THE Un Ion Chiefs Shadow Box W Ith T-H, Unemployment
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Workers of the World, Unite ! MAY DAY AND THE FIGHT FOR THE 30-HOUR WEEK By Ruth Johnson — See Page 3 — THE MILITANT PUBLISHED WEEKLY IN THE INTERESTS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE Vol. X III - No. 17 2*1 NEW YORK, N. Y., MONDAY, APRIL 25, 1949 PRICE: FIVE CENTS The Spirit of May Day Un ion Chiefs Shadow Box With T-H, Unemployment SKOGLUND FACES RENEWED Fail to Mobilize Membership For United Action Campaign THREAT OF DEPORTATION By Art Preis , .j An examiner of the Federal Department of Immigration “ It’s Time io Slug Back!” is the headline over a last week over-ruled the application of Karl Skoglund’s attorney big special-feature editorial in the April issue of the to set aside the deportation order that has been pending against the Minneapolis labor reader-^ United Automobile Worker, national paper of the since 1941. Skoglund, who is now in his CIO auto workers union. But th e ^ - This latest decision in the case tixtics, has been a resident of kind of “ slugging” proposed to Western Union’s profits, but it of iSkoglund, former president of the United States for 38 years. halt the “all-out campaign” of hasn’t made a dent on Congress. famed Minneapolis Drivers Local He came here from Sweden in the reactionary forces in America Two weeks ago a check of Con 544, is being appealed to the 1911. He has been active in the looks more like a slap on the gress revealed that a m ajority1 Board of Immigration Appeals, socialist and labor movements wrist. The editorial winds up by in both houses are against Taft- final administrative authority of since he firs t came to the U. S. telling the workers only to “ make IIartley Act repeal, the key elec^ the Department of Immigration. ‘ In 1923, he was chairman of known to their senators and con tion promise of Truman and thé Friends of Skoglund are organ the Burlington, Great Western gressmen their support of the Democratic Party. izing a defense committee in his and North Western during the Fair Deal. program and their This bestirred the CIO leaders behalf and have engaged attorney railway shopmen’s strike. Later determination to use their votes” to the point where they adopted Stanley H. Lowell of New York he served as a delegate from the KARL SKOGLUND in the next election. a “grand Baster strategy.” If City to represent him in the pro Railroad Carmen and AFL This is typical of the kind of they couldn’t move Congress ceedings before the appeals board. Teamsters to the Minneapolis 2,018 Votes Cast for vague, ineffectual and fumbling collectively in Washington with Central Labor Union. program the top labor leaders are their tidal wave of paper and He twice made application for now advocating in the face oi ink, they’d work on the legisla American citizenship, but each Filomena Goelman such immediate threats as defeat tors individually back in their t me his application was rejected of the Taft-IIartley repeal bill, home towns over the Easter because of his activities in the Oakland Candidate growing unemployment and the recess. CIO President Philip Mur May Day Manifesto labor movement. • i • obvious retreat of the Trumanite ray even sent a letter to 300 CIO local leaders to try to get His first application was re OAKLAND, April 20 Democrats in Congress on all meetings with the various con jected in 1922 at the time he was Fllomena Goelman, Socialist ■their pledged “ Fair Deal” re gressmen and senators and let serving as chairman of the Twin Workers Party candidate for forms. City Councilman-at-large, re them know labor is “ dissatisfied” Of Socialist Workers Party Cities strike committee of the Ever since the Senate buried ceived 2,018 votes in yester- with the record of Congress since Railway Shopmen. He was presi the civil rights promises of both iay’s municipal prim ary elec i t convened in January. Capitalism's deadly triple-threat — war. dictatorship and And now the workers directly face the specter that has dent of the Minneapolis truck major parties under the filibuster tion. So here and • there little, com unemployment — hangs over the American Workers on this May haunted them since the end of the war unemployment. Five drivers union when the present and disemboweled the promised mittees of local unionists paid million are already out of work, while another 11 to 12.million proceedings were brought against This was the SWP’s .first “strengthened” rent control bill, Day. Easter calls on sometimes polite him. This was in 1941 during the election campaign in Oakland the top union leaders, CIO and are reduced to part-time employment of one to four days a week. but little impressed congressmen! Four years after a war for the "four freedoms,” American big fight of Local 544 against and the vote, representing AFL, have been urging their While the monopoly corporations report record_profits, labor's Because the only thing that ever, iriiperialism’s drive for world-domination has placed the Amer the Tobin bureaucracy. ’ moie than three per cent .of members-to flood their congress living standards have been drastically slashed. The classic con movfes these political agents of ican people, together with all mankind, under a pall of fear — the total, is regarded as a good men and senators with letters ARRESTED IN 1941 Big Business and the vested in tradiction of capitalist production for private profit is assert beginning in local electoral and telegrams. This may , have fear of the atomic bomb, fear of brutal regimentation, fear of terests is an overwhelming show ing itself once more ;— millions of tons of goods are piling up During tire midst of this strug-^ activity. helped to defray the Postal De insecurity and hunger. cf mass labor strength. Ha«J while the mass of peopleware too impoverished to buy. gle fo r union democracy, Skoglund partment’s deficit and to boost The rulers of America talk of "peace,” but they plan war. ivas arrested and held in ja il for thousands of workers in every War, dictatorship and depression — the unholy trin ity of community been mobilized as a They howl about the “ aggressions" of the Kremlin, while they 30 days on a bond of $5,000. This capitalism — today confront American labor with its greatest “ committee of the whole” to plant their air and naval bases on every continent. Their United was part of the general persecu challenge. The mighty American working-class, mobilized in tion of the leaders of Local 544 greet the home-coming legisla Nations serves merely as a screen for secret diplomacy, interna unions 16-million strong, holds in its hands the hope of peace, and the Socialist Workers Party POLICE-SPY ATMOSPHERE tors, there might have been a tional intrigue arid maneuvers, feverish war preparations. Be different result. democracy and plenty for America and the world. But, as yet, which culminated in the indict hind this facade stands the reality of the North Atlantic Pact, ment, tria l and imprisonment of V irtually the entire emphasis the American workers have not taken up the challenge. of the labor leaders is on the the greatest m ilitary alliance in history. 18 SWP and Local 544-CIO lead PERVADES TRIAL OF CP (Continued on page 3) ers under the Smith “ Gag” Act. Taft-Hartley issue. They are not By Farrell Dobbs only making little visible head War Drive Speeded Dp Skoglund was one of the 1$ convicted in the Minneapolis FEDERAL COURTROOM, NEW YORK, April 19 _ way on, this question, but are al The first weeks of this pact have seen .a tremendous speed Labor Trial and served a 16- most completely neglecting the William O. Nowell’s unsavory biograpljy is in some respects a other major issues, such as the up of the ,war drive. Truman publicly hurls the threat of the Novack Describes Progress month sentence in the fedora’ ^symbol of corrupt Stalinism and at the same lime a b a rk of the penitentiary at Sandstone, Minn. growing menace of unemploy atomic bomb. The W all Street-Brass Hat clique speaks openly government’s brutal methods, in ;----- ----------------- 1----------- As a result of his prosecution f/’j” ° T •“''** a« ment and part-time employment. oi a "preventive” war against the Soviet Union. Congress moves and imprisonment, the deportation i . ,.g , *vnc 11 "K 0 scientific Homer. Martin, then president oi On this latter vital issue, the In Rallying Kutcher Defense the UAW, and went back to Ford to gouge from the American people even more billions for the preceding* were held in abeyance, SOCla',Sm here on Fole* CIO offers its local bodies only A 44-year-old Negro born jit in .1939 where he remained until m ilitary machine than Truman himself has demanded in his By Larissa Reed but Skoglund was kept under platonic advice to initiate “ Com Georgia, Nowell migrated to De driven off the job by UAW bond all the time. Now the im munity Service Committees” to biggest peace-time m ilitary budget. Truman calls for extra bilj “ What attitude toward civil rights did you find in the troit in 1922 where he went ,to Local 600 in 1944. He denied that migration authorities are preced help their members file fo r un lions to rearm Washington’s pact partners, while the latter clamor cities you visited?” 1 asked George Novack, National Secretary work for Henry Ford. He joined, he finked during the 1941 Ford ing actively against him on the employment compensation or re of the Kutcher C ivil Rights Committee, who recently concluded the Communist Party in 1929, strike but admitted that he latei for speedy increase of American troops in Europe and prompt grounds that he had been a mem lief.