The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-08-17

h2lis Wnlcn was slowly lining up VII
of the fighting Communist organizer
base-plug.
He had been well on the way
toward lining up his fellow workers
at the Vita-Bran corporation, 841
Tiffany Avenue, for a struggle
against that factory's killing pace and
81 week wages when the end came.
Exhausted at the end of cruel
days work, his hand wandered over
the plug and it was all over the
moment he fell. After efforts to re-
vive him were abandoned, the body
was shipped to the morgue where
qualified people agreed that Graham's
death was fastened by his systems
weakening under the torrid heat Of
the basement room.
Graham was Young, only Is. His
father, the Croatian peasant John
Grahovac, brought him to Dayton,
Ohio, in 1920. His mother had died
back in the old country and Graho-
vac, who worked at laborers' jobs, as
longshoreman and steel mill hand,
couldn't afford to feed another mouth.
He sent the boy out to shift for him
self.
Stephen got in with gang of
young toughS who roamed the Day
ton suburbs They stole planks from
a lumber yard, scraps from the steel
yards, selling them or swapping them
for sandwiches. The gang was caught
and Stephen didn't know the answers.
He was sent to the reformatory for
| six months and when he buddied up
with another inmate to attempt a
break, his sentence was stretched to
year and a half.
Some Of these experiences Graham
later incorporated into letters which
ran in the Daily Workers CORES
pondence columns.
In 1926 he moved to Cleveland
where he worked in the FORCES and
mills, alternately as heater, shear
helper and drill press operator. He
finally secured what was a compare
lively soft berth at Thompson Steel
Products where he made $1.10 an
hour.
| The Sacco-Vanzetti case flashed
across The nations headlines and
took hold Of the thoughtful young
machinnist. He had been an easy
going youngster, a crack harmonica
player, one of the boys who could
hold his own at cards or in a crap
game. But the way he had of look
ing into things, brought home the
full significance of the tragedy.
August 7, 1927, Stephen Graham
laid down his tools in response to
the call for general strike by the
Defense Committee. He was the
only man in his factory to do so and
was accordingly fired-the first in
long series of discharges for radical
activity.
His mind was made up. He wanted
to join something and he had an idea
He came here and signed up with
the International Labor Defense and
the Young Communist League.
Stephen organized a Communist
Party nucleus in a Brooklyn factory
He got subs for the Daily Worker
and Labor Defender. He was active
in Gastonia Relief and Defense work.
When the Party sent him into the
South, he got colonized in the South
ern Spring Factory in Norfolk, va
Here he worked four months before
they caught on and fired him.
Graham didn't stop there. He
issued leaflet calling a meeting of
the factory workers to discuss con-
ditions and organize. The men were
Negroes. $50 of them came in a
body.
Two dicks came too and waited I'M
til after the meeting, when they COR
nered the speaker.
"You got no right calling niggers
to meetings." said one.
you amt fit to associate even with
niggers," said the other.
Stephen was brought up on the
specific charge of "inciting the Ne
groes to instruction against the
white population, later converted to
being a member Of an organization
that advocates the forcible overthrow
Of the U. s. government"
The T. L. D. fought and defeated
both charges.
He came North again and pitched
into Party work within several hos
pitfalls which employed him in the
food department. This brought him
into the work of the Food Workers
Industrial Union. He got the Job
on the candy-cutting machine in the
factory which was to be the scene
Of his death. Only few days be-
fore the accident he issued the leaf
let which was to initiate the actual
organization Of the miserably ex-
plotted men and young girls.
Our comrades record speaks for
him.
Stephen Graham will be missed.
Others must carry on