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Vol. 72/No. 14      April 7, 2008

 
25, 50 and 75 years ago
 
April 8, 1983
President Ronald Reagan went on television March 23 to propose another massive escalation of military spending. Central to his justification of this arms buildup was the allegation that Soviet military power is now directly challenging what he termed “our vital interests” in Central America and the Caribbean.

Four years ago the people of Nicaragua and Grenada threw out bloody, U.S.-backed dictatorships and established governments that defend the interests of the workers and farmers, not the landlords and capitalists or their Washington allies.

The socialist revolution is advancing in our hemisphere.

That is why Washington must increasingly resort to military power. It is attempting to halt, and eventually turn back, the march of history.  
 
April 7, 1958
The arrest of 35 young men in the Gulf of Mexico on charges of violating the Neutrality Act for embarking on a voyage to Cuba to aid the struggle against dictator Batista speaks louder than all the propaganda issued from Washington.

The Neutrality Act, under which 35 freedom fighters were arrested, has little to do with keeping the U.S. neutral in the Cuban revolt. For the U.S. is not neutral—it supplies economic, financial, and military aid to Batista.

The U.S. labor movement should immediately protest the arrests in Brownsville, Texas, and other parts of the U.S., of Cubans and Americans opposed to Batista. The AFL-CIO should take the lead in demanding that Washington immediately end its policy of propping up Batista and imprisoning his opponents.  
 
April 8, 1933
TAYLORVILLE, Illinois—The trial of the 22 Kincaid miners, charged with murder, is under way in the Christian County Circuit Court. Its sessions occur with a packed hall of miners from all parts of the Illinois coal fields. The first two up for trial, whom the Peabody coal company intends to burn in the electric chair, are Emil Dupire, coal miner, and Mattozzo, chief of police in Kincaid and supporter of the Progressive Miners of America.

The three main witnesses of the state are Peabody men and the evidence consists of contradictory and frame-up material.

We must use all legal means at our disposal, but under and around these necessary defense measures a powerful mass movement of the American workers must be organized to fight for the release of the framed-up Kincaid miners.  
 
 
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