The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-07-18
Abdullah, Dead at 36,
Fought the Capitalist
System All His Life
BY HELEN MARCY

NEW YORK. - Conlrade Charles
Abdullah, who died on July II, in
the cancer ward of the city hospital
on Welfare Island, was one of those
workers, who, once, they find their
way into the movement, remain
fighters in it to their dying day.
Charlie was a Mohammedan from
Bengal, India. While yet child he
became a seaman and for eight years
visited the ports of the world, filling
his eyes and ears with the misery of
the workers in every land.
For II years he worked in a rubber
mill in Trenton, N. J., at the most
dangerous tasks, which in this land
of ''eqpal opportunities are reserved
for foreign-born and Negro workers
He drifted to Paterson, N. j., and
became employed in the silk dye
works there. Here the dangerous
fumes Of the chemicals completed the
job Of undermining his already weak
ened system.
When the strike call Of the Ma
tional Textile Workers Union came in
Paterson, he was one of the first to
walk out. He became one of the most
fearless and valiant fighters in the
Union, often engaging in hand to
hand combat with the police.
In 1881 he Joined the Communist
Party and later came to New York to
look for job. He was active also in
the International Labor Defense and
the Unemployed Councils.
He tried to learn how to read and
write English, but found it very diff
ficult. Nevertheless he had other
workers read the Daily Worker to
him. One could always find Charlie
at a mass meeting or demonstration
Of workers, even though he had to
walk few miles to get there for
lack of carfare.
The poisonous chemicals inhaled in
Trenton and Paterson were slowly
eating his body. In three months he
lost 30 pounds in weight and it was
soon discovered that he had cancer.
Taken to the cancer ward at the
hospital. he spent the last two months
of his life there. When we came to
see him he would beg that we read
the Daily Worker to him, and tell him
about the Scottsboro boys. Although
his English was very difficult to IN
derStand he propagandized the pa
tients in his ward, bringing the
Scottsboro case to the attention Of
the Negro workers there.
He wanted the Daily Worker sent
to him every day, and when we told
him he might be treated badly if the
hospital authorities knew he was a
Communist, he said he wished to die
with the paper he loved. near him.
1t wasn't very long before stool
pigeons and immigration authorities
began to question him about his poll
tlcal affiliations and the comrades
who came to see him. When he rang
for water at o'clock, the nurse
brought it at 5 o'clock. He COM
planned to us that he was being mis-
treated because he was a Communist.
and even feared that the hospital
authorities were trying consciously to
see him die sooner. He remembered
that for the last few years all the In
dian workers he knew who had gone
to the city hospitals had not come out
again-except on a stretcher.
Only So years old Charlie was pre-
maturely killed by the capitalist sys-
TEN which he loathed and fought
against. Let us do honor to Charlie
Abdullah Jimmie Higgins of the
class struggle. Let the deep devotion
OF Comrade Charlie find expression
and be transplanted into those COM
rades who remain TO carry on.