Union Now of 13 Democratic Nations Urged as Basis for Future Peace
Streit, Clarence
Union Now of 13 Democratic Nations Urged as Basis for Future Peace By CLARENCE STREIT Former New York Timos Corrtnoad*** la Gcrtva n : JF we are to return to our own basic principles of men's...
...They actually proposed and fought for measures advanced by the Associated Farmers of California...
...With Roy B. (Horseface-the Bishop) Hudson, Thomas Ray and a score of other equally unsavory communists, Mink—known in Europe as "the Butcher" for his activity against the Loyalists in Barcelona—ably filled his role as a super-labor-spy...
...Until we have decided to cross the Rubicon it is pointless to m i speculate on how to bridge the Tiber...
...They contain 22,000...
...Stalinist 5th . "ctftumnagents—-with furious intensity purged from the unions all officials and:members alike who...
...As a basis for strike they took the fact that the old-line officials wanted to sign a two-year contract...
...The way should be kept open...
...On Monday, they united to helf a Michigan Republican...
...democracies 7 had started rising in their ruins, when we had the world in our hands, we quit the job, decided we had grown strong enough to i be safe and free all by ourselves no matter what happened to the rest of the world...
...That figure represents three-fourths of the cost of the whole World War to Germany...
...To accomplish this the Communists released their propaganda blasts and then, seizing upon the injunctions as an excuse, called for the formation of a "new" and "democratic" union into which they might insinuate themselves...
...He belonged to the Newspaper Guild until expelled...
...Here is the story of the Communist infiltration into Joe Cur-ran's Maritime Union...
...YNE of the main "promises" given the seamen was the chance to elect their-own officials under the so-called rank-and-file set-up...
...Then, whep Moscow ordered complete capture, the...
...opposed them...
...marine labor unions is the National Maritime TJnipn^-seagoing arm of John L. Lewis' CXO., —headed by Joseph Curran, willing.front for the Moscow-directed operatives...
...Barde- himself votes against his ov n i ill...
...Scabs...
...Vet they represent ¦ many cases ?c-s thrn '.Z per cea: of the population for w! ich tiler are_ supposed to act...
...Countless pieces of propaganda were cast on the waterfront: Leaflets, so-called newspapers, pamphlets and the like...
...But remember wham these represertst;ves represent * * » IJERE'S a little comparison: * * Rhode Island, the smalies...
...Dimitroff lumbered out the Trojan-horse policy...
...In essence the Communists- said: "The unions' leaders are all fakers...
...The Associated Farmers are not farmers...
...They hadn't been in the unions long-enough to run fcr office under the constiution...
...I Organizations Form ' Spontaneously *T*HE immediate task is to educate the pub-lie to the union idea...
...Btf den and his cohorts were willSf to take almost everything -* wasn't nailed down They defended exemptions fro* wage-hour standards on the ground that the farmers must be helped tc r~r.Vv labor...
...South Carolina, Alabaras and Mississippi, will r p^pulatior cf almost clever mill-on These pell tax n;—< sentatives are the backbone of ;.: < preses...
...But as a main.the seamen wanted no part of the Stalinists...
...Workers who didn't believe the propaganda were quickly painted with the same brush while the communist members stealthily slipped out from their Trojan-horse within the-then revitalized International Sea--' men's Union...
...Parasites of all descriptions infested the seamen's strike headquarters and in hundreds of cases 4rove the genuine seamen off their own picket lines...
...Of the$178,000 war chest (lobby fund) which the organization collected between 1934 processors, oil companies, railand 1939, 74,,percent came from roads, utilities, canners, sugar refineries, banks and employer associations...
...And said so » » * NEVERTHELESS, the Stalinists manipulated the strike and re-*™ tained control...
...The N.I.R.A...
...Nominations were opened...
...The old-line officials of the union agreed to reinstate those expelled...
...If the Communist Party thought it strategically best now to call a series of strikes it could tie up transportation in New York City, delay waterfront work, cripple antomsbile production, slow up' steel-making, dislocate communications, warp editorial and newsj copy on many publications, and generally make an industrial ' nuisance of itself...
...TTHE Associated Farmers were * back of it...
...Clan Heft-man...
...South Carolina, Tennessee...
...Napoleon was crusadingl for, rather than against, our basic principles...
...Almost from the action's inception "sympathizers" from Communist front organizations flocked to the waterfront...
...United, they would own half the earth, rule all its oceans, govern nearly half mankind, and control more than 60 per cent of nearly every essential of peace and war...
...reaction...
...v Let's see just how democracy was working in this wage-hour fight...
...When negotiations broke off in late October, 1P36, on the Pacific, the Seamen's Defense Committee in New York called a strike on all East Coast vessels in support of the western strike action...
...But when , all but one of the autocracies had toppled over and...
...The worst part of it is that these changes were sponsored by members of a party who presumably were acting upon the Philadelphia labor platform of 1935...
...The party's machine immediately established job-trusts under control of their rigid bureaucracy...
...The existing A...
...They first ingratiated themselves among the seamen for "rank and file" movements on a "united front" basis-while the wave of unionism progressed during the depression...
...Nevertheless, up to the time when the Republicans negar...
...They were willing to exempt the great packing corporation*-the canneries, the sugar refineries, grsdr...
...What's your guarantee...
...Their plan of infiltration was simple—and effective...
...It was the GOP side of the house that killed the Barden and other amendments, backed by the notorious Associated Farmers...
...As you paint the picture the new union will be so strong that no one will dare to attack it...
...They attempted, by the so-called Barden amendments to the Wage-Hour Act, to restore the right of two million workers to receive less than thirty cents an hour...
...The committee never defended anything I With the Communists now on ships as well as ashore, the Stalinists 5th column cadre took formation in the American merchant marine...
...Some, may say, "There is a promise of all these good things from a Federal Union of Democracies...
...The committee's duties were to agitate for a later strike and supposedly keep the seagoing membership informed of the old-line officials' actions...
...for its two rcp-osentEtrees than were cast for the entire thirty-six represen ta tives ir...
...It stems from something that the enemies of our present government call it—plutocracy] Joe Curran's Maritime Union Is Comintern Agency on U. S. Waterfront (The first of three articles on the Communist Party control and domination of the East Coast seamen's foremost itnioju) By LAWRENCE McRYN *i|OSCOW-JOE STALIN'S 5th column inside America has in the *** past decade penetrated and captured the marine unions on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts and Great Lakes, on the inland waterways, as well as strategic --unions' like the longshore and marine.cooks and stewards on the.Pacific...
...the union, with a population of 0:17.000 oast more votes it...
...To Be Continued) CP Seamen A LTHOUGH Earl Browder and his col-leagues are the public leaders of the Communist Party in the U. S., it is common knowledge that the real rulers of the Comin-i tern espionage and industrial sabotage np-\ paratas in this country are secret figures whom nobody knows and who frequently know i little of each other...
...The action was called off with few seamen left on the picket lines...
...During this period Moscow's confusionists constantly howled for "democracy" and "the right to be heard...
...And they went so far in the other direction that the Republicans saw the chance to show them up...
...Texas and Virginia...
...This would give the manufacturing employer a chance tc- rrasi his help like blazes for a shor season of Hit-work, and titer <>:>p them when the...
...We are facing now an old issue in our history—whether the ¦ way to save our democracy is to keep it where it is or to) go on with it...
...obtained injunctions and restraining orders against the insurgent group...
...In April, 1937, elections were called for...
...Those expelled agreed to refrain from outlaw strikes and agitation...
...it has members in all but two states and publishes a monthly bulletin...
...A good many Be-publicans gasped at the audacity of the Hoffman proposal...
...The seamen like the rest of the nation were mired in the depression...
...While this group wasn't composed, of Communists, it speedily fell under their domination unbeknown to the membership at sea who had voiced opposition to that condition...
...1936.an outlaw strike was precipitated among the seamen in...
...if it fails then to break through and step, out into the world the shell suddenly changes from a safeguard to an enemy and smothers the chick to death...
...Democrats, observing that ever the GOP thought things were gointr toe far...
...By mid-week there was even a chance that the latter might be killed by a Republican group which will then be able to report to Labor that the GOP saved the New Deal Wage-Hour law against the assaults of the Democrats...
...Under the present law, an employer found guilty of chiseling must make up back pay on the base rate from the da|y the evasion began...
...Union Now of 13 Democratic Nations Urged as Basis for Future Peace By CLARENCE STREIT Former New York Timos Corrtnoad*** la Gcrtva n : JF we are to return to our own basic principles of men's rights and union, we must recognize that we cannot organize all the world at once as a Federal Union...
...Mississippi...
...Riding high, wide and handsome on a supposed wave of national reaction, democrats (so-called) tried to go too far...
...This phase was long directed by George Mink—later revealed an agent of Moscow's dreaded "Cheka," convicted and sentenced to prison for military espionage in Denmark...
...The latter decided to hold their own elections anyway...
...F. N. Myers and others of Moscow's leading stooges were not eligible and on the ballot...
...We face a greater danger to all that America means than ever before...
...If and when we get the union it won't be my union alone...
...He has been a member of the West Coast seamen's union since 1925 and is the co-author of We Accuse, an expose of Communist activity on the American waterfront...
...The wage-hour fight shows that it is unfortunately true that there is a-large and powerful bloc of the Democratic Party which threatens to shake the foundations of democracy and leave this nation open to the challenge cf the tota?tarians...
...Chief prize among the captured...
...These were the "farmers" to •be'benefited by the amendments to the Wage-Hour Law...
...We must leave out at the start the dictatorships that have organized the people for the sake of the state, and also the immature democracies, and begin with the •smallest group of experienced democracies that will give us enough power to secure peace without war, by sheer overwhelming preponderance of power* We suggest as founders these 15: the U.S.A„ Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Union of South Africa, Australia, New Zealand...
...Arkansas, Georgia...
...F. of L. structure...
...Recruiting into the party's waterfront section did a land-office business...
...How to get this union established...
...They instantly slammed their plans for disruption, slander and means of capturing the structures...
...Joseph Curran...
...Eventually, after forming "Inter-Clubs" and a Red international for seamen and harbor workers was set up, the Communists in the U. S. shaped a "union" under the tutelage of the Trades Union Unity League...
...We have practiced this policy for twenty years, . and as a result we are the first American generation in history to see the American standard of living go down and democracy retreat all along the line...
...decision...
...ir area of the United States stretching through fou: districts of Virginia, an i the entire states oi Georgia...
...Genuine efforts of the seamen to organize and gain better conditions on the East Coast, as elsewhere in the nation, during the years 1.927 to 1932 were checked and destroyed by a systematic pattern of ruthless sabotage by the Communist group, with their countless leagues, councils and alliances...
...The "union," the Marine Workers Industrial Union—like its parent venture—flopped miserably...
...In case some poor downtrodden employer of labor should wish to do a little chiseling, a Barden amendment would encourage him...
...Then the Communist group discovered that few of the strike leaders were eligible for office...
...The book, Union Now, proposing it, was first published by Harpers six . months before the war began, and then in England, France, Sweden, all before the war...
...Ballots printed...
...and even the Kaiser was not crusading against them as Hitler is, nor d;d he begin as Hitler does with a 90-billion mark war machine...
...They have the power to make half the world at once safe for democracy without war, by simply showing the common sense the thirteen colonies showed in 1787 and organizing themselves as a union...
...We must prove that we, too, have the courage and vision and willingness to work and risk for liberty and union that was shown by all the generations of ^Americans before us who gave us liberty and union...
...rhe rfsv.lt is that, just mi the case ;-f the ad-.v.irlstium amendment^, these wage-hoof proposals had amazing support So-called Democrats iron tht special voting states ganged ut with reactionary Rep?blicas ti put them ever...
...began to bat k away from what they ha.i h-t-o- attemptmf to do...
...My answer, of course, is that I have no guarantee...
...It may be that by the time we have decided to try to organize peace this time on the union instead of the league basis, there may be a truce, a draw, an Allied victory, or we may have been drawn into the war ourselves by the nationalist philosophy that now dominates us, or it may be too late: A Hitler triumph may have made Federal union impossible not only in the world but perhaps also in America...
...POR years the Communist Party's attack was confined to general * propaganda, agitation and breeding dissension...
...In the first place, much cf the pressure fcr exemptions, some cf which were passed Mondan- by the House of Representatives, was coming from Alabama...
...And on the face of ft that looks like a pretty good den», cratic representation...
...Party members threatened Washington marches from soap-boxes following the N.R.A...
...The real masses of the South, who neve...
...FOLLOWING the successful West Coast maritime strike in '34 * the Communists in the East gained access to the marine unions...
...PHE Barden proposals were * beaten in this way and the Norton amendments, much milder, were then taken up...
...This group has given the world what freedom it has...
...It was later plain that while these promises were being made, each was planning to double-cross the other...
...The support for the Harden amendments—in fact, the Norton and all other amendments—does not stem from democracy...
...That depends on how long it takes the majority of Americans to decide to lead the world in this direction...
...This sounds like a pretty big line-up...
...The seamen returned to the ships, leaving ashore a so-called Seamen's Defense Committee...
...He worked aboard ship for 10 years...
...On May 5, 1P37, the National Maritime Union was formed and elections of union officers by the seamen successfully stalled off for another year...
...have laboree 1.092 hours within < twenty-six-week period...
...The party's howl went up to call off the elections . . . And they were called off...
...Indeed, conferences held during the strike named trustees for two of the departmental organizations...
...But that action, too, was lost...
...It will take a majority of the people in every country in the union to want it and get it in the first place and it will he majority rule of, by and for the people of the whole union forever after...
...Crooks...
...the port of "New York by the Communist clique...
...and after permitting the (so-called) democrats to take the lead in anti-labor legislation, the Republicans suddenly turned on them in the House of Representatives and stood forth as the champions of the unions...
...They provided the perfect opportunity for the Republican Party to purge itself of anti-laborism...
...In other words, it would have invited an employer to "take a chance" on six month's worth of chiseling...
...Half of the money came from . the California Packing Corporation., largest canning corporation in the world...
...The author of this series of three articles is a veteran sailor and newspaperman...
...Every time the American people have chosen the greater instead of the littler side: not only in 1789 but in the Louisiana . purchase,, the Monroe Doctrine, .the Mexican war, the Civil War, • the Spanish War, the World War...
...They attempted to toss a chicken' into the pot of every employer possible...
...From March 19th to May ,28th of that-year, picket lines—of-a sort—were maintained...
...000 people, but only 1,R92#XI voted in the last Senatorial el*, tions...
...So, Democracy is all the guarantee that I can point to...
...But a Barden amendment would have limited the employer's liability for six months...
...It is realized, however, that the apparatus has worked its way into many important unions controlling labor in key industries...
...Their union is not proposed as a wartime bloc or closed corporation, but as a nucleus designed to grow peacefully and gradually into a universal world government by the admission into it of all other democracies now or to come that guarantee their citizens the basic individual rights for which this union would be made...
...roses...
...state in...
...Then the Communists swung their machine into action...
...they're phoney...
...Their paper "unions" folded up since they were dedicated to the overthrow of the U. S., Moscow ordered them packed and put in storage...
...In the engine department the rank-and-file slate was victorious in an election and subsequent court fights...
...Over twenty thousand men registered to the strike call...
...THIS was the turning point °' the right for the Barter amendments...
...gasp and hold thci...
...This provision would give the people under dictatorship a tremendous stimulus to overthrow it and join the union...
...We cannot foretell now what the situation will be then, for events are moving swiftly and surprisingly in this war...
...But the anti-New Deal Tory democrats went too far...
...Is our history as a people to be that of some of our prominent families—to grow soft in three or four generations and fizzle out ? Just as our oceans have protected us, a shell protects an embryo chick only until it develops the power to break through the shell...
...too far and he would ask tm House to reconsider it...
...In each of the three big democracies people have already spontaneously and independently organized to promote this union...
...pass an amendmai: which hit the auto workers, i: provided that overtime wage should not begin until a mar bsc worked more than 1.092 hours...
...Communist Party members op the American waterfronts—-as...
...The rest were disfranchised...
...Although some party members were...
...The records of the La Follette committee shows that they adopted a three-point legislative program to exclude from the benefits of the Social Security Act, the Labor Standards' Act, . and the National Labor Relations Act all workers engaged in processing, packing and handling agricultural products...
...That the way should be kept . open for all other nations as they attain or regain democratic rights, until the final goal is reached—a World Federal Union...
...So the fact is thai the rep*, sentatives so solidly on the side of the wage-hour amendments «5 in Congress through the suffrage cf far less than two million people...
...He wrote for the Honolulu Advertiser, the North China News, and other sheets...
...Immediately the old-line officials expelled, by executive decree, those taking a leading pari in the_ action...
...We A. F Defeat Poll Tax Congressmen Lose Fight on Wage Act By BRYCS OLIVER Netot Commentator at Station WEVD, New York pOLLOWING the sordid exhibition of last week when Tory . Democrats in the House of Representatives double-crossed the people and helped the Republicans pass the crippling amendments to hamstring the New Deal Administrative agencies, they gave an even worse exhibition of hatred against the nation's wage-earners1 during the present week...
...Carolina, sponsor of rnw: of the amendments, said it weiv...
...But those eight are the poll tax states...
...The union proposal is much further advanced than was the league idea in 1915—a year after the war began that ended in a league...
...Majority of People Needed , ?F we are to save our great American heritage, we must remem-* ber that individual freedom depends on individual responsibility...
...and the like...
...Here we have eight states, stretching from the Atlantic shore to the- Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico with 78 "democratic" Csnffta...
...Thus the party's stooges stayed in control...
...With their power politics the loosely disorganized membership cf the unions didn't have a chance...
...you propose, so that present colonies of the Democratic nations, "by becoming territories of the new union would be brought up to self-governing statehood and eventually brought into the union...
...The female "Red angels" hooked many seamen with their "visitations...
...The American organization, called Inter-democracy Federal Unionists, has headquarters at 10 East 40th Street, New York City...
...Incidentally, this was so »«• that even Congressman B?rdete-North...
...No two of these 15 have fought a war between them in the past 100 years...
...Our generation began by taking our principles to their peak, ' winning one of the most complete victories in history...
...code hearings decided the M.W.I.U.'s paper membership was not representative of the seamen...
...You say all this in all sincerity, but what is to prevent this new union from becoming a bloc of 'have' peoples, so secure, so wealthy and so powerful as to simply bolster up the status quo and keep all other peoples down...
...The Barden amendments went even farther...
...In the spring of...
...Dues were being collected and books issued...
...liad anything to do with sending these reactionary representatives to Con-press, are the ones who wbr going to suffer most from the amendments...
...The old-line officers of the I.S.U...
...They wore no longer going tc have the protection, of the federal law which says it .shall be unlaw-full to pay less than thirty cent* an hour...
...TW totally rverior.ke-i the fact that most o? the izrr.- which ««I** hired help arc the insurance «* panics...
...The seamen after ninety-six days on the picket line, cold, hungry, illy-clothed and nearly starved, went back to the ships gaining nothing more than the "promise" cf the Communist Party's agents to set up rank-and-file unions within the old I.S.U...
...elevators and such P*"" downtrodden ?a-me-s as Bordes Milk Company...
Vol. 23 • May 1940 • No. 18
