The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-10-13
Born in Munich in
1888, Went to
Work at Is
BY PHILIP STERLING

FIFTY years is hardly a ripe old age
even when it's been lived during
| the final growth and the beginning
of the decline of capitalism. When 80
of those so years, however, have been
devoted to the cause of the revolu-
! tionary labor movement on two con-
| tinents, they're something to look
back on That's why Max Bedacht's
50th birthday, today, is something of
an occasion.
Bedacht might not have known
about the birthday if he hadn't been
reminded. And being reminded about
it he wanted to know just why any
one should be interested. When it was
explained to him that, after all, as
executive secretary Of the Interna-
tional Workers Order, Central Com
mittee member of the Communist
Party Of America, ETC., the tens of
thousands of workers in the Ameri-
can revolutionary movement had a
right to some interest in him and
that his passing Of the half-century
mark was good time to review his
record, he unbent.
Small, jovial, typically Germanic
and smiling across broad expanse Of
desk in the International Workers
! Order offices at 80 Fifth Ave, Be-
dacht relented and launched into
the business of reviewing his half
century life and revolutionary ac-
tivity.
Of his first 20 years Bedacht re-
members little because he doesn't
! think it important. All summed up, 1t
amounts to this, he was born Oct. 10,
1883, in Munich, the Bavarian city
which has since earned worldwide
shame as Hitler's original stronghold.
At Is he had completed his grammar
school training and had become a
BARRIERS apprentice. He chose this
trade because it was easy to get an
apprenticeship.
AT Is he was full-fledged journey
man and after working for year
in Bavaria, the intolerable conditions
Of employment drove him to Switzer-
| land where he had heard things were
better. The barber-shop was more of
a social center then than now and at
| lllC WOlh DCQdCllJ lllbU COllbcllt
with the exploited embroidery work.
ers in the villages about st. Gallen.
They were enslaved to contractors in
the same way that coal miners and
sharecroppers here are enslaved to
mine operators and plantation own
ers. Their conditions and his own,
which were little less oppressive in
Switzerland than they had been in
Germany, aroused Bedacht to a desire
for intellectual clarity and political
activity.
There existed in Switzerland Ma
tional BARRIERS Union, but in the
towns Of Gosseau and Herisau, where
Bedacht worked, there was no local
organization. He established one al
/ most single-handed. That was in
1902. A year later he was member
of the Swiss Socialist Party.
There followed years of activity IN
the union, thousands of hours of vo-
racious reading between customers
In 1907, Bedacht was elected pres
ident of the National BARRIERS Union
and editor of the unions newspaper
The same year he took part in his
first strike which the BARRIERS de-
clared in sympathy with the striking
| chocolate workers on the banks of
Lake Geneva.
Bedacht might have remained in
Switzerland permanently but for a
lawsuit brought against him by the
owners of a building which he had
rented for cooperative barbershop
about to be opened by the union. In
settlement of the BARRIERS strike, how
ever, the Socialist leaders of the union
promised the employers to abandon
this plan and Bedacht was sued for
breach of contract. The union men,
bers offered to pay the money for
him, but rather than permit this he
fled to the United States.
Bedacht smiled as he related the
incident, "I thought then," he ex-
planned, that I was doing something
heroic. I realized later, that I was
merely running away I guess 1 Just
wanted a good excuse OF a change
of scenery"
The first thing Bedacht did when
he got to New York was to write
letter to the Journeymen BARRIERS
International Union, affiliated with
the American Federation of Labor
He wrote in German, outlining his
eight years of activity in the Swiss
union and his eagerness to contribute
his energies to the cause of organizing
Americas BARRIERS. In reply, he re-
ceived a letter which informed him
that the international office of the
Journeymen BARRIERS Union did not
handle German correspondence.
Somewhat discouraged, Bedacht got
job in Ossining, New York, and
worked there for two and a halt
years, combining his activities to So
cialist Party meetings From 1910
to 1912 he worked in Manhattan, a
barber during the day, and Ger
man Socialist agitator at night. :
Slowly but thoroughly adapting
himself to his new environment, Be-
dacht acquired, in the first four years
of his American residence, reputa-
ton for his revolutionary energy and
devotion. When the German Detroit
"Herold" needed a Socialist editor
Bedacht was invited to take the post
He and his newly acquired wife set
out at once. ~.
! Bedacht's stay in Detroit was url-