The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-07-21
A Soldier Imprisoned For His Class

John Porter, the former soldier who became
a courageous young leader Of the New Bed
ford textile strikers, has been given the saw
age sentence of two and half years at hard
labor in a military prison by a United. States
army court-martial after conviction for desert
! ing the army.
| This is not the end but the beginning of
the Porter case.
The rare event of the awakening Of soldier
in the imperialist army who wakes up to his
duty to his own class will flash as a red meteor
in the sky, The flash will be seen around the
world, John Porter, member of the Young
Workers (Communist) League, stuck to his
guns of militant class loyalty in the trial. He
spoke, not for his own liberty, but for the cause
of the working class and against the capt.
talist Imperialism represented in the military
court that tried him.
Nothing so terrifies the capitalist class as
the vision of awakening class consciousness
among the soldiers of the capitalist army. If
not on the army, on what can the fat bour-
all imperialist powers, there is not yet Bolshe-
vism in the army. Only few flickers have
broken through the gloom, and these are prac-
tically Individual cases, not approaching mass
character or even group character. The u.
S. army is volunteer army, and, though the
volunteering" is often inspired by unemploy-
ment and hunger, such an army is not so sus-
ceptible to the working class theology as are
conscripted troops
And the American bourgeoisie likes to tell
| itself there will never be Bolshevism in the u
S. army.
But three years ago the American capitalist
class and it's military caste was startled out Of
its wits when two young American soldiers in
the Hawaiian Islands were found to have or
ganized unit of the Young Workers (Commu-
nist) League in the U. S. army there. Later
came the new incredible" and a fearful omen
to the sleek American imperialists, that two
United States marines had left the imperialists
ranks to go over to fight for the freedom of
Nicaragua in the army of SANDING. And now
the Porter case-where the historic meaning of
it all is drarnatized by the arrest Of an enlisted
soldier for actually organizing and leading the
mass picket line in a big labor struggle.
Three times Porter was warned by the po-
lice that he was known to have deserted the
army and that if he persisted in participating
in the strike he would be struck down by the
arm of the military. When he refused to de-
sert his strike post and was thrown into mill
tary prison, the army authorities and the big
mill owners who were giving the orders were
much troubled as to what to do.
/ The authorities were torn between two mo-
tives: the fear-inspired lust for vengeance, and
the fear of the political consequences that
would follow such vengeance. Paul Crouch
had been given 40 years and Walter Trumbull
! 26 years, and the consequences had been so dis
turbing to army prestige that the sentences
were later reduced. In the case of Porter, the
military court martial compromised with its
fears by evading as far as possible the direct
political issue and giving the maximum sem
tence for desertion.
The term of John Porter's Imprisonment
must be and will be a term of energetic and
effective agitation to stir up the working class
especially the youthful cannot fodder-to an
understanding of the growing American mill
tarism and the class significance of this case.
The Young Workers Communist League
will doubtless be in the front trench of this
fight. This organization has every reason to
be proud of the attachments it has already
registered in the field of anti-mtarist work
Naval officials have been much disturbed when
sailors of warships openly declared Their friend
illness for the Young Workers Communist
League. The pacifsm of the days of "con-
scientious DIRECTORS" has been obliterated
wherever the Young Communists have found
their way. John Porter, who left the army be-
cause he realized it's character as an instru-
ment against the working class, found his way
to the Young Communists and then expressed
his regret that he had not remained in the
army to win over the young soldiers to the
cause of the workers.
The Imprisonment of John Porter, strike
leader, by the United States military arm of
the capitalist class must be made to ring
around the world
| Working class protest can be made to get
him out, and also by this protest thousands of
workers and soldiers can be walked up to the
meaning of Imperialism