The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-03-03
AS Our Loss Is Great
So Every Comrade Must
Make His Task Greater
BY j.. LOUIS ENGDAHL.
CHARLES EMIL RUTHENBERG is dead.

~ Our leader has been stricken down at his post sud
denly without warning that death
Let new courage speed swiftly to every comrade IN
the land to renew the struggle for Our Cause with
greater energy than before greatest tribute
at the bier of our standard bearer who is gone
Only few short weeks ago. before the mighty throngs
gathered in Madison Square Garden here in New York
City the occasion of the anniversary OF Lenins DEATH
Ruhenberg called Americas workers to new ana greater
revolutionary struggles.
Thus for more than score Of years Ruthenberg the
revoutionist had waged relentless combat against Amer
lean capitalism, toing ceaselessly as an agtator cd
and organizer among the workers. ever doing his
utmost on labor's side of the class struggle
The master class recognized in Ruthenberg of its
most relentless enemies. 1t attacked publications he
edited It broke up meetings he addressed. 1t outlawed
the Communist Party he helped organize. In savage
desperation it put him behind bars in its bastles In
Ohio in New York and in Michigan. Ruthenberg spent
years in the prisons of the capitalists but his spirit was
never broken Instead steeed for dauntless
assaults against the capitalist social order.
In the hour that death came, all of us who knew
Ruhenberg felt that he would live many to help
develop and guide to fruition under Communist stand
ards the American revolutionary movement. He was
always strong physically tireess body reinforcing an
ever-active mind.
He was not yet 45 years old, yet appendicitis came,
like dagger in the night and struck him down. The
end could not have been sudden, nor more unex
pected.
Ruthenberg the moment of his death the General
Secretary of our Workers (Communst) Party. He had
held this position practically from the day that he
stepped of Sing Sing Prison in New York State, in
1922. His a difficult task He not only called
on to lead the parys struggles to formulate and de
velop its policies in multitude of different activities,
but he was also compelled to bear heavy burden of the
Partys routine work raising its finances, as well as
those of The DAILY WORKER, attending to the details
of organizatonal work and stimulating the Parys cam
pagns. It a super-task Yet Ruthenberg never
fatered He brought to each days task vigor born
Of his unfathomable faith in the cause In which ne
served.
Ruthenberg was born on July 9, 1882 at Cleveland.
His father was a ongshoreman He received his educa
ton in the ctys public schools At first factory worker
then clerk and later occupying executive position in
the office machinery Of big business Ruthenberg never
wavered in his loyalty to the working class.
It in 1909 at the Of 81 that he began his ten
years of activity city secretary and organizer of the
Socialist Party in Cleveland, Ohio. He Immediately be-
came a national figure in the Socialist movement, al
ways leader of its revolutionary elements In the his
toric struggle between the "reds" and the "yeows,
that eliminated in 1912, in the Berger Hlquit demand
for the expulsion of William D. Haywood, Ruthenberg
already recognized the leader of the Parys left
wing and Ohio, especially Cleveland stamped on
the American socialist map as RED.
Ruthenberg edited the Cleveland Socialist 1911-1S in
addition his other duties. With the beginning of the
world this publication became the Socialist News,
which he carried from 1914 to 1919.
At ST. Louis, in March, 1917 Ruthenberg men,
Der Of a committee and mlitarism that drew up
what later became known as the "St. Louis Ant-War
Proclamation of the Socialist Party While other
Spokesman of the Socialist Party fatered under the
growing governmental persecution Ruthenberg devel-
oped his attack the in harmony with the procla
nation that had been issued In the great public square
Cleveland before thousands, he called the workers
refuse to be conscrped for the He arrested
with Alfred Wagenknecht and Charles E. Baker and
Sentenced years Imprisonment. During the trial of
Eugene v Debs, at Cleveland, in 1916, the prosecutor
brought Ruthenberg into the courtroom from his prison
cell Before the capitalist court Ruhenberg reaffrmed
his stand for the St. Louis AntWar Declaration. At
the workhouse at Canton, Ohio, where Ruhenberg
first held prisoner of capitalism he subjected
many prison tortures including being strung up by
his wrists for hours his feet barely touching the floor
This the penalty he paid for the slightest nfracon
of the prison rules.
In the Socialist Party split that took place in 1919,
Ruthenberg joined with the forces that organized the
Communist Party opposed to the elements that went
with the Communist Labor Party He the first
rotary of the Communist Party that established its head
quarters in Chicago Then came the Palmer raids and
the resulting prosecutions.
1t was during this attack the young Communist
movement that Ruthenberg was indicted in New York
State and placed trial with l. E. Ferguson, charged
with having participated in Left Wing Conference Of
the Socialist Party held in New York City, June 2124,
1919 They were charged with criminal anarchy under
law passed in 1902 seventeen years before Ruthen-
bergs testimony and speech to the jury constituted what
considered the most evolutionary challenge made
in a court in the United States
Ruthenberg convicted and, like Ferguson, Harry
Wintsky, Ben Gtlow, James Larkin and others spent
years in the prison of New York State.
During Of the time that Ruthsnberg in prison,
the Communist movement forced to lead illegal
existence. 1t again coming into the open when he
released Upon regaining his freedom he took up
the task Of building Communsms open expression, the
Workers (Commuaist) Party
1t was the last convention Of the illegal Communist
Party, held at Bridgeman, Mich that Ruhenberg was
again arrested with nearly of others and in
dicted under the so-caed criminal syndcaism law Of
that state. He again convicted and sentenced to ten