The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-04-19

masses carefully preserved, regarding the
''poor white" only as buffer in between the
Negro masses and the white rulers, with the
contempt of feudal lords for serfs, has made
no serious concessions to the masses it herds
into the factories, mines and mills. The south
ern capitalist class cares very little for demo-
cratic pretenses.
Writing in 1867 his preface to the first edi-
ton of Capital" Marx, in speaking of the
difference between the development of English
and German industry, said:
"Where capitalist production is fully ma
turalized among the Germans (for instance
in the factories proper) the condition of
things is much worse than in England, be-
cause the counterpoise of Factory Acts is
wanting. In all other spheres, we. like all
the rest of Continental Western Europe
suffer not only from the development of
capitalist production, but also from the in
completeness of that development Along
side of modern evils, whole series OF in
herited evils Cypress us, arising from the
passive survival of antiquated modes of pro-
duction, with their inevitable train of social
\ and political anachronisms. We suffer not
only from the living, but from the dead"
my Emphasis.)
Factory inspection laws, workmen compen-
wage laws, child labor laws, ETC., are either
non-exstent in the southern states or of the
most formal character with little or no pre-
tense of enforce. Their place is taken by legal
methods of suppression.
Many of the laws used against the workers
date from the chattel slavery period, many
others were passed after the "carpet-bag"
days when the southern ruling class regained
it's hegemony and, first RELOCATING the Negro
masses to almost the same slave status as be-
fore the civil war, also took measures to pre-
vent the developing white working class and
the poor farmers from reaping any advan-
tages from the freeing Of the Negro slaves.
1t is in this combination Of a highly ration
allied industry with working class recruited
directly from the countryside, and the survival
of the semi-feudal legal code, that we find the
explanation for the unparalleled persecution
of militant leaders of the workers and the
working class itself in the South.
In this imperialist epoch the methods of the
southern ruling class, far from placing them
behind their brethren in the North actually
give them first place in the nationwide drive
of American imperialism against the working
class. Just as in the colonies and semi
colonies, Imperialism seizes upon all feudal
survivals which can be of use in robbing and
suppressing the working class and peasantry,
so in the United States the whole ruling class
greets with approval and admiration the abil-
ity of the southern rulers to utilize the chat
tel slavery code to jail and murder Cc.nmu-
nists and workers who accept and fight for
our program.
For this reason there must be the closest
connection between the work Of our Party and
the revolutionary unions in all parts of the
country with the struggle in the South. The
methods in use in the South by the ruling
class today will be the methods of the rulers
throughout the country tomorrow.
Solidarity of northern workers with their
southern comrades must be slogan of action!
49, Ito Be Continued)