FRISCO WORKERS' SOLIDARITY
Frisco Workers' Solidarity General Strike Holds As Government Drive Backs Up Employers By I. T. P. (Special Correspondence) CAN FRANCISCO.—Nobrfdy knows what any next hour may bring *~ to...
...He wires The New Leader: "I have telegraphed National Secretary Senior for Immediate financial aid from Soclaliata throughout the country...
...And by this mighty demonstration of the massed power of NOT WORKING labor has given a demonstration to the world whose lessons can never be lost 1___ ( •* w *7...
...That is the kssdn of the first days of the great San Francisco general strike...
...It is all right for miner* to eliminate mine haaards...
...The whole country is being strategy committee to modify th< rigorous embargo on foodstuffs, gasoline and fuel oils in the interest of public health, especially the aafety of children, lead* ta further talk that the men are weakening...
...There may be many—there ARE many—workers who do not quite grasp the implications of that terrific lesson...
...WHEN the workers fold their arms society stands still...
...Frisco Workers' Solidarity General Strike Holds As Government Drive Backs Up Employers By I. T. P. (Special Correspondence) CAN FRANCISCO.—Nobrfdy knows what any next hour may bring *~ to this strike-torn and valiant community, where 100,600 striker* have held the city In an iron grip for over three days...
...They have failed, but they told: first, that only the "reds' want the strike and, second, thai . the strike is over...
...Socialist Party is actively helping strikers...
...1 ^ According to Andrew Massiak, one of the unemployed who was sitting in the waiting" room before the crowd cams and was shot-during tlte frstfi Tatrtfmaii GfttMftS Wa* tmf en*H start to shoot...
...THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS I...
...Shots are fired nnd club* and tear gas used to break the strikers' ranka...
...Versions differ as to who started the fight, but— two workers were shot and killed...
...But the government played its trump card by definitely attempting to link up leadership and inspiration of the strike to Communist sources—a charge which the Communists are only too eager to admit, unfounded though it is...
...But soirie day, somehow all the workers will understand, and when they understand thai lesson the days of the exploiters will be numbered...
...The shipowners and other industrialists of course are frantically assisting the government and self-styled vigilantes and citizens' posses are raiding left headquarters, rounding up radicals throughout the area and smashing furniture and fixtures...
...The government and its agencies, too, are doing their share, from the President down or up...
...The men are solid...
...and so when labor folds its arms everything stops...
...Labor is all...
...Here we have class struggle in naked form...
...And some day all tlte workers will know that they, who have the power because of their numbers, can use that poiver, not only to right a grievous wrong but to win the world tliey have made...
...without labor the human race would be naked savages growling hungry and shivering in the forests...
...But the workers will know that for "some days theirs was the power...
...This is the best help the National Labor Committee can give u* at this time, The situation here ia a wonderful demonstration of working class solidarity...
...LABOR CONQUERS ALL...
...w* LABOR OMNIA VINCIT...
...still control the sources of public information and news dissemination...
...It is all right for printers to win better conditions...
...2 WORKERS GET RELIEF—FOREVER...
...v: . NEVER MIND HOW THE STRIKE TURNS OUT: NEVER MIND WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE FIRST FEW DAYS...
...A real bombshell, however, has been cast into the ranks of the strikers by the statement of William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor, which is being maliciously construed at repudiating the strike...
...DESPERATE MEED CITED IN OHIO ONION STRIKE MeGUFFEY, O—-Men, women and children, fighting against intolerable working conditions and wagea aa low as 10c an hour in the onion fields here, are waging a stiff battle against the combined forces of capitalist employers and their lackey courts, witfc good proa pec ts of victory if they can hold out for two weeka more, when the onion crop will have to be harvested "or rise...
...THE LESSON STANDS...
...No wonder, then, that the enemies of the workersV-yes, and even the "friends" of the workers, have turned upon the San Francisco strikers wrth such ferocity...
...There is an urgent need for help from outside, and even email amounts will mean a lot...
...One shot went wild, the second struck Gibbon*, who returned lire...
...Ovsr 100 unemployed marched to the C.C.R.A...
...The other* were shot in general cross-fire...
...Don't believe reports strike is being broken...
...office to protest •gainst a cut in the relief...
...Detailed instructions are being air-mailed to all Socialist locals and suitable leaflets for strike solidarity meetings being written...
...While •waiting for an audience with the ™PWisofc polk* ttnWved *nd' told m wowi ^ctt*V art.***' »** The police version is that Sam Araenti, one of the...
...r Without labor San Francisco today would still be naked and arid sand dunes...
...But what wo do know ia that, at the hour of sending this "despatch to the East, the historic general strike is still going strong, the men are holding oat, traffic and transportation are blocked, the city's Industrial life is at a standstill, the police and militia are kept at bay...
...That is the motto of the labor movement, and it is a true mofto...
...Labor conquers all because labor IS ACL...
...WHEN WORKERS CEASE TO TOIL THE VERY HEARTBEATS OF INDUSTRY CEASE...
...The lesson of the united might of the workers IF IT IS LEARNED will be worth the sacrifice and the heartbreak that the San Francisco-strike will have cost...
...The enemies and the "friends" of the workers can support and favor one or another of the various struggles of the workers...
...Both are lies I Decision by the strikers', genera...
...When the workers toil the world is fair...
...Green merely states what is technically true:»that the A. F. of L. nationally did not order or authorize the strike, aid that tb* strike is local in character, possessing no national significance (from the point of view of the action of labor throughout the country...
...By active cooperation between the Socialist Party and unions in your locality, public opinion can be mobilised in behalf of the Saa Francisco strikers...
...Three others were wounded in a riot in the district offices of the Cuyahoga County Relief Administration that started in a way that 1" yet a matter of dispute...
...If labor and the citizenry everywhere can be made to feel .that the general strike is only a Communist maneuver, the generalissimos of the employing forces and their henchmen in city, state and military offices know that support will be withdrawn from the strike, and they are making desperate efforts to establish such connection and to estrange the public and labor sympathy...
...SAMUEL 8. WHITE, manager of Cloakmakera Local 8 of San i Francisco and member of the California State Executive Committee of the Socialist Party, I; on the general strike committee...
...Every consideration 01 act of mercy on the part of the strikers ia looked upon aa weak* ness...
...Raise and rush funds...
...dead, started the trouble when he took a revolver away from Patrolman James Vesely...
...Their ahare here ia what it has always been in the history of industrial disputes—tb take the side of tie employers...
...THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE GENERAL STRIKE ARE TOO DANGEROUS, and so the whole capitalist press, from the extreme right to the "liberal" "left" unite in a barrage of hostility...
...Arsenti, after obtaining the gun, opened fire at Patrolman Gibbons, according to the police...
...The Mayor, a newspaper-manufactured hero, calls upon the strikers to go back as a preliminary to negotiation...
...The Chief Executive calls for "common sens*" and Ma chief NRA agent calls for extermination of the red rats—"rata" meaning anybody who wants to keep the men out and secure Justice for the workers...
...Franklin's private National Longshoremen's Board-continues its efforts to have the strike called off first—"then we shall see what we shall see...
...An attempt should be made in all localities to get the press to report on the** moetiaga^H^e Mrxyek^.phairnmv^Tkenw,*Krmg*r, Baron...
...BUT WHEN ALL THE WORKERS STRIKE THAT IS ANOTHER STORY...
...without labor the seas today would be innocent of ships...
...From Chicago the National Labor Confmittee wire* us: The committee's decision is embodied in the following telegram sent to all main Socialist centers: "The National Labor Committee of the Socialist Party urges you to call strike solidarity meetings everywhere...
...Organize public committees of support for the strikers...
...Send fund* in care of the So* cialiat party, E. & Ledferd, secretary, 415 Michigan Street, Toledo, O. How to Help Frisco Strikers...
...that is the message that is blazoned forth to the whole world...
...It is all right for sweat shop worker* to eliminate the vfleness under which they work, and improve working and living conditions...
...And all this despite the frantic efforts of authorities and newspapers to pretend that the strike is broken, that the men are giving in, that there is dissension among the leaders, and that only "reds" want to continue the battle...
...All that is sure is that two workers were killed...
...These facta are not challenged, and Green also expresses a desire for an honorable settlement upon an equitable basis...
...By Hyt Fish CLEVELAND...
...The newspaper men contribute their ahare by quoting Harry Bridge*, head of the Longshoremen's Union and alleged radical, as saying that the general strike waa over and aa blaming "mismanagement and blundering on the part of strike leaders," but Bridges denies the statements of four newspapermen wno quoted aim, ana declares that the general strike still lives...
...and so when labor ceases to toil the Rich and the mighty, the kings and the magnates are helpless...
...but tn issue such a statement at a time of crisis, when strikers expected Green and the A. F. of L. to throw every resource behind the walkout, even to the extent of sending the president to the Coast to spur the morale of the strikers, and to rush funff* to the Coaat, Reema to the striker* here like an art of rank disloyalty, especially when the employers can use the ftatement in thiir own behalf...
...Whatever there is of civilization, whatever there is of build* ings and ships, of factories and mines, of music and art, of all those things that distinguish civilized man from the anthropoid apes ts the creation of labor—labor, of hand and brain...
...So menacing are the force* of law arrayed against the striker* and so belligerent that Senator Wagner himself, sent to Portland to hold the workers in Jine, got a taste of the warfare whan the Labor Conquers All...
Vol. 17 • July 1934 • No. 78
