The entire working class of a small New Jersey town march in the funeral of Walter Rojek, the nine-year-old son of a worker shot by police during a general strike on the town’s textile mills.

‘Thousands at Rojek Mass Funeral Demand Ousting of Mayor in South River, New Jersey’ from the Daily Worker. Vol. 9 No. 229. September 24, 1932.

STRIKE GOES ON TO WIN VICTORIES IN 14 SHOPS

Two More Protest Strikes Make Third In Week in Denunciation of Murder of Boy Seventy–Three More Workers Arrested by Troopers and Police; Total Now Over 90

SOUTH RIVER N.J. Sept. 23. Aroused to a white-hot anger at the murder last Monday of Walter Rojek by a police bullet, the entire working class population of this tiny industrial center joined the 1,800 striking needle workers today in a mass funeral for the 9-year-oid son of a striker, who was slain while playing a game of marbles. A demand will be made at the next Council meeting that the Mayor resign immediately.

Walter was killed while police and company gunmen were firing hundreds of shots at the strikers in an attempt to break their spirit and prevent the spread of their rapidly growing victories.

90 Workers Arrested.

His death was followed by the enraged strikers chasing the police and deputized gunmen six blocks through the city to the Borough Hall and keeping them there for six hours until state troopers took over the town.

The troopers and police have since arrested more than ninety workers, 73 of them yesterday, and charged them with “interfering” with them while they were firing on the strikers. Warrants are out for fifty more workers, including the two representatives of the Workers International Relief, which has been supplying the strikers with food. Among the 73 local workers arrested were the entire local committee of the Workers International Relief.

One of the three others who were shot by the police, 13-year-old John Wilcezki. is reported to be dying of blood poisoning.

Admit Dick Shot Bullet.

The prosecutor’s office is now admitting that Walter was killed by a bullet fired by Kalire, one of the 40 deputized company gunmen.

Workers began to assemble at the Catholic church here today at an early hour for the funeral, which took place at 11 a.m. Two thousand filled the church to overflowing, and from four to five thousand waited outside until the police victim’s shattered body was borne out. The fiend who killed the boy had evidently used a soft-nosed or dum-dum bullet, for it carried a mass of flesh with it when it left his body. Activity in South River was at a standstill as all but a handful of the town’s remaining eight thousand residents lined the route of march of the funeral as it slowly wended its way to a cemetery two miles away.

Among the workers who marched behind Walter’s body were delegations from New Brunswick, Paterson, Newark, Perth Amboy, Trenton, Linden and Roselle, representing the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union, the International Workers Order, the International Labor Defense, the Workers International Relief, the Communist Party and the Young Communist League.

Carry Strike to Victory.

After the body of the murdered boy was lowered into the grave, the workers were addressed by Walter Kolovsky, representing the assembled delegations. Kolovskv condemned the police for the brutal murder of the boy and the shooting and clubbing of others, and called on the strikers of South River to avenge the boy s death by organizing into the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union and carrying their strike to victory.

Two More Protest Strikes.

Two more protest strikes, the third within a week, were called by South River workers in protest at the brutal murder. The 400 workers in the factory of the General Cigar Company dropped their tools for a half day to attend the funeral, and the workers in the four needle shops which went back to work last Monday with a wage increase did the same.

Expose Attempt at Sellout by Moffit.

The International Labor Defense said the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union have called an openair mass meeting for Monday night at Jackson and Raritan Streets for the purpose of protesting at the murderous terror which has already resulted in one death, one dangerously wounded, other shot and clubbed, and more than ninety arrests. The meeting will also expose the sellout of the heroic strike being attempted by Moffit, the Department of Labor’s “conciliation expert.”

Moffit told the strikers at a mass meeting last Monday that he had “won wage increases” for the 14 shops still striking and that they should return to work on Wednesday. The strikers agreed, but after Walter was killed voted to hold a protest strike at his murder until next Monday.

Since Wednesday, the strikers have discovered, in talking with the manufacturers, that the latter have made no agreement with Moffit for wage increases: in a word, that Moffit as deliberately lying in an attempt to drive the strikers back to work.

Wage Increase—Or Strike.

The strikers axe saying that if they do not receive increases when they return to work Monday, they will strike again and that they will drive the strike-breaking Moffit out of town.

The police arrested John Krzinowsky, head of the Needle Trades Association of South River, who is working with Moffit, in an attempt to make the strikers believe that Mayor Armstrong is not working with Moffit to break the strike.

The Communist Party in New Jersey sent a truckload of relief to the strikers today through the Workers’ International Relief, and calls on all other working-class organizations to do likewise. The Workers International Relief address in the strike area is 11 Plum St., New Brunswick.

Protest meetings are being held in New York every day by the Needle Trade Workers Industrial Union against the murder of the boy and in solidarity with the strike. The strikers have had the full co-operation of the Industrial Union since the inception of the strike five weeks ago.

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/1932/v09-n229-NY-sep-24-1932-DW-LOC.pdf