The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-09-12
The Moro Castle Fire

I1E caplCdnSJ press ana lCS ponce agents
L in Havana and New York have no hest
tation in trying to shift attention from the
criminal negligence of the Ward Line in
the terrible holocaust on the MORO Castle
by the vilest insinuations and charges that
Communists burned the ship.
It is an old stunt of the grating police
agents of the capitalists to attempt to throw the
blame for sssassinations and other disasters on
Communists.
When the white guard Gorguloff in France killed
the President they strove with might and main to
blame Communists-but they fsiled
When the Soviet ship, Sovetskya Neft, in 1882 at
great risk and heroism saved 500 passengers from
the French liner Georges Philippar, which burned
near Cape Guardafui, Africa, due 10 the criminal
deeds of the Messsgerie Maritime Lines they tried
unsuecessfuy to blame the Soviet Union for burn
ing the ship. The actual cause OF the fire was the
fact that the Messagerie Maritime Co. put 22o volt
current through 100 volt wires.
The police, as everyone else knows that Com
munists are against individual terror and violence
In order to achieve power, the Communists advocate
the mobilization of the majority of the toiling
masses, not by individual acts Of terror, but by
action, to GUST the bourgeoisie who are the
real advocates Of terror, violence and destruction.
WHO was 1t that butchered and Sluesed the San
W Francisco strikers? It was the terrorist gangs
OF vgilantes organized and paid by the ship owners
to break the strike, supported by Mayor Rossi and
Governor Miriam.
Who was 1t that shot nine textile strikers in the
back? 1t the hired armed thugs of the mill
bosses.
Tt, was the Fascist gangsters of the German capt.
taliss who burned the Rechstag and tried TO blame
it on the Communists. But they failed abominaby
in the eyes of the whole world
William Randolph Hearst who was recently in
Germany learning from Hitler the fine points of
how to blame Communists for incendiary plots such
as the Reichstag FIRE, Is now undertaking to put
his knowledge into practice on the MORO Castle
disaster.
Arson, murder, savagery thuggery, torture -
these are the weapons of the capitalist rulers not
Of the Communists.
The whole course Of capitalist development in
the present crisis is towards major destruction
Roosevelt is Of the greatest destroyers of the
day. He destroys crops food, CATTLE clothing pro-
ductive machinery. The capitalist class has de-
stroyed ships wholesale They have destroyed the
lives of tens of thousands of workers through
hunger they destroyed the lives of 100000 work
ers III the last imperialist war.
The Communists exemplihed by the Soviet
Union are the constructors the builders of factories
ships homes the developers of Socialist agriculture
the builders of new life well-to-do life a
classics society freed of the criminal rule of the
murderous eXploters.
THERE are many reasons why the Ward Line the
U. S. State Department and the Havana authori-
ties would like to cast blame on Communists for
the Moro Castle disaster. They want to whip up
hatred against the Communists here struggling
to win the textile strike. The Havana authorities
want to increase terror against the Communists in
Cuba, and the State Department wants to aid the
puppet Mendieta regime to justify its slaughter of
Communists.
The Ward Line wants to save millions In in
surance The facts of the Moro Castle disaster are
clear TO all. There were insufficient watchmen on
board The seamen were overworked When the
fire was discovered in sufficient time to save all
Warns, acting captain, waited an hour and half
before he sounded the alarm-too late for the en-
trapped passengers!
The New York Post, discussing the Moro Castle
investigation reports: Some pointed out that such
suspicion if supported, might tend to relieve the
Ward Line of possible charges of negligence and
thus might serve to mitigate damages"
To hide its criminal part in the burning of over
$50 human beings, and to save insurance money
Vie WdIu Lille redu1ly rallS INTO the most vicious
lying red-bating cry
1t should be noted that the Port Officer of Ha-
yana Hernandez, who is the only source of actually
specifying Communists as "incendaries" admits on
checking up the passenger list that "they have been
found to be well-known and unaffated with Com
munist organizations"
Any foul lie, any sort of brutality and murder is
permissible in the opinion of exploiters of labor
against Communists and militant workers who are
striving to end the misery of capitalist rule and ex-
ploitation