The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-08-23

official organ of the C.P.
= J.S.A., Box 572, Birming-
ham, Ala. Vol. III, No. 4,
Aug. Is, 1888.
BY LOUIS COLMAN
When the Southern Worker was
re-established in Birmingham last
May, after more than a years sus-
pension, the Negro and white toll
ers below the Mason and Dixon line
we're entering into phase of inten-
sif1ed struggle.
In the South, the Communist Par
ty was developing broad ideologi-
cal leadership, especially among the
Negro workers and poor farmers. Or
ganizationally, the revolutionary
movement was, and still is, weak
there.
One of the things needed was a
newspaper which would act as COL
lective agitator and organizer, speak
ing to the workers of the South in
their own language, telling isolated
workers here of the struggles car
ried on by isolated workers there,
helping to mould, direct, and lead a
consistent revolutionary struggle.
And that was the task assigned to
the Southern Worker.
Struggle Under nIegality
Struggling against illegal condi-
lions of work and of publication,
against the almost incredible power
ty of the workers, the Southern dis
trict has so far this year published
four numbers of the paper.
In the first, an editorial written in
the simplest language told the work.
ers that this was their paper, pub
lished by THE Communist Party
known also as the Reds" And &C
tually, on the average one-quarter
of the paper is written by the work
ers themselves, in the form of work
ers' correspondence.
The balance of the paper is very
close to what it ought to be-news of
working class struggle and exposure
Of conditions in the South, told in
ordinary !. but colorful language,
pointing the way to organization and
development of struggle under the
leadership of the Communist Party.
In small paper, what to use and
what not to use becomes a problem.
There couldn't possibly be room for
everything. What are the main sto-
ries featured in the August IS (pre-
dated issue? They should be the
outstanding working-class events in
the South.
: Page one has two big stories: the
driving out of Tuscaloosa, Ala, of
the International Labor Defense law
yers retained to defend Pippen, Har-
den and Clarke, as a prelude to the
later lynching of the first two, and
attempted lynching of Clarke; and a
survey of strikes of the textile work
ers against MIRA, in North and
South Carolina, Georgia and Louisi-
ana. There are also stories of de-
velopments in the Scottsboro and
Tallapoosa Share trials.
:, Across, the bottom of the page are
two pictures-mules blowing under
cotton in Mecklenburg County, N. c.,
and a tractor helping increase the
cotton output of the Soviet Union
a study in con. rasts, between bank
rupt capitalist America and the lusty
growing U.S.SR.
Inside are three exposure stories
OF MIRA. wage-cutting in the Ten
nessee Coal and Iron Steel works,
with the. assistance of the American
Federation of Labor, and Of the rob-
berry of the poor farmers, tenants,
and choppers by the landlords under
the cotton plow-under program.
Share Choppers Contribute
The struggles of the share-crop-
pers and poor farmers of the agricul-
tural South are the subject of many
letters from worker correspondents
They tell of the terrific rate of ex-
ploitation of these toilers, most of
them held as poems on big planta-
tons, and, of the terror that goes
with it. They are written by both
white and Negro toilers.
It is natural also that the activi-
ties of the Share Choppers Union,
which has established itself firmly
IN sections of Alabama, should take
up considerable space. The Share
Choppers Union is the organization
Of struggle for all the exploited
on the land, and the organ
Ization which brings about the unity
Of Negro and white troopers, ten
ants, and small farmers against the
oppression OF the big landlords.
Significant accounts of united ac-
lion of Negro and white workers in
mills, fields and on the relief front
are given. There is. for example. the
Story In No. of the Southern Work.
ar OF the forcing Of the Red Cross
10 give flour to Negro and white
following a united demon
stration in which more than 500 par
s'cipated, In Admission, Ala.
The editorial page suffers from
long words. but not nearly as much
as MANY Party editorial pages. 1t
also suffers from lengthiness of in
iiyidual editorials. One editorial and
4 call to elect delegates to the Trade
Union Conference in Cleveland Au-
rust rs and 81, practically take up
he whole page.