The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-05-22
Gangs Threaten
Six Defendants
Freed in Alabama
Confined from Page y


brutal terror being carried on If
/ Alabama.
Immediate Action
The most vigorous immediate pro-
! test is necessary 70 save the six i'm
prisoned workers in Birmingham
Their doom is being prepared.
The White Lesion, cooperating
with the police, is determined to
make an example Of these men.
They prefer to carry out this muir
derous plan by legal means, but
they are aware of the weakness of
the frame-Up case on which they
are now relying. The charge OF
vagrancy is a stupid absurdity; and
there is no evidence which will hold
on any more serious charge.
History of Case
The history of the case Is as fol-
lows; after the arrests were made,
it was the desire of the police to
hold these Communists for "incit-
ing to murder" on the ground that
their leaflets distributed among
Ignorant" Negro strikers were re-
sponsible for the murders in the
coal and ore areas.
InaSmuch as these murders were
the cold-blooded work of company
thugs attacking strikers without
proyocation, the charge seems IN
believable. Nevertheless, the plan
to pin these deaths on strikers and
their Communist advisers was def
initely under way.
Ten miners we're arrested and
charged with murder, and warrants
we're issued for 30 more. This
placed the A. F. of l.. bureaucrats
who were nominally leading the
strike and actually making every
effort to break IT'D in very tight
position.
If they permitted the charge of
melting to murder to stand against
their enemies the Communists. they
would also be forced to acknowledge
that union members had followed
this Indictment and we're mixed up
in the violence which had swept the
strike area. The A. F. of L. mis-
leaders, Lipscomb, Brown, Finch and
Colos, realized that such frank
frame-up of their own men would
completely discredit them. They
therefore wired Washington deny
ing that strikers had been respon-
sible for the murders and placing
the blame where it belonged-on
hired gangsters sworn in as deputy
sheriffs.
This spoiled the scheme concocted
in the feverish brains of the police
and the White Legionnaires. They
found that there was not even q
hinsy basis for the charge of 'in-
citing to murder" But they are
still determined to destroy the six
Communists, either by a long term
on the barharous chain-gang or by
direct lynch tactics. The series of
brutal raids which have taken place
on workers homes in Birmingham
during the past ten days have been
largely for the purpose of collecting
evidence which would be sufficiently
damaging to connect the imprisoned
workers with charges Of stimulating
race riots, ealing on the Negroes to
kill their white bosses, etc, etc.
Since no such nonsensicsl appeals
exist, and since the only groups in
Alabama who are doing their best
to fan the flames Of race hatred are
the White Legion, the police, and
the bosses-it naturally follows that
the bloody campaign against Com
munists is being forced into illegal
channels.
The six toiIers In Jefferson
County Jail may be handed over
to the White Legion at any mo-
ment. They may be released I'M
der the pretense that their cases
are dropped, and picked up by
Legion gangsters in the very
shadow of the Court House. They
are at the mercy of lawIeSs Fas-
oism, which is trying to crush free
speech and working class organ
ization in Alabama. The widest
protest must be organized In
stantly.
Their danger increases every day,
every hourI