The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-08-13
WORKERS GREET
SCHECHTER, BUSH
Pledge to Fight to
Defeat Chair
Continued from Page One)

Continued from Page One)
cheers swelled the hall until the
very building seemed to shake when
the two women defendants stood be-
fore them.
eve are ready to pay the penalty
for daring to strike and organize"
said Vera Bush, sin case the work
ing class protest and mass action
does not stay the hand of the mill
owners. We want our lives. We
want to be free. We want to or
ganize and fight for the workers as
we have been doing. We don't
want to die. But we call upon you
to demand that not a single man
be electrocuted; not a week, not
day in Jail for any of u.s."
Amy Schechter pointed out that
the battle is not only for the de-
tense of leading organizers, not
only for the right to organize and
defend themselves against attacks
of the mill operators thugs and
the police, but it is fight to de-
termine whether revolutionary
unions can exist in the United
States. This, she said, the opera
tors recognize, and that is why they
are determined to stamp out mill
tant unionism, even if it has to be
drowned in blood.
Contrary to what is commonly be-
lieved, the workers of the South have
background of militant struggle,
she said. In the mines and railroads
as well as among textile workers.
But strikes went to pieces, not
through lack of militancy on the
part of the workers, but because of
lack of organization and in the case
Of textile workers, because of the
black betrayals on the part of the
United Textile Workers misleaders.
Schechter recounts the campaign
from the first to break the organiza-
ton at its inception, how first SIAN
der in the newspapers and in leaflets
was spread against the union, the
Workers International Defense, and
their leadership. Then the terrori-
zation Of the "bossmen" as they arc
called here, who went from house
to house making threats. The evic-
ton from every hall secured and
attack of the mill lackeys which de-
stroyed the hall and the food supply
Of the relief organization.
The first attempt failed, as did
the second and every later attempt:
The militancy of the workers only
increased, she said, and the strikers
built their own hall. From the start.
Schechter declared, open threats
were made that the hall would not
stand three days. But this time the
workers were prepared to stand
guard.
When it was obvious that new
strike situation had developed among
the new workers who had come into
the Loray mill. the millmen deter
mined to do away with the union
once and for all. There were con-
slant threats of shooting. Almost
every night drunken deputies came
to the tent colony and threatened
e massacre.
Three days before the shooting oc-
Cured, workers from mills for many
miles around came to the colony be-
cause an attack was threatened for
that night. Men from every de-
partment in the Loray mill had been
armed. Because the strength of the
strikers had been so great, the raid
was postponed. Half of the men
folk had gone to Bessemer City on
the night the raid did occur. But
those who were there were deter
mined that the women and children
would not be massacred, Schechter
said, describing what happened that
fatal night.
"When we were in the city JAIL"
she said, 1--WE were treated like dogs
that first week. They held us in
communicate. Every night we could
hear them beat the boys. They tor
tured us. with tear gas bombs. But