The militant activities of Young Pioneers around East L.A.’s Roosevelt High School, a school with a long activist history, leads to expulsions, denial of diplomas, arrests, and a trial of four leaders, Yetta Stromberg who would soon be sentenced to ten years in a Criminal Syndicalism case to see her sentence overturned by the Supreme Court after several months in jail, Israel Shulman, Duffy Malotte, and brothers Martin and Abe Shapiro.

‘Young Pioneers in Los Angeles’ by J. Mayeur from The Daily Worker. Vol. 6 No. 377. May 22, 1930.

THE YOUNG PIONEERS have been carrying on work in various schools and are being persecuted as a result. Bulletins and leaflets have been distributed regularly at Roosevelt High School. One year ago a student was deprived of his diploma because his ideas did not coincide with those of the principal or the authorities. Since then certain other students weren’t allowed to run for school or club office and deprived of various other privileges. (One boy ran for school office, his program being that of the Young Pioneers, and when a leaflet went out, to that effect he was disqualified.) This term, three students were denied diplomas. They were called to office of the principal—questioned, made to go through a regular third degree and asked to sign a “yellow dog contract.” Refusing to do this they were denied their diplomas.

Child Labor.

Today, when there are 8,000,000 workers unemployed, there are 6,000,000 children working in fields, mines and factories (this number excluding those children working in street trades such as bootblacks and newsies). Conditions in schools in working class districts are much worse than those in rich districts. In Roosevelt High School students must pay $1.25 for towel service, must pay fees for various auditorium calls, club and organization fees and uniforms, etc., while in the richer districts these conditions do not exist. Students whose parents are unemployed are not exempt from paying these fees although they haven’t money to pay for the more necessary things in life. If the students bring this up, saying they cannot afford to pay, what remedy do the school authorities suggest? Charity! Why should workers children accept charity when their fathers are the producers of the wealth of the world!

On April 25 the Young Pioneers of Los Angeles held a meeting at Roosevelt High School to bring these conditions before the students and to ask them to protest against them on May First. At the meeting four members of the Young Communist League and one member of the Unemployed Council were arrested. They were charged with disturbing the peace, annoying and molesting school children and loitering around the school house. These comrades, Yetta Stromberg (defendant in San Bernardino camp case), Israel Shulman, Duffy Malotte, Martin and Abe Shapiro, were found guilty on all charges.

The chief witness for the state, David Sinski, is an example of what the school does to the children of the workers, turning them against their parents. His father is a militant worker who has served a sentence because of his activity in a strike and is now being held for deportation. Yet David Sinski is known to be one of the worst types of stool-pigeons, and known for his anti-working class activities. Every time a distribution is held the comrades are arrested and always by this stool-pigeon or upon his command. During the week of May First there was declared a national holiday—”Boys Week”—wherein various boys held official office for a day (another means this capitalist system uses to blind the children of the workers). Sinski held the position of the head of the “Red Squad” (taking the place of the notorious Hynes and Phiffer) and in a report which he brought back to the school he said, “Roosevelt is known for the reds here and has a bad reputation and it is my duty to see that Roosevelt is cleared of them and I certainly will.”

The trial of these comrades was a farce, where the state had three students and two policemen to testify. David Sinski was directly responsible for the breaking up of the meeting this being proven by the witnesses of the state and defense. He claimed that he had been given power from the Automobile Club of Southern California to protect the students of Roosevelt High School against any harm, that this power included the right of protecting students against harmful ideas and he considered Communism harmful and was going to make a stop to it.

The witnesses for the defense were all children, most of them attending Roosevelt High School. Some of the main witnesses were those who spoke at the meeting proper. Sarah Prizony who was chairman of the meeting told the court what the purpose of the meeting was, repeating her speech as nearly as possible. The meeting had been called to counteract the propaganda imported by Mr. Elson (principal of the school) from patriotic and religious institutions, against the organization of the working class. Miriam Brooks who was the speaker for the Young Pioneers repeated her speech. She had spoken-about school conditions, persecutions on a local scale, Harry Eisman and that the children should strike May First with the workers at the Plaza. Then Yetta Stromberg who was defending herself took the stand and explained what she had said and done that day. She spoke about unemployment and its causes, that students finishing high school think positions are waiting for them but find unemployment and not fit to do any work. At this point in the meeting it was broken up by Dave Sinski pulling Yetta off the stand and the arrival of the police and arrests.

The prosecution in its summing up did net prove that the defendants were guilty, but merely brought out that they were Communists “trying to undermine our government and teaching our children to overthrow our good American government by bloodshed and revolution.”

Yetta Stromberg in her talk attempted to analyze the economic crisis, its causes, the conditions of the working class and the conditions of the workers children at home and in the schools. The judge, fearing that some good may come out of it, as the courtroom was overcrowded with workers who came to hear this trial, kept interrupting her every few seconds breaking the trend of her talk and not allowing her to make various statements which would have had some effect upon the audience.

The decision of the jury was a quick one. That of guilty. Can we as workers expect anything better from the capitalist courts?

So another farce trial has ends in sending our comrades to serve a sentence in their filthy jails. We on the outside must organize ourselves and fight for the right of militant workers organizations to be allowed to address workers children, to counteract the anti-working class propaganda they receive in the boss-controlled schools.

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/1930/v06-n377-NY-may-22-1930-DW-LOC.pdf