The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-12-12
BY VIM. z. FOSTER.


FHE Washington hearing Of the Fish Commit
tee, to which, Comrades Amter, Cannes and
were subpoenaed, was held in the rooms of the
House Committee on Foreign Affairs, in the
Capitol building. The main room of the suite
7as banked full of big floral pieces sent to
he fascist millionaire Fish by his reactonary
dmirers, in celebration of his good work." now
bout to be crystallized into anti-working class
sgislation. While millions of unemployed are
ctnally starving, Fish is feted and honored for
Attempting to drill the workers still deeper into
+ he abyss.
The whole hearing exuded spirit of blacklist
aaction. Fish again gave voice to his program
Or depressing the growing rebellion of the work
rs and intensifying the attack in the Soviet
Inion. He declared that he could be quoted
thousand times as being in favor of a United
tates national secret police, finger printing reg
;tration, and deportation of foreign-born work
rs and the breaking of trade relations with
ne Soviet Union Bachman of West Virginia
Immediately solidarized himself with Fish; and
he Others by their general conduct in the hear
ugs, showed that they held similar opinions
forever, when we charged the Fish Committee
nth trying to illegalize Party and Trade
Union Unity League. and with aiming to creating
, war against the Soviet Union, not one of the
Committee made the slightest disclaimer, every
Nody apparently taking it for granted that these
Electives of the Committee were manifest on
he face of things.
From their line of questioning it was evident
hat the Fish Committee in their proposals, will
irect very heavy attack against the foreign
orn workers, Their fear of these workers was
manifest at every step. Fish, Vol and Co.,
now that foreign born workers form the bulk
# the working force in the basic and most
trategic industries in this country. They know,
furthermore, that these workers mostly with a
background of radicalism or revolutionary train
n.y. are the least under the control of capitalist
'deology in general and of the A. F. OF L. in
particular. They also look upon them as the
principal source of rehabilitation in the working
lass. Consequently, a major phase of their
trategy is to drive a wedge between our Party
md the foreign born workers We must, there
ore be keeny alive to the vital significance of
he struggle to defend the rights of these work
arS.
The Fish Committee also showed in various
ways keen fear of our growing strength among
the Negroes Manifestly, instead of considering
The Negroes as reserves of capitalist reaction, ~
Lovestone does, these fascist capitalists dread
them as an element highly dangerous to capital
ism generally Fish inquired carefully regarding
our actual strength among the Negroes. Bach
man weakly attempted to deny JIM rowism in
West Virginia; and EsIck, while Boosting of
lynching in Tennessee, tried in the same breath
TO prove that Negroes were not disfranchised in
his state. We may be sure that still more drastic
steps are contemplated to isolate us from the
ysta1ly important and deeply discontinued mass
es of Negroes. Eslick clearly indicated what this
means in the Bourbon South by the way he
licked his chops when we demanded full social,
and political equality for Negroes,
the right of intermarriage.
How far the Fish Committee, notorious for
its Whalen forgeries, will go in its attempt to
develop trade embargo and eventually war
against the Soviet Union, was again illustrated
in the person of Russian kulak witness, fished
up from social cesspool for the occasion. He told
a blood-curdling yarn about prison life in Muir
mansk, enough to make Baron Muchausen blush
in envy. Prisoners he said, who were physically 4
unable to do the hours of hard work, were