The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-05-07
By A. S.

CAPITALISM in the South, demanding the
" death of Powers and Carr as Communist
organizers, is once again acting as the van
guard of the capitalist attack on the working
class of the United States. Earlier in the
struggle to organize the South, through the
cynical acquital of the murderers of both Ella
May Virgins and the six Marion victims in
the face of overwhelming evidence of guilt,
the Southern courts officially announced that
any worker who dared to revolt against the
slave regime of southern industry was legiti-
mate prey for its fascist murder gangs
In the Gastonia case, following the defeat
by armed workers defense of the bosses at
tempt to wipe out revolutionary unionism in
the South at its inception by the massacre of
the organizers and union members the courts
ordered death for those defending themselves
and their organization against such attacks.
Now, without any attempt to conceal its
object, capitalism in the South directly DEGREES
death for every worker carrying on the or
ganization of the wage slaves of the Sounth
under Communist Party leadership.
Fury of Attack Growing.
The fury of the capitalist attack on the
revolutionary organizations in the South is
growing in proportion to the growth of the
spirit of revolt among the workers under the
terrifically increased pressure exerted on them
particularly severe in the South, and the in
creasing measure in which they respond to
Trade Union Unity League and Communist
leadership.
The answer to this attack must be nation
wide campaign, to defend and free our COM
rades facing trial in Atlanta and Gastonia
leaders of the struggle and push organiza-
ton in the South, with the Southern District
Conference of the Trade Union Unity League
to be held on May 27 in Chattanooga, Ten
nessee, as a central point.
Many comrades still persist in geographical
instead of political approach to the South,
They regard it as region remote, exotic and
bloody, where strange and violent deeds are
done, totally unrelated to the general trend
of development in other parts of the country.
For long time, for instance, many insisted
that the issue of workers defense, involved
in the Gastonia case, was an exclusively South
ern question without any connection with the
class struggle in the rest of the United States.
The same attitude reveals itself today in the
failure of some comrades to see the significance
of the Power and Carr case to the whole revo-
lutionary movement in this country.
Not Isolated.
The fact must be hammered home that this
new murderous attack of the Southern bosses
is not an isolated thing, but the spearhead
of nationwide attack on our Party and the
revolutionary unions. Special conditions ex-
listing in the South-the background of chattel
slavery, the sem-feudal legal code and rela-
tionships still existing, the comparatively re-
cent date of industrial development, the large
percentage of workers still drawn directly from
the farms, ETC., combined with the highest
degree of naturalization explain the
fact that the South leads in the savageness
of its repressive measures against the working
class. But any failure to see the swiftness
with which capitalism throughout the country
is following the lead set by the South means
underestimation of the rate at which the strug-
gle is sharpening in the United States as
whole. After Ella May in Gastonia came Steve
Katovis in New York. His murderer was
also acquitted and praised by the grand jury.
The drive to outlaw the T.U.U.L in the South
is followed by Whalen's A. F. of L. instigated
nationwide drive to outlaw the revolutionary
unions.
Once the Southern situation is seen as no.
isolated but as the most intensive expression
of the situation existing in the country as a
whole more effort will be thrown inc the work
of organizing the South.
Severe Crisis in South.
The economic crisis is especially severe in the
South, where textile is the leading industry.
and the 24-hour production schedule, unlimited
child labor and women's night work and the
extreme stretch -out and speed-up intensity the
overproduction problem Unemployment and
part-time on tremendous scale, hitting work
ers who in the best time never get far away