Bridges Verdict Strikes Blow at Labor's Rights
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Workers of the World, Unite ! The Kind ot Unity Workers t h e MILITANT Want and Need PUBLISHED WEEKLY IN THE INTERESTS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE By A rt Preis Vol. XIV - No. 15 2*7 NEW YORK, N. Y., MONDAY, APRIL 10, 1950 PRICE: FIVE CENTS CIO President Philip Murray and his nine vice-presi dents have addressed a broad unity proposal to all the major labor unions. Murray emphasized that it is “ the most CIO Hits Mundt Bill significant proposal of its kind’' ^ At House Hearing he A F L leaders to whom his that the CIO has ever made. I Thomas E. Harris, assistant proposal is principally addressed. comes as a counter to Mine general counsel of the CIO, It is noteworthy that neither Workers President John L. Lewis told the House Un-American the CIO nor the AFL leaders recent plea for a “mutual aid” Activities Committee hearing Bridges Verdict Strikes showed the slightest initiative in pact in defense of strikes. on A p ril 4 th a t the M undt- seeking joint action during the In a letter sent to the official? Nixon bill for the registration lecent coal and steel strikes. Th< of the AFL, United Mine Work of “subversives” would “not AFL leaders even rejected an ers, International Association o ! only deny civil rights to Com appeal for legal aid to the miners Machinists and leading railway munists but would put at hi combatting Taft-Hartley in unions, the CIO leaders propose hazard the civil rights of junctions. Murray brushed off the establishment of a standing everyone else.” Lewis’ proposal for concfete Blow at Labor’s Rights joint committee. This committee The bill, he said, “imposes measures of mutual defense in they said, would serve a two-fold penalties upon association and strikes. At no time have Murray function. It would work im opinion rather than overt ac mediately to coordinate the ac and AFL President W illiam Green Frame-up Menaces All Who tions” and “could impose a evinced interest in* forging unity- It IS Happening Here tivities of all its member organ blackout upon the civil rights izations on economic, legislative on the firing line against the bosses. of thousands of individuals and political problems. It would who would be driven from Oppose Government Policies But for the past months we consider means toward the organic progressive organizations out have heard from within the top merger of these unions into one of fear that the vague provi Any union leader who does not submit to the dictates circles of the AFL bureaucracy For many years, The Militant sions (o f the b ill) m ig h t be of the U. S. State Department or who opposes the “ cold that recent developments affect has consistently put forth a pro made applicable to them.” It war” policies of the Truman administration faces the gram of united labor action for ing the CIO have inspired “new contains “a serious threat to threat of frame-up and imprison-® ------------------------------------------------------- a fighting defense of the Ameri thinking” on the question of our most cherished constitu ment. That is the meaning of the enemies of Bridges in the labor can working class. During the unity and that the AFL chiefs tional safeguards.” conviction on a trumped - up movement. One of them gave the first great post-war strike wave, (Continued on page 2) “perjury” charge of CIO Long frame-up away when he testified before and after passage of the shoremen’s leader Harry Bridges that in October 1948 he had been Taft-Hartley Act, from the very in an 85-day trial before a federal called into conference by the start of the recent mine struggle, court in San Francisco. then - Attorney General, Tom we have vigorously advocated a AEC Censors " And any lawyers who assume Clark, who told the witness that joint action program. the defense of persons accused of “they wanted to remove the in WHO, WHY, WHAT being “Communists” and “sub fluence of Mr. Bridges and others AmericanBurns Copies versives” do so at the risk of their from the labor movement.” At the same time, we have al The new move to victimize ways stated the indispensable By Joseph Keller own freedom. That is the mean Bridges came last year in the conditions for a sound unity that ing of the vindictive jail sentences Washington is preparing to suppress, through direct midst of the bitter Hawaiian dock w ill really strengthen labor. We for “contempt” imposed by the trial judge on Bridges’ attorneys. workers strike led by Bridges’ have advised unionists to examine censorship, all public discussion on Truman’s H-Bomb union. On June 26, 1949, C lark with a critical eye every proposal policy. Symbolically, the first major move in the censor The witch-hunters, who set out said in a speech before the Am eri for unity — particularly organic ship drive is a Nazi-like book- ® di-liberately to “get” Bridges and can Relief for Germany Commit merger of the CIO and AFL — burning carried out under the pression to which American then cooked up the charge that tee at the University Club in to see that it met the conditions orders and the direct supervision scientists have been increasingly he lied in swearing that he had Milwaukee: “If we are successful for a progressive unity. We have of the Atomic Energy Com subjected in the witch - hunt never been a member of the Com in our prosecution of Bridges it always asked who initiated the m ission. initiated under Truman’s “loyalty” munist Party when he got his may be that we can break the proposal, what purposes do they The Scientific American, a program. Dr. Bethe was one of n a tu ra liza tio n papers in 1945, are Hawaiian strike without anyv in have in mind, what kind of unity popular science monthly over 100 12 leading atomic scientists who saying that Bridges got a “fair” tervention.” do they want? years old, was forced to burn warned last February that the trial before a “jury of his peers.” No, Bridges got a trial before No doubt Murray’s latest pro 3,000 copies of its April issue Il-Bomb could lead to the anni RESULT OF COLD WAR containing an article on the H- hilation of humanity and called a handpicked middle - class jury, posal will find wide response Bridges isn’t facing seven years Bomb which the AEC censored surrounded by a poisonous witch among the workers. If there is c-n Truman to pledge that the in prison because he broke any after the magazine had gone to hunt atmosphere, who were under anything they desire above all U. S. would never use the H- laws or even because he is an press. Dr. Hans A. Bethe, Cornell Bomb first. pressure to bring in a conviction else — a desire intensified by the alleged agent of the Kremlin. University physics professor and lest they themselves be victimized recent lessons of the coal, steel When Bridges was an outspoken former chief of the theoretical CALCULATED TEST and branded as “disloyal” for and other strikes — it is labor supporter of American imperial physics division of the Los Alamos The AEC’s action was un acquitting a man that the govern Unity to effectively fight for Italian Trotskyists ism, when he was a leading war doubtedly a calculated move to SOLICIT GREETINGS FOR ment said is “ subversive.” Scientific Laboratory, is the labor’s interests and to defend time strikebreaker and exponent author of the censored article. extend the insidious tentacles of From start to finish, the Bridges their unions against the Big Busi of the permanent no-strike pledge, Although the artidfe contained censorship deeper in American Step Up Activity in case has reeked of frame - up. ness attempts to smash them “ one then the administration in Wash no material that the AEC had life. It selected the most distin N.Y. KUTCHER JOURNAL Three tirties before, the govern at a time.” ment had attempted to have ington took him to its bosom and But is this the sort of unity called “classified” and all in guished and widely-read publica NEW YORK, April 4 — The New York Chapter Of Rome, Other Cities Bridges deported to his native protected him from prosecuton, M u rra y has in m ind? Does he formation in it had been published tion in the field and the man who ROME, Mar. 16 — The first Australia on the grounds of his regardless of his Stalinist con intend a fighting unity to defeat elsewhere, the AEC officials in has made some of the chief the Kutcher Civil Rights Committee today announced and highly successful public meet alleged membership in the Com nections. But now lie does not sup labor’s enemy, the capitalist ex sisted that certain portions of the theoretical contributions on which plans for a benefit entertainment and dance to raise fuhds ing of the Italian Trotskyist or munist Party. And three times, port the administration’s foreign ploiting class? Does he want to article be deleted, that the printed the development of the new H- to carry forward the fight in be- ® ganization — the Revolutionary rulings against him were re policy. That is why he has suf unify the ranks for battle? Or is issues of the magazine containing Bomb is based. If it can got half of the legless veteran, James KCRC that it has voted to give Communist Groups — was held versed — the last time by the fered a relentless frame-up.