The Daily Worker

Arrest You
UNION OFFICIALS
FIGHT MILITANTS
WITH POLICE AID

Arrest
Young
Worker
League

Send "Observers" to
Meeting

(By a Worker Correspondent)

KENOSHA. Wis. (By Mail).

Kindly publish the enclosed statement which was issued to the hosiery strikers at the Allen-A mill in Kenosha after the events it describes had taken place.

Striker.

Something has occurred which we think is necessary to bring to your attention. It reveals the revolutionary nature of one of the strike leaders to such an extent that we know the strikers and workers of Kenosha will repudiate such actions on his part.

All of you, we are sure, will remember the monster mass meeting called by the "Committee of 1000" in the square outside the city hall last Monday, June 4th. At this meeting one of our representatives, Samuel A. Herman, was present and was asked by several workers and strikers to speak. Only after our member had been urged by quite a number of workers to speak, and it was quite evident that no one else would address the crowd, did he consent to say a few words. He called upon the workers to stand solidly together with the strikers to help them picket the Allen-A. Co., and help the strikers out financially as this was not only a strike of 330 workers against the Allen-A. Co. but a strike of the workers of Kenosha against the open shop interests of Kenosha.

Urge Arrest.

No sooner did our representative utter a few words than Mr. Harold Steele, vice-president of the American Federation of Full-Fashioned Hosiery Workers, urged the police to arrest him. To the workers who witnessed this uncalled for incident it was a startling surprise. The workers had previously known only of cases where officials of the open shop Allen-A. Co. urged police to arrest strikers. But this was quite different, a union official ordering the police to arrest a member of a workingclass youth organization, The Young Workers League. We later learned that the reason the arrest was not made was because the police feared it would result in tremendous protests from the thousands of workers present.

Hand in Hand With Police.

Why was Steele so anxious to have our speaker arrested? The Young Workers' League had issued several bulletins to the strikers to conduct mass picketing all day long and throughout the week instead of neglecting to picket the mill or engaging in occasional picketing for a half-hour at a time only two or three times weekly. We urged the strikers to picket about both mills of the Allen-A. Co. and to make special efforts to call out the unorganized, unskilled workers, who are at present working for the Allen-A. Co. and piling up profits, which the firm uses to break the strike. We pointed out to the strikers the growing number of scabs that the company has been able to hire because the strikers did not conduct mass picketing from early in the morning until the evening, thus enabling the scabs to come to the company in the morning without any picket line being present. We called upon the strikers to force their leadership to take some militant action to win the strike. No sooner did we point these things out to the workers, than the Steele-Budenz leadership began to become alarmed. Unwilling to engage in a real fight against the Allen-A. Co., unwilling to lead the strikers on the picket line and to inspire the workers by their presence, unwilling to call out the unskilled Allen-A. workers in the other mill across the street, the reactionary leadership began a campaign against the Young Workers League. They started the attack against us by slandering our organization, though they know we have a record of participating courageously in all struggles of the working class youth.

On Wednesday, June 6, while helping the strikers picket, during the noon hour our member was arrested by police in a vicious manner. The police claimed later that the leaders of the strike did not want members of our organization around the strikers. The reason is plain. The leadership is afraid that our influence will grow among the strikers. They are afraid that the strikers will demand some real militant policy from their reactionary leaders. So the leaders are resorting to the most contemptible methods used by the open shop Allen-A. Co. against the strikers by ordering our arrest.

On Friday, June 8, the Young