The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-01-13
By WILLIAM F. DUNE.


THE labor movement confronts a
crisis of so serious a nature, as
The DAILY WORKER reaches it's
Fourth Anniversary, that everyone
with the interests of the working
class at heart is compelled to try and
find a correct answer to two ques-
tions.
(D What are the causes of the
crisis?
~ What must be done to overcome
it and to forge the now weak work.
ers' organizations into single pow
erful weapon of our class?
What was formerly the strongest
union in the labor movement-the
United Mine Workers. being des-
troyed before our eyes. Six hundred
thousand men, women and children in
the mining sections are being starved,
evicted, beaten and jailed by the coal
barons and their government.
The strike itself has been outlawed
by a whole series of state and fed
eral injunctions.
The coal barons declare with the
most brutal cynicism that they in
tend to destroy the United Mine
Workers. The government, the courts
especially, back the coal barons to the
limit.
Other sections of the labor move
ment have been brought within the
scope of injunctions like that in the
case of the Bedford Cut Stone Com
pany, upheld by the supreme court,
which outlaws the most ordinary
union defense activities.
Other injunctions make strikes il
legal if they affect the production of
articles of interstate commerce and,
as in West Virginia, injunctions le-
galize the "yellow dog" contract and
outlaw even attempts to organize
workers into unions.
The legal presidents have been es-
tablished to outlaw all strikes and
organization campaigns of any impor-
tance-to make any interference with
the open shop crime.
The open shop has become recog-
nized American institution enjoying
the full protection of the government.
The unions all told, A. F. of L., the
railway brotherhoods and independent
unions like the Amalgamated, if an
analysis of their membership is made
which disregards the obviously in
flated figures in convention reports,
are found to include only some g.
100000 workers out OF an estimated
total of 20,000,000 workers who could
be organized with comparative ease
by correct policy and militant tactics.
But most alarming in this connec-
ton is the fact that the unions, dur
ing the last five and one-half years
of unprecedented industrial activity,
have been, declining steadily in nu-
merical strength.
In other words, under conditions
which were the most favorable for
organization work, the official leader
ship has not even been able to keep
the unions from losing members.
In this weakened condition the la
Dor movement faces a severe indus
trial depression which, because of the
absolute reaction which prevails in
official circles, will make further and
rapid inroads on the membership. A
still more rapid decline in numerical
strength is inevitable if the grip of
the reactionary leadership is not
broken and militant policy adopted
and applied.
Unemployment is already increas-
ing at such rate, basic industry is
slowing down so fast that the big
capitalist papers and the special econ
omic and financial papers make little
attempt to disguise the seriousness of
the situation.
Side by side with this development,
which skaters one of the main bases
of official labor policy-the fiction of
permanent prosperity in the United
States-is going on a process of re-
justification.
The combinations of capital are be-
coming larger and more powerful,
.hiA'At ~ VA SONClAiiGilL ID DGlUR TlV-
eted with mighty clutch
The position, of the labor move
ment is made relatively weaker by
the increased Capitalization of capt.
! talist powers
Combined with an absolute decrease
in numerical strength and with de-
moralization and corruption having
its source in the class cooperation
policy flowing like foul stream thru
the unions, poisoning the membership,
the labor movement enters the pres
ent period of industrial depression,
organizationally and morally weak.
The crisis is real. 1t is no service
to the working class to minimize it's
seriousness.
Growing all other weaknesses, the
outstanding evidence of reaction is
the non-partisan political poiicy-the
united front with the class enemies
of the masses in the political parties
of capitalism.