Communist organizing in Mexican Chicago during the 1920s.

‘Chicago Spanish Speaking Branch Makes Big Gains in Mexican Meet’ from the Daily Worker. Vol. 2 No. 68. April 1, 1925.

Fight for Protection of Latin Workers

Fighting every inch of the way for a program of action based upon the class struggle and for a militant fight against American imperialism, the Chicago Spanish-speaking branch of the Workers (Communist) Party made itself a leading factor in the convention of organizations of Mex cans in this country which has been meeting over a period of weeks, at 1616 W. Taylor St., Chicago, and which adjourned Sunday, after creating the Confederation of Mexican Societies. Many delegates, as well as visitors to the convention went up to the Communists and congratulated them on the stand they were taking.

Good Support For Program

Manuel Gomez and Jose Espinosa, delegates from the Spanish-speaking branch of the Workers Party, succeeded in rallying considerable support for their program in spite of the efforts of the Mexican consul, Luis Lupian, who attended every session and whose influence was strong enough to keep the majority to the safe and sane path of bourgeois patriotism. The left wing elements will continue to work in close co-operation with the Workers Party.

The convention was called on the initiative of the Club Benito Juaraz and the Sociedad Hispano-Americano for the expressed purpose of taking steps for the protection of the Mexican worker in the United States, but except for the Workers Party delegates and their supporters, it paid no attention to this important problem, notwithstanding the fact that the Mexican-born workers in this country constitute one of the worst exploited sections of the working class. The consul kept reminding the delegates that they were in a strange country and told them that if they did anything at all radical the police would immediately interfere. He put the fear of god into them so strongly that they shied even at the mention of the word “worker,” which they refused to include in the name of the new confederation.

All Workers’ Organizations.

Inasmuch as all the affiliated organizations are composed of workers, the Communist delegates did not withdraw, but will work within the confederation for a program of action which will really protect the Mexican workers in this country by building upon their own strength and uniting it with the power of the American working class as a whole.

Comrade Gomez, who led he militant minority in the convention, pointed out that the great mass of the Mexicans in this country are workers. He said that the first step toward bettering their condition is to recognize their special character as workers, as a section of the working class. He said further, that one of the elementary duties of the new confederation, a duty owed to themselves, to their fellow countrymen in Mexico and to the Latin-American peoples in general, is to carry out a fight against American imperialism.

Communist Program.

The program proposed by the Workers Party delegates contained the following points:

1. Unionization of the unorganized Mexican workers in this country; propaganda to get Mexicans to join the trade unions and to assist the unions to carry out a campaign of organization among them.

2. Struggle against the prevailing discrimination in the matter of housing, whereby Mexicans are obliged to pay higher rents than other workers for poorer dwellings.

3. Equal pay with workers of other nationalities for equal work done.

4. No scabbing; no taking the place of other workers when on strike.

5. Abolition of the present system of contract labor, or “engancho,” as a result of which thousands of Mexicans are lured from their homes by false promises and brought to this country, where they are given their choice between being left stranded or going to work at wages far below the wage agreed on–often in the midst of a strike.

6. Vigorous resistance to attempts on the part of the United States government to deport workers for their political activities; the Mexican embassy and consulates to give the same protection to Mexican workers as it now gives to Mexican businessmen.

7. Against the so-called criminal syndicalist laws prevailing in many states; freedom for all political prisoners.

8. Struggle against the “Americanization” propaganda, as a scheme for converting all foreign-born workers into docile slaves of American capitalism.

9. Uncompromising struggle against American imperialism.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1925/1925-ny/v02b-n068-NYE-apr-01-1925-DW-LOC.pdf