The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-07-18
rhis is Ehs first Of series Of three articles
The other articles viii appear In subsequent
issues
"A reply to Edmund Wilson's New Republic
Article Of July 81

"A reply to Edmund Wilson'S New Republic
Article Of July 81
BY BILL DUNE
EVER hopeful Edmund Wilson, who obtained
some fleeing fame by his program, given to
an anxious world through the columns OF the
New Republic recently, for taking Communism
away from the Communists" by making good
capitalists out OF bad ones, has uncovered an
other virgin field for Musteite activity.
wilson has been in Southern West Virginia
and in another article In the New Republic
July s, whose title-"Frank Keeney's Coal Dig
gers-reveals the individual leadership fetishism
e the dil1etante he has discovered in the mine
fields "a spontaneous native labor movement
with trained native left-wing leadership" whose
development must be watched with this greatest
interest by those who believe that the fut1re
Of the country depends on the success Of such
movements"
But TO this spontaneous native labor move
naent with trained native left-w1ng leadership"
wilson informs u.s. 'Brookwood Labor College.
Of which A. j. Music is the head, has sent q
E reinforcement Of trained organizers, inc1ud-
ing Tom Tippett and Katherine Po11ak."
Those familiar with the developments In the
class struggle in the South In the last three
years will recognize at once certain similarity
here with the social-fascist description of the
textile workers and their Musteite advisors in
E1izabethton Tenn, Marion, N, c., and Danville,
Va, previous to the betrayals OF the struggles
of these workers, their defeat and the desertion
Of them by the Afclstette trained organizers"
working throughout the United Textile Workers
and carrying the irnprin,atsx Of President Green
Of the American Federation Of Labor.
There is no blacdar SPOT IN the history OF the
class struggle In the United States than these
betrayals of workers whose lives were 50 nniser-
able that they we're willing at the beginning OF
their revolt. to accept and trust any one who
sid he was a union organizer The word
Organizer" had almost magic meaning for
them and i6 was these haH-sSasved and In
experienced workers that the Muststoes sold
back to slavery under the min baronss wtaile
they won high praise from the lynch law ruling
class for their denunciation of Codnrrunisrra--
and Of the Communists who organized. tonight,
faced the lynch rnobs, united black and Wits
workers and vent to Jail with them by the
dozen
LINERS IN Southern west Virginia are strik-
ing-a small part of them Some Of them are
organized in Keeney's west Virgins Nine work
in many instances worss than those Of tina min
ers in Western Pennsylvania, N Eastern Ken
lucky Panhandle section Of west Virginia, the
Morsantown- Fairmont section. and eastern Ohio
where 10000 miners are on strike, organized and
led by the Central Rank and File Strike Com
nnittee, elected by the mass Of the miners, and
t1s National Miners Union The basic issues
are the same in all fields--it Is a fight agfnst
starvation and slave conditions,
This vital need Of the miners IN southern
West Virginia. and the need Of ali the thoS-
sands Of miners on strike IN other fields, tie
need Of the miners who are not yet on strike
but who are faced with the same daily drive
of the coal operators and their government up
On their living and social standards, Is for
common program Of unity and action, for
united front Of all miners against the oper-
ators and the strike breaking UNfWA officials,
for a skilled and militant central authoritative
leadership, deriving authority directly from the
rntnars themselves through democratic elections
N all mine camps,
Cnfy the Central Rank and File Strike Com
naittee elected by the strikers Of Western Penn
sysgaraia, Eastern Ohio and the Panhandle Sec
don Of West Virginia, and the National Miners
Onion, has advanced such a program for unity
and action for Immediate demands and for the
a.
hour day, uniform collective agreements and
other basic demands of the miners. Only the
National Miners Union and the rank and file
organizations Of strike struggle built through its
leadership saw clearly-and told the miners Of
tbs conspiracy of the Hoover Mellon govern
naent and the UNrWA to perpetuate starvation
IN the industry and exposed the fact that all
the talk in Washington, Pittsburgh, Indiana
rolls and elsewhere about curing the sick coal
industry" had as its purpose the strengthening
Of the hold of the coal barons and the securing
Of efficient production and distribution" at the
further expense of the miners and their families
Only the National Miners Union, working
through elected rank and file committees which
rapidly develop the initiative of the miners and
train scores of new organizers directly out of
the ranks has brought forward the fundamen-
tai need for common struggle Of the employed
and unemployed and has succeeded in uniting
these struggles.
IN 100000 leaflets, headed "Minersl Unite and
Fight Against Starvation and Slavery in the
Coal Fields" and distributed throughout the in
dustry, the following statement and proposals
are made
Our enemies are wide awake. The oper-
ators are cutting wages and worsening condi-
lions on all sides, and the Lewis machine is
helping them. Now there Is being planned
national conference of the government, the
coal operators. and the UNIV. of A., to work
nut program of still deeper wage cuts, of
trustifying the industry at the expense of the
miners. of driving the masses of starving I'm
employed miners out of the industry, of per-
scouting the foreign born miners and Ne
groes, etc.