The Organizer (Minneapolis, Minnesota), 1934-08-01

              DAILY STRIKE BULLETIN
UNITED
LABOR
ACTION
P ***SPE
®8&S?
SMASH THE
CITIZENS
ALLIANCE
TWO TWENTY-FIVE
SOUTH THIRD STREET
Volume 1, No. 17
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 1934
Price one cent
Answer Military Tyranny by
A General Protest Strike!
Olson and State Troops Have Shown Their Colors! Union Men Show Yours!
Our Headquarters Have Been Raided!  Our Leaders Jailed! 574 Fights On!
To the Trade Unions and the Working People of
Minneapolis:
Military tyranny has reached its peak in Minneapolis. For the first time in decades, a trade
union headquarters has been occupied by military
forces and trade union leaders have been arrested
and imprisoned in a military stockade. Picket cars
are ordered off the street while every scab truck
gets a free permit. Not even in Toledo, where
troops were called out by a Democratic Governor,
nor in San Francisco, where they were called out
by a Republican Governor, has such a monstrous
violation of the rights of workingmen been perpetrated. Never before in our time has such a direct
and outright act of strike-breaking by military
force been witnessed. A dastardly blow has been
struck at the very heart of the labor movement by
military forces under the command of Floyd B.
Olson, Governor of the State of Minnesota.
The Citizens Alliance is out to break Local
Union 574, and with it the entire labor movement
of Minneapolis. They want to make Minneapolis
an "open shop" town in order to beat us all down
to the level of slaves and coolies.
They have already shed the blood of two Union
men. Henry Ness was torn from the bosom of his
family a few days ago, a martyr to the sacred
cause of labor and a victim of this murderous gang
of brigands. John Belor died in the hospital early
today, his back riddled with slugs from the shotguns of Johannes' murderers, the second victim of
the Union-smashing campaign, the second immortal martyr of labor's cause.
But the Citizens Alliance and the infamous band
of assassins commanded by Bloody Johannes
sought in vain to break the strike. Our ranks stood
like a wall of steel. No scab trucks, loaded for
the purpose of taking bread and milk out of the
mouths of our men and their families, were allowed to move.
- And now, what the Alliance and its police force
were unable to do, is being undertaken by Governor Olson and his National Guard. They have
set out to break the strike with armed force.
Union men of Minneapolis, what are you going
to do about it?
Is there one fool who still thinks that Olson's
National Guard is here to help the strikers?
Is there one scoundrel who jyill dare to say
that the suppression of picketing, the raiding of"
our headquarters and the imprisonment of our
leaders in a military stockade—while scab trucks
roll with military approval — is a favor to the
workers?
Is there one man so blind as not to see that if
574 is allowed to go down in defeat, under the
brutal hammering of military despotism, the whole
labor movement of this city will have been dealt
a mortal blow?
Union men, brothers, sisters, fellow workers!
What are you going to.do about it?
We appeal to you for help, for solidarity!
We solemnly call upon every trade union in the
city, upon every trade union leader, upon every
trade union member, upon every workingman and
woman, to meet this challenge of military tyranny
with a GENERAL STRIKE OF PROTEST!
Up to now, Local 574 has borne the brunt of
the battle. We are still fighting. And as far as
we are concerned, our answer to the attempt to
suppress our strike and our Union by the military
force of the National Guard, is the same reply we
made to Bloody Mike Johannes when he shot our
pickets in the back:
We shall fight for our rights to the bitter end!
We have been dealt heavy blows—first by the
bosses of the Citizens Alliance, then by their murderous tools in the Police Department.
Now Floyd Olson's National Guard points bayonets and machine guns at us and tells us to give
up our fight and go back, to work as beaten slaves.
They ordered us to quit picketing. Our answer
is, the right to picket has been conquered and defended by the labor movement for a hundred
years.  We shall never give it up.
They raided our headquarters with a thousand
National Guardsmen; equipped with field machine
guns, the latest model tear gas bombs, bayonets
and pistols, and commanded by the "friend of labor," Floyd B. Olson.
They didn't raid the headquarters of the Citizens Alliance. They didn't interfere with the sinister clique which meets in the dark of the moon
to conspire against the lives and the working conditions of labor. The officers of the "Employers
Advisory Board" are inviolate. The men against
whom Governor Olson directs his words, are not
touched.
No! Only the headquarters of workingmen
fighting for the right to live, is raided by Olson's
militiamen. And Olson, remember, iythe Farmer-
Labor Governor, the friarfsf^rthe workingman
and the farmer, the friend of labor. Let him run
for office now on the platform: "I raided the
headquarters of Local 574. I flung their leaders
into the military stockade. I broke a strike which
Johannes couldn't break. Therefore, Workers and
fanners, vote- for me!"
Let fiim come before the-workingmen Vho put
him into office and defend his actions. He will
hear the roar of protest, that will make the indignant shouts of the 25,000 workingmen who gathered last night at the Parade Grounds, sound like
a whisper.
It was the Citizens Alliance and the employers
whom he criticized in words—in his statements
and over the radio. But the ringleaders of the
Alliance walk the streets scot free, with satisfied
smiles wreathing their fat jowls, unhampered and
untouched by Governor Olson and his militia.
Our leaders, whose only crime is their unswerving allegiance to the just cause of the truck drivers, helpers and inside men, are taken prisoner
at the point of machine guns and bayonets and
incarcerated in the stockade. And what a magnificent tribute Olson is thereby paying to Bill
Brown and Vincent Dunne and Miles Dunne, and
the other fearless leaders of our Union who are
even now being hunted and tracked like wild
beasts! The bosses couldn't buy them off. The
bosses couldn't kid them out of the fight for the
men. The bosses couldn't scare them or bulldoze
them. The riot guns of Johannes the Murderer
couldn't make them quit. So it was left to the
Labor Governor, Floyd B. Olson, to arrest them
out of our ranks and fling them into prison.
But if he thinks that that will break our ranks,
he is mistaken. We have learned from our leaders how to hold out, how to fight, how to keep
together, how to meet all bluffs and threats and
shows of force. Their imprisonment only inspires
us to fight all the more resolutely and uncompromisingly in the spirit of those incorruptible and
fearless militants whom we are proud of having
chosen as our leaders.
We are confident that we shall not fight alone.
From the very outset, we declared repeatedly that
our cause is the cause of the whole labor movement, of every working man. Our defeat will be
YOUR defeat. Our victory will be YOUR victory.
We know that you all understand this. You have
endorsed pur struggle on many occasions. You
have manifested your sympathy and solidarity in
various ways. We know for sure that the heart
of every honest worker in Minneapolis beats with
ours. They are aiming their murderous, strikebreaking blows at you as well as against us. Now
you must understand the necessity of striking back
with the whole force of the organized labor movement of Minneapolis.
We shall not be slaves!
Every trade union in Minneapolis must call
an emergency meeting immediately!
A Council of Action representing the entire labor movement of the city must be set up to organize and direjjt the.general strike of protest!,
The working class of Minneapolis must form an
iron ring of solidarity around Local 574!
Every union man and every union leader must
show his colors now!
Resistance to tyranny is the beginning of freedom—
Answer Olson's military tyranny with the General Strike of Protest!
574 Asks CLU
to Call General
Protest Strike
All Workers Urged to
Protest to Gov. Olson
Swooping down on the Eighth St.
Strike Headquarters at 3:3:0 a. m.,
a detachment of state militiamen
with fixed bayonets, supported by a
company of machine gunners, today
carried Governor Olson's efforts at
hamstringing the general drivers
strike one step further.
The strikers have re-established
their front and are planning ta
broaden the fight now that the forces
of the State Government have come
out so openly against them. A general strike in support of the 574-led
strike and in protest against the actions of the Guards, is to be called
for.
After driving the Strike Committee of 100 out of its headquarters,
seizing the Union's property and sequestering a score of cars belonging
to pickets, the National Guard arrested President Win. S. Brown of
Local 574 and two of the Dunne
brothers, Vincent and Miles.
No more daunted by the tyranny
of the brownshirts than they were by
the bosses' thugs or Bloody Johannes'
cops, the strikers, under the leader
ship of the Committee of 100, moved
ta the headquarters of the Central
Labor Union. .
Installed in the office of the Milk
Wagon Dirvers, the Strike Committee of 100 issued a statement denouncing Olson and General Walsh's
scab actions, affirmed the intention
of the strikers to carry the fight
ahead against all'opposition, and issued a new set .of instructions for
pickets. . ^ '
The traditons which 574 has established in its previous struggles are
thus lived up to once again. Having
opposed from the outset the calling
out of the National Guard, the strike
leadership was not caught unawares.
Due preparations had been made.
The strike leaders announced at
their new headquarters that a spe
cial ' meeting of the Central Labor
Union is being asked for to take up
the question of labor's support of the
574-led strike. The Central Labor
Union has repeatedly endorsed the
demands and promised genuine support to the strikers and their present
leaders.
At tonight's meeting of the Central Labor Union, representatives of
the Strike Committee of 100 will
place before the leaders of the organized labor movement of this city
the proposal that, to express the resentment of the great mass of Minneapolis workers against the highhanded and tyrannical actions of the
National Guard, a general strike be
called.
All workers, organized and unorganized, are called upon to aid the
persecuted strikers in every possible
way. At this moment funds are very
much needed. The safe containing
some of the Union funds is in the
Headquarters now occupied by the
troops, and every worker and
sympathizer is called upon to replace
it with donations. Bring your donations to tile Central Labor Union
headquarters, 614 First Ave. N.
Every worker and workers' organization is asked to send protests by
letter, wire or telephone call to Governor Olson against the actions taken
by the troops of which he is Commander-in-Chief. The Strike Committee asks you also on their behalf
to urge the officials of your organizations to support the proposal for
a general strike. There is no other
suitable answer to the actions of the
State government.