The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-06-23
LID Must Receive Mass
Financial Support in
Its Struggles
BY EARL BRowDER


" tional instruments which
the working class has created
to solve the problems of the
class struggle is the Interna-
tional Labor Defense. With
the sharpening of the class
struggle, this organization, which
will celebrate its ninth anniversary
on June 18th, occupies an increas-
ingly important place. As the at
tacks Of the bourgeoisie against the
working class increase, and the vic
tins Of the struggle multiply, the
LID. must receive greater stten-
ton than ever before. without q
well organized and solid LID. with
broad mass support, the dif1cul-
ties of the workers will be much
greater. It therefore becomes q
major task to build the LID.
among the masses of workers and
make it stronger and better able to
carry out its tasks.
The LID. Has Won Victories
The LID, in the nine years of
its existence has conducted tremen-
dous campaigns of historic signifi-
canoe and has won many important
victories. Outstanding among these
is the ScottSboro case, which has
become the instrument of the mass
struggle for Negro rights every
where. In our struggle to save the
lives of the nine Negro boys we
have had arrayed against us the
most formidable united front which
fought with the most desperate
means. Arrayed against us are not
only the white landlords and lynch
law rulers Of Alabama. but all the
respectable" organizations Of the
bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie,-
churches, the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored
People, and the Socialist Party, the
Lovestoneites and Trotskyites, the
leadership Of the A F. Of L. BY
our mass struggle, by rousing hun
dreds of thousands to protest every
where, we smashed through this
united front of lynchers and their
refornist lieutenants; We prevented
the execution originally set for July
8, 1881, and again thereafter; we
forced the case into the Supreme
Court of the United States and Sc
cured new trial, and now after
the second trial and conviction of
Haywood Patterson are again fore
ing the case into the U. S. Supreme
Court.
The LID. has made the Scots
boro case center of protest not
only for the workers of the United
States, but for the workers of the
world. This case has become one
Of the most important, most famous
of the whole history of celebrated
cases in the world struggle against
oppression, against bourgeois Gus
tice."
In the mass struggle for Negro
rights, led by the LID. many sig
nif1cant achievements can be re-
corded. In the defense of Fuel Lee.
as well as in the Scottsboro case.
the ruling class has been forced in
three Southern states to grant Ne
groes the right to sit on iuries-
constitutionally guaranteed demo-
cratic right which has been denied
to the Negro people for more than
fifty years.
In the more recent period the
International Labor Defense has
rallied the workers to the defense of
Hardiman and johnson. two Negro
workers whom the ruling class of
Minneapolis was attempting to
frame because they had resisted a
lynch mob, and won their freedom.
They have similarly saved John
Askew and Russell Gordon, Negro
workers charged with rape and
murder in Virginia from legal
lynching. In these and countless
other cases where the LID. has
come to the defense of the Negro
people, it has established itself as
the outstanding champion of the
rights of the Negro masses, and has
won the allegiance of hundreds of
thousands of Negroes.
The Atlanta Six and the
Herndon Case
Ranking with the Scottsboro case
in their Importance to the struggle
for Negro rights and to the strug-
gle of the workers everywhere is the
Herndon case and the case of the
Atlanta Six, both of which are based
on revived slave code of 1861,
which provides the death penalty
for melting to instruction. Under
this infamous law Angelo Herndon.
militant young Negro leader of the
unemployed of Atlanta. Georgia.
has been sentenced to 20 years of
living death on the Georgia chain
gangs. Under this same law six
organizers of the Communist Party.
Ann Burlak and Mary Dalton. white
women; Henry Storey and Gilmore
Brady. Negro men, and M. H. Pow
ers end Joseph Carr, white men. are
facing trial with the death penalty
demanded. The Georgia ruling class
has stated its determination to
burn Communism out of Georgia y
Only the most determined and
stubborn fight by the working
masses Of America will free Angelo
Herndon from death on the Geor-
gia chain gangs, and save the six
working clsss leaders. The fight for
Herndon and the Atlanta Six must
be intensified. Only a strong and
powerful LID. can mobilize the
masses of America for this fight.
The LID. since its origin has