The Threat to the Labor Movement/Section 5
National Character of Right Wing Drive.
BUT the new offensive of reaction is not confined to New York or to the needle trades and its official press. It was planned as a nation-wide movement and it developed rapidly in this direction.
Extension of the drive against the left wing to Chicago gave the campaign a national character.
A rapid succession of incidents showed that the drive was not conducted by needle trades officials alone, but that the Chicago Federation of Labor officialdom co-operated actively with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers' officials and the right wing in the Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and the Furriers' union. These events were:
1. The breaking up of the Temple Hall meeting on Friday, Dec. 10, at which Ben Gold, chairman of the Joint Board of the New York Furriers' Union, and Sacha Zimmerman, manager of the dress department of the New York Joint Board of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, were to speak on amalgamation and aid for the cloakmakers' strike. The meeting was under the auspices of the National Needle Trades Committee for Amalgamation, a section of the T. U. E. L.
This meeting was broken up by a combination of police, sluggers and right wing officials, and a right wing meeting held at which Levin, manager, of the Chicago Joint Board of the Amalgamated; Fitzpatrick and Nockels, chairman and secretary of the Chicago Federation of Labor, were the principal speakers.
The Chicago Federation of Labor officialdom thus gave its sanction to the war on the left wing.
2. On Sunday, Dec. 13, another meeting under the same auspices, with Ben Gold as the principal speaker, was broken up by the same combination of forces. The manager of Hertzl hall was bought up by the right wing after he had demanded a deposit of $1,000 from the Needle Trades Committee, and the hall turned over to the Amalgamated officials, who were in charge of the fight.
The left wing went to another hall and held a meeting, which the gangsters tried their best to disturb.
3. On Tuesday, Dec. 14, a meeting of the Furriers' union, regularly authorized by the executive board, with International President Shachtman present ,at the time, was held in the Odd Fellows hall at 12th and Albany to hear Ben Gold.
This meeting was likewise broken up by police and gangsters, including officials from other than needle trades unions.
The day before the meeting Edward Nockels, secretary of the Chicago Federation of Labor, called the police department, told them that "a Communist agitator by name of Gold" was "disrupting" the labor movement and that he wanted him taken care of.
In Boston, Hochman of the executive board of the I. L. G. W., with the assistance of gangsters and democratic politicians, broke up a left wing meeting.
The national character of the right wing campaign is clear. It is necessary now to determine two things:
1. If other sections of the labor movement outside of the needle trades, in which Communists are active, were affected.
2. The immediate reason for the launching of the campaign at the time and its connection with the rapid sweep to the right of the official labor movement.