The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-06-11
BOSSES INCITINC
MOB To MURDER
Mill RIKERS
Workers Guard Heroic
ally Protects Workers

D
ifs in pumping lead into Deputy
George Moore, while all were firing
a general and reckless fusillade of
shots at fleeing striker they want
ed to seize and add to the frame-up
proceedings, convinced many that
the same sort of accident might
have happened to the four deputies
and the chief shot Friday.
The tent colony is still in the
hands of the police, and a lynch
mob of twelve patrolling the roads
around Gastonia stopped the car in
which City Councilmen Robert Craig
and Policemen H. C. jackson and
Thomas Rankin were carrying Fred
Beal and X. o. Byers to a jail in
North Carolina from Spartanburg,
S. c., where they were arrested and
charged with completely in the
murder of Aderholt." The mob de-
manded the prisoners, and the po-
lice claim that they refused to give
them up. 1t is stated here by others
agitating for the killing of Beal and
other strike leaders that a mistake
was made in sending such small
crowd, as the police were almost as
numerous as the armed lynchers,
and We're afraid of ridicule for
yielding" to such a small force.
The situation is very tense; the
Gastonia Herald is calling for the
electric chair for all those who are
not taught North Carolina justice"
by the lynch crowd before going to
trial. There is common talk of a
new and more destructive raid on
the colony in preparation which
shall absolutely destroy every tent
and run the families out Of town.
On the other rand, all the forces
of militant labor are rallying to
carry on the fight, to reorganize
the strike relief, to rebuild the tent
colony, to continue picketing and
win the strike. The Gastonia strik-
ers must now build their Workers
Defense Corps to defend themselves
against the lynchings being pre-
pared.
Hundreds of workers from sur
rounding towns are flocking to Gas
tonia to protect the strikers. All
workers agree that if it had not
been for the determined resistance
Of the Workers Guard at the tent
colony, their alertness in stopping
every attempt of the mill owners
secret agents to poison the camp
water supply, their announced will
lingness to shoot to pieces any
masked mobs which might be or
ganized to destroy the strike head
quarters, as the first headquarters
and relief offices were destroyed
there would not have been a police
raid; but the lynchers would have
done the job, probably with terrific
loss of life among the strikers, as
was the case years ago at Ludlow.
Colorado.
As it was, although many strik-
ers were arrested and some were
beaten, only one striker was shot
and four of the raiders were hit,
enc fatally.
The lynehing methods. which
many white workers, even in the
South, have used against Negro
workers, do not look the same to
them now, when the business men
of Gastonia are demanding that
white workers be lynched.
Otto Hall, Negro organizer fol
the National Textile Workers
Union, spoke at Gastonia just be-
fore the shooting and then addressed
a meeting at Bessemer City. On his
way back sympathizers from Gas
tonia stopped him and warned him
of lynch mobs seeking his life. Hall
escaped and the entire incident
opens the eyes of Southern workers
to new situation. White workers
who have been melted into race
wars and race murder, find that the
employers who whipped them on are
now calling for the death Of white
and Negro workers alike, and rally
against this menace as sensible men
would, by protecting their Negro
fellow-workers against the common
enemy.
The tent colony, which inspection
showed later, was wrecked in ar
even more wanton and destructive
fashion than was at first indicated
is still inhabited by hundreds Of
strikers families, living among then
shattered furniture and trying to use
their torn and bullet pierced cook
ing utensils.
James P. Reid, national president
of the National Textile Workers
Union, is expected here today, com.
ing down from the union headquar.
tiers in New York to take persona
charge of the organization work.
The mass demonstrations before
the Friday raid have already drawn
many of the textile workers out Of
the Loray mill, and reports from
inside state that a mass insurrec
ton is brewing there. These work
ers are new to labor struggles, ant
many of them did not realize thai
they were working to the injury Of
their fellow-workers outside. Th'
attempt at mass murder, and The
cruel attempts at lynching ant