OCTOBER 3, 1975 25 CENTS VOLUME 39/NUMBER 36

·Berkeley to Boston

-PAGES 4, 5 WHY THE ASSASSINS? SOCIALIST CANDIDATES ANALYZE CLIMATE OF HATE & VIOLENCE. PAGE 10 . .BLACKS AND SOCIALISM SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY DISCUSSES STRATEGY FOR BLACK LIBERATION. PAGE 26. BOSTON DEBATE CALL FOR Committee to Reopen the Rosenberg Case FEDERAL TROOPS. PAGE 6. Robert and Michael Meeropol, Rosenberg sons, are fighting to open secret FBI files to prove parents' innocence.. Inside, Robert tells their BLANCO story. DEMAND KISSINGER GRANT VISA FOR U.S. TOUR. PAGE 9. CUTBACKS sen er s: THOUSANDS PROTEST ASSAULT ON EDUCATION. PAGES 9, 25. co ar·usice In Brief

2,500 MARCH IN DENVER ON CHICANO LIBERA­ GO NAVY: It may be "one of the most serious outbreaks of TION DAY: Chants of "Chicano power" and "Viva la industrial cancer ever," according to a story in the raza" filled the streets of downtown Denver September 16, September 29 Business Week. An unknown number of World THIS as 2,500 Chicanos marched on Chicano Liberation Day. The War II's three million shipyard workers probably have crowd was mostly high school and junior high school mesothelioma-a fatal, asbestos-caused cancer-but the students who walked out of school in the morning to take U.S. Navy has been hushing it up for five years. WEEK'S part in the demonstration. Chicano students have won the As long as five years ago, reports started coming from right to celebrate this day as a school holiday. Britain about a growing incidence of mesothelioma among MILITANT According to a leaflet issued by the September 16 former shipyard workers, who were exposed to millions of 3 Senate hearing probes Committee, "The history behind the 16th . of September pounds of asbestos used to insulate pipes and valves. The· CIA, FBI spying dates back to 1810, when a priest by the name of Miguel navy was supposed to be negotiating with the American Hidalgo y Costilla rang the church bells and gave 'El Grito Cancer Society and other environmental health scientists 4 Atlanta AFSCME, teachers de Dolores' (Cry of Dolores) beckoning the people to rise in for a study of the danger here. "They kept saying they form coalition protest against Spanish rule, for racial equality, and would begin next month," says an ACS director, "but 5 Boston teachers strike redistribution of land and wealth. From that day forward, nothing would happen." to save jobs the 16th of September has been celebrated as Mexican So far, Business Week reports, "no effort has been made to Independence Day not only in Mexico but also .in the five track down affected workers." It would mean bad publicity 6 Should we demand gov't Southwestern states of Aztlan." for the navy, you see, and possible large damage suits protect Black rights? "We're not here today for a celebratiop.," Ernesto Vigil· against private companies. Besides, mesothelioma is incu­ told a rally on the capitol steps after the march. "This is a rable, so what's the point? 7 Uneasy Boston finishes protest, a protest ·against the system that oppresses us." second week of school Jose Gonzales, principal of the Escuela Tlatelolco (a DAYAN PICKETED IN SYRACUSE: About forty 8 Socialist campaigners Chicano school run by the Crusade for Justice), pointed to people joined a picket line in support of the Palestinian blanket Boston the racism in the Denver public schools. "There are 100 slots struggle September 17 during an appearance of Moshe open in the Denver public schools for Chicanos if the city Dayan at Syracuse University in upstate New York. The 9 Demand Kissinger OK implements its own bilingual-bicultural education laws," protest was initiated by the university's Organization of visa for Hugo Blanco Gonzales said. "But they tell us there are no qualified Arab Students. 24 A 'socialist' ex-mayor Chicanos. That's a lie. That's a lie we've been hearing for a Picket signs included "Inflation is the 2.2 billion dollars runs for president long time." in arms to Israel" and "Don't send your men to the Sinai­ Kissinger's peace agreement is a trap." A contingent from 25 New York students nearby Ithaca also participated, including members of the protest cutbacks Illinois strike leader dies Cornell University Arab Club and the Ithaca Young Socialist Alliance. 26 SWP convention: the fight for Black liberation today -victim of scab assault ST. LOUIS VICTORY RALLY FOR JOANNE LIT­ MELROSE PARK, Ill., Sept. 24-David Watson died TLE: "This case gave us a chance to expose the injustices 28 Cleve. SWP candidate September 19 of injuries sustained when a scab ran a truck backs NAACP suit through the picket lines of striking workers at Capital that exist in this society," Karen Galloway, one of Joanne Packaging on September 9. Watson was the vice-president Little's defense attorneys, told a St. Louis victory rally 29 Chicanas explain what September 12. Galloway went on to urge support for J.B. UFW means to them of the striking union-Oil, Chemical and Atomic· Workers Local 7-507-and the labor director of Operation PUSH. Johnson, a young Black from St. Louis facing a second trial on frame-up charges. 32 Farm workers gain in The driver of the truck, Richard Mitchell, was charged Another of Little's attorneys, Jerry Paul, told the 165 Calif. field elections with failure to yield to a pedestrian and was fined twenty­ five dollars. people attending the celebration to "build upon Joanne Little's case just as we had built upon earlier struggles anq 2 In Brief The more than 200 workers at Capital Packaging are put them to work for her~" He pointed to the importance of determined to continue their fight. A memorial picket line at the National Student Coalition Against Racism (NSCAR) in 10 In Our Opinion the plant on Monday morning, September 22, was attacked these ongoing struggles. Letters by police, and nine strikers were arrested. Speaking for St. Louis SCAR, Renita Alexander said, The union plans further activities to protest Watson's ?3 National Picket Line "Black people have a democratic right to live where we death and to publicize the issues of its strike. By Any Means Necessary want, to swim on any beach we want, or to go to the school of our choosing, whether it be in Boston, Louisville, or St. 11-22 International Socialist RALLY SET TO DEFEND MILWAUKEE STRIKERS: Louis." Review The Milwaukee labor movement and its supporters will rally October 17 in defense of the city's striking meatcutters WARTIME 'EMERGENCY' STILL GOOD: A federal union. The theme of the rally will be "Keep Milwaukee a district court in denver ruled that the state of emergency union town-Stop the scabs." proclaimed by President Truman in 1950 during the Korean LOcal 248 of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters has been out War is still in effect, and on September 19 convicted on strike since January 28 of this year. The nine area Cameron David Bishop on three counts of sabotage. The packinghouses have stayed in operation through the charges were made possible by the proclamation. Bishop, an employment of several hundred scabs, many of them from opponent of the Vietnam War, was charged with bombing THE MILITANT out of town. Several united labor actions in support of the utility lines that supplied power to a Colorado defense plant strikers have taken place since last spring. The Milwaukee in 1969. VOLUME 39/NUMBER 36 County Labor Council; the Wisconsin AFirCIO; the United He faces maximum prison sentences of thirty years and OCTOBER 3, 1975 Auto Workers; the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine fines of up to $10,000 for each count. Bishop is one of the CLOSING NEWS DATE-SEPT. 24 Workers; and the Milwaukee Teachers Association. are few people in U.S. history to be charged with sabotage Editor: MARY-ALICE WATERS among those pledged to support of the October 17 rally. during "peacetime." -Nancy Cole Managing Editor: LARRY SEIGLE Business Manager: ROSE OGDEN Southwest Bureau: HARRY RING Washington Bureau: CINDY JAQUITH

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2 ~Illegal is if the gy~gets caughf Spy masters· testify ·on CIA, FBI plots By Cindy Jaquith WASHINGTON-Testifying in pub­ lic on September 23, for the first time since Watergate, former White House aide Tom Charles Huston told the Senate. Select Committee on Intelli~ gence that the illegal acts recom­ mended in his 1970 "Huston plan" were acts that "had been done for years before· and would be done for years after." . Huston drew up his sweeping spy plan at the request of President Nixon after the massive May 1970 protests against the invasion of Cambodia. The plan called for stepped-up use of burglary, wiretapping, police infiltra­ tion, and opening of mail to counter the growing opposition to administra­ tion policy. Nthough the plan as he wrote it focused on antiwar organizations en­ Left to right: Senator Church, former White House aide Huston, and CIA's Angleton. Was the president 'deceived'? gaged in mass demonstrations, Black and Puerto Rican groups, and other legal organizations such as the Social­ because he knew they had been done a letter he had sent his mother had Angleton's "imprudent" remarks, ist Workers party and Communist many times. "I was told the bureau wound up in CIA files, as had corre­ however, were completely accurate, party, Huston tried to tell the Senate [FBI] had undertaken black-bag jobs spondence belonging to Sen. Edward and not only with regard to shellfish committee that the antiwar movement over a number of years . . . and that Kennedy (D-Mass.), Sen. Hubert toxin. What he was really describing was only "peripherally" of concern to this had been successful. ... Given the Humphrey (D-Minn.), Jay Rockefeller, was the standard operating procedure the White House. The real target, he revolutionary climate, they needed Richard Nixon, the Ford Foundation, of the U.S. spy network with regard to claimed, was "revolutionary vio­ authorization again." and Harvard University. "overt orders" -what the president lence"-"bombers," "assassins," and AB for the mail covers (illegal moni­ Angleton said he still believes that says in public. "snipers." toring of mail), this was "something I mail inspection is a necessary CIA Senator Church's committee, how­ "I still believe there is a threat," was told had been done for twenty-five function, and he said he would favor ever, has tried to create a different Huston said. "I think there· are people years," Huston said. Congress passing a 'law to make this impression. During the questioning of who want to destroy this country." Both activities, of course, continued form of snooping legal. Huston, the former White House aide long past Nixon's "rejection" of the He also defended the CIA break-ins claimed that when Nixon ordered the 'Forever on our toes' Huston plan. The CIA revelations to steal documents. "It's not so much 1970 spy plan he was totally oblivious One committee member, Sen. Barry alone have shown that that agency 'taking' as 'photographing,'" he ex­ to FBI counterintelligence programs, Goldwater (R-Ariz.), immediately used burglaries and mail covers at plained. "And there's not that much such as Cointel pro, the CIA's'domestic agreed with him. "As long as we have least until 1973. breakage done." spying, and other illegal intelligence Daniel Ellsbergs, some newspapers Testimony on the CIA operations Nervous throughout his appearance, activities already going on. and journalists, and organizations was given September 24 by James Angleton almost completely lost his The committee has taken this absurd intent on changing the basic philoso­ Angleton, former head of the agency's composure when confronted by Sen. line for good coin, using it to bolster phy of this country by the same "counterintelligence" .staff. Angleton Richard Schweiker (R-Pa.) with testi­ the notion that the massive illegal subversion," said Goldwater, "we have was a key figure in numerous CIA mony he had earlier given the Senate spying in this country is due to what to be forever on our toes. plots against domestic dissidents over committee in private. Senator Church calls "independent "Every time I pick up the morning the years, including the mail­ During testimony on how the CIA fiefdoms" in the intelligence network. paper, I see secrets I thought were interception program and "Operation had retained shellfish toxin long after "The president and Mr. Huston, it locked in my brain, or my heart, or my CHAOS," a program directed against Nixon announced it was all being appears, were deceived by intelligence safe. I get very concerned about the Black, antiwar, and student groups. destroyed, Angleton had told the officials," said Church. · future of my country." Several new names of those whose committee, "It's inconceivable that a It was the same "concern" that led mail was watched by the agency were secret intelligence a:rm of the govern­ The "core issue" of the entire spy Nixon to approve Huston's plan in revealed at the hearing. They include ment has to comply with all the overt scandal, he explained, was the "failure July 1970, although he formally with­ Martin Luther King, Coretta Scott orders." to keep the president of the United drew his approval five days later. In King, United Auto Workers official Reading him that sta~ment from States properly advised of such activi­ his testimony, Huston indicated that Victor Reuther, scientist Linus Paul­ the transcript, Schweiker asked him if ties." the illegality of the proposals had ing, and author John Steinbeck. it was an accurate version of what he The American people have heard nothing to do with the plan's official When asked to explain why the last had said. this cover-up story once before, whenit rejection. "Illegal," he explained, is "if three were CIA targets, Angleton said was the "failure" to keep Nixon "prop­ the guy gets caught." he would prefer to answer that ques­ 'Shouldn't have said it' erly advised" on illegal campaign AB far as the unconstitutionality of tion in a closed session because it "If it's ·accurate, it shouldn't have activities that led to Watergate. That the burglaries and mail tampering involved "classified" information. The been said," replied Angleton. story wasn't bought when Nixon and goes, he said, "My guess would be they committee allowed him to defer his Pressed further, Angleton said the his gang were selling it, and it's never gave any thought to it." answer. statement had been "imprudent" and unlikely that the congressional "in­ Huston said he himself felt perfectly Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho), head asked that it be stricken from the vestigators" will be able to palm it off comfortable recommending burglaries of the Senate committee, said that even record. any better. Spain sentences 11 to death by garroting By Jose Perez Jose-Luis Sanchez Bravo, and Concep­ defenders accused us." were on appeal. If the convictions are Eleven people in Spain have been cion Tristan L6pez, who prosecutors The stepped-up repression has been upheld as expected, the eleven will face condemned ·to death and at least 200 claimed are members of FRAP, con­ met with widespread protest in Spain immediate execution, probably by - more arrested in recent weeks in a victed September 18. The :five denied and internationally. A general strike garroting, unless Franco commutes the stepped-up repressive drive by the membership in the FRAP. involving 130,000 workers in the sentence. Franco dictatorship. • Juan Paredes Manot, member of Basque Country protested the first Garroting is a medieval method of The eleven were convicted, i~ four ETA, convicted September 20. trial. execution by use of an iron collar that separate cases, of allegedly killing The summary military trials con­ In Italy, airport workers in Rome is tightened until a spike severs the police. They are: ducted under Spain's new "antiterror­ and Milan have refused to handle victim's spinal chord. • Jose Antonio Garmendia Artola ist" law were a travesty of justice. In at baggage carried on the Spanish air­ When the first sentences were an­ and Angel Otaegui Echeverria, mem­ least two trials, convictions were based line, I~eria, and on other flights to and nounced, it was expected that appeals bers of Euzkadi ta Azkatasuna (ETA­ on "confessions" that the sentenced from Spain. Italian longshoremen would be summarily denied and execu­ Basque Nation and Freedom), a na­ militants repudiated, explaining they nave refused to handle cargo of ships tion carried out immediately. But the tionalist group, convicted August 29. had been extracted under torture. flying the Spanish flag. outpouring of international sentiment • Manuel Antonio Blanco Chivite, Defense lawyers for the five who In Paris, a September 19 meeting and powerful protests inside Spain Vladimiro Fernandez Tovar, and Jose were convicted September 18 had only called by the FRAP drew a packed apparently caused the dictatorship to Humberto Saena Alonso, members of four hours to prepare their case. After audience of several thousand to the vacillate. the Frente Revolucionario Antifascista raising objections, the lawyers were Mutualite. Further protests are urgently neces­ y Patriotico (FRAP-Revolutionary expelled from the trial, and the mili­ Reflecting the massive sentiment sary to force Franco to revoke the Antifascist and Patriotic Front), a tary tribunal appointed five army against the sentences that exists in barbaric sentences and prevent further Maoist group, convicted September 12. majors to serve as defense counsel. Europe, Pope Paul VI has called on death penalties from being meted out • Manuel Canaveras, Marfa Jesus One of the defendants said after the Franco to spare the activists' lives. to the other activists arrested in recent Dasca Panellas, Ramon Garcia Sanz, trial, "This wasn't a defense-the AB of September 21~ the four cases weeks.

THE MILITANT/OCTOBER 3,.1975 3 . E19ht for union r~nition Atlanta AFSCME teachers form coalition By Tony Dutrow forced to sign ten written agreements ATLANTA-The fight of public covering hours and working conditions employees here for union recognition for school board workers. and decent wages has taken a big step None of these agreements cover forward with the formation of a wages. One of them, however, specifies coalition between teachers and nonac­ that a food service worker filling in for ademic school board employees. a manager must receive the higher The coalition, publicly announced at manager's pay scale for that period. a September 12 news conference, was This type of underpayment of wages formed to fight for a contract for the had been a common occurrence in teachers and school workers, dues school cafeterias. checkoff for teachers, and restoration The union's twenty-four person nego­ of a promised pay increase taken away tiating team, a representative cross­ from all school employees by the section of the membership, had voted board. to discuss these issues as a precondi­ The Atlanta Association of Educa­ tion to the actual contract talks with tors, local affiliate of the National the board. Education Association, includes 2,200 Each of the ten issues resolved is in of the city's 4,000 teachers. Some 1,200 the form of a letter to Local 1644 of the 1,500 maids, cooks, and custodi­ signed by Crim. This is the first time ans in the schools have signed up with the board has agreed in writing to the school board chapter of Local1644, anything about working conditions for American Federation of State, County Local1644. and Municipal Employees. Local 1644 won dues checkoff through long fight against city administration. Now There is still a long way to go to Local 1644, which won dues checkoff sights are set on signed contract, wage increase. Above, AFSCME demonstration last force the board to sign a contract, this summer, is now in negotiations year. though. The AFSCME members voted with the school board, demanding a to approve the following plan of action: signed contract covering wages, hours, First, the board was given thirty and working conditions. Such a con­ AFSCME, the NEA, the American The big-business-owned news media days to agree on a signed contract tract would be unprecedented in Atlan­ Nurses' Association, and others. in Atlanta have been systematically before a strike vote will be taken. ta. Dornan told the news media that the misrepresenting AFSCME's plans. Second, the union will use the next At the September 12 joint news new coalition in Atlanta is the first Banner headlines in the Atlanta Con­ thirty days to prepare, together with conference, the teachers announced city-wide affiliate in CAPE's three-year stitution and Journal September 13 the AAE, for strike action if necessary. that in the event of an AFSCME history. trumpeted: "City School Workers Third, a joint AFSCME-AAE mem­ strike, they would honor picket lines at "Atlanta is ripe," he said, to test the Strike Vote Possible" and "Custodial bership meeting was called, the date to all 140 schools. ~central objectives of the public employ­ Strike May Hit Schoofs." The press be set later, to respond to the board's Then, on September 15, AAE build­ ee' coalition. That is, to take "histori­ and television churned out sensational­ decision on a contract and to deter­ ing representatives met and voted cally fragmented groups" like the AAE ized reports on an "impending" strike mine further action. overwhelmingly to begin to prepare and AFSCME and cement their power for September 15. The news media reported that a teachers and the Atlanta community around the struggle for a signed con­ At a membership meeting of Local strike had been "averted." The fact is for a joint AFSCME-AAE fight for a tract. 1644's school board chapter on Septem­ that AFSCME is moving ahead steadi­ contract. "They would sign an agreement at ber 14, AFSCME leaders reported on ly and seriously in its fight for a Also attending the AAE meeting the same time," Dornan said. "In that the progress of negotiations to that contract, working to ensure the great­ was John Dornan from the Washing­ way, the school board would have to point and outlined the next steps in the est unanimity of its own ranks and ton, D.C., headquarters of CAPE, the treat both groups equally, instead of fight. support from broader forces. The union Coalition of American Public Employ­ giving something to one group and In preliminary negotiations, school does not intend to be drawn into battle ees. CAPE nationally includes holding it back from another." superintendent Alonzo Crim was unprepared. Job§, schools,_P-Qiice brutalitY.. Socialist speaks on issues in Seattle race By Harold Schlechtweg about half as many votes as Bethard. by the city council is unnecessary," Republicans in Olympia and in Wash­ SEATILE-Socialists here are mov­ In the next few weeks, Bethard's Bethard said. "He says he is talking to ington, D.C., to come up with the ing ahead with plans for an energetic supporters plan to open a second the bankers and they will cooperate. necessary funds for education. city council campaign to follow up the campaign headquarters in the Central Well, I haven't seen any evidence of Bethard also supports Initiative 314, second-place showing of Patricia Be­ Area, the heart of Seattle's Black such cooperation." a bill to tax corporate profits to pay for thard in the September 16 primary community. Much of Smith's support Bethard said that if she were elected schools. election. comes from the Central Area. she would propose whatever legal Bethard has spoken out strongly Bethard, a member of the ~ocialist In an interview with the Militant, action is necessary to force the banks against cop terror in Seattle. One cop, Workers party, won 11,700 votes in her Bethard explained why she is running to stop redlining. AlJen Earlywine, recently shot a Black bid for council position five in the against Smith and where her cam­ "Sam Smith says that this is a 'city youth, Joe Hebert, and was exonerated "nonpartisan" primary. This was near­ paign stands on the issues affecting council you can talk to,"' Bethard by the police department. ly 18 percent of the total vote, and it the people of Seattle. added. "I think that Blacks should "Earlywine should have been tried qualified her for a spot on the Novem­ "If Sam Smith was running as an have the right to do more than talk." for murder, and the police chief should ber ballot opposite incumbent Black independent candidate of the Black She supports the right of the Black have been fired for trying to cover it Democrat Sam Smith. community, I wouldn't oppose. him," community to "control everything that up," the socialist candidate said. The third candidate in the race, from she said. "But, he's not. Smith is a is an integral part of the community She calls for getting the police out of the right-wing "U.S. Labor party," got Democrat, and his allegiance to the and affects the everyday life of the the Black community and replacing Democratic party makes it impossible community." them with a self-defense force drawn for him to represent the Black commu­ Bethard says a massive infusion of from the community and responsible to nity or other working people in Seat­ federal funding is needed to build it. tle." housing, schools, hospitals, libraries, As a public employee Bethard is Bethard is a clerical worker at the and other facilities in the Black com­ particularly knowledgeable about the University of Washington in Seattle. munity, and that all such funds should plight of city workers. She noted that She is secretary of Local 1488 of the be under the control of the community. workers at City Light, a public utility, American Federation of State, County A major problem facing all working have been without a contract since and Municipal Employees and is a people in Seattle is unemployment. April 1. delegate to the King County Labor Bethard calls ·for a massive public The Seattle City Council recently Council. One of her activities, she said, works program to put the unemployed voted to rescind a 1951 resolution· is helping the union's organizing drive to work, along with a shorter work­ ·requiring that City Light workets be on campus. week at no reduction in weekly pay. paid comparably with employees in Redlining, police terror, unemploy­ She says the federal government other public utilities. The union in­ ment, and education: these are the should stop spending $100 billion a volved, Local 77 of the International issues her campaign will focus on. She year on arms and direct the money Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, has has answers to these problems, she toward these human needs instead. accused the council of unfair labor said; Sam Smith doesn't. ·, Last spring, Bethard and other SWP practices. The banks' redlining of the Black candidates joined demonstrations in Bethard condemned the council's community-marking out areas where Olympia, the state capital, by teachers, antilabor vote and offered her full they refuse to make loans to homeown­ students, and parents demanding mo­ support for the union's wage demands. MilitanVMary Jo Hendrickson ers and small businesses-is an impor­ ney for the schools. "I am opposed to having the city SWP candidate Patricia Bethard won 18 tant issue in Seattle. She believes it will take more demon­ budget balanced at the expense of city percent of vote in primary election. "Smith says that legislative action strations to force the Democrats and employees," she said.

4 Defies court injunction ~·- . Boston teachers union strikes to save jobs By Susan LaMont issue a federal court injunction prohib­ proposes that "excessed" teachers be meeting where the strike vote was BOSTON-On September 22, more iting the strike, but ordered both the retrained in bilingual, reading, and taken. He issued a statement on the than 4,()()()- public school teachers teachers union and the school commit­ other special skills so that some of the strike that points the way forward for walked the picket lines in Boston. tee to return to negotiations for no less real needs for improving the education- the BTU in its fight against the The strike, provoked by the racist, than twelve hours a day until an al system can be met. · bigoted school committee. Oliver said: antilabor Boston School Committee, agreement is reached. He also appoint­ The BTU is also opposing the school "The BTU has never taken a forth­ was virtually 100 percent effective. The ed a mediator to participate in the committee's demand that teachers right stand in support of Black equal teachers are demanding job security negotiations. work an extra ninety minutes every rights in education and against the and higher wages. Other issues in the The most important issue in the two weeks without pay. racist policies of segregation organized strike revolve around extra working strike is job security for the teachers. Finally, the school committee has by the school committee. It has ap­ hours for teachers and implementation Over the past year, there has been a proposed a wage settlement that is pealed, in court, Judge Garrity's ruling of last year's arbitration award. reported drop of more than 10,000 outrageous-a 6 percent increase. The for parity hiring of Black teachers­ On Friday, September 19, Suffolk students in the Boston public schools, teachers are demanding a 9 percent designed to make the teacher work Superior Court Judge Samuel Adams due primarily to racist white parents wage increase, which is not even force represent the racial composition issued an injunction against the strike, taking their children out of the schools enough to keep up with the 9.7 percent of the schools and to overcome decades which defies a Massachusetts state because of opposition to desegregation. increase in the cost of living in Boston of discrimination in hiring and place- · law prohibiting strikes by public em­ Because of this declining enrollment, over the past year. ment. ployees. The teachers voted to defy the the school committee wants to begin The teachers' strike comes two weeks "It is no wonder that the Black injunction. The BTU no)'V faces possi­ firing teachers. They want the "right" after Boston schools opened for the community looks with skepticism on ble fines of $5,000 a day for every day to fire provisional teachers this year second year of court-ordered desegrega­ the strike-and that the school com­ they are out, and possible jail sen­ and to be able to fire pernianent and tion, which involves the busing of mittee will try to pit the BTU against tences for the union leadership. tenured teachers starting with the next some 26,000 students. the Black community. - Judge W. Arthur Garrity, who pre­ school year. This could result in the The BTU voted on September 2 to "The school committee is out to sides over the desegregation process loss of jobs for hundreds of teachers. authorize the strike but to postpone overturn Phase Two through any now being implemented in the Boston The BTU is demanding job security action for two weeks in order to allow means available and to break the schools, refused on September 22 to for all categories of teachers, . and Phase Two of the school desegregation BTU. plan to be implemented. The union, "HOW CAN THE STRIKE BE however, has refused to take a position WON? Only by the BTU coming in favor of school desegregation and in . forward and rallying the most intran­ support of the Black community's right sigent foes of the Boston School to an equal education. Committee, the people who have The BTU, long regarded as a white fought longest and hardest for better job trust, has weakened its position in education in Boston: the Black commu­ the strike by trying to sit on the fence nity. The BTU must take a firm stand throughout the struggle over school for Phase Two, for the safety of Black desegregation. By refusing to aggres­ students being bused, and for Black sively support desegregation, the union teacher rights. has alienated its potentially most "I and my running mates will be on important ally in this strike-the your picket lines. We will lend our Black community. support to you. And we will seek to win Some Black leaders, such as Thomas the Black community to your side. Atkins, president of the Boston "But first and foremost the BTU NAACP, and Black school committee must take a stand, after half a decade candidate John O'Bryant, have come of silence on: the most burning issue in out in opposition to the strike, seeing it Boston. It must reach out to the Black as a disruption of the implementation community, and all its allies in the of Phase Two. prodesegregation movement, and forge Norman Oliver, the Socialist Work­ a two-fisted defense against the racist Boston School Committee, which threatens to fire hundreds of teachers, is also ers party candidate for mayor of antilabor Boston School Committee's spearhead of racist antibusing campaign. · Boston, was present at the BTU attack on education in Boston." Berkeley teachers set example of united action By David Warren ers, and parents demonstrated at the can Federation of State,· County and settlement is forced, it would result in BERKELEY, Calif.-The strike by board's offices, demanding that the Municipal Employees. layoffs of those last hired in order to public school teachers here, which teachers' agreement be honored. pay for the package. began September 3, provides a rare An Education Fair and Labor Rally At this point, negotiations are Black teachers and school employees example of united action by teachers, on Sunday, September 21, drew more stalled. Rather than agree to any have angrily reacted to this ploy. At students, and parents in defense of than 300 people and received wide settlement that could end the strike, one of the board's community meet- education. television coverage. the board has spent thousands of dol- ings, a Black paraprofessional drew The strike is being conducted jointly "Especially important to the striking lars-$250•000 according to a union es- loud applause when she said, "My by the Berkeley Federation of Teachers staff was the vast outpouring of timate-to defeat the teachers. monthly salary is so low that I have to (BFT) and the Berkeley Teachers support from teacher representatives Mass mailings to parents, newspa- apply for food stamps. And now you Association. Such common action from the Bay Area," reported the per advertisements, scab substitutes, tell me, after all these years, that you between affiliates of the American teachers' joint strike bulletin, Schools and eight board-sponsored community are concerned about me?" Federation of Teachers and National on Strike, the next day. · meetings have been used to try to The board settled first with the Education Association, bitter rivals in Eight presidents of AFT locals in the break the strike. classified employees-secretaries, cus- the unionization of teachers, is virtual- area spoke at the rally, as did repres- Then the liberal board, which has todians, and bus drivers-hoping to ly unprecedented. entatives from three NEA affiliates. credited itself with desegregating divide them from the teachers. The teachers are striking to force the Other speakers included spokespeople Berkeley schools, resorted to attacking A "citizen's fiscal advisory commit- board of education to honpr an agree- from the Coalition of Labor Union the school staffs along racial lines, tee" was set up by the board to ment made last April that included Women and Local 1695 of the Ameri- warning Black employees that if a substantiate the board's claim that it limitations on class sizes and other is unable to maintain the schools at policies to improve classroom condi- last year's level. tions. The board now wants to scrap This committee, however, came out that agreement and is threatening to with a report condemning the school cut educational programs, classroom district's fiscal policies. It is currently supplies, and health benefits and in the process of filing suit against the salaries of the teachers. board, charging it with withholding' More than 96 percent of the teachers vital information on the budget. are honoring the picket lines. Of the A group of individuals have also regular substitute teachers-whom the filed notices of intent to recall the board is baiting with an offer of fifty board. dollars a day instead of the usual Nearly every day teachers hold a thirty-four-SO percent are staying out. joint association-union rally. At one of An average of 2,300 students out of these, after the second week of the an enrollment of 14,000 attend school strike, BFT President Judy Baden- each day. hausen told the 500 teachers assem- The student govE!rnment at Berkeley bled, "This strike is the strongest in High School voted to boycott classes California history because it is not just for the duration of the strike. Since the a union strike nor just an association vote, attendance at the high school has strike, but because it is a united fallen off from 400 on the first day of teacher strike!" the strike to between 75 and 125. Total The teachers cheered, and some high school enrollment is 2,700. added, "And a student, parent, and On September 9, 800 students, teach- community stn'ke too!"

THE MILITANT/OCTOBER 3, 1975 5 Should we demand federal troops to protect Black rights?

. Boston police prepare to escort buses carrying Black students to previously all­ white schools.

By Tony Thomas eratic · politicians reinforced this pat­ nationalist groups such as United Blacks not to challenge that system, (Second of a series) tern. Black Strategists and the All African and especially not to challenge the BOSTON-The first weeks of school This encouragement of the racists Revolutionary People's party, which Democratic and Republican parties, here have seen an advance for the emboldened them not only to attack are opposed to busing, as well as a few which maintain capitalist rule. Boston Black community's fight to Black schoolchildren but to organize activists who have been involved in But Black people have been able to desegregate the schools. Still, the lynch mobs against Blacks who tried the desegregation fight. turn many of the concessions the struggle is far from over. to work in or even visit white neigh­ They reasoned that since the govern­ government was forced to grant from Attendance by both white and Black borhoods. ment is the enemy of the Black paper into reality. They have been able students-one of the chief indicators of When: school began in 1974, the coml}lunity-a completely correct to do it by demanding that the ruling the success of the busing program-is NAACP, Black elected officials, and idea-then the cops and troops would class enforce its own laws guarantee­ higher than last year. church and community leaders de­ not really protect the Black communi­ ing Black rights and by backing up ·When the schools opened last year, manded that the government enforce ty. their demands with mass actions and the Black community was stunned by the federal law against school segrega­ In fact, they charged that calling for mobilizations. · the racist violence. Many people tion by sending in troops to quell the more troops and cops would probably­ thought that nothing could be done violence. Washington refused to act set the stage for new attacks on the Mass pressure about the situation. A large number of and the racists' campaign of terror Black community. It was the pressure of the massive Black parents refused to send their continued into the summer. The opening of schools proved that marches, rallies, and sit-ins of the civil children to be bused because they In July a mob nearly lynched six the demand for increased federal and rights movement that forced the gov­ feared racist violence. Black traveling salesmen who attempt­ police force against the racists could be ernment to send federal troops to Little Many of the same parents are now ed to swim at Carson Beach in South implemented-even if only partially­ Rock, Arkansas, in 1957 and Selma, feeling more confident about sending Boston. In response, the NAACP and and that it would not automatically Alabama, in 1965 to protect Blacks their children to school. Over the past the National Student Coalition lead to attacks on the Black communi­ from racist violence. And its was the year Black support for the busing Against Racism called a picnic at ty. fear of the ultimate consequences of program has grown, and many now Carson Beach to assert the right of Why are the same cops who brutally the growing mobilization of Blacks think that the Black community has a Blacks to use the public facility. attacked Blacks at Carson Beach: and and their allies that finally forced the chance to win this fight. Cops and bigots viciously attacked the same city and federal officials who rulers to grant an end to legalized Whites who support school desegre­ the picnickers. This set off a wave of ·allowed the racists to attack the buses segregation in the South. gation, or who are at least opposed to protests in the Black community. last. year, providing increased protec­ The reason increased protection is racist violence, are more willing to These protests were also attacked by .. tion against the racists this year? being given to the Black-. school­ speak out against the extreme racists. the police. The reason is that they fear the children 'of Boston today is that the While violent attacks continue in Most groups involved in the Carson growing mobilization of the Black federal and local governments have racist neighborhoods such as Hyde Beach protest drew the lesson that the community and the support it is seen a growing determination on the Park, Charlestown, and South Boston, campaign for protection of Boston's winning for the right to equal educa­ part of the Black community­ the racist mobs have not been able to Black community had to be continued. tion and for protection against vio­ expressed in action-to defend its physically parm Black students in the Thomas Atkins, president of Boston's lence. rights. schools and on the buses, as they did NAACP; Percy Wilson, head of the The ruling class realizes the poten­ Over the past year two marches of last year. Roxbury Multi-Service Center; Pat tially explosive power of the Black more than 10,000 were organized to What's the difference between this Jones, head of Lena Park Community community. They also understand the focus national attention on the year and last ·year? Why the change? Services; and Norman Oliver, Socialist radicalizing effect that the struggle of struggle for equal education. These Workers party candidate for mayor, Afro-Americans has had on the other marches helped to produce a mood of Protection for Blacks were among the Black leaders and oppressed nationalities, and on many militancy in the Black community and The majQr reason for these advances activists who raised the demand for white Americans. a growing confidence that it is possible is increased police and federal protec­ federal troops to protect the Black Since the early 1950s, the govern­ to fight the racists and win the battle tion for Black students. Twice as many community at the opening of school ment has been forced to make major for school desegregation. Boston cops lined the streets of the this year. concessions to the Black community in The rulers fear the consequences of racist districts this year as last year. order to contain the Black struggle. more mass demonstrations and they State troopers were also on hand. Doubts raised The rulers don't aim to liberate Black fear the consequences of more out­ Last fall Federal District Judge W. At the same time, a small minority people. Their goal is to maintain the bursts like the ones that shook the Arthur Garrity, who handed down the of activists raised doubts about this illusion that the capitalist system is Black community here after the Car­ school desegregation order, rejected the perspective. They included sectarian democratic. They seek to convince son Beach affair. So they have been NAACP's demand for U.S. marshals to forced to take steps to provide more protect the Black community. This protection for Black schoolchildren. year, more than 100 U.S. marshals and They are also worried that the FBI agents were called in to prevent growing organization of the Black violence against Black students. community in Boston will set an While last year the racists were able example for Blacks in other cities who to go up to the school buses and school have been, or will be, confronted with buildings and, in some cases, into the racist violence. · schools themselves to intimidate Blacks, this year the police and mar­ Struggle not over shals have kept them away from the The struggle in Boston is not over, school buildings. despite the relative calm that has While this protection remains inade­ existed over the first few weeks of quate, it has dealt a hard blow to school: Boston's racists, who had counted on When cops reduced their patrols on violent intimidation of Blacks students September 19 in a few areas of South as one of their main tac;tics to smash Boston-using the calm as an excuse­ the desegregation plan. there were stonings of school buses, Last year the local, state, and federal attacks on federal marshals, and an governments tolerated the violence, attempt to burn one of the bridges on thus strengthening the antibusing which the buses travel. Moreover, the movement considerably. racists continue their pressure to have city officials remove or reduce the large Racists emboldened numbers of police protecting the The government showed it was not schools. really opposed to the racists even A continuing national campaign is though it was going through the needed against racist violence. This motions of ad~inistering the busing Militant/Mary Jo Hendrickson must include the demand for federal program. Antibusing statements by Determined actions of Blacks demanding implementation of desegregation forced troops if they are needed to put down President Ford and by leading Demo- government to provide increased protection for Black students this fall. the racists.

6 ·-- . Racist violence keeps Boston uneasy By Jon Hillson against desegregation. bigots staged their first antibusing BOSTON-Sniper fire in Charles­ This circulation of the racist organiz­ "bike-a-thon," cycling throughout town and racist mob action in South ers around the city near the schools South Boston, Charlestown, and the Boston capped an uneasy second week represents an emerging boldness of the North End in a driving rain. The of city-wide school desegregation here. bigots. For the· first week of school they image of "good-natured protest" On September 18, rooftop snipers were stunned by the large, visible sought by the racists was somewhat shot at police cars on patrol in Charles­ police presence and court order, which belied when one of the event's chaper­ town, twenty-four hours after a gang the police enforced, that prohibited ons drove his car directly into a police had stoned Charlestown police head­ them from gathering near schools. The officer, ltospitalizing him. quarters and attempted to set fire to fact that the cops have been so Today, the Boston teachers' strike, the building. The racists are furious at unenthusiastic about dealing with the which began on September 22, domi­ police for having provided protection mobs and gangs that regularly chal­ nates the city, with only a trickle of for Blacks being bused to formerly lenge them-and the bus routes they students entering the buildings. white schools. cordon off-has steadily increased the But the reality of a diminishing On September 19, a prayer-chanting confidence of the bigots. police force, coupled with its kid-gloves­ "mothers' march" against desegrega­ On September 22, Charlestown treatment of the racists, points to tion in South Boston turned into a ROAR leader Pat Russell led a delega­ potential trouble at the reopening of rock- and bottle-throwing mob of 200 tion of fifteen bigots through police schools. On September 19, the last of that unsuccessfully sought to penetrate lines and up to the door of the high the national guard forces on call in police lines and attack school buses MilitanVJon Hillson school to demand a meeting with Boston were withdrawn, an act that carrying Black students. Milling gangs Racist grafitti in Charlestown shows real headmaster Frank Power, an ardent will only boost the spirits of the ra­ of youths grouped and dispersed near meaning of antibusing movement. foe of busing. They said they wanted to cists. bus routes while the cops politely kept discuss "grievances of the white stu­ At the same time, the Boston media the obscenity-screaming hooligans at dents." have given a big play to recent bay. by the antibusing movement has That the court order forbidding antibusing statements by President The first federal arrest this year was accounted for a 27 percent drop in gatherings near the school was flouted Ford and Vice-president Nelson Rocke­ made at the melee, when U.S. mar­ white enrollment. The boycott took a by the racists is certain to be noted by feller. Ford's attack on the courts for shals arrested a sixteen-year-old tough new turn with the imiuguration of a their followers. ordering busing and Rockefeller's sup­ for assault on a federal officer. Boston weekly day of "emphasis" designed to Sixty white students in the building port for a constitutional amendment police arrested four others for "disturb­ signal ongoing opposition to desegre­ later bolted the high school in a against busing are carbon copies of ing the peace." gation. On September 18 white atten­ walkout. One of them was arrested for ROAR's program to wipe out Black On September 20, a fire set on the dance at Charlestown High School hit smashing the metal detector that the equal rights in ·education. Such state­ Summer Street Bridge, which leads its lowest point since school opened, students walk through every morning. ments have strengthened the racists' into South Boston, closed traffic for while Hyde Park High School dropped On September 20, fifty racists orga­ will to fight. two hours. Round-the-clock police pa­ to its second-lowest count of the fall. nized by ROAR picketed the Boston The shaky victory won by the Black trols now watch seven bridges that White enrollment overall, however, has Globe, whose moderate support for community here in the implementation lead into the area. risen slightly. school desegregation has infuriated of desegregation and the protection of Overall school attendance rose dur­ "It was observed," the Boston the bigots. They also condemned the Black students being bused will face ing the _week, with. Black enrollment Herald-American noted, "that several Globe's support for the financially new, hard tests when school reopens. moving upward, especially at the antibusing ROAR mothers who spend troubled METCO program, a modest Antiracist forces must remain vigilant, elementary and middle-school levels. a good deal of time outside Hyde Park voluntary busing plan that transports prepared to demand in action that the Chinese and Latino student enrollment High had visited Charlestown in the nearly 3,000 Black students to subur­ police force that has stopped the percentages rose dramatically as well. morning." ROAR (Restore Our Alienat­ ban schools. racists thus far remain large and The white student boycott organized ed Rights) spearheads the racist drive On September 21, nearly 200 young visible. New assaults on school desegregation By Baxter Smith help foil any murder attempts, Glatt argues that the desegregation plan is a cratic presidential ticket. He said that Racist passions inflamed by busing changed cars frequently and varied his federally ordered plan and therefore court-ordered busing in some instances opponents, from the federal level on schedule. He would often spend nights the federal government should absorb was "counterproductive" and "will not down, which have brought insult and at various friends' houses as a safety its costs. work everywhere." injury to Black students in Boston and precaution. In similar challenges in the past, the Louisville; have now claimed the life of His appointment as planner came as federal courts have ruled that local a desegregation planner in Ohio. a result of an NAACP desegregation governments-who were responsible Charles Glatt, an education expert suit, and prior to his work in Dayton for the segregation to begin with­ who was asked by a federal judge to he helped develop desegregation plans have had to bear such costs them- draw up a desegregation plan for the in Indianapolis. selves. Dayton, Ohio, public school system, It was reported that the Dayton Carroll initiated the suit to stimulate was shot to death September 19 while school board, whose majority opposes congressional motion toward a consti­ at work in his office. busing, had hired another consultant, tutional amendment prohibiting bus- Neal Bradley Long, a white service but to devise a plan that would not ing for desegregation. station attendant, is being held for the involve busing. Meanwhile, the Senate on September crime. Authorities say they believe In related news, Kentucky Gov. 17 tacked onto an appropriations bill Long may also be responsible for the Julian Carroll recently filed suit ask- an amendment that would prevent the slayings of at least six Blacks in ing the federal government to reim- Department of Health, Education and Dayton in the past four years. burse the county and state for the cost Welfare from cutting off federal funds Glatt, who was white, expressed of paying state police and national to municipalities that refuse to desegre­ concern before his death that violent guardsmen stationed in Louisville to gate their public schools. opposition to desegregation might prevent rioting and disturbances by And on September 21, another sol- result if a busing plan were devised for antibusing bigots. dier joined the antibusing brigade. Dayton. And, according to associates, According to the suit, the cost of the This soldier is a Sargent (Shriver), and Democratic pres ate he believed his life was in danger. To combined forces is $750,000 a week. It the newest candidate for the Demo- Shriver calls busing 'counterproductive.'

By Geoff Mirelowitz one comes up with a better way-and majorities are not going to be happy LOS ANGELES-"! am anxious to no one has-we stand for busing." with it, and I see no educational value L.A. Black JOin with . the Student Coalition Joining Brookins was Rev. Edgar in that nonsense unless you equip the Against Racism and others. in a war Edwards, who said: bus with a television set and a teach­ against racism in this country," said "The issue today is in Louisville and ing machine." leaders Bishop H. H. Brookins, president of the "Boston. Tomorrow it may be in Los Moorhead replied that Riles's state­ West Coast Southern Christian Leader­ Angeles. The problem is not busing but ment "can only be interpreted as ship Conference. Brookins was speak­ racism. White parents want and pro­ bending to the pressure of the argu­ defend ing at a September 12 news conference vide the best education for their ments of the racists." in response to racist resistance to children. We want the best for our Moorhead also told of plans to school desegregation in Boston and children. We want our children to go participate in the national conference busing Louisville. to those schools where they can get the of the student coalition in Boston best education." October 10-12. Initiated by the Los Angeles chapter Also speaking at the news confer­ of the Student Coalition Against Ra­ Speaking for the student coalition, ence were former state superior court cism, the news conference brought Laura Moorhead responded to a public judge Alfred Gitelson, who was the together local Black leaders and others attack on busing by Wilson Riles, the author of the decision (which was prominent in efforts to desegregate the Black state superintendent of public overturned but is on appeal) ordering schools here. instruction. desegregation of the public schools Brookins went on to add, "We Riles had told reporters as schools here, and Fred Okrand, legal director support total desegregation of the opened in Boston, "The minorities are of the Southern California American schools across the board. Until some- not going to be happy with it, the Civil Liberties Union.

THE MILITANT/OCTOBER 3, 1975 Socialist campaign blankets BoSton on final Saturday before the election By David Salner During the day of campaigning, BOSTON-"I've been looking for 8,500 copies of the Boston SWP cam­ work for six months," the young Black paign platform were distributed, along man told me. A few feet away, Norman with 2,500 copies of the Socialist Oliver, Socialist Workers.party candi- Workers 1976 national campaign plat­ date for Boston mayor, was speaking form, "A Bill of Rights for Working -through a bullhorn. People." In addition, the teams sold We were standing in front of Blair's 350 copies of the Militant and Young supermarket, with the sidewalks full of Socialist newspapers, with Ed Heisler Saturday shoppers. The man I was and Dave Bliss the two top salespeo­ talking to had been a hand-stripper at ple. a shoe factory. Most of those laid off The Boston campaign platform was with him were Black. received with interest by both whites "We didn't work there long, so we got and Blacks in the areas canvassed. the lowest pay. That means it hurts the The platform includes the following most to be laid off." proposals for fighting unemployment I told him that Norman Oliver and inflation: thought Black workers shouldn't bear "• An end to layoffs; jobs for all the brunt of unemployment just be- . through instituting a shorter work­ cause they were on the bottom of the week with no cut in pay to spread seniority list. He wanted to meet around available work; . Oli:ver, who had stopped speaking and "• Preferential hiring and equal was standing in the middle of a small rights for oppressed minorities and crowd with the bullhorn resting on his women; protection for affirmative- shoulder. action programs; Moving closer, we saw that' he was "• No cutbacks in welfare, Social listening to an impatient Boston cop. Security, or pension benefits; "The cop was trying to make us "• No cutbacks in funds for higher think we needed a permit to campaign education; no tuition hikes; _ here," Oliver explained after the man ·:• Cost-of-living increases in wages in blue had departed. · to protect workers from skyrocketing Undoubtedly, what agitated the cop inflation. These increases should be more than the question of a permit was pegged to the real rate of inflation as Seventeen teams of campaign activists fanned out across Boston, selling 'Militants,' the fact that this busy, predominantly determined by committees set up by distributing campaign platforms, and explaining issues in mayors race.- Black shopping area was alive with unions and consumer groups.... They socialist campaign activity. should apply to those on welfare, This was one of four locations our Social Security, pensions, and other swered Oliver. He outlined how the "The best response I got was usually fixed incomes." program of the Socialist Workers from women, young women, and Black campaign called for scrapping the $100 people," Ellie Beth Brady said. Democratic candidates billion military budget and turning This was her first full day of social- The Boston Globe had predicted a that money to social needs such as ist campaigning. She got interested in landslide victory for incumbent Mayor education. the Socialist Workers campaign just Kevin White. According to their latest "But in the meantime, no matter . recently when she approached a Young opinion poll, he will defeat his closest how bad Southie [South Boston High Socialist Alliance table at the Univer­ contender, State Sen. Joseph Timilty, School] is, when Black students go sity of Massachusetts. by a 2-to-1 margin. there it's an improvement for them," "I bought a pamphlet and signed the Timilty and White, both Democrats, Oliver added. • mailing list, naturally, and then I was are on record in opposition to busing to People in South Boston have had called a few days later." Brady joined achieve desegregation. But the key- rocks thrown through their windows the YSA shortly afterward. stone of their strategy in this race is because they've sent their children on Gustie Trainor "learned to hawk not to talk about this issue. a bus, the student said, describing why papers during the soapbox era" of the "Help Boston Grow Old Gracefully- her friends are afraid to express pro- 1930s. Reelect Mayor White," proclaims one busing sentiments. "I like to do street campaigning, but of the many billboards put up by his "So you agree with me," Oliver I had to stay in the headquarters committee. It sums up the listless tone responded. "There should be a big because of this foot injury," she said of his campaign. movement so that these friends of glumly. "So I dispatched the campaign The Timilty-White competition could yours can say to the people in South supporters and answered phone calls." be "an entry in a boredom festival," Boston, 'Did you see the big demon- That evening, about seventy cam­ the Globe admitted. stration last week? That's who I'm paign workers held a spirited rally But "boredom" was hardly the with.'" during a party at the campaign head- response of the thousands of Boston Back at the campaign headquarters quarters. shoppers reached Saturday by the at 655 Atlantic Avenue at the end of Willie Mae Reid struck an especially socialist campaign. Racism, unemploy- the day, some of the campaign support- responsive chord among campaign ment, and other issues were very much ers were exchanging impressions of supporters when she told the campaign on their minds. the day's activities. activists: "From Louisville to Boston, Militant/Maceo Dixon The teams visited both Black and · Ollie Bivins, school committee candi- from Brooklyn and Pasadena to SWP's OLIVER: 'Scrap the $100 billion white neighborhoods. Only Charles- date, summed it up: "The people who Detroit-you name it-wherever the war budget and use that money for town, East Boston, and South were out definitely knew that the people are in struggle, that's where the social needs.' Boston-where racist gangs have been Socialist Workers campaign was on Socialist Workers campaign is." active-were avoided. Militant repor- the streets today." ters have been physically attacked in these areas. team of socialist campaigners visited "What kind of response do you 'Militant' widely known September 20, the last Saturday before generally get from white people?" I Wayne Hieber, from Brooklyn, had the city's primacy election. The elec­ asked Oliver. He had just been talking gone door-to-door in Orchard Park, a tion is officially nonpartisan. to a young man with the word "IRE­ Black housing project in Roxbury. "We LAND" printed across his T-shirt. The sold the Militant, which many people Seventeen teams man was waiting for a bus, holding a knew as a paper that was for desegre- All told, seventeen teams fanned out small child by the hand. gation. · · all over Boston. Three carloads of "The response is mostly confused.'' "One woman who ran a vegetable campaign supporters from New York Nodding toward the man with the truck took all of our literature and said joined the Boston Socialist Workers Ireland T-shirt, Oliver continued. she would have her daughter contact campaign supporters. "That man told me he was against us. Willie Mae Reid, Socialist Workers busing, but his main concern was with "She gave us some fruit, saying we vice-presidential candidate, and Ed safety for the children." would need the energy if we were going Heisler, chairperson of the Socialist to be out campaigning all day." Workers 1976 National Campaign At Copley Square Hieber's team visited several hun­ Committee, had both come in to join In Copley Square, a busy downtown dred apartments in Orchard Park and the effort. shopping area, we met a young white sold forty-eight Militants. At one point The Boston Socialist Workers party education student from Wheelock Col­ they ran into a group of young Black is fielding four candidates for city lege. students who were handing out litera­ office in addition to Oliver: Ollie "They're spending so much money ture for Mayor White. Bivins and Deborah Clifford are run­ on busing, don't you think it should be "We gave them campaign material ning for school committee; Jon Hills-on put into the schools instead?" she for Norman Oliver, and they said they and Reba Williams are the candidates asked. wanted to pass that out instead, for city council. "I don't counterpose the two," an because Oliver was Black." On the Boston Common

8 'IneligibilitY.' a cover-UP- Demand Kissinger OK H ----o Blanco visa By Jose Perez The situation is also ironic because In an apparent reaction to growing Kissinger received a lot of favorable public pressure, the decision on wheth­ press coverage from his role in the er Peruvian peasant leader Hugo signing of the Helsinki agreement last Blanco should be allowed to enter the July, the latest product of the detente United States is now in the hands of between Moscow and Washington. U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissin­ Among the provisions of that accord ger. is one that purportedly guarantees the right to "international contact and Blanco had been invited to speak at communications between authors and many colleges and universities on publishing houses." "Latin America: Continent Without Pathfinder Press, Blanco's literary Justice" as part of a tour coordinated agent and U.S. publisher, is demand­ by the U.S. Committee for Justice to ing that Blanco be permitted to enter Latin American Political Prisoners (USLA). the United States to facilitate the Since Blanco applied for a visa last "international contact" the U.S. gov­ July, the government has been stalling ernment so sanctimoniously sub­ on his request. scribed to last July. Now, Diane Villard of the State Department Visa Office told the Mili­ Meanwhile, as the government stalls tant, the government has decided that on the visa application, more messages Blanco is "ineligible for a visa under of protest have been sent to the State the provisions of the Immigration and Department demanding granting of Nationality Act." the request. Kissinger will decide whether the Support has been strong among State Department will recommend to Chicano political figures and educa­ the Immigration and Naturalization tors. Among those who have sent Service "that a waiver of his ineligi­ messages have been Guadalupe bility be granted." Youngblood, state chairperson of the According to Villard, the INS has Texas Raza Unida party; Jose Angel the final say, and could refuse to go Gutierrez, judge, Zavala County, Tex­ along with a recommendation that as; Lupe Quintanilla, director of Blanco be let in. Mexican-American studies at the Uni­ She said that a decision from Kissin­ versity of Houston; Texas State Rep. ger was expected "within the next Ben Reyes; and Froben Lozada, chair­ couple of days." But when asked how person of the Chicano studies depart­ much longer the whole process would ment, Merritt College, Oakland, Cali­ take, she said, "I thought it would fornia. have been settled about three weeks Exiled Peruvian peasant leader declared 'ineligible' to enter U.S., but reasons are Others signing letters of protest ago, so I would hesitate to give you 'classified information.' include the San Francisco Coalition of any answer." Labor Union Women; Robert Allen, · Villard specified that Blanco has managing editor of the Black Scholar; been ruled "ineligible" under section these categories Blanco specifically fell Blanco permission to enter: they want Herman Hughes, president, Houston 212 A-28 of the Immigration and under, Villard refused to answer, to deny people in the United States the Typographical Union No. 87; and Jeff Nationality Act. claiming that "I don't have his file right to hear his views. Mackler, executive secretary of the She said that law prohibits entrance available right now." When pressed It is not without irony that the Hayward, California, Federation of to the United States to people who further she said, "I'm sorry, sir, that's mastermind of the overthrow of the Teachers. "write, or publish, or advocate, or classified information." "organized government" of Chile will USLA is urging that messages teach" the overthrow of the United Blanco's record as an author, social­ now rule on the visa application. demanding the immediate granting of States or any other "organized govern­ ist revolutionist, peasant leader, defen­ Blanco was one of the many political a visa to Blanco be sent to Henry ment"; "communist doctrines"; as­ der of civil liberties, and victim of exiles in Chile at the time of the Kissinger, Secretary of State, U.S. saulting or killing cops; "damage, or political repression is well known. The September 1973 coup, and he managed State Department, Washington, D.C. entry, or destruction of property"; or "classified information" line can only to escape prison, torture, and possible Copies should be sent to USLA, 156 "sabotage." be considered a cover-up for the real death only by seeking refuge in an Fifth Avenue, Suite 600, New York, When questioned as to which one of reason the government has not given embassy. New York 10010.

Set march on state cagitol Mass. students protest cutbacks, tuition hikes By Fred Murphy statewide march: These cuts come in a state that schools: a dual school system. The BOSTON-Thousands of students • On October 1, a picket line at the already ranked forty-ninth out of fifty fight for school desegregation and the rallied on state campuses across state capitol and local campus pro­ in per capita spending on public higher fight against the racist cutbacks are Massachusetts September 17 to protest tests. education. one and the same." drastic cutbacks in the public higher • From October 1 to October 10, Now the Amherst campus is consid­ education budget and an impending campus teach--ins, picket lines, and ering denying admission to 1,400 tuition increase of at least 100 percent. other local activities. second-semester freshmen, and the Responding to a call issued August • A Massachusetts cutbacks work­ Boston campus may be forced to cancel 10 by the Massachusetts Students to shop at the Second National Student the summer school session in 1976. Save Public Higher Education, student Conference Against Racism, scheduled Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Mi­ activists organized rallies at the Am­ for October 10-12 in Boston. chael Dukakis is carrying out his herst and Boston campuses of the The present anticutback struggle campaign vow to take a "meat cleav­ University of Massachusetts; at Bos­ began last spring at the University of er" to the state budget. Cutbacks are ton State College, Worcester State Massachusetts at Amherst. Students hitting not only students but also College, North Adams State College, there mobilized seven times in demon­ welfare recipients, public employees, Bridgewater State College, and Fram­ strations of up to 4,000 people. and health care and other social ser­ ingham State College; and at North During the summer, student leaders vices. Essex Community College, Cape Cod from Amherst and other state cam­ Representatives of these affected Community College, and Quinsiga­ puses met and organized a coalition, groups participated in the September mond Community College. the Massachusetts Students to Save 17 rallies. Speakers from public em­ Each of the rallies drew at least 400 Public Higher Education, to extend the ployee unions and from the Welfare students. At Boston State, more than fight against cutbacks and tuition Rights Organization were well received 800 participated. hikes to all twenty-eight public cam­ by students. A few days later, on September 21, puses in the state. The September 17 110 students from around the state met rallies were the first big step in that Norman Oliver, Socialist Workers at Worcester State College to plan process. party candidate for mayor of Boston, further actions. The meeting called for Among the cutbacks already institut­ was among the speakers at the Univer­ a statewide march on the Massachu­ ed are a 25 percent layoff of faculty in sity of Massachusetts at Boston rally. setts state capitol in Boston on October the food science department and the "By raising tuition, the state is 22, the day the legislature is expected elimination of 1,000 work-study stu­ forcing Blacks and Puerto Ricans out to vote on the proposed higher educa­ dent jobs at the university's Amherst of school," Oliver said, "and thus Militant/Jon Hillson tion budget. campus, and the cancellation of 2,500 segregating higher education. They are University of Massachusetts students The student leaders also planned a course slots at the Boston campus this trying to duplicate what they have had continue anticutback struggle begun series of actions leading up to the fall. for so long in the Boston public last spring.

THE MILITANT/OCTOBER 3, 1975 9 In Our Opinion Letters

Music to their ears? There are many antibureaucratic Why the assassins? Flipping through the pages of the dissidents who do and there are many Congressional Record, I had to chuckle who consider themselves communists. [The following statement was issued September 24 by However, unfortunately, there are also Peter Camejo and Willie Mae Reid, Socialist Workers when I read Senate Resolution 220, to declare "God Bless America" the many dissidents who equate Marxism party candidates for president and vice-president.] official bicentennial song in the United and Leninism with the policies of the The recent assassination attempts against Gerald Ford are States. Stalinist bureaucracy, which falsely part of the violence, hatred, and irrationality that seem to The bill is now in the Committee on claims to represent Marxism and poison American society today. the Judiciary, and its authors are Leninism. Senators James Buckley and Barry It is important to bear this fact in Why, millions of people want to know, does this ugly, mind when viewing the opposition in violence-charged atmosphere hang over our country? A few Goldwater. If any two should invoke God's the Soviet Union today. Because the voices of reaction are quick to pin the blame on "radicals," blessings, these two are it. bureaucracy has been very effective in "Marxists," and "violent protesters." But today, not many M. Mooney discrediting the ideas of Marx, Lenin, people will accept the pat explanations of such would-be witch­ Los Angeles. California . and the Bolsheviks, there seems, in hunters. fact, to be a good deal of confusion in . The very same newspaper editions that tell of Ford's near the minds of many dissidents, which has been manifested from time to time escape also carry the latest revelations about secret CIA murder Quite an achievement? in their attitudes toward events in the plots and arsenals of deadly weapons. On orders from the White David Frankel's recent article world outside the Soviet Union and House, the CIA-with its Mafia associates-systematically "Mideast deal sets stage for new also in their proposals as to how to planned to assassinate Fidel Castro, Patrice Lumumba, and Vietnam" and your opinion "U.S. stay bring about democratization within other foreign leaders they didn't approve of. out!" [Militant, September 12] about the USSR. They stockpiled cobra venom, shellfish toxin, poison gases, the second-stage peace agreement in Because the information we receive and horrible chemical and biological weapons, even killing the Sinai seemed to me to be naive on a on the opposition in the Soviet Union some of their own employees and covering up their deaths. number of issues, the most outstanding is irregular and incomplete, it is one being on the nature of the Sinai extremely difficult to generalize as to Human life is counted as cheap and violence is accepted as what current of thought predominates routine by the current rulers of this country-Democrats and itself. I understand that the Young among those who are actively involved Republicans alike. They ordered the nuclear incineration of Socialist Alliance supports the return in the struggle against the Hiroshima and Nagasaki; they carpet-bombed Vietnam; they of all post-1967 occupied Arab lands to bureaucracy and its policies. organized the bloodbath in Chile; they overthrow "unfriendly" the countries governing them before Marilyn Vogt governments and train torturers for "friendly" ones. the June war. Some socialist groups in New York, New York Public officials defy desegregation laws, racist mobs bum Israel and in many Arab countries buses in Louisville and set out to lynch Blacks in Boston-and support the same plan. But there is nQ President Ford himself eggs them on with antibusing declara­ one "socialist" way of implementing this plan. Its implementation is On busing tions. certainly much harder than the I am shocked to learn in the Militant It has been and is the bipartisan policy of the U.S. Militant seems to think. that revolutionary socialists are government to foment disregard for human rights! The political spectrum in both Israel supporting forced busing. The people and the Arab countries is Through the Watergate scandal and subsequent revelations, can't be forced to accept desegregation, unparalleled-ranging from fanatics the American people have begun to learn of the vast apparatus just as the workers can't be forced to promoting the complete take-over of all for illegal government spying, harassment, and victimization. · accept socialism. Racial equality will ancient Israelite land, to fanatics And the official violence sets into motion its unofficial hangers­ come about when the economic and promoting the complete destruction of on and imitators. The woman who allegedly shot at Ford on social forces that put Black against Jews throughout the world. white are destroyed, not by idiotic September 22 came out of this shadowy network of FBI-paid Any viable and peaceful socialist informers and provocateurs. plans like busing children out of their policy concerned with this conflict neighborhood. must realize that any peaceful The Socialist Workers party opposes everything Gerald Ford Bob Hespe arbitration between Israel and Egypt stands for, and we are campaigning vigorously against him in Red Bank, New Jersey the 1976 elections. But the Marxist movement has from its very is quite an achievement. inception rejected individual terrorism and political assassina­ The Sinai is now a crucial military area and nothing more. "Zionist tion. When President John F. Kennedy was killed iri 1963, imperialism" there is simply the Farrell Dobbs, then national secretary of the SWP, declared: occupation of land that would Double standard "Political terrorism, like suppression of political freedom, otherwise be the gateway to Israel's A recent article in the Cleveland violates the democratic rights of all Americans and can only destruction at this time. Plain Dealer explained why Arnold strengthen the forces of reaction. Political differences within The recent agreement between Israel Pinkney, the leading Democratic party and Egypt has promulgated peace contender for mayor of Cleveland in our society must be settled in an orderly manner by majority the upcoming "nonpartisan" primary, decision after free and open public debate in which all points of through large economic and political concessions for the betterment of would not be ruled off the ballot. view are heard." Egypt and by prolonging Israel's The question of ballot status arose Our objective is a society cleansed of violence, and our goal is occupation of a military buffer zone when election workers were checking to win the support of the masses of American working people. necessary for her survival. signatures on Pinkney's petitions to The violence in this society is not a product of "human nature." Tony Hoffman determine if he had the 3,000 Nor is it the mistaken policy or excesses of one government Portland, Oregon signatures required. The workers could agency, one administration, or one party. It is a necessary prop not find Pinkney's master petition. The election board checked with of this decaying capitalist system, in which a wealthy ruling their legal advisor (the assistant minority will stop at nothing to uphold its "right" to exploit and county prosecutor) to see if Pinkney oppress the majority. Soviet dissidents would have to be ruled off the ballot. Socialists, civil rights activists, and union militants, far from I would like to raise a few points in According to him, the petitions were perpetrating violence, have been among its chief victims in the connection with the editorial material valid because the mayoral race is United States. It was just revealed, for example, that the that accompanied the letter "To determined by the city charter and not Chicago police "red squad" and U.S. Military Intelligence Communists of Europe & the USA" in by state law, which requires a master actually organized, funded, and armed an ultraright terrorist the September 12 Militant. petition. Under the picture on page 13, the So, Pinkney survived the technical­ group, the Legion of Justice, to carry out illegal assaults on our caption said, "Actually, most ity. party and others in 1969 and 1970. antibureaucratic dissidents view The ruling was met with ironic During this 1976 election campaign, our headquarters in Los themselves as Marxists." In the laughter from supporters of Robert Angeles has been bombed twice, with campaign workers introductory material you said: "The Bresnahan, Socialist Workers party narrowly escaping death. Nazis publicly boasted of the attack, fact is that most Soviet oppositionists candidate for mayor. It was another yet the police and FBI refuse to act. Will the widely voiced have based their activities on the example of how elections are rigged in concern for Ford's safety now prompt government authorities to Leninist concept of socialist Ohio to elect only Democratic and democracy, and have turned to the Republican party candidates. provide adequate protection for all candidates and defend the writings of Lenin on the nature of the In 1971, John Hawkins, the SWP right of all political parties to function? transitional regime for inspiration." Black candidate for mayor, submitted The Democratic and Republican party leaders would have it While your statements are true of 16,000 signatures (more than any other otherwise. Already prominent spokespersons of both parties are many opponents of the Kremlin candidate). The election board ruled seizing upon the attacks on Ford to try to justify CIA and FBI bureaucracy and its policies, and while Hawkins off the ballot, stating that he spying, to demand more wiretaps, more secret files, more it is also true that the overwhelming was not a "properly filed candidate." harassment of dissenters. majority of the dissidents we know of This unfavorable ruling was then It is our firm belief that the only way for the government to are pro-socialist and do not want a confirmed by Secretary of State Ted return to tsarist rule or a restoration of Brown. curb the ·violence and safeguard political freedom is to start capitalism, it is not clear that most of With the aid of the Cleveland Civil enforcing equal rights under the law for everyone, regardless of them view themselves as Marxists or Liberties Union, the SWP campaign their race or political beliefs, and to call a halt to its own secret­ explicitly maintain that they oppose sued to regain ballot status. Despite police campaigns of harassment and violence. the bureaucracy as Leninists. broad support for Hawkins from many

10 MONTHLY MAGAZINE SUPPLEMENT TO THE MILITANT OCTOBER 1975

IVILYIIIBD: 'loeiobiologr' -­ !he lew Pseudoscience

Also, Robert •aeropol: OPBI !II BOSBIBBBG PILlS! (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW/PAGE 2)

tops have joined the CP in the latest coalition Boston. And it proved that- busing for government, ready to lend their endorsement, desegregation can be carried out safely if the however qualified in words, to the coming government commits the forces necessary to offensive to halt and turn back the economic defend the elementary rights of Black people. and political gains that have been made by · The reason the government felt compelled the masses. to give greater protection to Black students The smaller groups that claim to represent this year is because of the growth of a revolutionary alternative to the Communist resistance to the racists-including organized and Socialist parties have unfortunately countermobilizations-in the Black communi­ provided no such thing. Their so-called ty and among its allies. Revolutionary United Front (Frente de Uni­ For one thing, the implications of the Wbleb War rorwardt dade Revolucionaria-FUR), formed August busing struggle have become clearer over the past year. The desegregation controversy The installation of a new coalition cabinet 25, was based not on a program of action in came to be a test not only of the right to an in Lisbon September 19 marked an open shift defense of the burning needs of workers and equal education, but of the right of Black to the right by the ruling Armed Forces poor peasants. It was based fundamentally on people to walk on public streets in any area of Movement (MFA) and highlighted the crisis of support to the Goncalves wing of the MFA. the city, or to use public beaches. leadership facing the working people of And ·it helped maintain the division of the Furthermore, the resolve and confidence of Portugal. working class by adopting the Stalinists' the Black community have been strengthened The new premier, Adm. Jose Pinheiro de sectarian stance of equating the SP with by the organized protests that openly raised a Azevedo, who replaced Communist-party­ reaction. challenge to the racists. These included the backed Gen. Vasco Goncalves, announced The Portuguese masses have by no means May 17 demonstration, the August 10 Carson that the government would immediately slow been defeated. The strength of the radicaliza­ tion is reflected in the fact that even in their Beach protest, and many other actions and down or halt the process of nationalizations new rightward shift, the military rulers feel legal fights carried out by the NAACP, the and would take steps to restore the confi­ National Student Coalition Against Racism, dence of private investors. compelled to pose as revolutionaries and as In another reactionary move, the MFA opponents of the big capitalists who control and other groups. regime had announced August 29 that it was the country. But this struggle is far from over. Black suspending its promise to grant indepen­ The way forward lies in a perspective of people are still not safe on the streets of dence to its colony Angola on November 11 patiently working to reunite the working class Boston. And despite the federal government's of this year. in struggle for its own economic and political steps toward enforcement of existing de­ In the other imperialist capitals there were rights, placing no confidence in any of the segregation orders, President Ford has been expressions of satisfaction over the reshuffled wings of the military hierarchy. In order to travel-ing around the country this fall making regime in Lisbon. U.S. Secretary of State win anything-even in a single factory-the public statements giving aid and comfort to Kissinger announced his conclusion that workers must mobilize in their majority; that the racists. The Democrats are no better, as there seemed still to be hope for capitalism in is, the supporters of the main working-class illustrated in the September 21 statement by Portugal after all.· parties must be convinced to unite in struggle presidential hopeful Sargent Shriver calling The ruling circles in Lisbon felt confident to for common demands. Even a small group of court-ordered busing "counterproductive." carry out this open move to the right only revolutionists campaigning for this united­ As illustrated by Louisville, the busing because the working class has been divided front, class-struggle strategy can grow rapid­ controversy is spreading. More than two and demoralized by the policies of their ly because it will become known by the dozen school desegregation cases in which leaderships. The two mass working-class workers as the party that has no sectarian busing could be ordered for other cities are now pending in the courts. parties, the C~mmunist and Socialist parties, interests separate and apart from the interests have allowed themselves to be used against of the working class and all the oppressed. The setback for the racists in Boston and each other to the benefit of the MFA, the This road of building the conscious, united Louisville needs to be followed up with a instrument of capitalist rule. . power of the working class is the way to continuing campaign to isolate the antibusing The MFA began, after the coup in April construct a mass revolutionary workers party forces and stop the racist violence. The racist 1974, to use the CP as a strikebreaker against that can bring to fruition the aspirations of offensive needs to be confronted on other grounds as well-from the fight against the rest of the workers, including the SP the Portuguese people for a society free of cutbacks in services to the Black community, workers. The MFA backed up the CP's control exploitation. of the trade-union federation lntersindical by to the defense of Chicano farm workers, to outlawing the formation of any other union the defense of victims of racist frame-ups such as Delbert Tibbs, Ray Mendoza, and J.B. federation. When the Constituent Assembly Setbaelr lor Baelsts Johnson. elections last April exposed ·relatively small The racist antibusing forces were dealt a support for the CP and MFA, the military A good way to begin is to attend the blow this fall in Boston and in Louisville, Second National Student Conference Against regime continued to use the CP as its eat's Kentucky. Despite disruptions, the buses paw in cracking down on the democratic Racism, to be held at Northeastern University rolled and Black students were generally in Boston October 10-12. Sponsored by the - rights of the SP and others to criticize the protected. In Boston, this fall's busing plan government. National Student Coalition Against Racism, it involved 26,000 students, which was 45 is also supported by the National Education A turning point came in July, when the SP · percent more than last fall. In Louisville, the leadership finally left the previous MFA Association and the National Student Asso­ desegregation plan was the first in the nation ciation. It will provide an excellent opportuni- coalition government and took to the streets, that involved busing between the central city bringing out tens of thousands of wor:king . ty to exchange experiences and plan out a and suburbs, setting an important precedent. future course of struggle. people in protest. In contrast to last fall, the federal, state, and , The military chiefs recognized that the local governments felt compelled to use force usefulness of the CP to the capitalist rulers to defend desegregation. In Boston nearly Next month's International Socialist Review was rapidly becoming exhausted and its 1,900 police and federal marshals were used. will be a special expanded Issue devoted to popular base narrowed. Its attacks on demo­ In Louisville, national guard troopers rode on the main resolution adopted by the 1975 cratic rights provided cover for a right-wing each school bus. convention of the Socialist Workers party: terror campaign against the Left. Even the modest force employed by law "The Decline of American Capitalism and As soon as a wing of the military began to enforcement officials was sufficient to stymie Prospects tor a Socialist Revolution." consider conciliation with the SP, the party the ·racists' plans. This proved that the racist We will want readers' opinions, questions, leaders were ready to jump back into the role terror-mobs do not represent the majority in and suggestions on this Important document. of loyal supporters of the MFA. Now the SP communities like Charlestown or South Don't miss lt.

Open the Rosenberg Files! By Robert Meeropol 7

Lessons from Editor: Caroline Lund a Strike Associate editors: Nan Bailey, George By Ethel Lobman 9 Breitman, Fred Feldman, George No­ The Month vack, Dick Roberts, Tony Thomas Letters 11 in Review 2 The International Socialist Review ap­ Books-You Can pears in the Militant that is published the 'Sociobiology'- Get There From Here, first week of every month.

The New Pseudoscience RevieWed by Copyright o 1975 Militant Publishing As­ By Evelyn Reed 3 Katie Curtin 11 sociation 12 (PAGE 3/INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW)" !he Latest Pseudoscience Edward Wilson's highly touted 'Sociobiology' is . an extension of old theories reducing humanity to animali­ ty. Evelyn Reed refutes his thesis that human society is biologically determined and shows how it is qualitative­ ly different from a termite colony.

Sociobiology evolution." Since genes make up all another renowned entomologist. In between, along with his insect aggre­ organic life from bacteria to human 1922, after the First World War and the gates, Wilson elevates all the other The New Synthesis beings, Wilson perceives no qualitative Russian revolution, he gave six lectures species to social status. Among them jump from animal evolution to human on the cooperative insects that were are the dolphin schools, dog packs, By Edward 0. Wilson. The evolution. In his view all species that subsequently published in the book elephant herds, lion prides, and primate Belknap Press of Harvard Uni­ aggregate into groups (and all species Social Life Among the Insects (Har­ troops. versity Press, Cambridge, do) are lumped together indiscriminate­ court, Brace & Company, 1923). In comparing the virtu~s ofall these 1975. 697 pp. ly as "societies." Wilson's book, despite Wheeler was imbued with good inten­ "societies," Wilson finds the most its new prefix "socio," is really about tions. He singled out the insects, he perfect to be not the highest but the biology. said, because "they represent Nature's lowest. He presents a theory of evolu­ This attempt to explain human life in most startling efforts in communal tionary values in reverse. It is not the By Evelyn Reed terms of animals, birds, and insects is organization," and thus had "developed vertebrates but invertebrates, such as not new. Biologism has been with us a cooperative communism so complete· the jellyfish types, that have "come ever since Darwin set forth his theory that in comparison the most radical of close to producing perfect societies," he ! he eminent Harvard zoologist Ed­ of evolution. Once the animal origin of our bolsheviks are ultraconservative says (p. 379). The ants, termites, and ward Wilson, whose specialty is the humans was ascertained, the Garden of capitalists" (pp. 5, 8). He appealed for other social insects are "less than study of insects, mainly ants, published Eden myth was replaced by the scientif­ worldwide disarmament on the basis perfect." Least perfect are the mam­ an authoritative work on the subject in ic study of the genesis of humankind. that, if such "organic cooperativeness" mals, including the primates, which are 1971 called The Insect Societies. Now, This required an examination of animal could exist among insects, it could in the direct line of human ascent. four years later, that work has been evolution and then of the socializing surely prevail among men. In place of "Why has the overall trend been largely incorporated into a massive factors that transformed a certain Rousseau's "noble savage," Wheeler downward?" he queries, but cannot find tome called Sociobiology. branch of the higher apes into the first saw a model for superior humans in the an adequate answer. With its 700 outsize pages, 120 of hominids. "noble insect." However, according to Wilson, hu­ them devoted to glossary, bibliography, Mechanical-minded thinkers, how­ Nonetheless, Wheeler's kindly endea­ man societies "have reversed the and index, the new abundantly illus- ever, could not pass beyond the biologi­ vor remained within the confines of downward trend in social evolution that . trated book weighs nearly six pounds. cal factors that led to human life. They biologism. In place of the notion that prevailed over one billion years of the For all that, it is retrogressive com­ inflated certain characteristics common man is "nothing but" an animal there previous history of life." This progress pared to his earlier work. Wilson has to both humans and animals while arose a more subtle variation of the is due to the fact that we have finally here amplified his entomological stud­ underplaying or erasing the vast dis­ same theme. Human society was made our way to becoming more like ies with some reports on birds, mam­ tinctions between them. The school of viewed as "nothing but" an extension the insect societies "in cooperativeness" mals, and primates in order to draw biologism gave birth to two main trends of insect "societies" with a few cultural and have even surpassed them in exclusively biological conclusions about of thought: one emphasizing animal features added. Soon other specialists "communication" (pp. 379-380). This is human life and behavior. competition and the other animal began to jump on the bandwagon of Wilson's style in biologism. Sociobiology is a word so new that it cooperation to account for human humanizing the insects and insecticiz­ It is not enough to add the prefix will not be found in dictionaries fifteen competition and cooperation. ing the humans. "socio" to biology to explain the distinc­ years old. The term implies the fusion The first fostered "social Darwin­ Some eminent anthropologists car­ tive attributes that have elevated our of two sciences, sociology (or anthropol­ ism," which is sometimes called the ried forward this insect biologism. In species above all others. Humans can­ ogy) and biology, correlating the rele­ "nothing but" school. Man, its propo­ 1953, thirty years after Wheeler's book not be defined through biological fac­ vant findings from both to shed light nents said, was nothing but an animal came out, A. L. Kroeber, former dean of tors alone. The same holds true for upon the origin and nature of human with a few extra tricks. The catchwords American anthropology, wrote in all society, which is an exclusively human society. "struggle for survival" and "survival of seriousness, "Social behavior extends acquisition. Although humans retain But Wilson does not weave the two the fittest" were bandied about to far back in the history of life on earth­ certain features in common with the together. He excludes the decisive buttress the thesis that animal jungle certain insect families are much more animals, once they created their own · productive, social, and cultural factors relations were carried over into the effectively socialized than we are" social and cultural institutions they that mark humans off from all forms of modem capitalist jungle. The proposi­ (Anthropology Today, University of made a drastic departure from the animal life and views all evolution, tion that "human nature never Chicago Press, 1953, p. xiv). Today animal condition-and became non­ social as well as natural, as predomi­ changes" meant that human nature is Wilson propagates. the same theme in animal, or human. This has been nantly biological. This interpretation is nothing but animal nature. his Sociobiology. abundantly demonstrated by scholars even more narrowly reduced to "genetic The other tendency, offended by the But Wilson's net takes in far more in such social sciences as archaeology, one-sidedness of the tooth-and-claw than the "social insects." His "socie­ paleontology, anthropology, and sociol­ Marxist anthropologist Evelyn Reed, theorists, afimned that not only compe­ ties" include every· species from the ogy. author of Woman's Evolution, has tition but cooperation could be found in lowest to the highest. For example, in Even before the word "sociobiology" lectured on anthropology and women's ._animal behavior. They pointed to the an illustration 'he uses. the term "social was coined, scholars in the humanities liberation on campuses throughout. the "social insects" as confirmation. This bacterium" (p. 392). Then come certain began correlating the relevant findings United States as well as in Canada, thesis was popularized by Wilson's molds, corals, sponges, and jellyfish from biology and sociology, including New Zealand, Australia, and Japan. predecessor at Harvard, W.M. Wheeler, types. At the very top stands man. In their related sciences, to shed light on

An aggregate of bees, which, like ants and termites, have merely reproduced themselves Only the toolmaking, laboring humans can create a social organization capable of In essentially the same ways over a billion years. progressive development of production and the creation of new needs.

13 (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW! PAGE 4)

how, when, and why the great change­ even contrasts "one of the most sophis­ beings. over occurred from animality to human­ ticated of all animal communication The significant point is that however ity. Among these was Gordon Childe systems, the celebrated waggle dance of much the modes of reproduction differ with his classics, Man Makes Himself the honeybee," with "our own unique among the various species in the (New American Library, 1951) and verbal system" (p. 177). But he does nut animal world, there are none below the What Happened in History (Penguin, explain how this unique acquisition of level of humans that can make tools 1960. articulate speech and language came and produce things to satisfy their These scholars began· not with bacte- into existence. needs, and generate new needs. Con- . ria, jellyfish, or termites, but with the It ·grew up directly out of labor , trary to Wilson, insect aggregates do primates, the immediate predecessors of activities, out of the need for the not furnish a prototype of human humans. They explained why humanity collaborating producers to communi­ society. For if humans did no more than could not have emerged from any cate with one another as well as to pass reproduce their kind, they would not be species lower than the higher apes of on their techniques to new generations. humans but simply primates like the the primate order. Apes, as the highest While our communication systems are chimpanzee and gorilla. species to evolve in the billion-year indeed unique, the great dividing line Wilson's attempt to characterize history of animal evolution, alone had between us and the animals originated every species of animals and subani­ developed the biological preconditions with toolmaking arid labor activities. mals as "societies" is reminiscent of our required for the emergence of humans. Wilson carefully avoids any discus­ primitive ancestors, who believed that Among these were upright posture, . sion of toolmaking or production. But animals, fish, and so forth, were orga­ stereoscopic vision, the hand, the brain, he is clearly on the side of those nized iitto social clans and tribes like and vocal organs. However, it was the primatologists · who underplay its im­ their own. Some thought buffalo could freed hand with the opposable thumb portance in human life. They say that, shoot with bows and arrows if only that led all the rest in effecting the since primates make and use tools just they had them. Others thought fish had transformation. It was not the mandi­ as humans do, this cannot provide the their own territories, games, and ball bles of insects, nor the fins of whales, essential difference between them. For parks and that crocodiles could enter nor the paws of four-footed mammals, evidence Jane Goodall and others point into peace negotiations with tribesmen. but the hand of the highest ape species to the fact that some primates have Primitive people were ignorant of the that led to toolmaking and labor occasionally b~n seen to defoliate a biological facts of life and thus attempt­ activities, and therewith to the trans­ twig and insert it under a rock to get at ed to elevate animals to the human ition from ape to hominid. , ants or other edibles. Wilson devotes level. The Harvard professor tries to No other species below the level of several pages to such examples of reduce humans to the animal and insect humans can make tools in order to animal "tool using," citing nine ways level because he disregards the social produce the necessities of life-and in which primates can manipulate factors that make humans qualitatively along with this to produce new needs. twigs, leaves, and sticks (pp. 172-175). different. From the time of the first stone axes Primates in the wild may occasional­ In Charles Darwin's day, in the and digging sticks these new needs and ly defoliate a twig to dig out ants, and struggle against the anti-evolutionists, the means of satisfying them have they are capable of manipulating all it was imperative to bring out the advanced, at first slowly and then with sorts of objects with their hands. But continuity between ourselves and the astronomical speed and abundance, up this does not represent toolmaking or rest of living nature. Now it is neces­ to the jet plane and the spaceship. labor activities to produce the necessi­ sary to insist on the discontinuity But to accomplish this it was neces­ ties of life. Primates do not regularly between humans and animals against sary for the first hordes of hominids to depend upon twig manipulation but the biologizers, Wilson included. band together in social organization for upon their bare hands to grasp food In the New York Times advertise­ collective production and mutual shar­ and convey it to their mouths. Humans ment of Wilson's book the headline ing of products and know-how with one by contrast are dependent upon their read, "Now There's One Science for All another. As Gordon Childe defines toolmaking and productive activities Social Creatures." His "new synthesis" society, it is "a co-operative organiza­ for survivaJ. If their production ceases for the first time covers the "whole tion for producing meims to satisfy its they. will perish. range of social creatures-from bacteria needs, for reproducing itself-and for Primate practices with twigs and to termitt!s, from monkeys to mankind," producing new needs" (What Happened sticks do give us a clue to the. crucial it says. This is highly misleading. A in History, p. 17). importance of the freed and flexible review of natural history · cannot ex­ Animals share with humans only one primate hand at that critical turning plain anything more than the precondi­ of these capacities: that is the capacity point when our branch of the higher tions for human life. It requires social to reproduce themselves. But the pro­ apes began to make tools and engage in history and the science of sociology to duction of the necessities of life and the systematic labor activities.' But that explain the origin and unique attributes production of new needs is exclusively transition from ape to human occurred of human life and culture. Wilson's human. From this standpoint we can only once on this planet with a special "one science for all" is not a new say that production-and the social branch of the primate species a million · synthesis of sociology and biology but organization required for its years ago. Since then, humans have only a new variation of an.old theme­ achievement-marks the great dividing .remained the only toolmakers and biologism-as a replacement for the line between humans and animals. producers on earth, qualitatively dis­ scientific understanding of society. Thus a billion years of purely animal tinct from all lower species. In other evolution was climaxed about a million words, a billion years of purely animal years ago when the first toolmaking evolution resulted in a revolutionary Like other biologizers Wilson uses hominids appeared on earth and set change-the departure of one species, modern class and capitalist terms to forth on their own wholly new course of the hominids, from its former animal describe animal and insect life. His social evolution. conditions of existence. "social insects" are divided into Wilson's notion that human society is "castes" with a queen at the top ruling only a slightly improved version . of over "workers" and "soldiers." This -!hereafter humans drastically insect societies by virtue of its improved practice is not original with Wilson; the changed the relationship between them­ means of communication is completely concept of class divisions among in­ selves and nature _as contrasted with off base. The insect aggregate is direct­ sects has quite a long history, although the animals. Animals are the creatures ed to one purpose: the reprodu~tion and Wilson only goes as far back as 1609 of nature, restricted to specific environ­ perpetuation of their species. To be sure, with Charles Butler's The FemiTJ:ine ments to which they must adapt them­ insects have their own specialized mode Monarchie (p. 298). What is surprising selves or perish. They are completely of reproduction, which differs from that is that Wilson, whose extensive studies dependent upon what nature yields for of the mammals. Among mamma,ls, make him one of the worfd's leading their sustenance, unlike humans, who including the primates, the same moth­ authorities in advanced entomology, can cultivate the ground and produce er that gives birth nurtures and protects continues to use erroneous terms that an abundance of food. Animals are the offspring. Among the insects there were applied in the infancy of the obliged to satisfy their physical needs is a division of functions within the science. with little or no variation in their whole aggregate; the egg-laying female Almost fifty years ago Robert Brif­ standardized behavior ·patterns, while lays the eggs while other, nonbreeding, fault, citing Aristotle, Pliny, and others, humans can roam the globe, altering females feed and protect the grubs. showed the origin and evolution of their surroundings and the materials these misleading terms. He wrote that found in them. for their new needs. However, insects are a divergent the ancients · regarded the egg-laying As social beings humans developed offshoot from the main road of organic · female as a patriarchal male and called their minds and intellectual capacities, evolution leading to humankind-a it the "king." Corresponding to their along with language, culture, arts, and point that Wilson fails to make clear. politics, the bees were divided into sciences. As they became increasingly The point of departure for mammalian "patri¢ans" and "plebeians." When the the controllers and masters of external and human evolution begins with the true sexes of the insects later became nature, they also changed their former vertebrates that grew up out of the known, the egg-laying female was animal nature into human nature. earlier invertebrates. Originating as called the "queen." By the nineteenth Those who fail to see the part played fish, the backboned creatures evolved century the beehive was freely com­ by labor in the making of humankind into amphibians, reptiles, and then into pared to capitalist industry..:..a "hive of are unable to explain how speech, mammals. Out of the mammals there industry" (The Mothers, vol. I, pp. 161- The ascent from the fish, the earliest language, and culture began. Wilson arose the monkeys and apes, with the 162). vertebrate, to humankind, a qualitatively In one way Wilson's biologism differs writes, "The great dividing line in the highest branch of apes evolving into new species. evolution of communication lies be­ the first hominids. Insects have no from most. He is willing to grant a few tween man and all of the remaining ten place in this line of evolution from the "matrilineal" societies in nature rather million or so species of organisms." He vertebrate fish to the backboned human than make them uniformly patriarchal.

14 (PAGE 5/INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW)

Although the very word "matriarchy" and a half years but "the males, in is enough to make most anthropologists contrast, enjoy only one to three weeks shudder these days, Wilson feels safe in of adult existence" (p. 140). Among the including these within his zoological ants, bees, and wasps, "males are framework. For example, the "castes" usually discriminated against as a in his insect colonies are all female, group. They are offered less food by the from the "queen" down to the "work­ workers. . . . and in times of starvation ers" and "soldiers." Males are present they are frequently driven from the nest but only to inseminate the egg-laying or killed" (p. 203). Among certain dance female (p. 314). flies "the female occasionally seizes Among the hoofed mammals, or and eats the male" (p. 227). Apparently ungulates, where female herds general­ the so-called black widow spider is not ly keep apart from males except for the unique. rutting season, Wilson singles out the It would seem that these and other African elephant as a striking example facts about inse.cts would dispel Wil­ of a "matriarch" in charge of her son's illusion that they can be classified daughters and granddaughters. These as "societies." Men are not mere appen­ "female-female bonds can be assumed dages of women, rendered useless and last as long as 50 years," he writes, and doomed to die after a stud perf~rmance; adds, "The matriarch rallies the others they are not discriminated against or and leads them from one place to eaten by females. On the contrary, after another. She takes the forward position having been trained in productive when confronting danger and the rear techniques by the women of the matri­ position during retreats." This is ac­ archal period, they went on to become companied by a picture of these intelli­ the social, cultural, and political leaders· gent animals in protective formation of patriarchal society. It is odd that with their young. In the background are Wilson, like Kroeber and Wheeler, peripheral males, two fighting each should believe that insect aggregates other for dominance (pp. 494-497). furnish a model for human society. In another instance Wilson speaks of The sole function of the subhuman the "matrilineal" red deer, where a sexes is to perpetuate the species. The female leads the herd and another male role is limited to· inseminating the female brings up the rear. As with the female. The functions of giving birth African elephants, he points out, the and caring for and protecting the adult females and males stay apart offspring are, in the overwhelming except during the rutting season (p. majority of species, assumed by the 312). Again, the caption of a picture females, who normally segregate them­ illustrating the reconstructed "social selves from the quarreling males during life" of the dinosaurs of many millions the maternal cycle. This uneven devel­ of years ago reads: "A herd of females opment of the sexes results in an and young moves in from the left, led antagonism between sex and materni­ by an old matriarch. In the foreground ty, which was carried over into the first two males fight for dominance" (pp. stage of human life and had to be 446-447). resolved through social means. Among the carnivores, which stand Wilson is well aware of this antagon­ higher in animal evolution than the ism in nature. He takes issue With ungulates, Wilson shows that the lion Konrad Lorenz for minimizing the pride is more accurately a pride of competitive. strife in the animal world. lionesses; here too the males are peri­ He writes, "The annals of lethal vio­ pheral. "The core of a lion pride is a lence among vertebrate species are A chimpanzee, despite its flexible hands, is limited to merely manipulating sticks and closed sisterhood of several adult fe­ beginning to lengthen. Male Japanese other objects. Only one branch of the higher apes became the toolmaking humans, males. . . ," he writes. "The degree of and pig-tailed macaques have been seen capable of unlimited powers in technical know-how. cooperation that the female members to kill one another -under seminatural display is one of the most extreme and captive conditions when fighting mother-offspring group is the universal well as the human worlds. He refers to recorded for mammal species other for supremacy.... In central India, nuclear unit of mammalian societies" the "rampant machismo"-a term used than man. The lionesses often stalk roaming langur males sometimes in­ (p. 456). What he fails to understand is· today to signify male supremacy over prey by fanning out and then rushing vade established troops, oust the domi­ that these maternal functions placed women-that exists among · some in­ simultaneously from different direc­ nant male, and kill all of the infants. females in the lead at that turning sects (p. 320). What he actually de­ tions. Their young, like calves of the ... Young black-headed gulls ... are point in history when the animal scribes is not male chauvinism toward African elephant, are maintained in attacked and sometimes killed by other maternal brood was transmuted by females but the fierce struggles of males something like a creche: each lactating gulls.... labor activities into the human mater­ against other males for dominance. female ... will permit [the cubs] of "The evidence of murder and canni­ nal clan system of social organization. The same is true of the "violent other pride members to suckle. A single balism in mammals and other verte­ Although Wilson recognizes the pri­ machismo" he says exists in the breed­ cub may wander to three, four, or five brates has now accumulated to the macy of the female sex in nature to a ing season among many other species, nursing females in succession. . . . The point that we must completely reverse certain extent, he incorrectly refers to including sheep, deer, antelopes, grouse, adult males, in contrast, exist as partial the conclusion advanced by Konrad animal females as "matriarchs" and to lek birds, and elephant seals, where the parasites on the females" (p. 504). Lorenz in his book On Aggression . . . " their herds, packs, or prides as "matrili­ males fight one another for dominance Above the carnivores are the pri­ (p. 246). According to Wilson, violence neal societies." The capacity of mam­ (p. 243). These struggles between males mates. Wilson writes that the macaques among animals of many species far malian females to band together and have no connection whatever with and chimpanzees are "matrifocal" in exceeds that among humans in present­ suckle their offspring in common gives supremacy over females. Such suprema­ the choice of helpers. The females band day society. us valuable clues-along with the cy did not exist in matriarchal society,· together and trust their infants to one From evidence that has long been flexible hand and other anatomical much less in the animal world, where another. He notes of the rhesus mon­ recognized by other scholars, Wilson organs-to the biological preconditions the primacy of females is so pro­ keys that "the mother comes to trust concludes that "sex is an antisocial for human life. But to explain the nounced. the females and to use them as baby force in evolution. Bonds are formed matriarchy we must delve into the Wilson's notions about universal sitters while she conducts foraging between individuals in spite of sex and conditions required for human survival sexism converge with those of the trips." Puzzled by this female coopera­ not because of it." From the broader and development, and for. this we must cruder -anthropologists today. In de­ tion, he asks: "Why should females care standpoint he writes, "Sopial evolution refer to other sciences, beginning with scribing some male animals who keep for the infants of others, and why is constrained and shaped by the anthropology. "harems" and exercise strong "leader­ should mothers tolerate such behav­ necessities of sexual reproduction and In anthropology, however, Wilson ship," Wilson writes, "The obvious ior?" (p. 350). not promoted by it." Oddly enough, he takes his cues from the prevailing parallels to human behavior have been admits that this is true even of his academic schools, which are antimatri­ noted by several writers, but most Wilson, who is so foggy about the model cooperative insect "-societies." He archy and insist that the father-family explicitly and persuasively by Tiger qualitative species distinction between observes that "the antagonism between and male supremacy have always (1969) and Tiger and Fox (1971)" (p. humans and animals, seems to be sex and sociality is most strikingly existed. This obliges him to describe 287). equally at sea about the sex differentia­ displayed in the social insects" (pp. 314- animal behavior in patriarchal terms Elsewhere he names all five of the tion in nature. He exclaims, "Why do 315). Logical consistency is clearly not that often conflict with his matriarchal best-known popularizers and the most the sexes differ so much?" He observes the hallmark of biologism. terms. Thus he repeatedly refers to vulgar distorters of anthropology and that "often the two sexes differ so much The primacy of the female sex in animal and insect reproductive broods biology: Ardrey, Morris, Lorenz, Tiger, as to seem to belong to different nature and the marked differences as family "kin" composed not only of and Fox. He commends these gentle­ species." Among ants and other insects between the sexes were long ago spelled fathers and mothers but also of uncles, men for their "style and vigor." His "males and females are so strikingly out by Briffault in his matriarchal aunts, nieces, nephews, and cousins of only criticism is that "their particular distinct in appearance that they can be theory of social origins. With the all degrees. This corresponds to his handling of the problem tended to be matched with certainty to species only exception of a few species where males view that the "nuclear family," which inefficient and misleading." This comes by discovering them i.;, copula." With are adapted to assist the females in the he regards as the "building block of down to an insufficient sampling of some fishes "the males are reduced to care of offspring, the general rule­ nearly all human societies" (p. 553), has animal species to sustain their generali­ parasitic appendages attached to the especially among mammals-is that existed from time immemorial through­ zations (p. 551). bodies of the females" (p. 318). the females alone feed and protect their out the animal world. Wilson is annoyed because some of In certain species of insects the egg­ young. In a similar vein he sees sexism as a the crudities of Tiger and Fox brought laying female or "queen" lives to four Wilson himself writes that "the universal trait, present in the animal as about a counter "feminist theory" in the

15 (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW/ PAGE 6)

book by Elaine Morgan, The Descent of they are adapted and in which they of women in barter. As males acquired Dahlberg], there is little evidence of any Woman (1971). Her · aquatic theory find their food and mates. But there is status through the control of females, hereditary solidification of status." In likens human females to whales and no subdivision of real-estate properties they used them as objects of exchange his view there are many other "path­ other sea mammals to show that from in their world and no inheritance of to cement alliances and bolster kinship ways of upward mobility." For exam­ the beginning females have been fully property, whether from mothers to networks" (p. 553). What happened in ple, "The daughters of lower classes the equals of males. Since her book also daughters or from fathers to sons. the million years between the killer tend to marry upward." Presumably the became a best seller, Wilson complains Another example of Wilson's crude apes and the bartering humans Wilson inequalities of capitalism will be gradu­ that "science" is now becoming a / biologism and anthropomorphism is his does not say. ally eliminated through this constant "wide-open game in which any number patriarchal interpretation of the ha­ Wilson's "sociobiology" takes a step reproduction of high-class genes in the can play" (p. 29). madryas baboons. He writes, "A female beyond the standard pattern of biolo­ children of the poor daughters who Indeed, once human society is biolo­ competing with a rival moves next to gism. He has latched onto a subtler marry rich husbands. gized, anyone can play the game by the overlord male, where she is in a variation of the same theme-the deter­ As Pollyanna Wilson writes, "Over a inventing a fanciful hypothesis equat­ better position to intimidate and resist mination of society. and culture through period of decades or at most centuries ing us with animals. Elaine Morgan's · attack. If she is threatened, the male is the genes. He sees social evolution as a ghettos are replaced, races and subject book at least has the merit of a much more likely to drive her rival contest between altruism and people are liberated, the conquerors are· refreshing new type of biologism com­ away than to punish her. As a result selfishness-substitutes for what were conquered" (p. 555). According to Wil­ pared to the stale myths M eternal she is more likely to advance in social earlier called competition and coopera­ son's doctrine of the "genetic evolution male sup~emacy. However, despite the rank" (p. 517). tion. Thus his book opens with a of ethics" (p. 563, his emphasis), there is concessions he makes to animal matri­ Female primates, including the ha­ chapter called "The Morality of the no need for a social revolution to get rid archs, Wilson prefers to play his overall madryas baboons, do not have "over­ Gene." He catches altruism in the genes of an oppressive capitalist system. game with the well-worn chips of the lords" or sultans protecting them from and believes it is through genetic Presumably the problem will be taken Tiger-Fox band. care of when all the poor daughters Thus he depicts the animal aggre­ have married all the rich husbands. gates of females and offspring with the Then everybody will have the same male stud attached to the group as a high-class genes. ':harem" under the domination of a 'A billion years of purely animal evolution Wilson's genetic interpretation of ·male lord and master. He calls this was climaxed about a million years ago human evolution runs directly counter "polygamy" as compared to "monoga­ to those sociologists and others who say my," both of which he has projected when the first toolmaking hominids ap­ that human behavior is learned behav­ from the patriarchal marriage institu­ peared on earth and set forth on their own ior, that it is not derived from the genes tion of our times back into the animal but from their own productive, social, world. wholly new course of social evolution.' and cultural activities. He criticizes Dobzhansky (1963), who stated that "culture is not inherited through genes, it is acquired by learning from other • ilson gives the game away, how­ human beings.... In a sense, human ever, with his peculiar definitions of female "rivals" or advancing them to selection-not social progress-that genes have surrendered their primacy these marriage forms. He writes: "Mo­ higher status and rank. According to altruism will triumph in human rela­ in human evolution to ari entirely new, nogamy is the condition in which one Wilson, the hamadryas aggregates tions. nonbiological or superorganic agent, male and one female join to rear at "contain from one to as many as ten In fact, _altruism and selfishness are culture." Wilson thinks "the very oppo­ least a single brood. It lasts for a adult females," which he calls '"har­ exclusively characteristics of human site could be true." He calls for a new season and sometimes, in a small ems" (p. 534). relations and the moral judgments "discipli~e of anthropological genetics" minority of species, extends for a In seminatural or captive conditions made of human behavior in the course to prove it (p. 550). lifetime. Polygamy in. the broad sense . a solitary female may welcome the of history. Animal competition or "sel­ Wilson thus diverges from two molec­ covers any form of multiple mating" (p. protection afforded by a combative fishnli!ss" was conquered in the primi­ ular biologists, Alan Wilson and Mary 327). Both of these definitions are male who fends off other males. But so tive human world through the institu-. Claire King, who this year challenged misleading when applied to animal long as the females outnumber the tion by the women of a matriarchal, the notion that genetic mutations are relations. males-as they do in the so-called communal society. Altruism came into responsible for the elevation of humans However much the marriage institu­ harems-they have the power of num­ existence as men learned to live and above the animals. The New York tion has been shaken in recent years, bers to protect themselves and keep the work together as brothers, interchang­ Times of. April 18._ reported that "the monogamy remains a legal term signi­ males in line. When females retreat ing the necessities and comforts of life. scientists suggest that some other form fying property provisions for life for from all males to give birth, no male With the downfall of the primitive of mutation must be operating to have wife and children. The loose and casual follows them into their retreats. commune and its replacement by.patri­ produced the obviously vast differences sexual intercourse of animals is carried The greatest dangers to females do archal class society, that aboriginal between people and chimpanzees." on without reference to legality or to not come from imaginary female "ri­ altruism was sub~erted and a new kind Indeed, that "mutation" was nothing any property or economic provisions. vals" but from male assaults under of selfishness came into existence out of other than the qualitative jump that As for the polygamy of the early captive conditions where the females the greed bred by the lust for private occurred when the first humans ac­ patriarchs, "multiple marriage" was for have neither the power of numbers nor property. But this subverted human quired their new mode of survival and men only. Women had no right to retreats by which to escape the males. nature will once again be changed development through tool-making and divorce or any other kind of escape This was demonstrated by the London when capitalism is replaced by social­ labor activities. This is why society is from their male owners. Zoo experiment, when a small number ism. an exclusively human phenomenon. It is incorrect to use the terms of females· was introduced into a large The two sciences of biology and monogamy and polygamy to describe all-male colony to study their sexual anthropology are of the greatest impor­ the sexual practices of animals, birds, habits. The results were disastrous for Wilson has a different view. He tance in understanding the origin, or insects. Even though some pairs of the females and offspring. (See my book thinks it poss~ble that the social classes evolution, and meaning of social life. birds or a few other species may remain Woman's Evolution, 1975, pp. 62-67.) in capitalist society are formed through But Wilson, instead of advancing these together longer than others, with the Wilson underplays the significance of genetic differentiation. He writes, "A sciences, is turning them backward. In great majority of species there is only this experiment. He writes, "When key question of human biology is the name of promoting a new branch of the act of sexual congress and no groups of hamadryas baboons were whether there exists a genetic predispo­ science he has descended to the level of cohabitation at all between sexes. The first introduced into a large _enclosure in sition to enter certain classes and to the Ardrey-Morris-Lorenz-Tiger-Fox ob­ segregation of the sexes is far more the London Zoo, social relationships play certain roles. Circumstances can scurantists. He is lending himself to pronounced' than their fleeting unions. were highly unstable and males fought be easily conceived in which such indoctrinating unwary and trustful Females in nature, like males, are viciously over possession of the fe­ genetic differentiation may occur" (p. readers with reactionary ideas and promiscuous. This includes the higher males, sometimes to the death" (p. 22). 554). Does he mean that a capitalist is encouraging pseudoscientists to jump apes. Wilson himself observes that This is an understatement. Not only genetically preordained to play that on his bandwagon. "chimpanzee females are essentially were some males killed by other males, role while a sanitation worker is geneti­ As Alexander Cockburn, staff writer promiscuous. They often copulate with but virtually all the females and off­ cally programmed for that work? And of the Village Voice, warned in his July more than one male in rapid succession, spring were exterminated. The "un­ does he mean that the female sex is 28 review: "Now we have 'sociobiology' yet without provoking interference from stable relations" lasted five years, genetically programmed to be inferior? and the probability of a new terrible nearby males" (p. 546). Under. rigid during which fresh batches of females Wilson creeps around the question. wave of zoomorphist rubbish. Brace patriarchal marriage rules, so vigorous were repeatedly brought in when previ­ He is attracted to Dahlberg (1947), who yourselves." a female would be subjected to harsh ous batches were killed, with no better "showed that if a single gene appears punishments. results. In the end the experiment was that is responsible for success and an Wilson's introduction of patriarchal declared a failure. upward shift in status, it can be rapidly and private-property relations into the Wilson skims over the highly instruc­ concentrated in the uppermost socio­ animal world casts a dubious shadow tive lesson to be derived from the economic classes." Short of gene manip­ over other of his interpretations of London Zoo experiment because it does ulation, this can only be done through insect· and animal behavior. How can not sustain his thesis about the close controlled mating; capitalists intermar­ For further. reading. . . one trust a zoologist who speaks of mating and family "kin" ties that rying with the rich, sanitation workers "inheritance" systems and "territorial" prevail in the animal world. By press­ with the poor. rights in the sense of the private ing his erroneous patriarchal views he The sinister implications in this ownership of real estate? For example, can declare that men resemble animals school of genetic determinists have WOMAN'S he writes about the black bears of and animals men in their universal already been denounced. From Hitler Minnesota that the females "permit supremacy over females. He writes, on to the present there have been their female offspring to share subdivi­ "What we can conclude with some advocates of controlled mating to keep EVOLUTION sions of the territories and bequeath degree of confidence is that primitive out the non-Aryan and other "foreign" their rights- to these offspring when men lived in small territorial groups, genes and maintain a pure and high­ By Evelyn Reed they move away or die." Male black within which males were dominant class stock for the master race and the 492 pp., $15.00, paper $4.95 bears "take no part in this inheritance" over females" (p. 567). master class. (p. 502). Invoking the Paris professor Levi­ Wilson shies away from such a Order from Pathfinder Press, 410 To be sure, all animals occupy the Strauss, he writes that "a key early step conclusion. He writes, "Despite the West St., N.Y., N.Y. 10014 natural habitat or "territory" to which in human social evolution was the use plausibility of the general argument [of

16 (PAGE 71 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW)

'This death sen­ tence is not surpris­ ing. ... There had to be a Rosenberg case. There had to be an intensifica­ tion of the hysteria in America to make the Korean War acceptable to the American people.' -Julius Rosenberg

;:. :-'.., I •.- Open the Rosenberg Files!

The following is a slightly edited the middle of the page: "Yanks Kill150 and William Calleys too. In that age ed and charged with being the person. transcript of a speech by Robert Meero­ Reds in Korea." And on the .left-hand you had people like Elizabeth Bentley, who recruited David Greenglass. My pol given at a conference entitled side you would see a smaller headline: known as the "Red Spy Queen." These mother was arrested too. The charge "Conspiracy in America" held last May "William Pearl Arrested. Prosecutor were people who said, "We were Com­ was conspiracy to commit espionage. at the University of California at Los Says He Will Testify Against Rosen­ munists. We were part of that evil As you know, in conspiracy trials the Angeles. The conference, organized by bergs At Trial." menace. But we saw the light, and now testimony of alleged coconspirators is the Campaign for Democratic Free­ Now this is one page in one paper in we are going to save America from the admissible evidence. As a result, my doms, was attended by more than 1,000 one day. Maybe it is the most graphic dangers of communism." parents' trial basically came down to people. It was devoted to exposing example, but there were others like it. And these people, for a fee, traveled three witnesses-Harry Gold, David government violence and cover-ups. This was the atmosphere. around the country speaking on the Greenglass, and Ruth Greenglass­ Robert Meeropol is one of the two It was the time when Richard Nixon dangers of communism. It was that testifying that my parents were the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, was rising to power. After the convic­ type of period. head of a spy ring that stole the secret who were executed in 1953 for supposed­ tion of Alger Hiss, Nixon said the Hiss It's hard, I think, for people my age of the atomic bomb, versus my parents ly passing atomic secrets to the Soviet case would show that wherever you had and younger to understand quite what and Morton Sobell saying that they Union. He and his brother Michael, a communist, you had an espionage it was like. were not involved at all. along with the National Committee to agent. It was this kind of thinking that If it wasn't for Watergate we might It came down to a matter of credibili­ Reopen the Rosenberg Case, are waging set the stage for my parents' trial. And very well be heading into another such ty. And I have just described the a campaign to obtain all the secret files it set the stage for some very important period today. I think we have only atmosphere tha~ existed in that day. held liy the government on their par­ political conclusions about dissenters in gained breathing space, and that it's That atmosphere determined who ents' case. They contend that the full this country that have permeated Amer­ this conference, and activities like it, would be credible and who wouldn't be truth will prove the Rosenbergs inno­ ican thinking for ~ore than twenty that are using that breathing space to credible. cent. years. try to broaden it, strengthen it, and David Greenglass testified that be­ In response to a suit by the Meeropol Richard Nixon expressed this think­ · form a vast counteroffensive against tween November of 1944 and January brothers under the Freedom of Informa­ ing in one of his first campaigns for the secret government so that we can of 1945, my father recruited him into a tion Act, a federal court ordered the Congress against Helen Gahagan prevent the next round of repression spy agency, or spy ring, while he was Justice Department August 22 to turn Douglas. He said that Helen Gahagan from happening-as it surely will if the working at Los Alamos. He Claimed over most of the 48,000-page FBI file by Douglas was "pink from her stationery people who hold power .in this •govern­ that my father told him to go back to November 15. On Augil.st 1, federal to her underwear." And it was the type ment stay in power. Los Alamos to mosey around to see judge June Green had issued an injunc­ of statement that gained him a lot of what he could find, draw sketches, and tion to prevent any further destruction support. that a man would come in June or July of the files by government agencies. It was a time when, up until the late and pick up these sketches. Robert Meeropol told the Internation­ 1940s, the baseball team the Cincinnati J want to talk a little about the The man was to identify himself by al Socialist Review that he is now Redlegs was called the Cincinnati Reds. specifics of my parents' case because I two means. One, he'd have a half of a working full-time on the campaign to At an exhibition game in the late 1940s, think it's important, even though it Jello box top. Greenglass said my reopen his parents' case, along with they beat the New York Yankees, and may get away from the more general father gave one half to ·him and the "splitting child-care and house duties the next day on the sports page there themes here tonight. other half to the courier, and if the J ello with my wife Ellen, who is active in was a small headlin'l that said, "Reds We can start with a man by the name box top matched then he would know it socialist-feminist work." beat Yanks." That caused a stink, and of Harry Gold, who lived in Philadel­ was the right person. More information can be obtained as a result they changed their name to phia as a chemist. He virtually walked He also said there was a code word. from the National Committee to Reopen the Cincinnati Redlegs. into an FBI office in 1950 and said, I The person who came, the courier, the Rosenberg Case, 250 West 57th There's a prep school in Eastern am a spy and a courier. I have been ·would say, "Julius sent me." Street, Room 606, New York, N.Y. Massachusetts and its colors are red carrying atomic information from Los The Greenglasses further testified 10019. Telephone: (212) 265-0918. and white. At football games in the Alamos to the Soviet Embassy in New that later on, after he left his job in 1940s they used to cheer, "Go big red." York. Albuquerque, he gave more sketches to When 1950 came around, it was At his trial after the prosecution was my father in September of 1945. This changed to "Go maroon." completed-the prosecution consisted of was crucial because it brought the act By Robert Meeropol But there were also serious things. A his confession-the judge turned to the up to after the end of World War II. commander of an army base in the defense attorney and asked him to Harry Gold testified that indeed he Philippines put the folloWing message proceed with the defense. The defense was the courier, indeed he used the .Y father was arrested on July 17, on the base bulletin board: "The Bill of attorney said, "I would be perfectly password, indeed he got the informa­ 1950. That was about three and a half Rights and the Constitution are not to willing ... to accept any statement of tion, and indeed he gave David Green­ weeks after the start of the Korean War. be posted on this base. They are con­ the crime that he [the prosecutor] might glass some money in exchange for it. It was the age of Joseph McCarthy. It troversial." make.... " And Ruth Greenglass testified as well, was the age of "communists every­ It was another age. In other words, the only testimony backing up what her husband said. The where." If you look around today you can see presented at Harry Gold's trial was Greenglasses testified that after Harry During my parents' trial, if you were William Calley, who goes around. the Harry Gold's confession. Gold was arrested my father urged to pick up a newspaper like the New country making lots of money giving Shortly after Harry Gold's arrest, a· them to flee the country, and that they York Times, you might have seen a big speeches about the horrible things he man by the name of David Greenglass, had passport photographs taken so banner headline across the top of it: did in Vietnam. You can also follow who· happens to be my uncle, was they could be ready to leave. These "Greenglass Says Sister Was Spy. Stole John Dean as he goes around the arrested and charged with being the passport photographs were introduced Secret of Atom Bomb." At the bottom of countcy giving speeches about the man who gave Harry, Gold the informa­ as evidence at the trial. the page you would see a headline: horrible things he did in Watergate. tion. I'm going over the evidence because I "Investigation of Reds at Harvard." In -Well, that age had its John Deans Soon after that my father was arrest- think it's important to see the tech-

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niques that were used, and to trace need for these defense committees then question for the government was: How this and across the country, have the them to today. The evidence consisted as they are today. are we going to get the American public opportunity to expose the true nature of sketches of the supposed atomic Now, why this trial? What was so to support this vast outlay of money and uses of the American secret police. bomb. important about accusing two rather and this spread of U.S. forces all over My brother and I are involved in a However, it was not claimed that inconsequential people of stealing the the world? campaign to release the files on my these sketches were drawn back in greatest secrets known to mankind They created a double image that parents' case. There are 75,000 pages of 1945. David Greenglass said he drew (that's the way the prosecutor put it)? looked sort of like this: our boys are files on my parents and related people, them in his cell a month before the After the sentence was handed down fighting in Korea. They're fighting held by eighteen arms of government, trial. in 1951, my father talked to his lawyer, against the communist menace. The including the FBI, the Department of The Jello box top was another piece Emanuel Bloch, who recorded an oral communist menace is an international Justice, the National Security Agency, of evidence. But the Jello box top was statement. Here is what my father said: conspiracy. Agents of that internation­ the CIA, Department of State, Depart­ cut in the courtroom. You see, when "This death sentence is not surpris­ al conspiracy are the people in this ment of Defense, Department of the David Greenglass started talking about ing. It had to be. There had to be a country who are attacking American Army, prosecutors' offices in various the Jello box top, the prosecutor handed Rosenberg case. There had to be an policy overseas, including the Korean places, Department of Immigration and him a whole Jello box top and asked intensification of the hysteria in Ameri- War. Naturalization, the Atomic Energy him to cut it to demonstrate for the jury Commission, and it goes on. how this was done. David Greenglass The government claimed, prior to my did that, and that Jello box top was parents' execution, that 70 percent of presented to the jury as a piece of this evidence was never used in their evidence. And a copy of that Jello box trial because it would violate national top is on display in the FBI building in security. Washington in a nice big case. Now when we ask for the files under There were other exhibits. I men­ the new Freedom of Information Act, tioned the passport photographs. Well, they tell us: We will give you the files on about ten years after the trial was over, your parents, but we can not give you Walter and Miriam Schneir did a lot of any files on David Greenglass, or on research on this case and wrote a book Harry Gold, or about any of the other called Invitation to an Inquest. They prosecution witnesses. And it is their took copies of these photographs and pretrial testimony, incidentally, that showed them to the owner of the my brother and I are most interested in. photographic studio where they were Do you know why they can't give this made. to us? They say it is because it might. They asked the owner what he invade the privacy of Harry Gold, who thought of the passport photographs, has been dead since 1972, and David and he said they weren't passport Greenglass and Ruth Greenglass. All of photographs. He said they were the a sudden the .FBI has become a civil wrong shape, the wrong size, and the libertarian organization. wrong pose. He said there could be no In response to this, we say to the mistake, that they had a special proce­ government: What are you afraid of? dure. We're not afraid of what's in those files. In other words, the government We're not afraid to see. You claim it attorneys, who knew what passport would prove beyond a doubt that our photographs were, introduced family parents were guilty, and we say that snapshots as evidence and palmed there is one of two things in the files: them off as passport photographs. either an immense amount of garbage, And it worked. It was the kind of or the orchestration of a frame-up. Howard-Huntian dirty trick we are now And there are some indications of familiar with. But in the 1950s the trick this orchestration. Harry Gold said the could be even sloppier and more trans­ code word was "Julius sent me." How­ parent. The people had virtually total ever, researchers have a tape that faith in the FBI during that period. Harry Gold made with his lawyer eight Other techniques were used. One of months before the trial, and in this tape the things Harry Gold used to prove Harry Gold said he couldn't remember that he did indeed collect the informa­ the code word; that it was "Bob sent tion from David Greenglass was a hotel Rosenberg supporters fill New York City's West Seventeenth Street on eve of the me" or "Benny sent me" or "Frank sent registration card from Albuquerque, execution, June 19, 1953. me." where he met David Greenglass. Recently an FBI agent was' inter­ However, no hotel registration card ca to make the Korean War acceptable In other words, my father and mother viewed and he said yes, it's true, I was introduced at the trial. Instead a to the American people. There had to be were equated in the eyes of many . interrogated Gold and he couldn't photostat of the hotel card was intro­ hysteria and fear sent through America Americans with the communist Chinese remember the code word. But after duced as evidence. And when this in order to get increased war budgets. soldiers in Korea. It was all part of the Julius Rosenberg was arrested I sug­ photostat was examined years later, And there had to be a dagger thrust in same process. So we had to defend gested to him, couldn't the code word there were a number of things wrong the heart of the left, to tell them that ourselves. We had to take special mea­ have been "Julius sent me"? with it. There were discrepancies in you are no longer going to give five­ sures. And we know what happens when an dating. And when the initials of the year sentences for Smith Act prosecu­ Judge [Irving] Kaufman brought it FBI agent suggests a code word to a clerk on the hotel card, "A.K.," were tions, or one year for contempt of all back home in his sentencing speech man like Harry Gold. examined against a sample of her Congress, but we're going to kill you." at the trial when he said: "I believe Well, we would like to see the record handwriting, a documents expert said That was my father's analysis. And your conduct in putting into the hands of this pretrial testimony. that the handwriting on the registra­ he really hit the nail on the head. In of the Russians the A-bomb years tion card was a forgery. fact, in a kind of almost psychic effort, before our best scientists predicted It was then discovered-it was hard l'ow, the government got a blank he was restating in his own language, Russia would perfect the bomb, has to tell because it was a photostat-that check from the American public. And word for word; part of a still partially already caused, in my opinion, the there seemed to be a different set of that blank check basically said: Be­ classified document called NSC Num­ Communist aggression in Korea, with printing plates used in the printing of cause our security is threatened, you ber 68 (National Security Council Mem­ the resultant casualties exceeding this card than in the printing of all the should go ahead and conduct conspira­ . orandum Number 68), which was writ­ 50,000.... " other hotel cards. cy trials, and if it's necessary, to set up ten in early 1950. The judge brought it all back home, It was then learned that FBI agents NATO and SEATO and CENTO, and if Early in 1950, Mao Tse-tung's forces and the circle was complete. The spent more than twelve hours alone in it's necessary, to send troops around the had just made a revolution in China. It equation was drawn: domestic dissen­ the file room of the hotel. It was also world, and if it's necessary, to establish became apparent to the United States ters were just one more arm of the learned that this hotel was the only one and expand secret police forces. government that this country could no international communist conspiracy in town that kept records. And strange­ And they went ahead and did it. As a longer be only indirectly involved in that our boys were fighting against in ly enough, Harry Gold testified that he result, the civil rights movement was trying to battle revolutionary forces Korea. never slept at the hotel, just registered harassed in the 1960s, and the antiwar around the world; we had to become If we look at it in summary we could there and, two hours later, left. movement was harassed in the '70s, more immediately involved. And this - say that the Justice Department and What we're seeing is the FBI forging and when we demonstrated against the document was drawn up to plot how secret agencies-the secret government, evidence, and a palming off of one type war in the mid-60s we were told, "Go this could be done. Here is a short quote as we call them-manufactured the of evidence as another sort of evidence. back to Russia, . you're aiding the from it: phony evidence that sent my parents to The trial was chock-full of this type of enemy. You're doing just what Hanoi their deaths. In the process they created activity. In some ways it was a proving "The United States should take the wants." a vision of a vast conspiracy. This ground, along with other trials, for lead in a rapid and substantial buildup. The result was that it was difficult in conspiracy turned domestic dissenters what was to come later. However, the This means virtual abandonment by the beginning to protest that war, and into foreign substances that were in­ atmosphere was so good then for the the United States of trying to distin­ the war has finally just ended. It took vading our society from without. government that they could get away guish between national and global. much, much too long for that war to with it, scot-free. security. It also means the end of And it worked. The American public end. As a result there were no defense subordinating security needs to the bought it. And this same scenario was Then what do we get? We finally get committees for my parents. At the time traditional budgetary restrictions. In used by the government over and over Egil Krogh on trial for creating the of the trial there was not one newspaper other words, security must henceforth again in the 1950s and into the 1960s. "plumbers." And when the judge asked across the country that said this was a become the dominant element in the And it's only now that recent tears in him why a fine, upstanding young man frame-up. No defense organization national budget." the cloak of secrecy have begun to show like him would participate in a bur­ started until seven months after the In other words, Korea became Califor­ us what's really going on in America. glary, Egil Krogh replied that he was trial. People were not as aware of the nia. And we had to pay for it. The And we here now, in a conference like not a burglar; he was told by his

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superiors that national security was various other things throughout the ter's when he pardoned Richard Nixon. Today, after Watergate and after the involved. And I believe them. I don't '50s and the '60s, and into the '70s, and And he's working on his doctorate now, end of the war, we have an atmosphere think they thought of themselves as I know what normal business means. by appointing Rockefeller to investigate where you can get away with a little burglars. They thought of themselves Normal business means more Water­ the CIA. , more-at least some people can-than as patriots, who were saving America gates. People come up to me sometimes and people could in the '50s. We cannot wait from communism. Many people have been deceived by ask: Where can I give a check to the for the next war, for the next round of Then we get Gerald Ford. Gerald Gerald Ford. You know, they say he Rosenberg defense committee? It makes repression, to try to protect ourselves. Ford tells us that we have to put the may not be very bright but at least he's me a little annoyed. I explain that we The time to act is now, .to strike back at trauma of Watergate behind us. We just plain folks. But I don't think we are not a defense committee. We are not those organizations, to take that cloak have to get· back to normal 'Qusiness. should be deceived. President Ford is -defending something; we are attacking of secrecy and rip it off, so that all of But I look at my parents' trial, and I very highly educated in cover-ups. If we something. We are on the offensive. those organizations will be exposed to look at what happened during the want to look at it from an educational We're not on the defensive. the full daylight of the truth and we'll Vietnam War, and I look at what went standpoint we can say that Gerald Ford My parents Btood for peace in a time just watch them shrivel up and die. on at Attica, and still goes on at Attica, did his undergraduate work in cover­ of cold war, and they were killed for it. and at Wounded Knee, and I look at the ups when he was a member of the They stood for truth at a time when Kennedy assassination, and I look at Warren Commission. He got his mas- people lied, and they were killed for it. Lessons from a Strike A veteran trade unionist recalls struggles of two generations of women garment workers. Her account of a 1947 ILGW~ organizing drive will be of special interest to .women unionists today.

The following is a speech given ed. They were filthy, with very little were very few changes in the shops. change the zipper foot twice and that's earlier this year at a New York Militant light. Many workers got tuberculosis. They were filthy, particularly the toi­ time. He fiaid, sorry, I can't afford to Forum on women in the trade unions. It Some went back to Europe. lets. They were firetraps. And there give you any more. Everybody downed is especially pertinent since 1975 is the These women and men fought first were runaway shops. · tools and refused to work. seventy-fifth anniversary of the found­ for the ten-hour day, then for the eight­ I happened to work in such a runa­ So he said, let's call in the union. And ing of the International Ladies' Gar­ hour day. And they fought to organize way shop in the 1940s. It was in Mount everybody's face fell. This type of ment Workers' Union (ILGWU). In this their union, the International Ladies' Vernon, whi!!h is near Yonkers. Surpris­ situation was new for me at that time. year of celebrations sponsored by the Garment Workers' Union. These fight­ ingly, that shop in Mt. Vernon was a So the boss called up the union. In a bureaucratic leadership of the union, ers were mainly women, and women union shop, affiliated to the Interna­ short time in walks a man. He walks Ethel Lobman sets some of the record were the leaders of those struggles _9n tional · Ladies' Garment Workers' directly over to the boss, not to us straight about how the union was built. the streets of New York. Union. But because it was in Mount workers. And he says, "What's the My mother used to tell me when I was Vernon, as opposed to New York City, trouble?" little about various incidents in her life we all got less pay. It was what is called After he hears the 9oss's story he ·By Etpel Lohman in those organizing days. She was very a contract shop. The union had nego­ turns to us. "Well, girls, you want to active in organizing the union. Practi­ tiated a CO\}tract for less pay in Mount have work, don't you?" And he goes cally all of these leaders were radicals Vernon than down in the city. into the whole bit about compromise or socialists. I also want to point out that in those and "what's another zipper, anyway." • Y mother came to the United States One of the stories I remember was thirty years, the union had not suc­ Well, I think they gave us fifty-six from a small Polish town in 1912. She about how my mother worked in a shop ceeded in winning a minimum wage for cents. or !!Omething like that to start was seventeen years old. With thou­ where they had been trying to organize its workers here in New York. We were working again. sands of others she worked in the a union for many months. They were all paid by piecework. And. for every That was the role of the union. The sweatshops of the New York garment succeeding, and they had almost all the new style that we worked on, we had to whole leadership in New York-all men industry. They worked under the most , workers with them. fight with the boss over how much and all completely separated from the miserable conditions for ten or twelve Then they got word that the boss was money we would get for sewing the class struggle-acted in that way. hours a day. The shops were unventilat- going to "run away" with his shop to garinents. I moved to California in 1945. There Yonkers, just north of New York City, In the 1940s the union leadership was the situation was a little different. ~t Ethel Lobman was a member of the which was considered far away then. completely male-dominated. The work­ was not like New York in being a center International Ladies' Garment Work­ The young workers found out what day ers, on the other hand, were almost all where the European immigrants came ers' Union from 1946 to 1950. She has he was going to move the shop. In the women. This leadership played the role directly into the slums and sweatshops. also been a member of Hotel and middle of the night they traveled for of mediator-not as· the representative The union movement in California was Restaurant Employees union Local 6 hours by horse-drawn . trolley car, of the women in the shop, but as a newer and it was younger. and of the United Automobile Workers. changing many times. They arrived mediator between the boss and the Another difference was the size of the More recently she has been active in the before the sun came up at the new shop. workers. shops. Here in New York the shops struggle of the predominantly Puerto The boss planned to open that day. In this Mount Vernon shop, I still were usually twenty, thirty, or some­ Rican, Black, and Chinese parents in My mother always described with remember, we were sewing dresses that times as few as five workers. In a large New York City's school District One for such pleasure the look on that man's had one zipper. You had to change the factory there might be fifty workers. control of their schools. She was a face wheri he came that morning to sewing foot of the machine to a zipper But in California the big new sports­ member of the executive committee of open up his new runaway shop, and foot. And for all the work of sewing up wear industry had really taken root. the parent association of Public School found his organized workers waiting for the whole garment, we got fifty-five This included the bathing-suit shops­ 63 from 1967 to 1972 and chairwoman him. cents. J antzen, Rosemarie, and the one I of the Coalition for Education in School Thirty years later I worked in those When we finished that lot, a new­ worked in, Caltex. These all manufac­ District One in 1972-73. She is a same shops. It became clear to me that style garment came in, and it had two tured expensive bathing suits and member of the Lower East Side. branch the sisters of my mother's day had been zippers, a side zipper and a back zipper. sportswear. The factories were very of the New York Socialist Workers sold out. After all those struggles, all The boss said fifty-five cents. The modem. party. that blood, and all that ingenuity, there women said, for two zippers we have to But these large, modern factories

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were by and large unorganized. And it cutters. A number of SWP men were was only in the shops that the union longtime cutters in the ILGWU anc;l had organized that a minimum wage they were helping us. The Caltex had been established. cutters (all men) worked in another One of the problems was paternalism. building. They came over to the union's Although the pay was miserable,~ these side. large, new plants had nice working We would bring the people who conditions. They had curtains on the signed the cards down to the union hall windows, and a coffeepot. And it was for meetings in a car brigade. Los Angeles, with its Hollywood, and And now comes my lesson number the whole place had a more colorful three. In the sixth week of the strike, atmosphere than you find down on the according to our count, we had 65 Lower East Side or on Seventh Avenue percent of the workers signed up. So we here in New York. went down to the union hall and told While I was working in one of the this to Riggy, one of the bureaucrats large unorganized shops, the ILGWU who never left his seat behind .the desk. was forced to lead a strike in order to "OK, girls, let's see, now where'd we organize the unorganized shops. The put your cards," he said. And he started manufacturers of the organized shops looking, and looking, and he never refused to sign a new contract unless found them. It was a very sad moment. more shops came into the union, be­ We realized then that they did not cause they were being undersold by want this shop in the union. They did these shops. So actually the drive to not want a shop where the workers had organize came from the manufacturers. been organized, step by step, and where The main headquarters of the union they had actually been convinced of the was in New York. The union bureau­ necessity of belonging to a union. And · crats' method of organizing at that time where they had come to meetings and was to bring in a lot of goons, to go into had participated in discussing the a shop, pull the lever shutting off the tactics of ~he strike. They did not want power, threaten the boss, and say, "OK these 300 workers to disrupt their girls, everybody down to the union hall. bureaucratic setup. They only wanted You're in the ILGWU." those shops where the workers had That was what the union bureaucrats been marched down and told that they were planning to do. They were going to were in the union now and had to pay make a token gesture and intimidate a their dues. couple of the smaller shops. They We didn't succeed in organizing weren't going to touch the large shops Caltex that year. The union got sixty with 200, 300, or 400 workers. shops in by their methods. There is another lesson I learned, and that was about the role of the police. Every morning of the strike there would It happened that in Los Angeles at be a whole line of cops in front of the that time there were a good number of factory. The first morning they were militants in the union. Some were friendly to us. I remember one of them members of the Socialist Workers party was a young man who. started talking who had been in the struggle for years. to us and said he had been a UAW shop They decided to go ahead and take the steward. opportunity to try to really organize the Then one day there came the order to workers in these shops. the cops to push, because we were too In the factory where I worked, Caltex, close to the entrance. And that "union" there were 300 workers. Two of us were cop pushed more ferociously than any in the SWP at that time. We got in of the other cops in that line. I realized touch with the union and this immedi­ then that it was probably a kind of ately -scared them. We told them we As, the women arrived for work, he decided that in addition to picketing all overcompensation for his radical past. wanted Caltex in the union and we tried to push the picket line away from day we would visit the workers in their From then on, whenever people tell were wiiling to work to organize the the door while saying, "Get out of the · homes and see if we couldn't recruit me-and down on the ,Lower East Side workers in the shop and see if we could way, they're coming in to work." them to the union. Over a period of six they're always telling me-about the succeed. We had leaflets, which we were trying weeks we visited about 200 of these friendly cops in our neighborhood and Militants from .shops that had al­ to get into the workers' hands. Sudden­ women in their homes. how they're really for us, I tell them the ready been organized also went to the ly, this tall, majestic-looking woman This was for me another lesson to be story about that cop. union and offered to help in the drive to from one of the organized shops leaned learned and never to be forgotten. It What's the situation now, thirty years get Caltex into the union. It would be a forward from our line and cracked the happened that in every single one of later? There are still the sweatshops in big breakthrough because of the large man across the face. It absolutely those homes-even of the most back­ New York. They're still filthy. And the number of workers in that shop. stunned him. ward workers-we found that some­ workers are Puerto Rican, Black, and The workers at Caltex were mainly Everything stopped for a second. ·where in their background there was a Chinese women. The Chinese women's white Southerners who had come to Then, having given out the leaflets, we touch of either unionism or radicalism. children are there with them in the California during the Great Depression, started talking to the workers. Every­ Somewhere there had been an uncle shops on Sundays. Child labor, which like those portrayed in the novel The thing looked great. The workers weren't who had helped organize the United existed in the sweatshops in the early Grapes of Wrath. They had made that going in. They were listening to us. You Mine Workers, or a relative who had part of this century, has come back. long trek in the 1930s and were now could just feel that this was the moment done something to oppose World War I. The union bureaucracy has done working in the Los Angeles garment almost nothing to wipe out these evil factori_es. This was a different type of conditions. Sixty years ago those young worker than the immigrant worker here women did not shed blood on these in New York. 'We realized then that the union bureaucrats did streets so that this union bureaucracy I'd like to describe what took place at could live in luxury while turning their Caltex the fll"st day of that organizing not want these 300 workers who bad been con­ backs on the misery of the workers. drive. Early that morning in front of vinced of the necessity of belonging to the union.' Today the ILGWU leadership is not the entrance there were about ten of us even made up of the old types like from the shop who were anxious to David Dubinsky who at least went organize the shop. About fifty workers through some of the early struggles. from other shops were there to support of victory. And as we went house-to-house and Now they get their leaders from the us. It wai at this moment that we heard talked to these people, we got the colleges. They are BA and MA and PhD Up until that time we had never even from Pinky, the union representative response we had been hoping for. graduates who major in labor adminis­ known who owned Caltex. We had a assigned to Caltex, who was ·a very Now, as we visited these workers we tration. They don't even make an manager and a few foremen and office nervous man. He said, "Oh, let them in, would ask them to sign cards stating attempt to find leaders among the personnel. But we didn't know who the let them in. We'll get them tomorrow, that they agreed to join the ILGWU. We ranks. owner was. It wasn't like in New York, we don't want any trouble." needed to sign up 50 percent of the The bureaucrats and the workers where the owner could be someone's His words shocked everyone. The first workers in the shop in order to get an don't even speak the same language. little old uncle. This was a large-scale group of workers looked at him and NLRB (National Labor Relations Many workers are cheated in these industry. then went in. Board) election. Once a week we would union shops. They don't get the mini­ That morning, as we formed a big That taught me a lot. That moment take the cards down to the union mum wage or time-and-a-half for over­ picket line in front of the door, we remained with me forever. There are headquarters, to the bureaucrats from time. And the union doesn't even try to noticed a very gray-looking man stand­ moments that are decisive, when you out East, who would say, "Good work, organize any of the thousands of ing a little to the side of the entrance. ·have to take advantage of the situation girls." "cockroach" shops. He had a gray hat, gray hair, gray suit, and act. That was such a moment. Our militant picket line had become So sixty years later, the ILGWU still gray shoes, a gray face, and he was Somebody should have challenged Pin­ known in union circles. United Auto has a debt to pay to those immigrant very thin. ky. Workers union representatives came to .women. The struggle is before us, and He came over to the picket line and But-.they went in. Some stayed out observe them. These union leaders the new ferment among women trade said, "I represent the owners." It but most went in. We were furious imd would say things like, "We heard you unionists bodes well for this fight. seemed that he represented the Chase frustrated, and we .settled down to a have a great picket line. Why don't you Bank. Rockefeller/Chase owned the long strike. sing some more songs, girls." factory! At a meeting of the Caltex strikers we We had support among the garment

20 (PAGE 11/INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW)

the great strides forward made by the Chinese people since the revolution. Before her opened up the whole range of­ potentialities for humanity in a society based on a planned economy. She saw a China free of the hunger BOOBS that had scourged its people in prerevo­ lutionary days. Prices for food, housing, and medical care were low. You Can Get Many· advances had been made by women, and efforts were being made to There From Here use their skills. They had been brought into the work force and into the political life of the country. The abuses By Shirley MacLaine. W.W. and humiliation women faced under the Norton & Company, Inc., New old society were largely lifted. They no Yorli, 1975. 249 pp. longer were forced to submit to the barbarous custom of foot-binding or to arranged marriages. They were no "I suppose what shook me the most longer subjected throughout their lives about China was that it completely to the patriarch51l ideology of obedience Shirley MacLalne (right) with Chinese host altered my notions about ·human na­ to men. Through the revolution they ture. I used to believe human nature had gained a new pride and dignity. was absolute. . . . If someone stole, MacLaine and the delegation were • Women are still widely discriminat· sessions is to "keep the leadership cheated, murdered, or was outrageously struck by the care children received in ed against. They do not receive equal honest. . . . on a community or nation· greedy, I would often dismiss the nurseries and child-care centers, the pay in the communes. They still do the al level"? behavior as par for the course. I had lack of competition over toys, and the cooking and care for the children, Why is it only self-criticism that is plenty of evidence for the proposition happy appearance of the children., whether it be at home or at the child­ stressed? Why is there no right to that man was basically selfish, aggres- MacLaine reports the reaction of one care centers. Very few women are in the criticize the policies of Mao and the -sive, fearful, savage, and greedy. of the women, Phyllis Kronhausen, a top hierarchy of the Chinese Commu­ CCP? Without this right, self-criticism "But I couldn't feel that way any­ psychologist and anthropologist: "'I'm nist party. sessions can be nothing other than a more. I had seen an entire nation, once amazed,' she said, 'I wouldn't have • Sexuality is rigidly controlled. means to impose ideological conformity degraded, corrupt, demoralized, and believed it was possible.' She was Children are told that masturbation and to root out divergent points of view. exploited, that was changing its very searching for the words that would sum will make them "infected or ill." Sex In her attempt to reconcile her demo­ nature. in changing the political, eco­ it up. 'Of the children we've seen so far, education is not available in the cratic ideals and artistic values with nomic, and material nature, · they had I haven't seen one that I would call schools. Ignorance is so widespread her admiration for the Maoist regime, caused the better side of human nature even slightly disturbed. It's incred· among the youth on this question that MacLaine is led into a web of intellectu­ to dominate. . . . ible.'" one nineteen-year-old guide told Mac· al contortions and self-contradiction. "I realized that if what we call MacLaine's visit to the communes Laine she didn't know "how babies are The following quotes from her book human nature can be changed, then reinforced her appreciation of the made." No premarital sex is allowed. illustrate this: absolutely anything is possible. And strength of a society built on production There are no places for young people to "I began to speculate on the effect from' that moment, my life changed." for human need. She says: go for any privacy. Monogamy is the that self-criticism in China might be So writes Shirley MacLaine, well­ "Here too I began to feel a sense of law of the land, and homosexuality is having on individual creative expres· known singer, dancer, and comedy star, strength, a common bond among these considered "depraved." . sion. Perhaps honest group communica­ in her book You Can Get There From people, joined together in a common Unfortunately MacLaine makes no tion reduced the need for individualistic Here. The book documents MacLaine's task. They were not producing junk to real attempt to examine the roots of artistic expression in the New Society. visit to China in the spring of 1973 as· sell for profit in some second-rate these antidemocratic, oppressive, and Since so many human creative forces the leader of a women's delegation from 'department store. They were feeding sexi!:Jt. policies of the Chinese Commu­ are based on a desperate need to the United States. The delegation China. It was no small thing to them, nist party. Instead, in an often shock­ communicate one's feelings, pethaps _ included women from a variety of and their sense of pride and purpose ing manner, she rationalizes or covers the need is displaced in a society that . socioeconomic backgrounds. An all­ was infectious." up for such practices .. practices intercommunicative therapy. female film crew recorded their experi­ As the time passed MacLaine found In that case, perhaps I wasn't seeing a ences, This was later made into a film herself deeply moved by the accom­ The repulsive cult of Mao raises censored artistic community, but-....!.'1-ter titled China Memoirs. plishments of Chinese society. For a hardly an unfavorable comment from a community that simply had no need You Can Get There From Here does long time, she writes, she hadn't found MacLaine. She talks of him as a leader to express itself in art. . . . The purpose not only deal with Shirley MacLaine's much about the world to give her hope. "who seemed genuinely loved" rather of art and literature was to serve the visit to China. The first sections dwell But as she watched and learned and than as a ruthless dictator whose wis­ people and the revolution now. Later on the author's earlier experiences in absorbed the lessons of China, she dom nobody is allowed to question. on-who knew? Would there even be art campaigning for George McGovern in slowly found herself "able again to Love for Mao is not exactly an emotion and literature later on? And would the 1972 presiQ.ential election cam­ hope and trust in the human race." based on free choice in China. How can anybody miss it?" paign. However, this review will be MacLaine's book points out many of it be when those who express opposition And again: limited to the section on China, which the positive aspects of life in China are deprived of any leadership positions "I wondered what 'truth' meant. I has evoked the most interest and de­ today. Nevertheless, she can't escape and jailed or murdered? was beginning to question whether bate. the negative aspects introduced by the Mao has conducted massive purges of positive change might not be more­ MacLaine recounts how through her Chinese Communist party regime. Mac­ his opponents. To date he has suc­ important than 'truth.' Perhaps truth stay in China she was forced to Laine says the following: ceeded in eliminating virtually all of was nothing but education. And if the reexamine many of her previous values • There is no freedom to publish, no the leaders of the CCP who were part of education was progressive and positive and conceptions. She, like many of us opposition political parties, no freedom the u:mg March, the civil war against maybe it was worth the compromise of in the imperialist countries, had been to travel. A citizen must have permis­ Chiang Kai-shek, and the founding of the 'reinterpretation' of 'the truth.' The brought up on horror stories about sion to go more than fifty miles from the People's Republic. Chinese seemed to feel that truth was China-that it had been "lost" to the his or her home city. How can MacLaine, in the light of nothing more than what they believed communists, that the Chinese people • There is no freedom to write books these facts, make statements such as, "I it to be anyway. Was the same thing "had been reduced to ants," and that or create works of art. All art must never felt that the unity of China was true in the West?" "the real China was a place called make a social point. Foreign films and being imposed from the top down, or Given MacLaine's own commitment Formosa:" culture are not available to the Chinese through the use of terror"? How can she to art, such words are at the least With her own eyes she was able to see people. say that the purpose of self-criticism Continued on next page

I am angry as a Chicana; but I am aging to see more doctors like Bernard antiwar and feminist movements. In fact, angrier as a woman. No one should be Rosenfeld fighting against the rampant the Physicians National Housestaff Asso­ able to tell me when I can or cannot have racism and sexism in the medical field. ciation, now leading strikes of young children. When I was a medical student in 1970, doctors, arose directly out of this fer­ The doctors' lies that we are all on I first witnessed this form of systematic ment. welfare, unmarried, causing overpopula­ sexism and racism against patients in The women's liberation movement, in· tion, and we all look alike used in order Hutzel Hospital (Women's Hospital of winning women to the original demands Editors: I have read the Militant a few to sterilize us are really excuses for Detroit). The patients were mostly Black "Legalize abortions" and "End forced times, but never with such interest as genocide against my race. women. sterilizations," has set a higher stage for Harry Ring's article "Forced Sterilization: A woman has the right to sterilization if Doctors (white and wealthy) would fighting back against continued. atroci­ Chicanas Fight Back in Los Angeles" she chooses it and she will usually look have conferences where they revealed ties by the medical system nationwide. (August ISR magazine supplement). for sterilization if she wants it. But I don't their rabid hatred, stating that the Marc Stretten I was shocked to learn about doctors see them sterilizing rich, white men patients were all unmarried, on welfare, Los Angeles, California sterilizing poor, nonwhite women by against their will with phony excuses. all looked alike, were causing overpopu­ "Coercion, pressure, and deception." I support attorney Antonia Hernandez, lation, and that sterilization of every Rich, white, upper-class doctors have the Chicana victims, and those doctors possible patient. should be practiced. no right to sit In judgment of poor, who are fighting forced sterilizations. They were unanimous in teaching these nonwhite, or uneducated women. Their Their fight is the fight of all women. attitudes to the medical students. The This column Is open to all viewpoints diplomas don't· give them the right to be Maria Elena Montalvo few of us who rebelled against their on subjects of Interest to our readers. gods. Santa Barbara, California. authoritarianism were repressed severly. Please keep your letters brief. Where Poor women have the same right to Throughout the country, the organized necessary they will be abridged. Please have babies as anyone else. For many women's liberation movement was the Indicate II your name may be used or II poor people, children are our only Editors: I was very glad to see the recent vanguard of opposition to forced sterili­ you P.reler Initials Instead. luxuries; and we don't have the luxuries ariticle "Forced Sterilization: Chicanas zation. A generation of young rebel of the rich. Fight Back in Los Angeles." It is encour- doctors sprang out of the ferment of the

21 ' (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW! PAGE 12)

surprising. Surely she· must realize that apprentices to 500 yuan ($285) for the art has been a means of expression for most senior officials. . . . · all human communities and that artis­ "Of course, senior cadres have ex­ tic works are among the precious penses that workers do not. Typically acquisitions of civilization. Why then they will have an apartment of several should a socialist society-which repre­ rooms, perhaps even a house, for which sents· a higher stage of human they will pay as much as 50 yuan ($28) evolution-abolish art? a month, compared to the dollar or two Such speculation on MacLaine's part, paid by workers for their 2% rooms." whatever its intention, in the last Burns writes of the expensive cloth­ analysis serves as a cover-up for the ing, elaborate meals, and other luxu­ stifling of artistic creativity by the ries that these bureaucrats can afford. Maoist regime. "A tailor-made worsted tunic at 150 It is obvious that the artistic commu­ yuan ($185) against a worker's 25 yuan nity in China is censored. MacLaine ($14) denims, is part of every cadre's merely plays with words when she tries wardrobe, and leather shoes . . . to imply otherwise. The only art al­ instead of the everyday plastic or lowed in China is of the most servile canvas knockarounds." and revolting character. Experimenta­ Many bureaucrats drive expensive tion in art forms, truthfulness to one's European-model curtained limousines. own artistic vision-is outlawed by the After foreigners, Communist party· Chinese Communist party. Works un­ cadres have first call to the few soft­ palatable to the Maoists are labeled seat compartments of trains, and have "bourgeois" and banned. first-class seating on airplanes. They The anti-Confucian campaign have access to exclusive recreational against "bourgeois" culture is only the facilities and dine at sumptuous ban­ most recent example of the CCP's quets. contempt for art. Michelangelo de This privileged caste is profoundly Antonioni, the Italian film-maker, has conservative, fearing anything that come under heavy attack as a "spy" might not serve it directly. Hence its and "anti-China buffoon." An article in rigid control over artistic expression. the Peking People's Daily termed Bee­ Creativity demands freedom, which the thoven's music "weird and bizarre," MacLalne found that widespread discrimination against women still exists In China bureaucracy cannot tolerate. saying it reflected the "nasty, rotten life Similarly the CCP seeks to foster and decadent sentiments of the bour­ reactionary social institutions such as geoisie" (Hsinhua, February 14, 1974). a policy of paying women unequal the revolution, at the same time it is the family, through the prohibition of Needless to say, policies such as these wages in agriculture. necessary to tell the truth about the premarital sex and severe restrictions cannot foster an atmosphere conducive The suppression of sexuality, with the false policies of the regime. on divorce. The authoritarian nature of to genuine artistic expression. consequent distortion of the human Despite the myths, the Chinese Com­ the family .provides the bureaucracy MacLaine's philosophizings on the personality, is not simply a· remnant of munist party is not a revolutionary with a more stable hierarchy of rela­ meaning of "truth" are bound to com­ China's past. Rather, the CCP con­ party, nor is the CCP committed to tions and a reliable mechanism for promise her integrity in readers' eyes sciously promotes and enforces sexual furthering the interests of the working training people in submissiveness. and undermine the credibility of the repression. The low percentage of wom­ masses. Shirley MacLaine should look more rest of what she has to say about en in the CCP-10 percent after two­ After taking power the CCP used its carefully into these features of the China. Lies and deception (which she and-a-half decades of Maoist rule-is political position to consolidate a privi­ present regime in China. So impressed calls "reinterpretation") are methods nothing less than scandalous. Surely leged bureaucratic caste. To maintain is she by the revolution's achievements used by reactionary governments these are not the policies of a govern­ this privileged caste, the CCP had to that she loses her critical faculties. against the majority of people. They are ment sincerly committed to wr ·\en's suppress all democratic rights. Unlike MacLaine reminds one of the intellectu­ not the methods used by a revolution­ emancipation! Russia in the first years of its revolu­ als she herself refers to in the following ary government that is out to build a At times, MacLaine lets her poetic tion, the Chinese workers state from its lines from her book: socialist society. fancy take flight. Seeing some intellec­ inception had no soviets or other ". . . I remembered what had hap­ Effective poli.cies under a planned tuals assigned to the countryside work­ democratic organizations of workers pened to the intellectuals who had econc.uy m a workers state have to be ing in a field, she raptures: and peasants' control. visited the Soviet Union in the 1920s based on the real situation. Therefore, a "Their body movements spoke of The full extent of the privileges of and 1930s-Lincoln Steffens saying, 'I democratic government controlled by have seen the future and it works'-and the working people can only be effec­ the disillusion later when the word tive if the facts-favorable and filtered through about the death camps unfavorable-are made known to the 'The best way to extend the revolutionary and Stalin's murders and people who masses. How else are they able to judge ·disappeared in the night." the best way forward? How else can gains of the Chinese people is to side with MacLaine is wrong when she says they have real power in decision mak­ the workers, peasants,· and students in that Maoist China is free of this type of ing? oppression. Mao, while his methods at Those out to construct a socialist struggle for socialist democracy.' times may be different, is an admitted ------society need not fear the truth; it is disciple of Stalin. Mao's ruthless sup­ their ally. There is much wisdom in the pression of dissidents, stifling of demo­ old saying "The truth will make you common hope and common land and this. bureaucracy is carefully hidden. cratic freedoms, and counterrevolution­ free." common freedom from hunger and Meanwhile the CCP engages in flowery ary foreign policies-these are in MacLaine mutes her criticism of the starvation and insult." rhetoric about equality, democracy, and Stalin's tradition. The portraits of repressive sexual norms and the discri­ How one can tell such emotions from the building of a communist society. Stalin that can be seen everywhere in mination against women. At one point body movements is dubious. But more An article in the March 4, 1975, To­ China are but one daily reminder of she even idealizes the puritanism that importantly, these are not likely to be ronto Globe and Mail by Peking corre­ this. pervades present-day China. She the feelings of the more than eight spondent John Burns details the life­ MacLaine perhaps thinks she is writes, "Relationships seemed free of million youth and inJ;ellectuals forcibly styles of the Chinese bureaucrats. He doing the revolution a service by jealousy and infidelity because monoga­ deported to the countryside since 1968- writes: "The reality is that many of the rationalizing or idealizing the policies my was the law of the land and hardly 69. men and women who staff the com­ of the CCP. But defense of the bureau­ anyone strayed." The fundamental flaw in MacLaine's mand posts in the bureaucracy, be they cracy does not serve the revolution; it MacLaine seems to believe that the book is her lack of understanding of the army generals or party functionaries or undermines it. The best way ~ extend CCP is doing the most it can within the Chinese Communist party regime. She high-ranking bureaucrats in Govern­ the revolutionary gains of the Chinese· context of the country's backwardness identifies the ruling bureaucracy with ment ministries, avail themselves of people is tO deal honestly with the facts and long traditions of women's oppres­ the progressive results of the revolution. comforts that are beyond the reach of of the present situation, and to side sion. This is a mistake made by many· the common man. . . . with the workers, peasants, and stu­ But this is not the case. The Chinese radicals who identify with the tremen­ "The most obvious of the disparities dents in their struggle for socialist Communist party has served as a block dous achievement represented by the is the wage system for non-agricultural democracy. in the road to women's liberation. The Chinese revolution. workers, which sets eight monthly backwardness of China does not excuse While recognizing the gains made by grades ranging from 25 yuan ($14) for Katie Curtin

BOOKS RECEIVED Argentina in the Twentieth Cen­ hill. Stein and Day, 209 pp. $8.95. tury. Edited by David Rock. University Karl Marx by Michael Evans. India­ in China na University Press, 215 pp. $10.00. Women of Pittsburgh Press, 230 pp. $14.50. The Concept of Socialism. Edited The Lands of Partitioned Poland, by Bhikhu Parekh. Holmes and Meier 1795-1918 by Piotr S. Wandycz. Uni­ By Katie C~rtin Publishers. $16.00. versity of Washington Press, 431 pp. La dialectica actual de la revolu­ $14.95, paper $7.95. cion mundial. Pathfinder Press, 189 The Latin American Revolution A young Canadian feminist and socialist examines women's status pp. Paper $2.25. by Donald Hodges. William Morrow since the Chinese revolution-the tremendous progress made and Drugs and Minority Oppression and Company. $9.95. the barriers still to be overcome. 95 pages, $1.45 paper. by John Helmer. The Seabury Press, 192 pp. $9.95. Passages from Antiquity to Feu­ Order from Pathfinder Press Flesh and Blood: A History of the · dalism by Perry Anderson. Humanities 410 West St., New York, N.Y. 10014 Cannibal Complex by Reay Tanna- Press. $15.00.

22 National Picket Line Frank Lovell prominent Clevelanders and an editorial in the Plain Dealer that called Time for a shorter workweek the ruling "a petty, flyspeck One of the central demands of the union movement before the eight-hour day was won, Karl Marx technicality," the board of elections today ought to be the thirty-hour workweek with no explained this. was upheld. reduction in weekly pay. This is necessary to put "As to the limitation of the working day," he said, Herman Kirsch unemployed workers back on the job. ". . . it has never been settled except by legislative · Cleveland, Ohio In basic industry today the worker produces more in interference. Without the working men's continuous four hours than was produced in eiglit hours thirty pressure from without that interference would never years ago at the end of World War II. This great have taken place. But at all events, the result was not saving in human labor ought to redound to the benefit to be attained by private settlement between the 'Ding-Dong,' Avon calling of society in the form of more leisure time and working men and the capitalists. This very necessity You'd think that a company whose individual creativity for the workers. Instead it has of general political action affords the proof that in its entire business depends on women only served to boost corporate profits and create mass merely economic action capital is the stronger side." would be at least a little in touch with unemployment. (Value, Price and Profit, International Publishers, women's demands for equal treatment. The auto contract expires in 1976 and sections of the 1935, pp. 58-59.) But Avon Products, Inc., the world's United Auto Workers have begun drafting demands. Samuel Gompers at one time had the mistaken largest cosmetics company, is The UAW National Ford Council, meeting in Wash­ notion that he was a follower of Marx, but his latter­ oblivious. ington, D.C., adopted a resolution for less time on the day craft union associates and successors in the old Avon exploits women to the tune of job, and for discouraging overtime work and making it American Federation of Labor never entertained such $1.3 billion worth of junk and hires optional. All such proposals are tentative and will be illusions. Nevertheless, the 1929 economic crisis forced 750,000 women to peddle A von referred to the UAW's collective-bargaining conven­ even these conservative officials to act in accordance. cosmetics door-to-door. And within the tion next spring. with what Marx had said. company itself, Avon's hiring and The formulation of this proposal from the Ford promotion policies are as sexist and council hints that the UAW leadership is seeking a At tiie 1932 AFL convention in Cincinnati, the racist as most of its advertising. bargaining wedge that will be acceptable to manage­ Business Week reports that among Committee on the Shorter Workday reported on ''the Avon's nearly fifty corporate officers, ment. In the farm-implement industry the UAW has overwhelming importance of an immediate reduction only two are women, and of the ninety­ reduced the work time slightly by negotiating a kind of in the hours of labor as a condition absolutely two people in the next management bonus system that grants one-half hour off for each essential to the restoration and maintenance of level, only seven are women. full week worked. This is acceptable to management prosperity." The delegates voted for the five-day week But the women who work for A von because it tends to stabilize the work force, reducing and the six-hour day, with no reduction in weekly are getting together to protest. A ten­ lateness and absenteeism. It is one of those "mutually wages. What is more, they sought to make it a federal person steering committee has been acceptable" arrl:!ngements that appear to be advanta­ law, instructing the -AFL Executive Council "to take formed to organize a fight for equal geous to both sides. It creates no new jobs, however, all necessary steps toward having proper legislation treatment. The first meeting the and is of no benefit to laid-off workers. . . . presented to the incoming session of con­ committee called attracted 300 people. The traditional demand of the UAW is "thirty for gress.... " In addition, several women, both Black forty" -thirty hours' work for forty hours' pay. This Less than three weeks after the Cincinnati AFL and white, as well as some Black men, would create jobs and put thousands of unemployed convention, Sen. Hugo Black of Alabama introduced a have filed discrimination charges workers back in the auto plants. thirty-hour bill hi the closing days of the Seventy­ against A von. The same demand should be extended to include all . Second Congress. This passed the Senate in 1933, but The articles in the Militant about industry by organizing a national six-hour-day move­ failed in the House, and has never been revived. layoffs being used to roll back the ment to amend the federal forty-hour law. It is a pity that forty-two years later, at the UAW gains of women and Blacks are borne The fight for the thirty-hour week goes beyond one National Ford Council meeting, no one thought to out at Avon. When Avon cut about 10 union or one industry, and political action must be send a delegation across the street to the capitol percent of its employees and demoted combined with contract bargaining in order to win it. building to ask a "friend" in Congress to introduce a others last year, it was the Black In a speech more than a hundred years ago, long new thirty-hour bill. employees who were hit the hardest. A Black woman who was demoted two levels told Business Week, "It's the same old story of the last hired being the first fired." By Any Means Necessary E.J. New York, New York Baxter Smith

He's all heart Arthur Burns, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and one of the New mood in Boston country's most influential economic BOSTON-Larry McConaga turned his back to the This year, because of the safety precautions taken policy makers, has a plan to create chill morning wind, hunched his shoulders, and gave a up to this point, there is hardly any discussion by jobs. He proposes a big increase in tug on his beat-up old tennis hat. Blacks of the merits of busing. Last year racist attacks public employment, "for example 'in "They'll probably be out on the corners, giving us on the buses kept Blacks intimidated and continually hospitals, schools, public parks and the finger and all that stuff. They'll probably brick the questioning the need to break down segregation by the like-to anyone who is willing to buses. I heard about the fights and all that last year," venturing into the white areas. work." Sound good? he replied to a questioner, his eyes empty. Last year Black students gathering in the mornings The pay, Burns adds, would of Then he knitted his brow, turned, and brought his at Bayside Mall would mingle in quiet twos or threes, course have to be less than the federal eyes into focus to make a point. "But no, there's no engage in small chatter, and draw nervous puffs from minimum wage of $2.10 an hour. The need in being scared about it. You just have to face it." cigarettes. cost "needn't be burdensome," McConaga, like other Black students in his shoes This year the mornings at Bayside Mall have come according to Burns, since he also that morning, thought he'd be taking the bitter with alive. The students gather in throngs, and not­ proposes a "sharp reduction in the the sweet: the first day of school, Phase Two and city­ untypical boisterousness has returned. There is a loose scope of unemployment insurance and wide desegregation, with the sweet prospect of a better feeling about them. other government programs to education that it offered; but that prospect bittered by Militant correspondents outside South Boston High alleviate income loss:" the possibility of racist violence-rock and bottle report that Black students salute gathered racists with Burns calls for a "review" of the throwing-against the buses carrying McConaga and clenched fists, a change from last year, and return minimum-wage law and the Davis­ other Black students during the short ride from taunts with gibes of their own. Bacon Act, which requires that union­ scale wages be paid on government Bayside Mall to South Boston High School. Black leaders have also expressed satisfaction with construction. He also thinks bigger tax For seventeen-year-old McConaga, it is his second the safety so far in connection with Phase Two. breaks for industry and "stretching out year of high school. Last year he walked to Roxbury Black parents, many of whom were skeptical and of the timetables" for environmental High in the safe turf of the Black Roxbury neighbor­ fearful last year of what would happen to their and job-safety goals would add zip to hood. This year he has to ride to South Boston High in children being bused, express determination and the economy. hostile white territory where lone and unsuspecting confidence this year. G.A. Blacks are beaten on sight. But because of the massive "I'm not too worried about them now," said Vy New York, New York presence of police, so far his ride has been safe. Turner, a Black mother, of her two sons one afternoon Safety has been the prime consideration of Blacks in at Bayside Mall during the middle of the second week connection with busing. And because the busing of of Phase Two. The letters column is an open Black students so far has been accomplished safely­ Turner is a member of one of the court-established, forum for all viewpoints on sub­ the results of building a movement over the past year prodesegregation District Advisory Councils. She told jects of general interest to our demanding that Black rights be enforced-the morale of how one night racists had gathered outside the readers. Please keep your letters and confidence of the Black community have been South Boston home of a white member of the council _ brief. Where necessary ·they will bolstered. and threatened her. be abridged. Please indicate if Last year there was an inadequate number of police "They want to beat on us. They even want to beat on your name may be used or if you on hand to ensure the safety of buses going into the other whites. And the poor Black students who just prefer that your initials be used racist strongholds. As a result, buses were stoned and want to get a better education are caught in the instead. Black students were hurt. miadle," she said. "That's the part that's really sad."

THE MILITANT/OCTOBER 3, 1975 23 People's party sets '76 presidential slate By Peter Seidman While many useful reforms were contact Angela Davis. Some delegates ST. LOUIS-The People's party discussed, there were no concrete responded to the mention of Davis's nominated a presidential slate for the proposals on how these changes would name with boos and hisses. After some 1976 elections at its national conven­ be brought about or on what the party discussion-about whether or not to tion held here August 25-31. will actually do in the coming months. approach Davis, the suggestion was Delegates selected Margaret Wright, A motion to support and publicly dropped. fifty-two, a Black civil rights activist advertise the National Student Coali­ The two candidates finally approved from Los Angeles, to be the party's tion Against Racism conference, to be are considered provisional. Another presidential candidate. Nominated to held in Boston October 10-12, was convention later this year will evaluate run for vice-president was Maggie approved by a nearly unanimous vote. the situation, and the candidates could Kuhn, seventy, a leader of the Gray A representative of the Congress of be replaced. Panthers, an organization concerned African People presented a motion The party invited the Committee for with the oppression of old people. condemning the use of "forced bus­ Democratic Election Laws to conduct a Seventy-five people attended the con­ ing," counterposing the demand for workshop on challenging restrictions vention. "community control" of schools in the on ballot rights for smaller parties. Benjamin Spock and Julius Hobson Black community. Delegates voted unanimously to were the People's party candidates for endorse the demand by the National president and vice-president in 1972. CAP's proposal was rejected. In­ Committee to Free J.B. Johnson that The party was on the ballot in ten stead, the convention voted to "support all charges against Johnson be states that year. According to party Blacks' and other oppressed nationali­ dropped. The young St. Louis Black spokespeople, People's party affiliates ties' democratic right to quality educa­ man is the victim of a racist police have permanent ballot status in four tion wherever they choose and by frame-up. states-California, Vermont, Hawaii, whatever means necessary," including - and Michigan. busing. The resolution also supported The convention voted to hear Peter Mfiliated with the national People's Black people's "right to self-defense of Maggie Kuhn, People's party vice­ Camejo, the Socialist Workers party party are groups such as the Michigan their communities" where they "op­ presidential candidate. presidential candidate for 1976. Human Rights party and a wing of the pose busing." No examples of such a In enthusiastically received remarks, California Peace and Freedom party. situation were mentioned. Camejo stressed the need to take a According to a party publication, "Peo­ Previously, the party had held dis­ cialist principles to win support. clear stand against the racist antibus­ ple's Party related groups have elected cussions on a common presidential Before the convention a "search ing movement in Boston. The socialist some 10 radicals to city councils." slate with CAP, the New American committee" had contacted various candidate also reviewed some of his At last year's convention, which Movement, the Socialist Party USA, prominent individuals about running experiences during eight months of drew 160 people, the party agreed to and the National Interim Committee, on the People's party ticket. Among campaigning. define itself as socialist. Based on that founded by attorney Arthur Kinoy. them were Anne Braden, Kate Millett, Camejo thanked the People's party decision, the convention this year The negotiations broke down, and a David McReynolds, and Jonathan for its support to the SWP's suit devoted six days to consideration of a few delegates charged that CAP leader Kozol. All declined. against illegal spying and harassment program. Amiri Baraka would compromise so- Anne Braden had suggested they by government agencies. A 'socialist' ex-ma r runs for. president By Ed Heisler Michael Harrington, backed George grew up under the regime of this The Socialist Party USA nominated McGovern. "socialist" mayor. Frank Zeidler, former mayor of Mil­ The Albert Shanker-Bayard Rustin Zeidler was not elected mayor as the waukee, to be its candidate for presi­ faction (now the Social Democrats candidate of the Socialist party. Al­ dent in the 1976 elections. The party's USA) was hostile to the McGovern though in the early part of this century

vice-presidential candidate is Quinn campaign, which they viewed as being the Milwaukee party was strong 1 Brisben, a Chicago teacher. too radical. Since they were aligned enough to elect mayors and even a The two were nominated on Septem­ with the George Meany wing of the member of Congress, by 1948 it was ber 1 in Milwaukee at the party's labor bureaucracy, they were inclined relatively weak. Zeidler was elected as natjonal convention, which drew fifty toward Meany's official policy of a "coalition" candidate with Democrat­ delegates and observers. abstaining from the elections. ic party backing in a "nonpartisan" Many were probably surprised to The Socialist party wound up giving election. learn that this gl'oup exists when they formal but lukewarm endorsement to Under Zeidler's administration Mil­ saw the wire service announcements of the Democratic nominee. Soon after waukee remained one of the most the nominations printed in some daily the election the split occurred. segregated major cities in the country. papers. It might be useful to trace its The downtown divided the city into origins. A section of party members who north and south. Blacks, who were The old Socialist party was largely favored the policies of neither major confined to a run-down ghetto on the bypassed by the radicalization of the grouping came together and adopted north side, were not allowed to live or 1960s and early . 1970s. This was in the name Socialist Party USA. They go to school on the south side of town. large part because of its stand on the are mostly old-time social democrats It was not safe for them to walk the war. Placing equal blame on both the who still like the idea of running streets there after sundown. United States and the Vietnamese, the Socialist party campaigns. The last In a city with a significant Black party abstained from the antiwar time the old SP ran a candidate for population, Blacks were excluded from movement. president was 1956. any important government positions Under the pressure of the 1972 Being a native of Milwaukee, I was during his term in office. elections, the party fragmented. The Frank Zeidler, social democratic particularly interested to learn of In Zeidler's time the city had a police wing that later became the Democratic presidential nominee, believes Blacks Zeidler's nomination. He was mayor of. unit popularly known as the "red Socialist Organizing Committee, led by are to blame for runaway industries. Milwaukee from 1948 to 1960, and I Continued on page 30 'Is that something socialist you're reading?' By Pat Galligan "No," Rupp responded, "it's just that to the geographical expansion as well board and relate some of the sales Diane Rupp, a member of the there are more of us these days." as the numerical increase of our highlights. Newark branch of the Socialist Work­ "How do you define socialism?" a readership will be made by the Young Another 185 subscriptions were sent ers party, relates the following story: woman asked from two seats back. Socialist teams. in this week, bringing our total Recently, she and another Newark through September 23 to 367. A discussion about socialism ensued. branch member, Steve Clark, traveled Subscriptions from local areas are Rupp and Clark talked for a while with Seventeen teams of young political by train to Washington, D.C. During lagging behind. We should have 660 activists will visit campuses across the passengers seated nearby about the subscriptions to be on schedule to the trip, Rupp read the Militant and country, building support for the SWP socialist perspective on a number of make our goal of 6,000 new readers by Clark the Intercontinental Press. issues, about the Socialist Workers presidential ticket of Camejo and Reid November 30. Their discussion of various articles· party presidential campaign, and among students, arid recruiting to the across the aisle of the crowded train about the Militant. Young Socialist Alliance. Each team attracted one man's attention. "I never finished reading the paper," has pledged to sell fifteen subscrip­ Among the subscriptions we did "Is that something socialist you're Rupp explained, "because I sold it to tions and ninety single copies of the receive this week were three prepaid reading?" he inquired. one of the passengers. Too bad I only Militant per week. cards from Robert Sipe, who attends As the question was being answered, Albion College in Michigan. We men­ had one copy of the Militant with me." a supporter of Workers Vanguard (a After a pause, she added: "You tioned Sipe's order for the prepaid newspaper reflecting the views of the * * * cards in this column just two weeks know, if I had prepaid. subscription / Spartacist League) appeared and un­ cards with me that day I'm sure I could We know that everyone is anxious to ago. successfully tried to sell a copy of that have sold a few subscriptions. find out how many Militants were sold He certainly didn't waste any time. publication. nationally during the first week of the Those three people are reading the This prompted the somewhat per­ campaign. We're still waiting for Militant this week. Don't you know plexed passenger to ask: "Are all the * * * reports on these sales to arrive in the someone who should start reading the socialists on this train?" This fall, an important contribution mail. Next week, we'll print a score- Militant regularly next week?

24 Thousands 1J.rotest cutbacks

I New York students: 6NO tuition, no way/' By Joan Quinn · · · .. · the attacks on education in New York. NEW YORK-Seven thousand stu­ "In Boston and Louisville," Man'uel dents and faculty massed in front of said, "the racist mobs are carrying out Gov. Hugh Carey's offices here Sep­ physical attacks on Black students, tember 18 to protest the threatened denying their right to attend the school imposition of tuition at the City of their choice. University of New York. "In New York, the attacks on CUNY State Commissioner· of Education have the same racist character. Black Ewald Nyquist has called on the city's and Puerto Rican students are the first board of higher education to charge to be driven out of school by the budget tuition of up to $800 a year at the cuts." traditionally tuition-free CUNY cam­ Manuel cited the cuts in SEEK as an puses. example. The SEEK program proVides The protest rally, sponsored by the remedial tutoring and financial aid to University Student Senate of CUNY Black and Puerto Rican students at and the Professional Staff Congress CUNY. The existence of the entire (PSC), the union of CUNY faculty, was program is called into question by the the first city-wide response this fall to cuts. already-announced cuts of $87 million SEEK students on many campuses in the CUNY budget. have not received their stipend checks Another $64 million in cuts are or vouchers to cover their book ex- threatened by the city in an effort to penses. balance its budget. Other speakers at the demonstration The September 18 rally was the included Clarissa Gilbert, president of culmination of two weeks of protests the National Student Association, and and demonstrations held on individual the president of the State University of CUNY campuses since school opened New York student govemment. MilitanVHoward Lewis and the cuts took form in larger class CUNY students picket as board of higher education considers plan to impose tuition sizes, cancellation of courses, and drastically cut programs. The cutbacks were especially hard­ NEW YORK, Sept. 22-The board of felt in Black and Puerto Rican studies. Militant correspondent. "I've been tion in your numbers," she told the higher education, meeting today with The entire Puerto Rican Studies Insti­ looking all over for you. Look," he said, students. "The very life of CUNY is at 100 student protesters while another tute at Brooklyn College was eliminat­ pointing toward a contingent of protes­ stake. You have our full support." 200 picketed outside, voted to table the ed. ters with their own specially prepared The PSC, affiliated with the Ameri­ proposal for tuition at CUNY. The largest of these previous actions signs, "I've mobilized my entire depart­ can Federation of Teachers, is consid­ The fact that the board backed off was held at Queens College on Septem­ ment." ering strike action on the grounds that from imposing tuition immediately is a ber 16, when 2,000 students and Jay Hershenson, president of the the board of higher education has victory for CUNY students and fac­ faculty rallied against the cuts. University Student Senate, chaired the violated its contract through staff cuts ulty, but only a partial one. The Queens brought an impressive con­ rally and led the demonstrators in and increased class loads. proposal was tabled, not defeated, and tingent of twenty busloads to the city­ chants of "No cuts, no way; open Sam Manuel, coordinator of the New may be recalled at any time. It will wide demonstration. Cheers rang out admissions is here to stay!" York Student Coalition Against Rac­ take continued strong protests, involv­ from the picket lines as each bus pulled Belle Zeller, president of the PSC, ism, which played a big role in ing even greater numbers of students, up and demonstrators poured out. stressed the importance of student­ building the demonstration, drew ap­ faculty, and other supporters of free · 1 The head of the Queens College faculty unity in the fight against the plause when he linked the antibusing higher education, to stop the cutbacks linguistics department sought out a cuts. "You have the key to the situa- violence in Boston and Louisville to and squelch the tuition plan. Gay rights fighter 'unfit,' rules air force brass By Nancy Cole er. This regulation has frequently been contended that his homosexuality A three-member panel of air force used, Lawton said, to suppress political should not disqualify him from service. officers ruled September 19 that Sgt. views. In summing up the govemment's Leonard Matlovich is unfit for military "They call it 'inability to adapt,' and case against retaining Matlovich, Col. service because he is a homosexual. it covers everything from not being James Applegate emphasized that the Matlovich, who for twelve years has allowed to talk about the Socialist sergeant had refused on the stand to had an outstanding record in the air Workers Party to saying you can't renounce his homosexuality and had force, admitted his homosexuality in a grow a beard," the Post quoted Lawton not agreed to "contract to be celibate." letter to air force officials last March. as saying. "Sgt. Matlovich deserves his human His challenge to the air force regula­ Another sergeant, David Irwin, dignity," Applegate said, "but the air tion banning homosexuals led to a added, "This goes further than homo­ force deserves its organizational digni­ four-day hearing that resulted in the sexuals. They [air force officials] think ty as the air force determines it to be." panel's recommendation for a general women can't do jobs too." "We are going to win," Matlovich discharge. told a group of forty airmen who applauded him as he left the hearing. The case has stirred ~P quite a In addition to his assigned military controversy at Langley Air Force Base defense counsel, Matlovich has two "It was my personal loss. But it's in Hampton, Virginia, where Matlo­ civilian attomeys, David Addlestone, going to be our victory." · vich was stationed. And for some it is from the American Civil Liberties If a review by air force higher-ups seen as even more than a challenge to Union, and Susan Newman. does not result in his reinstatement, the air force ban on homosexuals. During the hearing, extensive testi­ Matlovich will take his case to the "It could be the breaking point" of mony was given from psychiatric federal courts, charging that the regu­ air force regulation 39-12, Sgt. Jerry experts and from Matlovich's military SGT. LEONARD MATLOVICH: 'We are lation violates his constitutional rights to privacy and equal protection. Lawton told a Washington Post report- students and associates. They all going to win.' Killer-cops claim another Black victim in L.A By Geoff Mirelowitz told reporters that when ·she heard and kept walking toward his house, "The tragic shooting of Larry Willis LOS ANGELES-In the early morn- gunshots she ran outside and saw the they chased and grabbed him. must be answered by a response from ing hours of September 14, Los An- cops holding her son Robert on the Robert· was subsequently taken to the Black community. We must serve geles police terror claimed another ground. He was telling them he didn't the hospital to be treated for injuries notice on the Los Angeles Police victim. Larry Willis, a twenty-year-old have a gun. Then she tumed and saw he received at the hands of the cops. Department that we will not stand for Black, was gunned down by two cops Larry dead on the porch. After the He was not booked on any charge. more racist shootings or victimiza- as he stood on his back porch. shooting, she said, the cops came into The shooting of Larry Willis is one tions. We have to begin to organize to Willis had gone out on the porch the house and found a gun in the more episode in a wave of racist police fight back." because he heard the sounds of a closet. crime directed at the Black community scuffle in the back yard. He saw two Larry's brother Louis said, "They in this city. Plans are under way for an October policemen wrestling his brother Robert came inside and ransacked until they In the past eighteen months there 6 rally demanding a halt to police to the ground. The cops saw Willis on found the gun. That is when they got have been seventy-five killings by crimes against Blacks. Initial sponsors the porch, wheeled around,. and their story together." police in Los Angeles County. As yet of the rally include SCAR, the South­ pumped seven bullets into his body. Why were the cops there in the first not one cop has been brought to trial, em Christian Leadership Conference, They claimed they shot because they place? They claim they tried to stop much less convicted. the Southem Califomia Alliance saw him pointing a rifle at them. · Robert to question him about a stab- Laura Moorhead, coordinator of the Against Racist and Political Repres­ Carrie Willis, mother of both youths, bing that had taken place in the area. Los Angeles Student Coalition Against sion, and the Philip Allen Defense flatly contradicted the cops' story. She When he didn't hear them calling him Racism (SCAR), told the Militant, Committee.

THE MILITANT/OCTOBER 3, 1975 25 5WP ~:anuentian: the light far Bla1:k liberation today

More than 1,600 attended recent SWP convention Militant/Henry Snipper I

By Wendy Lyons defender of the Boston Black community's demo­ of class consciousness and solidarity, and the "We view the Boston Black community's fight for cratic rights. It has become a central defender of all advancement of all workers." school desegregation as a test case of national Blacks' democratic rights on a national scale." Racism is also used by the rulers as a justification importance. Boston is a harbinger of future NSCAR has been involved in the Joanne Little for imperialist aggression against nonwhite peoples struggles," Malik Miah told the recent. national defense; the J.B. Johnson defense; demonstrations around the world. convention of the Socialist Workers party. against police terror in Detroit and Los Angeles; the Miah is national chairperson of the Young fight against cutbacks in funds for education in Struggles forced concessions Socialist Alliance. He presented a report to the New York and New England; the struggle for Black, Thomas described how the massive radicalization convention on the activities and perspectives of the Puerto Rican, and Chinese control of the schools in and mobilizations of the Black community in the YSA in its work in support of the National Student New York's school District One; and desegregation 1950s and 1960s forced the capitalist class to make Coalition Against Racism (NSCAR). battles in other cities. major concessions such as abolishing Jim Crow Miah's report, along with a report by Tony Miah described NSCAR as a "united-front coali­ and passing laws granting legal equality in jobs i Thomas on the draft resolution "The Fight for tion made up of organizations and individuals who and housing. Black Liberation, the Current Stage and Its Tasks," are for busing and school desegregation and who In addition, "they opened up the Democratic provided the framework for an extensive discussion are opposed to racism." party to literally thousands of Black politicians in "NSCAR has a mass-action orientation," he said. an effort to make it appear that capitalist politics is This is the third of four articles on the recent "It says everyone opposed to racism should join us a solution to the problems of the Black community." Socialist Workers party convention. and we will fight together hand in hand, despite But the capitalists have always seen full equality differences that may exist over such questions as for Blacks as a threat to their interests, he pointed of the Black struggle and the role of the revolution­ where racism comes ·from or how it can ultimately out. "To solve this problem," Thomas said, they rely ary party in that struggle. be ended." on the "system of de facto segregation: combining Miah described the history of the battle over support to Black equality in law-in words-and in school busing in Boston. 'Long-term test of strength' a few partial and limited actions, with a refusal to When racist forces mobilized to stop busing a year In his report on the Black liberation resolution, implement Black rights." ago-stoning buses carrying Black students and Tony Thomas said, "The struggle going on in The events in Boston highlight the contradictory actually forming lynch mobs at times-the Black Boston and other antiracist struggles are part of a position the ruling class finds itself in with regard community was unprepared to respond to the long-term test of strength" over whether or not the to the Black population. The rulers cannot afford to reactionaries. gains Blacks won in the struggles of the 1950s and openly renounce the legal gains of the civil rights The racists were backed up by the Democratic 1960s will be wiped away. movement because they fear a political explosion in party machine that runs Boston. The ruling class, Thomas said, "is not willing to the Black communities. At the same time, they're implement demands for Black equality, because this not willing to really implement the demands for Ford for racists would challenge the political, social, and economic equality. The city council chambers were turned over to the roots of racism, which are decisive to continued racists for their weekly meetings. President Ford capitalist economic and political power in this came out on their side by announcing that he, too, country." was opposed to busing. The resolution, which was presented to the "What was needed/' said Miah, "was a national convention by the outgoing SWP National Commit­ response-a national show of force in Boston-that tee, describes how the capitalists benefit from the would tell the racists that they didn't own the racist oppression of Blacks. Blacks are part of streets of Boston." This was the perspective the capitalism's industrial reserve force of the unem­ SWP and YSA projected. ployed. They are drawn into the labor market in "Our line was one of countermobilizations to the times of economic upswing and laid off during racists .... We understood from the beginning that downturns. Their lower wages help keep down the only such action would be able to demoralize the wage levels of all workers. racist forces, split their ranks, and ultimately lead Thomas cited statistics compiled by the National to their defeat." Urban League that show that one out of four Black The YSA helped initiate a student committee to workers is out of work during the present crisis. At help build the December 14 national march against least 60 percent of Black youth are unemployed. racism in Boston last winter. This student commit­ The capitalist class reaps billions of dollars by tee laid the basis for the founding of the National paying Blacks lower wages and forcing them to pay Student Coalition Against Racism at a conference higher rents for poorer housing, and to attend run­ in February 1975. down schools. At that conference Boston NAACP President The rulers also use racism to divide the working Thomas Atkins issued the call for a May 17 class. They make white workers believe that their national march on Boston to support the Black relatively better conditions, compared to Blacks, community's right to equal education. The massive can be maintained by keeping Blacks down rather demonstration that occurred on May 17 dealt a blow than by fighting against the capitalist system. The to the racists. resolution says, "To the extent they. hold this In the six months since it was formed, Miah said, attitude, white workers are led to view the unions as MALIK MIAH: 'We see Boston as a harbinger of future "not only has the student coalition been a leading white job-trusts, which undercuts the development struggles.'

26 "With the development of the economic depres­ democratic rights 'ofall workers. Racist codewords · whether through the formation of an independent sion," said Thomas, "we've seen a stiffening of such as 'law and order' and 'crime in the streets' Black party or as part of the development of a labor resistance to attempts to implement Black equality. have been used to justify strengthening police party based on the trade unions.. While the capitalists are not prepared to try to forces and restricting civil liberties. . . . The resolution ends by discussing the need for a impose nationally the program of racists like "If the· working class is not united against mass revolutionary party in order to bnng about a George Wall ace or Louise Day Hicks, they look capitalist attacks, it will be crushed. Unity can be socialist revolution and win Black liberation. "In favorably on their actions insofar as they push achieved only by winning the workers movement to order to win against the centralized class," it says, back the militancy, self-confidence, and power of a policy of complete and unconditional support to "there must be a single combat party, overwhelm­ the Black community and make the Black masses the struggle of Afro-Americans." ingly proletarian, which is composed of cadres less likely to push for their rights." The resolution notes that while the privileged from every nationality that makes up this country, In Boston, Thomas recalled, the struggle started position of whites at the expense of Blacks makes that can coordinate and lead the workers, the Black with a decision by the federal court-a ruling-class achieving such unity more difficult, the way out of people, and all their allies in the struggle for power. institution-to implement desegregation. This was the impasse can be seen by viewing the common "This mass revolutionary party must have deep a reflection of the capitalists' policy of appearing to interests Black and white workers have. They roots in the Black masses or it will surely fail." support civil rights in order to moderate the Black "have a very significant thing in common," the movement. resolution states, "-an enemy that economically Revolutionary socialist party' The r,acist attempt to obstruct the busing order by and politically dominates them and benefits from "The Socialist Workers party is the nucleus of this violent means "was tolerated by the federal and their divisions." future mass revolutionary socialist party. The SWP local governments up to a point. However, we is the only par.ty that understands the combined should note that the government is neither able nor character of the coming revolution and has charted 'Transform the unions' a program that links the immediate and day-to-day willing to simply support racist mob violence as it "We say a fight has to be waged to transform the did in the South after Reconstruction. They are struggles of Blacks and all the workers with the · unions int9 weapons that can be used to advance struggle for power. In order for the SWP to carry out .under pressure from Blacks, and the image they the Black struggle," Thomas said. "We have to get have to maintain is one of providing a modicum of its tasks, it must become more deeply rooted in the the unions tO fight racism in hiring, promotions, Black masses and in their struggles." protection to the Black community against the upgrading, layoffs, and in representation of Blacks racists. · From the number of Black activists who spoke at in the union leaderships. We've got to get the unions "While Ford and other government leaders may the delegated sessions and workshops at the SWP to support Black struggles like school desegregation convention, as leaders of struggles around such give encouragement to the racists by agreeing with and defense of frame-up victims like Joanne Little, their opposition to busing, the government is still issues as Boston busing, freeing Joanne Little, and and we've got to get them to enter the fight against police terror-it was clear that the party is becom­ unable to make major moves on their side." cutbacks in social services on which the Black The atmosphere generated by the racist resist­ ing more deeply rooted in the struggles of the Black community depends." masses. ance to busing has led to the growth of groups such Thomas predicted that one of the focuses of as the Ku Klux Klan and even the Nazi sects. Thomas ended his report by saying, "The course developing opposition to the present labor bureau­ However, at this stage these forces do not play a we project coming out of this convention . . . is cracy would be all-Black or Black-based caucuses major role. "The ruling class," noted Thomas, going to make us become a party that not only fighting for Black rights. "needs a more flexible policy toward Blacks than supports the struggle of the oppressed nationalities Thomas noted that new tests have confronted the Louise Day Hicks-much less the Klan or the but is made up of leading fighters in those Black movement, which have affected all of the Nazis-can provide. struggles. organizations fighting for Black rights. An example "The revolt of the new racism places the ruling "Right now we're finding more Black poeple who is the role of the NAACP tod~y. During the 1960s it class in a dilemma, between their need to maintain want to fight and are looking to us to provide a way declined while other civil rights organizations grew. a pretense of supporting Black equality and the · to fight. One of the most important things we can But today, while many of the other organizations necessity of blocking the drive to implement Black do coming out of this convention is to do everything have disappeared or dwindled, the NAACP has equality." we can to bring Black militants into our party and grown and attracted around it many of the people "To fight back against the racist attacks," bring our party into their struggle." who are leading this stage of the fight for Black Thomas said, the antiracist forces "should under­ rights. stand how to take advantage of that dilemma. In The NAACP is now willing to engage in direct particular we must take advantage of the fact that actions such as the May 17 demonstration. "The most Black rights to equality have the law of the IN THE FIGHT NAACP," Thomas said, "has been on the front land behind them." lines in fights around the two key questions in the AGAINST WAR, fight against racism today-busing and preferential JOID RACISM, AND Dual struggle hiring. It was the NAACP that developed the EXPLOITATION \ Thomas discussed the relationship between the concept of affirmative action and helped to extend it struggle for Black rights and the struggle of the to the struggle against discriminatory layoffs, and working class as a whole. it· is the NAACP that has been involved in the us IN THE FIGHT "The development of the radicalization among major school desegregation suits around the coun­ FOR A SOCIALIST Black workers will take a dual form," Thomas said. try." "It will be a struggle for equality and political The NAACP is on a big recruiting drive now. "We AMERICA power as a people, and a struggle against economic believe," Thomas said, "that all NSCAR activists, exploitation as a section of the working class." militant unionists, women's liberation fighters, and The resolution reaffirmed the SWP's position that people fighting for Black control of the Black the coming American revolution will be a combined community should be members of the NAACP. revolution-a revolution to end capitalist exploita­ They should become participants in the life and tion of the working class as a whole and a struggles of the largest organization that is fighting revolution for self-determination for Blacks. in the interests of Blacks." The resolution says that "the centuries of oppres­ The Black community, Thomas said, has been in sion of Black people have welded them into a a state of "demobilization" because of the weaken­ distinct nationality with an identity that differen­ ing of the Black movement through the combined tiates them both from other oppressed nationalities ruling-class tactics of co-optation and brutal repres­ in this country and from white Americans." sion. Neither the American revolution of 1776 nor the Key to the strategy of turning this around, he Civil War and Reconstruction resulted in full said, is "projecting actions in response to the racist equality for Black people, the resolution points out. offensive-actions that can renew confidence in the Therefore, the "democratic task of providing equali­ struggle for Black rights." He cited as models the ty, left over from the past, has been handed down to May 17 demonstration and more recent actions in the present generation for solution. This historic Boston in defense of school desegregation. default of the bourgeoisie has to be corrected by the progressive anticapitalist forces of our time." Thus Independent Black political action the working-class socialist revolution will be ines­ A major obstacle to the advancement of the Black JOID THE capably intertwined with the struggles of Blacks. struggle, he noted, is that most Black people still "The size, social weight, and· nationalist con­ look to the Democratic party for solutions to the sciousness of the Black population indicate that the problems they face. SOEIALIST coming American revolution, as part of carrying The resolution pointS to the need for Blacks to through the democratic task of equalizing opportu­ break with the Democratic party: "Black participa­ nities in all aspects of social life, will also be a tion in the Democratic party is totally unrealistic revolution for the self-determination of Black because it advises Blacks to operate within an WORKERS people; that is, the Black people will have th~ right institution which is one of the main instruments for to decide for themselves what state form they need upholding the economic and social system that to guarantee their complete liberation from racial perpetuates the oppression and exploitation of oppression." · Black _.people. The financial power and behind-the­ PARTV scenes intervention of the big corporations far Racism and capitalism outweigh any influence Black people can exert in ( ) I would like to join Racism is against the interests of all workers­ such an organization. ( ) Send me more information including white workers. The rulers use racism to "The proof of this is that, since the number of Name------~------divide the working class and deflect opposition from Black Democratic politicians and officials increased the capitalist system, which is the real source of by the hundreds in the late 1960s, there has been no Address------~ their misery, oy trying to "convince white workers consequent increase in the concessions granted to City ______State ______...... L.ip ____ that they have a racial interest as whites opposed to the Black community." Blacks rather than a class interest as workers Thomas noted that as the radicalization deepens Telephone ------­ opposed to the capitalists. among Blacks, and it becomes more apparent that Mail today to: SWP, 14 Charles Lane, New York, "Racism is also used to whip up support for the Democratic party offers no solutions, we can N.Y. 10014. increasing political repression and restricting the expect moves to break with the capitalist parties,

THE MILITANT/OCTOBER 3, 1975 27 Democrat, ReP-ublican OJlpose busing Cleve. SWP nominee backs NAACP suit By Ernest Mailhot action "a chrulenge to all supporters of problem, the socialist candidates have CLEVELAND-Mayor Ralph Perk equal rights and equal opportunities focused on police brutality, unemploy­ openly joined the ranks of the racist for Blacks in Cleveland." ment, and the deteriorating quality of antibusing movement September 14 by Among the defendants in the life in Cleveland. announcing his intention to use the NAACP desegregation suit is Demo­ During the summer, Cleveland resources of city hall to combat the cratic mayoral hopeful . Arnold Pin­ Blacks and their supporters strongly Cleveland NAACP's school kri.ey, who is president of the board of protested the police murders of three desegregation suit. Perk requested that education. A leading Black politician Black men, Dwain Hawkins, Derrick the city be named as a defendant in and an aide to former mayor Carl Browne, and Walter Saunders. The the suit, which is scheduled to be heard Stokes, Pinkney also is an opponent of socialist candidates have issued a call here in federal court November 10. busing. While proclaiming his support for an independent commission of The NAACP has proved beyond to desegregation in general, Pinkney inquiry, controlled by the Black com­ question that the Cleveland school points to the racist violence in Boston munity, into these killings and other system represents a classic case of and Louisville as an argument against instances of police violence . . segregated education. Supporting docu­ the use of busing for school desegrega: The socialists have also called for an ments filed with the suit show that in tion. He has failed to offer any alterna­ emergency public works program to 152 of Cleveland's 170 schools,the tive to accomplish desegregation. provide immediate relief for the thou­ student bodies are either 90-100 percent Perk also uses this argument as a sands of residents of Cleveland who white or 90-100 percent Black. justification for his opposition to are denied adequate housing, transpor­ In a news conference held three days busing. According to Perk, "Busing tation, health, and recreational facili­ prior to Perk's antibusing announce­ endangers the safety of the communi­ ties. ment, Robert Bresnahan, Socialist ty." The "nonpartisan" primary election Workers party candidate for mayor, Pinkney's refusal to answer Perk on is September 30. Bresnahan and Gauv­ issued a call for support to the desegre­ busing lends weight to the racists' reau are winding up a campaign that gation struggles of Blacks in Boston MilitanVJanice Cline contention that busing violates their has included going to high schools, and Louisville. Bresnahan pointed to BRESNAHAN: 'Any compromise with right to "neighborhood schools." Pink­ plant gates, a housing project for the the connection between the desegrega­ racists will only encourage them to ney has gone so far as to use the term elderly, and the welfare department. tion issue in those two cities and the escalate violence.' "forced busing," which was coined by During the last week of the cam­ NAACP suit for desegregation of racist opponents of desegregation such paign, activities will include a debate Cleveland schools. prevails in American education, and as Boston's Louise Day Hicks. between Bresnahan and his mayoral "Any compromise with these racists that includes Cleveland, Ohio," Bres­ In contrast, Bresnahan and Gauv­ opponents at the City Club, participa­ will only encourage them to escalate nahan said. reau have used their campaigns to tion in a picket line protesting sexist their violence. . . . What they are Later, in a reply to Perk, Bresnahan explain the importance of the NAACP hiring practices at Riviotta Cartage, fighting for is the preservation of the and Christine Gauvreau, SWP candi­ suit. Although Perk and Pinkri.ey have and a socialist campaign rally on system of forced segregation that date for school board, termed Perk's stated that crime is the city's major September 27. Socialists open South Side Chicago storefront By Elizabeth Stone "Right here in the fifth ward-, Reid Socialist Workers 1976 presidential CHICAGO, Sept. 20-A celebration got 14.5 percent of the vote," he said. ticket as well as a center for state and of the opening of the new Socialist "In five precincts in this ward, she local campaigns, regular forums on Workers party campaign headquarters outpolled the Republican candidate, topics of interests to the community, on Chicago's South Side was held here and in two precincts she beat 'Boss' and classes on socialism. yesterday with a reception, a program Daley. In wards that are majority­ The headquarters will also house a of speakers, and lots of applause and Black around the city she got 5 percent bookstore and will provide a meeting cheers. of the vote." place and office for the Young Socialist By the time the program began, the Lampkin said the new headquarters Alliance. storefront headquarters, at 1754 East will be used as an organizing center to Fifty-fifth Street, was overflowing with reach out to more people on the South It was announced that the headquar­ people. Cecil Lampkin, moderator for Side with the socialist alternative. ters will be open every day and the evening, welcomed everyone ·and everyone at the meeting was invited to explained why a second Socialist Linda Jenness, 1972 Socialist Work­ drop in to participate in various Workers campaign headquarters was ers party candidate for president and activities and browse in the bookstore. being opened in Chicago. columnist for the Militant, was the The meeting ended with a taped Lampkin pointed to the growing featured speaker for the evening. She message from Willie Mae Reid. Reid, interest in socialisf ideas and the pinpointed the crisis of the economy as who lived on the South Side for many deepening disillusionment with the one of the main reasons for the years, came across loud and clear on Democratic and Republican parties as increasing interest in socialism and the tape. the reason for the expansion of the explained the program advocated by "Hello Chicago. . . . How I wish I socialist movement. He mentioned the the SWP to deal with the effects of this was there with you. . . . A Socialist , success of last spring's campaign of crisis. Workers Campaign headquarters on Willie Mae Reid for mayor as an South Side SWP organizer Suzanne the South Side is something I've example of this, pointing in particular Haig described the activities that will dreamed about for a long time, and to the election results in the area where be. organized from the new hall. It will now its finally happening! . . . Best of Suzanne Haig, South Side Chicago SWP the new headquarters is located. be a campaign headquarters for the luck to you in this endeavor." organizer.

By Stacey Seigle executive director with references to At .a well-attended news conference PORTLAND, Ore.-The Socialist other files maintained on "militants." that same day, SWP mayoral candi­ Ore. judge Workers party won a temporary re­ Both the police and Portland Mayor date George Kontanis denounced the straining order September 10 prevent­ Neil Goldschmidt have refused to even police and city administration for ing the Portland Police Department acknowledge the existence of files on violating the constitutional rights of tells cops: from destroying any political files kept the SWP. the citizens of Portland. on the SWP. Attorney Eldon Rosenthal The ACLU then asked Multliomah "What are [Police Chief] Bruce Baker of the American Civil Liberties Union County District Attorney Harl Haas to and [Mayor] Neil Goldschmidt afraid had requested the court order as part of order release of the files. On September of!" asked Kontanis. "That these files don't shred the socialists' fight to gain access to 4 Haas issued an opinion ordering the will disclose a Portland Watergating of these secret files. police to inform the SWP whether or the SWP and its campaign supporters A recently enacted Oregon statute not files exist. If they do exist, Haas as the FBI and CIA revelations have spy files prohibits intelligence-gathering agen­ suggested in his opinion, the police will indicated on a national level? cies from keeping secret files on the probably be able to avoid disclosing "We think that Oregonians have the political, social, or religious views of the files under provision of the public right to know the contents of the police an organization or individual unless records act exempting records "com­ department's secret files on the SWP, investigation relating to criminal ac­ piled for criminal law purposes." that the cover-up by city officials must tivity is under way. The September 10 be ended, and that the blatant viola­ court order will legally prevent the The police department, however, has tion of our constitutional rights must police from using this law as an excuse refused to abide by Haas's minimal be stopped." to destroy or withhold political files on order. They informed attorney Ros­ In addition to the order restraining SWP members. enthal September 10 that the depart­ the police from destroying their files on The socialists have been trying to ment would not admit or deny the the SWP, Rosenthal has filed a motion see their files since June, when police existence of intelligence files on the seeking to have the contents of the released a file on the local ACLU SWP. files made public.

28 Interview at Gallo Chicanas explain what UFW means to them By Harry Ring LOS ANGELES-When the union representation election was held at the Gallo vineyard in Livingston, I visited the United Farm Workers headquar­ ters there. I was seated in the hall waiting for a union representative to return when one of the people working in the kitchen asked me if I would like something to eat. The fragrant spice of menudo was drifting out, and I accepted the invita­ tion. While I enjoyed a bowl of the soup, I talked with the young woman who offered it to me and another woman who was working with her. They turned out to be sisters. They were from the Livingston area and are now going to school, one at a local community college, the other in Sacra­ mento. They also devote much of their time to working with the union, as does their farm worker mother. Santa Lambaren is twenty-five and the mother of two children. Her sister, Rosenda Yeo, is twenty-two. They are part of a large family. When they were children the family was split up. For many years the two were separated. They recalled when they were still together as children and the family was in the fields. They picked prunes most of the time, they said. But they also picked tomat­ oes, peaches, apricots, and other fruits. -"We had to carry heavy ladders and work out in the sun all day. You had to MilitanVArnold Weissberg work for what you got. You didn't have Santa Lambaren (left) and Rosenda Yeo. 'I feel like everything is connected-the oppression of farm workers and the any choice in your pay," Rosenda said. oppression of everybody,' Rosenda said. "You'd work all summer just to have two dresses for school and a pair of shoes," Santa added. She recalled that when Rosenda was very small "she At college Santa became actively the person a better person-to feel good women are just not where they could always got a bloody nose out in the hot involved in a farm worker support about herself." be. They could be more active, lots sun, so we had to put her in a little group. Then she came back down to Santa said she felt the UFW would more talkative, in more of a leadership wagon and just push her. There was Livingston and found her sister and have an impact on the entire Chicano role." me, my other sister, and my mother mother also actively involved in the movement. "Just looking at how far Of course, she added, it's not realistic Working together. My sister had to get movement. the UFW has come," she said, "it gives to expect someone to overcome a up and strip the trees while I picked you the confidence that you can go out lifetime of oppression in an instant. the prunes and dumped the buckets. there and do it, and that it can be done But "you get tired of warming up the My mother would give us the confi­ 'All boycotting' tortillas," she said. dence to keep going." in a peaceful way. That's what's im­ "When we saw each other again," portant." Are other women getting tired of Then the family separated. Santa warming their tortillas? went up north, where she married. Her she said, "we were all boycotting, She said she takes her nine-year-old father-in-law owned a small· tomato picketing." daughter to the picket lines and has "I think some of them are already. I ranch, but he was an open and When Rosenda started high school, taken her to hear Chavez speak. "I think some women have already outspoken partisan of the UFW. The her stepfather applied for a job with want her to grow up seeing what the reached the point where they think people go through," she said. "I took white ranchers and businesspeople in Gallo. They told him they would hire they can do more. Their vote is just as her to see films about the brutality." the area gave them a very hard time. him only if the entire family would important-and they realize it, too." work. He said no, he wanted the Santa talked ·about how her involve­ They were on the verge of bankruptcy. Impact on women But a lot of other people befriended children to go to school. ment in the movement has made her them, and they made it through. Rosenda got involved with a local We discussed the impact of the farm aware of the broader world around her club that supported the farm workers. workers movement on women. "You and of the big social problems. They made a trip down to· Delano, can already see some of the changes," "Before, I used to be afraid to ask where hearing Cesar Chavez speak Santa said. "Women are so involved questions," she said. "Now I'm eager Camejo backs made a deep impression on her. She right now in the UFW. I think more to find out about everything." became active. changes. can be made. I don't think Santa said she joined with the there will be any more oppression of UFWeffort strikers during the 1973 battles in the women. I don't see why. I hope not, 'Everything is connected' NEW YORK-Socialist Workers grape fields. anyway." Rosenda joined in. "I feel like every­ party presidential candidate Peter "What struck me," she recalled, "was Rosenda added, "Cesar's up there, thing is connected-the oppression of Camejo issued a statement Septem­ the beatings people got. That's what but Dolores [Huerta] is up there too. farm workers and the oppression of ber 24 in which he pledged to really made me think. You'd see fields The people know he's working, but everybody. If you're going to deal with support the United Farm Workers' like this, with the police out there, and they know she's working just as hard. the strike, you have to deal with why_ "just cause and to urge people to the police officers would look at you You see a lot of women out there. there is a strike. It makes you question. boycott grapes, lettuce, and Gallo like you're next. That's what scared They're the ones that are really trying Pretty soon you're saying, 'This guy up wine until contracts are signed." me. That's what made me think you to hustle." there is doing this. That's why they're "I call on the California Agricul­ have to stick with it. People shouldn't "They're also the ones that take the doing it to you.' " tural Labor Relations Board to be beat up just because they want to slander," Santa added, "and a lot more Returning to la causa, Santa said, "I enforce the law," Camejo said, "and form a union to see things get better." of the brutality. I think the men see it just hope it stops the oppression of to act to protect UFW organizers Rosenda talked about what the UFW that way too. I've never had an people. I hope they let my people go. against grower and Teamster at­ could become. "It could be something experience in the UFW where--a man That's all. That we start building tacks and harassment so that demo­ strong," she said. "The will of the put me down because I was a woman. cratic elections will be possible. something and doing things instead of people. Not just something you pay "I think we've shown them they always being down. That we finally "UFW organizers must have ac­ your dues to, and if you get sick; r~ally need us," Santa continued. come up and breathe the clean air." cess to the fields in all of the maybe a medical benefit. Something to "We've shown them what we can do, Rosenda said, "I just hope it helps upcoming elections or the farm be involved in, to want to see it grow." too." the whole psychological thing about workers will be cheated of their She continued, "Like Cesar says it's Rosenda added a point. "It's really feeling bad about what you are-if rights and the new labor law will be a movement for dignity-for a farm hard because you see that there is a you're Brown or poor white or Black. reduced to a hoax. Harassment by worker to- say 'I'm a · farm worker' change, but it really is not that much "If the UFW can do even a litte bit photographers and security guards, without feeling like shit. Not to think of a change. You still see a lot of the for that, that will be a great inspira­ intimidation at polling places, and that because he's a farm worker he's time that the men will be sitting down tion to many people who wanted to get deportations by the Immigration dirt. For it to be a respectable kind of and the women will be in the kitchen something and for some reason were and Naturalization Service of un­ living, not looked down on as it always or watching the kids. held back. Maybe they'll say, 'They did documented Mexican workers who has been in the past. "There are a lot of women there," she it. They got it together. Let's see what sign up with the UFW must end:" "And," she emphasized, "to make continued, "but you think a lot of we can do.' "

THE MILITANT/OCTOBER 3, :1975 29 TWIN CITIES ever comcdnto the fields to ask him to them, they're afraid they might break i SOCIALISt WORKERS PARTY CAMPAIGN RAL- sign a card, he told of one experience in at night." . • LV. Speakers: Willie Mae Reid, SWP vice­ presidential candidate; Mary Hillery, candidate for that he said occurred at a lettuce ranch In other words, Blacks are responsi­ mayor; Gary Prevost, candidate for Fifth Ward, City in late 1972 or early 1973. ble for all the problems. Apparently • Calendar Council; a representative of Hennepin County "There were Teamster organizers Zeidler got the nomination because of , ATLANTA Women's Political Caucus. Sat., Oct. 4. Refresh­ who went with the foremen into the his proven vote-getting ability, but CRISIS IN ATLANTA'S SCHOOLS. A panel ments, 6 p.m.; dinner, 7 p.m.; program, 8 p.m.; party fields," he testified. "They kept talk­ some Socialist party members may discussion including: Bill Overton, president, Atlan­ to follow. 25 University Ave., S.E., Mpls. Donation: ta Association of Educators; and Willie Bolden, $3.50, meal; $1.00, rally. Ausp: Socialist Workers ing, s~ying, 'Do you want us to find his views embarrassing. AFSCME Local 1644 representative. Fri., Oct. 3, 8 1975-76 Campaign Committee. For more informa­ represent you?' The convention adopted a very p.m. 68 Peachtree St. Donation: $1. Ausp: Militant tion call (612) 332-7781. "The people didn't want to hear general program. Among its many Bookstore Forum. For more information call (404) them," Alvarez continued, "because weaknesses was a failure to say 523-0610. WASHINGTON, D.C. MIDEAST ACCORD: PEACE OR NEW WAR? they knew they already had the anything about the struggle to desegre­ CLEVELAND Speakers: Rick Berman, youth support director for contract signed." gate the schools, the fight against . REVOLUTIONARY POTENTIAL OF THE STU­ Socialist Workers 1976 National Campaign Commit­ "They [the Teamsters] left," he discriminatory layoffs, the Equal DENT MOVEMENT. Speakers: Jeff Feather, Bucky tee; and an Arab student. Fri., Oct. 3, 8 p.m. 1345 E added, "because we wouldn't listen to Rights Amendment, or the need to Kahn, Shirley Pasholk, Melissa Singler, Nancy Street N.W., Fourth Floor. Donation: $1. Ausp: eliminate the war budget. It put Stemmer. Fri., Oct. 3, 8 p.~. 2300 Payne Ave. Militant Forum. For more information call (202) 783- them." Donation: $1. Ausp: Militant Forum. For more 2391. "Then," he said, "the foremen began forward no proposals for fighting un- ! information call (216) 861-4166. to push the people to sign. In the fields employment. nobody would sign. But people were LOS ANGELES saying they had to go sign at the RALLY TO LAUNCH 1976 SOCIALIST CAM­ DICK ROBERTS PAIGN. Speakers: Omari Musa, 1974 SWP congres­ foreman's house. They were going to sional candidate in L.A.; Olga Rodriguez, member give back pay now but the one who YSA National Committee; Roland Sheppard, 1975 ... UFW didn't sign wouldn't get the back pay. SWP candidate for San Francisco mayor. Sat., Oct. Continued from back page "I didn't want to sign that paper," Capitalism 4, 7:30 p.m. 4040 Washington Blvd. (at Washington Square shopping center). Ausp: Socialist Workers He 'added: "They [his staff] signed Alvarez added quietly, "because I 1976 California Campaign. For more information them up at home, on the street, asked the foreman to show me the in Crisis call (213) 483-1512. wherever they happened to be." contract and he didn't show me the The UFW witness at the hearing contract. I didn't sign." Capitalism in Crisis cuts through the NEW YORK: UPPER WEST SIDE presented a damning indictment of mystique that surrounds the THE UNITED FARM WORKERS. Speaker: Julie Through a clerical error, Alvarez got Kerksick, Manhattan coordinator, UFW; film, Fight­ how the WGA and the Teamsters his back pay anyway. Shortly after­ government's economic policies. ing for Our Lives. Fri., Oct. 3, 8 p.m. 2726 Broadway operate. wards it was time to move on. At the Roberts explains why the (at 104th St.). Donation: $1. Ausp: West Side The witness was Avila Alvarez, a next ranch they simply started deduct­ government has been unable to Militant Forum. For more information call (212) 663- worker from Mexico who has picked ing his Teamster dues. control inflation, and shows the 3000. lettuce in the Salinas and Imperial There was a small, fitting touch at forces behind the international PHILADELPHIA Valley areas for the past five years. the hearing. Mter Grami finished economic crisis. 128 pp., cloth $6, REVOLUTIONARY UPSURGE IN PORTUGAL: Answering questions through an testifying he went over and sat down paper $1.95. WHAT NEXT? Speakers: Wayne Johnson, recently interpreter, Alvarez explained how-in next to the representative of the returned from Portugal; Sirafim Santos, Angolan order to work-he had been compelled Order from Pathfinder Press, 410 Student Union; Barry David, SWP. Fri., Oct. 3, 8 Western Growers Association. They p.m. 1004 Filbert (one block north of Market St.) on several jobs to sign Teamster sat together until the hearing ended. West Street, New York, N.Y. 10014. Donation: $1. Ausp: SWP and YSA. For more "authorization" cards. This made him information call (215) WAS-4316. a "member"' only to the extent that eight dollars a month in dues was ST. LOUIS deducted from his wages. SOCIALIST CAMPAIGN RALLY AND BANQUET. Featured speaker: Peter Camejo, SWP 1976 presi­ A thoughtful man who obviously dential candidate. Fri., Oct. 3, 7 p.m. St. Stephen's measures his words, Alvarez answered ... Zeidler Life in Church (14th & Park). Donation: $1. Ausp: Missouri most questions briefly. Continued from page 24 '76 Socialist Workers Campaign Comm. For more Asked if he had ever seen a Teamster squad." Its job was to spy on and information call (314) 367-0463. contract, he replied, "No, not yet." harass trade unionists, Black activists, C::etJ)itet)i!;t SAN FRANCISCO Asked if he had wanted to join the and members of radical political or­ RALLY TO LAUNCH 1976 SOCIALIST CAM­ Teamsters, he replied simply, "No." ganizations. PAIGN. Speakers: Omari Musa, 1974 SWP congres­ Asked under cross-examination if he Zeidler was no better out of office. He Americet sional candidate in L.A.; Olga Rodriguez, member, YSA National Committee; Roland Sheppard. 1975 is a member of the UFW, Alvarez never did anything to support the civil SWP candidate for San Francisco mayor. Fri., Oct. responded, no. He had never been rights or antiwar movements. Private Profit 3. Dinner, 6:30 p.m.; rally, 8:00 p.m.; party to follow. employed on a ranch with a UFW In a recent interview printed in a 1519 Misison St. Ausp: Socialist Workers 1976 contract. He had, however, participat­ Milwaukee magazine, the Bugle­ and Social Decay California Campaign. For more information call ed in a UFW-led strike in 1970. American, Zeidler said Milwaukee's ~415) 431-8918. He testified about the various lettuce "biggest problem is the problem of Anthology,287 pp.,$10, paper $2.95. Includes "Cities in Decay," "You ' SEATTLE ranches where he had worked. On all race.... you have the blacks mad at Can't Afford To Get Sick," and UNITED FARM WORKERS REPORT ON CALI­ but one they either deducted Teamster the police because they're white, you FORNIA FIELD ELECTIONS. Speaker: Dale Van dues without his signing anything, or, have the police upset at the blacks "Insult and Injury: Growing Old In Pelt, UFW boycott organizer and delegate to recent America." UFW convention. Fri., Oct. 3, 8 p.m. 5623 University when he started work, the foreman because of that particular attitude, you signed him up in the union. have industries leaving because the Order from Pathfinder Press, 410 Way N.E. Donation: $1. Ausp: Militant Labor Forum. West Street, New York, N.Y. 10014. For more information call (206) 522-7800. Asked if Teamster organizers had poor blacks are making it insecure for Socialist Directory

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30 TEAMSTER uga Blan~:a, ______POLITICS -farrell Dobbs LADD OR DEATH The 1930s were an era of intense working-class struggle. Teamster The Peasant Struggle in Peru Politics is the story of how the unions defended their democratic "Blanco is acknowledged to be a foremost Latin American revolutionary .... authentic glimpse into a significant pocket of rights against FBI frame-ups and simmering Latin American rebellion."-Publlshers Weekly spearheaded a united struggle for jobs. 256 pp., cloth $10, paper $2.95 "A most interesting personal account-necessary reading for those involved with contemporary Latin America."-Library Journal

Also by Farrell Dobbs: "Hugo Blanco has set an example, a good example... ."-Che Guevara, Algiers, 1963 TEAMSTER REBELLION. 192 pp., LAND OR DEATH describes the conditions of peasant life and tells the fascinating story of how thousands of Quechua cloth $6.95, paper $2.25 Indians began to take back the lands stolen from them. Blanco's incisive analysis and strategy for revolutionary action TEAMSTER POWER. 255 pp., cloth make this one of the decade's most important books on Latin America. Translated by Naomi Allen with an introduction by $8.85, paper $1.95 Peter Camejo. 180 pp., $6.95, paper $2.45 Monad Press Books, distributed by Pathfinder Press, 410 West Street, Order from Pathfinder Press, 410 West Street, New York, N.Y. 10014. New York, N.Y. 10014

CALIFORNIA------Rallies to launch Spread 1976 socialist campaign Two rallies to launch. the 1976 Socialist Workers party California senatorial campaign. Speakers: Omari Musa, desegregation activist and SWP 1974 congressional candidate in Los Angeles; Olga Rodgriguez, the word! member of Young Socialist Alliance National Committee and SWP 1974 candidate for governor of California; and Roland Sheppard, SWP 1975 candidate for mayor of San Francisco. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3. Dinner, 6:30 p.m.; rally, 8 p.m.; party to follow. You can win new readers 1519 Mission St., San Francisco. For more information call (415) 431-8918. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4. Rally, 7:30 p.m. 4040 Washington Blvd. (at for the Militant. . . . Washington Square shopping center), Los Angeles. For more information call (213) 483-1512. . . . by taking a regular bundle and subscription cards to sell where you work, go to school, or where you live. Join other readers in the Militant's Officers of the Socialist Workers 1976 California Campaign-Chair­ sales campaign! person: Bruce Marcus-Treasurer: Sharon Crawford. Send me a weekly bundle of _____ I wa,nt to take a weekly sales goal of ------­ (The cost is 17 cents per copy, and we will bill you at the end of each month.) Send me a packet of prepaid subscription cards. Enclosed is: __$5 for 5 cards __$10 for 11 cards Name______Address ------RAin '76. City State Zip ___ Militant Business Office, 14 Charles Lane, New York, N.Y. 10014 Socialist Workers ·party candi­ focus of their campaign for presi­ dates Peter Camejo and Willie Mae dent and vice-president. Reid are making support of the Join them in campaigning for Equal Rights Amendment a special ratification of the ERA. Use the coupon below to order "E.R.A. in '76!" materials.

__ The Fight for Women's Rights SOCIALIST brochure (1 copy free; 2 cents each for bulk orders) ___ 'Ratify the E.R.A. in '76!' ALL lAIII poster (10 cents each; 7 cents each for 25 or more) Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Dec. 28-Jan. 1 __ 'E.R.A. in '76!' sticker (75 cents per hundred) __ 'E.R.A. in '76!' button (50 cents each; 30 cents each for 50 or more; 25 cents each for 200 or more) __ 'E.R.A. in '76!' T-shirt ($4 each. Circle size: small, medium, large, extra-large)

Clip and mail to: Socialist Workers 1976 National Campaign Commit­ tee, 14 Charles Lane, New York, New York 10014. Name ______0 Enclosed is $1 for six months of the Young Socialist. (six issues) 0 I want to attend the YSA .Convention. Please send me more information Vote Address ------­ about the Convention. City------­ 0 I want to join the YSA. Socialist State -----'-----Zip__ Name______

Address ------­ Workers Officers,.of the committee-Chairpersons: Fred Campaign Committee 14 Charles City, State, and Zip------­ Halstead, Ed Heisler, Linda Jenness. Andrew Lane, New York, N.Y. 10014 Phone Pulley-Treasurer: Andrea Morell. Clip and mail to YSA, P.O. Box 471 Cooper Station, New York, N.Y. 10003

THE MILITANT/OCTOBER 3, 1975,., 31 res' rmra, nr an rwnsr P rrrr r nz m nu z THE MILITANT • rs a1n • • • 1n I 19 By Harry Ring tionally has had greater strength. LOS ANGELES-Despite heavy ob­ The UFW potential was indicated by stacles, the United Farm Workers the first results of voting at WGA continue to register gains in their fight affiliates. to represent California field workers. The Teamsters and the UFW each On September 18 the California won elections at thirteen ranches. But Supreme Court ordered growers to the total vote was 1,814 for the UFW as permit union organizers to enter their against 1,119 for the Teamsters. fields pending a further review. At the ALRB hearing, the UFW A day earlier the newly created argued that the single-unit proposition Agricultural Labor Relations Board cof was one more expression of the efforts California ruled in favor of the UFW of the WGA-Teamster alliance to subvert the election process. For more farm worker news· see page 29. 'A sham' UFW attorney Sandy Nathan by rejecting a grower-Teamster propo­ charged that the WGA contract with sition that 156 ranches affiliated with the Teamsters was from the outset "a the Western Growers Association sham of labor relations agreements." (WGA) be voted as a single unit in "The employees of these growers," union representation elections. Nathan declared, "never, ever indicat­ And on September 19, for the first ed any preference or desire to be time, the ALRB issued complaints represented by the Western Conference against two giowers for unfair labor of Teamsters or any other Teamster practices. affiliates." Meanwhile, the UFW continued to The UFW charge was borne out by lead ·the Teamsters by a significant the testimony of the Teamster witness margin in union representation elec­ at the hearing. The Teamster represen­ tions. tative was William Grami, a smooth The result of one key election, the talker who reportedly organized the one at Gallo vineyards, is still official­ Teamster goon squads that were used ly undetermined. At stake are the votes so scandalously against UFW support­ of UFW Gallo workers who have been ers during the 1973 grape strike in on strike since 1973. Their votes were Coachella. challenged by the Teamsters. If the Grami said he now heads the Ware­ · strikers' votes are counted, as the new house and Miscellaneous Division of farm labor law provides, the UFW will the Western Conference of Teamsters. likely win the election. A public ALRB (The "miscellaneous" apparently refers hearing on the issue will be held to farm workers.) October 6 in Merced, California, near Grami asserted that before the the G~llo ranch. Teamsters put a union-shop agreement In ordering union access to the field into effect they first secured signed workers, the state supreme court lifted authorization cards from a majority of an injunction granted the growers by the workers at any given ranch. two lower courts. / That story blew up in his face when The injunction was against the found that one grower had fired a dation of workers have reached the UFW attorney Nathan questioned him ALRB. The board had ruled that if worker illegally because of his support point where the election process has about some 5,000 "authorization" there are to be fair elections both for the UFW and that both growers lost all appearance of fairness." cards from grape pickers in the Coa­ unions must have access to the work­ had "~terfered with, restrained and In response to an earlier, similar chella area in 1973. ers in the fields and in company labor coerced" other UFW supporters. The complaint by Chavez, Mahony said Nathan asked Grami if he was camps. This was crucial to the UFW board acted .on the basis of a complaint that while he thought there were aware of an affidavit obtained from since the Teamsters have automatic filed by the UFW. certain problems, on balance all the the California Farm Employment access in many ranches on the basis of participants in the election process Bureau that confirmed that there were their collusive sweetheart contracts 'Climate of fear' were conducting themselves in accor­ no more than 1,200 grape pickers with the growers. Responding to the board action, dance with the spirit of the law. employed in the Coachella Valley at And in issuing complaints against UFW leader Cesar Chavez charged The bishop offered that rosy esti­ the time. two growers, the board gave added that it was insufficient to deal with the mate at an impromptu news confer­ Grami responded that this was substance to the UFW charge that "climate of fear created by the Team­ ence during a break in an ALRB contrary to his "personal impression." elections are being rigged on a whole­ sters and growers." hearing in Sacramento September 16. "There were many workers in the sale basis-that the growers and Chavez asserted that the board has That hearing considered the grower­ area at the time," he explained. "But Teamsters engaged in coercion, intimi­ ignored several hundred UFW com­ Teamster proposition that the 156 they were not working. They were dation, and other dirty tricks to pre­ plaints of grower-Teamster collusion. growers affiliated with the WGA be going to go to work in farms that were vent the UFW from winning. In - a telegram to Bishop Roger considered a single unit for election ready to start operations." The ALRB complaints were directed Mahony; chairman of the board, Cha­ purposes. Continued on page 30 at two Fresno growers. The board vez declared, "The threats and intimi- The proposal would have meant that elections would have to be held at all ranches during the same period, with · election results tallied on a statewide basis rather than by individual Vote totals UFW leaders arrested Following are the unofficial LOS ANGELES, Sept. 23-Seven Tulare County sheriffs deputies ranches. The Teamsters have held a master results of voting in California farm United Farm Workers organizers stood by and advised on procedure elections as of September 20. The were . arrested at a Delano grape sweetheart contract covering WGA in making the arrest. figures are from the California ranch September 22 when they tried Amorig those taken to jail were affiliates since 1970. It was hastily Agricultural Labor Relations to talk to the workers during their Fred Ross, UFW director of organi­ renewed last July. lunch break. The California Su­ zation, and union executive board The growers and Teamsters appar­ Board. preme Court recently upheld the member Richard Chavez. The seven ently felt they could coerce and intimi­ right of unionists to talk with the were charged with trespassing. date workers more easily on the Vote Percent workers on company property prior Today the UFW organizers went smaller ranches affiliated with the United Farm to a union representation election. back to the ranch but this time there WGA. Majorities won that way, they Workers 9,278 51.2 The seven were placed under was no interference. A union repres­ calculated, could possibly offset UFW Teamsters 5,950 32.8 victories at the larger ranches. It isn't citizen's arrest by a representative entation election was slated to be No u·nion 2,902 16.0 of the Marco Zaninovich Ranch. held September 25. quite as easy to rig the elections on the bigger ranches, where the UFW tradi- Totals 18,130 100.0

I '