The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-06-27
BY CYRIL BRIGGS.

The murderous frame-up of the
nine Scottsboro Negro boys by the
Alabama capitalists and plantation
bosses was first exposed by the Daily
Worker, organ of the Communist
Party. Immediately the Central Com
rnittee OF the Communist Party is
sued flaming appeal to the Negro
People and the entire working class,
black and white, to rally to the de-
fense Of these innocent working-class
children being railroaded to the cleo
tic chair by the Alabama boss
courts
The International Labor Defense
1L.D.) and the League Of Struggle
for Negro Rights GS.N.R) took up
the fight and began to agitate for
their freedom. Leading southern and
northern attorneys were engaged by
tfieee two organizations to make the
tight in the courts for new trials for
the boys. These organizations deter
mined to use every available means
in the law to free the boys, and to
carry the struggle to the United
States Supreme Court If necessary.
At the same time, these organiza-
tons endorsed the warning Of the
Communist Party against placing
sole dependence on the possibility Of
securing q fair trial in the capitalist
courts for the boys. They warned the
masses that only by exerting the
greatest mass pressure on the capt.
talist courts through the mobi1iza-
ton of millions of workers and sym
pathizers in the fight to free the boys
could the boys be saved from the
murderous claws OF capitalist class
justice. They pointed out that 1t was
the capitalist courts that had rail-
roaded the boys to the electric chair
in the first place They emphasized
the fact known by every Negro work.
er that Negroes cannot get fair
trial In the courts OF the white rui-
ing class.
N.A.A.C.P. Leaders Ignored Appeal
For Boys.
TO this militant mass fight to save
the boys many organizations and
hundreds Of thousands Of white and
Negro workers rallied. Conspicuously
silent, however, were the white and
Negro "uphfters" at the head Of the
National Association for the Ad-
vancement Of Colored People N.A.
A.C.P.). For several weeks these gen.
tlenen and ladies remained deaf to
all appeals for these nine working
class boys. To them the hideous
frazne-up and legal lynching Of thees
innocent children, one Is, two IA, the
oldest 40 years, was simply a rape"
case. Newspapers under their infu-
ence spoke in headlines Of the
franed-up children as '.raplsts" tsee
Pittsburgh Courier, April 49,. These
''upHfters" took the position Of con-
ejaculation that It was not q lynch
ing, but Q legal trial In court. Tehy
read1ly fen IN with the boss Islander
sgatnst the Negro People as a race
OF rsrdsts.
Mass Pressure Forced Pretsnse Of
Action.
Only under flood Of protest from
their own membership and the Negro
masses did the N.A.A.C.P. leaders
finally begin to take an interest in
the case. But what form did this
belated interest take? To defend the
Alabama boss courts against what
they called "the Htuperation and vii
lification" by the radical workers or
CARNATIONS Of these bloody murder
ers Of our working class children.
Forced to pretend that they were
doing something for the boys, the
NA.A.C.P. leaders began to attack,
not those who were numbering the
boys, but the Communist Party, the
LSN.R, the LID. and the revolu-
tioraary trade unions defending the
boys
To quiet the rising protests of their
own membership they intimated that
they were studying the case" that
the N.A.A-C.P. would come into the
cass ct the proper time" They, how
ever, hastened to assure the white
ruling class OF this country that they
would have nothing to do with the
lid. ana the radical Negro and
white workers. organisations engaged
in the defense Of the boys.
They adopt" Khan Lawyer.
Further along, when the storm Of
mass protest smashed through the
columns Of the Negro refor1nist
newspapers. and the editors Of these
-