FOR ORGANIZATION OF AN FOR MILITARY TRAINING INDEPENDENT LABOR PARTY Socialist Appeal UNDER TRADE UNION CONTROL Official Weekly Organ of the Socialist Workers Party, Section of the Fourth International VOL. IV — No. 50 NEW YORK. N. Y. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1940 267 FIVE (5) CENTS NEGRO SAILORS OUSTED FOR PROTEST :î J. F. Finerty Court Order Denounced Here's A New Angle 13 Discharged; 2 Joins Aid By Minneapolis Unions On “National Defense” Face Navy Trial ( • i - “National defense" has been the pretext to break strikes, For Waller abolish labor laws, cut wages, lengthen hours, refuse to recognize Drivers Union Rejects Judge's Order HOUSTON DAIRY unions, and fifty other anti-labor moves reported in your morning Seamen Who Exposed Vicious Jim Crow newspaper, but it remained for John G. Pew, brilliant president In Navy Get "Undesirable" Discharges Famous Attorney To To Remove Loyal Unionist From Office of the Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, to invent an ap- DRIVERS STRIKE solutely new angle in this racket. "For the Good of the Service" Fight Execution Of His company was charged with fostering a company union, By CARL O’SHEA AFTER LOCKOUT espionage, and coercion, intimidation and discrimination against Negro Sharecropper MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.—With one voice the union movement its employees, and notified to appear before the National Labor By ALBERT PARKER here has decided to cry “ HALT” to the presumptious efforts of the Relations Board for a hearing on the charges. Rear Admiral Nimitz, chief of the Bureau of Navigation, Navy district court to dictate to the Minneapolis General Drivers Union All Deliveries Stop Whereupon President Pew addressed himself, not to the Department, last week finally told what had happened to the fifteen NEW YORK—John F. Finerty. Labor Board, but to his most profitable customer, the Navy. He Negro sailors on the U. S. S. Philadelphia who had written a letter famous labor attorney lias joined through the meani\ of the famous fink suit, served notice, in a letter to the Navy Department, that he couldn’t protesting Jim Crow conditions in the Navy. the defense lawyers who are pres­ As M ilk Trust Tries Friday morning, November 29th, Judge Paul S. Carroll handed Nimitz announced, in an interview with P. L. Prattis, Executive sing last minute efforts to save make any more ships for the Navy unless the NLRB hearings down his ruling on motions by Local 544 and the finks to amend his Editor of the PITTSBURGH COURIER, that 13 of the sailors had the life of Odell Waller, Negro To Stall Contract were put out of the way! share-cropper, sentenced by a V ir­ original findings in the long-drawn-out suit. The court utilized the The company, he wrote, finds “it is impossible to (a) exoner­ been kicked out of the Navy with “undesirable” discharges, and that ginia court to die in the electric occasion to take another crack at the union by ordering it to remove ate itself from the charges of the board and (b) perform the the other two were still in the brig, probably being held for even chair December 27 l'or slaying his more drastic action. Nick Wagner, trustee, from office, on the grounds (hat he “ threat­ By a Truck Driver tremendous task of increasing plant facilities, personnel, pur­ White landlord. chases of supplies and equipment (in order to accept Navy con­ The commanding officer of the Philadelphia, after the boys’ ened and intimidated” finks. HOUSTON, Texas, Dec. 2— Mr. Finerty was a defense coun­ tracts) at one and the same time.” The letter concludes by posing letter had been printed in the COURIER on Oct. 5, had placed them sel for Tom Mooney and in the The bosses of this “Southern The Local 544 executive board met. surveyed the situation and the question: all under arrest. He had then forced them all to write statements, Sacco-Vanzetti case, and acted as Metropolis” appear headed for a resolved to challenge the court’s “ Which is more important, that the national defense program telling why they had signed the letter and who had suggested it. legal counsel for the International organizing the 12-state area over- show-down with the entire union decision head-on. Carroll’s deci­ go forward on schedule or that the Industrial Union of Marine This was obviously a move to find Commission of Inquiry which ac road drivers. jail, which would indicate that movement. And they’re going to out wbo was the “brains” behind quieted Leon Trotsky of the Mus- sion sets such a sinister prece­ While conceding all this, the and Shipbuilding Workers of America be given an immediate the commanding officer decided get that show-down. the letter. cow Trials charges. dent th a t i t m ust be fou ght judge has given credence to a few h e a rin g ? ” that, they had "instigated” the let­ When he had these letters, the An all-white jury including 10 of the thousands of viciously anti- Yesterday morning, Sunday, Sure! What the hell! You can’t expect President Pew (or his ter, and that Admiral Nimitz has through the highest court. When commanding officer filed charges landlords, a business-man and u labor charges by the finks, who the managements of the six big­ lawyers) to put down his tools, take off his overalls and go down­ accepted the recommendation of boss courts presume to replace against the boys and recommend­ carpenter passed the death sen­ were attempting by this suit to gest dairy concerns locked-out town for just an old Labor Board hearing! Not while HE is work­ ed to the Navy Depart ment that the commanding officer that they tence on Waller in a trial at Chat­ the union membership in decid­ have the union officers removed all their milk drivers and dairy ing so hard on national defense! they be court-martialed. be court-m artialed. ham, Virginia. An appeal is be­ ing who shall and shall not be of­ as "dishonest,” Acting on a He charged them with violating B ut the case would not be closed ing made to the Supreme Court moth-eaten legal technicality, the workers, over 700 men and ficers of unions, it’s time for a Bub-paragraph 7 of Article 8 of even i f a ll the men bad been set of Appeals of Virginia to throw judge used the occasion of his ori­ women. A ll milk deliveries were showdown. Chapter 1 of the Articles of War, free. Indeed, the fight must go the verdict aside on the grounds ginal decision to order the union suspended. which reads: on as long as tile officer caste con­ of evidence of prejudice in the to remove Carl Skoglund from his Local 133 of the Teamsters Un­ AFL-CIO Unite In “Or joins in or abets any com­ trols military training and has conduct of the trial and the selec­ LABOR’S ARMY ASSEMBLES post as 544 president— on the grounds that Skoglund was not ion has turned the lock-out into bination to weaken (the lawful the power to Jim Crow Negroes. tion of the jury. Developments of the last few yet a citizen. (Skoglund is still a general milk-drivers strike, call­ authority of or to lessen the re­ This was indicated also by the According to the evidence at the days show that the whole labor president. Nothing was done about ing l’or an additional $5 per week spect due to his commanding of­ C ourier in Us issue of December Chatham trial. Waller had shot movement, is of one mind on the Big Lumber Strike ..the judge’s order, pending a bear­ on the guaranteed wages of the ficer.” 7 in the story entitled “ H ere A te the.landlord, Oscar Davis, in self- decistan 1« appeal the. .case. A h ; ing on the motions to amend his retail route drivers and four ad­ In addition to this charge was Six More Chambermaids' Yott defense, after Davis attempted to ready the Minneapolis Teamsters decision.) ditional days vacation with pay. another ’’conduct prejudicial to Can, Fire, Rear Admiral Nimitz ," draw a gun on Waller who was Joint Council, the Building Trades Now the judge has gone a step The lockout, and now strike, 45,000 Rival Union Men Join Hands good order and discipline.” which contained another letter, trying to get the shares due him Council and the executive board further and ordered the removal came on the eve of a planned from a group of six Negro sailors for work performed by him, his of the Minneapolis Central Labor DANGEROUS PRECEDENT of Wagner because a few filthy strike against the key Pheriix To Wrest Wage Gains From Timber Lords of the U.S.S. Davis, stationed at Wife and 69-year old mother. Union have met and in each ins­ In other words, if a Negro sailor finks claimed that Nick “intim i­ Dairies here, and was an evident San Diego. California. Waller bad carried the gun be­ tance by unanimous vote resolved signs a letter saying he is being dated” them. If this precedent move of the Houston Dairy Coun­ cause of the previous threats of to support the stand of 544. Jim Crowed and doesn’t like it, This letter, which is tiie sixth were to stand, bosses everywhere cil, the milk bosses' association, PORTLAND, Ore., Dec. 8— As the joint strike of the AFL and landlord Davis. Virginia state It is certain that Nick Wagner he is “joining a combination to signed by groups of mess atten­ would send their stool pigeons to get the jump on the Milk Driv­ law permits a citizen to carry a w ill be nominated and will stand CIO lumber workers moves into its second week, the entire lumber weaken the lawful authority of dants on as many different ships and finks into unions to cook up ers and start the drive to bring gun i' he believes his life to be for re-election in Local 544’s an­ industry of the Pacific Northwest is virtually paralyzed.