Today is the anniversary of a defining moment of the Great Depression, the massacre of participants Hunger March on Henry Ford’s Dearborn, Michigan factories demanding relief for the unemployed and destitute. The March 7, 1932 demonstration on a cold Michigan day ended in the murder of five worker including Joe York, George Bussell, both members of the Young Communist League, Coleman Leny and Joe Blasio. Five months later, Curtis Williams would also die of his injuries. Below are articles from the Y.C.L.’s papers in the immediate aftermath giving details of the dead comrades and of efforts to build the League in defiance of the killings.

‘Three Youth Among Four Massacred by Ford-Murphy Murderers’ from The Young Worker. Vol. 10 Nos. 8, 9 & 10. March 14, 21, & 28, 1932.

Joe York, 19, Detroit Y.C.L. District Organizer and George Bussell, 16, Y.C.L. Member Killed in Slaughter

Blue Coated Assassins Try to Whitewash Themselves by Threatening Murder Charges Against Jobless Leaders

DETROIT, Mich., March 7th. Meeting 5000 Ford hunger marchers led by the Unemployed Council of Detroit with a withering rain of machine gun and revolver bullets, the police of Henry Ford and Mayor Murphy turned the grounds of the Ford River Rouge Plant into a bloody shambles with 4 workers, 3 young, slaughtered, 23 workers seriously wounded and scores more badly injured.

The murdered workers are Joe York, 19, District Organizer of the Young Communist League and member of the National Executive Committee of the Young Communist League; Coleman Leny, 20, Ford worker; Joe Debruske, 30, Daily Worker newsboy and George Bussell, 16, member of the Young Communist League.

The River Rouge massacre is being followed by a reign of terror as the biggest display of armed force that Detroit has ever seen was thrown around the Ford plant and surrounding territory.

The First Battalion, 125^th Infantry of the Michigan National Guard, troops from Fort Wayne, officers of all State Police posts in southern Michigan have been mobilized and stationed around the Ford factory. In addition all National Guard companies in Detroit have been instructed to hold themselves in readiness for instant mobilisation.

Try Whitewash Police

The police are trying to shift responsibility for the bloody shambles staged Monday by a cold blooded attempt to frame the leaders of the Euager march on first degree murder charges. Three of the 44 workers arrested have been threatened with trial for murder. Police are scouring the city searching for William Z. Foster, National Secretary of the Trade Union Unity League. John Schmies, District Organizer of the Communist Party, Albert Goetz, John Pac and William Reynolds. Headquarters of the Communist Party and the Young Communist League are being raided.

1,300 Began March

The Hunger March to the Ford Plant began at the corner of Fort Street and Oakland with over 1,300 workers present and hundreds more streaming in by car, auto and truck. The line of march started along Fort Road until it reached the Dearborn City line.

Sweeping on through two attacks by the Dearborn and Detroit police and then the surging mass of workers marching toward the Ford Plant broke thru a tear gas attack at the Dearborn city line and through a barrage of high-power propelled ley water hurled at them in sub-zero weather by a gang of Ford firemen from the top of a trestle near Gate 3 of the Ford plant.

Answer Demands With Bullets

The demand of the workers that their elected committee be admitted to the Ford office to present their demands was met with a hail of machine gun and revolver bullets that [sic] 27 workers on the ground in pools of blood. Four of the workers, three of them young, have died.

Mass protest meetings are being called in all cities to protest the River Rouge Massacre. In Detroit a mass meeting is being called for Friday and a mass funeral on Saturday. In New York, the Young Communist League is calling a protest meeting Friday night at the Central Opera House.

Second Murder in 3 weeks

The murder of Joe York, following the murder of Harry Simms is the second murder of a member of the National Executive Committee of the Young Communist League in three weeks.

With the increasing militancy of the young workers in the struggle against terror, hunger, war, the bosses are resorting to murder in a vain attempt to stop them. The murder of Joe York, the assassination of Harry Simms, the jailing of Joe Chandler in Kentucky all point to a determined drive against the working and exploited youth.

Our answer to it must be join the Youth Communist League the leader of the struggles of the working youth, to make it a mass organization for determined struggle against the murderers, Ford-Murphy, against the hunger, terror and war system of the bosses.

JOE YORK

Murdered in the Class War

JOE YORK, 19-year old Detroit Organizer of the Young Communist League, is dead. He was cold-bloodedly shot by Henry Ford’s gunmen while acting as a leader in the Ford Hunger March Monday. This is the same Henry Ford who has been acclaimed as the “Saviour of the American Youth,” for his Trade School.

Comrade York was born in a mining town in Ohio, the son of a miner, today a member of the National Miners Union. He went to work in the mines when he was 15. After the 1928 strike, he left for Detroit, the “city of prosperity,” to work in the auto hops there, and take responsibility, as the oldest of 5 children, to support the family back home, which was blacklisted and starving.

For two years he worked in the auto plants. In March 1930, after the March 6th demonstration, he joined the Young Communist League. In May of that year, the Y.C.L. decided to break the terror in Hamtramck, a city controlled by the General Motors Corp. A street meeting was held which was brutally smashed by the police. Comrade York was beaten up and jailed for putting up a militant fight to defend the speaker.

When the Flint strike broke out in Flint, Michigan, though a new member in the Young Communist League, York went to Flint in spite of the terror. The same night that he arrived he was arrested and spent some time in jail. During the next year he was very active in the Y.C.L.

At the Sixth Convention of the Y.C.L. (July, 1931) he was elected to the National Executive Committee of the League. In August, 1931 he was elected as District Organizer of the Detroit League in this winter’s fight for bread in Detroit, York took a leading part. In the unemployed protest demonstration, he was arrested together with other leading comrades of the Y.C.L. in the city.

A young auto worker himself, he took his place in the front ranks of the Ford Auto Workers who marched on the plant to demand relief from the millionaire Ford who got rich on the toil of the sweat of 12-year-old boys in his Trade of School. For this act, York was murdered.

FORD-MURPHY MURDERS SPUR YCL WORK.

Letter Shows Intense Activity In Building Mass League to Carry On Fight

The following are some parts of a personal letter of a Detroit YCLer to a comrade in New York. Every League member throughout the country can learn from this letter, how the Detroit comrades are building the League to carry on the work of their fallen comrades. We can also learn how the murder by Ford has aroused the young workers, and how ready they are to join the YCL.–Editor

“Dear M

“You will probably get official reports from other comrades. The comrades here are getting on the job, no arguing, getting new members, selling Young Workers, literature, doing everything possible to avenge the murder of our comrades by building a mass League in Detroit.

“It seems hard to believe even now that the 2 Joes are gone. Joe Bussell was such a kid–only 16. But one of our best comrades–energetic, always doing something for the League…

“About 4 o’clock, a comrade called up and told us what happened at Ford’s, and that Joe York was shot. About a half hour later, a comrade called the hospital saying Joe York was dead. We knew that four were killed, but we knew only definitely one of them.

“Then somehow, Joe Bussell was missing. The comrades saw him towards the end of the demonstration, with blood streaming from his cheek–but he was in fine spirits. That nite, he didn’t come home. It didn’t enter anyone’s mind that he was dead. We thought he was hurt and probably in the hospital. The next morning S. went to the Morgue, and found him there…

“The comrades here responded immediately. Comrades were fighting for leaflets. All comrades came around to the halls to do whatever they could…

“Many mass meetings have been arranged thruout the whole city in protest. 109 YCL members were recruited at the mass meetings held between Tuesday and Friday of last week

“On Thursday they had a mass meeting at the Davison school, 38 new members recruited. The comrades in North Detroit have been going around the neighborhood with leaflets, from pool to pool room, to playgrounds, club houses, all over, and have recruited close to 100 members in that section alone.

“In Delray, 30 joined the YCL The young workers everywhere are incensed with hatred towards Ford and the police.

“At the Arena Gardens, on Friday nite, not one uniformed cop dared to show his face inside the hall. Joe Bussell’s brother spoke and called upon the workers to organize and avenge the death of the 4 murdered comrades.

“More than 50,000 people came to pay tribute to the fallen comrades in Ferry Hall, where they were lying in state between Thursday and Saturday. There were 16 guards of honor, day and nite.

“The funeral was one that Detroit will never forget. Joe York’s sister and Dad came down to Detroit. I was with Julia (his sister) all day Saturday. She marched along with every one of us. Tried to catch the songs. She is just like Joe–one good comrade.

“Coleman Lens’ brother also joined the League. He, nor Joe’s sister, ever knew about the League before. He was standing as a guard of honor and has pledged to build the Young Communist League in his town, Belleview, a farming center, in honor of his brother, and also to organize the farmers.

“We do not have to argue with comrades to do work, to sell literature, to recruit new members. The task now is to keep it up, and to work with renewed vigor. And we will keep it on.”. -S.K.

TELL STORY OF YORK’S STAY IN CLEVELAND.

CLEVELAND, Ohio (By Mail). Joe York was in this city two weeks before his brutal murder by Ford-Murphy police at the River Rouge plant. He was present at the meeting held here to protest the murder of Harry Simms.

Several anecdotes which shed light on his political development and his deep-rooted working class consciousness have been told here since his death. The Cleveland Y.C.L. members did not know York. They thought he was a young worker who had come into the meeting through curiosity and he was approached several times to join the League. In answer, after listening patiently to their words, he would go over their points one by one and explain to them what had been wrong in their approach, telling them at the same time that he was already a member of the Y.C.L.

When asked by a young woman worker whether he was employed, York answered that he worked at Fisher body, one of the Cleveland plants at which the League here should be concentrating. “Oh, you can’t join!” said the young woman, a new recruit to the League. “The Y.C.L. is only for unemployed young workers.” York spoke to her for a long time, explaining to her that the Young Communist League was an organization of both employed and unemployed young workers in their common fight against capitalism, setting her right on many points on which she was not clear.

500 in Detroit Join Youn Communist League.

MASS RECRUITING ANSWER TO MASS MURDER OF FORD

70,000 Workers at Funeral of Victims of “Bloody Monday” Massacre

BULLETIN. Five hundred members, were recruited for the Young Communist League in Detroit and five hundred for the Communist Party as the wave of mass anger at the bloody massacre last Monday is turning itself into the realization among the young and adult workers of Detroit that their place is with the Young Communist League and the Communist Party in the fight against hunger, terror and boss war.

DETROIT, Mich. As the bodies of York, Bussell, Lenny and Debruske were lowered into their graves, over-looking the scene of the Ford Massacre, 70,000 workers who had followed the funeral to the cemetery pledged themselves to a renewal and a strengthening of their militant activity against the forces which had murdered the 19-year-old Y.C.L. organizer and his three comrades.

“We shall never forget our dead comrades, massacred by Ford on Bloody March 7th, 1932,” read a statement adopted by Ford workers. “We will replace the fallen comrades by thousands and tens of thousands joining the Young Communist League, the Communist Party and the militant unions.”

As the Ford-Murphy government continued their campaign of brutality and terrorism against the unemployed workers, searching workers homes seeking for active workers, and refusing to release the innocent prisoners, a powerful protest against the murderous Ford outrage was being carried on throughout the world. In New York City, thousands of workers gathered outside the offices of the Ford Co., reiterating the demands of the Ford men and protesting the bloody massacre. In the Soviet Union, and throughout the United States, militant protest meetings were held by the Young Communist League, the International Labor Defense and the Communist Party. The Paris Commune demonstrations, March 18th, will witness further mass protest.

The attempt by the Murphy government to whitewash, wholesale, the perpetrators of the massacre, will not be recognized by the thousands of Ford workers who are aware of the real guilt. A mass trial of the murderers, for which a workers’ investigation is being prepared, will be held in Detroit March 24th, and the responsibility will be fixed by the comrades of the dead workers.

In the statement which the Trade Union Unity League has issued concerning the massacre of Joe York the charge is made that the “sole crime of Ford unemployed is refusing to starve.” The T.U.U.L. demands indemnity for the families of the murdered men and compensation for those who were wounded in the massacre. The workers are urged to continue the struggle for relief from starvation and for jobless insurance.

The Young Communist League all over the country is recruiting thousands of young workers to take the place of our fallen comrades in the struggle against hunger, terror and boss war.

Ford Stamps Model ‘V8’ in the Blood of Murdered Workers.

LAST WEEK, Ford announced that he himself had stamped the new “V8.” On Monday, March 7th, he provided the ink for his stamp. Ford dipped his stamp in the blood of the young workers who came to demand jobs and bread, and were murdered by Ford’s machine guns.

Ford stamped No. 1 on the “V8!” The first “V8” left Ford’s hands, a typical FORD PRODUCT complete, marked by the blood and the mangled flesh of his workers.

The well-known Ford speed-up, resulting in deaths at the punch press and other machines no longer served his purpose. The stagger system resulting in death by slow starvation in thousands of Ford families in Detroit, Dearborn was insufficient. His “Trade School”, another source of great profit, which is CHILD SLAVERY (13-year-old boys working at the same jobs as men and receiving half the pay), was too old a wage-cutting method. Ford, ever “up-to-do,” how has a new method–COLD-BLOODED MURDER OF WORKERS WHO REFUSE TO BE GOOD FORD SLAVES ANY LONGER.

Every young worker in the United States knows that this is not exactly a “new” method, but has been used for years throughout the world to suppress the militant workers, kill their leaders, in the fight against the boss lass. The murder by Ford should make it clear to the American ye ang workers that the only thing the rich bosses will give them now is TERROR and MORE HUNGER.

In less than a month four young workers have been Killed in the struggle against hunger. Two of them were ondes ef the Young Communist League. These murders Tre part of the preparedness for the bosses’ war. They want to train our generation of working class youth to be submissive slaves and soldiers for the bosses.

The Ford Hunger March is an example of the fighting spirit of the youth today. The murder are an example of what the boss class has to offer in answer to our fight for the right to exist.

Young Workers! Are we going to bend our heads and accept unemployment and hunger? Are we going to see our generation wiped out by starvation, by boss murder, by boss’ war?

The Ford murder must teach us one thing: There is only one way out for us American young workers. It is in determined struggle against the rich class through ORGANIZATION.

Join the Young Communist League to replace our fallen comrades! Into the fight against HUNGER, TERROR AND BOSSES’ WAR!

Detroit Legue Furthers Work Begun Before Murders.

DETROIT. A letter sent to the Young Worker by Nydia Barke former youth trade union head an now district organizer of the Detroit district of the Young Communis League gives some graphic insight into the events following the murder of the four workers at the River Rouge Ford Plant. Following are some extracts from the letter

Two nights after the massacre Ford young worker got up at mass meeting and said: “I work at Fords. I wonder what Ford would think of me speaking here like this but I don’t care. I know I am going to be laid off and I am going to raise hell before I do.”

Brings 9 Recruits In.

The next day he brought nine you fellows mostly Ford workers to sign them up for membership into the Young Communist League. It is estimated that about 22,000 filed past the bodies of our dead comrades. Many were young workers…

During the time that the bodies were in state, Ludwig Lenny, brother of Colman Lenny joined the League. He is a young farmer and now we are organizing a unit of the YCI. in Belleville, the town nearest the farm. His father has donated a plot of land from his farm to the League in memory of his son and the Ford Hunger March.

Win Schools.

When we were arranging for mass meetings after the Funeral March one of the high-schools refused u the use of its hall. The next day we sent a committee down to the Board of Education. When the head heard who we were he was forced to give us all the school we asked for and in some cases for half the rates, or none at all.

“We are continuing our struggles on the basis of the Hunger March. In N. Detroit the YCL led a demonstration of almost 1000 workers before the Welfare Station at Six Mile Rd. and Davison. We demanded free housing for the 25 workers we had on our list as needing relief and meal tickets equal to one dollar a day redeemable at all restaurants. Our committee was told to come back as the person in charge was out. We received a letter the next day from Ballinger, head of the City Welfare Dep’t, saying he wanted to see our committee Wednesday. We will probably win all or part of our demands.”

The Young Worker was produced by the Young Workers League of America beginning in 1922. The name of the Workers Party youth league followed the name of the adult party, changing to the Young Workers (Communist) League when the Workers Party became the Workers (Communist) Party in 1926. The journal was published monthly in Chicago and continued until 1927. Editors included Oliver Carlson, Martin Abern, Max Schachtman, Nat Kaplan, and Harry Gannes.

PDF of issues: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/youngworker/v10%20n01%20-%2018%20Young%20Worker%201932%20Jan%20June.pdf