In one of his many arrests, William Z. Foster is jailed while on the 1928 Presidential campaign for ‘inciting to riot’ in Wilmington, Delaware as soon as he mentioned Black workers.

‘Foster’s Speech for Negroes’ Equality Causes Arrest in Wilmington’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 5 No. 246. October 17, 1928.

Communist Candidate for Governor, Three Others Arrested–Distribution of Anti-Lynching Leaflet Leads to Persecution

WILMINGTON, Del., Oct. 16. William Z. Foster, Workers (Communist) Party candidate for president. George Newcombe, candidate for governor, Liston Oak, of the National Office of the Workers Party, and two workers, Esther Markigon and Fanny Cohen, were arrested here tonight when police broke up an election campaign meeting of the Party at Pythian Castle.

Carrying out threats that no discussion of the Negro question would be permitted, the police halted Foster when he began to tell of the role of the capitalist class and its two big parties in oppressing and exploiting the Negro workers. Though workers in the audience protested at this terrorist action, they were driven away by the uniformed thugs.

The Communist nominee had spoken for an hour and a half to an audience of about 500, including many Negroes. He exposed the role played by the Dupont interests, which practically control Wilmington, in the preparations for the next imperialist war and showed how they helped to control both big political parties. Fifty dollars was contributed to the National Campaign Fund of the Workers Party.

When Foster was arrested, Oak telephoned to Edith Spruence, whom Forrest Bailey, director of the American Civil Liberties Union, had recommended as the Wilmington representative of the union. When informed of the reason for the arrest, the lady declared that she did not believe in Negro equality and that the Negro is an inferior race. Foster and Oak are being held in the Wilmington jail, charged with “inciting to riot.”

WILMINGTON, Del., Oct. 16. William Z. Foster, leader of the steel strike in 1919, and Communist candidate for president, devoted his speech in Wilmington tonight to answering the recent speeches of the other parties.

“FOR SALE.”

“The republicans state that Tammany Hall corruption is an issue of the campaign,” Foster said, “and I agree with them. It is, and so is Teapot Dome. Under the rule of the two old parties, graft is a normal phenomenon, and the voters have become tired of this issue, too apathetic to the corruption that is rife. Under capitalism, everything is a commodity for sale—the labor of little children, the sex of women, and the brains of editors, college professors and preachers.”

“The republicans claim credit for what they call prosperity, and the democrats maintain that they will continue the policies that have secured this ‘prosperity.’ But in the richest country in the world there are 4,000,000 unemployed. In Soviet Russia, the worker does not have this constant fear of unemployment, of sickness or injury hanging over him, for he is protected by the world’s best system of social insurance against these dangers. But in America, it is the capitalist class that enjoys the enormous wealth created by the sweat and blood of the workers, who remain even in prosperous times in poverty. Only a small section of the working class, the aristocracy of labor, the highly skilled and organized few, are bribed by good wages, and their misleaders corrupted so that they will favor class-collaboration schemes.”

AGAINST TARIFF.

“It is said that the republican and democratic parties will devote the rest of the campaign to discussion of the tariff. This is their favorite issue. But in this campaign they can only argue about details because they are not in disagreement on the fundamentals. Both favor a high tariff. The Workers Party opposes a protective tariff as a means of protecting trust monopoly, enabling the capitalists to charge excessive prices in the domestic market and to sell below cost on the foreign market in competition with other capitalist powers. The tariff is a weapon in the hands of the imperialists.”

WILMINGTON, Del., Oct. 16. The city authorities of Wilmington had forbidden the holding of the Workers (Communist) Party election campaign meeting here tonight; and have closed Pythian Castle, 908 West St., the hall in which the meeting was to be held.

The reason for the ban on the meeting, given out by the city authorities, is that the Workers (Communist) Party has distributed leaflets entitled “Abolish Lynching.” The chief of police states that anyone found distributing these leaflets will be arrested and that if speakers mention this tonic in a meeting, they also will be arrested. It is at least a month since the hall was engaged by the Wilmington section of the Communist Party, and notice that the hall would be closed was given only yesterday.

Liston Oak, of the National Office of the Workers Party, is scheduled to arrive in Wilmington tonight to assist in carrying out the plans for the Foster meeting. The Civil Liberties Union has announced that it will have its lawyers at the meeting.”

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/1928/1928-ny/v05-n246-NY-oct-17-1928-DW-LOC.pdf