THE Kennedy Set to Use GIs MILITANT To Crush Latin Revolts Published in the Interests of the Working People By Fred Halstead that it was obviously not. But, he continued: Frustrated for the moment in Vol. 27 - No. 7 Monday, February 18, 1963 Price 10c his attempts to crush the Cuban “I think the big dangers to Latin Revolution, President John F. Ken­ America, if I may say so, are nedy admitted in his Feb. 7 news the very difficult and in some conference that Cuba is not a m il­ cases, desperate, conditions in the itary threat to the U. S., but a po­ countries themselves, unrelated to litical threat to the social sys­ Cuba. Illiteracy, or bad housing, Printers Vote 4-1 tem prevailing in the rest of Latin or maldistribution of wealth, or America. This threat, said Ken­ political or social instability — nedy, must be met directly in these are all problems we find, Latin America itself. a diminishing exchange, balance of payments difficulty, drop in the To Aid N. Y. Strike Washington is preparing to do price of their raw materials upon this by committing U. S. troops to which their income depends.. . So By Jack Katz South Vietnam-type counter-rev­ what I think we should concern NEW YORK, Feb. 13 — In a olutionary warfare in Central and ourselves with — quite obviously South America. The Feb. 9 C h ris ­ superb display of solidarity, print­ is Cuba, but Cuba as a center of tian Science Monitor reports that ers from coast to coast voted four propaganda and possibly subver­ “ the United States soon w ill be to one to increase their dues an sion, the training of agents — these sending a new group of anti­ extra three per cent of their wages are the things which we must so that their union can continue guerrilla experts to the Panama Kennedy watch about Cuba. to pay adequate benefits to their Canal Zone so it w ill be in a posi­ striking and locked-out brothers tion to help Latin-American na­ “ B u t in the larger sense, it is in New York. tions cope promptly with Castro- may at some time be introduced the desperate and in some cases The vote was held on the eve Communist sabotage. ” That is, into some countries just as in internal problems in Latin Amer­ of Lincoln’s Birthday, It was the with any revolutionary uprisings South Vietnam, where special ica, themselves unrelated to Fidel inspired by the Cuban example. United States forces. . . have Castro whose image was greatly iiiiiiiiimiimiimiiiiiiiiiitmiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiii tarnished over a year ago, which “Four such groups of more than sometimes found themselves en­ caused me the concern and why For latest developments on 1, 200 highly trained personnel, ” gaged in battle with Communist I regard Latin America as the continues the M o n ito r, “ already guerrillas. ” the Cleveland newspaper strike most critical area in the world have been detailed to the Canal see story on page 8. In addition to Guatemala and today. . . . ” : [in...... Zone and have worked in several Colombia, guerrilla warfare by Latin American countries. . . peasants and students is now tak­ Cuba’s Impact workers’ way of commemorating Guatemala and Colombia are un­ ing place against corrupt, U. S. - Before Castro, no U. S. president the true spirit of the Lincoln who derstood to have had such as­ backed regimes in Venezuela, Peru ever made such a candid state­ said: “The strongest bond of hu­ sistance. Now a fifth such counter- and Paraguay. ment about the conditions in the man sympathy outside of the fam­ W agner guerrilla group w ill depart short­ Kennedy, himself, in his press continent which U. S. corporations ily relation should be one uniting ly for the Canal Zone. ” conference described the causes of control. Not until the Cuban Rev­ all working people. . . ” "It is not beyond the realm of such unrest. In answer to a ques­ olution did they feel it necessary. workers now have superior re­ The decision to hold the nation­ possibility, ” says the M o n ito r, tion about Cuba being a military Now, however, the exploited work­ sources. The publishers must now wide referendum of International “that such anti-guerrilla teams threat to the U. S., Kennedy said ers and peasants of Latin America fight not just New York’s 3, 000 Typographical Union members on have the example of Cuba: the newspaper printers, b u t the 110,- Feb. 6 was made last December only country in Latin America 000-strong ITU membership. ¿uiiiiiiitiiiiiiimiim imiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiimiiiiiiimiimimimiiiiiifmiiimmiimitiiiiiiiiiiimimiiiiiiiiirimiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiimiiiiiiiii at the outset of the now ten-week- where there is no hunger among old strike. As the date grew near­ The significance of this vote can the poor, despite the U. S. block­ er, the vote’s importance was ap­ best be understood when trans­ ade; the only country in Latin parent to all — to the workers lated from percentages to dollars. Aid Victims of Miss. Racists! America where every child gets a and to the newspaper publishers. An additional three per cent as­ quart of m ilk a day, even if adults A strike is an economic test of sessment means that ITU dues GREENVILLE, Miss. — Famed cut off welfare and surplus food with plenty of money have to do strength. And in this test, the w ill be increased an additional $4 comedian Dick Gregory personally rolls since the voter-registration without; the only country in Latin to $5 a week. ITU dues were al­ escorted a cargo of food and drive began. America where illiteracy has been ready the highest in the American clothing collected in Chicago for Two Michigan State University eliminated. labor movement, averaging about d istribution to dispossessed Negro students, Ivanhoe Donaldson and That example spreads the rev­ $9 a week in New York. Now they Test-Ban Is Urged families here. Gregory rented Ben Taylor, were arrested Dec. 28 olution and Kennedy is still mak­ w ill be in the $13-to-$15 a week space fo r 6, 000 pounds o f food­ after driving a truckload of food, ing plans to crush that example range. Workers who are prepared stuffs on a cargo plane which ar­ medicines and clothing to Clarks­ out of existence. He is, however, to sacrifice this much for their By Women Pickets rived in Memphis Feb. 11, and dale. Police seized and searched not sure when, how, or if that can union cannot be defeated. then he accompanied the food and their truck and charged them with be accomplished. So in the mean­ NEW YORK, Feb. 12 — Two Mediation efforts by Mayor clothing to Clarksdale, Miss. “ illegal possession of barbiturates” time, U. S. troops are readied for hundred women picketed at the Wagner ended Feb. 11 after 17 Clarksdale is the headquarters of but the Grand Jury refused to in­ counter-revolution on the conti­ United Nations today for a ban days of continuous sessions. The the national food drive for Delta dict. Since then, SNCC workers nent. on nuclear testing. The picketing publishers then forecast a “long Negroes who have been forced off Donaldson and Taylor have been At the same time, Washington is supported the test-ban negotia­ test of economic strength. ” their land because they tried to back twice, each time bringing tions which resumed today in vote. The drive is directed by Dr. still attempting to strangle the The only thing that the mayor’s with them two tons of food. Cuban economy by closing U. S. Geneva. Organized by the Wom­ Intervention succeeded in doing Aaron Henry. Student groups in Louisville, ports to ships engaged in the Cuba ens’ S trike fo r Peace, the demon­ was to separate Typographical The Chicago comedian is con­ Atlanta, Iowa City, Los Angeles trade. Kennedy is also attempting stration drew women from New Union No. 6 leader, Bertram Pow­ tributing to a “Food For Freedom” and Chicago, as w e ll as local York City, New Jersey, and Long to weaken Cuban defenses by ers, from the strikers. Wagner ac­ drive sponsored by the Chicago groups of CORE and the Southern pressuring the Soviet Union — he Island. complished this by binding the Friends of the Student Nonviolent Conference Educational Fund are sent a personal letter to Khru­ After picketing for an hour at participants to a news blackout Co-ordinating Committee. SNCC sending supplies. Collected food­ shchev on the question — to re­ the UN, the women marched u n til the sessions should end. field secretaries, who have stuffs and clothing may be sent move its several thousand m ilitary through midtown Manhattan in In the negotiating lineup were been conducting voter-registration to Dr. Aaron Henry, 4th Street personnel from the island. Such a the cold rain to a Western Union the publishers, all seven of them, drives in Mississippi since Octo­ Drug Store, Clarksdale, Miss., or removal would be necessary be­ office on Broadway. Telegrams and the union’s negotiators. ber, 1961, estimate that 20, 000 Ne­ to SNCC, 6 Raymond Street, urging support to the negotiations fore Kennedy could launch an in­ (Continued on Page 6) groes have been dispossessed and Atlanta, Ga. to end nuclear testing, were sent vasion of Cuba without risking by the women, as individuals, to automatic involvement of the So­ President Kennedy and New viet Union in the fighting. York’s Senators Keating and Javits. In a letter to Kennedy, Paraguay Tyrant Wins Another ‘Election’ they said that now is no time for Wake for Lumumba militaristic talk and urged that Dictator Alfredo Stroessner won position party participated in a concentration camps and the tor­ the moratorium on testing be re­ Paraguay’s presidential “election” Paraguayan election. tures taking place in the police Slated in Harlem held Feb. 10. Associated Press dis­ stations and prisons are enough to instated. This is a considerable propa­ NEW YORK — The anniver­ patches the next day from Asun­ turn the stomachs of anyone who The demonstrators especially de­ ganda victory for Washington. A l­ sary of the murder of Con­ cion, the nation’s capital, said the even hears of them — they have manded that a ll testing cease ready the U. S. press is declaring golese Prem ier Patrice Lum um ­ dictator’s lead was running as all the sadistic bestiality of the while the negotiations are going that the dictatorship in Paraguay ba will be commemorated by high as 9 to 1. The final official Nazi regime. on. Two days before the Geneva is “softening. ” (The same papers the Harlem Anti-Colonial Com­ count w ill not be in for some time, Voting is mandatory for every­ Conference resumed, the United call Stroessner the “last of the mittee and the Pan-African nor does it p a rticu la rly m atter body in Paraguay — this time States began its new series of Latin American dictators” — Students Organization of the since it w ill be whatever Stroess- even the women were ordered to tests with an underground explo­ overlooking Somoza in Nicaragua, Americas in an all-night wake ner’s fancy fixes on. the polls. True opponents of the sion in Nevada. Kennedy ordered Duvalier in Haiti, Ydigoras in Friday, Feb. 15. A vigil will be Stroessner has repeatedly denied tyranny organized a whispering the resumption of testing on Guatemala, as well as the m ilitary held at the Hotel Theresa, Sky­ that he is a dictator and at reg­ campaign calling for the casting Feb. 1. dictatorships in Argentina and line Room, from 11 p. m. Friday ular intervals holds “elections” to of blank ballots. In this fashion, The Soviet news agency, Tass, Peru — all of them good, “free- to 4: 30 a. m. Saturday. A t 5 prove his point. This time under opposition could be registered said that the U. S. tests “un­ world” allies of Washington. ) a. m. there will be procession the coaxing of Washington, whose both to Stroessner and to his a doubtedly are complicating the to the U N . firm ally he is—especially on all “State of Siege” phony rival. talks in Geneva and are hindering The Harlem Anti-Colonial moves against Cuba — he ar­ As the Jan. 28 National O bserv­ As with the Somoza dictator­ reaching of an agreement on the Committee declared: “Black prohibition of nuclear weapon ranged for an extra-special lib­ er explains, “Since 1954 he ship in Nicaragua, which has just eral election. He appointed an op­ [Stroessner] has ruled little Para­ completed its “elections, ” the people all over the world have tests, as well as the work of the vowed there will be no rest position to run against him. Re­ guay under an official state of Paraguayan regime now expects 18-nation committee.... The until the murderers of Lumum­ gardless of what vote the “op­ siege which he extends every 90 quick financial action from Wash­ renewal of tests by the United ba are brought to justice. We position” polled or was declared days with a regularity that is, ington in the form of “Alliance States throws light on why the join with our African brothers by the tellers to have polled, it for all practical purposes auto­ for Progress” funds. A taste of United States and other Western and sisters in this wake and was guaranteed among other re­ matic. ” Of a population of 1, 760, - that and Stroessner w ill continue powers did not support the resolu­ march in protest against the tion of the United Nations. ” The wards 20 seats (w e ll-p a id posts) 000 some 500, 000 — almost a third to back to the hilt Kennedy’s plans fact that these murderers have in the parliament. This was the — have fled over the borders into to save Latin American “democ­ resolution referred to would have not been brought to justice. ” prohibited all tests as of Jan. 1. first time in 33 years that an op­ exile. The country is dotted with racy” from the Cubans. Page Two THE MILITANT Monday, February 18, 1963 THE BLACK MUSLIMS Victims, Not “ Merchants,” of Hate [The Jan. 26 Saturday Evening Post featured a scurrilous attack on the Black Muslims. The Feb. 2 Afro-American published a reply to the Post article by its assistant The National Association for managing editor, Chester M. in Memphis, Tenn., agreed to a Hampton. The following are ex­ the Advancement of Colored Peo­ 15-cent-an-hour wage cut and re­ cerpts from Mr. Hampton’s ar­ ple filed a brief in Washington duced fringe benefits at the Ar­ ticle.] Feb. 11 with the National Labor mour plant there. * * * Relations Board for a ruling clari­ The United Packinghouse Work­ fying qualifications for certifica­ ers local at the Wilson & Co. plant The most talked-about organi­ tion of unions. This is not the in Memphis refused a drastic pay zation in present-day America is same as a decertification petition, cut and the company shut the not the John Birch Society, nor but it grows out of such a petition plant. The UPWA local in Atlanta the White Citizens Council, nor filed last Oct. 24 by the NAACP refused a demand by Swift to even Dr. Martin Luther King’s and the all-Negro Local No. 2 of slash wages and the company has Southern Christian Leadership the Independent Metal Workers announced the plant will close in Conference. Union in Houston. Texas. March. It is the Black Muslim move­ That petition had requested the Why this trend in a booming ment headed by Elijah Muham­ decertification of all-white Local industry? The companies are us­ mad. No. 1, which had a contract with ing automation and unemployment For about two years now, white the Hughes Tool Co. excluding as weapons against the workers. writers have almost gasped in Negroes from all but the lowest In effect they say to the unions: print over the fierce, proud, anti­ job categories. The plant is organ­ “Make it cheaper for us or we’ll white preachments of Muslim ized by both locals. Subsequent to switch to an automated operation leaders. Colored writers have been the filing of the petition and the and you’ll be out on the street.” a shade more understanding. obtaining of a government con­ * * * Typical of the kind of thing the tract which includes a non-dis­ The Cleveland Federation of crimination provision, Local No. 1 white American public reads Labor has recommended to the proposed a merger of the two lo­ about the movement is the piece PROTEST PERSECUTION-. Black Muslims picket New York’s national AFL-CIO that it lobby in the Jan. 26 Saturday Evening Manhattan Criminal Court, Jan. 11 as two members of faith are cals and signed a contract with­ for a $l,000-per-dependent ex­ out the discriminatory clauses. Post. In it, a colored and a white convicted of assault and disorderly conduct. While selling the emption as the basis for a federal w rite rs teamed up fo r an essay The Negro local agreed, providing Muslim paper, Muhammad Speaks, in Times Square on Christmas income tax cut. titled: "Black Merchants of Hate.” that the non-discrimination pro­ * * * If they had used the word “vic­ day they were arrested at gun point for protesting when cops cedure be incorporated into an tims” instead of “merchants,” I ordered them to move on. NLRB ruling. The white local The United Steelworkers has set might have been more confident balked. up a warehouse at Flat River, Mo., that they were trying to do some­ realize there was more discipline neither in Christianity nor the The NAACP brief notes that where donations are received and thing more informative than to in the Muslim movement than U.S. Constitution. Therefore, they Local No. 2 favors the merger as distributed to union members merely manufacture another there is in the police department. are not guilty of swearing on the a solution, but insists that the striking the 12 mines and four m ills of the St. Joseph Lead Co. “ shocker.” This is a good point to ask: Holy Bible to defend the Consti­ obligation of a merged union to The strike by members of Steel­ What real harm has been done by tution and then fomenting strife, represent all employes “without Muslim Clubbed workers Local 6242 began last the Muslims? What are they bloodshed and denial of Constitu­ prejudice or discrimination” be They start out telling how some July 26 over a new contract. blamed for? tional rights. spelled out in a formal NLRB New Y o rk cops clubbed a M uslim order or opinion which would Steelworkers, shoeworkers, brew­ At one point, the Post w riters over the head and took him to Elijah Muhammad and his sub­ make certification contingent on ery workers and other unionists admit that Muslims preach non­ jail where he was cursed and chiefs preach hatred of whites. that point. throughout the southern midwest beaten still more. A steadily- They demand also that a certain violence and have regulations * * * have sent food, clothing and other growing crowd of Muslims gath­ portion of the United States be against carrying arms. However, The railroads employed 1.3 m il­ relief supplies, with Teamster lo­ ered. Seeing that control of the set aside as an independent nation they strongly imply that Muslims lion workers and 15,000 executives cals furnishing the drivers and situation had slipped from their of colored persons. are responsible for fomenting viol­ in 1947. By 1962 the number of often the trucks. hands, the cops called fo r a parley They recruit followers in the ence. They point out that “they * * * are often in the thick of it” and workers had dropped to 720,000. with someone who could handle lower socio-economic groups and Unemployment figures, released cite riots in Los Angeles, several But there are still 15,000 execu­ the crowd. in jails. They also preach the doc­ by the Labor Department, show prisons and other points to prove tives, all of whom, no doubt, But when Malcolm X dispersed trine of self-defense: “Don’t take the jobless rate to be the same for it. From this method of presenta­ scream loudly about “featherbed­ the crowd of nearly 1,000 by nothin’ off of nobody.” Jan. 1963 as it was a year before. tion, the reader gets the idea that ding.” merely flicking his hands, one We are generally agreed that * * * The official January figure is 4.7 the Muslims are actually the policeman complained, “No man it is a bad thing to preach race million or 5.8 per cent. The “only trouble-makers. This is not true. Richard T. Gosser, one of the should have that much power.” hate. We are also agreed that it is really significant development,” in unrealistic to expect that the They are more often the victims three vice-presidents of the Unit­ The illogic of the remark must ed Auto Workers, AFL-CIO, was the figures was the failure of the United States is going to give up of attack. have escaped the writers — at convicted Feb. 11 of “conspiracy unemployment picture to improve any territory to Elijah Muham­ One could say with equal truth least they didn’t comment on it. to defraud” the U.S. government over the year, according to Bureau I, however, was faintly amused. mad or anyone else. that Dr. King and Mrs. Daisy in an income tax case. He was of Labor Statistics Assistant Com­ Here the cops blunder themselves Bates were “in the thick” of viol­ A11 Not Ready charged with paying $150 to an missioner Harold Goldstein. A into a bad situation; call on New ence when their homes were We are also generally agreed Internal Revenue clerk to get year ago, the economy was just York’s top Muslim to get them out bombed. One could say that but that the doctrine of Dr. Martin copies of confidential documents p u llin g out of the 1960-61 reces­ of it; then seem surprised and he would, if truthful, have to ad­ Luther King and the student pro­ about his tax returns. sion. Unemployment-wise it never dissatisfied when he is able to do mit that they didn’t do the bomb­ test movement — passive resist­ Gosser, 62, has been relieved of pulled out, so far at least, repeat­ so. ing. ance — are very powerful, morally UAW duties since he was in­ ing the pattern of the previous Of course, it must have been an and intellectually. (That “don’t In Monroe, La., Muslims were dicted last November. The UAW three post World War II reces­ awesome thing for the cops to take nothing off nobody” idea having a church service when executive board w ill meet on the sions, each of w hich le ft a bigger does, however, have a certain ap­ local law enforcement officials situation. residue of “structural unemploy­ peal. All of us aren’t “ready” for broke in and started beating heads. # £ ♦ ment” than the previous one had. the emotional discipline of Dr. Those Muslims were certainly “in Foreign farm workers unions Weekly Calendar King’s doctrine.) the thick of violence.” . . . are giving advice to unionists in But while we disagree general­ Why the Excitement? the U.S. trying to organize farm ly with the Muslim tenets, we workers. U.S. agriculture is the Pioneer C H IC A G O If all this is true, if the Mus­ may also judge them as we judge lims haven’t done anything, then most efficient in the world, yet William F. Warde, Marxist author and others — by what they do, not by the several million wage workers Recommended lecturer, speaks on: The Thirties and the what is everybody so excited w hat they say. about? in the industry — employed in Sixties — What Can the Two Genera­ If we use this yardstick, the large part by corporation farms — Paperbacks tions Learn from Each O ther? Sat.. Muslims come up smelling like a As brilliant James Baldwin are the lowest paid in the nation, Feb. 23, 8 p.m. Reynolds Club, 5706 pointed out in his article in the Black Bourgeoisie $ .95 rose — or at least in comparison are ineligible for virtually all South University. Contrib. $1, Students, Nov. 17, 1962 N ew Y o rk e r mag­ 25c. Ausp. Young Socialist Alliance. with some of our fellow Ameri­ “welfare state” benefits, and are By E. Franklin Frazier azine, “ . . . the power of the white cans. almost entirely unorganized. The • world is threatened whenever a Eugene V. Debs $1.50 For despite the “hatchet jobs” International Federation of Plan­ black man refuses to accept the By Ray Ginger DETROIT by the Sat Eve Post writers and tation, Agricultural and Allied white world’s definitions.” The Noted author Clancy Sigal speaks on others the record stands that the Workers, with headquarters in Muslims are such black men so 100 Years of Lynchings $ .75 The Labor Party and the British Left. Muslims have not bombed, burned Geneva, is sending its general the white world views them with By Ralph Ginzburg Fri.. Feb. 22, 8 p.m. Debs H all. 3737 or lynched anyone; nor have they secretary, T. S. Bavin, to the U.S. alarm . . . Woodward. Ausp. Friday Night Social­ shuttered the vote-registration of­ this year to discuss experiences The Souls of Black Folk $ .50 ist Forum. Relax, white folks. Colored gained in organizing farm work­ • fices or “ stood in the schoolhouse By W . E. B. DuBois door” to keep someone from going Americans aren’t going to turn en ers in England and the Far East. N EW YORK to a public university. masse to the East, bow thrice and He will meet with leaders of The Slave States $1.25 arise from their knees to launch Views in the Struggle for Freedom — They say flatly they believe the Agricultural and Allied Work­ By Frederick Olmstead A symposium with author Harold Cruse, a 20th-Century “holy war” against ers Union, a division of the Amal­ Militant contributor Claude DeBruce, the “infidels.” . . . gamated Meat Cutlers and Butch­ Life and Times of Frederick Southern Freedom Fighter William Ma­ But I’m glad there is an Elijah er Workmen, which claims 10,000 Douglass $1.50 honey and a representative of CORE. Muhammad. First, I’m glad there members in U.S. agriculture. Fri., Feb. 22, 8:30 p.m. 116 University News Commentary is someone to care about the un- * * * Autobiography Place. C ontrib. $1, Students 50c. Ausp. Militant Labor Forum. By Seattle Socialist cared-about. Then I’m glad there The meat-packing industry is Stalin School of Falsification is someone to keep the guilty re­ not depressed and Swift, Armour By Leon Trotsky $3.00 • SEATTLE — A socialist minded of their guilt. Then, I’m and Wilson are not exactly the SAN FRANCISCO commentary on news and glad there is another organization marginal corporations in the field. 3rd International After Lenin making a contribution to civil Peru in Crisis. An analysis by Joan events by Frank Krasnowsky Yet all three of these giants have By Leon Trotsky $2.50 Jordan. Fri., Feb. 22, 8 p.m. 1488 Fulton may be heard every other rights for colored Americans. recently threatened to close plants St. Contrib. 50c, students 25c. Ausp. Friday evening at 7:30 p.m. Yes, that’s right. Because all the unless union workers employed in Both of the above: $5.00 Militant Labor Forum. Constitutional rights and privi­ them take substantial wage cuts. oil Station KPFC-FM. 15c handling Sc postage * + * leges America has been withhold­ At Swift’s packing plant in Fort Krasnowsky’s next broad­ Order from: Leroy McRae, nat'l org. sec’y. Young ing might come flowing forth if Worth, Texas, the union recently cast will be on Friday eve­ Socialist Alliance, speaks on The Black the “powers that be” are suf­ agreed to a 21 -cent an hour pay PIONEER PUBLISHERS Revolt in A m erica. Sat., March 2, 8 p.m. ning, Feb. 22. ficiently scared we might turn cut. The Amalgamated Meat Cut­ 116 University Place 1488 Fulton St. Ausp. YSA. Muslim . . . ters and Butcher Workmen’s local N ew Y o rk 3, N. Y. Monday, -February 18, 1963 THE MILITANT Page Three Situation of American Indians the MILITANT By Evelyn Sell government wheels in programs returned to their families on the for the Indian every year. . . We It’s better to die free in the reservations, sharp divisions arose. Editor: JOSEPH HANSEN have tribal councils but they have mountains, Different attitudes towards the Managing Editor: GEORGE LAVAN Business Manager: KAROLYN KERRY no power, they arc a fiction, a Than take the white man’s white man tore families apart, set dummy government — like any Published weekly, except from July 11 to Sept. 5 when published bi-weekly, crumbs! brother against brother. ” (Some by The Militant Publishing Ass’n., 116 University PI., New York 3. N. Y. Phone colonial government. Their aim is of these boarding schools still CH 3-2140. Second-class postage paid at New York, N. Y. Subscription: $3 a year; “American Indians still sing to get as much money from the exist but now there are federally- Canadian, $3. 50; foreign, $4. 50. Signed articles by contributors do not necessarily that song, written by Geronimo. U. S. bureaucracy as possible. . . operated schools on the reserva­ represent The Militant's views. These are expressed in editorials. Sure, I sing it, too. ” The speaker Experience in handling our affairs tions as well. ) was Robert Thomas, telling a re­ is cut off systematically by pre­ Since World War II a kind of Vol. 27 - No. 7 345 Monday, February 18, 1963 cent Friday Night Socialist Forum emption of the decision-making “Pan-Indianism” has grown. in Detroit about “The American powers. How can people learn and “Common experiences in these Indian: A Case of Internal develop if they can’t make their Colonialism. ” boarding schools, in the armed Dominican Dilemma own decisions and learn by their forces and in our treatment as a Professor Thomas, a full- own successes and failures?. . . On Feb. 27 Juan Bosch takes office as president of the minority has brought Indians of blooded Cherokee, teaches at Working-class people don’t have different nationalities together... Dominican Republic. The Feb. 11 National Observer says the Wayne State University in Detroit. any political power anymore. There is now a kind of ‘up-and- following about the Caribbean country: “The nation’s present He received his Doctor of Phi­ There, too, the decision-making at-them’ feeling as a result of see­ uneasiness stems from Mr. Bosch’s election campaign, in which losophy degree in anthropology powers have been taken away. ” ing colonial peoples rise up in he promised just about everything to just about everybody.... from the University of Chicago The government has tried very other parts of the world. . . Na­ ‘Boch, ’ says a friendly but worried member of the present care­ where he w ill soon become direc­ hard to get the Indians off the tionalism has grown up among taker government, ‘will have it made if he lasts two months. tor of the Carnegie Foundation reservations and to integrate them Indians, especially those — like Pilot Project on Literacy Among What I’m afraid of is the mob that w ill begin congregating around into the American community as me — who have lived and worked Indians. He has written numerous the National Palace the day after inauguration, yelling for the a whole. Eighty per cent of the in the cities. We have an organi­ articles for scientific journals and Indians live in overcrowded con­ zation now. ” payoff. ’ ” a book on the American Indian ditions on reservations. But most The discussion period was ex­ “In the U. S., ” the article accurately notes, “campaign plat­ soon to be published by the Uni­ of those Indians who do go to the tremely lively. When Prof. Thomas forms often are filed away after the campaigns are done. But the versity of Oklahoma Press. cities return to the reservation to was asked about Indian-Negro re­ In his Jan. 25 talk, Prof. 3, 000, 000 Dominicans are inconveniently literal-minded folk. live. “You have to live among lations and the chances of these Thomas gave the forum audience “Santo Domingo residents proved this soon after elections aliens. Indians get lonely, we want two groups getting together, he some insight into the psychology, by grabbing at one of Mr. Bosch’s biggest campaign promises: A to be with our families and there replied: “Attempts at Negro-In- attitudes and goals of the Amer­ house and land for every Dominican. Many people promptly are no Indian communities in the dian unity have collapsed time ican Indian. These are so different picked out choice pieces of vacant (but owned) ground, squatted city. . . Sure, I speak English and again. . . There are misun­ from ordinary American ideas but Cherokee is my language. derstandings on both sides. The thereon, and had to be ordered off when they began digging that the Indian has found it That’s the language I like to Negroes say the Indians are pro­ foundations. almost impossible to communicate speak. ” segregation and the Indians say “Mr. Bosch and his Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) with the invaders who took over Prof. Thomas described how the the Negroes try to be too much promised the people TV sets, electric refrigerators, decent hous­ his homeland. government tried to “educate” the like white men. . . I have been ing, a job for everyone willing to work, and a farm for everyone Separate and Distinct Peoples Indian into becoming an assimi­ a part of some of these discussions prepared to operate it. He also promised transfer of many private lated part of American life. “They and I have hopes that such uni­ enterprises to worker ownership. ” Although most Americans think had these boarding schools from fied efforts may come about yet. ” The promises which Bosch has made — and which the of Indians as one people spread about 1880-1933; we called them A member of the audience asked aroused Dominican people expect him to keep — cannot be kept across this nation, the fact is that ‘white-man factories’.. . The cops about the much-publicized at­ Indians regard themselves as sep­ without alienating, not only the U. S. State Department, but the would come on the reservation tempts of Indians to get hearings arate and distinct peoples — some­ and all the children they could at the United Nations. “Several foreign capitalists, the big landowners and the m ilitary machine what the way European peoples — all of which are still entrenched in spite of Trujillo’s demise. catch they would send away to times Indians have gone to the distinguish between each other. UN minority hearings and some Far from ending the question of revolution, the Dominican elec­ these boarding schools. . . The Each Indian nationality had its children lived there 10-12 years, Indian chiefs went to Cuba and tion has merely posed it. own language and customs. What never seeing their families. We talked to Castro, ” Prof. Thomas was common was that they lived had to speak English. If you spoke related. “These efforts to bring Right-to-Scab Law in 20 States mainly by hunting and they lived your own language you got the pressure from outside on the U. S. in small groups. bejesus beat out of you. I didn’t government have not been too There are now 20 states with “right-to-work” laws on their “Hunters are a special kind of speak English very much and I got successful. ” people, ” Thomas explained. “ You books. Wyoming became the 20th state to outlaw the union shop beat up every week. They hired What did he think was the solu­ when Gov. Cliff Hansen signed the bill Feb. 8, the day after it work in short spurts. You find thugs and they called them ‘dis­ that planning is useless, you have tion to the problems of the Indian passed the legislature. This is but the latest example of the labor ciplinarians’. . . to trust in luck. Living in small today? “There must be decision­ movement’s political impotence under the present policy of sup­ groups meant that everyone was “We had to go to Protestant making powers in the hands of the porting Democrats and Republicans. Every year, another state or either a relative or a close friend. churches every Sunday so that we Indian community. This would take legal revisions; it would take two bans the union shop, and the labor movement seems power­ The world was divided into would forget our ‘superstitions’ Congressional action. . . There less to stop the trend. The labor leaders don’t even try to get friends (your own group) and . . . The majority of Indians came are fewer and fewer local level labor legislation through Congress anymore; they hope merely enemies (any other group). Fam­ out of those schools irrational white-haters. Some were in­ institutions with decision-making to keep anti-labor legislation to a minimum. ily obligations were all-important — coming before material inter­ fluenced strongly by the white powers in the white community The fact is that labor’s vast potential political power is authorities. When these Indians as w e ll. ” virtually ignored by the capitalist politicians. They don’t have ests. W hatever you had you shared with your family. ” to worry about it because they know its sewed up in the Demo­ This way of life and these at­ cratic Party anyway. Labor’s rank and file is uninspired by the titudes came into sharp conflict present policy, and the middle classes — which look to labor with the ideas and the demands when labor is crusading — have no cause to look there now. of the white invaders. The speaker Young Socialist Opens Speaking Tour The present policy can only lead to more and more political compared the American “make-a- Leroy McRae, National Organizational Secretary of the defeats for labor. The labor movement needs its own political fast-buck” philosophy with the Young Socialist Alliance, has begun a national speaking tour party. Only a party responsible to labor, which runs labor men Indians’ idea that human beings of college campuses. The three-month tour w ill cover 28 cities. and women as its candidates, can stand up for the rights of labor, are more important than material McRae w ill speak on “The Black Revolt in America, ” re­ possessions. for civil rights, for social progress and for peaceful international lating the American Negro struggle for equality to the Cuban relations. The unions need a labor party to turn the tide. He described a typical situation in which the U. S. government Revolution and to the coming socialist revolution in the United would institute a cattle program States. Ceylon Given Lesson on U. S. 'Aid' on a reservation. Money would be Although he is in his early twenties, McRae has had ex­ lent to an individual Indian so tensive experience in the civil- The United States Government has abruptly cut off its $3. 8 that he could start raising cattle. rights movement. In 1958 he millions in foreign aid to Ceylon because that island’s govern­ Immediately that Indian’s rela­ served on the National Execu­ ment has not compensated with sufficient speed two oil companies tives were after him for some of for properties which have been nationalized. This is the first ap­ that money. “The Indian was tive Committee of the Youth plication of an amendment to the foreign-aid law adopted last faced with a terrible choice. Was March on Washington, which year, originally designed to force Brazil to compensate the Inter­ he going to be a ‘responsible cit­ brought 10,000 young people national Telephone and Telegraph trust for the nationalization of izen’ and refuse his family so that to the nation’s capital. In 1960 he could make a profit raising the telephones and telegraph in one state in Brazil. he was secretary of the Phila­ cattle or was he going to be a Ceylon decided to nationalize the gas stations and other oil - ’good Indian’ and share with his delphia Youth Committee products outlets belonging to Shell, Caltex, and Stanvac oil com­ family? Most chose to be ‘good Against Segregation, which panies because they were overcharging for their products. An Indians’ and so they were branded organized the picketing of agreement was then reached between Ceylon and the Soviet Un­ as ‘irresponsible’ by the govern­ Woolworth stores in that city ion whereby Ceylon’s new national petroleum authority can buy ment and the white population. ” in support of the sit-ins being its oil products cheaper from the Soviet Union than from the The basic problem of the In­ conducted by the southern Western oil companies. dian today is “to learn how to Negro students. cope with this society that has The U. S. Government did not cut off its aid because Ceylon Besides these activities and touched U. S. government property. Two of the companies, Caltex surrounded us. . . All whites learn with their mother’s milk. participating in Freedom and Stanvac, are international outfits, based in the U. S. and ‘How to make a buck in the good Rides, McRae was an active owned by a few U. S. citizens, and it’s th e ir property and th eir old USA. ’ We are taught com­ member of the Fair Play for interests that Washington is concerned about. pletely different attitudes when Cuba Committee in Philadel­ The underdeveloped nations are being taught an important we are children. We have to learn Leroy McRae phia. He was among those ar­ lesson about the real nature of U. S. foreign “ aid. ” The arrogant these commercial things as adults. rested in April 1961 by the and crude action of the Kennedy administration in cutting off all That’s why Indians. are sitting Philadelphia police for participating in a demonstration against pigeons for anyone who wants to help to Ceylon — paltry enough to begin with — because Ceylon the invasion of Cuba. fleece them. . . We’re not hep took certain domestic economic steps in the interests of the The Socialist Workers Party nominated McRae for the Ceylonese people, exposes the real purpose of such “help. ” The to this white man’s world. We’re morally good people — that’s the post of Attorney General of New York during the 1962 elec­ politicians in Washington use the aid program to help maintain reason we’re not hep. ” tion campaign. He received 21, 000 votes running on a socialist the economic control of a few U. S. capitalists over the underde­ A major problem of the Indian platform in defense of the working people, the minority peo­ veloped countries. That and securing diplomatic and military today is shared by other groups ples, and the Cuban Revolution. He was elected National Or­ advantages in the cold war are their only considerations. They throughout the world. “Americans ganizational Secretary of the YSA at its last National Con­ have no real interest in helping the people of those countries have a facility for deciding what’s ference. achieve a better life. good for other people. . . The Page F o u r THE MILITANT

I n L a n d - H u n g r y M e x i c o : Government Abets Killing of Peasant Leader

By George Lavan cardo. They were forced into the mation about this massacre (gov­ campesinos, became the strong­ knew about Trotsky’s role in the vehicles which then drove off. ernment pressure soon brought a hold of Mexico’s agrarian revolu­ Russian Revolution from his own Thanks to a popular movie of Raquel, a stepdaughter, managed news blackout on the case in most tion in that stormy decade which guerrilla-warfare days. The de­ a few years ago, in w hich M arlon to evade the abductors and ran of the Mexican press), reported a opened with the overthrow of dic­ generation and bureaucratization Brando starred, the American off into the village. statement made by Capt. Gustavo tator Porfirio Diaz. The Zapatistas’ of the Mexican Revolution had public has come to know some­ Two hours later, in the remote Ortega Rojas, chief of police for battlecry was Tierra y Libertad given him insight into what had thing about the life and death of wooded area near the pre-Colum- the state of Morelos, a few hours — Land and Liberty — and their happened in the USSR. He had Emiliano Zapata, the heroic, in­ after the finding of the bodies. He intransigence on winning the land followed with interest and ap­ corruptible, peasant leader of the declared that the previous night for the peasants, their insistence proval President Cárdenas’ grant­ Mexican Revolution. But this pub­ he had received a phone call from to every regime that took power ing of asylum to the great Bol­ lic, which depends on the daily Met Jaramillo the Federal Judicial Police, re­ in Mexico City that land reform shevik leader and had mourned press for news, is unaware of the The author of this article questing his assistance in arrest­ be written into the law and car­ when Trotsky was assassinated. virtual re-enactment south of the met Ruben Jaramillo and his ing “some dangerous individuals. ” ried out, made Morelos an island Yet Jaramillo did not come to the Rio Grande during the past year two oldest stepsons in the The assistance asked was to con­ of revolutionary principle in a Trotskyist movement primarily of the same story of revolutionary revolutionary decade of shifting winter of 1949. At that time sist of the loan of a jeep and a on theoretical grounds. heroism and assassination. sub-machinegun. Capt. Ortega programs, opportunism and be­ the Jaramillos were living For him practice came first, the­ A peasant leader, described by consented. However, when 24 trayals. clandestinely outside of the ory second. His motivating force some Mexican newspapers as a hours passed and no one arrived Politically naive at the begin­ was always the desire to advance state of Morelos and working “Robin Hood” and by others as a to pick them up, he phoned back. ning of the Revolution, the Za­ the peasants’ fight. He realized “Fidel Castro, ” a man who as a in the oil fields. They jour­ The Federal Judicial Police now patistas learned much and quickly that his peasant movement needed youth had ridden with Zapata and neyed to Mexico City to at­ told him the assistance “was no as a result of their sticking to the aid of forces outside Morelos, had devoted his life thereafter to tend a farewell social gather­ longer necessary, because every­ their basic demand for land. The forces in the Mexican proletariat. the cause of Mexico’s downtrod­ ing which the Mexican Sec­ thing is OK. ” A few minutes after end of the decade saw them in But precisely during those years den campesinos, was assassinated tion of the Fourth Interna­ this phone conversation, the police fraternal relations with the Bol­ of World War II and immediately in a brutal and cowardly fashion. sheviks who had come to power tional had arranged for the chief said, he received news that thereafter, the really powerful The government of Mexican President five bodies had been found near in Russia. In towns and villages writer and three other rep­ force in the Mexican working Lopez Mateos is morally Xochicalco. where the Zapatista forces held resentatives of The Militant class, the Communist Party and compromised by this murder — in Capt. Ortega later retracted the sway, May Day saw fiestas in its many subsidiary organizations who were then concluding a which many national and local of­ above story and denied that any which the Indian campesinos pa­ had abandoned the class struggle, ficials are implicated — all the visit to Mexico. authority had asked for his help raded with pictures of Lenin and including the peasant struggle more since nine months have now in an arrest. Trotsky and the Virgin of Gua- which Jaramillo was waging. passed with apparently no efforts A group of newspaper reporters, delupe (the Indian virgin) and These were the Communists’ years bian pyramid of Xochicalco, made to find and prosecute the exam ining the scene of the m u r­ shouted slogans of solidarity be- of Popular Front ism and support killers. Jaramillo, his wife and stepsons ders, found five 45-caliber car­ of the Mexican government which were shot. Since the driving time On the afternoon of Wednes­ tridge cases. A ll had stamped on was allied with the U. S. in the day, May 23, 1962, a military from Tlaquiltenango to the ar­ them the initials of the F ábrica war. The only socialist movement chaeological ruins at Xochicalco convoy consisting of two armored Nacional de Municiones (National in Mexico militantly pursuing the vehicles, two jeeps and a lead-col- is almost precisely two hours, it is Munitions Factory) and the years class struggle and fig h tin g im ­ apparent that the murderers were ored sedan or staff car drove in­ of manufacture — 1953 and 1954. perialism then was the Mexican under precise orders what to do to the village of Tlaquiltenango The Fábrica Nacional de Muni­ Section of the Fourth Interna­ in the Mexican state of Morelos and had carried out these orders ciones is a military arsenal which tional. Jaramillo became a mem­ and stopped before the house of without any delay. manufactures munitions exclu­ ber of it in 1946. Though small, peasant leader Rubén F. Jara- There had not even been any sively for the Mexican army and this active group, gave Jaramillo millo. A group of about 60 men, attempts to make it appear as a some branches of the police — in­ and his supporters in Morelos un­ some in uniform, others in civilian case of ley fuga (a common prac­ cluding the Federal Judicial Po­ stinting aid. He made frequent clothes, jumped out of the vehicles tice in which prisoners, of whom lice. Cartridges of. 45 caliber are trips to Mexico City for meetings. and surrounded the house, setting officials wish to dispose without used in the arm y’s regulation The proletarians and intellectuals up machine guns covering the trial, are shot in the back al­ automatic pistols and in Thomp­ of the Mexican Trotskyist party front and rear doors. legedly “trying to escape”). All son sub-machineguns. Arm s of learned much from him and he Jaramillo, who was inside saw­ five bodies were found together, this caliber by law may not be learned much from them. ing wood, was ordered to come machinegunned from the front and used in Mexico by private citizens. out because “the general” was close up. Each had, moreover, in Nominated for Office waiting for him. This command the formal pattern of execution by Smeared Victim In 1948 it was decided that he not having produced the desired firing squad, been given a coup Immediately after the killings would run for governor of result, the soldiers and their de grace (a pistol shot in the became known, the Attorney Gen­ Morelos as the candidate of the civilian helpers broke in and kid­ head). eral’s office, of which the Federal Mexican Section of the Fourth In­ napped Jaramillo, his pregnant Mexico’s leftist, pro-Cuba, Judicial Police is a subordinate ternational. A ll the legal formali­ wife, Epifanía, and his three step­ weekly news magazine, P o litica , agency, hastily issued a press re­ ties were complied with and sons, Enrique, Filem ón and R i­ which has carried the most infor­ lease which imputed all sorts of Jaramillo appeared on the ballot crimes to the murdered peasant Rubén Jaramillo under that party designation. He leader. It accused him of armed conducted an active campaign and robbery, trafficking in drugs, tween “the Zapatistas of Mexico met an enthusiastic response from holding up tourists on the high­ and the Zapatistas of Russia. ” the campesinos and workers of the ways, deceiving and demanding The years 1915-1919 were the state. Particularly effective was money from the peasants, and of years of Rubén Jaramillo’s basic a memorable campaign poster por­ having amassed 100, 000 pesos in education. He never forgot the traying the face of Emiliano Za­ recent robberies. lessons learned nor abandoned pata and, in the shadow cast by For all his fame, Jaramillo was the aims for which Zapata died. it, Jaramillo’s face. Underneath a poor man. His house in Tlaqui- With the end of the m ilitary phase were the words: “Zapata is back tenango, which his abductors of the Revolution, young Jara­ to fight in defense of agrarian sacked not for valuables but for millo slowly distinguished himself reform . ” papers and documents, was very in his native district as a leader Election fraud is a common­ modest. When he was murdered, in seeking justice and enforcement place or rather a regular practice Jaramillo had only 90 centavos in of the agrarian reform laws which in Mexico. This is especially true his pockets. His and the others’ had been written into Mexican of state elections. Mexico has a coffins had to be paid for by law. one-party system with the gov­ donations from neighbors and Though all politicians now gave ernment party simply not tolerat­ campesinos of the area. lip service to the aims of the ing the existence of any signifi­ Though troops blocked the roads Revolution and to agrarian re­ cant opposition. Where falsifying into Tlaquiltenango on May 25, form , the passage of the years saw the ballot count doesn’t suffice, the day of the burial, there were more and more corruption, cir­ recourse is had to violence. over 5, 000 in the funeral proces­ cumvention and violation of the The day after the election, the sion — not only campesinos from agrarian laws. Many latifundia or first Sunday of July, 1948, Jara­ Morelos, but some from the states huge estates escaped nationaliza­ millo denounced the official tabu­ of Puebla and Guerrerro. They tion and transfer to the peasants, lation, giving victory to the gov­ draped Jaramillo’s coffin in a others m erely passed into the ernment party’s candidate, as Mexican flag carried by Zapatista hands of politicians or high m ili­ fraudulent and refused to accept forces during the Revolution. tary figures. Others weré na­ it. This immediately put him be­ Who was Rubén Jaramillo? Why tionalized but, instead of going to yond the law and he and a group did some people hate or fear him the campesinos, were rented as of followers took to the Sierra. enough to go to such lengths to public lands to some entrepreneur Since he had the backing of the murder him and members of his with the right political connec­ people, the new govemor’s family? Why should a govern­ tions. forces were unable to catch him. ment agency spread lies about him Federal forces were sent in, but after his death? Why did thou­ Cárdenas Acted w ith no more success. He was in ­ sands of peasants circumvent an Only with the accession to the volved in many skirmishes and army blockade to attend his presidency in 1934 of Lázaro had narrow escapes. Once, w hile funeral? Cárdenas was there any substan­ he was making a speech to vil­ At the time of his assassination, tial resumption of the land reform lagers assembled in the local this strong, handsome man, with supposedly won by the Revolu­ school, a federal detachment ar­ flashing eyes, was 62 years old. tion. But the end of his adminis­ rived and opened fire. They were From adolescence he had been tration in 1940 was followed by driven off. On another occasion a fighter for the rights of his peo­ a reaction and once again land when Jaramillo was wounded, his ple — the peasants of Mexico. reform became a dead letter. wife, Epifanía, also an expert with At 15 or 16 he had joined the It was in this period that Jara­ a rifle, saved his life by killing guerrilla army of Emiliano Zapa­ millo, seeking redress for the an officer and three soldiers of ta, the indomitable leader of the grievances of the peasants of the attacking force. peasants of Morelos. Under Za­ Morelos, sought allies outside his Finally, however, he was forced pata’s leadership, Morelos, a state state and came into contact with to flee his beloved Morelos and Emiliano Zapata of vast sugar-cane plantations the Mexican Section of the Fourth live clandestinely elsewhere in Born 1877 (approx. ) — Assassinated April 10, 1919 and dispossessed and exploited International (Trotskyists). He Mexico. Nonetheless, during this Monday, February 18, 1963 Page Five

In Land-Hungry Mexico: Government Abets Killing of Peasant Leader time he often slipped into Mexico the peasants’ claim to the lands City to keep in touch with his of Michapa and El Guarin in comrades of the Mexican Trot­ Morelos, led a deputation to Mexi­ skyist movement. co City where it was known the In 1953 Mexican President Ruiz President would dedicate some Cortines, in answer to questions public works of the Tenochtitlan by Jaramillo’s friends, stated that development. he had instructed federal agencies The police kept the peasant that Jaramillo was no longer to leader and his followers from be considered a concern of the speaking to the President. But federal government but a local Jaramillo’s wife, carrying a bou­ (i. e., state) problem. With this as­ quet of flowers, managed to sta­ surance, Jaramillo renounced tion herself in a strategic spot and guerrilla activity, and returned to hand the bouquet to Lopez Mateos Morelos announcing he would re­ along with a petition about the sume the struggle for peasants’ lands. The President greeted her rights by utilizing legal proce­ in friendly fashion and exchanged dures. The new state administra­ a few words, even calling her tion decided to overlook his past “Pifa” (the familiar, diminutive offenses and his legality was thus form of her first name, Epifanía). established. But no Presidential intervention resulted. On the contrary, the National Figure contrary, the police began arrest­ His reputation and activities ex­ ing Jaramillo’s companions. Some tended far beyond Morelos, mak­ were beat up; one’s home was ing him a national figure, the most wrecked and documents there be­ prominent of the fighters for longing to Jaramillo were stolen. peasants’ rights. In his 1958 elec­ * * * tion campaign, for example, the Certainly Jaramillo had many current president of Mexico, enemies. In their general number Lopez Mateos, arranged to meet can be reckoned all the latifund­ Jaram illo and be photographed ists, corrupt officials and other giving him the abrazo (most cor­ defrauders of the peasants. dial form of greeting among Moreover, he was very bold in Mexican men in which they em­ his actions. Mexico is a country brace and pound one another on where ex-presidents are as power­ the back). López Mateos then ful as the great feudal lords of A CONTINGENT of Zapata’s Revolutionary Army of the South which twice — once in conjunc­ spoke about Mexico’s need to old. They have their own private tion with Pancho Villa’s Army of the North — took Mexico City. For nine years they fought for carry out agrarian reform, adding armies of pistoleros (gunmen) and “Land and Liberty. ” During the last four years of their guerrilla warfare there was a young man important followings in the gov­ that he was glad that Zapata still in their ranks named Rubén Jarimillo. lived in Jaramillo’s person who ernment, the official party (PRI) should keep on fighting for the and the army. Yet Jaramillo, for peasants who needed true emanci­ example, dared lead peasants in tempt to secure these public lands “to protect him or die with him. ” Villa and Zapata are but the most pation. the northern part of Vera Cruz for the peasants though not im­ But no official investigation or famous of those who met such on a sit-down on a big estate be­ mediately successful were perfect­ Indeed, not too long after his action followed. To believe the deaths. Jaramillo’s brother, Porfi­ longing to ex-President Camacho. ly legal. inauguration, President López various government agencies no rio, leader of the cam pesinos of Indeed, these lands had been one ever arrested Jaramillo. The Mateos summoned Jaramillo to From S k y ? the sugar co-operative of Aten- “ceded” to the campesinos of the Attorney General of Morelos dec­ Mexico City and offered him the cingo, was murdered in 1954, at The Mexicans have dubbed region twice by presidential de­ post of General Inspector of Mar­ lared that neither his office nor the order, it is said, of a latifund­ these peasant sit-downers para­ cree — once in 1922, again in 1929. kets. Friends, to whom Jaramillo any district judge had ever issued ist who is in addition a banker, caidistas or parachutists — be­ While this made them “public” an order of arrest for the peasant described this incident, quote him movie magnate and “philanthrop­ cause they appear so suddenly — lands, they were not in the hands leader. The Defense Department ist. ” as replying: “Mr. President I am as if they had dropped from the of the campesinos but were rented grateful you called me and that denied that federal troops took Former comrades of Jaramillo sky — to occupy lands which they out to a rich cattleman, a friend part in the kidnapping and murd­ you have an appreciation of my in the Trotskyist movement vivid­ consider by right and the agrarian of the governor. problem of living and supporting ers. The Federal Judicial Police ly recall him speaking at several reforms laws to be theirs. Jara­ P o lítica claims to have found denies any connection with the ar­ my family. But that job is not for of the annual memorial meetings millo helped develop the techni­ out that secret plans existed for rests. The federal Attorney Gen­ me. To collect a few pennies from the Mexican Section of the Fourth que and led many such land oc­ a big government project to ir­ eral’s office stated in an official poor devils who are as poor as I International held for Leon Trot­ cupations. They were all within rigate these lands. Once that proj­ communique that federal author­ am — that is not for me. Thanks sky, assassinated by Stalin’s GPU the law, for, after he laid down ect was finished the lands would ities had not arrested him and that just the same. ” his arms, he took pains to operate in 1940. The peasant leader’s re­ be very fertile and extremely the murders were in the jurisdic­ marks ran along these lines: “The Jaramillo’s refusal of a govern­ with due observance for the legal­ valuable. P o lítica states: “In fact, tion of the authorities in the State previous speakers have told you ment job signified his refusal to ities. Nonetheless they undoubted­ the zone of Michapa and El Gua­ of Morelos. But the Attorney Gen­ that Trotsky was a good man, that be bought off, to give up the strug­ ly made him mortal enemies rin, once the work is completed eral of Morelos declared that since he was always for the working gle and accommodate himself to among the rich and powerful. w ill become the grain-producing the crime had been committed by people. That’s obvious — why else the government party, the Partido He also repeatedly denounced area for the state of Morelos and members of the army it was out­ would they have killed him? Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) and exposed the management of for the Federal District. Naturally, side his jurisdiction. That’s what happens to leaders which despite its name and the Emiliano Zapata sugar m ill at there are many people who are who stay true to the Revolution. demagogic holiday invocations Zacatepec. This huge enterprise Bodies Found interested in taking over those That’s what happened to Zapata, has nothing revolutionary about it was supposed to be a co-operative In September the bullet-riddled lands through ‘colonization, ’ which that’s what happened to Trotsky but is the upholder of the status but its control had been usurped bodies of Capt. José Martinez and in Mexico is a big business for and that’s what will happen to quo. López Mateos apparently felt from the sugar-cane raising Heriberto Espinosa were found influential politicians and neo-la­ others till the working people that the offer and its rejection had peasants of Morelos. Jaramillo was near Telloapan in the state of tifundists. ” have won completely. ” also paid off whatever political likewise a scourge of those po­ This also explains why the po­ Guerrero. Both had been iden­ Can one doubt that when he ut­ obligation he had to the peasant liticians who praise the aims of lice and then his abductors were tified by Raquel Jaramillo and tered those words, the speaker leader for that campaign photo of the Mexican Revolution, which the so eager to seize Ja ram illo’s docu­ others as leading participants in fully realized that that was what the abrazo. PRI, the government party, claims ments. For he had duly complied the military-civilian kidnap gang. would also happen to himself? The following incident related it is still carrying on, while in with all the forms for securing Two theories exist about their by P o lític a shows how inaccessible daily practice they betrayed all these lands for the landless cam ­ deaths. One has it that the cam ­ Almost every week now brings President Lopez Mateos had be­ the revolution hoped for. He had pesinos of the region and they had pesinos have avenged their lead­ new reports of peasant struggles come to the man he had hailed been especially scornful of the been approved by a governmental er. The other is that higher-ups in Mexico. In one state after an­ during the election campaign as governor of Morelos, whom he agency, not “in the know” about in the assassination plot have dis­ other there are clashes with the the incarnation of the peasant accused of having taken part in the impending irrigation project. posed of two tools who were no police or army. Parachutists are the assassination of Zapata. longer useful and had become a driven off lands they have oc­ struggle. * * * On March 28, 1962, Jaramillo, The magazine P olítica , however, source of danger. cupied during the night. Peasants as a last resort to secure Presi­ which has pursued the investiga­ Jaramillo’s stepdaughter, Ra­ Despite the government’s efforts march to Mexico City with griev­ dential intervention on behalf of tion with great zeal, believes that quel, it w ill be recalled, had es­ to achieve a press blackout on the ances and demands for land. An­ the key to the assassination is to caped from the abductors. She had case, there has been great public other great storm is brewing. The be found in the struggle for the run into the village to ask the indignation. Many organizations wind that swept Mexico from lands of Michapa and El Guarin. municipal authorities to protect have made public protests. These 1910 to 1919 is beginning to rise In February, 1961, at the head her father. There she was told that include not only organizations again. Want the Truth? of 5, 000 landless but armed cam ­ “all was in order and that the which supported Jaramillo’s re­ No doubt high government offi­ W h at is Cuba really like to­ pesinos, Jaramillo staged the first soldiers and civilians carried ord­ cent struggles — for example, the cials breathe easier now that day? Read an honest, illum­ occupation of the lands of Mi­ ers of arrest from the office, of the Communist Party and the Move­ Jaram illo is not on the scene to inating eye-witness report by chapa and El Guarin in Morelos. Attorney General of the Repub­ ment for National Liberation lead the impending struggles. But The front pages of Mexican news­ lic . ” (which is headed by Cárdenas’ one of America's top journ­ the lessons he taught are still fresh papers announced: “Jaramillo In­ Immediately after the news of the son, Cuahuatemoc) but even or­ in the campesinos’ memories; his alists. vades Public Lands, ” “Jaramillo massacre of her family she fled, ganizations of the right. Only the spirit inspires many. Rebels Again, ” “Jaramillo Returns making her way to the home of government party, the P a rtid o When the assassins k ille d Za­ A Visit to Cuba to his Old Ways, ” etc. But when ex-President Cárdenas in Jiquil- Revolutionary Institucional (P R I) pata, they were unaware of, and the commander of the military pan in the state of Michoacan. remained silent. consequently overlooked, a young zone, arrived from Cuernavaca Cárdenas gave her refuge. On It can be said with certainty man in the Zapatista ranks named By I. F. Stone with federal troops, Jaramillo and June 11 she presented the At­ that Jaram illo expected assassins. Rubén Jaram illo. The assassins of his parachutists dispersed peace­ torney General with a detailed Before the first occupation of the 1962 corrected that costly over­ 25 cents a copy ably, though under protest. deposition of the facts in the case Michapa and El Guarin plains, sight. But among Jaramillo’s fol­ Carrying arms is not illegal in and asked that they be investigat­ he, his wife, and the other prin­ lowers how many young cam pe­ O rd er from Mexico and Jaramillo could show ed. She named a Captain José cipals leaders of the action all sinos were overlooked — whose that, as was printed in the official Martinez and a civilian informer, made their wills. names mean nothing to the lati­ Pioneer Publishers gazette of April 20, 1960, they had Heriberto Espinosa, as members Moreover, Mexico is a country fundists and government officials 116 University Place duly applied for allocation of those of the murder gang. She also told where revolutionary leaders often today — who tomorrow will New York 3, N. Y. lands for the formation the Otilio how her mother and brothers had are assassinated. President Mede- avenge their murdered leader and Montaño settlement. Thus, the at­ chosen to accompany Jaramillo ro, President Obregon, Pancho carry on his work? Page Six THE MILITANT Monday, February 18, 1963 ajiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiM im iHiiiiim iiiHHiiiim iiiim niiiiiM iiiim m iiiim iiiitiiiiiim iiiiiinm Jiiiiiiiiiiiim iiiiiim iiiM m iiiniinim iiiiiiiiiiinim iiiiim m iiiiim iiniii'i PAMPHLET REVIEW A Message to the Unions

We think our readers w ill be interested in the following edi­ A Crusading Writer Tells Monroe Story torial from the Jan. 18 Carolina Times, a leading Southern Negro P e o p l e W i t h S t r e n g t h . By T ru ­ clearest demonstrations of this weekly published in Durham. N.C. It points up a fundamental man Nelson. 37 pp., 35 cents. fact. fact of economic life that the officialdom of the trade-union move­ Distributed by Committee to ment w ill continue to ignore only at its own expense and, more Nelson effectively uses his fa­ Aid Monroe Defendants, 168 W. miliarity with the history of important, at the expense of the entire working class. 23 S t., New Y ork 11, N. Y. * * * abolitionism, Civil War and Re­ This booklet, in which Truman construction. His contrasting of A recent Associated Press report discloses that North Carolina Nelson tells the story of Monroe, Williams’ Unitarian 'friends’ — who during the month of November was tied with Mississippi for last N. C., is an im portant contribu­ abandoned him when he built a place in the nation in factory wages paid. Now, when any state tion to the defense in the framed- defense guard, with the fighting ties with Mississippi for anything, it holds a most unenviable up Monroe “ kidnap” case and a anti-slavery minister of old, The­ worthy addition to the literature position in the United States. Without trying to put our finger odore Parker, has an important of the civil-rights movement. message fo r whites today who exactly on the reason for the disgraceful position held by North Truman Nelson is a novelist and Carolina, we only say that whatever it takes to rise above Missis­ wish to render real assistance to a scholar of the abolitionist move­ the Negro struggle. sippi should be resorted to. ment. His first two works, The If there are those among the citizens of North Carolina who Sin of the Prophet and The Pas­ The background of the Monroe story develops into an account of feel a bit of shame because their state has tied for last place sion By the Brook dealt with Bos­ ton’s stirring abolitionist and the so-called “kidnap” incident. with Mississippi, we say to them, take courage. The previous At the height of tension, while month North Carolina was actually on the bottom with Mississippi transcendentalist days. His recent novel, The Surveyor, is the firs t the racists still rioted downtown, being a cent above it. It might also be of further concern to those of a cycle on John Brown. Nel­ a white couple, the Stegalls, drove of this state to learn that South Carolina workers were four son is also chairman of the Bos­ into Monroe’s armed Negro dis­ cents above the hourly wages paid workers in this state and that ton chapter of the Committee to trict. A map of Monroe in the Alabama topped all states of the Southeast with an average hourly Aid the Monroe Defendants. By pamphlet helps one to visualize the events. wage of $2.05. joining this struggle of his fellow Robert F. Williams Whatever the actual reasons, we are of the opinion that at men fo r justice, he sets an ex­ The details of who the Stegalls were and how they were treated the bottom of the low hourly wage to be found in North Carolina ample for American artists and liams built the NAACP in Monroe scholars, so often isolated in their for the two hours they remained is the fact that it is one of the few Southern states in which with a difference; how a Negro ivory lowers. in the Negro community are very Negroes are used to a great extent as factory laborers. A close defense guard stymied KKK To open his pamphlet, Nelson important since the legalities of check on the wages paid Negro factory workers in comparison night-riding; how the Klan turned combines reports of participants the case tu rn on them. A n y fa ir- to legal terrorism instead. with those paid white factory workers might disclose that the with his own feeling for Monroe, minded person, after reading Nel­ latter are better paid and overall hourly rate is therefore pulled which he has visited, to recon­ A number of incidents are used son’s account, will condemn this down by the low wages paid the Negro workers. It is also a well- struct with a novelist’s skill the to show the typical interpenetra­ unjust and absurd prosecution. known fact that North Carolina is one of the few Southern states riot that took place there August tion of racism and the state in Nelson reports that Attorney in which Negro workers are not confined almost entirely to the 17, 1961. A t that time some 5,000 Dixie: such as the frameup of General Robert Kennedy, who Dr. Albert Perry, NAACP leader farm and other menial work where the wages are the very lowest Klan-minded racists with police would like to get Rob Williams in Monroe and now chairman of and consequently not figured in the hourly pay of factory workers. condonance broke up a picket line as much as her would William C AM D; the Kissing Case, which Worthy, said of this case, “ I would We think organized labor has a job to do in the South that of Freedom Riders and local civil- rights activists. brought Monroe international no­ hope and expect that persons re­ cannot be done under its present practice of having segregated This riot was the immediate toriety; the series of legal crimes sponsible for the violence, includ­ unions, especially where Negro and white workers work side by background to an incident for which provoked Williams to tell ing the holding of a man and his side and are doing the same work. Such a policy always tends which four people are still facing the press “Negroes must meet wife as hostages [sic], will be to weaken the overall program of labor and in the end is certain trial and possible life sentences. violence with violence.” prosecuted to the full extent of to result in a low wage scale, especially here in North Carolina, But for a real understanding of Nelson further shows from the the law .” for both the white and Negro worker. what happened, the more general Monroe story how racism blights We reply to the voice of legal­ background of the Monroe story not only our social life and South­ ized terror in the words of this has to be filled in, and this in­ ern politics but penetrates even honest pamphleteering novelist: evitably revolves around the to the core of our national gov­ “ . . . enough, enough, enough of figure of Robert F. W illiam s. ernment. The FBI’s legalized man­ this wicked revenge! The Stegalls ...New York Printers Strike If you have never heard the hunt for Williams, which forced had a bad two hours, but they story of Rob Williams, here is the him to seek exile in Cuba, and went free, unhurt, and this un­ (Continued from Page 1) President Kennedy echoed this complete account. If you have, it Attorney General Kennedy’s re­ ceasing and procrastinating tor­ Throughout these negotiations the same theme at his press confer­ loses nothing in this retelling. In fusal to prosecute in a documented ture of five people is legal sadism. publishers knew what was going ence last week when he said the fact, it gains by the revelation of case of police com plicity, in the Quash the indictments and let on. They were there. The union strike “may end up with two or its broader significance. brutal beating of a Freedom Williams come home.” representatives participating also Here is the account of how W il- Rider in the Monroe jail, are the —George Bailey knew what was happening. Only three papers closing down.” Ken­ the workers were left in the dark. nedy knows that it is not the The news vacuum surrounding printers’ limited and restricted the workers was filled with spe­ strike of only four papers that culation. Being vitally concerned “may end up with two or three with the negotiations they were papers closing down,” but the World Events prey to the rumors and confusion publishers’ lock-out on the “ weak­ that were rife. er” papers that could lead to their Nigerian Strike Students Back Teachers bership grew by 6 per cent in ITU President Elmer Brown demise. Kennedy is well informed Four policemen were injured 1962 to 8,790,000 members, this took part in the last three days of and he knows that the union of­ A thousand Greek students dem­ and 25 workers arrested on Feb. onstrated in front of the univer­ amounts to 35 per cent of the en­ these negotiations. After the ses­ fered and still offers to return to 7 when striking dockworkers tire labor force. sions ended he charged the pub­ work on these “weaker” papers. sity in Athens, protesting the re- clashed with cops on the Lagos turn-to-work ultimatum of the lishers with not being interested in He knows the union offered, and waterfront. The clash was caused North Korean Production Up a settlement now. February is the still offers, to negotiate separate governm ent to 30,000 schoolteach­ by an order from the Nigerian ers in the 20th day of their strike North Korea’s gross industrial slowest month of the year for contracts with these “weaker” pa­ Port Authority, directing labor newspaper advertising and it is pers at scale “to fit their needs.” for higher wages. output in 1962 increased in value contractors to get the 6,000 s trik ­ by 20 per cent over the preceding thought that the publishers do not This was no small concession on ing dock workers back to work want a February settlement very the union’s part. Italian CP Press Declines year, the New China News Agen­ within 48 hours. cy said. Quoting a report issued by much. He does not speak of this ap­ The Rome correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor reports the Central Statistical Board of Before returning to ITU head­ proach to bargaining which would Soviet Protest to Japan that the press of the Italian Com­ North Korea’s State Planning quarters in Colorado, President prevent any paper from folding. The Soviet Union charged Japan munist Party is declining rapidly. Commission, it said national in­ Brown said that there was a divi­ Instead he piously asserts that he with preparing to accept U.S. nu­ Two papers have folded and more come last year also increased sion in the publishers’ ranks which does not “ th in k the bargaining clear weapons and said that this closings are expected. The decline, about 10 per cent. was delaying a settlement. has been particularly responsible.” would force the USSR to take he states, is due not only to loss of This difference is thought to be At the same press conference he counteraction. The Soviet based its circulation and party membership, One-Way Street the desire of the “weaker” papers claimed to be a strong believer in charge on what it said was a U.S.- but to the new party line and to On Jan. 1 the Spanish Govern­ to settle now before they are un­ free collective bargaining but he Japan agreement to have U.S. nu­ open conflict “where, for in­ ment reduced excise taxes on a able to reopen at all. This theme deplored this strike as a “trial clear subs call at Japanese ports. stance, one Communist paper w ill variety of consumers items in an was first introduced by Post pub­ by force.” The Soviet memorandum said that deny what has appeared in an­ attempt to curb run-away infla­ lisher Dorothy Schiff. Under A principal feature of this strike this accord is “intended to pave other . . .” “ Though finances,” he tion. The Christian Science Moni­ pressure from the Publishers’ As­ has been the assertive nature of the way for the introduction of continues, “are the main cause of to r correspondent reports, “In sociation, she locked out her em­ government interference both as U.S. nuclear weapons into Japan.” the slaughter in the Communist theory, prices should have dropped ployes and then declared that the to procedure as w e ll as issues. Premier Ikeda rejected the mem­ press there is also the fact that the appreciably with regard to a vari­ Post might not be able to survive Along with the familiar media­ orandum, but told parliament that p arty has ceased to propagate a ety of foodstuffs, beverages, elec­ a long shutdown. tion, has come Labor Secretary U.S. nuclear subs w ould not be ‘revolutionary aim’ and has settled tricity, etc.” To shopkeepers who W irtz’s strike-breaking brainchild, allowed to enter Japanese ports if down to a more tranquil position said that they had not reduced the so-called Board of Public Ac­ they carried polaris missiles. countability, and Gov. Rockefel­ of collaboration .... w ith the prices “because we never got of­ FIDEL CASTRO ler’s proposed Commission of Pub­ New Argentine Crackdown present left-of-center Italian gov­ ficial orders to do so,” shoppers lic Concern. A UPI dispatch reported that the ernment. Co-existence is in the angrily retorted that when “taxes air, and this does not require such are raised, we don’t recall that the o n Though aimed at the printers Argentine military dictatorship specifically, that commission cracked down on “extremists, sub­ a weight of journalistic propa­ merchants waited for official Marxism-Leninism would have been a permanent versives and followers of former ganda.” orders to pass on the cost to the body — and a permanent threat dictator Juan D. Peron” after a consumer.” (Speech of Dec. 2, 1961) to the whole labor movement in union meeting at which a tape- More U.S. Casualties New York state. But for their own recorded speech by Peron called A U.S. Army captain killed in a Spiegel Editor Released reasons — believed to be mainly for a revolt. At the same time skirmish with guerrillas on Jan. Rudolf Angstein, editor of D er 84 pages $1 fear of having to open their books deposed President Arturo Frondizi 31 raised the number of U.S. serv­ Spiegel, was released from prison to investigators with subpoena was moved to a new place of im­ icemen killed in South Vietnam in on Feb. 8, Angstein and 10 mem­ powers, the publishers opposed prisonment 1,100 miles south of the last 14 months to 55. The Ken­ bers of his staff had been arrest­ PIONEER PUBLISHERS creation of this commission. So Buenos Aires. nedy administration calls these ed on Oct. 27 and charged with 116 University Place Rockefeller stopped pressing for U.S. troops m ilitary “advisers.” treason because of articles critical it. He lamely explained that his Japan's Best Customer of the West German armed forces. real purpose was to provoke dis­ The U.S. is Japan’s only one- Japanese Unions Grow Many of them were arrested in Ask for our new literature list cussion and stimulate an exchange billion-dollar customer, according The Japanese Labor Ministry the middle of the night in proce­ of views. to the U.S. Dept, of Commerce. reported that trade-union mem­ dures reminiscent of Nazi methods. Monday, February 18, 1963 THE MILITANT Page Seven Letters from our readers

Striker's View The last two years have seen The Negro and white will ar­ Myrdal on Class Lines What Myrdal is really saying is New York, N.Y. the publishers’ arrogance expand rive at the same basic and mutual­ that as the American empire to the point where they arbitrarily ly suitable philosophy. These peo­ Columbia, Mo. As a striking printer I have Last week in an address before shrinks, the contradictions within more time these days — after my fired a chapel (shop) chairman at ple will be the most precious the Fund for the Republic, the capitalism are becoming more daily tour of duty on the picket one newspaper and once more weapon in his war that he could succeeded, after dragging out ne­ hope for. They w ill multiply, and bourgeois economist and sociolo­ clearly apparent — and along line — to catch up on my read­ gist, Gunnar Myrdal, made sev­ ing. Thus, one of the unexpected gotiations for over seven months the final goal that they both de­ rigidly stratified class lines at that; past contract expiration, in forcing sire will be near. eral points which should be of in­ results of the strike has been my terest to radicals, coming as they Which underscores exactly what very rewarding renewal of ac­ down our throats another “pack­ White Rebel age” deal swindle. The dollars- do from a man who has functioned Marx and Lenin delineated in quaintance with The Militant. as a semi-official spokesman for and-cents clause in this last con­ Capitalist Hanky-Panky? their investigations of capitalism First, I’d like to say that The the “liberal establishment” since tract was so bad we had to give Oakland, Calif. and imperialism. M ilita n t’s reports on the strike and publication 19 years ago of his lockout are the most thorough I ’ve up medical benefits already se­ In the Jan. 28 M ilita n t “ Jobless Set into the context of the cured in past contracts — or else Worker” calls capitalist statistics a highly influential study of the seen, especially in explaining the Negro struggle, An American Di­ 1960’s all this is related in this settle without any increase at all sham. In particular he disbelieves struggle of the printers to pre­ lem m a. This last address, how­ for the first year of the contract! the unem ploym ent statistics, based way: The American capitalist serve their union as a fighting in­ ever, dealt more with economics. class has found a new source of strument and to compel the pow­ The Militant has correctly put on only those p re se n tly draw ing Discussing the present stagna­ super-profits in automated in­ erful publishers’ association to sit its finger on one weak spot in the insurance benefits. He gets help tion of the American economy and dustry and the temporary gains down and bargain across the table printers’ armor — the lack of pub­ for this thesis from the following the probable effects of this on for­ from this are so immense that they in good faith. licity in the form of our own in the February issue of H o lid a y eign policy, Myrdal states, “Inter­ w ill use every organ of their state For over ten years, by follow­ paper to get our side of the story magazine in an article on the De­ n a lly it is apt to create rigid class apparatus to secure them. Conse­ ing a “divide-and-rule” strategy, to the rest of the laboring public. partment of Labor: chasms and, in particular, to cause quently, Kennedy’s “hard” line to they have been able to whittle Undoubtedly the strike leaders “ ‘We couldn't juggle the figures the growth of an underprivileged secure the empire abroad w ill be away at the once proud position have had to concentrate on the if we wanted to; we operate in a class not sharing in the nation’s paralleled at home by an all-out of the typographical union in the main problem of maintaining unity goldfish bowl,’ a BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) statistician said opportunities.” attack against civil rights, civil front ranks of organized labor. of the ten crafts involved against liberties (the outlawing of work­ the continuous attempts by the a year or so ago in answering ir ­ Presumably Mr. Myrdal is un­ responsible charges that unem­ aware that such a class has ex­ ers’ organizations and parties, publishers’ association to find a notably the Communist Party) and weak link. In fact, one great gain ployment figures are being mani­ isted, and remained relatively sta­ 10 YEARS AGO pulated to promote welfare legis­ tic since the formation of an urban anything else pertaining to free­ already achieved by the strike has dom. Any political organization been the forging of this fighting lation. American proletariat in the two “More than a score of angry decades following the Civil War. that fails to recognize the class in­ unity of all the printing crafts for terconnection of all forms of reac­ IN THE MILITANT the first time! business leaders rushed immedi­ Seemingly blind to the contradic­ ately to the bureau’s defense. The tion with his previous statement tions is dooming itself to inef­ But the lack of our own paper fectuality and is ultimately doing “Several . . . widely publicized has handicapped us in our efforts unemployment figures, collected about an underprivileged class incidents have occurred recently for BLS by the Census Bureau, developing in the future, Myrdal a grave disservice to the work­ to break through the curtain of ing class. which indicate the mounting dis­ lies rung down by the publishers are tabulated and analyzed by went on the point out that more Dave Cunningham gust with the Korean war . . . on big-business-dominated TV, methods worked out in regular than two-fifths of the American “The courts-martial and convic­ people right now “do not share radio and all the other media of meetings with the Business Re­ Our Large-Size Thanks tion, with heavy prison sentences publicity. They have also sup­ search Advisory Council appointed to an substantial extent in the at hard labor, of 87 men and one pressed any mention of the threat by the Chamber of Commerce and abundance commonly assumed to Romulus, Mich. officer of the famed 65th Regi­ of automation to the livelihood of the National Association of Man­ characterize American society.” Although your publication is ment, made up mainly of Puerto hundreds of skilled men with ufacturers. The Council would And, Myrdal concludes, “The af­ small in size it carries more ob­ Ricans, was very revealing. These years of service on the newspa­ hardly countenance any Socialistic fluent society is largely a myth, jective reporting than ever I have men were accused of breaking and pers. The publishers feel that these hanky-panky with the statistics.” except for a privileged upper ever read. running, refusing to counter-attack veteran printers have no right to B.A.B. strata.” T.H. and disobeying orders in an attack demand a share in the benefits on Kelly Hill. A ‘large portion’ they will reap from greatly in­ of those who refused to fight, creased productivity. That helped according to Maj. Walton Mc­ to explain why they refused to Mullen of the 3rd Infantry Divi­ negotiate in good faith. It Was Reported in the Press sion, were not raw replacements I would like to also say that I but veterans being returned to the have found most inspiring The Memo from Gen. Swivelhead — the U.S.; The U.S. “should eradi­ elevated feed trough which com­ lines. They had some of the best M ilita n t’s coverage of the Cuban “Army recruiters are trying a new cate Marxist thinking from the pels the pig to stand on his hind combat records of the war.” — events, especially the complete twist — ‘the Army Enlistment minds of Cuban children.” Why legs to eat. The exercise trims the Feb. 16, 1953 translation of Castro’s speech to Twist.’ A spokesman said the best not give Senator Young a supply rear end by about five per cent. the women’s conference in the way to reach teenagers is through of those surplus feathers and ship their kind of music. So a song him to Cuba where he can try Time Schedule — A new port­ Feb. 4 issue. The striking printers, able disaster kit includes a stove 20 YEARS AGO aimed at the younger set was rec­ dusting that pernicious Marxism who continue to man their picket and enough fuel to cook 42 meals. “Soviet propaganda leaflets orded . . . An Army plug distrib­ from the minds of the children? lines with excellent morale, would That means that if you sleep late which were showered upon Hit­ uted with the record says ‘This understand Castro’s message w ith­ Our Rational Society — At the and lim it yourself to brunch and ler’s soldiers at Stalingrad have spin should make lots of instant out any trouble when he says, end of 1962 the federal govern­ dinner you’re good for 21 days. been reprinted in this country by infantry. Let’s fire one, bend our “And there will be no division ment had a record surplus of 300 the Stalinists .... knees, swivel our hips and twist here! There w ill be unity here! . . . million pounds of butter stored An Awfully Misunderstood Word “The entire emphasis of the on down and enlist.” From a Jan. Because the imperialist enemy is away to keep the price up. — Republican national chairman leaflets is upon the horror of war before us, w a itin g to destroy us, 25 AP dispatch. W illia m E. M ille r says: “ A n aw­ and the military reverses Hitler and we need unity in order to Warning to China — The Daisy ful lot of people are thinking an Wonder Why? — “The Ameri­ has suffered. The cover of one be able to resist! We need unity Manufacturing Company of Dallas, awful lot of Nelson Rockefeller.” can Medical Association is truly an consists of a photograph of two to win!” Just substitute “arrogant Texas, is considering an Indian amazing group. Its officials can German soldiers horribly mangled lords of the press” for “imperialist government offer to buy 50,000 News of the Week — A press spew millions of words from their by an explosion, and the super­ enemy.” air rifles and an appropriate release from the National Bureau plush offices in Chicago on sub­ imposed picture of a German child Striking Printer amount of BB shot. The proposed of Economic Research describes its jects outside their competence — crying, ‘Papa ist tot’ (Father is contract would also include build­ new book, Aspects of Labor Eco­ such as the economic problems of dead). Rebel to Rebel ing of a factory in India to turn nom ics. The release states: "One retired people. But, on subjects East Aurora, N.Y. out air rifles. “It’s part of the paper, by Jacob Mincer of Colum­ “Such horror propaganda can which they have competence to have an effect upon an army in I am a high school student so country’s national defense pro­ bia University . . . deals with speak — such as how to protect which demoralization has already my ideas still aren’t backed up by gram against Communist China,” ‘Labor Force Participation of Mar­ American mothers against untried a great deal of experience but it explained Daisy president C. S. ried Women.’ The more husbands appeared, but it is only the lim it­ drugs like thalidomide — they ed propaganda weapon used by is a challenge to me to comment Hough. earn, says M incer, the less lik e ly seem to have a muzzle over their any imperialist army against its on the letter from “Black Rebel” it is that wives w ill seek a job ... mouths.” — Aime J. Forand, pres­ Modern Times — Working on faltering rival. Stalin refuses to in the Feb. 4 issue of The Militant. Another of Mincer’s findings is ident of the National Council of the problem of how to turn out use the greatest propaganda wea­ It is right for the Black Rebel that women are even more apt to Senior Citizens in the Jan. 27 leaner hogs without increasing pon in the world, the weapon that to unite with his own kind for seek jobs . . . if their husbands Record, voice of the AFL-CIO food costs, U n ive rsity of C a lifo r­ only the Soviet Union could use, the common purpose of fighting currently earn less than th e ir nor­ Wholesale, Retail & Department nia researchers have developed an mal long-run earnings.” that of revolutionary appeal to for their equality. He should fight Store Union. the worker-soldier in the opposing for his natural right to equality, arm y . . . even if it means with those who Attention Chemical Workers — “But Stalin’s propaganda fol­ oppose him politically. The W all Street Journal reports lows the reactionary capitalist pat­ But if the Negro looks to the that doctors at the Union Carbide tern. It has nothing in common past, which has not freed him Corp. “encourage key employes INTRODUCTORY OFFER! with Lenin’s methods. Stalin of­ yet, he w ill continue to live as if who are showing signs of strain fers the German workers no aid he was still in it. The answer, and tension to take four-day week­ in throwing off the shackles of therefore, must be a new idea. ends” — key executive employes, The politician will arrive at fascism and imperialism and no that is. A Four-Month Subscription promise of support in their strug­ the inevitable conclusion sooner or gle to create a German workers’ later that he will have to support A Suggestion — A newsletter To The M ilitant for only $1 state .... the Negro in order to stay in of­ from Senator Stephen Young “No hand of fraternity here — fice. When he comes to this con­ (D-Ohio) includes these points: no common cause against the clusion, and when other whites The U.S. has stockpiled enough Name ...... capitalist oppressors and for the come to the same conclusion, the feathers to last 2,000 years; Fidel establishment of the Socialist Negro w ill have the trust worthy Castro, “ who appears to be a dope United States of Europe . . . allies that he needs so much. addict,” must be overthrow n by Street ...... Zone ...... “The Red Army is delivering defeats to Hitler’s army the hard Thought for the Week C ity ...... State ...... way. They are deprived of rev­ olutionary propaganda which could “No legislative body cherishes the right to debate more than the have disintegrated the German United States Senate, but none employs its prerogative less. Senators Send to The Militant, 116 University Place, forces months ago and saved thou­ talk a great deal, listen less often, and only rarely engage in the give- sands upon thousands of Soviet and-take of reasoned argument.” — From a Washington dispatch to N ew Y o rk 3, N .Y . lives.” — Feb. 13, 1943 the Feb. 7 Wall Street Journal. Page E ight th e MILITANT Monday, February 18, 1963 Unrequited Love Publisher Peddles New Mexican Peasant Union Hogwash in Debate Evokes Storm of Controversy On Cleveland Strike By William Bundy CLEVELAND, Feb. 11 — A An unprecedented storm of con­ widely televised and broadcast de­ troversy has broken out in Mexico bate last Wednesday, night be­ over a new peasant union which tween a publisher and a union was formed last Dec. 26. Ex-Presi- leader in the Cleveland newspa­ dent Lázaro Cárdenas is the target per strike had no bearing on the of a torrent of criticism from real issues that concern the over­ right-wing, government, center, whelming majority of the workers and even some left-wing news­ involved. papers and spokesmen for having Louis B. Seltzer, publisher of given his support to the founding the Cleveland Press, however, did of the group. The new organiza­ underscore one lesson for all the tion, the Central Campesina Inde­ workers listening. His implied pendiente (CCI) calls for the en­ threat that Noel Wical, his op­ forcement of the 48-year-old land ponent in the debate, might not reform law which has never been have a job after the strike, made carried out on the bulk of the it clear that the only protection good land. workers have is their union. A ll recent Mexican governments They got the message. The steer­ have promised implementation of ing policy committee of the Cleve­ the law but exceptions are al­ land Newspaper Guild voted un­ ways made for favorites of the animously to recommend to the administration, powerful landown­ Press unit that continued employ­ ers and wealthy U.S. ranchers. ment of Noel Wical, chairman of During his administration (1934- the Guild unit at Seltzer’s paper, 40) Cárdenas distributed more be made a condition of contract land than all other Mexican presi­ Lázaro Cárdenas acceptance. dents, before or since, but there are now more landless peasants More significant strike develop­ pressed alarm at Cárdenas’ ap­ ments than the “great debate” and than at the end of his term of office. pearance at the founding meeting all the attendant hoopla were the of the CCI. Cárdenas declared addition of another union’s pickets The CCI demands nationaliza­ tion of private banks and other Jan. 21 that the storm of criticism to the line and ratification of a reveals once again that the contract by the Pressmen’s union. measures to ensure credit, fertiliz­ ers, m achinery and processing agrarian problem remains to be Charles Thomson, chairman of facilities to co-operatives and solved. No Tax Dough for Jim Crow, the Printcraft Unity Council and small farmers. Under present con­ The CCI says that, while pover­ secretary of Photoengravers Local ditions they cannot operate as ef­ ty and even starvation are com­ 24, congratulated the Pressmen, ficiently as the large capitalist mon in the countryside, some 200 Urges Roy Wilkins of NAACP the first of the eleven unions ne­ holdings. million acres of land are owned gotiating with the two dailies to Formation of the CCI is being by 9,600 large landowners. Presi­ NEW YORK — Roy Wilkins, Mississippi, for example, got $71 secure an acceptable contract. attacked as a “communist plot” dent Kennedy, meeting with Ló­ NAACP executive secretary, has million in federal money in 1960, Thomson made it clear, however, by various right-wing groups. The pez Mateos last year declared that called on the association’s mem­ the NAACP leader said. that the Pressmen’s $10 wage in­ government-backed peasant union Mexico’s land reform was the old­ bers and supporters to pay their He advised every person paying crease over two years, plus other considers it a rival and blasts it est and most successful in the federal income tax this year un­ his income tax between now and benefits, including improved man­ as “divisionist.” The Partido So­ w orld. der protest against the use of tax April 15 to enclose a statement ning on some printing jobs, do not cialista Popular, lead by Vincente Squatters’ movements, In which funds for segregated institutions, protesting “ the expenditure of any necessarily provide a pattern for Lombardo Toledano, has declared landless peasants occupy large facilities and services. of his payments on programs in settlement of the strike. that the CCI’s criticism of the landholdings have been growing The action is intended to dem­ states which segregate and dis­ The Photoengravers authorized government’s agrarian policy recently and many of their lead­ onstrate to President Kennedy the criminate.” strike action at the discretion of breaks the “patriotic, national, ers helped form the CCI which need to “issue a single, sweeping their bargaining committee, by a democratic front” behind Presi­ claims one million members. One Executive Order which w ill stop, vote of 267 to 15 on Feb. 3. The dent Adolfo López Mateos. Lom­ of the three CCI general secre­ once and for all, any and all next day, Machinists Local 439 bardo Toledano, who headed the taries is Alfonso Garzón, leader grants, loans, subsidies and sup­ U.S. Court Rejects posted pickets in front of the Communist Party in the 1930’s and of the peasants and migrant labor­ ports to states which refuse to obey Press and Plain Dealer, jo in in g 1940’s, denounces the CCI as “ neo- ers in the Mexicali Valley of Baja the Constitution and which use four other unions on strike — the Trotskyist.” California. He was arrested last this money for segregated and dis­ Clemency for Sobell Guild, Teamsters, Typographical The Movement of National Lib­ November in a demonstration criminatory activity.” Ten years ago when Ethel and union, and Mailers. eration and the Communist Party against the U.S.-owned corpora­ Every year, Wilkins pointed Julius Rosenberg were electrocut­ The almost hysterical charges of have issued statements supporting tion that controls much of Mex­ out, “hundreds of millions of dol­ ed they died protesting their in­ Press publisher Seltzer that the the CCI. Most major political fig­ ico’s cotton crop. lars — your tax dollars — are nocence to the end. Today, Morton strike was precipitated by the ures in the country have ex- See background story on page 4 given to defiant Southern states Sobell languishes in Atlanta Fed­ Guild leaders’ “deceit and tricke­ by the federal government.” This eral Penitentiary still claiming his ry” and his cries that a union- tax money, he said, “is used to innocence. security clause would endanger build or support Jim Crow schools, The Rosenbergs and Sobell were “ free speech, a free press, a free CORE: Don't Buy Sealtest Jim Crow colleges, Jim Crow re­ accused of giving the “secret” of country” are thus regarded by the search projects, Jim Crow hos­ the atom bomb to the Soviet newspaper workers as so much pitals, Jim Crow farm programs, Union. Helen Sobell, wife of the hogwash. The basic issue in the Until Jim-Crow Hiring Stops housing, job training and employ­ prisoner, said, “Today the idea strike for all of the newspaper A consumer boycott of prod­ that Russia could have obtained workers is protection of their Negroes and Puerto Ricans at ment service.” ucts of the Sealtest Dairy Com­ her atomic bomb from the Rosen­ standard of living and mainten­ Sealtest in a work force of 946. Wilkins said everybody should pany in the New York City area pay their taxes, “but every tax­ bergs is recognized as absurd. I ance of unions through which to A CORE negotiating team de­ is being actively pressed by the have heard many people agree, do it. manded that Sealtest: 1) h ire at payer has the right to make known Congress of Racial Equality and his objection to the use of his but add that surely the Rosen­ least 10 Negroes or Puerto Ricans has been endorsed by a large within 30 days; 2) hire a minimum taxes in ways that undermine the bergs must have been guilty of number of community and labor Constitution.” something. But of w h a t if not that of 50 during the coming year. The Pickets at Harvard Tell leaders. The purpose of the boy­ Federal monies account for over for which they were put to death? company refused. Subsequently the cott is to force the company to New York area chapters of CORE 20 per cent of the total expendi­ “Throughout the years more Barnett: Racist Go Home cease its discrim ination against called for a boycott of the three tures of some Southern states. and more people have exposed the Negro and Puerto Rican workers. brand names: Sealtest, Sheffield unreliable witnesses whose word When Mississippi Gov. Ross Dairy and Breyer’s Ice Cream. was then accepted. (There was no B arnett spoke to a less than sym­ Sealtest operates under the Among those endorsing the boy­ documentary evidence.) Lies and pathetic Harvard audience on Feb. brand names Sealtest, Sheffield cott are: Dr. C. Asapansa-Johnson, inconsistencies in the testimony 4, he was countered by a picket Dairies and Breyer’s Ice Cream in president of the Interdenomina­ have been shown.” line called by the Socialist Work­ New York City. The company is tional Ministers of Greater New Nevertheless, Morton Sobell re­ ers Party and the Young Socialist a division of National Dairy Prod­ York; Warren Bunn, president of mains in prison. On Feb. 6 his lat­ Alliance. A group of Negroes from ucts Corporation, the world’s Brooklyn NAACP; Morris Iushe- est appeal for clemency was turned the Roxbury section of Boston largest dairy corporation with down by the U.S. Court of Ap­ and the Cambridge Ward 4 Re­ plants in every state in the union. witz, secretary of the N.Y. AFL- peals. The entire Rosenberg-Sobell publican Club joined the line in It is hoped that a change in the CIO Central Labor Council; Juan case is so sordid that no one in front of Sanders Theater on the New York hiring policies w ill lay Mas, of the Federation of Hispanic Washington wants to chance its Harvard campus. the groundwork for significant re­ Societies; Jerry Wurf, district di­ reopening. They would prefer to The pickets carried signs, read­ sults elsewhere. rector of the State County and ing: “We Support Free Speech, Municipal Employees Union; keep an innocent man in prison Four Plants than to shed light on this shame­ We Oppose Segregation,” “Racists Charles Zimmerman, vice-presi­ ful episode in our history. Go Home,” “Negroes Don’t Vote The company maintains four dent of the ILGWU; and A. Philip “How Do You, the Jury, Find? in Mississippi — Whose Governor plants and a headquarters in New Randolph, head of the Brother­ — The Rosenberg-Sobell Case is Barnett?” York City, employs over 900 per­ hood of Sleeping Car Porters. After Ten Years” w ill be the topic Inside, Barnett studiously sons, only 12 o f whom were Negro of a meeting to review the case, avoided a direct discussion of seg­ or Puerto Rican at the time of a on Wed., Feb. 27, 8:15 P.M. at regation and the oppression of the survey last August. The situation Travel-to-Cuba Party Community Church, 40 East 35th Negro people in his state. Rather, was brought to the attention of NEW YORK — The Permanent St., New York City. Speakers w ill he camouflaged his racism with the management which declared it Student Committee for Travel to include Rowland Watts and Helen talk of “state’s rights” by which was “already doing everything in Cuba is giving a party Friday Sobell. A highlight w ill be a show­ he means the “rights” of the rul­ our power to employ qualified evening Feb. 23, at 325 W. 93rd ing of a new documentary film, ing circles in Mississippi to op­ Negroes and Spanish-Americans.” St., A pt. 23. The committee plans “Morton Sobell — A Plea for Jus­ press both the Negroes and poor CORE estimates that at the to continue actions against the Roy Wilkins tice.” whites. present time there are only 25 travel ban.