The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 3, 1928, Page 5

_ the package. THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 1928 SPYING IN NEW YORK DEPARTMENT STORES By L. F. I WAS looking for work and saw an ad in The Times which read: “Wanted, Intelligent young women, 23 to 30 yrs., experience unnecessary, for investigating; $18 to start. Apply.” i applied. . The womian at the desk asked me, | “Have you ever worked in a depart- ment store as cashier or clerk?” I re- plied that I had not. “Are you ac- quainted or friendly with any one working in a department store or any other store?” 1 answered that I was not, and was given a blank form with the usual questions to answer and then the woman explained what the work was to be. She said, “We run a shopping service here, that is, we send you to the various stores which:employ us as their investiga- tors. “You purchase articles in these stores just as you would purchase for yourself and incidentally follow our methods of investigation in order to see whether or not store employes are honest.” Of course, I immediately realized what the “investigating” was to be. ' The woman then called in her “chief” and he asked me, “Do’ you understand that under no circum- stances are you to let pity for the offender keep you from giving a cor- rect report of your investigation?’ Since I wanted to do a liitle ‘‘investi- gating” on my own hook, it is need- less to. say that my answer was an emphatic “Yes.” Nine o’clock the next morning 1 took my place amongst twenty other “intelligent” young..women for my first lesson in “investigating.” Aoki ® My fellow spies were a curious col- lection of individuals ranging from theatrical “has-beens” to ex-country school-marms. Besides these “‘intel- ligent” young women were a group of men, our “crew managers,” whe took care of all the money expended, were heavily bonded and: hardboiled. I Jater found out that these men started at a salary of twenty-five dol- lars weekly, and that the oldest em- ploye here, who was considered quite a “diek,” received forty dollars. The crew managers were also required to do any “third-degreeing” necessary in getting the goods on a doubtful suspect. Our instructions that first morn- ing consisted 6f a general outline on the kind of “buys” to be made and We newcomers were placed in the care of experienced shoppers who were to shoW us" the’ ropes. I drew as my instructress an ex- chorus girl who had lost her pep and figure. She told me that she had been with the —— Service Company for two years. She was now earn- ing twenty-five dollars and had been on the road for the company for about a year. I learned that being out on the road meant more pay and travelling expenses, also living ex- penses paid; naturally the girls were very anxious to get out of New York. Our crew manager happened to own a flivver so we travelled more com- fortably* than usual that first day. Generally the subway is used in go- ing to and from stores. er en Upon arriving just around the cor- ner to the store in which we were to “work,” the crew manager counted out the money to his shoppers and warned, “For God’s sake, don’t you janes come outa th’ stores loaded up like Kriss Kingle.” My shopper com panion told me that the bundles wer to be as small as possible for big packages, attract attention and that is exactly what is not wanted. My friend and I entered a store and walked up to the neckwear de- partment. She whispered, “Watch this, kid. I’m going to make a single buy. Hope I nick somebody today. Haven’t had a detection since. Adam.” My friend looked over the neckwear and picked out a collar priced fifty cents. She handed the clerk an even half dollar, the clerk wrapped up the package with the receipt and nothing happened. On leaving the counter, I asked the shopper whether the “single buy” brought in many detec-. tions. She said that they did some times, but most department store de- tections were gotten on the “double” and “combination”. buys. “The next buy. is going to be a double,” she said. “Singles are soft, but you’ve gotta use your head on doubles.” We went over to a hosiery counter where a sale was going on. My friend looked over the articles non- chelantly then called me away to an- other counter. I asked her why she didn’t buy there.’ “Don’t be a horse’s corset,” she kidded, “Can’t you see they only got one price there? They’re havin’ a sale.” a Sufficiently squelched by this time i méekly followed her to the handkerchief department. She picked out a dozén handkerchiefs priced at two dollars per dozen and handed the clerk a five dollar bill together with When the package was re‘urned with the sang’ my friend had a half dozen more handkerchiefs veady to be bought. She handed the clerk an even dollar from the change yeceived, put the second purchase in the same bag with the first and hurried .out of the store with me closely behind her. As soon as we ar- rived outside, she said, “Now—I’ve got a ‘violation.’ If that clerk is honest she'll, make out a receipt for that ddHar, ‘and the crew manager will “find it whn he goes to in- vestigate. If she kept the buck with- | tection. {one. I’m losing my rep with the con- jeern, No matter how many buys your’re told to make, always rush out !to get the crew manager when you jcalled me back for my receipt.” | We got back to the flivver. The crew manager got the news and he jstarted out for the store with both of us at his heels, When we got to the store he told us to wait at a nearby counter and to be ready to identify the clerk, After waiting about ten minutes he came back and told us that the “jane was careless, that’s all. Gee, but we waste a lotta time on these damfool violations.” He started back for the flivver and we for another counter. This time we landed at the perfume department. My companion informed me that we were about to make a “combination buy.” She picked up a bottle priced at $1.50 and gave the clerk the bot- tle with the even change. While the package Was being wrapped she pick- ed up another bottle and delivered it to the clerk as soon as the first was given her, Again we hurried out but this time we were called back to get our receipts. The “combination buy” is considered very tempting bait to underpaid clerks. Most detections in department. stores are gotten this way. After various “buys” of this sort, with no more violations or any “de- tections” (much to*the annoyance of my instructress who had acquired the real spirit of the company for whom she was spying), we reported to our crew manager and went home. The next day we started out to “do” the five, ten: and twenty-five cent stores. purchase for a quarter. My. heart almost stopped beating when I saw the clerk ring up only five cents, for I knew then that the system had goi- ten another overworked, poorly paid worker. My instructress rushed out of th e to get the crew manager He came in shortly after, got togeth- er with the store manager and they both Went over the cash register re- ceipts. The clerk had kept the twenty cents and therefore could not say that she had made a mistake in ringing up. I was told to-go out, at this point, and I waited outside of the store. A half hour later my two fel- ow workers came out. The crew manager’s remarks were typical. “Hell! What a yarn!” said he, “She tells me she’s got a kid to. support. Makin’ ten bucks per. What the hell kin I do?” And that was that. I gave up “investigating” the next morning, much to the annoyance of the woman in charge who said that she had hoped to send me out on my own in a few days. Again I picked up the Times and again noticed an ad which read “WANTED, intelligent young women, 23 to 80 yrs., experience unnecessary, for investigating. $18.00 to start.” The ad still appears from time to time. The offer is still $18.00 and they still want “intelligent” young women. REDUCE TRANS-OCEAN PHONE RATES. LONDON, March 2.—-Increased usage. of trans-Atlantic telephone service was in prospect today follow- ing the reduction of the minimum charge from $75 to $45. The new out turning in a receipt, I got a de-! Hope .that baby’s a slick) get a violation. The jane should have. We went into Kresges and made a|* cently at New Exploitation in LABOR IN SOUTHERN COTTON MILLS. New Republic, Inc. 25 cents. By Paul Blanshard. fOTTON manufacture is the oldest of machine industries and one of the most highly mechanized. The worker is merely a feeder of the ma- shine and can be replaced with little difficulty. The cotton barons have lized this in their attacks on the standard of living of the workers. Whenever a generation of cotton ‘kers has raised its standard of living it has been swept aside and ‘ts place given to cheaper labor. In this way the early American worker of the nineteenth cent was re- laced by the Irish im mt, the Trish by the French Canadian peas- ent, and the French Canadian by the Slav and the Greek. The latest move of the textile harons is the attempt to transfer the industry from New FE: d, where the workers have becom scious and have fought bitte ainst the employers, to t labor has wi hardly nenetrated and where there is a newer where organized and cheaper labor. to exploit. With this cheap, unorganized labor as a club, the emplovers intend to s h the unions of the northern workers and to take away from them the gains they have already made. In the present study Paul Blan- shard describes the conditions of the dispossessed peasants of ‘the South- ern mountains and the small cotton |farms who form. the bulk of the Sonthern factory population. Their hours of work are the longest and their wages the lowest of any large in the country. Many of the factories run twenty-four hours a day with only two shifts. Women men are forced to work aking twelve hours of the night shift—often without even being permitted to take time off to jeat a ni¢ht Iunch. Many of the fac- \tories force workers into the night shift by requiring each family to give a quota while others compel inew workers to work at night before |they can get on the day shift. Child Mabor is general, laws forbidding chil- dren to work at night are winked at, ‘while an eleven-hour day for children of fourteen is quite common. Wages in the Southern Cotton Mills are over fifty per cent lower |than in the North. Twelve dollars is }an average weekly wage although |Blanshard mentions instances of girls |working for five dollars a week and Jeven less, Tt is necessary for the |entire family to work in order to. get la living wage and if the children are still too. young for the mills the fam- ily suffers many hardships. Mixed with these sound observa- | One-Man Negro Exhibit Opens in New York of its kind ever to be held here opened re- Gallery, 600 Madison Ave., New York, with showing of works of Archibald J. Metiey, Negro artist. eee] Page Five the South | Is Discussed by a Liberal” thing he believes that the bosses are | sincerely trying to uplift the workers | He has swallowed) all the propaganda | about their “welfare work” and is | enthusiastic about their company | owned villages. In his praise of the company house he goes to such ab- suidities as: “They have as much light and air as John D. Rockefeller, Jr. could buy in New York with a prince’s income.” + oH 8 He bas no conception of the class noture of the relations between em- ployer and empleyee. He tells how | (by buyimg up govern churches, newspapers 2 ties—by. bla crs. YY spreading lies sbout union | organizers and about ons of | workers in other sect: setting | but he from all this than that the empl s not understand the advantages of | organization. “No complacency (of the bosses) is de- reform is possible until the stroyed. The ility for education in the ion of im- provement rests upon those college trained leaders of the New South who know the difference between philanthropy and justice...An educational ‘campaign would begin most logically in expounding the evils of the ten and eleven hour day and the eleven and twelve hour nicht. Beyond that lies the long road of education for andmprac- tice of responsible collective bar- gaining.” With such piffle the author dis- poses of one of the most vital prob- lems of the present day labor the companies have fought unionism | - | Eliot. Sterilizing American Poetry MODERN AMERICAN POETS. Sel- ected by Conrad Aiken. Modern Library. $.95. When the Medern Library decided to issue a popular priced anthology of the work of the best modern Amer- can poets, they hunted around (I uppose) for a qualified anthologist land finally coralled—Conrad Aiken. | Now Aiken happens to be a very °@y- | pious literary monk, who has in his| poetry reared careful stained Car! Sandburg Edna Millay glass rhythms and sounds against any intrusion of sharp emotion or idea. I suppose that this qualifies him for the job. He is refined and “sensitive” if nothing else, Pitting my own sharply dissenting taste against. his, T’ll begin by g categorically that of the S | fifteen poets included in Conrad -|Aiken’s anthology, there are just three of the first importance: Emily Dickinson (in a small, intense way), Edwin Arlington Robinson and T. S. Dickinson has been dead many rs and doesn’t belong in such a ollection any more (less rather) than Whitman does. Leaving just two. Four other poets may be mentioned as possessing genuine though highly limited or unceriain ta : Robert Frost, H. D., Edna St. Vincent Millay and Maxwell Bodenheim. The others —Anna Hempstead Branch, Amy Lowell, Vachel Lindsay, Alfred Kreymborg, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, John Gould Fletcher, Conrad Aiken—are practically worth- less. Incidentally, three vastly sig- ‘nificant poets—Carl Sandburg (the only outstanding American poet who has come close to the aspirations of the revolutionary working class), Robinson Jeffers and E. E, Cummings —are entirely absent. e * * Modern American Poets does not even reflect the interests and sympa- \thies of a ‘bourgeois democrat, but movement. Unless the southern fac- tory worker is organized the north- fern factory worker is in danger of heing crushed by the masters of the textile industry. Tho solution of the immediate iproblems of the textile workers, as of the coal workers, lies in the South, in the organization of the vast receivers of unorganized jJabor which capitalism is using to destroy the labor movement. —CY OGDEN rather of a feudal aristocrat. It is characteristic of certain contemporary | writers, particularly the “intellectual- list” group, represented in France by Paul Valery and in England and |America by T. S. Eliot, that their re- \bellion against the dominant ideology lof bourgeois society takes the form lof reaction, a nostalgia for the ideals ‘of the prebourgeois past and an at- |tempt to rehabilitate the aristocratic lfeudal view of art. But the trouble lis that this talgia lacks faith and | | INTERNATIONAL | LABOR DEFENSE Annual Bazaar To Aid Political Prisoners rates go into effect Sunday. tension of the time limit for calls un-jnaive statements such as could only til 1 a. m. instead of 11 p. m., was)be made by a pollyanna liberal of Ex-| tions Blanshard includes a number of | also announced, the New Republic school. For one Mormons Help j By WILLIAM PICKENS ‘Field Secretary, Natl. Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People) We have heard a lot of excuses made by the white “brethren” for not treating the colored “brethren” as equals in their churches, but the ex- cuse which the Mormons use and which has just been communicated to me in Salt Lake City, “takes the cake.” “Are there any colored members in the Mormon Church?” we asked. “Very few,” was the reply. Negroes Not Good Enough. To find out why, we inquired further and learned that no Negro, even tho he be a member, is ever con- lered enough of a “saint” to be al- lowed to go into “The Temple,” the great semi-Gothic structure which is the head institution and the architec- tural boast‘ of the “church.” And why are Negroes thus barred from full sainthood and entry into the holiest? Well, this is the cake- taking explanation: There was once a war in heaven, when one Arch- engel, whom Milton calls Satan, got so ambitious as to raise a rebellion to try to overthrow God and rule in his stead. In other words, Satan set out to raise hell in heaven. According to the/Mormons, God must have been pretty hard-pressed, for he sought volunteers and allies from every quarter of the known uni- verse. The white people promptly sided with God; but the over-cautious colored brother, while not siding with Satan, proclaimed, as Bert Williams “God” Keep Negroes Out of “Heaven” used to put it: “I am neutral!” Well, Satan lost,—thenceforth to be known as “The Devil.” God won. by the good help of the white folks, no doubt. Therefore the Negro can- not become a “real saint”; he is still somewhat “neutral.” He cannot enter the Temple and he cannot go to heaven. Yes, only one Negro has been known to get into Heaven in the history of creation, and he was the “Body Servant” of Brigham Young, the organizer of Mormonism. You see, this Negro was a “good servant,’ and Brigham Young, like all “good white folks,” was some- what partial to “his Negro,” and in- fluenced God to let him in. This, of course, demonstrates the great in- fluence which Brigham had with Jehovah. From all reports this Mormon re- ligion is a very “convenient” affair: If you are a member, in good-s'and- ing, paid up, you can do just about as |} you dern please without losing your sainthood. One of the original principles of Mormonism was that a man ‘could have as many wives as he could sup- port,—or rather as many as were needed to support him. That must have been an inducement to persuade men, to come out and people this de- sert. Only some extraordinary in- ducement could ever have persuaded them to cross the Rockies and settle in these salts and wastes, And yet Joseph Smith, the original “prophet” of Mormonism, said: This is the only true religion. “That’s what they all say.” f ry | Five Big Days DANCING RESTAURANT MUSIC EXHIBITIONS CONCERTS THE GREATEST Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday EVENT and of the YEAR Sunday March 7, 8, 9,10, 11 AFFAIR OF THE 50,000 AT STAR CASINO 107th Street and Park Avenue. TICKETS ON SALE AT: I. L. D. Office, 799 Broadway, Room 422; Jimmie Higgins Book Shop, 106 University Pl.; Prolet- cos Cafeteria, 30 Union Square; Daily Worker, 33 E. 1st St., New York. Join and Support the International Labor Defense. ‘THE DAILY WORKER “THE BR ‘8S CHECK” By UPTON SINCLAIR The One Complete Expose of Capitalist Journalism | New Edition With Complete Index in Press. ; Paper-bound | $1.00 | 450 pages Cloth-bound $2.00, postpaid UPTON SINCLAIR LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA | STATION B BOOK REVIEWS AND COMMENT 'A Poetical Morgue; A New Novel Wnitten by Sam Ornug naivete; it is withered by’an intelli-{ferent ways, was martyred, deadj gence too acutely aware of the futility | and buried, of all efforts at escape, and is petri- gies * : fied into a nihilistic gesture that be- Never before has such a tale beer comes at times merely s’ark acid| told in America. It is one of the most whimper. And so we have T, S, Eliot,| scathing attacks upon catholicisnd the most profound, the most eloquent | ever written, yet it is not the book poet of bourgeois-intellectualist, ar of a heartless cynic. Ornitz handles tocratic-sentimental defeatism. This) Daniel as tenderly as Mame, the defeatism is not a mere postwar phen- | hootchie dancer who would be a Vir- omenon. It is an organic, even pro-|gin Mary, cradles the child . the phetie expression of the present stage | scared boy mystic gave her. In addix of capitalist civilization, the stage of|tion to indicting catholicism, Ornitz temporary stabilization rooted in de-| presents cases against the new Tam- many, the republican-democratie graft alliance, and the capitalist sys- tem in general. He sees these a& mighty forces that twist children with life-hunger and dreams inte cringing hypocrites, “regular” im religion and politics, cut-throat trad- I Res | | Returning to Atken’s anthology: | |the case for American poetry may be | |bad, but it is not quite as bad as he would make out. Our poetry is not| | always the at times lovely, the at times | intricate zero that it appears to be in | ers, perverts, and all varieties of Aiken’s mind. And even in this very | quacks. feeble, very “arty” collection there | * # 8 are poems with the flesh of humanity The greater part of “A Yankee on them. Of course, the class strug-| Passional” is laid in the East Sidé igle has been rigidly excluded. It|of-New York City that Ornitz, in | would be too much to expect our bour-| his earlier book, “Haunch, Paunck geois supercritics of the arts to even! and Jowl,” demonstrated he knew 86 | acknowledge that such a thing as thé! well. It is an East Side that has class struggle vitally exists or that a| hardly ever been portrayed in fiction |strike is at least as important as @/ before: saloon back-rooms where the jfew of their mildewy sanctities.| destinies of a great city are worked |Poems like William ®llery Leonard’s | oyt, brothels, fake museums, room- |The Lynching Bee,” Arturo Giovan-|ing houses and Bowery employment nitti’s “When the Cock Crows,” writ-| offices. When the story shifts to |ten on the hanging of Frank Little—| pittsburgh, an unforgetable picture one of the really great poems that} of those hell-holes known as speel jhave come out of America—or Mike] mills is given. ante “A peat a Funeral at Brad-| py, portraits Ornitz draws remain cana energie way into the in one’s memory as if they were | —A, B. MAGIL etched there by acid: Dr. Liam | soi z O’Hegerty, Irish patriot, dope-fiend, | and veneral doctor; Orr Applegate, | A New American Epic ex-tent show fakir who becomes head | of the Health Happiness Publica: |4 YANKEE PASSIONAL. By Sam-|tions and tells millions how to gain uel Ornitz. Boni & Liveright. $2.50.| strength and sex appeal; Phil Miller, the “boy orator” who “reformed Tammany by making “Silent” Shee: dy, once keeper of one of the city’s worst dives, its leader. . ee ee \"O the rank of Theodore Dreiser, Upton Sinclair, Eugene O'Neill and Sherwood Anderson a new name at last can be added, Samuel Ornitz, author of “A Yankee Passional.” : f . This is w stark realistic stor ith |*°° interested in recording all the : inca Pedic | al wanderings of his characte an epic sweep. It tells how Saint | And when he talks about internation2 Daniel Matthews, a Maine Yankee, |a! politics, outside of the situation iq was converted to catholicism, strug-|Ireland, he becomes unconvincing bes gled with fleshy sin in the form of |¢ause he is at heart a pessimist. { a hootchie dancer, conquered his | But the book as a whole is one of {temptations, served his Lord, Jesus |‘he most successful attempts at por; Christ, as a plainsman priest, min-|traying the American scene that istering to the diseased and the ,have come across in many years. friendless, suffered in a score of dit. ! —WALTER SNOW. Sometimes Ornitz is too wordy; Of All The Great Players Serie We have pretty good results from the “Daily Worker.” But we would like to know, if there are more readers, who are delaying their orders. We would like to hear from them, and invite them, to write to us. This would enable us to keep our advertisement in the “Daily Worker.” MASTERWORKS SET NO. 75 Beethoven: Quartet in D Major, Op. 18, No. 3 By Lener String Quartet of Budapest. In Six Parts, on Three 12-inch Double Diso Records, with Album, $4.50 Complete. re tin see ot doh ap Pike 3. ‘< Staii tpebaatch -By Sir Henry J. Wood an ew Queen's Hal re} ra, "tn Four Paris, on Two 12-inch Double Dise Records, Nos, 67349-D 67350-D. $1.50 Each. {The Devil's Trill), Sonata. 12-inch Double Disc Records, $1.00 Each. Tartini: La Trille du Dinbk By Albert Sammons. In Four Parts, on fwo 17002+}2~-17003-D, Nos. 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