The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-03-26
IOLD FEUDALISM IN SOUTH

his occupation. how many times he has been
sick where he comes from, the room he lives
in, the name of his wife, how many children
she has had, the number that are still alive,
how many of them are too young to work.
The mill man can, by turning the pages OF his
book tell the age of all the people who live
in the village. Not even pany is unre-
corded" Ibid., P. 41).
As long as the worker went humby about his
tasks he was a good fellow The boss patted
him on the back provided an occasional COM
panv picnic and church festival, moved among
his Subjects" as hero and ''friend" and at
tempted to maintain the old easy relations of
the early plantation period. At the first rum
bngs of discomfort, however, he Immediately
attempted to tear his subjects to the economic
rack He black-listed them evicted them from
their homes, cut off their credit at the company
store raided the relief stations OF the Work
ers International Relief and tried to starve his
workers into submission The courts became
a mockery Beal, Hendricks, Miller and the
other Gastona defendants were convicted be-
fore their trial began. And, just as no Negro
was permitted to testify aginst white man
in the feudal courts of the agricultural South,
so were some witnesses in the recent Gastonla
trial prohibited from even testifying when they
professed disbelief in the capitalist god.
The modern version of the old Black Codes
is also being enacted Black lists are made up
and circulated of all who join unions take
part in strikes. Spies swarm, and to be seen
even talking on friendly terms with union
organizer is tantamount to immediate discharge
In the murder of Ella May Virgins and the
Marion massacre the ruling class served notice
that militancy is henceforth punishable by
death. There is also every indication that at
their next sessions the legislatures of the Caro-
linas will pass syndicalist and anti-union laws.
The COMMITTEE of 100" which engage in ter
rorist kidnapping and lynching bees against
Northern organizers and local militants are
the Ku Klux Klan in dress suit. Press and
pulpit howl against labor leaders in the same
vein they USED 80 years ago against the abol-
itionists "Alien invaders, reds, racketeers,
stick-up men, mad yankee guerillas, these
are only few of the florid invectives re-
sorted to by the ruling class and its agents
in it's bewilderment and terror
But Ku Klux Klans and Committees of 100
can not stay the hands of historical forces.
The feudal plantation system of the South had
its day-and gave way to modern industrialism.
! The changes of the past 20 years have spelled
! the doom of capitalism. The reactionary South
| represents a desperate ruling class making its
| last stand Just as its predecessor met its
doom from the armies of American industrial
ism in the Civil War, so does it now find the
movement of the working class, organized and
led by the Communist Party, striking it like
cloudburst. The strikes at Gastonia, Eliza
bethton and Marion, the growing solidarity of
Negro and white workers, the Garments strike
in New Orleans, the restiveness of the miners
not to mention many other SMALL scattered, but
extremely stubborn and militant class battles
are all but foretaste of much more that is
| is shortly to follow and show that the class
| struggle is as alive in the South as anywhere.
Against the industrial capitalists of the South
stands the restless proletariat of the mills be-
ing organized into the National Textile Work
ers Union, the National Miners Union and the
Trade Union Unity League, and beginning to
recognize the Communist Party as the political
| Party of the working class. The American
I Federation of Labor will hover in the back
ground and try to lead the workers back to
the slavery of the mines, mills and workshops.
But all the forces of reaction stand as much
chance in this new era as they would were
they trying to hold back the tides That, as a
matter of fact is the equivalent of what they
are attempting to do-and they have as much
possibility of success.