialist Treason “Our three locals undertook a fight ugainst the recent betrayals on the part of the Joint board. Arter a con ference committee had worked out definite demands to the governor’s commission, a secret meeting was held, without the knowledge of the representatives of three of the largest locals In the International. Thus con ference modifies the demands •« such a manner, that they became blit mere shadows of the original program but even of the adult men only 10 per cent have the vote, vor #0 per cent of the workers and peasants can not read or write. Thus this people’s assembly will al so consist exclusively of military chiefs and their lackeys; It will be exactly the contrary to what Sun Yat Sen had planned. At the beginning of the conference, the people protest ed very violently against it and form ed associations for resisting Tuan She Sui’s proposals and for carrying out those of Sun Yat Sen. The Chinese people however have learned a good lesson from this conference: it is im possible to negotiate with military chiefs; only a great revolution can sufficiently emphasize the demands of the people. This is why no great im portance is attacked to the resolutions passed at the reorganization confer ence, but on the other hand nobody is urging the calling of the people’s as sembly proposed by Sun Yat Sen, but the people, In the first place the Kuo Min Tang and the Communists, are feverishly preparing for a national revolution against imperialism and against militarism. TUAN SHE SUI is not only trying to win popularity with the mili tary chiefs, he is also trying to sat isfy the lackeys who are out of a job and the camp-followers, by form ing the senate, the people's assembly, commissions and again commissions and giving them positions in them. He thinks that if these people are satis fled with him, and if he keeps on a good footing with the generals, he may remain at the helm for a long time and possibly become president* But his “policy” proves to be a mle taken one: Not only Tchang Tso Lin, but also Feng Yu Hsiang declare that they are no longer his partisans, China Is today in the same era as it was last spring when Tsao Kun was president. It is generally said that Tuan She Sul will soon be overthrown and that the .next tool In Peking will be Li Yuan Hang, who has already been repeatedly turned ont of the presidential chair. Such cynical disregard of the Interest of the membership we could not toler ate. Official Aid to Open Shop “We called the attention of the joint board to the fact that the dress makers’ agreement, which gives the best guarantee for union conditions, is not being enforced to the slightest de gree. In violation of this agreement, the Jobbers are freely continuing to send their work out to the open shops. Our members remain with the paper agreement and the bundles are being made in the 1,500 open shops, which the joint board made no effort to or ganize. “It was our aim and intention at all times to defend the interests of the membership, and tear down the mask of the officialdom of the joint board, and expose them in their true color. These exposures before the wide mas ses- of the membership, me Joint board could no longer tolerate. Here tofore they had been accustomed to fool the membership unhampered, but when met with the opposition of our three locals, which would not remain quiet by any threats or intimidations, they decided to shut our mouths by force. Expulsion to Control Convention “The convention of the internation al is approaching; our sworn leaders are beginning to prepare the ground for maintaining themselves m power, and have therefore resorted to the old methods of expulsion. “The recent decision o* our local unions in opposing the tax levies by the general executive board has added fuel to the Are. The vast convention of the international increased the per capita tax from 10c. to 16c. This in crease, ammounting to thousands of dollars, is evidently not enough to de fray the expenses incurred by these office holders. The international offi cials, contrary to the decision of the convention, decided to levy a new tax on our membership. “Our locals vigorously protested against this new tax and challenged their right to impose it on the mem - bership. We proved that to the constitution a tax can be leY -,e d only in the case of a strike of we have no knowledge at the present time. Our opposition to this tax en raged the machine and they decided to break our localß. “While in the capitalist press, they play up the issue of "The Communist Danger,” Justice of June 19. Page !>, openly states that our locals are In danger of expulsion because of re fusing to pay the unconstitutional tax. “Fellow Workers! We are fighting your fight. “Do not permit this clique to stran gle our union. “Demand that our union be undar the control and responsible to the large membership. We are working out plans to fight for these Issues and shall Inform you how to assist us In this struggle. “Down with the union breaker*! Down with the mlsleaders, who are seeking personal advantages! “Long Live our union of the work ers! "EXECUTIVES BOARDS OF LOCALS 2, 9 AND 92.”