The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-02-15

NOTE-ThiS is the second instGllment of
lre0iew of the resolution ON the "Generat
Situation, Problems and the Future Tasks
of the International Labor Defense" passed
at the Pittsburgh National Conference of the
LID.
Gastonia, Illinois and the Growing Attack on
the Working Class.
"Gastonia!' The struggle to organize not
only textile workers, but all Southern labor,
Negro and white. "Illinois!" The effort to
build the strength of the bitterly exploited
coal miners. These aggressive activities, like
all struggles of the working class, are met
with whole series of prosecutions, especially
developed under the criminal syndcalism laws,
mostly directed against the Communist Party.
Efforts to maintain and promote race prejudice
of white workers against Negro workers thru
arrests and smashing of joint meetings of
both races, thru lynching and segregation in
all its forms. Repeated police notifications
against all working class demonstrations, re-
sulting in bloody beatings and arrests of work
ers. The attempted prohibition of meetings
and distribution of literature at factory gates.
Attempted registrations of workers in the
shops. Proposed closing of immigrations to
alien Communists and barring of all revolu-
tionary literature. Special registration of
workers in the 1880 census, accompanied by a
whole series Of prosecutions and discrimina-
lions.
Mass arrests and raids by government.
agencies, orgies of violence by extra-legal or
CARNATIONS (American Legion, Ku Klux Khan,
etc., attacks on workers and their organiza-
tons by lynching mobs organized by employ
ers' agents, will characterize this period in the
whole country, calling for ever increasing and
strengthened defense activities.
The Gastonia Trial.
This was the first large defense movement
completely under the leadership Of the LID.
1t must be admitted, however, that the LID
met the great tasks confronting it with con-
siderable difficulty. It's organizational struct-
ure was weak, not rooted in the factories. It
had not adapted itself to meet the sharpening
struggles in the whole country. The present
Situation requires the putting forward in the
sharpest manner the call to struggle of the
proletarian masses against capitalist class
justice, combating theoretically all petty bour-
geois illusions.
The insufficient basis on which the Gastonia
campaign was developed was revealed in the
very perceptible melting away of protest fol-
lowing the reduction of charges at the open
ing Of the trial, when it would have been in
creased.
This was in part due to the complete failure
to link up the Gastonia campaign with the
local prosecutions and with the daily struggles
of the workers As a result the workers did
not relate the Gastonia attack to their own i'm
mediate problems and the campaign did not
attain the mass character which it could and
should have done. sst#
The Labor Jury was an effective weapon for
exposing the real nature of capitalist justice
in the Gastonia trial. For the first time in
Southern court room, Negro workers sat side
by side with white workers, the Labor Jury
containing two Negro members The Gastonia
trial experience with the Labor Jury, should
help in securing better results in this respect
in the future.
In the preparations for legal defense the
orientation was too much toward the petty
bourgeois, backward Southern lawyers brought
into the case. The legalism Of "local lawyers