Socialists lead a mass rally of thousands to defend striking Case Tractor factory workers against a fascist threat in Racine, Wisconsin.

‘Skids Put on Fascists by Racine Labor’ by Dan O’Flaherty from Socialist Call. Vol. 1 No. 8. May 11, 1935.

RACINE, Wisc. Prompt and militant action by the Socialist Party and trade unions of Racine last Saturday sent the. would-be Hitlers of this city scurrying back to their holes from which they probably will not soon emerge.

A week ago a bunch of 100 business men and lawyer vigilantes were brazenly threatening to take the law. into their own hands if Mayor William Swobodo did not order the police to break the six-week-old strike at the J.I. Case tractor and farm machinery plant.

The Racine workers responded with a mass meeting of 6,000 persons (in a city of 80,000) at which the vigilantes were plainly told that labor’s answer to their violence would be blow for blow.

Fascist Nest

Racine for some time has been a nest of budding Fascism, the most menacing in the Mid-West. German Nazis have been especially active here.

The Fascists now have not only received a loaded warning, but they have indirectly united labor’s ranks which for months had been sorely divided.

The Case strike has been conducted by the independent Wisconsin Industrial Union.

When they called their Saturday mass meeting on the Lake front the local A.F. of L. unions decided to rally at the city hall.

Jack Harvey, 27-year-old Socialist alderman spoke at the A.F. of L. rally, and urged the men to march to the industrial union gathering.

They did. Fifteen’ hundred fell in line and marched behind Harvey to join their fellow workers.

Solidarity

The effect was electric. Workers from the rival groups slapped each other’s backs and rejoiced in their new solidarity

The combined rally was addressed by Maynard C. Krueger, Socialist National Executive Committee member from Chicago; Al Benson, Socialist State Secretary of Wisconsin; Andrew J. Biemiller, editor of the Wisconsin Leader; Jack Duller, business agent of the industrial union; Mayor Swobodo and other local speakers.

Benson, the final speaker, was given a tremendous ovation, when he declared that workers and farmers from all over the state would pour into Racine to fight fascism…

“American workers will follow the example of their Austrian and Spanish comrades, if the need arises,” declared Krueger amid prolonged cheering.

“Here today you have seen the power of labor unity,” he added. “Let us use this unity and determination to sweep away the poverty system and to build a workers’ world of freedom and plenty.”

Krueger urged a general strike if the vigilantes gave further trouble.

Communist Slugged

The Fascist spirit of the business men has been growing since their success in having Sam Herman, Communist organizer, beaten up, last January.

Protest to Gov. Philip La Follette against this lawlessness have gone unheeded.

It took a labor mass rally, led by Socialists, to put the would-be Hitlers in their place.

Socialist Call began as a weekly newspaper in New York in early 1935 by supporters of the Socialist Party’s Militant Faction Samuel DeWitt, Herbert Zam, Max Delson, Amicus Most, and Haim Kantorovitch, with others to rival the Old Guard’s ‘New Leader’. The Call Education Institute was also inaugurated as a rival to the right’s Rand School. In 1937, the Call as the Militant voice would fall victim to Party turmoil, becoming a paper of the Socialist Party leading bodies as it moved to Chicago in 1938, to Milwaukee in 1939, where it was renamed “The Call” and back to New York in 1940 where it eventually resumed the “Socialist Call” name and was published until 1954.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/socialist-call/v1n08-may-11-1935.pdf