The Organizer (Minneapolis, Minnesota), 1934-08-06

              DAILY STRIKE BULLETI
@3^
UNITED
LABOR
ACTION
SMASH THE
CITIZENS
ALLIANCE
TWO TWENTY-FIVE
SOUTH THIRD STREET
Voulme 1, No. 21
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, MONDAY, AUGUST 6, 1934
Price one cent
Workers Mobilize Tonight
Bosses' Legal
Move a Fraud
Talk   About   Constitution is Hypocrisy
The Citizens Alliance, alias the
Employers Advisory Committee, alias
"the citizens of Minneapolis," is going into the Federal courts to contest the validity of Governor Olson's
order establishing martial law. A few
hours after Olson, succumbing to the
pressure of the aroused masses of
Minneapolis and the whole state, interfered with scab trucking operations by the simple expedient of withdrawing military protection from
them, the bosses hired themselves a
brigade of high-powered attorneys
and applied for an injunction.
The workers of Minneapolis are
ready to make a few suggestions to
these smart lawyers who contend that
Olson had no right to issue martial
law. We affirmed that fact long ago
and nobody paid any attention to us.
We paid the costs of this martial law
in a dozen different ways, and now
that the bosses are gjoing into court
to howl about constitutional rights,
let them tell the Federal Judges of
the following deprivations of rights
which we suffered:
1. Our freedom to assemble has
been seriously impaired by the prohibition of meetings in front of our
headquarters.
2.. Our freedom of speech has
been seriously impaired in the same
way.
3. Our freedom of press has been
hobbled by the steady persecution of
sellers of The Organizer.
4. Our right to a fair trial has
been invalidated, pickets having been
thrown to the tender mercies of a
military court without a jury.
5. Our right to picket peacefully
has been violated—130 innocent men
in the stockade are living testimony
to this fact
6. The privacy of our offices and
homes has been invaded by searching
and raiding parties of militiamen acting without warrant and without
cause.
We could go on endlessly in this
way.
But we are not deceived.
This talk of the bosses and their
legal luminaries about constitutional
rights and freedom is the bunk. They
want constitutional rights to guard
their property but they are against
constitutional rights for the workers.
Their legalistic phrases are just hollow formulae to deceive the masses
and gain their ends—ever higher
profits at the cost of the producer,
the worker and the poor farmer.
Eternal Vigilance
PETROLEUM MEN TO MEET
A meeting of all members of the
petroleum workers department of the
General Drivers, Helpers, Petroleum
and Inside Workers Union Local 574,
will be held tonight at Eagles Hall,
Twelfth St. and Wabasha, St. Paul,
at 9 p. m. An order issued by Secretary of Agriculture Ickes interpreting sections of the code referring to
workers in this group will be discussed.
This afternoon representatives of
the petroleum workers department
are meeting with a committee representing practically every employer in
the city to negotiate an agreement.
The petroleum workers were not
called out on strike due to the fact
that the employers signified their
willingness to sign an agreement.
Negotiations were held up awaiting
the order from Secretary Ickes. A
report will be made at tonight's mass
meeting. All those who desire to join
the Union are asked to attend tonight's meeting.
Various sources, including direct statements
of individual employers themselves, indicate a
widespread revolt during recent days in the
ranks of the firms affected by the strike. The
staggering financial losses incurred as a result
of the strike already far exceed what the cost
of the modest wage increases demanded by
the-union would amount to over a long period
of time. A settlement has become a practical
necessity for the employers. The real force
that has stood in the way of a settlement long
ago has been the financial dictatorship of the
Citizens Alliance.
It has been disclosed that this gang of financial pirates, which howls so loudly and
piously for "democracy" and "secret ballots"
in the union, does not allow the employers who
want to settle with the union the right even
to attend the sessions of the committee which
speaks in their name, to say nothing of having
a voice as to what the decisions of this committee should be. The financial Hitlers who
want to smash every labor union in town, even
though the attempt in the single case of Local
574 is driving half the firms involved to the
point of bankruptcy, have confronted these
firms with the alternative of a ruination of
their business in further attempts to break the
strike, or a settlement with the union and the
resumption of normal business. The result has
been a revolt against the strangulating g^rip of
the Citizens Alliance clique.
In these new developments all workers can
see the tangible results of militant struggle
combined with a reasonable attitude toward
settlement terms.
The whole country knows and marvels at
the unparalleled militancy of our union. Every
worker worth his salt has been inspired by the
heroic example of the men of 574 who boldly
fought for their rights in the face of Bloody
Johannes' murderous police terror and Olson's
military tyranny. Many a poor slave of this
infamous social system, beaten down into the
dust and deprived of the benefit of organization, has witnessed this example and felt his
own heart beat with aspiration to follow it.
The story of our magnificent struggle is first
page news everywhere. Our fellow workers
throughout the country are watching our fight
with sympathy and hope. Local 574 stands in
the very vanguard of the American labor
movement today. By our will to battle and
our sacrifices we have put it there. And by
that fact we have taken upon ourselves an
obligation to fight to the end in the same spirit.
We shall not fail in that obligation, come what
may.
And who can deny the justice of our cause,
or the reasonableness of our demands ? Even
the Minneapolis Journal, mouthpiece of the
Citizens Alliance, had to admit in its Sunday
editorial that it could not undertake "to say
that the strikers are wrong and the employers
right." Yes, indeed, it is impossible for anyone, even the Journal, to say that we are
wrong. For, in the present struggle, we are
demanding no more than the right to organize, without which we are slaves; a piece of
bread,, without which our families cannot live.
That is our minimum. All hell shall not beat
us down or make us agree to less.
They can't say that we are wrong. But this
has not stopped them from trying to beat us
out of our just demands by every means of
violence and tyrannical oppression; to cheat us
out of them by every trick and subterfuge.
They shot 50 pickets down and killed two of
them in cold blood. They whitewashed the
murderers and defamed the victims. They
raided our headquarters, with full military
force and equipment, as though it were an
enemy fortress in time of war. They imprisoned birr leaders whom they couldn't buy and
couldn't terrorize. They even confined our
union doctor in their stockade for the crime
of attending to our sick and wounded free of
charge. They try to trick us in the negotiations.
They lie about us. And—worst of all—they
give us lectures about "violence" and want us
to agree to a blacklist against the best members of our union, the leading spirits of our
picket line!
Do they want to talk about violence? Do
they want to speak of bodily injuries and intolerable indignities to the human spirit? Do
they want an accounting of the dead? Let
Henry Ness and John Belor answer them from
their martyr graves. Let the scores who were
shot in the back, who were arrested and imprisoned and persecuted—let them be called
as witnesses.
At this present moment, while negotiations
for a settlement are pending, we do not allow
ourselves for one moment to forget that 130
members of our union, our pickets—the best
men in the labor movement of Minneapolis—
are penned like wild animals in the stockade
at the fair grounds for no crime but the courageous exercise of their constitutional rights.
They have been put there by military force
under the direction of the Farmer-Labor Governor, Floyd B. Olson. What a shame! What
an outrage! The 130 pickets in the military
stockade are 130 silent witnesses who accuse
Floyd B. Olson of treachery to the labor movement. If there is to be a hearing about "violence" be sure to take their testimony!
It is our stubborn resistance to all this violence, this tyranny, oppression and murder,
that has brought us to the point where a settlement on favorable terms is in sight. Without
this resistance our union would have been
smashed long ago and our members would
have been driven back to work like beaten
slaves, without organization and without even
a prospect of gains. Let us not forget that.
Especially now, as they are trying the last desperate trick to get us to agree to a blacklist
against the most active pickets under cover of
a "violence" clause in the settlement. They
want to discriminate against those "known" to
have used violence. They, who shot and killed
two members of our union; they, who flung
130 of our members into the military stockade;
they, whose hands'are still wet and still red
with the blood of our martyrs—they dare to
ask us to agre to a blacklist against the victims of this violence, that is, against those who
are still alive. Never! We shall not make the
peace of slaves! Rather a thousand times the
peace of Henry Ness and John Belor, rather
the peace of dead men than such a shameful
truce!
Guarding ourselves against the tricks and
crooked maneuvers of our enemies in this crucial hour, let us also beware of illusions. Our
strength is in ourselves—nowhere else. The
most fatal illusion that could seize us now
would be the idea that the new military orders
of Governor Olson, limiting truck permits, can
win the strike for us and that we can passively rely on such aid. It was Olson and
his military force that started the truck move-
met in the first place. There is no guarantee
that he will not turn about and do the same
tomorrow. The Federal injunction sought by
the employers may very well serve as the
ground for such a shift. There is no power
upon which we can rely except the independent power of the union. Trust in that, and
that only.
"Eternal Vigilance" is the motto of the hour. '
Meet on Knoll
At Eight P. M.
Will Discuss Latest Developments, Prospects
"Tonight's mass meeting at the
Parade Grounds will be primarily for
the purpose of explaining to the
workers of Minneapolis and their
friends what a decent settlement of
the drivers' strike is, as Local 574
and the Strike Committee of 100 see
it," said William S. Brown, President of 574, early this afternoon.
In addition, Brother Brown stated,
the significance and possible value of
the new permit system instituted by
Governor Olson will be discussed.
The talk of settlement which is becoming more and more general will
be analyzed and probable next steps
will be forecast.
Due to the fact that the militia
refuse permits for meetings in front
of strike headquarters, the meeting
is to be held on the Knoll. President
Brown issued a special appeal to all
workers, organized and unorganized,
to attend the mass meeting tonight
despite the location and the cloudy
weather.
In addition to Brother Brown, Vincent and Miles Dunne of the Organizing Committee, who were in the
stockade with Brown last week, will
speak. Albert Goldman, attorney for
the Union who defended the three
strike leaders, will also address the
rally. The newly established advisory committee of the Central Labor
Union will be represented by a speaker. This committee is composed of
leaders in various locals and in the
Central Labor Union itself.
"It is of the utmost importance,"
stated Brother Brown, "that we have
a record turnout at tonight's meeting. Once before we heard that the
coming of the National Guard would
win the strike for us. And what happened ? A lot of us were jailed, strike
headquarters was raided, picketing
was forbidden and made a crime.
Now, after a long fight, _ we have
forced Governor Olson to adopt the
formula that no truck gets a permit
to move unless the owner accepts the
Haas-Dunnigan proposals which establish union conditions on the job.
Picketing is still forbidden, but many
people are inclined to say that now
the National Guard is picketing for
us.
"Well, we had "better trust in our
strength and solidarity as usual. We
do not want to be caught napping
under any circumstances. Tonight's
meeting must be another monster
demonstration of our undying vili-
lance and determination. Let us
show everybody concerned that the
workers of Minneapolis still stand
solidly behind the Strike Committee
of 100 in its fight for the only decent
settlement, the settlement that recognizes the right to organize and establishes decent living conditions."
The special committee in charge of
arrangements for tonight's rally adds
its plea to that of Brother Brown for
a monster turnout. Let us keep up
our record of having each meeting
larger and more enthusiastic than the
one which preceded it.
OLD  "ORGANIZERS" WANTED
The editor of The Organizer requests all friends who have copies
of any of the first fifteen issues of
The Organizer which they can spare,
to turn these in to Strike Headquarters. These issues are not available
in our files and we need copies badly
for several purposes, including mailing them out to brother unions
through the- country in our appeals
for support and financial aid. Please
turn them in at once!
ALL
OUT
MASS MEETING!
TONIGHT at 8
THE KNOLL
THE PARADE