The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 11, 1924, Page 2

Page Two | } THE DAILY WORKER February 11, 1924 RADICAL NEGRO SEES SANHEDRIN AS EPOCH MAKING Race Congress. Hailed by Fort-Whiteman By LOVETT FORT-WHITEMAN. The Negro has always been per- fectly conscious of the injustices at- tending his social existence in Amer- ican life. And his organizations for eae and safeguarding his civil and political rights are numerous and daily on the increase. This fact that each organization has its dis- tinct methods. and program for at- taining a common goal, thus causing a waste of much vital social energy, has given rise to a desire to make some attempt at a confederation. The Sanhedrin Conference was or- ganized a year ago by Prof. Kelly Miller, of the Department of Mathe- matics in Howard University, Wash- ington, D.C. He is regarded by all Negroes as one of the most eminent scholars of the race. He is best known to the white race by his two books, “Race Adjustment” and “Out of Bondage.” Kelly Miller is en- deavoring by means of the Sanhedrin Conference to bring all Negro organ- izations together on a commow pro- gram of action in the general work of race adjustment in American life. The Sanhedrin Conference begins its sittings Monday noon, Feb. 11, in the auditorium of the Y. M. C. A., Wabash Ave. and 37th St. Its eve- ning sessions, thruout the week, will be held in the auditorium of Wendell Phillips High School, Prairie Ave. and 39th St. Only the evening ses- sions are open to the public. The conference will continue thru the en- tire week, and it goes without saying that it will be epoch-making in its new social attitude and its resultant decisions. There will be several hundred dele- gates, coming from all parts of the country, and representing many or- ganizations. The Workers Party of America is sending’ five delegates, the African Blood Brotherhood is sending two. These two organiza- tions being wholly class conscious shall no doubt find it to their mutual interests to consolidate many times thruout the conference, For Recognition of Soviet Russia! Workers Standard of Living Falls as Rents Rise , . A Sunday Off (Continued from page 1) steadily soaring away above cheir low wages. In the great increase of rents in the last three years the poor have been hit much harder than the rich. The rents of the cheaper apartments have risen much more than the rents of the expensive ones. 300 Per Cent Rent Increase. The rents have increased by leaps and bounds was made clear beyond challenge by the Housing Commis- sion’s survey of the average monthly payments for rooms by workers liv- ing in eight typical city blocks. In the Commission’s preliminary report we find that: “Instance after instance is record- ed where the new tenant pays fifty to 300 per cent increase rental of the old tenants. ler that the old tenants what they have, bad on It is a practice among New York landlords to charge new tenants much more than the old ones. Likewise, Miss Lillie Grant, Act- ing Chairman of the Mayor’s Rent Committee, testified that rents were being increased in Manhattan, Bronx and Brooklyn between 100 and 300 per cent. The huge rent increases shown block by block in the table below are the result of the survey conducted thoes State Housing and Regional inning Commission of the condi- tions prevailing in eight typical city blocks. The Commission emphatically points out that “in reading the rent figures it should be borne in mind that nearly half of the apartments were not heated; in some instances it cost the families an additional $19.00 a month to keep the apart- ments comfortably warm.” Table Showing Hugely Block 1—Cherry, Pike, Monroe, Rutgers. Block 2—28th, 29th Sts., 9th, 10th Aves.. Block 3—66th, 67th Sts., 9th, 10th Aves.. Block 4—66th, 68th Sts., 2d, 3d Aves. Block 5—61st, 62d Sts., Ist, 2d Aves.. Block 6—108d, 104th, Sts., 2d, 3d Aves.. Block 7—~183d, 134th Sts., Lenox, th Aves. . Block 8—Liberty, Glenmore Aves, Thatford, Osborne Sts. ....- eoeceees For the mass of workers the con- Car Crew in 13-Ho Indiana Tractio: ur Shift When n Wreck Killed 19 (Special to The Daily Worker) INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.—The crew of the eastbound Union Traction car which was in the collision at Fortville a week ago today was required to work 18 hours on the day of the accident, it was revealed today. Rollin Flynn, motorman, and Sidney Sawyer, conductor, of the eastbound car are held on a charge of involuntary man- slaughter as the result of the death of 19 persons in the wreck. Under a new schedule adopted by the company, all motormen and conductors on the Anderson division were required to work a 13-hour day alternatively with an eight-hour day. "On the day of the accident, Flynn and Sawyer began their run at 4:30 A. M., it has been learned. They were required to report at the sta- tion at Indianapolis at 4:15 A. M, Both men had been working ap- proximately 12 hours when the ac- cident happened at 4:30 o’clock in the afternoon, Women Are Taboo in Rep. Party Councils, Says Mrs. McBride (Special to The Daily Worker) CLEVELAND, Ohio.—That the Re- publican party bosses do not care a rap for the opinions of the women whose support they seek in drumming up votes for them was the charge made by Mrs. McBride is a fiery speech to a meeting of the Republi- can Women’s council. The occasion for the outburst was a “pep” meeting called to jazz up the waning enthusiasm of the women. Mrs. McBride resented the lack of consideration shown the women who do the hard work. She said she was thru with partisan organizations and wasting her time supplying the mantle of feminine delicacy to the putrid cesspool of republican party politics, Mrs, Nettie Clapp, another mem- ber of the committee said the best policy was to play with the men and work into gradually into the inner circles, and not seek to burst in sud- denly into their political sanctums. Intelligent women are beginning to | rebel against being compelled to play the part of hewers of wood and draw- ers of water in the politicac] camps of New Culture to Come from Russia, Declares Composer (Special to The Daily Worker) CLEVELAND, Ohio.—The great art of the future will come from the east, said Ernst Von Dohnanyi, pian- ist, composer and conductor of the Philharmatie orchestra of Budapest, as he wrested with a menu that con- taned the names of innumberable pies, from which he was trying to select one for dessert. “And by the east I don’t mean Japan—bring me a cherry tart—I mean Russia,” went on the famous conductor between frowns and ges- tures of exasperation as he looked in vain for a_ strawberry shortcake. “Russia is a country that has not yet had its say. It has had its culture, but it was a European culture im- posed from the top as a thin veneer, true culture must grow out of the hearts of the people.” A capitalist reporter asked Mr. Dohnanyi, what he thought of Amer- ican women. This stupid question almost threw his temperament out of gear but he rallied nobly and said that he had not yet got into the heart of America and therefore could not speak with authority. the capitalist parties. WEATHER FOR THE WEEK | WASHINGTON, D. C., Feb. 10, Weather outlook for period February 11 to 16 inclusive: | Region Great Lakes: Considerable cloudiness, probably occasional snows over north and rains or snows over south portion. Frequent alterations in temperature. smaller rooms, and when I lived before I was there for nine years, and that house when I came in I paid $15, and the $15 he raised me $17. After he raised me to $19. and then sold the house maybe for $15,000. That house, old tenants Increased Rents in Blocks Largely Inhabited by Workers Average monthly Percentage rent increase 1920 1923 $18.63 $19.06 40 + 15.70 22.81 45 - 17.12 24.24 42 + 19.85 28.63 47 « 12.66 18.98 50 +» 15.09 21.41 42 21.97 37.70 12 sadagees store 208 29.39 8698 was in there; they paid only $13. ditions are much worse than the abovo table would tend to indicate. These blocks are typical and not merely the blocks occupied by the poor people. Besides, the figures cited here do not include the money many workers’ families are com- pelled to spend for repairs in order to be able to stay in their homes, “A Bunch of Bolsheviks.” How the workers react to this high tribute levied on them by their land- lords for the right to live in abom- inable houses and what it means to their lives ee well represented in the following instances: Pi must pay $35 now for three ) Now they pay $60, and the land- lord—maybe tenants he don’t want to give so much raise. He bring me $17, After he raised me to $19, bring others half a dozgn times. Leave it to the Magistrates’ Courts to come down there with @ summation in the neighborhood. We have this movement few years ago, and I think all the people we know are mentioned by the Bronx League three years ago. We was all a bunch of Bolsheviks. Now I would think everybody start to be a Bolshevik, because Bolshevik mean honest people. Bolshevik don’t mean phckuwie® / Communists the Issue. SYDNEY, N. S. W.—The annual lconference of the Australian Labor | standstill. party will meet at Sydney during Easter week of 1924. The biggest question to be decided is whether the motion carried at last conference to admit Communists to the Labor party will be ratified, Get unity thru the Labor Party! This was the way Pancrazio Gen- onese spoke before State Industrial Commissioner Bernard L. Shientag at the hearings of the Housing Com- mission, Children Overworked and Underfed. After visiting the home of Mr. Gerson, a father of six children and employed at sewing burlap bags, at —— East 113th St., I was given the following shocking picture of the housing crisis: “We have five rooms We don’t get our years we live raised us rent from $19 to $60, I cannot move. There are no rooms here in the neighborhood and new tenants pay more anyhow, My two girls, work and I to pay landlord every month or we get put out on the sidewalk. We keep a boarder and have my son work after school and in night so we can send him thru high school, We are all very stingy with our, eats, even the two youngest, Mo.lie and Sam, 80 we can pay rent regular and have clean house and so have my daughters have company come up to the home. It’s very hard for us and we are crowded, but what can I do,” The findings of the State Com- mission abound with examples of such and much worse hardships being inflicted on the worker’s family by dhe terrific rent bills that must be met regularly, Negroes Victimized, That particularly, high rents were being imposed on the Ni that colored families suffered consid- from the exorbitant rentals ‘were revealed in testimony before the + here. of the mo regular. Three ere and the landlord foamed ope i 900,000 WORKERS LAST DECEMBER Railroads, Mines, Fac- tories, Slowing Down Over half a million workers were laid off by American employers dur- ing the last six months of 1923, according to figures in the Decem- ber employment report of the United States bureau of labor statistics, Railroad lay offs totaling 73,960 and tens of thousands of miners idle in Tilinois and Indiana brings the number turned off by industry above the half million mark without any attempt to include farm workers and men engaged in highway construc- tion who ‘have been laid off since the summer months, Still Better Than Last Year. Compared with December, 1922, employment is 3.1 per cent higher. Very material decreases in nearly all branches of textile and clothing man- ufacture as well as in the manufac- ture of boots and shoes, railroad equipment and auto tires are more than balanced by increased employ- ment in the food, iron and steel, lumber, automobile and electrical in- dustries, In addition to the decrease in num- ber employed betweer November and December the percentage of full time operation fell 4 per cent. In December 23 per cent of the es- tablishments reported part time oper- ation and 2 per cent were entirely closed down, Approximately one- third of the establishments report- ing full time operation were operat- ing below capacity. Less than ca- pacity operation was especially characteristic of the steel industry in which only 57 per cent of the | establishments were operating full | time and only a third of these re- | Ported that they were utilizing their entire capacity. Wage Increases Cease. The development of unemployment has brought wage increases to a The report shows that | during the preceding 11 months 4,373 Wage increases were recorded. In May the peak of wage increases was reached with a total gf 1,279 re- BOSSES L A Y0 FF Famous Criminal’s Wanane South Inflames Mi nneapolis Populace (Special By “B to The ILL” SANDBERG. Daily Worker) MINNEAPOLIS, Minn., Feb. 10.—Straying down Fourth DOUGLASS, NEGRO LEADER AGAINS T : SLAVERY, LAUDED Speakers “Honor Great Street, the DAILY WORKER special correspondent spied a crowd of men and women in front of a book store, jesticulating and peering in thru the window. Curious to know'the cause of the commotion, the reporter skirted around the young, but | Ported during the month. By No- | vember the number of increases had fallen to 118 while in Decefber only 21 were reported, And during De- ">, State Commissioner, Mr. Frederick Q. Morton, Municipal Givil Service Commissioner, declared; bY “There are in Harlem 200,000 Negroes. residents of the community are lodg- ers. This in itself constitutes a great menace to public morals and also wives deepest concern to the thoughtful leaders of my race as to the welfare of our coming generations in this city, ‘ “The average respectable Harlem family cannot, without taking lode: ers, pay rent in Harlem. Rentals average from $12 to $14 a room and in some instances go as high as $18 and $20. The monthly income of the average Harlem family of good standing is about $125. It is obvious that the great need of our commun- ity, therefore, is small apartments which could be procured at rentals commensurate with the average in- come of the ordinary family. . . . “In many cases, colored tenants pay double, or nearly double the rents paid by the last white tenants of ase vacated by white tenants. “Banks and other dnssclat institu- tions controlling real estate capital have always discriminted against Negro property. It is a fact that when an owner of Negro property desires to refinance it must pay exorbitant bonuses and rarely ever obtains new capital from the large financial institutions controlling such capital.” And Mrs, Eddie Aspinwall told of a house on West 140th St. where a Negro occupant paid $70 for a four- ec railroad flat having no improve- lents and thaving no light for four weeks, The tenant was compelled to give $15 for an electricity installment deposit, This apartment once rented for $25. The white tenants had been paying $22 and $24. Mr. Aspinall then went on: “T can take you to a schoolin the winter time where the tay ae no more soles on the bottom of th feet than if they hadn't anyt! cause the parents have to spi to pay the landlo: are more afraid than the Fifteenth No Man's Land, where th fighting, standing behind the machine guns.” To find N children u | sometimes with no undercloth RENTS NOW 80 PER ¢ HIGHER THAR BEFORE WAR IN HEW YORK (Special to The Daily W. NEW YORK.—Rents are cent higher then before the says a statement issued by National Industrial Boa: During f the ' steadily growing crowd, all set for a revelation. An excited voice from near the window could be heard piping, “And he beat it—Can ought to be hamstrung,” ‘grunt- ed a husky voice. “Yes, lynched,” supported another, evidently a kluxer. The straying reporter was at a loss. If the Bolshevik proprieter of the book store, who many times in the capitalist press has been reputed to be a nuisance, had closed up shop and beat it, it would to the hundred per| centers be good riddance; and tne straying reporter could not fathom this inordinate desire to hamstring and lynch, Just then a “Hay Seed” in Uncle Sam’s whiskers and high boots, chuckled, “He should be sentenced to Colored American you beat it—He beat it.” “He a farm for the rest of his life,” and The memory of Frederick Douglass, the great Negro abolitionist, was honored at a big mass meeting in then gloated in the sweetness of the thought of revenge. To the wondering reporter the |mystery was becoming more myster- |ious—and he would have died with a wondering mind had not the man with the piping voice come to his lreseue, by nabbing him by the elhow an pointing to a Feb. 7th issue of the DAILY WORKER and calling atten- tion to Attorney General Daugherty’s picture—then piped again—‘He beat it—can you beat it—he heat it.” Needless to say the straying re-! porter has smilingly strayed all over the village with the strange news. cember 17 establishments reported that wage rates were decreased. More employes were affected by. the decrease than by the increases. — Average weekly earnings during December amounted to $26.73 or ap- proximately 7.3 per cent higher than in December a year ago, Drive for Movie Machine. BROOKLYN, N. Y.—The Boro Park group, who recently changed their name to the “Lenin Group”, will start the drive for a motion pic- ture machine with an entertainment and dance Friday evening, Feb. 15th, at the Finnish Hall, 764 40th St., Brooklyn. A program arranged by the Juniors shows that the Young Workers League, when organizing the child- ren on the basis of self-activity, has not been building castles in the air as some comrades held. Appeasing the Jobless BERLIN—About 60 per cent of the industrial workers registered in the Ruhr district are unemployed. Emergency work is being undertaken by the government, costing 250,000 gold marks per day, to avoid com- plete idleness and militant action on the part of those unemployed. How many new readers have you secured for THE DAILY WORKER? Workers’ Income Very Low. No analysis of the housing crisis can be complete unless the income of the tenants as wel! as the rent they pay is considered. No housing condi- tions can be satisfactory, even ir the apartments are habitable, uz!ess there are rooms available at the ren- tals which the working masses can afford to pay. Turning to the latest, 1920, figures on the estimated distribution of fam- ilies in the sundry income groups of New York State we find the follow- ing startling disclosures about the Poverty of the famiies of the work- ers in the wealthiest state, in the Empire State of the Union, brought forward in the Report of the State Housing Commission: About three-fourth (73.4 per cent) of the families in New York State have annual incomes of less than 500, Only about one-fifth (22.1) of the New York State families have a total income of $2,500 to $6,000 a year, Less than oneatenth of the families of New York State have annual in- comes in excess of $5,000. In New York City more than two- thirds of the families receive total incomes of less than $2,500 a year; about one-fourth have annual income; between $2,500 and $5,000; and less than one out of every ven families be an annual income of more than wena ian nah Under these circums it is obvious that the Tigh, Seeatios a staggering burden to the great mass i Bankers Would Float Immense Loan to Mexico (By The Federated Press.) MEXICO CITY.—American bank- ers are negotiating for a possible, Wendell Phillips High School, last night, under the auspices of the Liberal Culture Society. “A great American,” was Robert Minor’s characterization of the col- ored libertarian, Minor dealt at length with the numerous Negro slave uprisings prior to the rise of Frederick Douglass and pointed out with great clarity the economic roots of the slave system and the class re- lationships which gave rise to race hatred in American life. He con- tinued with a scientific analysis of the social forces of the future which alone will give the Negro race its new emancipation, Lovett Fort-Whiteman spoke on the “Aim and Purpose” of the Liberal Culture Society. He gave a clear description of the economic condition of the Negro in America and logically discussed the impossibility of any great Negro cultural achievement within the present social order. loan of 200,000,000 pesos ($10,000,-' ‘There is no racial group in Ameri- 000) to Mexico. J. M. Buckner and ‘can life,” said Fort-Whiteman, ‘“bet- Franklin Helm have been hanging ter endowed by nature to give Amer- around the Hotel Regis here for over ica a distinct music, art and poetry a qweek, refusing to make any state-!than the Negro race. is imagina- ment whatsoever, but it is gradually |tion is rich and colorful; his feeling leaking out that, they are here with/deep and universal, The Negro is {the knowledge of the U. S. state de-/ spiritual, as his love for religion at- partment to negotiate a loan, that the amount has been fixed and the conditions of guarantee fairly well settled. It appears that they wish to make the first delivery in arms and am- munition, the figure being fixed at some 100,000 rifles and the corre- sponding ammunition to cost about 5,000,000 pesos, This is to be fol- lowed with a second delivery of 45,- 000,009 pesos to make up the first quarter of the total loan. The final |agreement has not yet been arrived at. Missing—Dead Two Weeks OXFORD, Mich., Feb. 10.—Oscar Ley, 58, and his wife, 55, who had not been seen for nearly two weeks, were found dead in bed in their home here today. of New York workers. All budget studies made to date establish the fact that the smaiier the income and tests. Yet at present the Negro is giving almost nothing to the art life of America. And why? Because the present sociological and economic condition of the Negro is direfully miserable. His best energies must go to maintain his head above water. The higher artistic expression of the Negro cannot be achieved in the pres- ent capitalist society. The Liberal Culture Society is en- deavoring to promote a proletarian culture among Negroes. There was an excellent musical program, by eminent Negro artists, Watch the “Daily Worker” for the first installment of “A Week,” the great epic of the Russian revolution, by the brilliant young Russian writer, lury Libedinsky. It will start soon. * The Worst Victims Are the Negroes cccupation, whose weekly wage is $27 to $30 and who must often pay Pls *"eTan hamsee: Soe ten tobasharcn ie mes for en in the Chelsea, South Street, Red Hook and Bush Terminal districts have no modern conveniences, The tenants must paint the places them- selves and clean the halls,” Ryan fur- their testified, Tenement Babies Work for Fifth Avenue. The high rents have also greatly increased the number of children forced to work in the homes of the poor. In the survey of 2,000 work- ing class families made by George A. Hall, of the New York State Child Welfare Commission, it was found that economic pressure compelled tenement babies to work for Fifth Avenue trade. Seventy-nine cent of the children thus pe lg were under fourteen, Thirty-five per cent were under ten years of age, Describing this desperate ecomonic want that prevails among the fami- lies of the workers in Harlem district, Miss Margaret M,. Mc- Groarty, a school teacher, called this section “the forsaken spot” and went on to tell of this heart-rending con- dition: “Children as young as three were Wrens tickets tn ch flowers. i eir tiny fingers appl; paste to the bowl of the aaien ae that the mother or the older sister may apply the petals, “The wages are déplorable, Crochet dresses which sell for $49.50 are fin- ished for $1, Conditions in East Harlem are simply appalling. Per- sonal articles of ap are made in the smaller the family, the larger j the proportion used for rent... ‘The Proportion decreases rather rapidly as the income becomes more ade- quate,” Thus the Housing Commission found in its survey of 3,841 families in New York State (1923) that fami- lies having an annual income of less than one sand dollars spent 28.4 per cent of their total earni: for rent; those having $1,000-$1,500 every year spent only 15.4 per cent for rent. Assuming even that the ave worl class family spends on! about 20 per cent of its total annual income for rent we find that about sevent; pre cent of the families in New York City and about seventy-five whose income was $2,500 or mom spent 23.0 per cent for rent; those per cent in New York State cannot afford to rent apartments costing more than $500 a year. Consequently the fami.ies of the workers are the hardest hit by the enormous rise in rent. How Longshoremen Suffer. What agony and suffering these high, unbearable rénts bring to the workers of New York cannot be measuresd adequately in dollars and cents. Speaking for the 80,000 longshore- men in oe a New be otf cy President . Ryan, 0: inter- mii words on the troubles of : ers engaged in this extra- homes where disease is prevalent. The children come home from school, don’t wash their hands but right to work during the noon intermis- sion, and eat when they can.” Rents Drive Poor Insane. The Homodeng: Pipe of the extreme they have to rd ve doesn’t stop at child labor and a fms eral lower standard of living, In- Sanity and death also claim the pov- erty-stricken worker com, to pay ® rental beyond his means for a spond that is Lert ere ag tere Ine woman e how her husband was core insane nf beat ee neeyye B in ‘rents, ince landlords raised the rent of his little Hs Finally, Mrs, As State investigators o: