Shortly after its national founding, the one of the largest and most active International Labor Defense branches, Chicago, is founded. An I.L.D. for today is badly needed.

‘International Labor Defense Chicago Conference Sets Up Lively Local Organization’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 2 No. 210. September 16, 1925.

The eighty delegates representing 18,000 organized workers of Chicago, who met Sunday afternoon at Ashland Auditorium launched a section of International Labor Defense that will bring the message of America’s class-war prisoners and the obligation to defend those now being attacked to every unit of organized labor in Chicago. The conference unanimously indorsed the actions of the National Conference held in the same hall last June and that founded International Labor Defense as the champion of all workers persecuted for their activity in the class struggle.

The delegates represented 12,000 trades unionists, 4,500 members of workers’ benefit and fraternal organizations and 1,500 members of permanent branches of International Labor Defense.

Henry Corbishley, the central figure of the case of the fifteen Zeigler miners now under serious criminal charges in the southern Illinois coal fields, reported on the frame-up he and his comrades are now being subjected to. The conference pledged its support to the fight of the Zeigler miners and then and there raised over $200.00 for the defense fund.

To Raise More Than Dollars.

W.S. Milson of the Carpenters’ Union brought out the dynamic phase of the I.L.D. Not mere dollars, he said, are needed, but while these are good to use in the routine work of paying lawyers and gaining publicity, yet the function of the I.L.D. is to raise the spirit of the working masses, to bring the collective force of wide masses into action to demonstrate to capitalist governmental oppressors that the working class will fight solidly, unit- ed as one man behind its spokesmen and fighters who are chosen as victims by the master class.

With wide masses aroused and determined the courts and other wolves of capitalist state power will hesitate to carry out their brutal desires of framing up, killing and burying alive our brothers who fight in the front ranks.

Victims of U.S. Imperialism.

Max Hankin of Local 199, Machinists, spoke on the recent outburst of brutality against the Cuban workers, in which Jose Miguel Perez, the secretary of the Cuban Communist Party, only just organized, has been deported and the trade unions are being viciously attacked.

A resolution of protest and pledging the support of Chicago workers was offered and passed, in which the fact that American imperialism has practically usurped complete governmental power of the Cuban state, was accented as a special factor making necessary the duty of American workers to combat the evil forces of imperialist persecution.

The I.W.W. Fighters Remembered.

Fred Mann, member of the I.L.D. national executive committee, took the floor to bring out the part of the I.W.W. as victims of class persecutions. He wished to make clear that he did not represent the I.W.W. but merely took part as an individual interested in class war prisoners’ defense, in this respect, however, representing a certain sentiment among the membership of the I.W.W. There were about 100 good revolutionary fighters in prison in this country, where we have an American counterpart of the white terror of Europe. The European workers have suffered ghastly persecutions and still suffer. It is necessary that we give our utmost solidarity to them.

Here, particularly in California and Washington, the I.W.W. whose re-cord of revolutionary struggle is known not only nationally but thru-out the world, the American white terror has jailed scores upon scores of the most conscious fighters for their class. In California a worker needed to commit no crime to go to jail. Mere membership in the I.W.W. sent workers to prison for from one to fifteen years.

The General Defense and the California Defense have done all they could for these men and done very well. But the I.L.D. with its intimate connections within all labor and radical unions thru-out America could do more, it could raise a huge cry of protest on a national scale in ex- posing the tyranny that has sent these fine fighters of the I.W.W. into the hell holes of California prisons.

Centralia the Test.

The Centralia victims lying in  Walla Walla with a 40-year sentence had fought not only their own struggle, but defended the right of all union labor to organize and meet in union halls. If this right is challenged successfully by the continued imprisonment of the Centralia victims, who are IW.W. members, it would no longer be an I.W.W. matter, for raids by white guard American legion thugs on union halls, would soon be the rule in Chicago. Money was needed, not only for lawyers, but for publicity, to raise the class consciousness of the wide masses of workers to the meaning of the Centralia and other cases.

Fellow Worker Mann spoke of the effort being made by the I.L.D. to raise $5, a month for every class war prisoner, regardless of affiliation, and told how much it means for prisoners to get the little comforts and to know that someone cares enough to see that these are furnished.

Prison Relief.

“Let us resolve to keep this pledge,” he said, “These revolutionary fighters fought our battles. They are inside for our cause. Let them know we shall stand by them and care for them in their years of prison.”

“Let this be done and a great many if not a majority of the members of the I.W.W. will whole-heartedly support the I.L.D. and aid it in the wonderful work, it is just beginning.”

Get Individual Members, Too.

Secretary Maurer, in closing the conference, obtained the pledges of the delegates of an immediate sum to the local I.L.D. treasury. He accented that the I.L.D. has both collective and individual affiliations. Those organizations, such as unions and fraternal bodies which affiliate and make the affiliation effective by subscribing a certain fixed monthly sum, are the collective affiliates.

But the members of such organizations should also be invited to join I.L.D. branches as individual members and take a direct and active part in defense work and relief work for class war prisoners. A big campaign for the Zeigler miners is to begin at once, Maurer announced.

An executive committee of nineteen to direct the work of Chicago local of the International Labor Defense set up at the conference was elected. The committee includes Emil Arnold of Painters’ Union No. 275; H. Schneid, Local No. 39, Amalgamated Clothing Workers; S. Hankin, Machinists’ Local No. 199; A Newman, Workman’s Circle 519; S. Gallant, Workman’s Circle 497; L. Cohen, Workman’s Circle 518; H. V. Phillips of the American Negro Labor Congress; Fred Mann of the National Committee of I.L.D.; George Maurer, Rose Karsner, Sam Hammersmark and others.

The Chicago Local will immediately proceed to work, campaigning funds for the Zeigler defense and other cases and gathering in new members for the organization.

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.

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