The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-03-13

BY ]. LOUIS ENCDAHL.

courts of the "open shop" shoe manu-
facturers of Brockton, Mass, was a
victory for the labor-hating predatory
interests of New England
The enemies of the workers, with
their church lackeys, the priests and
the preachers, could have hoped for
nothing better than the acquittal of
Bimba on the blasphemy charge.
The Butler textile czardom, that
covers New England with a blanket
of black reaction, with its loaded ju-
dicial dice couldn't have called for a
better decision than the conviction in
the sedition case.
TT is well for the workers of the
i whole nation to understand this
situation, which is a call for new
struggles, both in the industrial field
and in the realms of religious con
troversy, especially in New England
where the church has a stranglehold
on great masses of the working class
population as it feeds the multitudes
with its repulsive narcotics to numb
labor's brain against clear thinking.
The blasphemy statute still lives
altho it has aged with the passage of
229 years, and dates back in its an
tecedents to the year 1916, only q
years after the first white settlers set
foot in New England. That is the
meaning of the court decision, that
recognizes no change altho the nation
has swept thru a national revolution
and civil war.
Bimba declared his belief that,
"there is no god!" and challenged the
court to convict him, which meant an
appeal to the higher courts to decide
whether the law still stands, or
whether it should be stricken from
the statute books.
The court rejected the challenge.
1t was easier and more convenient to
find Bimba mot guilty" which per.
mits the law to live undisturbed, at
least temporarily. The court, Judge
G. Carroll King, unitarian, and the
unitarian church itself denies the
divine origin of Jesus Christ, thus
placed it's approval on this law hand
ed down by the religious intolerance
of the early 18th century. DEATH"
was the penalty decreed in 1646, as
shown in the reproduction in another
column of the statute passed in that
year. One year in prison or $500
fine and the acceptance of gag to
observe the law in the future, was the
penalty imposed by the statute of
1897, also reproduced here. 1t was the
statute of 1897 under which Bimba
was tried. Only one conviction had
been secured under it, that of Abner
Kneeland, editor of the Boston In
vestigator, an atheist, sent to prison
for 60 days in 1888, nearly century
ago. The Kneeland case decision was
made by a divided court, Judge Car
roll claiming that he sympathized with
the minority decision. But he refused
to permit the Bimba case to go to a
higher capitalist court for its ruling
in this century.
The result is that any Communist
speaker in Massachusetts in the fu-
ture may be arrested under the same
statute on the fiimsiest of charges.
The church hirelings of the shoe and
textile barons may invade any meet
ing and have the speaker arrested on
the merest pretext that their god is
being assailed.
TT was clearly brought out that
l. Bimba, at Brockton. Mass, on jan
26, had had no intention OF discussing
religion and the Communist attitude
toward it. He came to Brockton to
speak on "the white terror in Lith-
uania" It was in denouncing the
ationalist-socialist" govern
ment OF that country, in exposing the
crimes of the priests in imprisoning,
~x..ttty.n - Hath