The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-08-15
RALEIGH HEARS
melvin APPEAL
FOR ARRESTED
Many Delegates At
tend Mass Meeting


are trying to railroad to prison and
the electric chair" were distributed
at the convention and throughout
the Raleigh district.
They also announced the meet
ing for tonight.
Offer Solidarity.
More than so of the $50 delegates
to the convention approached Sophie
Melvin today in the corridor of the
house of representatives where they
are in session, expressing their SYM
pathy and solidarity with her fell
low defendants, and the sincere
hope that you folks will succeed in
organizing the mill workers"
The entire convention was char
acterized by typical A. F. of l..
methods of steamrolling, the Music
group cooperating.
Fight the National Textile Work
ers Union and the Communists"
was their slogan. Appropriately
enough, Alfred Hoffman, betrayer-
in-chief of the U. T. W., said the
last word at the convention. He de-
voted his entire speech to poison
Gus stream of deliberate falsifica-
ton of the activities of the Commu-
nists.
The resolution which the Fedora
ton refused to permit Melvin to
introduce, bu; which will be voted
upon by Raleigh workers tonight,
follows in part:
Whereas, thirteen members of the
National Textile Workers Union are
in Jail in Gastonia, charged with
first degree murder in connection
with the killing of Chief of Police
Aderholt, who was killed on June 7
when he led a raid on the union
headquarters with the announced in
tention of destroying the union prop
erty, as previous headquarters had
been destroyed, and of shooting up"
the Workers International Relief
tent colony where the strikers who
had been evicted were living; and
Whereas, the lives and property
of these strikers and union organ
izers were in grave danger from this
attack of the police and the mercen-
aries of the Manville-Jenckes Com
pany, owners Of the Loray mill
where the strike took place; and
Whereas, these strikers led by the
militant National Textile Workers
Union, had struck against the intol-
cradle stretch-out system and star
walton wages, and fought for two
months against the ruthless persecu-
ton Of the authorities and vicious
attacks of the bosses hirelings, be-
ing harassed constantly by police,
troops and gangsters; and
Whereas, these thirteen courage
Gus and militant strikers and union
organizers face the electric chair,
and ten others face long terms in the
penitentiary for defending their I'M
ion, their property, their rights and
their lives; and
Whereas, the mill owners and the
capitalist newspapers and courts are
making every effort to railroad them
to electrocution or the penitentiary,
and conducting a campaign of Wilt
fication against them, calculated to
arouse racial, religious and class
hatred, to prejudice the public
against them on the basis of the
fact that some Of them are Commun-
lists, and all are class conscious
strikers and organizers Of the mill
tant National Textile Workers In
ION;
Be it therefore resolved:
That we, the delegates of the North
Carolina State Federation of Labor
assembled at Raleigh, do hereby
pledge ourselves and the organiza-
tons we represent, to support NOR
ally and financially the defense con-
Quoted by the international Labor
Defense. on behalf of the twenty
three class-war prisoners, and en-
dorse the campaign of the Interna-
tional Labor Defense to arouse work.
ers throughout the South and the
nation, to the danger Threatening the
defendants and their union; and to
a recognition of the fundamental is
sues involved; the right of workers
to organize, strike and defend them
selves against attack, we endorse the
position Of the international Labor
Defense that a change of venue from