Open forum, vol. 13, no. 33 (August, 1936)

`THE OPEN FORU

Free Speech - Free Press - Free Assemblage

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.-Milton

ah

vol. XII.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, AUGUST 15, 1936

Nos

a -

THIRD RAID IN THREE MONTHS

On August 6th, at some time between

the hours of 12 midnight and 3 a. m.,

"The International Bookshop," located at

944 West Sixth Street in San Pedro, was

raided, the books, pamphlets and papers

being scattered or destroyed. This was the

third raid on this shop within three months.

In answer to a plea to the police for a

veal investigation, the owners were told

that they had looked over the wrecked

store at 4:30 a. M., but there was nothing

they could do and further action would be

yseless, and gave no further satisfaction.

Claims against the city are being for-

mally made and filed with the city clerk.

The owners of the store are hoping to es-

tablish in court the responsibility of the

police in the protection of such property.

About 1500 leaflets had been distributed

in San Pedro advertising the Earl Browder

meeting and it is thought that the raid on

"The International Book Shop" was a

brutal expression of resentment on the

part of hoodlums and their employers.

That the police themselves know much

about the raid is a possibility.

GARMENT WORKERS WIN STRIKE

The strlke called by the local body of

"he International Ladies Garment Work-

es Union" last week was of short dura-

`tion and a decisive victory for the strikers.

There were 3000 workers involved and

their demands were for the "`closed shop,"

and an increase in wages, both of which

demands have been acceded to by fifty-

two employers and agreements signed by

them to that effect.

Two thousand six hundred of the work-

ers are under this agreement, about 90%

of the total number. The increase in wages

agreed to amounts to about an average of

10% for all classes of work.

The strike will continue against the firms

that have not signed the agreements.

These employ about 400 workers as against

the 2600 who have won so marked

a victory. While the wage increase was

desirable and much needed, the real victory

lies in the gaining of the 100% closed:shop.

IN GOD'S IMAGE?

Less than 20 years from the war that was

to end war, the British government has

asked for $4,500,000 with which to issue

a polson gas mask free to every man,

woman and chhild in the country.

A factory is to be set up and, as soon as

completed, the masks will be distributed.

`0 prevent loss, destruction or deteriora-

tion through careless handling, they are to

be kept at convenient central points, read-

ly available, however, upon signal.

Meanwhile everybody is to be instructed

n their use.

What a commentary on the present state

of international diplomacy! The world

Peace machinery, purchased at the price

37,000,000 casualties in the last war,

ri been scrapped. Peoples are snarling

each other like savages ready to spring.

bein more's the pity and the irony of it,

a 8 civilized," they will not fight each

er like savages. Instead, they are plan-

nin - :

at and to poison one another, whole nations

me -not just soldiers, but the aged,

little ewly-born, the cripples, the sick, the

; oe and girls, indiscriminately.

of : Is the true, the ghastly implication

Cause mots from Britain. And it should

image S all-made, so they say, in God's

-to hang our heads in shame.

-The Pittsburgh (Pa.) Press.

RIGHT OF ASYLUM

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to

breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming

shore;

Send these, the homeless, tempest

tost, to me;

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

- (Inscription on Statue of Liberty.)

DEPORTATIONS

True Americans, who retain the spirit of

this inscription on the Statue of Liberty, are

looking with a growing sense of shame on

the change that seems to be creeping over

our people and making of our Land of Lib-

erty a hot-bed of persecution. The follow-

ing records are symptomatic: :

Otto Richter, fighting deportation to Hit-

ler Germany, was taken from his cell at

Ellis Island to the Marine Hospital (June

30) on the fourteenth day of his hunger

strike . . . released July 11 with permis-

sion to enter any country of his "choice'"'

providing he left within thirty days after

his release . . . providing some country

will allow him to enter. Gerhart Seger,

editor of the Neue Volkszeitung, informed

the committee that, moved by Richter's

plight, he had taken steps ot secure per-

mission for the refugee to enter Belgium,

where he would find the asylum from

Nazi oppression denied him by the United

States Department of Labor... .

An appeal for aid was received by the

committee from Ervin Muhlmann, anti-Nazi

refugee, imprisoned in a Yuma, Arizona,

jail, held for deportation to Hitler Ger-

many, charged with being in the country

"illegally" . .. removed to the Galveston

"deportation" station July 6. . . . Casimo

Cafiero was deported to Italy July 4... .

Benno Martini, ordered deported to Hitler

Germany, was given a stay until Septem-

ber 1 by the Labor Department. .. .

The opening gun in _ discrimination

against the foreign-born on WPA was fired

in Los Angeles, California, with the cir-

cularization of a questionnaire relating to

citizenship.

As was to be expected, when William

Randolph Hearst conducted a campaign of

villification against young Otto Richter in

news as well as editorial columns, he over-

stepped the bounds of decency and the

limits of human patience. Richter, m self-

defense, has slapped a $100,000 damage

suit on Hearst's American Newspapers,

Inc., and Benjamin DeCasseres, Hearst

feature writer, on the basis of an article by

DeCasseres in the New York American of

July 9, entitled "Right of Asylum." Pecu-

liar to note in this connection an editorial

in the same American on July 21 again

attacked the anti-Nazi refugee. This time,

though, no mention was made of any name.

Mr. Hearst suddenly became cautious,

but not any the more human. He is shout-

ing now, demanding, insisting and trying

to bulldoze the Labor Department into pro-

ceeding with the deportation of 2862 non-

citizens, where families would be broken

up, fathers taken from their dependents

(usually American-born), mothers torn

from their children. The greatest hope lies

in the number and strength of protests

from liberal individuals and organizations

offsetting the Hearst campaign... enabling

the Labor Department to pursue a humane

BUREAU FOR THE RIGHT OF ASYLUM

An International Bureau for the Right

of Asylum and for the Aid of Political Ref-

uges was voted upon in resolution and

passed by the delegates assembled at the

International Conference for the Right of

Asylum in Paris on the 20th and 21st of

June, 19386.

The resolution adopted at the Confer-

ence reads: ;

"The existence of a large number of

refugees, for whom the right of asylum is

not legally guaranteed and who live in the

perpetual fear of an expulsion or an ex-

tradition, fear which aggravates the ma-

terial and moral vigors of exile, imposes on

public opinion, on governments and the

League of Nations one of the most im-

portant of human duties.

"Convinced that this problem cannot be

solved without the cooperation of all forces

of civilization and progress

"The parties, syndicates, organizations

and individuals present at the International

Conference for the Right of Asylum have

unanimously decided upon the institution

of an

"INTERNATIONAL BUREAU FOR

THE RIGHT OF ASYLUM AND FOR THE

AID OF POLITICAL REFUGEES.

"This Bureau will have charge of the

legal, material and moral fate of refugees

from Fascist countries who are persecuted

by the reaction, of protecting their inter-

ests, and of making all arrangements to

effect this program.

"The Conference invites all liberal,

democratic and working-class parties, la-

bor and mass organizations, all progressive

individuals to establish in their respective

countries, provinces or localities, Bureaus

or Committees analagous to the Interna-

tional Bureau, in order to most efficaciously

assure moral, material and legal aid to all

those who have suffered Fascist and reac-

tionary persecution.

"The Bureau of the (Conference is

charged with putting the present resolution

into execution and to establish the neces-

sary mediums to this effect."

NEWS BRIEFS

"In the revaluation of America's past,

which has been actively under way for

some years, the big employers of labor have

not escaped. This country contains so

many Slavs, Hungarians, Poles, Croatians,

Czechs and others because they were

brought over here in droves by rapacious

capitalists who wanted cheap factory fod-

der. Over here they were sweated and

exploited and otherwise mistreated and de-

graded until their usefulness was over.

They were then thrown on the scrapheap

like so much human slag in the Pittsburgh

area.''-Topics of the Times, N. Y. Times.

-

policy by staying deportation in the hard-

ship cases until the next session of Con-

gress, when a bill~can be introduced and

passed to establish the status of these non-

citizens. Miss Perkins must and will listen

to what the public has to say on this ques-

tion. Will that voice be the raucous, dema-

gogic ranting of Hearst . .. or will the

voice of the American people rise to make

itself heard?

SS EE ~.

--

a ee a a

THE OPEN FORUM

Published every Saturday at 624 American Bank

Building, 129 West Second Street

Les Angeles, California, by the Southern California

Branch of The American Civil Liberties Union.

Phone: TUcker 6836

Clinton J. Taft Bditor

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Upton Sinclair Kate Crane Gartz

Doremus Scudder A. L. Wirin

Leo Gallagher Ethelwyn Mills Ernest Besig

John Packard Edwin P. Ryland

Subscription Rates-One Dollar a Year, Five Cents

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Bntered as second-class matter Dec. 13, 1924, at the

post office of Los Angeles, California, under the

Act of March 3, 1879.

`LOS ANGELES, CALIF., AUG. 15, 1936

CIVIL RIGHTS IN IDAHO

Announcing that it had offered legal

services to protect the rights of striking

lumber workers in Clearwater county,

Idaho, the American Civil Liberties Union

wired Gov. C. Ben Ross urging him to end

martial law in the strike area. The wire

was signed by Roger N. Baldwin, director

of the A. C. L. U.

The Union acted after receiving a re-

quest for help from the strikers. The A. C.

L. U. has been in touch with the the lum-

ber situation for some days, Mr. Baldwin

declared. Local representatives of the

civil liberties group in Spokane, Washing-

ton, and Boise, Idaho, have been directed

by the Union's.national office to cooperate

with strikers and, if possible, with the gov-

ernor in an effort to restore civil rights in

the martial law area.

The Union's wire said:

_ REPORTS RECEIVED BY US INDI-

CATE CONTINUED POLICY OF PROVO-

CATION AGAINST PICKETS IN CLEAR-

WATER COUNTY LUMBER STRIKE

STOP YEARS OF EXPERIENCE HAVE

SHOWN US THAT DECLARATION OF

MARTIAL LAW ALWAYS LEADS TO

VIOLATIONS OF RIGHTS OF WORKERS

TO ORGANIZE STRIKE AND PICKET

PEACEFULLY STOP WE HAVE 0x00A7 OF-

FERED LEGAL SERVICES TO STRIKERS

AND SHOULD BE GLAD TO COOPER-

ATE WITH YOU IN EFFORT TO PRO-

TECT CIVIL RIGHTS.

Martial law was declared on August 3,

after a clash in which a number of strikers

were shot and several scabs badly beaten.

The strike, conducted by the I. W. W., be-

gan on June 28. Workers seek improved

living and sanitary conditions and a raise

in pay from $4 to $5 a day.

Ludwig Lore reports in the New York

Post of July 22, 1936: "American Jews

residing in the Third Reich are subject to

the Nuremberg Laws to the same extent

as German Jews, a Dr. J. Rosen, dentist

and an American citizen, learned a few

days ago. The U.S. A. embassy in Berlin

had tried in vain to secure for American

Jews exemption to a law forbidding non-

Aryans to employ "Aryan" servant girls

under forty-five. The diplomatic interven-

tion was unsuccessful." ;

ice ee

An excellent tract on "Fascism-W hat Is

It?" has been issued by the American

League Against War and Fascism, written

by Dr. Harry F. Ward. ``Thus on the basis

of what it does, Fascism is the destruction

of the democratic process by violence,"

says Dr. Ward, "`and the substitution of the

rule of force in order to block any change

in the profit system." And, in speaking

about the United States, Dr. Ward says,

"Un-American prejudices are aroused

against the Negro, the foreign-born and

the Jews by groups which call themselves

`American', in order to lay the grounds

for the complete destruction of civil liber-

ties in the United States.

TRADE AGREEMENTS

(Labor Department, N.C.P.W.)

"However patriotic the slogan `Buy

American' may sound, it is obvious that

those who sponsor it are, wittingly or un-

wittingly, opposed to foreign trade, since

in order to sell to foreign countries it is

necessary to buy from them. `Buy Ameri-

can' is just another way of saying: `Don't

sell abroad; if you can't sell profitably at

home, don't sell at all; just whistle.'' This

statement was made by Lynn R. Edminster,

chief economic analyst of the Division of

Trade Agreements in the State Department,

in a speech made in New York last week.

"In the industrial field," continued Mr.

Edminster, "the United States is given con-

cessions of various types in rayons and

other synthetic textiles in six of the trade

agreements concluded to date. Exports in

this field for the first five months of 1936

increased in value by 72 per cent over the

exports for the same five months of 1935."

Mr. Edminster pointed out that the

United States has benefited from these

reciprocal trade agreements in the fields

of industrial and agricultural machinery,

automobiles, trucks, busses, engines, auto-

motive parts and accessories. ``During the

first year in which the Belgian trade agree-

ment was in effect," he said, "Belgian im-

ports of automobile parts from the United

States increased by 148 per cent over the

preceding twelve months."

Concluding his address by asking for

"the support of all fair-minded and think-

ing citizens, regardless of political affilia-

tion, for the efforts we are making to re-

store our foreign trade,'' Edminster de-

clared: "Fully 75 per cent of the press,

and prominent leaders in both parties, have

indicated their approval of the trade agree-

ments program. Its meaning, in terms of

sustained and sound economic recovery and

of re-employment of our people, should

place it beyond the range of political parti-

sanship. It cuts clear through to the bed-

rock problem of whether we propose to

cast our great influence in the direction of

economic sanity in the present critical

world situation or whether we propose to

live in economic isolation. We can take our

choice. In choosing, however, we had

better realize one thing, and that is that

the burdens of international economic co-

operation will be as nothing compared with

those of economic isolation. If we do real-

ize this, common sense will clearly indicate

the course that we should follow."

PROGRESS COVERS ANTIQUITY

One of the few remaining adones built

by Spanish or Mexican residents of Los An- |

geles county and still untouched by "mod-

ernization" is now being rebuilt into a

modern dwelling, according to Senora Ana

Begus de Packman y Alanis, secretary of

a Historical Society of Southern Cali-

ornia.

Dona Ana, who is advisor on Los An-

geles county history to the Federal Writers

Projects, WPA, supervised by Hugh Har-

lan, reports that the adobe de Jose Reyes,

on Ventura Boulevard, six miles north of

Calabasses, is being made into an up-to-

date home.

The structure, erected from mud bricks,

was built about 1863 on what was known

as El Rancho de las Virgenes (the ranch of

the virgins).

PLEDGE

I promise to give the sum of $._.._____.

per month toward the support of the

American Civil Liberties Union, So.

Calif. Branch, and I enclose herewith

SB as payment on the same.

I reserve the right to terminate this

pledge whenever I see fit.

"AAI, See ee eS

DEPOOl ce cee CR ee! ae

OAR so hee ee eg

Date. ae ee

LOCAL W. P. A. DRAMA :

"Smilin? Thru," which closed 9 y,

successful engagement at the Mason jag

Sunday, is to have an additiona] Six-day |

presentation at the Greek Theatre, jij |

opening performance announced for Tye

day, August 11. This makes the sixtp a

traction in the summer season series Staged |

by Federal Theatres in the Griffith Park 0x00A7

Amphitheatre. Thais Dickerson, Young

actress of predicted stellar accomplig, |

ments, has impressed critics and publi

alike with her splendid portrayal] of the |

difficult role of Moonyeen Clare in the Jay

Cowl-Jane Murfin play.

Federal Theatre officials announce that

`Triple A Plowed Under," described by Jip

Tully, noted novelist, as "one of the mog

vivid dramas ever seen in Logs Angeles"

will hold the stage at the Mayan for ",

ohter week.

In a number of scenes and quick "black.

outs" and boasting some extraordinary tg).

ent among its 150 interpreters, "Triple 4

Plowed Under" is having its first Pacife

Coast showing after phenomenal runs iy

New York and Chicago. Taking the spec:

tator through events from the late wa |

to the present, with the voice of the living |

newspaper to announce each episode asi

flashes onto the stage of action, the shows

a vivid and stimulating unfoldment of high. |

lighted news occurrences of the past dec.

ade. Theme music, forming an intermittent |

ominous undercurrent, provides furthe

realism to the play as a whole.

"The Plow That Broke the Plains," 30-

minute motion picture with dramatic sound

effects, precedes the staging of `Triple 4

Plowed Under."'

POSTAGE STAMP FOR PEACE

Washington.-A unique proposal t/

bring peace to the attention of every pet:

son in the United States has been made

the U. S. Post Office Department and t

President Roosevelt by two peace societies |

in their request that the United States is

sue a special peace postage stamp.

Peace groups see in a stamp symbolizing |

peace a constant reminder that the prevel:

tion of war is an ever-present problem. The

World Peace Postage Association in Si

Paul, Minnesota, is pushing the idea Ut |

der the slogan, "Stamp Out War," and the

latest appeal for action has come from!

San Francisco peace leader, Dr. Bilto

Brunings, who sought the President's back

ing of the proposal.

The only peace stamp this governmell

has issued was one to commemorate the

peace proclamation that followed the Rev |

lutionary War. Records show that sine?

the World War 23 foreign countries hav?

issued peace stamps, and one which calle

from the presses of the Turkish govell

ment bore the picture of the late Jane At |

dams, famed peace and social worker, Wi! |

was for many years one of the vice-chall |

men of the National Council for Prev

tion of War, Washington, D. C.

_ There are few rules and little chivalry |

in the mass madness of modern wartiale- |

Bernard M. Baruch.

oer oe ea

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