The daily worker., 1929-01-14
AYN0OD'S BOOK
TELLS VIVID TALE
OF PIONEER WEST
Urge Workers to Write
of Great Leader
Continued from Pnnc One


one of those who, before railroads
crossed the Great Plains, carried q
saddle-bag of precious letters
mounted on swift horses, riding like
the wind across trackless prairies
dodging lurking Indians, stopping
only to change horses at some lone
ly outpost, to deliver the mail to the
next rider, finally to be carried
through to the California gold
fields.
His father and mother met and
married at Salt Lake City, where
the future labor leader was born in
February, 1869. Salt Lake City was
the new center of the religious sect
known as the Mormons, whose chief
was Brigham Young. At war with
other sects of the east, whom they
termed "gentiles," they sought to
monopolize their refuge in Utah.
Haywood tells of their killing of
gentiles in what was known as "the
Mountain Meadow Massacre" he
tells of their polygamy, and political
scandals between them and the gen.
tiles who pressed in among them.
His father died soon after Bill
was born, and the family moved to
the small mining camp of Ophir
after he had acquired a stepfather.
Here he had his first school. Also,
he tells Of his first work, going into
the mines when only nine years old
Ophir was a wild western mining
camp, and Haywood recites the var
ious scenes of violence witnessed
there. When the family went back
to Salt Lake City, Haywood got an
other term of school, his last. Then
he was bound out, as an indentured
child slave, to a cruel farmer. There
he pulled his first strike, and ran
away back home.
There followed many kinds OF
work as boy in the booming and
SSIgh town that Salt Lake City
was. AS an usher in a theatre he
saw Shakespearean drama, and
awoke to an interest in culture, a
culture he gained by reading and
experience with his gift of rich
mind that absorbed the essentials OF
things.
One day he saw a Negro lynched
and his boyish spirit felt the horror
of racial prejudice. Undoubtedly, as
he pictures it, this incident made
him passionately opposed to racial
hatred, and in his later life he was
militantly for racial equality to the
fullest degree.
He worked in fruit store, and
as messenger boy, learning, as mes.
senger boys do, many things adults
would not like to see made known to
the public. AS bell-boy in hotels
he met many famous persons of that
day, but at Is years of age, it was
decided that he 60 to Nevada, AND
work in mine, where his step.
father was.
In Nevada, in remote spot sixty
miles from Winnemuca, the nearest
town, Haywood spent some time
Here, strange as it seems, he be.
came acquainted with classic liter.
ature. Miners are readers. There
too, he had warm friends, one was
"Tim," a dog, whose qualities Hay.
wood remembered to his life's end
Here, too, he knew the quaint
Chinese cook, and learned the no.
bility of the American Indian. He
learned how the white men had
massacred Indians, men, women and
children, just "for the hell of it,
He tells the story of Ok Sam, which
should take the glamour off of "In-
dian fighters" in the minds of the
boys who should read Haywood's
book.
Today we give on page six an
other part of Haywood's stirring
drama. Turn to it and read it. Con.
tinue it from day to day. Send in
your subscription, and renew your
old one so that you will miss none
of this series which will be historic
in American labor literature.
In addition, the Daily Worker ex.
tends to workers, those who have
known Haywood and been enlieht.
ened and inspired by him, to write
letters to US, relating their own ex.
periences with the old fighter, the
story of the struggles in which he
and they were interested, what Hay.
wood did or said that impressed
\ Tell of the HAYWOOD Won knaw,