The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-08-22

"Only you workers can save us"
declared Amy Schechter to the huge
audience that heard her at the Gas
tonia defense demonstration in New
York recently. Her speech follows:
Fellow Workers and Comrades:
The battle to free the 16 Gastonia
prisoners, one of the most tremend-
Gus tasks before the American work
ing class today, is not only a battle
to free 16 workers from the MUIR
derous clutches of the mill owners.
1t is not only a battle to establish
the right of the workers to organize
in the South. 1t is a battle for the
right of revolutionary unionism to
exist in the United States. Com
rades, if the workers of the United
States do not yet realize that this
is the beginning of oar fight today,
to free the prisoners, the capitalists
of tie whole United States do real
ize this. They realize this is turn
ing point in the history of the work
ers of the United States, and be-
cause of this the capitalists of the
United States are united back of the
mill owners of the South to railroad
these workers to the electric chair.
In this first movement of organi-
cation, of militant organization in
the south, the capitalists saw that
the workers of the south were not a
reserve of reaction but a reserve of
working class militancy and cour-
age. The mill owners know that for
the past ten or fifteen years the
workers Of the South have been thru
militant struggles, have been shot
down in their attempts to organize
About the tent colony there were
women and children. The police
would come around, the committee of
100 would threaten to tear our place
down and kill the women and child
rem. One day before the raid they
tried to kill Red Hendricks, one of
our leading defendants, the young
mill worker. He was one of the first
strikers to be arrested in the strike.
He was one of the first to go up
outside the Inill gates and to call to
the workers to revolt against the
bosses. That night a gang, togeth-
er with some of the police tried to
put him to death, when some of the
workers came along and they had to
drop him. When they got hold of
Hendricks, he was on his way to a
house of worker in the Loray mill,
to talk about coming out. After
he was beaten up, he went to the
union headquarters, sat there spit
ting blood for a few hours, and then
he went, to the house where the
worker lived, to carry out his job
for the union. That is the spirit of
the workers in Gastonia. When
they saw the spirit of the workers,
the mill owners decided to drown the
strike in blood. The drunken mob of
police and the drunken committee of
One Hundred opened fire on the
workers there. Then the battle COM
menced, as you know. Why did they
take the sixteen defendants out of
the one hundred arrested first? Not
because they have evidence, any
facts against them. All the evil
dence of the prosecution is based on
lying affidavits that will not be able
to stand up when they reach the
light of day. Affidavits of people
who have been bought by few dol
lars. Not one worker, active in the
strike, has turned against US, can
be used b. the prosecution. Not be-
cause they had anything against
them, but because they were the
heart Of the union in Gastonia.
They were workers straight out of
the mill who in two months had
developed to a point where they
could 60 out and organize other
workers.
Since l have been here, I saw there
were two great dangers which may
send our workers to the electric
chair. One is an illusion that be-
cause there has been. change of
venue that the defendants will go
free. This is a very dangerous illu-
sion. This change of venue was
forced out by the mass pressure of
the workers.. But if the workers
give up and rest on their laurels,
the bosses will have won. This
change of venue is only the begin
ming of the fight. The next two
weeks will determine the fight.