The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 9, 1926, Page 8

By C. E. RUTHENBERG, General Secretary Workers Party. HE DAILY WORKER should be a tower of strength for our Party. The Party has not, however, taken full advantage of the services which THE DAILY WORKER can render in the building up of a Communist move- ment in the United States. We have created a weapon which has the potentialities for greatly strengthening us in our struggles against our enemies but after creating his weapon we did not take the neces- sorv action to bring it into full play. The. DAILY WORKER can render services to the Party in two fields but in both of these we are not using The DAILY WORKER to the full extent of its possibility. Consolidation of the Party. HE DAILY WORKER is the me- dium thru which the Party mem- bers can be mobilized for the cam- paigns which the Party initiates. Be- fore the Party established THE DAI- LY WORKER, it was dependent upon circular letters and upon a weekly pa- per to inform the membership of the Party in regard to the work the Party was undertaking and to mobilize these members for the Party campaigns. Thru THE DAILY WORKER the Party has the means of speaking to its members daily. It is the means of quick mobilization of the Party for struggles arising out of the class struggle. The Party does not have to wait for weeks in order to reach its members with the message it has to deliver in regard to work the Party has undertaken. It can speak to its members from day to day and inform them in regard to the events which are taking place and arouse them to action On those issues the Party bas- es its campaigns among the workers. AKLATVALA is excluded from the United States, and the day this occurs the Party is able, thru The DAILY WORKER, to inform all its members of the necessity of under- taking a campaign against the exclu- “sion of Saklatvala. The Party can «sd@ivect; its.:members m the trade unions to immediately take up the issue and introduce resolutions on the question, Our whole organization can be mobil- ized for action. This is an example of the services TheeDAILY WORKER rendered the Party in the work of mobilizing the Party membership. Events such as the exclusion of Saklatvala are recur- ring constantly and in all of these the Party, thru The DAILY WORKER, ‘informs the membership of the line of action to be taken and mobilize them for the work outlined by the leading committee of the Party, Compared to the former method of sending circular letters to branches which meet only each two weeks or by reaching the members thru a week- ly newspaper, the Party, thru the es- tablishment of The DAILY WORKER, took a great step forward, O long, however, as only a small proportion of the membership of the Party are readers of The DAILY WORKER, it cannot fulfill its role as the instrument for consolidation of our forces and for quick mo- bilization in the day to day strug- gles aiding in the fight against the capitalist class and the capitalist state. If only one out of every five members of the Party reads The DAILY WORKER, then it can mobil- ize only a fifth of our Party. To make The DAILY WORKER really give full service to the Party in this respect we must carry on a campaign to make every party members a reader of The DAILY WORKER. That is one goal in the campaign which The DAILY WORKER is undertaking. The achievement of that goal means not only a great strenghtening of The DAILY WORKER, but it means a great strengthening of the Party. If, as.the events of the class strug- gle of this country arise, the central executive committee of the Party has the possibility of immediately speak- ing to every member of the Party, outlining the Party attitude, giving the direction the activities shall take, then indeed there is the possibility of our Party being a monolithic organ- ization which responds as one unit to the events of the class struggle. The Daily Worker and the vow ooo The-Dawes Plan — oat vote | If the day after such an event as the exclusion of Saklatvala, or the delivery of the president’s message to congress, 20,000 members of our Party in the shops, in the trade un- ions, in the workers’ fraternal organ- izations, all took the same attitude, began work to carry into effect cer- tain policies, then indeed our power of influencing the working masses of this country would be greatly enhanc- ed. Even with our small Party of 20,000 members we would have the power to mobilize great masses of workers in support of our views and our campaigns of action against the capitalist class and the capitalist state. A great step will have been taken in the direction if every Party mem- ber becomes a subscriber of The DAILY WORKER and each day learns what the Party has to say in regard to the events of the class struggle and is quickly informed in regard to the action undertaken by the Party. Mobilization of the Masses. UR paper, howeyer, cannot be only ‘ a Party organ for the mobilization of the Party members, It must be a medium of the Party to directly influence the working masses of this country. At the pres- ent time we are interpreting the days’ news for only some 15,000 readers of The DAILY WORKER. We are speak- ing to 15,000 out of the twenty-five million workers in the United States. Yes, we have on the rolls of our Party at least 20,000 members. Cer- tainly 20,000 Communists should be able to spread their daily voice re- presented by The DAILY WORKER among more than 15,000 workers, To- day The DAILY WORKER may carry the most interesting news, as for in- stance, the story of how China is be- ing raped, which was published a few days ago, it may carry the most inter- esting analysis of current events and propose the most effective plans of action by the workers against their exploiters, but only 15,000 workers | 000 is too small a proportion for The DAILY WORKER to really be a pow- erful influence on the American work- ing class, The DAILY WORKER is not the effective influence which it should be because our Party has not made it so. The Party has the possibility of broadening the influence of The DAILY WORKER. With 20,000 members to do the work, the achievement of a circulation of 50,000 for The DAILY WORKER is well within our reach. The Subscription Campaign. HE subscription campaign for The DAILY WORKER in which the Party is being mobilized at the pres- ent time is the first step toward achieving this double goal—the mobi- lization of the Party to make The DAILY WORKER the means of mobi- lizing the Party for action and of in- fluencing broad masses of workers along the line of the Party policy. The Party must take up the sub- scription campaign in earnest. It must at last mobilize its strength not mere- ly to raise the money necessary to save The DAILY WORKER for our movement as we did during the past month, but to make The DAILY WORKER an effective servant of our movement. We must throw our strength as a unit into the work of first making every member of the Party a reader and. subscriber for The DAILY WORK- ER and then to increase the influence of The DAILY WORKER to at least three times the membership of the Party. This means to secure 50,000 subscribers for The DAILY WORK- ER. That means only that in addition to every Party member being a, reader and subscriber for The DAILY WORK- ER, that each Party member must secure two additional subscribers. The immediate goal which The DAILY WORKER has set for its cam- paign to add 5,000 new_readers, thus increasing its circulation to 20,000. will read the news articles, editorials}The achievement of this goal, how- and program. 15,000 out of 25,000,-|ever, should only be the beginning. LO LLL LL LLL LLL LLL LLL LLL LL LLL LLL LLL CT LL We must continue the campaign for The DAILY WORKER in the form of mobilizing our Party to secure sub- scriptions until we double and trible the immediate goal we have set for ourselves, : The Party has shown in the sup- port it has given The DAILY WORK- ER financially that it realizes the im- portance of a daily newspaper to our movement. Important as was the campaign for money to save The DAILY WORKER, the campaign for subscriptions which is now being opened is even more important. Of what value is it to us to have a DAILY WORKER unless we make it serve our movement to the full extent of its possibilities. The DAILY WORKER is only worth saving if we can make use of its full possibilities for the upbuilding of the Party and the Communist movement. That can only be done if we broaden the number of its readers. By doing that we will make The DAILY WORK- ER serve the Party and will make secure The DAILY WORKER for the Party. RWARD, all together, for 5,000 new subscribers before the end of January, Then for the next step forward, a continuous mobilization of the Party until we drive the subscription list up to 50,000. f The way to celebrate the second - anniversary of The DAILY WORKER by making it a more powerful weapon of the Communist movement. It should be within the reach of our Party, if we mobilize our strength for this work, to increase the 15,000 readers to 50,000 readers, Even then we would be reaching only a very small part of the working class of this country but we would have made a big step forward from the present situation. If our Party is to become a really powerful polit- ical influence in the lives of the American workers we must take this step forward, We must broaden the number of workers to whom we speak thru The DAILY WORKER, . i