I Saw Mao Tse-tung: A New World Voyage (Delegate's report on the Conference of the Women of Asia, Peking)

=== [PDF page 1] === Page 5 Pally Worker, New York, MonHay, April 17, 19!»0 O’Dwyer Flees From the Truth {Reprinted from late edition of The W'orker) I SAW MAO TSE-TUNG: Prague lo Shanghai A New World Voyage By Michael Singer (Article 1) By Betty Millard The growing threat of fascism in New York City was The Chinese peasants and working people have taken their country into their own challenged Thursday night by some of the most dramatic giant hands. Now, after centuries of feudal corruption, famine, disease, imperialist екand powerful anti-fascist speeches ever heard during a ploitation and war, they have begun to build a new and beautiful thing of their own budget hearing. Certainly there never was a Board of making — the People’s Republic of ^ LILLIAN CATES ROSE RUSSELL Estimate meeting that was exposed as unmercifully as was Mayor O’Dwyer s clique of stooges that night. O’Dwyer wasn’t there to hear it. He had fled the room a few moments before. But the press was there—and not a word of this eventful experience was reported. Throughout the day the hearing, ’'“ ———--------------------------------compared to other years, had been of Education, and you know whom virtually deserted. Police, massed I represent. We have prepared an in unprecedented array to keep out exhaustive analysis of the budget. the hundreds of waiting citizens, But I will not speak on the budget. had carried out their ban order I represent the Teachers Unióig as well. The board deliberately wait a legitimate teachers organization ed until the last parent, educator and there is nothing political about and community spokesman had de me, mv organization, our program, parted. Theri, with a handful of our presentation." people still left, O’Dwyer at 5 p.m. νο·°β rose and she pointed called on the “political” represen- a hnger at the Board— and I Ro tatives, running off the names and n,a, to speak as a spokesman for more than 5,000 of omitting the Communist Party. tile best, the most devoted, the Mrs. Lillian Gates, legislative most conscientious, the most demsecretary of the New York Com ocratic and lovai teachers in Amermunist Party—who was later to jolt the Board in a magnificant speech ica, the teachers Lmon. Borough President Robert Wag —rose to cite the omission. O’Dwy ner Jr. of Manhattan, seemed to er said: “I thought the Teachers nod his head mechanically. Acting Union and United Public Workers board chairman Vincent R. Impel would represent the Communists.” liltri licked his dry lips. REBUFFS REDBAITING DENOUNCES DESPOTISM He had declared — “because “I denounce as despotic and de Philip Murray said so”—that the spicable your attempt to put a two largest city employe organiza j brand, a label upon this organizations were “political parties” and i t‘on hke the Nazis branded the could not be heard during the jews regular budget period set aside for O Dwyer. in doing this. tes rejected i, jumping the gun on the Mundtthe,nay,us redbartmg humor. Ni,on Bill whicf, <loes exaclly lliat. О Dwyer.puekly called on the He is jllmphlg the c,ln OM the Liberal Party to speak first. Dewey-Feinberg Law. He is ¡„mpHaving made the most of his ing the gun on Sen. McCarthy.” byplay with Walter Kirschenbaum, Then, pointing to Deputy Wil the Bronx executive director of the liam Mayor Reid, who seemed to Liberal Party, who shrieked hys shrivel, Mrs. Russell talked of how terically that “I’m more anti-Com- he went to Albany and joined the munist than you4 after O’Dwyer Dewey-Moore Commission to dou said he sounded “like a Commu blecross state aid for schools. nist,” the mayor then rushed ofl. “1 was in Albany. I saw. I And well he might, tor Mrs. Rose know,” she said. “How do you ex Russell, legislative representative pect the teachers and parents to ge of the Teachers Union, in a hard up there and fight when their own hitting, emotion-packed and fact- city sabotages money for schools; loaded address, turned the Board when their own Deputy Mayor ol Estimate into a mass of jittery signs a report along with Repub politicians. licans that there is no money for (The following day—on Fri schools, for salary increases. And day—shê was to break through the Mavor talks about politics; he O'Dwyer’s company-union curtain. dares to talk how he fought the (Continued on Page 8) Despite his every effort to silence her as a teacher spokesman, Mrs. Russell spoke during the period al lotted to teacher organizations and demolished the budget It was a triumph which, coming on top of her preceding days inspiriug speech was to galvanize the entire progressive movement into a new offensive for city pay raises and tlie end of the Mayor’s gag edicts.) i, “I am here uot as a representa tive of anv political party,” she began. The tension was terrific. “I have appeared before the Board for manv Vears, before the Plan ning Commission, before the Board the Congress of American Women, Catholic, the secretary of the China. I recently spent a month in this had the honor of being attacked Union of French Women; and new country. I had the privilege not long ago by the notorious Jeanette* Vermeersch, who lias be iof being present at the birth of House Un-American Committee for come a veritable Jeanne d’Arc in liberty for 475,000,000 people—of its “sinister" activities on behalf of the life of France, leading the French people in a crusade against bearing their shouts of freedom, peace. the war in Viet-Nam. their songs of victory. I saw thou WORLD'S HEROINES There was Rie, the charming, sands of faces radiant with con 1 left Moscow on Nov. 23 on smiling Dutch delegate, a veteran fidence. I saw a people drunk with the Trans-Siberian Railway, along the horrors of Auschwitz, who happiness. with representatives of some dozen leader the fight of the I went to China as a member of other countries, among them Dutch women against the ship a delegation of women of many France, England, Holland, India, ment arms Indonesia. There countries, to attend the Confer- the USSR, Cuba, Algeria, Israel was Olga, the assistant foreign ence of the Women of Asia in and Czechoslovakia. There were Peking. This conference, two years three Frenchwomen; Marie-Claude editor of Pravda, who during the in preparation and the firs* of its Valliant-Couturier, the general sec- war was parachuted down into the kind hi history, was organized by retarv and dynamic heart of the partisan areas and fought together the Women’s International Demo- WIDF, who spent lour years in with them out of the Nazi encircle cratic Federation, that great or- a concentration camp and is a ment. There was Bava, the Mo ganization of 80,000,000 women, deputy in the French Parliament; hammedan from Algeria, and Ting in 59 countries, which, along with Françoise LeClercq, a devout Ling, the famous Chinese poet. There were three Americans— Ada Jackson, Fslanda Robeson and ‘'-"г/л f. And many others. Most of us had just attended the annual meeting of the WIDF Courted, held last year in Moscow. Foreign Briefs Peace Committee Formed in Ireland DUBLIN. — A peace campaign was launched last week at a meeting here. The meeting resolved to oppose “the attempts being made to draw Ireland into war alliances...." Mrs. Hilda Verlin, 37 Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, Ireland, was elected secretary of the peace committee. Soviet Children's Vacation Activities MOSCOW (Telepress). — Concerts, sports, theater festivals and a children’s book week featured the school vacations of Soviet children last week. In the town of Kuibishev, more than 40,000 children par ticipated in children’s exhibitions featuring photography, sculpture, drafting and art. In the Leningrad “House of Pioneers,” a children’s carnival Wits staged where children wore costumes of the favorite literary heroes and heroines. British Co-Op Parley Asks A-Bomb Ban LONDON. — A depiand for outlawing the atomic bomb was supported by the Cooperative Party conference. By a vote of 3,076,000 to 3,348,000 the parley also went on record for a Euro pean peace meeting including the Soviet Union. The decisions were taken despite opposition of the Labor Party leaders of the Coop erative movement. Prosecute 2 French Lawyers PARIS (Telepress). — Two famous French lawyers are being prosecuted here on a flimsy pretext after defending African Demo cratic leaders on an “inciting to riot” charge made by the colonial administration on the Ivory Coast. The two lawyers, Marcel Wil lard and Albert Douzon, Stopped at the African town of Seguela on their way home, and they now face charges of “holding an illegal meeting.” «Г India's Unions Launch Drive for Rights A NEW WORLD What an experience!—to travel by train all the way across this vast heaving new world from Prague to Shanghai, where a new society is being bom-a society without prof iteers, without warmakers, without racists. So immense is this land that from Prague to Shanghai and back we were in the train al together an entire month. It took the train eight days to reach the Chinese border. We crowded to the windows as the train slowly crossed the two barren miles of No-Man’» land, so long an impassable barrier be tween the two countries. It was the famous “back door." And there, suddenly, was China! The curved roofs, the ox-carts, the ancient walls with the new slogans on them, the graceful Chinese characters blending into the snow and the craggy hills with their stunted, twisted pines—we had just left the familiar Siberan log cabins and European faces, and it was as though we had been trans ported a thousand miles in a few minutes. And then the station, and the people—the first of the manv ardent receptions, the women and children smiling, cheering, dressed in what we came to recognize as the Chinese national cosume-padded blue pants and jackets, and a sort of padded ski cap. (Half of them wore gauze masks cover ing their noses and mouths too, as though they were surgeons about to operate; tlris puzzler! us for some days—we saw it every where we went; then we found out the masks served no medical pul pase. They wore them because one of the wonderful new things their victory has brought them is (Continued on Page 8) CALCUTTA (ALN).—The All-India Trades Union Congress has launched a campaign to unite workers “in defense of trade union and democratic rights.” Pointing to what it terms the “fascist repression of the Congress government,” the union body called on labor “to prepare for a countrywide struggle” to achieve eight objectives. Among the demands are unconditional release of all political I FOOD THAT'S ТОГ*... prisoners, reinstatement to his job of every worker jailed with com pensation equivalent to full wages during the detention, full recog ¡ SAMART LUNCHEONETTE I** UNIVKHSITY place nition without restriction of the right to Organy and strike, free (isti» and llth Sts.) dom of the press, freedom of speech, withdrawal of a ban on unions OR 3-8058 in Madras, Andhra, Karnatak, Kerala, Madhyabharat and in the J Phone order* teeicome and United States of Travancore and Cochin, and a lifting of tlie ban a promptly delivered on the Communist Party in Bengal, Madras, Andhra and Karnatak. REGISTER AND ATTEND OASSES ALL THIS WEEK! JEFFERSON SCHOOL 575 SIXTH AVENUE WA 9-1600