The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-11-30
Liberation Fight Is the
Challenge to Lynch
Rule in U. S. A.
By HARRY HAYWOOD


WITH the approach of the day set
F" for the first executions in the
Scottsboro case, Feb. 8, and the ap-
peal coming before the Supreme
Court in the cases of Haywood Pat
! terson and Clarence Norris, it is
necessary to make absolutely clear
the issues that are involved in this
attempt Of the government to wipe
out the lives of nine innocent Negro
boys seized in typical lynch
frame-up in Alabama three and
half years ago.
The fight for the liberation of
the boys has crystallized opposing
class forces around the Scottsboro
case. AS the famous bred Scott
case before the Civil War became
the wedge that drove a sharp and
deep line between the forces of re-
action supporting slavery and the
forces fighting for the abolition of
the feudal slave system, so the
Scottsboro case has become the
bred Scott case of the twentieth
century separating with unerring
accuracy friends and enemies of the
fight for Negro rights, for the lib
Grafton of the Scottsboro boys, for
the smashing Of the lynch system,
clearly differentiating all progress
sive forces from reaction.
True Meaning Clear
Despite the desperate efforts of
the reformists and such organs as
the Nation" to conceal the true
issues at stake in the Scottsboro
fight, the real meaning of the fight
has not escaped either the ruling
class lynchers or the oppressed
Negro masses. To the ruling class,
the landlords and plantation mast
ers OF the South, the fight for the
liberation of the Scottsboro boys is
a challenge to their rule, challenge
to the whole system upon which
rests their exploitation and oppres-
sion of the Negro masses.
To the Negro masses, the Scots
boro case has become the vital sym
Dol of their struggle for liberation.
1t has brought new hope, new
energy and the will to struggle.
White House Approval
The Scottsboro case today, seen
in this light, has become also the
spearhead of the whole reactionary
offensive of the Roosevelt New Deal
against the Negro people. The legal
lied wage differentials of the NR.A.
codes, giving official White House
sanction to the jim-crow discrimina-
ton against the Negro workers, the
eviction of Negro sharecropperS by
the thousands under the provisions
of the Bankhead cotton destruction
program signed by Roosevelt, the
rising reign of terrorism throughout
the South as evidenced in the growth
of fascist bands-all point to the
fact that the headquarters of the
terrorism and oppression of the
Negro masses, synbolized in the
lynch frame-up Of the Scottsboro
boys, is in the White House. 1t is
the Federal government supported
by Wall Street finance capital that
is the backbone of the terrorism
against the Negro masses, that leads
the forces of reaction for the ex-
ecution of the Scottsboro boys, for
the maintenance of the lynch sys-
tenn, that supports and organizes
the growing fascist reaction through
out the country, directed with espe-
cial viciousness against the Negro
masses. Rooseyelt's deliberate 81
lence on the matters is only the
expression of his consent and APP
proval.
Two Opposing Lines
The recent attack led by Leibowitz
on the ScottSboro defense, with the
support of leading elements in the
Ministers Alliance and Negro bour-