The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-07-15
BY CARL PRICE

THE 22nd Annual Conference of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored
People just concluded in Pittsburgh, marked the
open appearance of the organization as direct
agent of the American capitalist class.
The Convention of the NAACP was bosses
convention which had as its chief purpose the
aim of drawing the workers away from the
class struggle in their interests away from mass
protest, away from demands for Negro equality
and from demands relative TO the needs of the
workers against the bosses and their govern
ment
The Convention had as its keynote the sound
ing of the unity" of the interests of the bosses
and the workers, the policy of class col1abora-
ton, and the attempt to fool the workers and
thus aid the bosses in keeping them in state
of miserable slavery.
All the Imperialists Were There!
The Convention was organized mainly on the
basis of mass meetings at which prominent up
holders of the boss-class were chief speakers.
The few business sessions we're attended by
about 200 delegates, including a large sprink1ing
of Reverends and Doctors
The character of the convention is shown BIZ
the fact that among the speakers most widely
heralded by the NAACP were Thomas A. Dunn,
President of the Pittsburgh Chamber of Com
merce, Norman Thomas, of the socialist party
Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., the dictator for
American imperialism in Porto Rico, Bishop E.
DIV Jones, William Pickens, and representatives
of Mayor Kline of Pittsburgh, and Governor
Pinchot, of Pennsylvania, who sent a telegram
The Convention exposed further the alliance
of all agents of the bosses against the Scots
boro defendants The conspiracy against the
Scottsboro boys was exposed when twice the
Convention refused to give Mrs. Patterson, the
mother of one of the Scottsboro defendants the
floor.
Aid Scottsboro Lynchers
The attempt of the NAACP to aid the lynch
ing mill owners of the South with their attack
against the L L. D. defense of the Scottsboro
victims, was shown when Ben Careathers Pitts
burgh chairman of the League of Struggle fol.
Negro Rights demanded the floor on Sunday
afternoon at the mass meeting of the Con-
vention, held in Soldiers Memorial Hall Care
athers spoke from the floor. announcing to those
present. that Mrs. Patterson was with him and
desired the floor. The chairman tried to stop
Careathers and ordered him to leave, but Care
athers continued to demand the floor for Mrs.
Patterson, and exposed the conspiracy of the
NAACP against the Scottsboro defendants
The chairman then called on Robert W. Bag
nell, Director of the branches of the NAACP
Bagnell denied Mrs. Patterson the floor, and
called the police who arrested Careathers, and
Frank Smith.
Frank Smith had spoken from the floor after
Careathers was arrested The extent of this
conspiracy is shown by the Pittsburgh Courier
of last week, which in a story headlined with
Communists Are Squelched" states-"A Com
munst attempted to speak from the floor, and
was promptly told by Robert w. Bagnel, to
either sit down or get sut The man sat down."
The editor of this sheet of the bosses was
present when these two Communists we're ar
rested, and deliberately suppressed in the Cou-
rier, all mention of the arrested Secondly, the
Courier suppressed the fact that Mrs Patterson
was present at both the Friday and Sunday ses-
sions Of the Convention and that the floor was
demanded on her behalf.
The capitalist press, part of this conspiracy
in its write-ups had practically no mention of
the fact that Mrs. Patterson was present
In the same conference where Mrs Patter-
son was treated so badly that she was forced
to leave the hall without getting the floor