The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-11-01

and to get laurelS, which can be;
transformed into money. Leibowitz,
who, as famous gangster lawyer,
made hundreds of thousands of
dollars-without doubt he is a very
able criminal lawyer, able in every
regard-wants to play a political
role Perhaps he hopes to become
a Supreme Court judge, or a Demo-
cratic Party candidate for some
high position. All this is clear.
That he is leading Chamlee, the
Southern lawyer, like dog on a
leash can also be explained by def
mite reasons, by the political cha
meleon character of Chamlee.
But important as these types con-
slider themselves to be, they are in
teresting only as typical juridical
products of this corrupt capitalist
society. If one could criticize the
International Labor Defense, one
could do so only in this regard,
that, despite the necessity to en-
ploy legal specialists, versed in all
of the forms and trickery of the
capitalist courts, nevertheless the
I. L. D. must be much more eau
tious in the employment of law
yers. We agree with the I. L. D.
that it is very difficult in this cor
rupt society to say at any given
moment what lawyer, bound by
a thousand threads to the capital
list courts and law, will do and the
greatest caution cannot sometimes
prevent such Leibowitz and Cham
lee Incidents Lenin wrote very
often about these dangers con-
nected with the necessity Of en-
ploying lawyers.
The Main Issue
But these types and their meth
DDS are not the main question at
the present stage of the Scottsboro
case. Nothing would be more dan
gerous than to submerge the real
essence of these attacks on the
I. L. D. and the Communist Party
in the necessity. of unmasking the
methods of these types.
Much more important than the
explanation of the shoddiness OF
such instruments as the Leibowitzes
and the Chamlees is the necessity
of making clear what really is at
issue.
What was and what is the issue
in the Scottsboro case? The lives
of nine Negro boys are chosen for
extinction in the true manner Of
the Southern lynch-mad slavehold-
ers, to prove to the Negroes that
they have to remain suppressed
and inferior" nation. With the
killing of these boys, the Southern
lynch ruling class wants to demon
strate to the awakened Negro
masses by the worst form of terror
that the old spirit of the slavehold-
ers is unbroken, living and power
full And as the treatment OF the
Negroes throughout the U. S., in
Guiding the North, shows, this spirit
is the policy of the entire ruling
class, though in more concealed
form.
The Issue of Negro Liberation
What did the Communist Party
and the I. L. D. do when the Scots
boro case first began? With all
their strength, with all their force
and ability they took up the issue of
the defense of the lives of the nine
boys, and made it an issue of the
liberation of millions of Negro lives;
a matter of the liberation of the
Negroes, and an offensive against
the growing lynch terror to which
the Negroes are subjected.
In this struggle, in the United
States and in all countries of the
world, millions of white and Negro
people were drawn in. Ever greater
Negro and white masses recognized
that the liberation of the Negroes,
the extinction of the slaveholding
traditions, the humiliation Of the
pestilential stink of the suppression
of the Negroes, this parallel to Hit
ler's suppression of the Jews in
Germany, against which whole
world is arising, is one of the most
important tasks in the struggle for
freedom of the American working
class.
without fighting for the liberia