The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-01-11

with many of the
past traditions of s@-&%a12laS dszTsza
the organization, j. L. EnGdahl
and a clear orientation toward the
present period of growing class
struggles, in which the increasing
rehabilitation of the toiling masses
is being met with new and desper-
ate attacks by the employing class.
Building the /. l.. d.
For the first time the question
of organizing the ]. L. d. in the
shops and factories, mills and
mines, was definitely discussed
and favored UNANIMOUSLY, where it
had not even been mentioned in
previous conventions.
For the first time the social COM
position of an LID. Convention,
with heavy representations of coal
miners and steel workers, provided
the basis for a really proletarian
gathering.
The I. L. d. and the Negroes
For the first time there was
an effort made at least toward
approaching an adequate repre-
sentation of Negro workers and
farmers. There were twenty-five
Negro delegates present.
For the first time an l. L. D, con-
vention met outside the two recog-
nized centers for such gatherings
New York City and Chicago. This
was in itself an approach to the
workers in the basic industries, es-
pecially in Pittsburgh, where the
working class has faced the heaviest
attacks, as in the Woodlawn Sedi-
ton case, resulting in three workers
being now in prison for five years
each, the effort to railroad Saliva
tore Accorsi to the electric chair;
the Tapolehanyi deportation case, the
effort to revoke the citizenship of
this Hungarian worker and send him
back to certain death at the hands
of Horthy fascism in Hungary.
Delegates from the South
For the first time a delegation
was present representing the work
ers in The South, not only in the
textile, but also in other industries,
and including Negro representation.
The shortcomings of the LID. in
these matters in the past were so
clear that the great wonder is no
real effort was made to correct
them until now. They were def
nitely corrected at Pittsburgh.
The I. L.D.convention gave full
recognition to the rapidly growing
economic crisis; the increasing
naturalization and its attacks on
the living standards of the workers;
the mounting mass of unemploy-
ment; the feverish war preparations;
the social fascist role of the Ameri-
can Federation of Labor and the
Socialist Party, and the need for
developing the movement for the
defense of the Soviet Union.
Faced 5000 Arrests
Previous conventions of the LID.
had made no serious efforts to link
up defense struggles with the con-
crete and political situation of the
times in which they were held.
The Pittsburgh invention faced
the fact that the LID. had handled
nearly 5000 arrests within the
recent period, including the fight
for the lives of the sixteen origin-
ally facing death in the electric
chair and the defense of workers
charged with the most elemental
working class activities, distribut-
ing literature, taking up collections
for strikers on the streets, or hold
ing meets at factory gates.
1t is this period of growing acute
class conflicts between the workers
and their oppressors that called for
quick turning in the methods of
struggle, the organazational forms
and the whole approach of the Inter
national Labor Defense to the
American working class, so that it
will rapidly become a broad mass
refense organization of the native
as well as the foreign-born, of
the Negroes as we'll as the white
workers
"Gastonia!" and "Illinoisw
"Gastonia" and Southern Him
ois!" in this period, are outstanding
attacks against the workers, but at
the same time flaming calls to all
labor to struggle against the at
tacks of the employers, to organize
the unorganized, to build class
struggle industrial unions, to fight
back the whole series of persecu-
tons developed as, for instance,
under the criminal syndicalist laws,
costly directed against the Com
munist Party.
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Michi-
gan and California-vicious and des-
perate efforts at combating the
growing desire and need for organi-
cation by labor, especially in the
coal and steel industries; efforts to
maintain and promote race prejudice
of white workers against Negro
workers, through arrests and smash
ing of joint meetings of both races
Norfolk, Virginia; Harlem, New
York; Wilmington, Delaware, ETC.,
etc., through lynching and segre-
cation in all their various forms;
Tapolchanyi; Woodlawn; Accorsi: