Workers of the World, Unite! A PROGRAM TO FIGHT McCARTHYISM (See Page 2) the PUBLISHED WEEKLYMILITANT IN THE INTERESTS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE V o l. X V II - No. 22 767 NEW YORK, N. Y., MONDAY. JUNE 1, 1953 PRICE: 10 CENTS 48 Miners Fate Witch Hunters Push Doomed Murder F In Widen Strike Couple Toward Death Chair By Art Preis Forty-eight union coal miners in the company town G agged of Widen, West Virginia, face murder charges as the out Legless Vet's S igned, Sealed and Delivered growth of an armed clash between strikers and company High Court thugs. The arrested men were released on the huge bond of of one of the most heroic labor $118,000 after a preliminary hear struggles this country has known Appeal to Get ing on May 7. On May 22 after in years — a battle in which a Brushes Off two weeks recess from picketing, group of isolated coal miners, strikers resumed their eight- subjected all their lives to com New Hearing montjji vigil on the highway pany domination, have stood up bordering the Elk River Coal & month after month against the NEWARK, May 27 — James Third Plea Lumber Company’s non - union combined forces of the company Kutcher, legless veteran, today citadel in Clay County. strikebreakers and gangsters, reported that the Loyalty Review By Murry Weiss These are the bare major facta county deputies and state police. Board of the Civil Service Com The frame-up move against 48 of “Turn stool pigeon or die!” them has climaxed the reign of mission haa agreed to hear his This is the meaning of the terror unloosed by the company appeal for reinstatement to the Supreme Court decision of General Motors and its minions to break the fight Veterans Administration clerical May 25 refusing a new hearing to ing spirit of the strikers and drive job from which he was (purged In (he Rosenbergs. The Court de them back to the degradation of cision wag timed to coincide with Agrees to Wage 1948. The hearing w ill be held in company unionism. reports of Department of Justice The capitalist newspapers have Washington on June 4. offers of clemency to the Rosen- Revision in Pact deliberately buried the facts about Kutcher was fired under Tru bergs, it they turn stool pigeon General Motors Corporation has this bitter labor battle. What little man’s “loyalty” order because of for the FBI. agreed to the demand of the CIO nows they printed about the his admitted membership in the The, b ru ta lly obvious intent, of arrest of the 48 concealed both United Automobile Workers to Socialist Workers Pai-ty and be this double-barreled move is to incorporate cost. - o f - liv in g wage the background of the struggle attempt to create, the impression cause the SWP was arbitrarily increases gained under the leading to the death of a company that (he Rosenborgs can save escalator clause into the per strikebreaker and the fact that he placed on the Attorney General’s their own lives. manent basic wages. was part of a vigilante gang “subversive” list without a hear All they have to do is become which had made a deliberate The demand was granted ing or an opportunity to defend the pliant tools of the witch despite, the fact that the flve- armed assault on the strikers, hunters, finger all t.he’r friends itself against the false designa yeu r con tra ct signed in 1950 had who were forced to fight back in and associates and anyone the two more years to run. Since the self-defense. tion. FBI marks for victimization and changes in the wage contract will But- Labor’s Daily, the only CEDRIC BELFRAGE, Brit Last October the U.S. Court of they might save themselves from cost the company a mere $15 daily labor newspaper in America, ish-born editor of weekly Na Appeals in Washington ruled that the. electric chair. Then the now million a year more in wages, sponsored by the International tional Guardian, was arrested mere membership in the SWP victims would he put, to the same compared to net profits running Typographical Union, has pene and taken to Ellis Island for was insufficient cause for his dis torture rack with the same choice. to noarly a half-billion yearly, it trated the news iron curtain and possible deportation after Mc charge. But instead of reinstating In making its infciucus de did not insist on a strict the armed company guards around Carthy’s Senate Investigating him, the court returned him to a cision, the Supreme court ignored adherence to the long-term con Widen. Thanks to the courage of Subcommittee and House Un- suspended status, pending a now for the third time the most tra ct. one of its unnamed staff cor American Committee demanded decision by Carl Gray, VA Ad imposing and overwhelming con Ay agreeing to UAW President. respondents, who uncovered the his expulsion • for criticizing ministrator. When Gray discharg siderations for'a new hearing. In Walter Rcuther’s formula that a facts on the Spot, we are now their witch hunt activities. ed the veteran for a second time an atmosphere, free from' lynch long-term contract must be a learning for the first time some, of last month, Kutcher announced incitement a new heaving would “living document” subject to the stirring events that have that he would appeal to the Loy SECRET DIPLOMACY KEEPS PEOPLE be granted as a matter of course. change in the event of sudden marked this amazing fight for alty Review Board. His latest ap First, there is new evidence drastic shifts in economic condi unionism put up by the Widen Fairless Declares peal is the tenth he has made in which demands careful judicial tions, the company has obtained m iners. •he protracted run-around he has IN DARK ON LIFE-AND-DEATH MOVES examination. Second, there is ad the assurance of the UAW top received from administrative ditional evidence whicn in an COMPANY TOWN leaders that they will continue Strikes Outmoded agencies and the courts. By Joseph Keller Eisenhower's press statement, of have seen the terms. In fact, ac honest court of appeal puts the To know what these workers the policy of making such agree Am erican cap italism is on its The immediate fate of hun M ay 26, is a t the d ire ct behest cording to the May 26 N. Y. stigma of perjury on the testi have been up against, you have NEW PROCEDURE ments. The five - year contracts way to solving its “knottiest dreds of millions may hinge on of the U.S. command. j Times, “a source close to Presi mony of prosecution witnesses. to know where they live and whom Today is also the effective date have previously raised much problem” — the conflict, be the secret U.S. truce proposals Sir Winston Churchill, who dent Rhee leaked the details of And third, there is the wide they work for. Widen is one of the of Eisenhower’s recent “ security” resentment in the auto union's tween labor and management. on Korea. Our fate loo — life or recently intimated that truce the secret proposal to a Korean protest, including the most pro ranks. last, com pany tow nil in W est order, which revoked Truman’s Benjamin F. Fairless, Chairman death for you and me and ®ir talks could be successfully con reporter for a United States news minent representatives of world Virginia —- still run just about “loyalty” program but. replaced The contract as originally draft of United Stares Steel Corp., loved ones — is being haggled cluded if the U.S. would cease agency.” So the capitalist press public opinion who have voiced like the company towns you used it with an even more repressive ed is still in force with respect predicted May 21. over in Panmunjom behind closed stalling, is himself a party to this knows it too. And so do all lead the horror and revulsion of m il to shop conditions, production to read of 30 years ago before system for government employees. “I believe that we can, that we doors. And we are not permitted secret diplomacy, in which he is ing members of Congress of both lions of people at the unpre quotas and all matters not relat the upsurge of the miners that shall and that we must find the One feature of Eisenhower's to havo a say about it; we are a past master. The British Prime, parties. cedented peace-time death sen ing to wages. This important part built t.he United Mine Workers tence in an atmosphere incom way to industrial peace,” said the order is the abolition of the Loy not even allowed to know what Minister announced he is in' Everybody is in on the secret of the long-term contract has into the powerful union it is to- alty Review Board, which has a patible with either a fair trial or industrial magnate. He derided is going on. “complete support” of the U.S. j except tho most “ interested par a ju st sentence. (Continued on page 2) (Continued on Pa
" GRASS IN THE STREETSk Program to Fight JVkCarthyism The American OF NEW YORK” By George Breitman country of “a vast network of pened since Eisenhower took thing could result from an Eisen- Everybody Is beginning to take wiretappers and informers” and office shows conclusively that for hower-McCarthy fight. By Duncan Conway McCarthytem seriously now, and the practice of condemning per Way of Life the present he Is deliberately A rather startling’ headline in one of the New York expressions of fear and concern sons in administrative proceed avoiding a fight with McCarthy, NEED FIGHTING PROGRAM newspapers caught my attention a couple of weeks ago. can be heard in conservative as ings on the bas:s of testimony by and going out of his way to make Tho liberals had better quit “Grass in the Streets of New York in 25 Years” was how well as liberal circles. witnesses whose identity and pre concessions to the Wisconsin kidding themselves. This witch 'No Nostalgia Here7 The Horton case (see Page 1) judices are not known to the demagogue. There arc reasons for hunt is not going to be stopped it read. My first thought was a natural one in these days drew cries of indignation and accused. this, and they do not include prim arily by a split in the Repub Not all is silence on the campuses in the face of the when the U S. government and army are trying out their anguish from even pro - Eisen- All this is tree, and it is good Eisenhower’s ignorance about how lican leadership, although such a witch-hunt. Not by a lonjr shot! r»ew'and more devastating atomic bombs every week or so hower papers like the N. Y. to see m ore and more people to fight McCarthy. split might provide propaganda to The Congressional Committees, the professional stool- calling attention to the danger of enlist new recruits in the fight out in Nevada. I thought that here was another of those Times and N. Y. Herald-Tribune. Tho reasons are two: Eisen pigeons, the Big Business-controlled University admin fearful prophecies of what New York would look like after The Utter also printed on Its McCarthyism. Bu' Indignation and hower feels lie needs McCarthy’s against McCarthyism. What is editorial page May 20 excerpts denunciation, while justified and aid in the 1954 elections, in w hich needed is a mass movement unit istrations, are getting their way for the time being to a few bombs had been dropped. from an attack on the Mc- necessary, are not enough. A the Republicans might lose con ing all the labor and liberal forces be sure. But they are not getting their way without loud But it turned out hot to be that kind of storv at all. I Carthyite spirit by George F. practical program of action to trol of one or both houses of around the three-point pi-ogram boos and articulate protests from some students, and I “ Grass in the Streets of New York” was simply the pre Kennan, former ambassador to defeat McCarthyism and save the Congress. And even more im offered by The Militant last find this very heartening. For the protests today pave the Soviet Union, in an address Bill of Rights for all is urgently p o rta n t, Eisenhow er sees eye to week: diction of a gentle-looking old man of 84 years, an archi at the University of Notre Dame. required today. And that is just eye, with McCarthy on the ob- 1. Carry on a militant and the way for the struggles of tomorrow. tect by the name of Frank Lloyd Wright, who doesn’t like Kerman called for resistance to what is-lacking among conserva jective of using the witch hunt consistent campaign to educate One such student protesting against thought-control the character of New York as a city, who wants to see the forces of conformity because: tives like Kennan and even among to stamp out any American op the American people to the pre- on the campuses is Erwin Knoll, editor of the Evening it “ decentralized,” with “ grass growing where least ex “They claim the right to define organized liberal groups like position to the preparations for war, pro - police state, pro- News, student publication of New York University’s eve pected and flowers blooming in the concrete.” a certain area of our national life Americans for Democratic Action. W orld W a r LIT. profiteering aims of the “anti and cultural output as beyond the Sehlesinger seems to assume communist crusade.” ning school. ADA ALARMED Well, Mr. W right has a point there. Most people who bounds of righteous approval. This that a fight between Eisenhower 2. Defend and pro te ct a ll the The May 11 issue of the Evening News is devoted to The ADA held Us sixth national live and work in New York, writh all its grimness and definition is never effected by law and McCarthy would necessarily victims of the witch hunt, in convention in Washington last an expose of the witchhunters and a defense of its NYU or by constituted authority; it is mean a halt or at least a slowing cluding the Stalinists, on the bleakness, its d irt and noise and crowdedness and mad week. Its alarm over the witch victims. The issue also contains Knoll’s farewell letter as effected by vague insinuation and down of the witch hunt. But ground that each successful rush, would agree with Mr. W right in wanting a little more hunt and Its opposition to Mc suggestion. And the circle, as I recent political experience showed victimization strengthens Mc editor, which he entitles “ No Nostalgia Hera” Carthyism were unmistakable. But clean air and quiet and “ greenery.” say, tends to • grow constantly that the result could be just the C arthyism . its failure to supply an effective Knoll will not “fill columns of good W’hite space with Particularly the millions who have no choice but to narrower. One has the Impression opposite. Truman fought Mc 3. Begin political resistance to answer was also unmistakable. nostalgic reminiscences and paeans of praise for the Dear that if uncountered, these people Carthy too, it must be recalled. the witch hunt by building an live in the filth y slums of Harlem and the lower East Side This was illustrated in the would eventually narrow the area But he fought him by COMPET independent Labor Party that Old School.” He sees nothing to praise; for this, he says and other slum areas, in fire-trap tenements over-run rem a rks .made b y A rth u r M. of political and cultural respect ING’ with him for the honor of can defeat both capitalist parties “ is an NYU v’hich fires professors for their political \iews, Sehlesinger, Jr., ADA vice chair with rats and vermin, and on streets filled with garbage ability to a point where it in being the most effective enemy responsible for McCarthyism. I regardless of their teaching ability. This is an NYU w-hich man, at a pre-convention press and refuse. Yes, they too would like to see grass instead cluded only themselves, the excit of “communism.” Tho result of Nothing else will prevent the tears down liberal arts buildings to put up armories. This “d accusers, and excluded every conference. of refuse-strewn concrete. They too would prefer to smell that fight was to intensify and U.S. from being turned into a is an NYU which suspends student editors because they flowers instead of stinking garbage. They would entirely thing and everybody not embraced Sehlesinger, who was red-baited broaden the witch hunt. The same police state. In the profession of denunciation. by McCarthy during the last elec don’t approve of tearing down liberal arts buildings to put agree with Mr. Wright on that. “I recall reading recently, twice tion campaign, seemed to think up armories. In short this is an NYU in which a sickening But the reason Frank Lloyd Wright’s predictions in one day, the words of in that the most important thing atmosphere of fear has replaced the spirit of free inquiry rated a page-one headline is not that they were particular dividual* who proclaimed that If was to show Eisenhower how to Favor Huge War Spending certain other people did not get wage a fight against McCarthy. which is so essential to education.” ly realistic or far-seeing, or that he offered any plan as uo and Join actively in the denun He suggested that Eisenhower “ I ’m damn glad to get out of NYU,” he adds. “ And to how they could be accomplished. It was simply because ciation of Communists or Com “might well study the tactics I'm tempted to add, ‘while the getting is good.’ ” he is now a world-famous architect. And it ir ironical munism. they would thereby them used by the late President Knoll’s is not the only voice lifted in protest. There that Wright, who for years in the earlier part of his career selves be suspect. What sort of Franklin D. Roosevelt in reducing is Sandra Memser, who writes a column “ Reigning Violets” was given virtually no recognition whatever in this coun arrogance is thl9? the political power of Senator “I have lived more than ten Huey P. Long,' Democrat of in the Square Bulletin — another NYU student publication. try, now finds, at the end of his life, that even his off-the- years of my life in totalitarian Louisiana, who later was assas- She, too, is taking her parting shot, and undertakes to ex cuff pronouncements have become newsworthy. countries. I know where thla sort Btnated. of thing leads. ..” “Ho said President Roosevelt nose the new reign of fear on the campus and to protest I don’t mean by that to detract for a moment from against it. the genuine achievements of Frank Lloyd Wright or his had Administration Senators DOUGLAS STATEMENT counter-attack Senator Long on “ Many of you reading this column are on file in the tremendously important contributions to the field of mod On the same day Supreme the Senate floor, and also caused FBI,” she begins. “ What you say, what you do, what you ern architecture. In his long and honorable career, Wright Court Justice W illiam 0. Douglas, an investigation to be made of write is recorded either by teachers, fellow' classmates has been a truly revolutionary architect. He rejected all the one of the few remaining out- Senator Long’s income tax with their own scrapbooks, or by'secret service men en sterile, academic concepts which saw architecture as noth snoken liberals, urged the Amer returns. All this helped ‘isolate’ ican Law Institute to start a Senator Lottg and render him rolled as students. . . The great mass of students are being ing more than a slightly modified imitation of styles out crusade to put an end in ad- impotent politically, he declared.” intellectually strangled by a rope of fear.” of the past. And he tried to make architecture once more minis’rative government and in (N. Y. Times. May 23.) an honest and creative art, using the new materials and the courts to “practices arid She relates that there is confusion among the college EISENHOWER'S ROLE new techniques of the twentieth century to .create an procedures that impinge heavily 7'onulation caused by “ the problem of academic freedom upon the liberties of the citizens” The trouble with this super- imaginative new style. and its relationship with world struggles.” But there is and “deprive men of jobs and strategy (aside from the fact that uo question in her mind. She stands up for freedom of So, because I happen to be acquainted with some of destroy the'r reputations.” Long’s power kep* growing until Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural contributions and have Douvlas singled out for special the day of his death) Is that speech. « great respect for them, I read through the interview; u ^ s h Eisenhower shows no desire to These students who today defy the McCarrans, the fight McCarthy. The White House 'E'BI and the school administrations are behaving in the to see what else he might have to sav. It occurred to me die furv of public nassion” and i mav become irritated from time that W right’s home is in Wisconsin, which happens to be the press, which “has pumped to time when McCarthy steps on Gen. Omar N. Bradley (L), retiring chairman of Joint Chiefs finest, tradition of the American carrmuses where through Senator McCarthy’s state, and I wondered if just possibly >'nto the,-, ju ry room hearsay, con thq administration’s toes, and (lie of Staff, with Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson, former out the Thirties the students organized mass demonstra fessions.’ theories' and influence Possibility Of a future conflict General Motors president. Bradley spoke against any cuts in tions in defense of academic freedom and against the en he might have a few words to say on a subject which right wir>h if done in the courtroom between the two cannot be ruled war spending and claimed American people must shell out at croachments of militarism. now touches us all a little more closely than flowers on wouhl result in nr stria! s.” He ou+ of the oimstion altogether. the sidewalks of New York in 25 years. denounced the creation in this But everylhing that has hnp- least $36 billion a year for war purposes “ far into the future.” Bv the same token they pass on these traditions to I wasn’t unrewarded. Toward the end of his rambling new layers of students who will break through the con comments, W right finally got around to it. “ My home fusion described by Sandra Memser and, with the help state,” he said, “ has sunk below par, educationally, politi of the labor movement, untie “ the rope of fear.” cally and, I fear, morally.” Senator McCarthy, he said, Witch Hunters — Dan Roberts is “ the chief mobocrat of the state. . . . the only consola Miners Face Murder Frameup tion is that McCarthy ran 40,000 votes behind the Repub (Continued from page 1) top o f W ’den H ill. On A p ril 21. ! pieking up at random strikers and Victimize Backer lican national ticket in the last national election.” day. Here’s how Labor’s Daily The Clay Messenger, a paper sympathizers. Many of them were W right went on to bemoan the Republican support describes it: run by company s’ooges, publish taken to the Clay County jail, Of Eisenhower ed n letter addressed to Clay I described by Labor’s Daily as a GM Agree to UAW Demand of McCarthy’s candidacy and said : “ That was a case where “The houses packed in rows fPnntinuert from Page 7 7 County Circuit Judge Charles A. , “ stinking, filthy hole,” in a com like palings ill n picket fence, politics made not only strange bedfellows, but wa3 an ar Duffle!d. demanding that he issue pany truck. A good number of the In this country to purge the CIO appear ns sordid reflections of of "communists” nnd "coramu- rant case of prostitution.” an order to clear out the pickets “special. deputies” were regular For Wage Revision in Pact ■-n"h other, alike in size and dull or “the Clay Citizens I engue for ! paid agents of the company; ten nist-lod” unions, and he Is one of The tendency of artists and writers, intellectuals and color. They belong to the Elk Law and Order fears that within of them, it was Inter learned had the ch’ef figures responsible for (Continued from page 11 operation of the ‘cost of living’ liberals, is to remain silent in face of McCarthyism. Or if River Coal and Lumber Company, th" labor movement’s shamofu' the near future the citizens will not even been officially deputized ninny obnoxious features which escalator clause. This agreement w h ’ch is headed by J. G. Bradley failure to mobilize the American they don’t cringe in silence, they open their mouths only take action to clear out’such mob9 by 'he county sheriff. •'ermit the company to speed up provides for the ndiust)nent of and bossed by H. C. Handy. The neonle for an all-out fight aeains to announce their shameful surrender, to ignominiously by force. . On the day of the hearing for *he workers ami squeeze 777ore wages above present levels at the company owns the town, controls McCarthvism. But gratitude Is the 48 a ires ted for murder, the Production out of them. It is this rate of 1 cent for each 0.0 points confess their “ sins” and turn stool-pigeon on others. every phase of the lives of its Two weeks Inter, the “Clay not among the characteristics of courthouse and ymxl were packed fea'nre of the contract which the in the new index. This means citizens, all of whom depend on C’tizens League” — the com- the witch hnnters. They are now It is probably true that one of the reasons why Frank with nervous, whispering people. workers are most anxious to that it will require less upward the arbitrary whims of Bradley nonv’s vigilantes — made good out to tret Reuther too. Lloyd Wright speaks out against McCarthyism is that he Everywhere gun-packing guards '■hansre, hut which the long-term movement of the index thari and Handy for a livelihood. their threat. First, on May 5 they The eig-nal was given in the and state police'strutted, pushed "lause hinds them to accept, fo r formerly to bring about increases knows instinctively what would happen if McCarthy ever used a bull-dozer to clear off the May issue of American Mercury, “They buv at the company ueonle around “ talked churrunily wo more years. in the cost of living allowance. happened to see one of his buildings, with its revolution picketing nren on Widen Hill. which was recently conipletelv store, send their children to com with court officials nnd company Accoi-ding to a statement Adjustments below pi-esent wage ary architectural style. McCarthy would promptly label it Then, the next night, about nine reorganized and taken over by pany - dominated schools, live in p.rm, a big gang of strikebreakers employes.” It was in this atmos :ssued on May 22 by Reuther and levels will be at the i-ate of 1 txrofessionnl McCarthyites. The “ subversive,” “ degenerate architecture” — just as Hitler companv-houses, breathe company phere that the men were released HAW Vice - Presido77t John W. cent1 for each .08 points in the and company guards gathered in lend article is an unrestrained | air. The company thinks Widen on $118,000 bond. Livingston, Directo;- of the index. In the ‘new’ index 0.68 is labeled “ degenerate,” and banned, the work of every pro force against a handful of pickets hatchet job on Reuther by Ralph is the ideal American community.” and drove them from their picket U n io n ’s General Moto7-s D e p a rt the equivalent o f 1.14 in the ‘o ld ’ gressive and forward-looking artist in Germany. So Wright PEOPLE HELP de Toledano. Its purpose is to This slave community is located ing station with rocks, rotten ment, the amendments to the index. Under the previous foismula naturally has a personal stake in the matter. in Clay County, two-thirds of The entire amount was posted show that Reuther cannot be wages we;-e adjusted 1 cent for eggs and clubs. State police stood trusted because although he is "upr-ent contract on wages in But it is to his credit that he understands he does which is owned outright by by and did not lift a finger to by citizens of Clay County. One clude: 1.14 movement, unw ard o r down Bradley enterprises. of the defendants said that “we anti-communist today, this was ward. in the ’old’ index.” have a personal stake. That is more than can be said of stop the violence ae-ainst the “ 1. The an77ual improve7nent were lying around in jail wonder not alw ays the case. legally picketing strikers. The factor shall be 5 cents an hour, The conti-act revision also the sniveling array — the “ intellectuals” and writers and MINERS REVOLT ing how we could raise that much And so Reuther's ~>n3t in the head of Bradley’s own guards was 'nstead of 4 cents an hour as provides for a 10-cent hourly Hollywood “ names” — who have paraded before the Con Last September the Widen bond.” but before they knew what Socialist Party (highly colored! form erly state police boss. Several previously provided. increase in the wage- of skilled gressional committees and obediently made their “ con miners revolted against company was happening “people were is broneht In again: he is credited of the pickets were beaten and “2. Nineteen cents of the trades wm-kers. domination of their whole lives. streaming in from everywhere with “borrowing” from the “Com fessions.” in jure d. nresent 24 cents an hour cost of CM’s willingness to abdicate its They struck against Bradley’s wanting to post 1( for us.” munists" the “Ueninist theory of Mving allowance w ill be added to original nosit’on of insistence on Frank Lloyd W right is to be commended for speak oomoany union, the League of VIGILANT ATTACK The latest word from Widen the strategic minority" in organ the hose wage rates as of June the letter of the five-year conti-act ing out, even if he does it in his confused and not very Widen Miners. The United Mine is that the workers are grimly izing auto workers and with em The following night, a number 1, 1958. T h is means th a t the may have been influenced by the Workers union, hearing of the determined to fight on. They ploying organizational means dur clear-cut way. It is good to know that there is a little cour of the pickets met near Dille, in amount of wages subicct to down siems of growing dissatisfaction walkout, sent in its representa deserve the immediate support of ing the sit - down strikes tha* age left in the world of the artists and intellectuals. Clay County, in a cook - shack ward n Subscriptions: $3 per year; Slmed articles by contrib fl.BO for 0 months. Foreign: utors do not necessarily rep rerent Tbe M ilitant's policies. J4.50 per year; $2.23 for 6 rm MILITANT These are expressed in Its month*. Canadian: $3.50 per Published Weekly in the Interests of the W orking People editorials. year: $1.75 for G months. TEE MILITANT PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION “ Entered ns seoond class Bundlo Orders: 5 or more m a tte r M a rc h 7, 1044 a t th e 116 University 1*1., N. Y. 3, N. Y. Phone; AI, 5-746i Post Office at New York, Maryland Civil Liberties copies Cc each in U.S.. 7c ANTI-IMPERIALIST N.Y.. under the act of March each In foreign countries. Editor: GEORGE BREITMAN 3. 1870." Business Manager: JOSEPH I1AXSEX V ol. X V II - No. 22 Monday, Juno 1, 1953 Group Fight Ober Law PUBLIC OPINION PLAYS Repeal of Maryland's Ober country to deny political rights police b ru ta lity , and to see th a t police-state law and the preven to “Communists” or “subver this vicious practice is ended.” BIG ROLE IN EGYPT tion oi police brutalities are the sives.” Ralph E. Edwards, chair Other organizations represented ------By Charles Hanley ------A Timely Political Lesson “two major problems”, of civil man of the committee, said the at the meeting were invited to a Labor’s Daily, which deserves commend Labor’s Daily goes one decisive step fu r liberties facing the people of the Ober law is “a blind attack” special meeting on June 8 “to The Naguib government in Egypt is not rejecting ation for uncovering the true facts about ther. It gives a clear intimation of what state, it was announced on May upon “the spirit of freedom and discuss a prograpi of working 25 at a meeting of the Maryland toleration itself.” for repeal” of the Ober law. the possibility of entering into a m ilitary alliance with the heroic Widen miners (see story, Page kind of labor political action is necessary Civil Liberties Committee, an af Commenting on police brutality, the political representatives of American Big Business as 3), uses the Widen struggle to illustrate for the future: filiate of the American Civil Mr. Edwards said: “The Mary BOAS HONORED part of the preparations for®------some important and timely political les “ In previous columns we have stated Liberties Union. land Civil Liberties Committeo The committee presented its World War TII. But it has to take trol of the Suez Canal Zone with- sons. our belief that in the future Labor must The Ober law.is the model for calls on the citizens of this State (953 Civil Liberties Award to Dr. into account the hopes it aroused out previous departure of the In its “ Labor Today” column, the labor realize the close relationship of the politi similar repressive laws passed by to protect the personal rights of George Boas, Johns Hopkins among the people when it came British, and some concessions to state legislatures throughout the those who are the victims of University professor of the his- Egyptian nationalism. cal and economic struggle. And not only into power after chasing away newspaper observes how the political troy of philosophy, who started King Fareuk. General Naguib’s Britain is making an effort to machinery in Clay County, where Widen realize it, but do something about it, even the Owen Lattimore Defense popularity is based on two main keep the Suez-Port Said position is located, and in the state of West V ir to the extent of Labor forming its own Preparing for A-Bomb War Fund. In accepting the award, promises: (1) measures of reform, by a diplomatic offensive coupled ginia is really controlled by the coal com Labor Party.” Dr. Boas said: (2) liberation of the Suez Canal with military preparations. The panies and other capitalist interests. The Here, something new and vital is added “My own conviction is that the Zone and the Sudan. Foreign Office sent Robert majority is sick and disgusted Egypt’s capitalist class knows Ilankcy. a diplomatic trouble 48 Widen miners who have been falsely to the old idea that labor must get into with the un-American activities that the only way to prevent com shooter and Middle-East special charged with murder are now “ faced with politics. It must get into its own kind of of self-styled defenders of Amer plete loss of its prestige and the ist, to Cairo to replace Ambas a prosecuting attorney who is friendly to politics, class politics, based on the unions icanism . disintegration of state power, sador Sir Ralph Stevenson who ward the Elk River Coal and Lumber Com and with its own party and program. If “ If they have not received the which Farouk’s corrupt regime is returning to Britain on sick publicity which the other side has had done much to prepare, are leave. pany. He must therefore be an enemy of a union man were sheriff down in Clay concessions to the masses, received, it is because what they Prime Minister Churchill re the strikers.” County and a Labor Party man were coun especially the peasants whom stand for is tradition, not innova quested German Chancellor Aden Naguib would like to play against The column observes further that ty prosecutor, there would never have been tion. auer, during his recent London the workers. Charles W. Ray, the head of the company’s a frame-up murder charge against 48 “ They have only to speak up to visit, to ask German m ilitary ad Public opinion has developed find that they are far from being visers (headed by Gen. Fahrni- guards, is the former head of the state strikers. There would never have been a into an important factor in solitary voices singing ineffectual bacher) and armament tech police. This is “ one minor end-result of the strikebreaking attack by “ special deputies” Egypt’s political life. The masses solos. They form a chorus nicians (headed by Dr. Wilhelm on the pickets in the firs t place. sin g in g in unison from sea to sea. of the Nile valley are finally political weakness of Labor in West Vir Voss) to immediately return from “ They are, of course, vilified and awake after their centuries-long ginia” where a man like the former state What applies to Clay County also applies, E g yp t. police head “ is performing a function for as Labor’s Daily correctly says, to the ridiculed by the patrioteers. But slumber. The government cannot if my own experience proves any afford to ignore their aspira Adenauer declared that Ger J. G. Bradley (company president) not whole country. If the tremendous army of thing, it is that the embarrass tions. man laws did not empower him greatly different from his customary 17,000,000 union men and women were ment comes not from the abuse Naguib realizes that he will to do this but promised to use strike-time function while employed by the mobilized politically in their own party, one receives but from the praise. not be able to sign a pact with diplomatic channels to discourage For one discovers to one’s sur the U.S. unless he proves to the Naguib’s German staff of ad Department of Public Safety.” with their allies among the Negro people visers and Army instructors from and poor farmers, they could sweep a prise that the best way to be a people his anti-im perialist zeal by These political factors in the Widen hero these days is to support the ending British occupation of the actively helping Egypt to fight battle demonstrate that “ in order to win Workers and Farmers government to pow Constitution and the Bill of Suez Canal Zone. Consequently a the British at a time when a new economic benefits Labor must organize er in Washington. They would not have R ights.” new campaign to drive out the German Army is being built in politically. That is fundamental,” says to be fighting a holding action against British has started. During the alliance with Britain and the U.S. ORGANIZATION NEEDED Labor’s Daily. “ The workingman must see a Taft-Hartley law and begging capitalist past two months repeated attacks The British government con Dr. Boas is, of course, quite on British soldiers have been siders the present Egyptian that his men are nominated for public politicians not to club them.so hard. They’d right when he speaks of the reported. situation serious enough to ad office — and that goes for every impor be in position to determine the laws them many people all over the country vise British families to leave tant office in the United States.” selves and could put into action any pro who detest the witch hunters and FEARS OF DULLES that country if they have no Of course, that’s very good advice. But gram the people want. rod-baiters ahd would like to op Secretary of State John Foster pressing business there. And it pose them effectively. However, Dulles does not support Egypt rem ains to be seen w h ethe r D ulles’ wide-scale organization and action In this move. He knows that a warnings influence N a g u ib ’s of all labor and liberal forces new anti - British upsurge in course. And Now a Federal Sales Tax are needed. Egypt is bound to sot in motion Eisenhower, who hypocritically pro Ohio tax revenues come from this source. An example of the form such forces that can pass beyond con mised tax relief in the-1952 presidential Corporations do not really pay excise organization might take is the trol and become a mortal danger Under the Group Areas Act campaign, is preparing to soak the poor taxes but shift them to consumers. Don’t Michigan Citizens Committee to imperialist interests in Egypt passed by Malan’s dictatorial Against the Trucks Law, a body and even any form of native government, at least 100,000 per harder than they’ve yet been soaked. He take our word for it. An authoritative U.S. troops are shown silhouetted against a Nevada sky as of more than 200 prominent citi bourgeois rule. sons will be forced to move in has publicly attacked “ the wide variety” mouthpiece of the financiers, long ago the mushroom from an atomic bomb blast looms high above. zens from labor, religious, educa lie therefore opposes Naguib’s Johannesburg alone. Most of them of existing excise taxes. That means he declared editorially that corporate “ tax This explosion was the eighth in the current series by the tional and civic groups, who are tactics. On his visit to Cairo he are Africans. If Malan succeeds, wants something more “ uniform.” Excise will be passed on to the public, perhaps Atomic Energy Commission. Army command is trying to pre undertaking to mobilize a united advocated an understanding with all South Africa’s cities will be pare soldiers for atomic war. In these tests, the GIs are kept movement for repeal of the Britain. The State Department’s divided into three racial zones, taxes now bring in roughly one dollar out not in all cases immediately but certainly well out of range and protected. In real warfare, they won’t Trucks Law, Michigan’s imitation line appears to envisage joint one for Africans, one for Asians of every five in federal receipts. Eisen sooner or later” (Wall Street Journal, Jan. face such ideal conditions. of the Ober Act. British - American - Egyption con- and another for whites. hower with his high-deficit budget ob 17, 1951). They do it “ sooner” rather than viously expects more from this source. “ later.” Secretary of the Treasury Humphrey said Now on . top of these intolerable taxes, as much when he admitted that a federal Big Business proposes and Eisenhower REHABILITATION OF PURGE VICTIM sales tax is now “ being considered.” The aims to impose the heaviest indirect tax of World Events big push for it is on. all -—- a national sales tax. This will go a For years the National Association of long way toward Europeanizing the price SEEN SLAP AIMED AT STALIN MYTH ------By Charles Hanley ------Manufacturers has been pressing for such and tax structure in this country. In (Continued from page 1) party and government apparatus, ages as in the past, but rather THE PURGE is continuing SOVIET STORES have made among East German Stalinists. another concession in prices. Out a tax, which hits hardest those least able Europe the mass of the people have little retained until his fall from grace which drove another Old Bol around mechanizing and raising Hans Lauter, member of the moded goods remaining on the to pay. They want it to yield as much as hope of prices coming down because taxes 13 years later. shevik, Skypnik, to suicide at the the productivity of the mines, $20 billion a year. They are sure they will constitute so large and permanent a part tim e. farms, ranges, etc. In this con Central Committee, was accused shelves will be sold during the AN OLD BOLSHEVIK May 20 of conspiring with Franz next week at an average mark get this “ bold, constructive new solution” of the price of necessities. nection the Moscow papers have, Petrovski owed his eminence to BUKIIARIN-RYKOV TRIAL again, been noting “ shortcomings” Dahlem, one of the most in down of 25%, the Ministry of In from Eisenhower. And they will, unless A national sales tax will be in effect a the fact that he was an Old Petrovski’s downfall came only in the Uki-aine, as in the other fluential figures of the party, who ternal and Foreign Trade an American labor leads the struggle against wage cut, especially for the millions of Bolshevik, o f whom o n ly 42 with last of the Moscow frame- national Soviet Republics. was reported under arrest two nounced M a y 22. * * * unorganized workers. It will feed inflation. retained any prominent party or ups, tlie Bukharin-Rykov trial in weeks ago as an accomplice of it. Workers do not fully understand how DISCONTENT, OPPOSITION It is not enough for organized labor Soviet posts by e a rly 1938, and M arch 1938. T h is tria l, clim a xin g Rudolf Slansky, Czechoslovakian THE GREEK SECTION of the much they already pay out in taxes. By The hue and cry about “bour purge victim. Fourth International, world party merely to protest the imposition of such among whom he was undeniably the multi-millioned blood purges, 1952 not less than 38 cents out of every a prominent survivor. A turner was aimed particularly at the geois nationalists” (read: peasant * * * of socialist revolution founded by Leon Trotsky, has doubled its wage dollar went for direct and indirect a “ bold” load on the poor. An effective by trade, he joined the revolu U kraine. discontent) coupled with the RICHARD SLANSKY, brother membership since its last con taxes, federal, state and local. To illustrate counter-program is needed. We endorse tionary Ukrainian movement in The first two witnesses at this snarls against “anti - Leninist of the executed Rudolf Slansky, vention two years ago. According the tax program of the Socialist Workers 1899; was arrested several times frameup were prominent Ukrain dregs” (read: working class op was given a life sentence May 26 this pyramiding tax structure, there are to Quatrieme Internationale, 63% and exiled. In 1912 he was elected ians. Grinko, former Soviet Com position) while muffled is never for alleged espionage* according 201 direct and hidden taxes on a gallon of Party which advocates the following: of the members are workers, 25% a deputy to the Fourth State missar of Finance, confessed to theless likewise quite apparent in to the Prague radio. Eduard No taxes on incomes below $7,500. intellectuals and 12% poor gasoline; 189 taxes on a suit of clothes; Duma, where he served as chair “the anti-Soviet activities of the the official press. Goldstuecker, former Minister to How are these “ shortcomings” artisans. In the recent dock strikes 154 on a bar of soap; 53 on a loaf of Taxes to be included in determining the man of the Bolshevik fraction of Ukrainian national-fascist organ Israel, also received a life at Piraeus, Trotskyist militants cost of living index to which escalator five, under Kamenev’s direction. ization of which he (Grinko) was resolved? How is the Ukrainian sentence. Dr. Paul Kavan, former bread, and so on. played a leading role. They were Lenin at one time thought one of the leaders. . The next working class discontent and that member of the Czechoslovak In many states the bulk of tax revenues clauses in union contracts are tied. also in the leadership of strikes highly of Petrovski. In a Jan. witness Chernov, a former Men of the peasants being met? The legation in London, and Karel comes from sales and excise taxes. For 100% taxon profits of all war industries. of shoe workers and telephone 1913 letter to the famous Russian shevik who became Commissar Malenkov regime has promised Dufe.k, former Czechoslovak Am employees. Tn a Macedonian town, example, more than three-quarters of all Soak the rich, not the poor. writer Gorki, Lenin estimated of Trade for the Ukraine and concessions. Petrovski’s rehabilita bassador to Turkey, each received a Trotskyist was elected City Petrovski as one of those “fine later Soviet Commissar of Agri tion is undoubtedly one such sentences o f 25 years. Golds Councilor by 7,000 votes. lads” with whom “it is possible culture, made a sim ilar confession. “concession.” But the favorite tuecker was referred to in last * * * A Rem inder to build a workers’ party, in the T hro u g h o u t the year 1937, the method in the past has been — year’s trial of Rudolf Slansky as face of inordinate difficulties.” Ukraine was singled out in the the purge. Have purges been a “Jewish bourgeois nationalist.” MRS. ELEANOR ROOSEVELT It is refreshing to read in an official nessing a “ Bismarkian policy of persecu dispensed with, or, on the con Moscow press as a breeding place D u fe k was pictu red as a “ T ro t was the target May 25 of Jap tion” on American soil. M E T S T A L IN IN 1912 union paper some good honest words about of “bourgeois nationalists,” Trot trary, are Ukrainian local “ex skyist who became a Czecho anese women in Tokyo demon “ These exiles and the liberal revolu Petrovski came to know Stalin skyist “cuckoos” and their alleged ecutives” again being made scape slovak envoy in Turkey.” All four strating against war. They shout the contributions of the pioneer Socialists personally in 1912 in connection goats for the consequences of the ed, “Go home! We women who,, in founding the American labor movement. tionaries of the first wave of immigrants,” “patrons and protectors.” were reported to have “con continues The Brewery Worker, constituted with the legal Petersburg news What settled the fate of S. V. Krem lin’s own policies and method fessed." have gone through a war don’t The May 14 issue of The Brewery paper Pravda. During this same Kosior, then Ukrainian dictator, of administration? * * * want another war!” a sizeable nucleus around which there period, the foremost Bolshevik In our judgment Petrovski’s * * * Worker pays high tribute to these early was his membership in the NICHOLAS ZACHARIADES. eventually developed in Milwaukee a organizer Sverdlov was arrested rehabilitation could readily serve MALAN’S VICTORY was due Bukharin-led “ Left - Communist” Secretary General of the Greek Marxists in an article telling about the in Petrovski's apartment. With as a cover for such a purge. It is to South Africa's reactionary healthy socialist movement. . . The State’s group during the Brest - Litovsk Communist Party, is said to have historical background of the forthcoming the outbreak of World War I, the rehabilitation not of a former electoral law, for the opposition organized labor movement came to include days. Kosior was purged in been purged from his post on Petrovski was exiled to Turu- oppositionist, but simply of a obtained about 125,000 more annual Summer Institute of the Interna January 1938. B u t P etrovski re orders from the Kremlin. A May a sizeable block of rank-and-file old Ger kahnsk, near the Arctic Circle. case-hardened dignitary who over votes than Malan’s racist-minded tional Brewery Workers Union at the mained immune for almost two 21 dispatch from Athens to the man liberals, predominantly Socialist. . . There is a rare .photograph show stepped his place and prerogatives. Nationalists, reports the New months after the Bukharin-Rykov N. Y. Times says he was “too School of Workers, University of Wis ing a group of Siberian exiles, This is the same pattern as in Y o rk w eekly A ufb au o f M a y 15. This rank-and-file adherence to socialist trial. Why then did he, too, finally much identified with Stalin” and consin. with Petrovski standing between the rehabilitation of the Kremlin * * principles must have been of considerable fall victim? the “ new Moscow regime wished Stalin and Sverdlov. Petrovski physicians which was accom 39 MAU-MAUS were hanged in First crediting the labor movement for a new Communist set-up in strength.” It voted “ into the preamble to was thus intimately acquainted VICTIM OF STALIN panied by a purge of the former Kenya, a government spokesman the “ persistency with which the means for Greece.” His successor is reported its constitution government ownership of with that pre - October period in It could only be because M inistry of State Security. Beria’s said M a y 22. A lm o s t 400 others' to be one of his lieutenants, education of the working class was public utilities” and each year placed “ into Stalin’s life which all of Stalin’s Petrovski sought to shield some “rehabilitation” in Georgia was face the death penalty for alleged Petros Rousos. sought,” The Brewery Worker declares high office a leadership frankly espousing official biographies skip over in of his closest kin, friends or likewise accompanied by a large- terrbriat activities. * * * that the “ early socialist trend in the socialist principles. . haste. henchmen from Khruschev whose scale overhauling of the party * * * philosophy of the Wisconsin Federation of The F e b ru a ry 1917 R evolution task it was to clean out the local and government apparatus there. LI LT-SAN, Minister of Labor HALF' of the world’s popula Such was the early history of the In addition it is reported that Labor explains, at least in part, the em found Petrovski alongside of “executives” from top to bottom. in the Mao government, has been tion