The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-06-14

Continued from Page One)
of Police Aderholt was killed, per-
haps by one of his own deputies or
provocateur, and three city po-
licemen were wounded. The first
to fall wounded in the attack of the
policemen was an organizer for the
N. T. W. u, Joseph Harrison.
The fate of Fred Beal, leader of
the strike, and of the Gastonia
strikers who are now in Jail, charged
with completely to murder, is the
concern of the entire American
working class. The Southern mill
owners are determined to drive the
union out of the South. The 100000
textile workers of the South, receiv-
ing an average wage of So to $40
a week, working on 12-hour day
shift, suffering an intense speed-up
system, working and living under
indescribably unsanitary conditions,
revclted and went on strike.
Hundreds Arrested.
In the course of the ten weeks
strike in Gastonia, hundreds have
been arrested. A masked mob of
200 thugs, which included special
deputies, demolished the headquar-
ters of the union, while the Ma
tional Guardsmen called out by the
mill-owning governor, Max Gardner,
looked on. Strikers have been bay
oneted almost daily, beaten up, shot
at and arrested. Old women have
been numerically beaten. One hun
dred and fifty strikers families
were evicted from their homes and
thrown with their furniture upon the
streets.
In spite of these ten weeks of in
tense persecution, the strikers cour-
ageously continued their struggle
for better conditions, for recognition
of the union, for higher pay and
shorter hours and against the speed
up system.
Now after the strikers with their
own hands have built their new
headquarters and have erected a
tent colony to care for the evicted
strikers, after the mill owners see
that the strikers are determined to
maintain their union as a permanent
institution in the South to defend
their union with their lives, the
murder frame-up has been insti-
tuted.
Defended Union.
The only crime committed by
the union members is that they
defended their union against the
assaults of the mill owners and
the government authorities in the
service of the mill owners.
AS in the Mooney case, Fred Beal
and dozens of others of the leading
strikers are threatened with death
because they dared to challenge the
rights of the mill owners to grind
unlimited profits out Of their weak
ened bodies.
AS in the Sacco-Vanzetti case,
workers are faced with death in
Gastonia because they took an ac-
tive part in the class struggle.
The defense of Fred Beal and
the so leading Gastonia strikers
is the most important task before
the American working class at
this time.
If the mill owners succeed in rail-
reading to prison for long terms
these workers, in smashing the N.
T. w. U. and in burning Fred Beal
in the electric chair, the American
working class will suffer a severe
blow.
All Workers Must Defend.
The destitute textile workers Of
the South have taken their place
! in the ranks of the class struggle
, as among the most militant, cour-
ageous and best fighters in the labor
movement of this country.
The lives Of these workers must
be defended by the entire American
working class. Their fight is your
fight. The workers must answer
, this bloody attack. The textile
workers of the South are determined
that they shall no longer be merely
"cheap labor" but white and Negro
worker alike on an equal basis shall
join together to fight the intense ex-
ploitation which they have suffered
: If the attack Of the mill owners
succeeds and the union is driven
from the South, the entire working
class Of America suffexs a severe
Adafaat