The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 23, 1930, Page 4

~ % " cidents, Published by the Comprodatly Publishing Co., Inc., daily, except Sunday, at 26-28 Union 1696-7-8, Cable: ‘Addrees and mail al) checks to the Daily Worker. 26-28 Union Square. New York, Ni ¥. Page Four Square, New York City, N. Y. Telephone Stuyvesant “DAIWORK.” Dail Control Orga orker Te-SSahunist Porty USA SUBSCRIPTION RATES: ee cas cee By mail everywere: One year $6; six months $3; two moaths $1; excepting Boroughs o! Manhattan and Bronx, New York City, and foreign, which are: One yr. $8; six mons. $4.50 WORKING WOMEN AND THE PRESENT ELECTION DRIVE By ROSE WORTIS ! With the approach of the electi the familiar spectacle of the mobilizing their v tons; the Leagu ters of the reactionar; line up t for the pa: The fak food rack ticians who a’ g women class enemies. ion campaigns into the d by the same poli- eneficiaries of t on are intended to mislead n and to create the illusion e or the other of these will be solved. The however, prove that both Dem ic part have n the graf ic politician, Healy, and the graft invest Repnblica: shared eq The Democra Republican politician, Keller, both received handsome from the publishing com- | panies for s ing trash text books on which to feed the children of the working class. The Democratic and Republican inspectors | alike close th to the violation of the |! section, etc., fo The Socialist Party re- | on to see the other parties hare of the graft while it to graft in the Labor or- laws, getting the lior must limit ganizations. As the campaign develops we read in the newspapers of housewarming parties for wom- en voters. Women politicians are sent down to the poor neighborhoods to show their concern and seeming sympathy for the wel- fare of the working women. The fake slogan of the Hoover campaign, “a chicken in every pot,” which has actually meant unemployment and starvation or the workers is now being repeated in another form. The capitalist slogans of 1930 hold no greater promise for working women than the slogans of the 1928 campaign. | What are the actual problems facing the working women and which of the parties can ‘help the working women to solve these problems? How Hard Times Burden Working Women. This is the question that every woman must ask herself. The United States census of 1930 shows | that thirty-three million women have to do some sort of work in order to earn a liveli- hood. Ten million are engaged in various in- | dustries and twenty-three million as house- wives. The miserable conditions under which the women in industry are compelled to work are shown in the report of the U. S. Labor Department of 1928. According to this report the wages of women workers are half to one- fourth lower than men wodkers. Sixty per- | cent of women workers in all industries | receive less than $14 a week and 45 percent | | | | Jess than $10 a week. The 48 hour law which exists on the statute books is practically abol- ished. Women are working ten and twelve hours a day, overtime, and night work. They work in dirty workrooms nder nsanitary conditions. Cellars, which are cold and damp in the spring and excessively hot from boilers %a the winter, are used as work rooms. They | Work with artificial light under a terrific {peed-up system. Working under such condi- | _sions we find an ever greater increase of ac- | disease, and permanent disability | amongst working women. Fifteen percent of all cases that went before the Compensation Board in 1929 were women workers, a large number of them were permanently disabled. These were the conditions of working women | during the years of 1928-29. With the shar- | pening of the crisis the conditions of the | working women become even worse. Since most women are concentrated in the irregular, unskilled, and highly seasonal industries and | the percentage of women on the reserve army | of unemployed is larger than that of men | workers, the increase of unemployment gen- | erally has greatly affected working women. In some industries such as the textile indus- try in the South, 40 percent are entirely un- employed, the others working two and three days a week. For the first time in the history of this city do we find working women, many with children in their arms applying to the city lodging houses for a night’s rest. While the suffering amongst the workers, particularly the working women, is becoming more acute, tons of food are being dumped into the river and the prices of food are in- creasing. These are the problems confronting the working women in the present election cam- paign. On the basis of these issues, every woman must decide to which of the political P she must give her support. The capitalists who talk about the sanctity of womanhood and motherhood do not hesitate to compel the women workers to slave for them 70 hours a week for starvation wages. They are successfully disregarding the meagre protective laws that exist in the state for working women. They are indignant over the fact that women at the city unemploy- ment agency refused to accept jobs at $6.00 a week. The record of the Socialist Party with regard to working women is in no way better than that of the capitalist parties. In all the struggles of the working women for better conditions in New York City and elsewhere the Socialist Party and its sup- porters in the ranks of the A. F. of L. have openly betrayed the working women, acting as strike breakers. In the strikes of the dressmakers and millinery workers’ of New York City, in the strikes of the tex- tile workers, the Socialists acted as the agents of the bosses, resorting to injune- tions and imprisonment for working class women. Surely the working women who strggle to improve their conditions by organizing into the militant unions cannot give their support on election day to their | class enemies every day. The Communist Party comes to the work- ing women not only on election day but in the every day struggles in the shops and factories, in the strikes and on the picket line. The Communist Party supports the working women in the struggle against the bosses and the fascist burocrats who have for years persued the policy of discrimina- tion against working women and have sold out their interests to the bosses in order to get some slight concessions for the privil- eged few skilled workers. In the present election campaign the Communist Party has comé forth with a program which deals with the vital issues of the working class as a whole and the working women in particular. The Communist Party fights for equal pay for equal work, 7-hour, 5-day week, no discrimin- ation on account of race, unemployment and maternity insurance, protective legislation for women workers. It is the duty of every working woman whether in industry or in the home to give her support to the Communist Party, the leader of the working class. It is the duty of every workingclass woman to bring the issues of the present campaign into the shops and factories, into the housewives and fra- ternal organizations, and to help line up a vote for the Communist Party which will indicate the awakening of the working wom- en to their class interests. The working women of Germany in the recent election have supported the Communist Party in thousands. The working women of New York City and the whole U. S., in- spired by the examples of our comrades in | Berlin, must cast their votes for the Com- munist Party. Working women are upon to send their delegates to the Working Women’s Communist Election Campaign Con- ference Saturday, September 20, 2 P. M. at Irving Plaza. called + The Major Issues in the Wisconsin State Elections By DAVE MATES | The slogan of “class against class,” raised | by the Party in its election campaign is of | special significance in the struggles led by | our Party in the state of Wisconsin. In the | struggle for the leadership of the working | class in this state, the Communist Party | must conduct a sharp and most decisive fight | against the social-fascists (Socialist Party) and the ake capitalist progressives (La Fol- | lette). | Wisconsin, the cradle of bourgeois “pro- gressivism” of the La Follettes’ and the former stronghold of the Socialist Party, is feeling with gross sharpness the effects of the present economic crisis. Mass unemploy- ment, tremendous wage cuts, terrific speed- up and rationalization, as well as unheard of impoverishment of the farmers, is the di- rect outcome of the crisis and the factors undermining the influence of social-fascism and reformism. Socialist Party Betrays Unemployed and Boosts War Like their fellow-betrayers elsewhere, the Socialist Party is unable to answer the burn- ing question of the day. With the mass misery and deprivation caused by the crisis, the socialists are doing everything in their power to assist the capitalists in placing the burden of the crisis upon the backs of the workers and farmers of Wisconsin. The fact that in Wilwaukee, under the “socialist” mayor, Hoan, the March 6th demonstration | for “work or wages” was crushed in a real “Zoergiebel” manner with 9 of its leaders now serving sentences in jail, proves con- | clusively the role of the Socialist Party as | | flunkeys of the capitalist masters and would- be life-savers of the decaying capitalist sys- tem. | In the present election campaign, the So- | cialist Party, despite its past traditional in- fluence in this state, is showing its com- | plete political bankrupcy and is making little headway in its attempt to further mislead the workers and farmers of Wisconsin. As against the Workers Social Insurance Bill, elaborated by the slogan of “work or wages” on March 6th, the “socialist” platform is satisfied with, the mention of the need of “extention of the | state insurance to include old age, disability, accidents and unemployment.” last March when the Party organized demonstrations for unemployment insurance, the social - fascists helped in the smash- ing of all militant manifestations of the workers. of the federal and state powers, the smash- ing of workers’ meeting, arrests of speakers, right of organizing and striking—the ele- mentary workers’ rights—have been “over- looked” by the Socialist Party in Wisconsin. Manufacturers Support Socialists Both by its platform and its activities, the S. P. shows that it is not a workers’ organ- ization and is now the best weapon in the hands of the capitalist class. It is of no surprise to the workers, that their candidate for sheriff, Al Benson, organizer of the S. P. in Milwaukee, has the wholehearted support of the “Journal,” outstanding organ of the Milwaukee manufacturers. The La Follette platform is as devoid of progressive measures as the socialist plat- form. There is no attempt to analyze the | | ing women, who are still in the grips of bour- crisis or predict its outcome. The only reply the “progressives” give the impoverished workers and farmers are old-time speeches, typical to the La Follette fakers. The strug- gle against monopoly in banking (chain banks), high cost of campaigns, corruption in politics, these are the major issues of the “progressives” but silence on the real working class issues confronting the workers today. Workers and Farmers Leave Fake Progres- sive and Socialist Parties for Communist In this situation, the Communist Party is taking advantage of the collapsing influence of the Socialist Patty and the fake “pro- gressives” and the growing mood to strug- gle on the part of the workers and poor farmers, to organize a mass election cam- paign rallying the masses behind the Party’s slogans. Even in the present stages of the campaign the Party has already succeeded in winning masses of workers away from socialist speakers to the election rallies of the Party. Although the S. P,. has. its, daily. paper, “Milwaukee Leader’ and full support of the capitalist press, the Party is meeting. with ever-greater success in exposing the treacherous role of the social-fascists. - In the coming months of the campaign, Altho only | The growing fascist tendencies | | HOOVER, HYDE ERECT A SCARECROW BY BURCK. Ket —e By JORGE ANTHROPOCENTRISTS, OR JUST CENTRISTS. It is fatal for Communists to try to please everybody. We never, for example, meant to insult a single cat, or even a married one, But because in the issue of Sept. 6 we ven- tured to comment sarcastically on the hys- terical solicitude of rich old ladies in the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, for stray dogs and cats, we get a letter from Long Beach, Calif. (Such a letter quite fit- tingly comes from that home of freak re-= formists.) We had expressed our annoyance, yes, even our anger, that cats are offered food and shelter, while millions of workers are star- ving and, incidentally, while thousands of Communist workers are being shot, lynched, and jailed, in the working class fight for bread and a better world—for workers. Because of this, one S. Alexander of Long Beach, Calif. writes us two sheets of pro- test, beginning thus:—‘‘No kind of chauvin- ism should be allowed to sneak into our Party organ.” Then he goes on to prove, to his own satis- faction, that our above-mentioned comment was “anthropocentric chauvinism.” And that’s a mean word to throw at an editor on half- pa: ye While brooding over the dictionary to find out that the word “Anthropocentric” means CAMPAIGN NOTES By PAUL NOVICK. How did the German comrades do it? One of the features of the campaign con- ducted by our German comrades is the way the Party press responded to all issues of the campaign; and conducted its offensive. Every page of the Berlin Rote Fahne, that is, of the issues that have reached here go far, was bristling with the Red campaign. Articles, cartoons, poems, slogans, various kinds of ornamental drawings—every page was full of campaign material. Constantly on the offensive, “Wir grei fen an,” “Das Rote Berlin grieft an” (we are at- tacking, Red Berlin is attacking). Slogans that sink into your mind. The Communist Party is attacking capitalism and its ser- vants—social-fascists and fascists. The Rote Fahne was in full swing of the campaign two months prior to Sept. 14. Can we say the same about our press here in the United States? ° Some of our language papers, whether in New York or Chicago, often appear without a line on the campaign! This is no exag- geration. Statements from campaign head- quarters are ignored. The column “From Behind the Bars” was not started. Articles written by Comrades Foster, Amter and other candidates are printed, if at all, very irregu- lariy. In the meantime, there are but five, six weeks left! Lae eae The small proportion of working women that voted the Communist ticket in Germany must serve as a lesson. Our German Party recruited 68 per cent of its votes from men, whereas the Catholic party recruited about that much of a percen- tage from women voters. Naturally, the high percentage of men voters on the Com- munist column is a clear indication of the enormous majority of workers in *®*: fac- tories, mines and mills that have voted for Communism. If, with such a low percentage of women voters the Communist Party came out of the elections as the plurality party of Berlin, we can get an idea of how thorough the Communist victory must have been among the workers in the various plants and factories of the Red capital. The small percentage of Communist women voters, however, puts the Communist move- ment before the burning problem of strength- ening the propaganda work among the work- geois influence, in the grips of religion. Which is also true about our campaign ac- tivity here in the United States. The ten million. women “gainfully” employed in the various industries, in the shops, factories, offices and stores, belong to the most ex- ploited section of the proletariat and, at the same time, to that section which may give a bigger proportion of votes to the three capitalist parties, than the men workers will do, if we lag behind in our campaign activity among the working women. oe ae In my article on the German elections that appeared in the Daily Worker of Sept. 17, in the paragraph dealing with the waning through its state-wide tour, its concentration on the factories, the building of the T.U.U.L. and through vigorous struggle for the daily interests. of the masses of workers and farm- ers and thorough exposure of the role of the social-fascists, the Communist Party will emerge from the campaign with mass sup- port and be well on the road of becoming a mass party of the workers and poor farmers, | Double the Communist Vote In Connecticut By L. ORLOFF. The political situation finds Conn. experienc- ing the most serious unemployment situation. In industrial cities like Bridgeport all large plants are shut down with the exception of the Remington Arms, an ammunition plant, which is working on a curtailed schedule. In the “Brass City,” Waterbury, plants are running at 50 per cent. capacity. We can enumerate city after city, such as New Britain and Hartford, with the same conditions, if not worse, Wage-Cuts and Unemployment Hit High-Tariff Industries. Connecticut industries being light metal, electrical. appliances, hardware, typewriters, ete., products which were exported to a large extent, the tariff bill and the subsequent re- ‘taliation from abroad has hit these industries very hard. The workers in the factories work- ing part-time are continuously getting wage- cuts and speed-up to the limit. These wage- cuts range from 10 to 30 per cent. in the metal and rubber factories and textile mills. The Scoville Manufacturing Co.. in Waterbury, recently gave the workers a wage-cut from 10 to 20 per cent. Sargents, a large hardware plant in New Haven, cut wages from 10 to 20 per cent; the Winchester ammunition plant, New Haven, cut the wages 10 to 20 per cent.; The U. S. Rubber, which controls a number of factories in this district, has started a general lay-off of all old employes and is introducing a wage-cut which will affect all the workers in every plant from 10 to 30 per cent. The Remington Arms, in Bridgeport, has put over a wage cut recently from 10 to 20 per cent. All these cuts in the largest factories are tak- ing place thru a very efficient scheme of de- partment and even individual wage-cutting. in order to try and check organized resistance on the part. of the workers. . The introduction of fake “inventories” and two to three weeks’ lay-offs are used to put thru these wage-cuts. It is worth noting that cities like New Haven and. Hartford are becoming needle trades cen- ters where young girls of the age of 14-18 are getting a miserable wage of $5.00 to $6.00 a week for 50 hours. Farmers’ Plight in Connecticut. The bad agricultural situation, which was worsened by recent storms incurring about one million dollars damage, aggravate the crisis. The tobacco fields near Hartford which usu- ally employ about 15,000 to 20,000 during the season, have hired this year a greater number + influence of the German social-democratic | perty, a pertinent phrase was omitted. That paragraph ends: “For the social-democrats are losing their value as the mainstay of the capitalist class. They can still hold ‘back millions of workers from fighting capital- ism.” © . ‘ It is easily noticeable that something is missing. here. In the manuscript it was con- tinued thus: “They will still be of great use, but since the events of the last few years they have been entirely discredited and ex- posed and their grip upon the workers has weakened,” etc. It is necessary to mention this typographical error because it was neces- sary to underline ‘still’ more, although it fol- lows from my article, that the German social- fascists will still be used by capitalism, al- though finance capital has now turned to fas- cism. as its mainstay against the revolution- ized workers. Naturally, the fight against social-fascism will’ continue, of children; adult workers can only get jobs, if they agree to work for food and shelter with- out pay. Old Parties Corrupt. In this situation the Republican Party is trying to win the support of the workers with fake conferences for unemployment “relief”. The Republican Party in Connecticut has the most corrupt machine next to the “Ohio Gang”, known as the Roerbuck machine, which controls the water and electric power industries in the State and has large investments in the metal factories. Its implication in numerous booze scandals involving the Mayor of Hartford and other high officials. and its role in supporting the tariff has been exposed to a certain extent among the workers. The Democratic Party, is trying to shift the blame for the crisis on the Republican administration, and is using in the most demagogic way the unemployment issue, closely connecting it with the tariff bill, as Connecticut is hard hit by the decrease in the export of hardware and electrical equipment. The Democratic Party tries to hide the fact that its tariff policy is essentially the same.as the Republicans’. The A. F. of L. has become an integral part of the Republican and Democratic machine in the various city administrations and the State. The Socialist Party considers Connecticut as one of its “strongholds.” Its chief arch-be- trayer, McLevy, of Bridgeport, has become active in competing with the Democratic Party on the tariff and the unempolyment issues— talking as loud and saying as little! Workers Rally to Support of Communist Party. Our Party is in the midst of mobilizing the workers and bringing to them the real issues in the election campaign confronting the workers, and exposing the Boss Parties. The Party is mobilizing its forces to solicit the necessary 6,000 signatures to put the Party on the ballot and is conducting a number of suc- cessful mass rallies and factory gate-meetings. A four-week’s tour of the most important in- dustrial towns, including those where the Party has never been entered before, started Sep- tember 1st. In the election rallies so far held in a number of cities we have witnessed a greater response on the part of the workers than we ever had in the past election campaigns, and we face an increasing terror campaign on the part of the police. Three comrades who had recently free speech fights in the City of New Haven got 60 days each, one of them a candidate for Con- gressman on our ticket. While conducting the campaign we have already had initial results in getting new members into the Party, and especially noteworthy is the fact that the ma- jority of them are Negro workers. In addition to the State elections, we have municipal elections in Stamford, and the Dis- ‘ trict is giving special attention to developing the campaign on the specific issues in that city. We have already made noticeable inroads among the Negro workers of Stamford, a number of them joining the Party and the A.N.L.C. local. Despite the great possibilities, the Party as yet has not been fully mobilized to utilize the present objective situation. However, with the full mobilization of the Party membership it will be possible to double our previous Com- munist vote in Connecticut, put the Party on the ballot permanently. as a legal Party, and win the support of large numbers of exploited workers for our program of struggle. The Daily Worker. is the Party’s best in- strument to make contacts among the masses of workers, to build a mass Communist Party. —‘regarding man as the central part of creation,” we picked up the latest issue of the Police Gazette that calls itself “The Militant,” and saw in big letters: “Rakovsky In Danger.” Well, we mused, if we can’t get excited about cats, perhaps we can find something here to worry about. So we painstakingly read the thing through, beginning with the idignant accusation that we were “silent” about the danger in which Rakovsky, down to the awful term applied to us as “Centrists.” And bless me if we could find ous just what terrible “danger” is hang- ing over Rakovsky unless it be writer’s cramp, as all it said about him was: “Ra- kovsky is writing an enormous amount.” But there you are! We are always in hot water. Because we have a Marxian con- viction in the historically progressive role of the proletariat, rather than a conception that progress depends upon either cats or Christian Rakovsky (or any other person) we get raved at by opportunists of all kinds. Perhaps the gentleman from Long Beach (he addresses us in Party terms) don’t think he’s an opportunist. But he proves it by saying that:—“The Communist, I have ob- served, can appreciate suffering whether it’s his own head that’s cracked or another’s.” If our head is cracked, it is not by nature. And no Communist “appreciates” suffering in the abstract. It is because that cats can be of no assistance in the proletarian revolu- tion, and because Rakovsky has chosen to be- come an opponent of instead of an assistant to the proletarian revolution, and because the only thing that can make the proletarian revolution is the proletariat, that we are con- cerned about the proletariat and not at all about either whether cats are fed or Rakov- sky is writing himself to death. Whether this be called centrism or anthro- pocentric chauvinism, we don’t give a tinker’s damn. We are Communists. ‘pose WHAT’S IMPORTANT. On the day which the capitalist press of New York City wént into headline hysterics because Harold S. Vanderbilt won the yacht races from Sir Thomas Lipton, and column after column of ink was spilled as though something of importance to all mankind had occurred, we saw the following: On Broadway, between 12th and 13th Sts. a man and woman, visibly poor and exhausted, the woman carrying one baby while the man wheeled a baby carriage in which was a small- er baby. Tacked fo the aide of the baby carriage was a sign: “Please give our daddy: a job!” To the capitalist press the useless expendi- ture of millions of dollars by a couple of para- site multi-millionaires in yachts and yacht races was of tremendous importance. And it was of no importance whatever that a worker and his wife and babies were starving. Probably some damn fool will write in ac- cusing us of “anti-yacht chauvinism.” And it is well that everybody note that the bourgeois clown, Will Rogers, who gets off wise cracks just like Cal Coolidge gets off dumb ones, gets so enthusiastic that he sug- gests that “everybody” contribute $1 to a “lov- ing cup” for Sir Thomas Lipton because the noble lord is “a fine sportsman.” We'll con- tribute, yes, some bedbug exterminator. * 8 * BILL GREEN FOR SLAVERY. Last Thursday, the N. Y. Post thought it quite “interesting” that—‘A young man, 22, rather preposessing in appearance came into the office and calmly announced that he was willing ‘to auction himself to any one, do any kind of work at all’ in exchange for his board. Basically, of course, slavery is nothing new, The young man mentioned merely was drama- tizing the customary slavery by talking about “auctioning” himself. That's what every work- or does when he seeks a boss, only most of the time he doesn’t to dare ask a “bid,” he jumps at the chance to “work” and leaves. the size of the wage to the mercy of the boss. But in Bill Green’s recent pronouncements about what the A. F. of L. thinks to do in its coming Boston convention, Green puts out a variation on chattel slavery. He proposes that the worker get “an annual wage.” Now what's the difference? It is this: If a worker sells himself for a daily or weekly wage, he at least has the “right’—rather an empty one, certainly—to change bosses at the end of the day or week. Bill Green would make a bond slave of the worker to the one boss for a year, and it follows that the boss would have the right to make him work as much of that year's time as possible, and under any conditions. Green's proposal for a year’ indentured bond slavery might just as well be extended to a life time—the principle is just the same, name ly bond slavery. And this is the head of the A. F. of Ly which is all het up with the false accusation of Mattie Woll, that there is “forced labor” in the Soviet Union. Slave drivers of all ages have hotly condemned slavery—in words, but never given up slave driving. Green’s is the modern version, that’s all.