25, 50 and 75 Years Ago

April 22, 2019

April 25, 1994

For the first time since World War II, Washington is carrying out direct military intervention in a war in Europe. The bombing of sites near Gorazde, Bosnia, came just weeks after U.S. planes shot down four jets linked to the Serbian regime. These actions can only deepen the war and increase the price in blood the workers and farmers in Bosnia pay. They will also intensify conflicts among the various supposed allies in NATO and outside it.

Contrary to their pretensions, the U.S. rulers have no humanitarian concern whatsoever for the victims of the carnage in the former Yugoslavia. In fact for the last two years the governments of the United States and most European countries have slammed the door in the face of refugees fleeing the slaughter, which has been organized by rival gangs that were part of the former Stalinist regime before the breakup of Yugoslavia.

April 25, 1969

Attorneys for the Ft. Jackson Eight have moved to obtain a writ of habeas corpus to free the imprisoned antiwar GIs. Five of the servicemen have been in the stockade since March 20 and three are under barracks detention. Their sole crime is association with GIs United Against the War in Vietnam and seeking to exercise their constitutional right of free speech.

Jailing of the men and the court-martial threatened against them violates military law as well as their civil rights. The Uniform Code of Military Justice provides for pre-trial confinement only in cases where there is danger the defendant will not appear for trial.

Since the development of the Ft. Jackson GIs United and the Army’s attempt to victimize those associated with it, major national press and television publicity has focused on the still-growing antiwar servicemen’s group.

April 22, 1944

CHICAGO — The first war-time strike authorized by a CIO international union is holding firm in its sixth day here. Some 5,000 workers of Montgomery Ward and Co., one of the world’s two largest mail order firms, are fighting on the picket line to compel the company to renew its contract with CIO United Mail Order, Warehouse and Retail Employes Local 20, following the failure of the War Labor Board to enforce its three month old order against the company.

Only when the workers took matters into their own hands and struck at Ward’s key mail order plant, central warehouse and largest retail outlet store, did the War Labor Board, which moves so quickly and harshly against workers defying its decrees, finally certify the case to the President.

In sharp contract to the speed with which he acts against striking workers, Roosevelt has made no statement.