The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1935-02-25

Havana and Pittsburgh
EROM Havana we learn that
4 the private wires between
the U. S. Embassy and the
Presidential Palace have been
hot the past few days. Presi-
dent Mendieta's emissaries
are in almost constant touch
with Wall Streets Ambassador Caf-
fiery, very much as in the days be-
fore the downfall of Machado, when
Sumner Welles took over receiver
ship in the name of the Cuban
lsndlord-bourgeoisie, to protect the
sugar trusts empire in Cuba.
The movement developing against
the Mendieta- Batista dictatorship is
taking on the aspect Of a peoples
anti-imperialist revolutionary up-
surge. More than $4,000 students
and teachers are out on strike, with
the strike definitely transformed
into a political movement for the
end of the Mendieta- Batista regime.
The C.N. O.C. Cuban National
Confederation of Labor has sue
ceeded in establishing united
front of workers organizations,
somewhat on the order Of the Ali
ANA Obrera in Spain. The Cuban
united front is called Proletarian
Defense.
The aim of the united front is
to repulse the sharpened military
dictatorial attacks on the toiling
masses, and to protect the trade
unions and the workers standard
of living against the ferocious as
sault initiated with Roosevelt's Cu-
ban reciprocity treaty.
MENDIETA'S regime will never be
lFl the same after the present polite
ical typhoon. If the storm now en-
quilting Cuba does not wreck his
fascist attacks, it will be followed
by others, more powerful and more
fateful.
Though we do not have news Of
the matter, we can put it down as
unquestionable that from the State
Department where Sumner Welles
rules the Caribbean roost, orders
for preventive action" have gone
out. u S. battleships, cruisers and
marines must be flocking near
Havana Bay thicker than sharks
when Machado used to fling bodies
of political prisoners into the ocean.
Only action on the part of the
American masses can stay Roose-
velt'S war machine, which is ready
to bolster up the Mendieta Batista
dictatorship at the cost of spilling
the blood of the Cuban people.
The American bankers stake in
volved is heavy one just year
ago the Saturday Evening Post In
formed us that any threat to U. S,
imperialist domination in Cuba is
more than a cause for war.
Here's how they put it,
There Is no question that
our O. financial interest in Cuba
is much greater than the average
American realizes. We @ have
invested there almost S1,500,O00,-
| 600. More than half Of it Is in
sugar properties. THAT accounts
for the death penalty against
workers and peasants interfering
with the sugar harvest when in
reference is necessary to raise
/ wages.-H. G.] Under normal
conditions, the capital thus in
vested in a foreign country should
return better than per cent per
annum = that is to say, around
| S9O,O00,00O a year. :. Nations have
gone to war for less"
THE references to "our financial
interests" and 1--WE have in
vested" should be startling news to
the American workers whose wages
are being sliced by the NR.A., and
the 100000 unemployed on the
brink of starvation.
/ What happens in Cuba is of the
greatest Importance for all Latin
America. Roosevelt knows this and
i is, therefore, acting for armed in-
tervention in the greatest secrecy
and with the slimiest demagogy.
If we can arouse sufficient sup-
port in the United States for the
Cuban masses in their struggles, not
only will this strengthen the libera-
ton fight in Cuba, but it will en-
courage supporting m ov en- ents
/ throughout Latin America.
Every weakening in Cuba of the
big Wall Street banks who own
most of the investments there will
strengthen the fight of the Amer
lean workers in steel, coal, auto.
The same trusts who refuse to grant
union recognition to American la
Dor are responsible for enslaving
the Cuban masses A blow at them
in Havana, Oriente and Camaguey.
means more power to labor in
Youngstown. Pittsburgh and Detroit.
This is the common battle OF
American labor and the Cuban
people in which the victory of the
Wall Street trusts in Cuba means
they will be more able to defeat the
demands Of the American workers.
All help to the Cuban masses
against American imperialism