The Organizer (Minneapolis, Minnesota), 1934-07-30

              DAILY STRIKE BULLETIN ^p#
UNITED
LABOR
ACTION
m °^"'**a
IMASH THE
CITIZENS
ALLIANCE
TWO TWENTY-FIVE
iNiSi
SOUTH THIRD STREET
Volume 1, No. 15
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, MONDAY, JULY 30, 1934
Price one cent
WORKERS MASS TO BACK 574
Kohler Union
To Bury Dead
Picketer Today
Workers in "Model Village" Up Against Same
Enemies as Here
What is the Workers' Strength?
f
BULLETIN!
At this morning's meeting
the Strike Committee of 100, a
resolution was adopted expressing sympathy with the striking
workers of Kohler, Wis., two of
whom have been murdered by
deputies in the pay of the Kohler Company. The resolution
will be wired to the Kohler
workers'  Strike  Committee.
Kohler, Wis., "the model village"
where workers can feast their eyes
on flower-beds while their stomachs
ache from hunger, is in a state of
high tension today as the first of
two victims of deputy-murderers is
laid to rest by his fellow-strikers.
The mood which brooded over Minneapolis a week ago as we said farewell to our departed brother, Harry
Ness, now hangs over Kohler. The
strikers of A. F. of L. Federal Union
18454 are standing shoulder to shoulder and clenching their fists as we
did.
In the face of the militia, which
has already attacked workers, picketing continues. The workers are demanding the removal of Mayor Anton Brotz, the Bainbridge of Kohler,
and Police Chief Ernst Schuelke, the
Johannes of Kohler. In Kohler, as
here, a Federal mediator, Rev. J. W.
McGuire, is on hand to draft settlement proposals. From the look of
things, he is going to do about as
much for the workers of Kohler as
Father Haas did for those of Minneapolis.
A. F. of L. Organizer, Felix 01-
kives, one of the strike leaders, has
issued a statement proving that when
the pickets permitted the boss, ex-
Gov. Kohler of Wisconsin, to move
coal into the plant to run pumps for
a public waterworks, he smuggled extra coal to run his plumbing goods
factory. Village guards attacked
pickets who held back the bootleg
coal truck. As a result a battle raged
all Friday night between workers and
400 armed brutes wearing deputies'
badges.
The National Guard has barricaded
off the wealthy section of Kohler and
no workers are permitted to walk
into that section.
In Kohler, as here, an effort is
being made to discredit the strike by
saying it is run by foreigners. Boss
Kohler says that the pickets come to
the picket line in cars bearing out-
of-town licenses.
These fakers want us to think that
a strike in Minneapolis is made by
people from _New York; a strike In
Wisconsin is made by people from
Minneapolis; a strike in San Francisco is made by people from Wisconsin; and so on indefinitely. We
are not fooled and we know the
workers of Kohler will not tie fooled.
We and they, and the workers of
New York and Frisco, too, have plenty of our own reasons to go on strike
after the hell we have been through
these last years.
And if we do not need advice from
the Kohler fellow-workers, why we
will get it and take it just the same
as the Citizens Alliance bankers get
their advice and orders from the bigger shots in Chicago and they get
theirs from the real high-and-might-
ies on Wall Street.
And we do not hesitate to give advice to the workers of Kohler and
our advice is this: if you want the
right to picket, the right to strike,
the right to organize, the right to
decent conditons and wages, THE
EIGHT TO LIVE, then stick it out
and fight all summer if need be just
as we intend to do. And remember
that you will get nothing for nothing.
What you get you'll get by solidarity
and struggle. Good luck and greetings to you!
Already in the two strikes of the early part
of this year, the membership of 574 has given
adequate proof of its fighting capacities. Few
indeed are the organizations in this country
that can engage in three strikes within six
months and emerge from them with ranks not
only intact, but strengthened and increasingly
self-confident. The employers who forced the
fight upon us in the hope of demoralizing and
weakening us, are astounded to find us strong
and grim and determined to hold our own and
forge ahead. And in doing so, 574 continues
the best traditions of the labor movement.
The American workers may well be proud
of their history. The democratic rights of free
speech, free assemblage and free press which
are so jealously guarded by the labor movement, are due mainly to the efforts of the
early trade union movement in this country.
If the children of workers and farmers today
enjoy the benefits of popular public education,
it is because the labor movement of more than
a hundred years ago was its first champion.
If fourteen, twelve, and ten hours of labor each
day have disappeared for the great majority
of American workers, it is the Union movement to which this is due.
The American labor movement is more backward than the European in some respects—in
the political field, for example. It would be
folly or blindness to hide this from ourselves.
But it need not take second place to anyone
in the militancy, the endurance, the vigor of
its struggles. The great Eight-Hour day movement of the '80s, the Debs strike of railroad
men in '94, the battle of Homestead, Pa., the
awe-inspiring struggles of Cripple Creek, Col.,
Goldfield, Nev., Coeur   d'Alenes, Idaho, the
•textile strikes of Lawrence, Mass., and Pater-
son, N. J., the general strike in Seattle, the
fight for the unionization of the South—the
general strike in San Francisco, the strikes in
Toledo and Milwaukee are majestic milestones.
And if all the wisdom, all the experience,
all the lessons of the grand battles of the past,
were distilled into one sentence, it would read:
. The problems of the labor movement can
be solved only by the working class itself.
It has taken a long time to learn, and many
have not learned it yet. It has cost many lives
and much suffering before the lesson became
entirely clear. It took many bitter experiences
before it was assimilated. But it has been
learned nevertheless.
The working class is weak, it is enslaved,
insulted, jeered at, humiliated and squeezed
dry in body and mind, only when it does not
realize its own invincible strength. And when
it does—ah, how the exploiters tremble, how
desperate and vicious and violent they become!
The workers have no need for condescending saviors. They have no need of the illusion
that some good man, some kind man, some
generous man or men, will bring them salvation and comfort.
The workers do have need of their own organization, their own good right arms, their
own clear heads, their own solidarity, their
own leaders, their own press. Those are the
.only things they can base themselves on. Those
are the only weapons that can serve them in
their fights. In a word: the workers can rely
only upon themselves!
Those are the words of fire lit up for our
guidance by the history of American labor's
struggles. Let them be our beacon light!
Brown Asks
Practical Aid
From Unions
Goldman, Miles Dunne
Also Address 8,000
at Parade
A Lit-tie Les-son for Grown-ups
About 8,000 strikers and sympathizers massed on the Parade grounds
yesterday afternoon to voice new
support of the battle for labor's
rights being led by Local 574.
President William S. Brown of the
General Drivers, Helpers, and Inside
Men's Union, was chairman of the
meeting.
Brown expressed the appreciation
of the Strike Committee for the support given to the strike by unemployed workers, farmers, veterans,
and the population as a whole. He
said that the Union and the Strike
Committee are gratified that the Central Labor Union has adopted a number of resolutions which fix the blame
for the strike on the bosses and the
Citizens Alliance and warmly endorse the policy of 574. He urged
that the Central Labor Union and
its constituent bodies take immediate practical action toward reinforcing the strike front.
"We are grateful for the backing
of our brother unions," said Brown,
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See the lit-tle man with the spec-ta-cles. He
is a Chief of Po-lice. His fath-er called him
Mi-chael Jo-han-nes. But most peo-ple call
him Blood-y Mike. He is loy-al and kind. He is
loy-al to the boss-es and kind to the Cit-i-zens
Al-li-ance. He arms the po-lice with ri-ot guns
and tells them to shoot work-ers. The workers are un-armed and de-fense-less. But the
po-lice are brave. They shoot the work-ers in
the back.
See the man in the uni-form. He is a Colonel. His name is El-mer Mc-Dev-itt. He is an
offi-cer in the Na-tion-al Guard. The Na-tion-
al Guard rules Min-ne-a-po-lis.
What ar« they do-ing to-geth-er? They are
plan-ning. What are they plan-ning? They
are plan-ning how to run Min-ne-a-po-lis during the strike.
Will Mc-Devitt make good plans? Sure he
will He is a cap-a- ble gen-tle-man. And besides, he has Blod-y Mike to as-sist him.
But what will these plans be good for?
Will the plans made by this Colo-nel
be good for the work-ers? If you want-ed to
make plans that would be good for the workers, would you want-as-sistance from Blood-y
Mike ? How could he as-sist in mak-ing plans
good for an-y-bod-y ex-cept the Citizens Al-
li-ance ?
These are the questions for the day. Is there
any strik-er who can-not an-swer them?
and yet whatever they do for us
is not a favor, but an act of self-
defense. When .the Citizens Alliance
attacks the right of Local 574 to
represent its members, it deals a blow
to the whole labor movement of
Minneapolis. If those tyrants and
exploiters could smash us, they would
go on and smash every labor organization in this city. But they are not
going to be able to smash us. Let
everybody help us and we will see to
that."
Brown's call for aid from other
unions was greeted by the crowd with
loud applause, and when he voiced
his determination of 574 to make
a finished fight, thousands of voices
endorsed his stand.
Miles Dunne, member of the Organizing Committee of Local 574,
described the situation now prevailing under martial law and said that
the Strike Committee of 100, "has
determined to fight it out on these
lines if it takes all summer." He
appealed to every worker, organized
or unorganized, to give financial aid
to the strike. He asked those belonging to organizations to urge such
organizations to give practical backing to a cause which is the cause of
the entire working class of Minneapolis.
Albert Goldman, noted labor attorney who is acting for the Strike
Committee, was another speaker at
the Parade rally. Goldman warned
the assembled throng to place no undue confidence in the National Guard.
"The National Guard is not a branch
of the Strike Committee," Goldman
said. "But this does not mean that
anyone should lose courage. No matter what the Militia does, the strike
will go on and a dogged fight will
bring victory in the end."
Goldman said that he had heard'
that the bosses planned to hang on
until the first of September, hoping
to wear out the strikers. "They may
try that," he concluded, "but there
are also the months of October and
November and December, and if necessary, New Year's day will still see
the ranks of the strikers intact."
Walter Frank, Business Agent of
the Lathers' Union, also spoke.
Before the meeting ended, copies
of the first Sunday edition of The
Organizer appeared on the field. The
firS copy off the press was auctioned
by a member of the Organizer's staff.
It brought $4. The next 25 copies
were sold for prices ranging between
25 cents and 51.