The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-08-09
BRICK WORKERS
HAVE NO FAITH
IN The A. F. OF |.
Pig Pen Homes for
Negro Slaves

This is the concluding part of
a letter from worker on the
brickmaking plants along the
Hudson.
A representative of the American
Federation of Labor by the name Of
H. c. Lowrie, who also conducts 6
church in Brooklyn, New York, ap-
preached the workers in Duchess.
Junction brickyards. After a few
preliminary meetings a committee
was organized to draw up plans fol-
a local. The men all expressed theii
willingness to join, and within a few
weeks a charter was issued by the
Brick and Clay Workers of the
A. F. of l.. But no sooner had this
been done, when Lowrie appeared
before a meeting of the local and
told the men that it was necessary
to have more money to supply Will
liam H. Tracy, Secretary of the Ma,
tional Union in Chicago. The men
voted to give the amount, express
ing great confidence in Lowrie, who
impressed them as a "holy man OF
god" and as one who would never
think of robbing poor workers. Since
then neither Lowrie nor Tracy has
been seen or heard of.
No Faith in A F. of L.
| G. P. Roberts, Familiarity known
to the workers as Pearlie, was the
| president of the local. In a recent
interview he said, that as result
of Lowrie's conduct the workers
have no more faith in the A. F. of
L. The industry, however, is in
such bad state at present that. the
men can hardly feed themselves for
more than two or three days a week
and are drifting away from the
yards in search of other forms of
employment throughout the state
Pig-Pen Houses.
The houses occupied by the work.
ers are nothing less than filthy
disease-breeding outfits. Clustered
together on the outskirts of the
brick-yards are rows of rotten, I'm,
painted tumble-down shanties un.
fit for pigs, much less for human
beings. Nevertheless, these poor
mercilessly-exploited Negroes are
compelled to occupy them and
"thank" god and the capitalists fol
such tender mercies.
The best house, rather shack, is
reserved by the company for reigi-
GUS purposes. On Sundays a we'll
fed, dandy lookingsNegro preacher,
driving a new Buick car, appears in
the yard to talk to the workers
about "pie in the sky by and by
The men despite their illiterate con-
dition, resent this brand of CAPT
talist poison, and on the last occa-
sion when the preacher was in the
brick-yards, he was wailing and
lamenting how goddess the men
were. He threatened to give up the
church, for not only did the workers
not attend, but they also refused to
permit their children to be dosed by
the preacher.
This is one of the ways in which
the brickyard bosses attempted to
keep the workers satisfied by giving
the "men of god" full scope to ply
their religious opiate.
Rotten Food.
Exclusive of the disgraceful hous-
ing conditions, the food is rotten and
controlled by company stores oper-
ated by Syrians. The workers buy
on the credit system and are per-
petually indebted to the bosses. In
this way they never have any
money; all they work for goes back
to the companies through tn e
grocery stores.
AS for sanitary water and toilet
conditions, the only thing to COM
pare with what prevails in these
hell-holes is perhaps what actually
obtains in hell itself. The workers
drink from wells and a stream
which flows through adjoining lands
where it is used for bathing pur-
poses. Thus these unfortunate
downtrodden black slaves are com.
PEELED to quench their thirst from
the polluted waters of their over
lords.
The toilets-to grace them with
respectable name--are the filth
lest dug-outs to be found in any
civilized community. They are moth
ing else but fly-breeding, typhus
infected receptacles.
1t is the greatest mystery how
epidemics have not swept over these
workers colonies.
Amidst this squalor, misery, ex-
ploitation and degradation Negro
workers exc out mere existence
while the capitalists who own the
brickyards grow fatter and fatter
on their backs.
The lower middle class, the small
manufacturer, the shOpkceper. the
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