A report as nearly 250 delegates representing 20,000 members and the affiliated organizations gather for the Second International Labor Defense conference.

‘Hold Successful Labor Defense Conference’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 3 No. 202. September 6, 1926.

248 Delegates Set 300,000 Members as Goal For Second Year of Activity of I.L.D.

With 248 delegates from 38 cities reaching from coast to coast, the Second Annual Conference of International Labor Defense which ended its two-days’ sessions yesterday listened to reports of the growth of the strength and influence of the organization which already contains 20,000 individual members and 100,000 affiliated collective members.

The numerous successful campaigns initiated and led by the I.L.D. and the cases it has already defended in the year of its existence including Sacco and Vanzetti, the Michigan Communist cases, the Pittsburgh cases, the Zeigler miners, the Passaic strikers and dozens of other large and small cases.

Resolutions protesting against the white terror in Poland and demanding the grant of general amnesty to the thousands held in prisons there resolutions on the three appeals now before the United States Supreme Cout in the cases of Ruthenberg, Whitney and Fiske, a statement pledging renewed support of those class fighters still in prisons in the United States and the victims of American imperialism in Latin-America were unanimously adopted by the conference, delegates to which were present from points so divergent as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Oakland, Seattle and Galveston, Texas.

Adopt Program for New Year.

With enthusiasm the conference adopted a program for the coming year for an intensive organization drive to secure an individual membership of 50,000 and a collective membership of 250,000, under the direction of the new national executive committee which now includes such well-known labor fighters and progressives as Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Albert Weisbord, Charles Cline, Clarence Darrow and H.W.L. Dana.

The conference, opened by the secretary of the I.L.D., James P. Cannon, elected Edward C. Wentworth as temporary chairman, who turned over the gavel, after the credentials of all the delegates had been accepted to the permanent conference chairman, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who had just come from the Passaic strike field. Wentworth and Ralph Chaplin were chosen was vice-chairmen and George Maurer, Chicago secretary of I.L.D., was made secretary of the gathering.

The report of the executive committee on the work of the past year was then given by James P. Cannon. He reviewed the growth of the organization in the past year, the difficulties it had to meet, the bad defense organizational traditions it had to overcome in the process of work, and the doubts in the minds of many workers which it had conquered by making deeds out of the words of the resolutions of the first conference a year before..

With facts and figures he traced the campaigns conducted by the International Labor Defense in its first year, indicating always the fact that I.L.D. constantly maintained its standard of nonpartisan and united labor defense. In the defense of the Pittsburgh Communists, the Fall River anarchists, the Zeigler miners, the Passaic strikers, and its work for numerous members of the I.W.W., the American Federation of Labor, for Sacco and Vanzetti, I.L.D. had lived up to the aim it had set at the first conference.

Maintains World Solidarity.

The organization had also maintained the spirit of international solidarity to which it had pledged itself. The campaigns for class war victims in Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Britain and other lands was a testimony to this. And the reciprocal aid of the workers in other countries to the campaign for Sacco and Vanzetti conducted here was adequate proof of the value of world-wide labor unity. Comrade Cannon then analyzed the growth of the organization, with figures which showed that the membership in the last six months of the year had doubled over the figures for the first six months. Not only the sales of dues stamps, but the sales of literature had increased decisively, A careful compilation revealed an Individual membership of some 20,000 workers in over 150 branches, and a collective affiliated membership of between 75,000 and 100,000 members. But what had been done up until now, said Cannon, was as nothing compared to what might have been accomplished. The organization was not yet well enuf welded together and completely mobilized. This was the task for the coming year.

“I.L.D. has taken its place in the labor movement,” concluded Comrade Cannon, “and it has demonstrated its ability to mobilize thousands of workers of all opinions and affiliations in the working class under the banner of Labor Defense. It his given many of them their first lessons in the class struggle. Our work will not end quickly for it can end only when all workers in prison are released and none can anymore be threatened with imprisonment. But that will only be when all workers are released not only from jail but from that gigantic prison which is capitalism.”

Big Ovation for Cline.

Before discussion began on the report, Chairman Flynn introduced Charles Cline, who had but two weeks ago been released from a thirteen year term he served in a Texas prison for participating in a Mexican revolutionary expedition. Cline was greeted by a great ovation with cheers and applause, reaffirmed the faith he had always held, and which had always buoyed him up in prison, in the working class. It was this faith which enable him to stand up under the hell of a Texas prison for thirteen years. His thanks for release were to the working class and to such an organization as International Labor Defense which was developing the power that would free all the class war prisoners. Cline read the pardon given by the governor, with his own comments, while the delegates laughed when the governor declared that Cline had done no worse that the “immortal Travis, Bowie and Crockett” the heroes of Texas independence. “It took them thirteen years to find that out,” said Cline.

Albert Weisbord, the young leader of the Passaic textile strike, followed Cline, the delegates rising and singing the International. Weisbord said that his own case or that of any other individual in itself was not of essential importance, for the class struggle would proceed with or without this or that person. But the need of defending prisoners for labor activities, of maintaining their morale and courage, of snatching prospective victims from the clutches of the capitalist class was of great importance. The I.L.D., said Weisbord, was doing a great work and the cases in Passaic demonstrated this. It had become and should become not only a shield of defense but a weapon for offensives against the enemy.

Chairman Flynn “conscripted” Ralph Chaplin to speak. Chaplin spoke of the great faith of the men in prison and of the value of the International Labor Defense as a unifying instrument in defense work.

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn began her talk by saying that a year ago, when I.L.D. had been organized, she was a skeptic. But her doubts were all removed now. The work of the I.L.D., especially in the Sacco-Vanzetti campaign was of great value to the working class. It had proved, in addition, that defense work was not something undertaken for sentimental reasons but that it was an essential and integral part of the class struggle.

Delegates Join in Discussion.

Discussion from the floor was then opened. From one city after another the delegates spoke of the development of the work of the International Labor Defense, of the obstacles that they had overcome and the successes they had achieved. Agreement with the report of the executive committee given by Cannon was universally expressed.

Cyril Lambkin, secretary of the Detroit I.L.D., then reported for the committee on the secretary’s report. A resolution proposed was unanimously adopted. The resolution accepted the report of the executive committee and commended it on the fidelity with which it had carried through the resolutions of the last conference. It recommended to the incoming committee that it conduct its activities along the same line, adhering to the same policy.

Carl Hacker, secretary of the Cleveland I.L.D., reported for the resolutions committee. Resolutions were adopted against the imprisonment of workers and peasants in Poland, after a speech by the representative to the conference of the Inter-parliamentary Committee of the Polish Sejm for Amnesty in Poland, B.K. Gebert; the demand for amnesty was endorsed and a cable sent to that effect to the Polish premier. A resolution of greetings to class war prisoners, assuring them of the untiring efforts that I.L.D. will continue in their behalf, was unanimously adopted, as were all the other resolutions. Resolutions of warm greetings were sent to Sacco and Vanzetti, to Eugene V. Debs and to Bishop William Montgomery Brown. A resolution protesting against the abrogation of the right of asylum for a number of Italian political refugees was endorsed. Calling attention to old and almost forgotten cases a resolution urged the workers to renew the struggles for the release of these old fighters. A resolution on organization was also adopted.

A few constitutional changes were proposed by the constitution committee in the report of Robert Zelms, Boston I.L.D. secretary. Dues are to be as before, 10 cents per month with 15 cents as initiation fee.

Max Shachtman, editor of the Labor Defender, read the manifesto of the Second Conference to the American workers, and with some suggestions from the delegates, it was unanimously adopted.

Read Greetings to Conference.

Following the discussion, Comrade Cannon replied to some of the remarks made by delegates in their speeches. Telegrams and letters of greetings to the conference were read from the secretary of the International Class War Prisoners’ Aid of England, from the Joint Board of the New York Furriers’ Union, from Warren K. Billings, Matthew Schmidt, from Pablo Manalapit in prison in Honolulu, Robert Whitaker of California, from Passaic strikers and numerous others.

The second day of the conference heard a report by C.E. Ruthenberg, awaiting decision on his supreme court appeal, on the white terror in other capitalist countries. Ruthenberg pointed out the frightful situation existing in numerous European countries and the need for extending the hand of fraternal solidarity to these class war victims and prisoners. Harrison George reported on the situation in Latin-America, where American imperialism is instrumental in imprisoning scores of labor fighters and those who are battling for liberation,

The greatest part of the second day’s session was taken up with organizational matters. Sharp and friendly self-critics of past activities and means of improving the structure and forms of activity of the I.L.D. Numerous suggestions in this direction were made by all the delegates. The discussion, which was led by Secretary James P. Cannon, took up all organizational questions from that of organizing the united front to the arrangement of a mass meeting and the sale of literature. In addition to this discussion, provision was made to take up local problems with a number of the delegates after the official adjournment of the conference.

New Committee Is Elected.

The last point on the agenda was the election of a new national committee. The announcement by James P. Cannon that Elizabeth Gurley Flynn had consented to serve not only on the national committee but as a chairman of the organization in place of Andrew T. McNamara, who is very ill, and had asked to be relieved from his position for a short time, was greeted with long cheers and applause. All the members of the former national committee were re-elected, together with Charles Gline, Albert Weisbord, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, D. Bentall, Robert Morss Lovett, Harry W. Longfellow Dana, Charles Gray and Clarence Darrow. The executive committee was empowered to add to this number at its discretion. The national committee I will meet today to choose the executive committee and other officers of the organization.

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. National and City (New York and environs) editions exist.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1926/1926-ny/v03-n202-NY-sep-09-1926-DW-LOC.pdf