As the National Guard arrived in Minneapolis to put down the strike by Teamsters’ Local 574, the union’s daily paper is emphatic–without the right to picket workers do not have the right to strike and it must be defended at all costs.

‘The Right to Picket is the Right to Organize, Defend it With Your Lives!’ from The Organizer. Vol. 1 No. 13. July 28, 1934.

The man who is told he has the right to e eat, but is denied any means of obtaining food, is sure to die. He has the “right”, but he cannot exercise it.

The worker who is told he has the right to organize into unions, but is denied the right to picket in order to obtain his demands, is sure to have his union smashed. He, too, has the “right”, but he cannot exercise it.

The right to picket during a strike or lock-out, means the right to organize into unions. The worker who lightly gives up this right, might just as well bow to every despotic attack upon his standard of living. He might just as well hold his arms and legs ready for the chains of slavery.

Without the union of all workers in one craft, or trade, or industry, the individual worker is a serf under the employers’ tyranny.

Without the right to strike, the union is a cruel joke upon the workers, a pliant tool in the employers’ hands.

Without the right to picket, the strike is a bitter farce which demoralizes the workers and gives the upper hand to the employers.

The bosses realize this keenly.

They fight like tigers against workers joining and building a union. They fight like tigers against the workers’ right to strike. They fight like tigers against the workers’ right to picket. They want slaves with bent backs, sweated brows and sealed lips. The workers want to be men, to live like decent human beings, to enjoy an ever greater share of the gigantic wealth they alone produce.

The workers will not allow themselves to be robbed of the right to organize, to strike, to picket. By nobody!

They will not allow scabs to break their picket lines.

They will not allow policemen with clubs and pistols, to break their picket lines.

They will not allow soldiers with rifles, tear gas and machine guns, to break their picket lines.

The right to picket is the right to strike. The right to strike is the right to organize. The right to organize is the right to live.

Our strike is not a lark. It was not called as a joke. It is no fun for us. It is a matter of deadly earnest.

We are fighting for the right to live, for our very lives!

And we have showed the whole country that we can fight this battle successfully. The few scab trucks the bosses tried to run, never got beyond a try. We put them off the streets and no trucks rolled.

The bosses got their police and thugs to try to roll scab trucks, but none rolled.

The bosses now pin their fading hopes on the National Guard.

The National Guard, by its whole nature, is a weapon against workingmen. It is there to “protect property.” Whose property? Ours? We have none, we are poor, we are wage-slaves. We have only our strong right arms, our clear heads, our workingmen’s solidarity and consciousness. The property the Guard protects is the employer’s–his commercial houses, his warehouses, his SCAB TRUCKS!

The official staff of the Guard, by its very nature, is anti-labor. The officers are men of wealth and position. They are blood of the blood of the whole capitalist class, of Johannes the Murderer. Together they jointly plan the regulations by which picketing is to be suppressed and scab trucks to be moved.

Why, right now they are cruising to stop pickets–and cruising in borrowed trucks and squad cars belonging to the Johannes police!

For us to give up the right to picket at the militia’s command, is to brand ourselves cowards and slaves.

We shall fight tooth and toe-nail for this right. We want the right to organize, to strike, to picket, to free speech, to free assemblage.

Before the Guard came in, the bosses and their trucks were sewed up tighter than a drum. Now the Guard is moving scab trucks. These are two indisputable facts.

These facts mean one thing, and can mean only one thing: the National Guard is playing the part of strikebreaker!

And we propose to allow nobody to break our strike, nobody, do you understand–no, sir, not even the National Guard!

Every worker in Minneapolis, and not only the men of Fighting 574, must roar out the demand until it shakes the city: WITHDRAW THE NATIONAL GUARD!

We are going ahead, teeth clenched, to exercise our right to picket, to meet, to speak. We shall let nobody stop us.

We are fighting for ourselves, for our womenfolk, for our children–for our lives!

The right to picket means the right to organize and live!

Workers–defend that right to the last ditch!

The Organizer was the paper of the Minneapolis. Teamsters’ Local 574 (General Drivers and Helpers Union during the 1934 strikes. Those strikes were among the most important of the 1930s and helped to bring about what would become the CIO. Published weekly and daily and edited by labor organizer and Trotskyist militant Farrell Dobbs, and sometimes by James P Cannon, the bulletin provides essential coverage of the strike and its aftermath. Succeeded by the Northwest Organizer in 1935.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/theorganizer/v1n13-jul-28-1934-the-org.pdf