The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-05-13
By ]. AMTER.

m May Day hundreds of thousands Of Amer
" lean workers marched through the streets
demonstrating their solidarity in the struggle
ssairst unemployment wage cuts, speed-up, inn
.erialist war and for defense of the Soviet Union
The imposing array of the forces of the reVo-
lutionarv working class under the leadership of
the Communist Party brought forth comments
from the entire capitalist press May Day was
also a demonstration against the intended cleo
trocution of the nine Negro working boys Of
Scottsboro, and the rairoading to the electric
chair of the five textile workers of Paterson.
May Day was the marshaling Of all the forces
of the workers, white and Negro, in the struggle
for emancipation from the crisis and for the
overthrow of the capitalist system, which has
caused and is causing untold misery for the
workers and poor farmers.
On May 3 in New York was to be the police
parade-but it was called off on account of bad
weather" The parade took place on May 9 and
was a counter demonstration to the May Day
demonstration of the workers Seven thousand
New York policemen, with their different divi-
Sions and equipment, from machine guns to tear
gas. etc. marched through the streets to fill the
capitalists with sense Of security, not against
the criminal but particularly against the revolu-
tionary workers. The policemen's parade was
not an accident and its organization not Incl
dental The capitalist class knows that there is
no solution for the crisis-Witness the discussion
at the Washington congress of the International
Chamber of Commerce, which closed on May
and could not agree upon any solution, but
talked much about war.
In the May Day parades throughout the coun-
try were many working class youth-boys and
girls, who cannot find any work, who, if they
are employed, know what low wages and nliser-
able conditions are. In the parades the young
workers took noteworthy part-for the youth
of the United States is beginning to line up as
in far greater numbers they are lining up in
the revolutionary movement of the European
countries, particularly Germany
The capitalist class knows the meaning of
youth for running industry at costs that will en-
sure far higher profits for the capitalists They
know the Importance of youth for war. And
since war has become the foremost question of
discussion-and since the danger of it grows
everyday, the capitalists are doing everything in
their power to hold youth under the gamor of
romantic war. But war is not romantic-it has
become. the most horrible thing imaginable 1t
means today wreckage, desolation, misery It
means not personal prowess, but facing death
rays, gases, chemicals dropped from airpanes.
1t means the destruction of entire populations
men, women and children. It means a return
to barbarism with the aid of the most highly
developed and improved methods of destruction.
The capitalists, however, know that war will
result in their own destruction-but they have
no other way out and therefore they are taking
the risk. War against whom? The conflicts be-
tween the United States and British imperialism
grows from day to day: foreign markets, tariff
and debts are the big factors, and the statements
by British delegates at the International Cham
Der of Commerce are NOSE important. The con-
fhcts between Italy and France Italy and Jugo-
slavia, Great Britain and France, the German
Austrian Union-all of these are sharpening
causes for imperialist war