The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-09-17

From the 53rd to the 54h annual A. F. off, Convention;
Bankrupt Policy Program 2 Factors Officials Overlooked

expressed the utmost faith in the
good intentions Of President Roose-
velt-the president who fished from
a battleship while West Coast
workers were shot down in the
strike for the right to work and live
Ike human beings, the president
who viewed off Newport, r. l., from
the private yacht of the multi
millionaire Vincent Astor, the mil
honaire British and American yacht
race, while Rhode Island textile
strikers were murdered and manned
by Governor Green's state troops;
armed forces ordered out, and for
whose assistance federal troops were
called to arms on Governors Is
land, after a telephone conversa-
ton between Governor Green,
former head Of the J. P. Coates
Thread Co., and President Roose-
welt, praised by all the A. F. of l..
officialdom as the friend of labor. I"
President Roosevelt and his N. r.
A., hailed by the 53rd Annual Con-
vention of the A. F. of L. meeting
a year ago in Washington, D. c., as
the person, the president and the
program which would at last free
labor from company unionism and
strikebreaking by armed forces Of
the great corporations, now climaxes
a year Of strikebreaking and the
unprecedented use of armed forces
against strikers and unemployed by
the organization of a military battle
line against textile workers from
the state Of Maine to the Gulf of
Mexico.
Troops Out in Five States
In the West Coast strikes troops
were actually called out against the
workers only in California. In the
textile strike they have been called
out in five states. In the maritime
workers strike four workers were
murdered by troops and police. In
the textile strike the list of muir
dered workers totals twelve as this
is written. Thousands have been
dubbed, gassed and wounded by
gunfire. The usual Red Scare"
has been raised to cover up wanton
massacre of workers Cthis time in
Rhode Island) and has failed of it's
purpose-just as it failed on the
West Coast.
This alone is striking proof of
the new high level of consciousness
which each of these tremendous
class battles, following one another
in rapid succession, develops.
At the time of the 53rd Annual
Convention Of the A. F. of L., be-
tween three and four hundred thou
sand workers were on strike-coal
miners, steel and metal workers,
textile workers, etc. These great
struggles, beginning months before
the enactment of the N. r. A. and
its Section IA, and which Section
IA was designed to stop, were the
result of wage cuts, speed-up, wor-
Sened working conditions, lowered
living standards through mass I'M
employment and part time work
had become unbearable.
Convention Ignored Struggles
These struggles awoke no echoes
in the hearts of A. F. of L. Off
cialdom. The records of the con-
vention show that the only refer
ence to them came from rank and
file delegate-speaking for the A.
F. of L. Rank and File Committee
Suny from Philadelphia, who in
troduced resolution calling for
support of the coal miners and pro-
testing the use of armed force
against them. The resolution was
promptly tabled on a motion by
President Howard of the Typo
graphical Union-who alter added
more lustre to his name by keeping
the San Francisco printers at work
spilling press poison on their fell
low workers while every other union
in the Bay Counties struck in sym
pathy with the maritime unions.
This incident alone would be
enough to gauge the official spirit
of the Washington convention. But
for the sake of the record it is nee
essary to state that the 53rd con-
vention occupied itself solely in lis
tening approVingly to the spokes-
men of the government of monopoly
capitalism in decline-to President
Roosevelt, General Johnson, Senator
Wagner, James Farley, Frances
Perkins ETC., the A. F. of L. off
cialdom snuggled closer to the