The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 3, 1925, Page 14

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—— ns ge gg equa renee —- eee quepenrer- Se ere Seren gee yee eee eae ,120,000 for our entire press, Ya ee © coe w pep += gn Organization of Worker Correspondents: By A. G. BOSSE. That the building up of a mass daily newspaper depends upon the development of hundreds of workers correspondents is now well recogniz- ed.. The role they played in the growth of Pravda is also well known. The Workers’ Weekly, the organ of the British C. P., is being built up. upon this basis. . When a party of 5,000 can gain for their paper a circula- tion of"40,000-50,000, they are sinking their roots deep into the masses. We in the U. S. have a circulation of in all languages, daily and weekly, which is not bad for a membership of. 20,- , 000. “Nevertheless, we must recognize * that our English daily, the DAILY WORKER, is not a mass paper. And we must set about making it. such. This is largely an organizational prob- lem. Lenin Points the. Way. Lenin (“How are our newspapers to be made into real organs of the labor movement?”) showed how incapable a staff of “professional” ‘editors and reporters was of making a paper ‘tawaken to real life or capacity for continued life” unless the five or six onthe staff were supplemented by from 500 to 5,000 workers’ correspond- ents. -Gomrade Dunne’s report to the party. eonvention on the DAILY WORKER: igs} very encouraging in this respect.. Wé now have 75-85. worker correspondents contributing to the paper, a fine proportion of whom (one- third) are non-party members. Next year the prospects are that two or three hundred, if not more, will be in the movement, according to Com- rade Dunne. The following is a suggestion as to how comrades can go about organ- izing themselves so as to cover the city. They can form a class or club to meet weekly, led by the DAILY WORKER reporter for that city, or some other capable comrade. The best basis for discussion would be Comrade Dunne’s pamphlet in the Lit- tle Red Library, No. 4, \ “Workers’ Correspondents,” which gives the news field to be covered, the ways of writing up different kinds of material (journalistic technic), the aims of such work, and ways of building the membership and influence of the party. At the beginning, written work for every session, mutual criticism and” comment, assigned topics— in short, cénstant praetieal training. for; ‘each member, father than dlemongtra- tions ofslow to bk “by the class leader. After some® of the * prelimaliniiies have been covered, the class can re- organize as a staff of “reporters:” One can remain at the local headquarters each evening, working on his assign- ment, and: at the same time, he can take care of all possible news items that come in. Since at the beginning it «will be impossible for the local workers’ correspondents to *cover all the meetings of unions, fraternal or- ganizations, strike committees, cen- tral labor bodies, etc., this first group will have to cover as many of these meetings as practicable. Later, every effort should be made to get a cor- respondent in every important local union, etc., so that as much of the city will be covered as possible. These workers might attend the \class, or Worker Correspondents --- Their Function and Importance ine class: messés to the Communist press, ‘and hence, to the Communist leadership. The Worker Correspond- ents blow the hot breath of the class struggle into the pages of the Com- munist press.’ It i8 the stories of the Worker Correspondents which stir ever large masses to contemplate the causes of the subjection to the cap- italist system under which they work and live. The Worker Correspondent is the voice of the working class, ana the purifier of the Communist move- ment. Lenin, in his fight on the “econ- omists” who at the beginning of the twentieth century made thejr last stand against the agitation among the workers for the dictatorship of the proletarigt centered his organization saround. ‘the newspaper Iskra, In °1900-1901, when the mass demonstra- “tiens were beginning which ushered Ym the 1905 revolution, and proved .falseebeyond a doubt the position of the economists that the workers must be told to fight merely for immediate economic demands, Lenin used the letters of the workers to Iskra as a weapon against the “economists”, “In the literary sources on the history of the workers’ movement, one comes across fragments from ‘letters By KARL REEVE. Ts Worker Correspondents are the steel rods which bind the work- to the editor’ which the workers of those days sent to the illegal papers. .. Comrade Lenin and his group treas- ured these letters that they procured like gold,” Comrade Zinoviev tells. us in his History of the Russian Com- munist Party. “And Lenin printed them in the course of the struggle against the ‘economists’ in proof of their contention that it was not wage increases alone the advanced work- ers desired, but that they were con- scious that they had to go out in the streets to get hold of guns, and battle with the czar’s police. MRADE Lenin, thru the letters of the Worker Correspondents of. that day, felt the pulse of the move- ment of the working class toward revolution. He printed these letters from the workers in the Iskra, con- sidering them valuable contributions in the fight against the opportunist The Worker “economists”, Corre- spondents became a weapon against those who thot to revise Marxism, by thwarting the determination of the militant workers to sieze the | state The — Workers. (Comminist) Party and the DAILY WORKER can call upon its corps of Worker Correspond- ents as a potent aid in the re-organiza- tion on the basis of shop nuclei, and the building up of a_ Bolshevized party after the re-organization. The members of the shop nuclei, have already found-in New York and else- where, that interesting their shop- mates in the DAILY WORKER, in- viting them to write up their. exper- iences in the class struggle for the paper, is ‘one of the best possible means of bringing fresh proletarian elements into our party. — -; The Worker Correspondent is a safeguard against the lies and treach- eries of the bureaucratic union offi- cials. The worker correspondent is a.rank and filer. His stories have nothing in common with the poison- ous propaganda against the Com- munists regularly: peddled by the reactionary union officialdom. URING the course of the press- “men’s strike of locals No. 3.and 4, against the Cuneo company, which was aided by “Major” George Berry, president of the International Press- men’s union, the DAILY WORKER led, and is leading, the fight against the: scabbery ‘of Berry. ‘The stories exposing Berry's strikebreaking ac- tivity jn cooperation with the printing corporation, were supplied’ to the DAILY WORKER by the striking pressmen themselves. So that when the Pressfeeders Franklin Union, number 4, received the infamous letter broadcast over the country by John Fitzpatrick, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, which slandered the Com- munists in the manner of a Burns’ stoolpigeon, the pressmen rejected this letter in the most militant terms. Fitzpatrick urged the unions to attack the Communists, to . outlaw them. But the pressmen knew of the activities of the DAILY WORKER and the Workers Party on their behalf in their strike. They knew that the Communist press is against the “open shop” drive of the bosses and against’ the treachery of the union officialdom. They knew that their experiences meet tastes ates adhe nmemse naan the comrade at the headquarters each evening could go over the articles with them, and help get the material in shape. Those whe have benefited by this training can be assigned to edit or assist in editing the factory newspaper which every large shop nucleus will issue when the party re- organization is well on the way. Each Worker Can Help, If it is* impossible to have a mem- ber of the class at the party office each evening, this might be managed for a certain number of evenings each week, Hf that cannot be done, a bul- letin board can be put up and’ all comrades coming in can jot down on a slip.of paper a notice of important meetings to be. written up, and from the notices, the, correspondents can choose those to be covered. Mean- while. they .can look. for a capable member of the. local union (or which-: ever other body ‘it is) and have him, jtake ¢are.for the DAILY WORKER of thé worth-while news of the union; shop, etc. One of the best ways to build the shop nucleus or factory com- mittee is to get a good worker corre- spondent on the job there, who will tell what his fellow workers are think- ing and doing about working conditi- ons (grievances, wages, hours, speed- ing-up, accidents) and the like. Then special sale and sub-drives can be made on these bodies to get readers, subscribers, and party mem- bers. Every local union, every strike, every important meeting of workers can be utilized in this way. The city DAILY WORKER agent will co-oper- ate to the utmost with this work, and his office can be made a miniature editorial office of the paper for his lo- eality. their very life’s blood, was — written into the accounts of the strike printed in. the DAILY WORKER and they rejected Fitzpatrick’s lying attacks. In the same manner dozens of local ‘unions’ thruout the country have taken similar action, just as the machinists” locals rejected “B. and O.” Bill Johnston’s attack on the Com- munists ‘afid refused to expel them at this class coHaborator’s orders. LONG with the building up of strong shop nuclei, goes the en- larging of the corps of Worker Corre- spondent. Workers who do not be- long to the Workers Party, thru read- ing and writing stories of their particnlar struggle against the bosses are drawn into close contact with the Communist press and the Communist movement. In this way they are made, to understand -the relation of their’ fight to the class struggle as a whole, and are gradually miade familiar with the Communist program. The corps of Worker Correspond- ents can be enlarged by developing the self confidence of the workers, by showing them that their everyday. este et ANE If the Chicago office prints « form card, saying that e contribution will be published in such and'such an is sue, filling in only the date, and mafl- ing it a day or so before, the local correspondent can be ready with a sufficient number of coples for his shop, union, strike meeting, etc. If in Chicago they are overwhelmed with correspondence, the Chicago corps of correspondents can always help out with editing, copyreading, summariz- ing, assorting, ete, The above are just a few sugges tions, which can be adapted or modi- fied according to local facilities. If other comrades who are thinking « along the same lines will write in to the DAILY WORKER their problems, suggested solutions, new devices, and successful methods in organizing this work,ywe shall have not only our two or three hundred worker correspond- _ ents by.next year, but, we’ shall have buriedour news~-nioae deep in the Thassés-in a ‘truly evelutionary, es ner. NOTE: Regarding Comrade Bosse’s suggestion that The DAILY -WORK- ER print a form card giving the date when the Worker Correspond- ent’s story appears that he may or- der a sufficient number for his shop, the DAILY WORKER business office has already provided special Work- ers’ Correspondence Paper which may be secured upon request. The form attached to the bottom of this copy paper should be filled out giving the number of DAILY WORKERS the correspondent can use. This saves time and makes unnecessary the printing of sueh a card as suggested in. the above article. struggles are important bits of history in the class war. The fact that a worker functions: for the: Gommpnist press: brings out his confidence in himself as a worker, showing h the importance of that “historically rising class.” The Worker Correspondent is the backbone of the Communist press and the number of Worker Correspond- ents is a measure of the extent to which the Communist press is reach- ing the masses. RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN PERFORMANCE & DANCE SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11 The Russian ahd Ukrainian branches of the Workers Party have arranged jointly a perform- ance and dance for Sunday, Oct. 11, at Emmett Memorial Hall, cor- ner Ogden and Taylor. All friendly organizations are re- quested to keep this date open and not to arrange other affairs. BUY YOUR BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, COMMUNIST. MAGAZINES AND PAPERS from the City Literatare Department So. Lincoln Street Chicago, Illinois Open from 9 a. m, to 7:30 p. m. every day except Sunday. WANTED! A Few Copies of TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD by d6hn Reed. WORKERS PARTY GITY LITERATURE DEPARTMENT 19 So. Lincoln Street Chicago, Ilinois salaaatacagin =

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