The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-09-11
eleaseTomMOOney
and All Class War
Prisoners
BY ]. LOUIS ENGDAHL


triumphant 14th Anniversary November . of
the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia again en-
phaSizes the militant class struggle character of
the defense organization Of the working class.
War danger, unemployment, hunger are
spawned throughout the boss class world as the
ugly offspring of the profit social system now on
the threshold of the third winter of ever deepen
ing depression and growing starvation.
War Threats Increase.
Increasing war threats against the Soviet
Union, intervention of imperialist armies against
the Chinese Revolution, an intensified fascist
ferocity daily increasing and taking an ever
greater toll of prisoners murdered and tortured
with executions daily occurrences, all raise new
and greater tasks for the International Labor
Defense. This was clearly pointed out in the
resolution on the war danger and the menace
of illegality of the recent IRA. executive COM
mittee meeting, when methods of work and
struggle in the present period were thoroughly
discussed.
These war threats are not only reflected in the
efforts of Mellon and Stirnson to carry through
Wall Streets first aid to capitalist Germany
against rising labor, to American finance capt.
tails role in connection with British imperialisms
new coalition government against the working
class, but also in the rising wave of persecu-
the use of wartime criminal syndcalism laws in
strike struggles, more recently in Kentucky,
Ohio Pennsylvania as well as in the arrest of
Sacco- Vanzetd Day speakers, as in Massachu-
sets. Imprisonment of National Textile Work
ers Union strike leaders and holding them for
deportation because the government declares the
program of the Trade Union Unity League to be
seditious, is closely related to the launching of
Wall Streets latest war machine, the worlds
greatest dirigible, the Akron" These events go
hand in hand
100000 Glass War Prisoners.
Upwards of 100000 class war prisoners in the
steel cages of world captalSms bastilles mass
arrests taking place daily in the United States,
lynching of Negro workers and poor farmers,
this tells the story in small part of the boss
class attempts to drown in blood the discomfort
of the masses. If capitalism could achieve its
great DESIRE however, the smashing of the first
Proletarian Power the Union of Socialist Soviet
Republics, then it would sweep the globe with a.
savage terror planned to annihilate all revolu-
tionary labor throughout the entire world
1t is not only for the International Labor De-
tense to proclaim its sympathy for the Soviet
Union and the militant working class movement
the world over, but instead to undertake all nee
essary measures for militantly defending all
! HSoAAAoO HAS1SA ANNN"AOAA
! of boss class rule.
Joins In All Struggles.
In the campaign for the Fourteenth Anniver-
sary of the Soviet Union, in the struggle against
the war danger in defense of the unemployed
our defense organization links up every phase of
resistance to ruling class repression, nationally
and internationally. These struggles cannot be
separated 1t was on this basis that the LID.
War Day, that it joined in International Youth
Day, that the defense of those prosecuted for
anti-mltarist propaganda is organized includ-
ing aid to soldiers and sailors victimized for
their revolutionary work. We make a special
effort to win the youth that imperialism seeks
to enmesh in its wholesale slaughter.
1t is inevitable that in this struggle the Inter-
national Labor Defense should be attacked. Its
work is already declared seditous In Kentucky
and its organizer imprisoned. Its activities in
Georgia are outlawed as leading to instruction
and it's organizer threatened with the electric
chair; another organizer in California has just
been released after many months of imprison-
ment. The reply grows in greater activity in
the factories, roofing the organization deeply in
the work shops, greater mass activities, building
Of mass organization schooled in struggles Tor
defense under all conditions.
Build Living Link.
living link between the workers and farmers
of the Soviet Union and the United States id
this Fourteenth Anniversary period is the strug-
gle for the release of Tom Mooney and all thu
class war prisoners; freedom for the imprisoned
Harlan nners, the Scottsboro boys the Camp
Hill share troopers and the hundreds of workers
facing multitudes of charges, mostly based on
militant strike and unemployment activities
1t was the Russian working class in Leningrad
demonstrating before the American embassy
that forced President Wilson to demand of Cali
fornia's governor that he commune the death
sentence imposed on Mooney. But Mooney, al
though his life was saved in 1917 is still in prison
buried alive, bis life slowly but surely ebbing.
From Shop to Shop.
The International Labor Defense plans this
year to develop closer than ever the living Link
between the workers and farmers of the U.S.SR
and the U.S.A. Workers in American factories
on American farms, will send their anniversary
greetings, through the LID and its Russian
brother organization, the MOPR to workers fr
similar factories and workshops in the Soviet
Union and to the workers on the giant farm.
that are the basis for the building of socialism ir
agriculture.
These will not only be comradely greetings
They will be pledges for greater struggle--fo
the membership of the International Labor De
Tense to lead more energetcally the campaigns
in defense of all workers and farmers rccc.:tee
by their ruthless class enemies throughout tn,