The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 20, 1927, Page 9

~~ THE ANTI-ALIEN LAWS By Fred Kitis The Y. M. C. A. and the Seamen (Last week’s issue of the New Magazine carried another article by Comrade Auerbach on the problems of the seamen on the waterfront. Semi-religious institutions pesing as the friends of the sea toilers are really harpies and agents of the shipping companies. Last week the Sea- men’s Institute was dealt with. In this article, Comrade Auerbach writes of the Y. M. C. A. Editor). * * * ! gg Y. M. C. A. is another institution which has taken the beaten sailors under its sheltering wing. Down on Broad Street where the elevated rattles and rumbles past the waterfront the “Y” has estab- lished a seamen’s branch. This branch is expounding the wonderful (dollar) value of the Y. M. C. A. Picture for yourself the ads that have been fill- ing New York’s papers and cars with cries and pleas for a bigger and more glamorous drive for the sake of the poor boys of the nation which the “Yy’s” must annually- turn down with broken-hearted gestures due to the inevitable lack of space. This, of course, because too few millions are finding their way into the coffers of this capitalist scheme for the further suppression of any spark of militancy in the young workers of the United States. Glorious edifices must be erected to protect the ideal tender Young American Manhood. Protect the youth and you have the citizenry in hand would be a splendid slogan for the “Y.s.” More stalwart well-disciplined American manhood must be turned out to serve as cannon fodder willingly and quite enthusiastieally thru the portals of the Y. M. C. A. All over the city glorious business preparations were made to boom this new real estate and build- ing venture in the spirit of American manhood and kindliness, but down here, on Broad Street, where the elevator rattles and rumbles the Y. M. C. A. also exists and takes care of the sailors and seamen not alone of the United States but of the entire By AUERBACH world—for the sake of American and English ship- ping interests. In fact the Y. M. C. A. has established a shipping office on the water front with the ostensible pur- pose of drawing the employers nearer to the worker and vice versa. Jobs are dished out to the sailors and no commission is charged. As it happens all of these jobs are on English ships. Probably because christianity waxes heavier in the country of the anti-trade union bill than any- where else. The only obvious thing to these jobs is that the sailor must turn in his book of discharges to the Y. before he gets the job. For the sake of those who do not know what the book of discharges is, it ought to be enlightening to say that it is the sailor’s meal ticket. It represents years and years of hard labor aboard ship. In most cases the time dating from when the sailor was a lad, knee high to a grasshopper and had to go to work at sea in order to help support a family, down to the time when he happens to need a job which is most always. But the Y. M. C. A. is quite broad minded. It takes this book and holds it pending the job. Any demarkation in this book is enough to nullify a lifetime of hard labor at sea. If the authorities that be, put a bad mark or record into that book the sailor is as good as blacklisted. The other interesting part is that somehow the Y. M. C. A. has come to support the opinions of the British labor-hating ship-owners in their idea that forty-five dollars a month is plenty enuf wages for a sailor on an English ship. Not that conditions are any better aboard the British vessels. They are far worse than the on aoe aboard the American ships, but te , multiplied by some thousands of seam means a considerable saving to the shi As it happens the standard of wages even dhe of English ships is, mm general, fifty-five, & month of this In itself is lower than the rotten shipping. board wage of sixty-five. So the Y. M, C. A. has taken a remarkable step. A step that even the most corrupt of the shipping agencies that dot the water front would not have dared to take. They have sunk the wage from fifty- five to forty-five which in consideration of the higher cost of living here than in England makes the sailor a totally dependent slave ashore as well as at sea. Besides this they have gone back to the delight- ful method of practically shanghaiing the workers aboard ship. In the good old days, the practice was to go around to all the corner saloons where one had a pull, swing a billy, slug a sailor and drag him aboard ship, or else to put some subtle drag into his drink and in that manner to shanghai him un- awares, But today the Y. M. C. A. has perfected these methods. The capitalist ship owners look down upon such crude instruments as the billy and opium in hiring their labor. Their bludgeons are the created unemployment situation and the discharge book. For when the Y. M. C. A. gets hold of the sailors book it is good night book if he doesn’t like the job or the wages. And of course since they have the confidence of the ship owners close to heart they are more likely to have jobs than are the employ- ment sharks. But not even the most hardened em- ployment shark would attempt such crude and stink- ing methods as these. And this is the Y. M. C. A. which looks after our American manhood. In this case it takes the British consulate into consultation. For all shipping passes through these worthy hands first. Yet the seaman’s is a skilled trade. It is a trade which requires years of training and hard practice before an A. B. or fireman’s ticket is actually issued. In few trades is there such a damnable display of victimization of the workers not only by the master class, but also by those interests which claim to keep the snilor closest to heart.