The Organizer (Minneapolis, Minnesota), 1934-07-29

              Parade Rally Today, 3P. M.~
DAILY STRIKE BULLETIN
V|oC>-
\, ■■■■'
UNITED
LABOR
ACTION
M 0*^h'**a
SMASH THE
CITIZENS
ALLIANCE
TWO TWENTY-FIVE
SOUTH THIRD STREET
Volume 1, No. 14
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, SUNDAY, JULY 29,  1934
Price one cent
"... IF IT TAKES ALL SUMMER"
■
Strike Storm
Again Rising
Over Country
Labor Refuses to Submit
to Miserable Conditions
A nationwide general strike of all
textile workers to be called in the
near future and an enormous spreading of *he Chicago stockyards strike
were the outstanding developments
of the last 24 hours in the great
Conflict between capital and labor
now raging throughout this country.
Claiming that textile bosses in
Alabama were showing an utter disregard for NRA principles, Thomas
McMahon, president of the United
Textile Workers of America, stated
that a special convention of this organization will be called for August
13, at which time a complete general
strike in the textile industry will be
called.
There is every indication, as we go
to press, that the Chicago stockyards
strike will be ten times as large by
Monday morning. 8,400 members of
the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and
Butchers Union are pressing to join
the stock handlers in their fight for
decent working conditions.
Startling information that the
«reat coast strike is NOT over has
just been received. The Pacific Coast
bosses, who "promised all leniency
to the returning strikers, have carried out this promise in the opposite
sense. A fierce dispute is raging all
up and down the coast over the question of who shall control the hiring
halls. The bosses insist that they have
absolute control until the arbitration
board has mediated the question. The
workers are driving for representation on the hiring-hall committee,
thus reopening the entire question
out there. Several mayors are threatening to recall thousands of troops
on Monday to completely smash the
workers. ,
Despite the presence of steel-
hclmeted national guardsmen, picketing continues at the Kohler plant.
Responsibility for the murderous attack on the picket lines of deputized
thugs (which killed two men, wounded thirty-nine, among them four women and three boys) was placed directly on the Governor's shoulders
by Union officials.
New York City faces a strike of
thousands of ERA workers tomorrow morning, desperateover the inhuman relief conditions that prevail
there. In the face of this, 1,200
cops were issued special riot guns
and are being held ready to spew
forth death among the unfortunate
men and women who can find no
work, and are not given enough relief to exist on. ' ' '
Thus day after day it is shown that
workers throughout the country, having gone through the same torturing
experience of depression, wage-cuts,
unemployment and suffering, are haying the same reaction. Struggle is
the watchword of the day for every
section of the trade union and general labor movement.
Of particular interest is the fact
that these New York workers who
are supposed to be so different and
foreign, according to the Citizens Alliance, are just the same as any other
■workers as far as suffering and straggling is concerned. And the bosses
of New York are no better and no
worse than the bosses of this town,
county and state.
Local 574 is glad to have received
telegrams of backing from various
out-of-town Unions and extends the
fraternal hand of strike solidarity to
its brother Unions from coast to
coast.  For united labor action!
The most successful commander of the Civil
War,' was General Ulysses S. Grant, the man
of whom Roscoe B. Conklin said: "If you ask
what state he came from, our answer then will
be: 'He came from Appomatix and its famous
apple1 tree!' " By that he meant to say that he
was a fighter who scored victories, and that
it didn't make any difference what state he
came from.
We too are in a war. We may well study
the secrets of the success of General Grant.
How did Grant win his battles and drive the
enemy to surrender? Not by "slick" maneuvers, not by over-subtle "cleverness", not by
fine tricks. No, the secret of Grant's driving
power was bull-headed persistence.
Whenever they had him in a tight corner
and put the squeeze on him, the old bull-head
only bowed his neck and declared: "We will
fight it out on these lines if it takes all summer!"
We take this example from military history
on purpose. We take it because we regard
this fight as a battle in a great war—the war
between predatory capital and exploited labor,
the war between the classes.
An Hour of Test
The hour has now struck when we are to be
put to a new test. Local 574 has shown the
world that it has a body of courageous fighters. They are not afraid. They can exchange
blows with anybody. They can give it, and
they can take it, too. The labor movement of
America, yes, of the whole world, admirably
acknowledges the battle-courage of the men
of Fighting 574 and their allies of the Minneapolis working class.
The world admits that we can fight.   Now
the question arises:
Can they stick?
And our answer must be: We'll bow our
necks and stick it out if it takes all summer!
But it won't take all summer. Our lines are
solid . It is the bosses who are cracking under
the pressure of the fight. They are losing millions of dollars and the. strain is telling on
them.
We are able to state on reliable authority
that more than a third of the market firms
are clamoring for a settlement in the employers' meetings.
The bandits of the Citizens Alliance are
finding themselves compelled to yield to this
pressure from the ranks of the market bosses.
The Bosses Weaken
Take the employers' statements printed in
the Saturday papers. The haughty expressions
barely conceal the fact that you are listening
to people who are in retreat and looking for a
way out. A few days ago they said that they
Local '574"—anybody who wants more than
$12 a week and is ready to fight for it to the
end, is a Communist in their eyes.
In their last statement, however, they say:
"We will not negotiate with that leadership
unless compelled to do so."
Well, this strike is being carried on for the
specific purpose of "compelling them to do
so," and we wil succeed in this aim if we fight
it out to the end.
The strike is a test of strength, of persistence, of endurance. The employers have vast
resources and great power: their money ,the
kept press, the police, the militia—all these
forces are against our strike, and we do not
fool ourselves about it.
But 574 has even greater resources to draw
upon: the inexhaustible energy of the working class, its capacity for endurance and sacrifice, the solidarity of our fellow-workers in
other trades, the sympathy of the great majority of the population, an honest and courageous leadership and—our own daily paper!
If we marshall all these resources and utilize
them to the full, there can be no question of
the outcome.
We must, furthermore, assert all our rights,
and let nobody take them away from us. i
The employers can foregather in the dark
of the moon, in secret session. They can pull
strings behind the scenes to make their puppets dance for them.
The workers, whose strength lies in the mass
movement, can fight only in the open.   Not
through secret agents but in their own person.
That is why they are so insistent upon the
right to free assemblage   so   that they may
speak freely. The right to free speech so that
they may organize freely. The right to organize so that they may strike freely.  The right
to strike so that they may picket freely.  The
right to picket so that they may win swiftly!
Whoever limits or seeks to limit these rights
to the slightest degree, is striking a blow at
the workers. The resolution of the Strike Committee of 100, which demands the withdrawal
of the troops, the right to hold public meetings
in front of our headquarters, and the right
to picket, shows how determined Local 574
is to allow no infringement upon its rights.
Stand or Fall:   Union Men
We shall not allow ourselves to be cut slowly to pieces.   We shall not allow ourselves to
be delivered, bound hand and foot, to the employers.   Instead, we shall resist every effort
to strip us of our fighting strength.   Instead,
we shall bring the employers to terms which
make it possible for us   to   live like human
beings.
Those who think that we can be worn down
in the battle, that our ranks and spirit can be
broken, will be taught a lesson that will not
soon be forgotten. We are imbued not only
with an unshakable conviction in the justice of
our cause, but with an iron resolve to fight to
the last ditch.
We will not go back as beaten dogs! We
will go back only as union men on union conditions!
The eyes of the labor movement of the
whole country are upon us today. Financial
support is coming on. Pledges of aid have
been received from all parts of the land. The
workers everywhere are looking to us. We
shall not fail them.
We will fight it out on the picket line if it
takes all summer!
Charges Cops
Slugged Him
For Criticism
Peter Sasner in Hospital
With Fractured Jaw
Deported Editors Return to Minneapolis
James P. Cannon, editor of the Militant, and
Max Shachtman, editor of the New International, who were deported from Minneapolis
Friday by order of the Provost Marshal of the
National Guard, returned yesterday. In ah-
^Zh^ A^^^KeyCowiu^l^Aen^t Uwer to a telegram of protest against their
LocalT574"_anvhnrlv who wants mor« than    arbitrary deportation, in which they demand
ed the revocation of the outrageous military
order, Goyernor Olson made a statement to
the press declaring that the right to remain
in the city was granted to the "radical Militant" as well as to the "Tory Chicago Trib-
"This assurance," said the two deported
editors in a statement issued today at the
Hotel Summit, "simply re-establishes a right
which prevails throughout the country and is
supposed to be guaranteed by the Constitution.
Needless to say, we have undertaken no obligations and accepted no restrictions. We intend, as in the past, to support the strike in
our correspondence to our papers with the
same freedom with which capitalist editors
attack the strike in their papers."
The Organizer is the mouthpiece of thousands of workers of all political views and affiliations banded together to defend their elementary common economic interests. As a
labor paper, it stands one hundred percent for
the freedom of the press, and is gratified to
record that a despotic attack upon the rights
of the labor press has been frustrated.
Allegations that Johannes' cops
are continuing their atrocities against
peaceful citizens are contained in a
sensational affidavit made public yesterday by Peter Sasner of 609 Emerson Ave. N.
The incidents related in this allegation are of a hair-raising nature,
such as could hardly be attributed to
supporters of law and order—unless
it be a special kind of law and order..
According to Sasner's statements,
on Thursday afternoon he was "taken
for a ride" by a couple of cops, severely beaten and left by the roadside.
The contents of Sasner's affidavit,
signed and sealed by a notary, follows:
"I, Peter Sasner, am forty-one
yoars old and reside at 609 Emerson
Avenue North. I am married and
have three children.
"At 4:00 p. m. on Thursday, July
26, 1934, I went up to see a friend
of mine at Fourth and Emerson, and
while I was sitting there, Norman
Schaff and another police sergeant in
uniform came up. We were talking
about the riot last Friday, and Schaff
said, "The strikers were a bunch of
fools coming up unarmed while we
were standing there with guns, shoulder to shoulder and had orders to
shoot."
"I asked him, 'What kind of shells
are you using, buck shots?' And
Schaff's companion said, 'No, we're
using number two shells.' I says to
him, 'Nothing but a bunch of rats
would shoot down people from the
back,' and this fellow got hot, grabbed me by the arm and says, 'Come
on I'
"I thought he was going to take
me to the Police Headquarters. I
wasn't afraid of him. They took me
straight out Glenwood Avenue to
Golden Valley, then they stopped and
they beat me with their fists right in
the jaw while I was sitting in the
car. Then they told me to get. out of
the car, but I didn't.
"Schaff's partner said, 'Three of
us are going out, but only two will
come back.'
"They kept on beating me and
they both got in the car, took me
down to Xerxes Avenue. They stopped a fellow by the name of Joe
Banana and they asked Joe, 'Do you
know where that monkey lives?'
(Pointing to me). Joe said he didn't
have time and no car to take me
home in. (His wife was with him.)
"Then they took me down on Sixth
Avenue on the other side of Glenwood to Golden Valley. They stopped
the car and Norman Schaff went to
the right side of the car, dragged me
out, tearing my clothes, and left me
there. I picked myself up.. I was so
dizzy I didn't know which way to go,
and walked up as far as Sixth Avenue and Russell. A boy by the name
of Jake Karelick took me ill the house
at 618 Russell Avenue, and I rested
there for about an hour. Then I
went home. After I came home, I
started to look for my glasses and
teeth, consisting of two plates—both
were gone except for a little piece.
"Then I decided to go down to the
General Hospital. They told me I had
a compound fracture of the lower
jaw. After I got treated, I went to
the Military Commander and explained how it was. The Commander
told me to hold it for a couple of
days, not to tell anyone about it.
That was about 11:00 in the afternoon when I came from the hospital.
Then I went home."
The Citizens Alliance has a great
deal to be proud of these days.