Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1970. január-június (24. évfolyam, 1-26. szám)
1970-06-11 / 24. szám
8 AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZÓ — HUNGARIAN WORD Thursday, June 11, 1970. JOE KILL I» THE CONSTRUCTION WORKERS The bosses hired hundreds of thugs, private detectives, and professional strikebreakers. We had to fight them in open pitched battles almost every day. Dozens of us were beaten up, many were arrested, some were deported from the state of Utah. They would have smashed the strike had it not been for the solidarity and the brotherly aid that we received from the railroad workers on the Denver Rio Grande. They refused to transport any material needed to build the road, unless the bosses removed their murderous hirelings from the area. With their help we won union recognition, and the company had to yield on our other demands, too. It was through such and similar struggles, through such manifestation of solidaridy that your union, my friends, and all the other trade unions were established. The bosses of the Utah Construction Company never forgave me for my role in the strike. At their first opportunity they had me framed on a murder charge. They tried me in a kangaroo court, sentenced me to die. and on November 19, 1915, put me before a firing squad. Idie bosses knew that I was innocent. District Attorney Leatherwood knew that I was innocent. Judge Ritchie knew that I was innocent, Governor Spry who rejected my friends appeal knew that I was innocent. They thought that through the use of the fir ing squad, through the use of terror they could hinder and defeat the organization of American workers. I was not the first to stand before the firing squads, or under the gallows of the enemies of labor in the United States. And I was not the last. The énemies of American labor hanged Parsons and his seven fellow workers for organizing the workers in So Chicago. They murdered and beat up Maguires for organizing the miners. They massacred the wives and children of the striking miners in Ludlow, Colo. They framed T. Mooney, Sacco and Vanzetti. They massacred 17 striking steelworkers in So. Chicago. Thy murdered and beat up auto-Workers when that industry was being organized. Martin Luther King died in the struggle to organize the unorganized of Memphis, Tenn. As late as this year you saw Federal troops mobilized in an attempt to hinder and defeat the just struggle of the New York postal workers. My.fellow workers! I stand here before you today as a witness as a symbol that brute force, frame-up, firing squad, deceit and intrigue cannot prevail over the American workingmen as long as they remain true to the lofty ideals of labor! Labor, my friends is the noblest, most honorable, most constructive, most advanced, and by its very nature, the most democratic class of a modern industrial society Throughout the entire history of the United States., the working class was the only class whose record remained clear, shining, untarnished, whose hands, remained clean of the continous streak of crime, violence, inhumanity, exploitation from profiteering and graft that unfortunately characterized so much of our record as a nation. Labor was not responsible for the robbing and cheating of the original inhabitants of this continent, of the American Indians of their immense ancestral lands. Labor was not guilty of their practical extermination. It was not labor that imported millions of slaves from the African 'continent., subjecting them to centuries or degradation, humilition, boundless exploitation, second class citizenship. It was the plantation owners, the industrialists of the South. Labor was not responsible for the aggressive ■wars of our nation in the 19th century, for sending marines all over the hemisphere. Labor was not the instigator of the war with Mexico, Cuba, of our conquest cf the Philippines. Big business was. Labor’s sole role, at least until very recently, was to defend, protect, uphold and advance the interests of all toilers. Their victories were victories not only for the workers but for the entire nation. Social security, unemployment insurance, and other blessings benefiting every citizen were the results of labor’s ceaseless struggles. Labor was never the organizer of frame-ups. Time and again labor was the victim of frame-ups. Until now! Today I stand before you to warn you that the very same forces that used the frame-up against you throughout more than a hundred years of labor’s history are now attempting to make labor itself, or some segments of it their accomplice in the use of this despicable tool of the enemies of labor! Today, my friends, I see an entire generation of Americans, the youth of America being framed! They are being framed because they see clearer and speak out louder against the dangers threatening our nation. They are framed because they revolted at the sight of the selfishness, greed, and corruption characterizing so much of our national life. They are being framed because they revolted at the sight of the monstrous carnage in Viet Nam, carried out in our name but against the wish of most of our people and in contravention of our constitution. This is the frame-up that I came here to warn you against, this is the frame-up they are plotting to make you their partner in. My fellow Americans! The government of the United States which sowed the wind in Viet Nam is today reaping the whirlwind. They sowed the wind when they entered the war of independence of the Vietnamese people —oni the side of the enemies of them independence. They entered the war step by step, by fraud, by false pretenses. First they sent weapons. Then they sent advisors. Then they sent soldiers. President Johnson was elected because he promised he wouldn’t send a single American boy to fight in Viet Nam. By the time an outraged people repudiated him, 30,000 of our boys died and 100 billion dollars of our national wealth were squandered there. President Nixon was elected because he said he had a “plan for peace.” His “plan for peace” so far has cost the lives of 10,000 more Americans. And our boys today are dying not only in Viet Nam but in Cambodia and Laos. We wasted another 50 billion dollars of our national wealth. The possibility of a catastrophic escalation of the war to a global conflict is ever increasing. If President Nixon was as anxious for peace as he claims to be, he would have no quarrel with those millons of Americans who are demonstrating for and demanding peace. He would welcome them. But he and his spokesmen denounce and slander them! Today the Nixon administration is making a bold bid to enlist—of all people—you laboring men, you organized labor, at least a sector of it to attack the people who demand and demonstrate for peace. They want you to become partners in their catastrophic war policy and lend them an aura of respectability. And they want you to serve as strong arm squads to discourage and terrorize those who dare to oppose then- disastrous, insane military adventure. They want you to help them stifle the anguished cry for peace of a nation! Will you allow yourselves to be used for such nefarious, such ignominious aims? Will you permit them to use you, in effect, as the strikebreakers of the peace-movement in the United States? Should you and your leaders, under the blandishment of people in the seat of power, allow yourselves to become the tools of the warmakers and the warmongers, you will dishonor the untarnished name and record of American labor as a force standing for progress, for humanity and peace. You will desecrate the memory of the countless heroes of American labor who lived, and struggled and often gave their lives to the cause of labor, a cause which never embraced the sup* port of unjust wars. Friends, Today I saw you march amids a sea of American flags in the canyons of lower Manhattan. Hundreds of flags were waving in the brisk wind. And the military bands were playing rousing martial tunes.. I closed my eyes for a moment and lo, I saw another sea of flags. I saw hundreds of flags and every one of them covering a coffin of an American boy who died during the week that you were demonstrating in support of the war. And I saw ten thousand flags that covered the coffins of American boys who died since President Nixon announced his plan for peace. And I saw 30,000 flags that enshrouded the bodies of those who died from the time Johnson pledged that he will not send our boys “North*.” Therefore I say to you: "Don't drape yourselves in the American flag while in Viet Nam the dead bodies of our boys are being draped in them." Let us save the waving of the flags for the day when all our boys are safe at home from Viet Nam! Let us wave the flag when we will begin to rebuild our cities with the funds transferred from the bloated military budget. Let us wave them when our cities will be cities of flowers, of sunshine, of clean air, of modern housing, of good jobs for all. When there will be so many jobs indeed, that you won’t resent your black fellow workers also having well paying jobs in your trade and in every profession. Let us wave it on the day when American workers marching on labor holidays will proudly sing these stanzas of the “Solidarity Forever.” “All the world that owned by idle drones, is ours and ours alone It is ours not to slave in, but to master and to own. In our hands is placed power greater than their hoarded gold Greater than the might of armies, magnified a thousandfold. We can bring to birth the new world from the ashes of the old, For the union makes us strong.” On that day, my friends, I will visit you again. On that day I, too, will proudly march with you. “Good luck to all of you.” “HelyrehozhafaSlan kárt okoz” WASHINGTON, D. C. — “A vietnami háború helyrehozhatatlan kárt okoz a nemzetgazdaságban”.— mondotta többi közt T. J. Watson, Jr., az International Business Machine vállalat igazgatója egy kongresszusi bizottság előtt tett tanúskodásában. Charles B. McCoy, az E. I. du Pont de Nemours vállalat igazgatója a vegyipari vállalatok több ezer képviselőjének konvencióján mondotta: “A vietnami háború szétszaggatja társadalmunk egész szerkezetét.” “Iparunk soha nem tapasztalt lehetőségek küszöbén áll. E lehetőségeket azonban csak akkor valósíthatjuk meg, ha befejezzük a vietnami háborút és megoldjuk a nemzet számos súlyos problémáját.” Majd folytatta: “Nem látom, hogyan fordíthatunk elegendő pénzt és energiát belső problémáink megoldására, a nemzeti együttérzés helyreállítására, amig meg nem oldjuk, fel nem számoljuk a délkelet-ázsiai problémát.” Washington, D. C. — Hivatalos jelentés arról számol be, hogy az elmúlt évben 660,000 házasságot bontottak fel válás utján. RÉTESHÁZ ÉS CUKRÁSZDA 1437 THIRD AVENUE, NEW YORK, N. Y. (A 81-ik Street sarkán) — Telefon: LE 5-8484. Mignonok, születésnapi torták, lakodalmi, BarMitzvah-torták. — Postán szállítunk az ország minden részébe. — Este 7.30-ig nyitva (Continued from page 1)
