The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-08-12
EUentS
By T. J. o'FLAHERrx.


heroes of the class struggle have been
force3 to suffer for seven agonizing
years. They are still living because
the hands of the Massachusetts hang,
men were halted by the giant protest
Of the workers of the world. Our
comrades are still breathing in their
death cells not because of the exist
ence of spark of what is commonly
known as humanity in the hearts of
the capitalists of New England. In
deed it is doubtful if the annals of
history can show another instance of
an executive holding off reprieve
deliberately until a few bare minutes
before the clock would tick the fatal
hour. This fact alone puts the x-ray
on the black, class-prejudiced heart
of governor Alvan 7. Fuller.
THE capitalists kill thousands of
people daily in their exploiting pens
thruout the United States. Some
times it is done violently; other times
slowly. And it is done quite legally,
because why should a capitalist gov
ernment, run in the interests of it
self make laws against itself. When
little children are slowly poisoned by
fatigue in southern cotton mills or
adults die from the effects of poisons
in factories, there is no danger
that those responsible will face an
electric chair. The capitalists are not
particularly anxious to kill workers
in electric chairs. They prefer to
wear them out in factories, making
profit out of them meanwhile. But
when workers like Sacco and Van
zetti, or Tom Mooney or Bill Hay
wood, jeopardise their profits from
human toll, they have no more
scruple about snuffing out human
life than dog would have in killing
a rabbit.
IT was a splendid and encouraging
sight:-millions of workers all
over the world rallying as one to save
two men they never saw. Two men
who were only known in a small cir
Gle until the time of the frame-up.
But because those two are workers,
their comrades in every land stood
by them. And the protests of labor
in foreign countries had as much to
do with hating the hangman as the
protests of the workers in the United
States. If Sacco and Vanzetti burn
in the chair American capitalists and
American goods, will be as popular
IN Europe, Asia and South America
as rattle snakes in bed room.
THE Sacco-V -Vanzetti movement shows
what tremendous power is welded
by the militant radical minority III
the labor movement. The old bureau
Gratis had nothing to say, except for
an apologetic appeal from William
Green to Fuller. The F'ullers know
their Greens and do not take their
appeals seriously. And the Greens
are fast frittering away whatever in
fluence they originally had with the
masses thru their policy of co-opera-
ting with the capitalists and making
war on the militants. Despite the abb
sence of the bureaucrats, hundreds of
thousands of workers thruout the
United States participated in giant
demonstrations and strikes. The
capitalists will not think more of
their labor lieutenants after this
demonstration of labor solidarity.
RECENTLY, and here in New York
N particularly the socialist bureau
Gratis blocked every effort at united
front on the Sacco-V -Vanzetti case. This
conduct seriously impaired the power
of the struggle to save them from the
chair. But at the last moment, when
it appeared that Sacco and Vanzetti
were about to be offered up as a
sacrifice on the altar of class Justice
the masses swept aside all those who
would play with the lives of two
workers and there has been more real
solidarity displayed during the last
week between all sections of the la
Dor movement than at any time since
the drive to save Tom Mooney.
THOSE who would indulge in false
oPtlHloih HoW, dDouC Ine> results
OF the moves being made by the Mas
sachusetts authorities, between now
and August 22nd, would be danger
ously sapping the strength of the pro-
test necessary to free our comrades
from the threat of death. Sacco and
Vanzetti have no hope that spirit
of justice will prevail among the
rulers of Massachusetts on h e
eleventh hour. That spirit of justice,
like all other spirits, is drug that
kills those who rely on it. We have
no confidence that there is anything
else in the eleventh-hour stunt of
Fuller and his confidantes except a
ruse to pull the CUTS out of the labor
nrotest and to exhaust IL