The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-08-05
Free Our Negro
Comrades !
By ALEX TOLSToY.
Famous Russian Author
lINratnS1ated h,t z q Miller !

Translated by E. B. Miller)
TEN thousand armed men rushed into the
little town of Scottsboro to make certain
that death sentence would be passed against
eight Negro workers If to secure this verdict
it had been necessary to prove that the Negroes
had stolen the moon from the heavens, the ten
thousand whites would have shouted: Guilty.
In its days the Czarist Government, in order
TO give an outlet to the revolutionary ferment
which threatened it, melted the Christians
against the Jews. The British Government,
from the same considerations, kindle in India
enmity between the Moslems and the Hindus
The American bourgeoisie, hard hit by the
growing crisis at home and by the developing
power of the proletarian U. S. S. r., seeks means
of saving itself and resorts to old remedies:
bigotry, hypocrisy, national and race prejudces,
and SO on. 1t must split apart the ever more
compact and homogeneous ranks of the prole-
tariat So now it is galvanizing the old enn1ity
between the white and colored races, between
the white colonzers and the imported black
slaves. The color and odor of skin is sufficient
grounds for having man hung.
you fifteen million unemployed-come now,
divide according to color: whites to the right,
colored to the left i. Go to it, beat hang,
tear to pieces annihilate the black yellow red,
colored! America for Americansi No more I'M
employment"
The American bourgeoisie is fighting for its
life. Every living thing fights for it's life. Mi
crobes devour microbes. The lion devours the
hyena. The fourth and last class-the rebel
liouS proletariat-is fighting for its life This
life it calls Socialism. This word is understood
by the proletariat everywhere The concept of
Socialism has called forth the wrath of the op-
pressed and enslaved and the greatest gift of
the human spirit, the feeling of justice and I'M
selfishnesS. This word is not understood by
microbes; the bourgeois part of humanity tries
not to understand it.
The bourgeoisie is fighting for its life This life
is based upon those conditions whereby individuals
can push their way forward and grab as much
wealth for themselves as possible Let the weak
drop by the wayside. And the future? This
question is for U.S. comrades The proletariat
lives for the future. The eyes of the bour-
geoisie are cast backward. The bourgeosie are
dreamers, pessinists; they sigh for the misty
past their Golden Age-somewhere thousands
of years ago-in ancient Rome, in marvellous
Carthagnia: luxuriant gardens, white marble
castles, transparent pools, where fish are fed on
the bodies of slaves. Thus lived the cody mer-
chants, moneylenders, and plantation owners
anointed with oil and with their boards per-
funled. And the millions of slaves--in chains
on the plantations, in chains in the bowels of
Lie edTIIl, III OH UHe BdlleyS ana mer-
chant boats. This was paradise. You honorable
bourgeois would all like to set forth on magic
carpet for this glorious land ~
The methods Of fighting for life for us and
for them are quite clear And we Soviet writer's
participating according to our strength and
ability in the building Of Socialisnl-with feel
ing of utmost repugnance and wrath direct our
selves to you
To you, Alabama hangnen! To you, tens of
thousands of men on horseback farmers ON
horseback, sons of frightened bourgeoise; TO
you, members of the Association of Christian
EndeavorerS; to you. bankers and manufacture
ers and spectators, who waxed fat on the
bloody billions of the World War; to you, NOR
alists and biologists Of the Carthaginian para
disc, shielding yourselves behind the Bible; To
you, misleaders of the workers
We demand of you: Stop the execution of the
eight black proletarians
You are not even putting up fight Like
bandits, you creep in and cut the throat of
sleeping man with a knife. Really one is
ashamed to call oneself a white man after
this.
Shame and gnominy-these, perhaps will not
stay your hand? Your faces are covered with
the white masks Of the Ku Klux Khan;