The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 11, 1930, Page 6

Published by the Comprodafly Publishing Co., Inc. daily, except Sunday, at 50 East 18th Street, New York City, N. Y. Telephone Algonquin 7956-7. Address and mail all checks to the Daily Worker, 50 East 13th Street, New York, N. Y. Cabl ‘DAIWORK.” Dail Central fo TEdEH orker SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $3; two months, $1; excepting Boroughs of Manhattan and Bronx, New York City. Foreign: One year, $8; six months, §4.50 Porty U.S.A. PRE-PLENUM DISCUSSION Are We to Win the Proletarian Children? By BEN HARPER : million five hundred thousand German kers voted for the revolutionary program ne Communist Party! Four thousand work- in the Communist Children Move- rmany. What a contrast! These the crisis that exists in idren’s Movement, not only y country in the world the Soviet Union. icle, an attempt will be made to d the League with the in the children’s move- , and to place before the t the tasks which are facing building of a mass Communist Chil- movement. rked the seventh year of ex- evolutionary Children’s Move- United States. What has been the al of all these years of work in the ¢ of this movement? Speaking in terms we have never succeeded in having e than three thousand children in Pioneers at once and at present ‘ul if there is even one thousand tion. At a recent meet- ing of the Presidium of the Executive Com- mittee of the Young Communist International, the serious crisis that exists in almost every y of the world among our children’s or- ns was thoroughly discussed. It is he basis of a very clear and sharp res- olution, that this meeting issued, that all the Leagues and Parties of the Y.C.I. and the (on must work in the correction of all the pre- us errors that were made so that a real organization of fighting children can be built in America. This crisis in our cihldren’s work exists at a time when the children are suffering most. At present with the terrific unemployment and wage cutting going on, the children are the ones to feel the hunger, lack of clothing, ete. most. Thousands are forced to go to school without food, improperly clothed, ex- posed to sickness and misery. Child labor ex- ists in the most intensive and varied form. Over four million children working in the mills, fields, factories and streets, as was “suddenly” discovered by the A. F. of L. recently when they found out that there were children ten years of age working in the Colorado beet fields, The millions of children of the Negro workers that are so terribly exploited, segre- gated and lynched are suffering terrible misery and want. In the face of these conditions and the growing radicalization of the workers gen- erally, we find that our revolutionary chil- dren’s movement travels backward while that of the bourgeoisie grows from day to day. With the increasing use of the social-demo- crats by the bourgeoisie, to fool the workers, it is to be expected that there will be strengthening of the social democratic chil- dren’s organizations. This is best proven by the great strength of the children’s social dem- ocratic organizations throughout Europe, where in many countries they are much stronger than the bourgeois organizations. Taking the Boy Scouts of America as an example of the great attention paid by the American capitalists to Young Communist League, U.S.A. the winning of the masses of children, we find the following: By the end of the year 1929, there were over 600,000 children organized, with a recorded increase of gain of 22 thou- sand between 1928 and 1929. This organization which is run with the direct contributions of the biggest millionaires of this country and has the best program for the inculcation of mili- tarism and patriotism in the mind of the work- ers child is only one of many capitalist or- ganizations which are succeeding. This only goes to show how much more the bosses realize thes importance of preventing the worker's child from developing into anything but a wage slave under capitalism. We must seriously consider what the reasons for our failure to build our revolutionary chil- dren’s organization were if we are to really correct our mistakes. In general one can list them under two large headings. 1. A seri- ous misunderstanding which existed on the part of the Y.C.L. as to the character and forms of work to be developed in our chil- dren’s groups. 2. The absolutely inadequate guidance and attention given by the Y.C.L. and the Party in the developing and building of our children’s movement. What was the mistake of the Y.C.L. in its conception as to the needs and forms of work of our children’s organization? Our Pioneer organization was not at all attractive for workers’ children. We did not conduct work in the most varied forms to suit the interest of all children, we were not an organization that could make workers’ children want to join it. Instead our children’s organization was built on almost the same basis as the Party and the League. We mechanically carried over the forms of the Party and the League group work, which inevitably led to the transforma- tion of our children’s organization into that of a Children’s Communist Party. Our incorrect conception of the needs of children and our attempt to follow the shop nuclei prevented the Pioneer organization from becoming any- thing else but a narrow sectarian organization, completely isolated from the masses of chil- dren and making it impossible for the broad masses to understand and want to join us. In recognition of these errors, steps are be- ing taken to introduce activities into our -pres- ent children’s groups and to build new groups in a manner that will supply the children with forms of work that they demand and desire. We should use the most varied forms and methods of activities for the children and util- ize every opportunity for organizing the mass- es of children, i.e., establish sports, music, na- ture study, photography, etc., circles in our groups of children and in this manner make it possible to get and hold on to masses of children. Our task in the building of a Com- munist Children’s Movement is to not only get the children but to make these broad masses of proletarian children understand their class situation and recognize the necessity for the class struggle, thus training them in the spirit of Communism on the basis of the participa- tion of the children in the class struggle of the proletariat. (To Be Continued.) ~ Communist and Farmer Talk It Over By HARRISON GEORGE. ¥ [A crisis, chronic and incurable, is gripping agriculture wherever capitalism rules. The United States, nupposedly the most ‘ad- vanced,” is no exception. Forty per cent of all United States farmers are renters paying about $1,000,000,000 to landlords each year. ‘Another $1,000,000,000 is taken by bankers for interest on mortgages; taxes, now over two and a half times bigger than in 1913, takes still mere billions and ruins countless farmers. It was upon this background that the capi- talist government established the Farm Board, about which a Communist and a poor farmer are talking. ee ee | Farmer: What you said last week about So- fiet farms is interesting, but Secretary Hyde says thet the Soviet tried to knock our wheat prices down, selling short at Chicago. Communist: Yes, he said so, but he lied. ‘One knew he was lying when he said it. First- ly, wheat was falling for months before the Soviet sold some 7,000,000 bushels in Septem- ber, from $1.25 to around 85 cents to be ex- ect. Why didn’t Hyde tell what caused that? That’s because there’s a surplus, And there’s ® surplus because over 8,000,000 workers and their families in this country alone are job- less and starving — about 100,000,000 people in the principal countries going hungry. Secondly, anybody can see that the Soviet tale in September had no bearing on the price. Everybody but Hyde said so and he had reason to lie about it. Chicago is the world wheat trading center and the Soviet sold there but is delivering in Europe, and even Legge admits that Europe can use all Soviet wheat exports. Farmer: But why did Hyde lie about it? Communist: For four distinct reasons. First, all the capitalist countries are putting out propaganda preparing for war on the Soviet » Union because they want to smash successful socialist industry the workers and farmers are building there, because its success makes the workers in capitalist countries want to do the same. .. Second, to save the Republican party ticket in the elections by making the farmers believe that their troubles are due to the Bolsheviks “— Soviet Russia and not to capitalism right ere, Third, to give an alibi for the Farm Board “relief” schemes, which were never meant to help the poor farmers anyhow. Fourth, to conceal the real “dumping” by the Farm Board itself of the* 60,000,000 bushels it bought last year at $1.25 — from the spec- ulators as is supposed to be “holding.” ’ Farmer: How’s that? Has the Farm Board been selling that wheat? Communist: Sure. It began selling as soon as the price began to fall to save money for itself and let the farmers take most of the loss. Although it wants the Soviet to be barred from selling, it sold all right. It sold through brokers by the millions of bushels long before the Soviet did, and kept its own deals secret. For example, the wheat it bought at $1,25 it sold, let’s say, at $1.10. It lost money surely, but not so much as if it had waited till wheat went down to 85 cents. After it had sold a lot, the Department of Agriculture issued that statement about “all farm products would be lower in price the next several years”—and that hit wheat prices an awful lick. Then there was some kick when the rumor went around that the Farm Board was selling, so the Board conccalel the whole trick by say- ing that it was buying and would have “the same number of bushels, that is 60,000,000, as before.” But there is the difference in what it cost anl that difference was unloadel on the farmers. Now it’s trying to keep this skull-duggery dark, and say “The Soviet is to blame!” Farmer: That’s right. I remember hearing the Board was selling and buying again, but I hadn’t figured it out. But how do you mean that the Farm Board was never intended to help us poor farmers? It had $500,000,000 to help. Communist: Correct, and some of it is loaned out, but did you or any other poor farmer get it? Is the Soviet to blame for the fall in cotton prices? It has bought cotton but not sold any. Yet the Farm Board has been “help- ing” the cotton “cooperatives.” ef These “cooperatives” are a swindle. In prac- tically every case you farmers form a “coop- erative,” it gets into the. hands of bankers through a supposed “subsidiary” selling or- ganization. All you do is agree to furnish your crops to the gang who really controls both the cooperative and the “selling organization.” Your “cooperative” can’t do business with- out money, and since you haven’t any, you must borrow it. Now the Farm Board rule is that it loans no money except to those who have already got into the hands of the banks. Do you see? The whole thing is to build up a trust in marketing, controlled by the bankers, with you farmers just brought in to furnish the crop. It helps the rich farmers, yes, but not the poor ones, and they are the majority. Farmer: Well, that’s the way they’ve work- ed out. But don’t Communists believe in co- operation? Communist: Sure we do. But with whom? The’ difference lies in who finances the co- “WHAT PRICE JUSTICE?” By HARRY J. CANTER. (Communist Candidate for Governor.) ip the days of the Roman Empire when the people in their misery appealed for bread, they were given circuses, displays, contests, and the like. Today this situation is being paralleled in Massachusetts. When the work- ers here demand work or wages, when they call for relief from unemployment and ex- ploitation, they are told to be satisfied with pageants, The tercentenary celebrations provide a con- venient means for distracting the attention of the workers from their problems. Instead of workers’ insurance or some other measure of relief, they are regaled with parades, carnivals, fireworks, band concerts, official welcomings to ocean fliers and foreign potentates, greet- ings to conventions of the American Legion, A. F. of L., Knights of Columbus and other patriotic and semi-patriotic organizations. This round of festivities is designed to make the wage-slave forget his slavery and the unem- ployed their starvation. Massachusetts, which only 240 years ago executed twenty persons for “vwitchcreft,” one by the barbarous method of “pressing” to death, and which only three years ago mur- dered Sacco and Vanzetti, is now “celebrating” these achievements and priding itself on its civic “progress.” Yet all is not well with the old Bay State. For years there heave arisen complaints that New England, once the industrial center of the country, has been losing ground. Shift of population, change from water to electric power, opening up of new industries, have all resulted in many factories leaving this sec- tion. In recent years the textile industry has lost one-third of its spindles. Instead of 65 per cent of the nation’s shoes being produced here, as formerly, now only 85 per cent are made in New England. Only in metal ma- chinery has there been an increase. The economic crisis which set in after the Wall St. crash raised havoc with New Eng- land’s ‘already declining industrics. The chief industry, textiles, already in a crisis, and al- ways sensitive to economic depression, went from bad to worse. In many cases the fac- tories did not curtail production, they simply closed up shop. The shoe industry fared little better. The mill cities in New England are full of starving workers. In Lawrence and Lowell, New Bedford and Fall River, Manchester and Nashua, men walk the streets wondering where’ their next meal is coming from, They are ready to follow anyone who offers a solution to their misery. Unemployment is so serious that the capi- talist politicians had to take note of it in the recent primary elections. Never before had such “interest” been displayed in the lot of the poor working man. Jim Curley, tercen- tenary mayor of Boston and aspiring governor, came out with a complete social demagogic program. Every politician paid deference to the unemployed, and even William M. Butler, friend of Cal Coolidge and candidate for U. S. senator, maintained that the main issue in the election was “prosperity” and not prohibition. On this issue Mr. Butler, the textile mill own- er, won the republican nomination from Mr. Draper, the manufacturer of textile machinery. operation. In the Soviet Union the working class government finances the collective farms. It could be done here, but only after we make a revolution. « Next time I'll tell you something you can do right now. But don’t forget to Vote Com- munist this election, Bread or Pageants in Mass. State Butler has a vicious anti-labor record, yet is being supported by leaders of the A. F. of L., including Batty and Binns of New Bedford, who betrayed the strike of the textile workers in 1928. It was proved that Butler, as presi- dent of the New Bedford Cotton Manufactur- ers’ Association, sent spies hired from the Sherman Detective Agency into the mills to establish a-blacklist and crush the unions. The record of Marcus A. Coolidge, his democratic opponent, also a big manufacturer, is almost as unsavory. After a strike in his factory at Fitchburg in 1922 Mr. Coolidge removed his plant to New York State. he Neither Mr. Butler’s sudden favor of a na- tional 48-hour law, nor the democrats’ inter- est in social reform can fool the workers into believing that these millionaire bosses care one whit for their interests. The workers in larger numbers turn from these two old par- ties, and from the third party of the bosses, the socialist party, to the only working class party, the Communist Party. Interest in the Unemployment Insurance Bill, introduced by the Party, is keen. At the open air meetings arranged by the Party the response of the workers is good. The bosses and their police are doing their utmost to pre- vent the Party from getting the Biil before the workers. They have invoked a law passed last year which necessitates getting the con- sent in writing of the property owners of the buildings abutting the street where the meet- ing is to be held. In some cases this property is owned by a bank or church, but even in the case of petty shopkeepers it hes been impos- sible to get such consent. Meanwhile capital- ist politicians with a pull in City Hall are granted unlimited rights to the streets. A Young Communist League meeting in South Boston on International Youth Day was invaded by a gang of toughs organized by Wil- liam Foley, district attorney, who tried to break up the meeting. Jackson Wales has been twice arrested for speaking at open air meetings. The Party is planning a fight on those street corners where this law is being invoked, and the units will be mobilized on this issue, The Election Campaign in Massachusetts this year provides a splendid opportunity. to rally the workers for social insurance, for the struggle against wage cuts and speed-up, for the revolutionary demands of the Party. Never before were the workers so ready to listen and respond. We must carry our message right into the shops and factories; we must form “Vote Communist” clubs for support of our campaign, we must develop new means and methods to dramatize our campaign and bring home to every worker our revolutionary slo- gans. Every member of the Party active in the election campaign! Workers! Join the Party of Your Class! Communist Party U. S. A. 43 East 125th Street, New York City. I, the undersigned, want to join the Commu- nist Party. Send me more information. Name Co eee cemmescescescceccemsoes Addres8 ...scccccccccccmmecss UNRYscecscvee Occupation ..... eee AGO. cseee Mail this to the Central Office,-Communist Party, 43 East 125th St. New York, N. ¥, —BY BURCK Amalgamation ‘of Workers’ Sick Benefit Organizations Er the United States, a tremendous number of foreign born workers are organized in mutual aid societies. If we take only 10 lan- guage groups (Polish, Jugoslavian, Hungarian, |. talian, Czechoslovakian, Ukranian, Lithuanian, | Jewish, German and Russian) we find that closely two million workers are organized in different sick and death benefit societies. In the Elks and similar organizations along- side with the petty bourgeois great numbers of native workers are organized. There is no other country where the Insur- ance companies would expand on a scale like in the United States, drawing hundreds of mil- lions of dollars yearly fram the pockets of the workers and investing these fabulous amounts mainly in industrial undertakings, exploiting the same workers. The explanation for this state of affairs lies in the fact that in the United States there is no social insurance, At the same time, there is no other country in the world where social insurance is so much needed. There is the greatest number of workers unemployed (at present over 8 million) a large number of them permanently thrown out of industry. But there is no unemployment insurance. As a result of capitalist rationalization, terrific speed-up, the “human machinery” breaks down sooner and more often, than in the other capi- talist countries. But there is no state insur- ance. for sickness. About a quarter million workers are victims of industrial accidents yearly and in the average 22,000 of them die as a result of the accidents. But even in those states, where there is workmen’s compensation law, it is very far from being satisfactory, not only because of the low compensation, but also for the reason that the workers in great num- bers of cases are cheated and do not receive anything. There is no federal old age insur- ance. The New York Old Age Pension Law favored by Roosevelt, the fascist leaders of the A. F. of L. and the socialist party gives “pension” to the workers after they die. It is a promise of “You'll get pie in the sky when you die.” Are there many workers liv- ing up to the age of 70 years and over under the strains of a murderous speed-up system, to get this miserable pension? Very few. In the Soviet Union the pension is due to the workers at the age of 50 if they are unable to work. The workers in the U. S. started to build the mutual aid societies because there was no state social insurance and the labor movement of that time (the S.L.P., the S.P., the A. F. of L., ete.) did not wage a struggle to’ get social insurance. The first (and only) party to fight for social insurance, to lead the masses for unemployment insurance ($25 minimum a week), for sickness, accidents and old age insurance, is the Communist Party. By organizing these mutual aid societies, the workers have taken on their own shoulders the burden, which should be carried by their exploiters and by their state. But even these organizations are heading towards a crisis. The curbing of immigration, the Americanization of the children of the for- eign born workers at the time when the sharp national division closing the way to the Amer- icanization of these organizations, favored so much by the reactionaries, is still upheld, the plundering activities of the reactionary, fas- cist and social fascist leaders of many of these organizations, the growing economic crisis, growing number of unemployed, growing num- ber of sicknesses, accidents, deaths caused by rationalization, speed-up, the attacks of the state ‘Insurance authorities on the workers’ sick benefit organizations, these are the chief ; thing smelly about this. By JORGE Teaching Scar-Face Al In Chicago we have one of the most innocent looking D. 0.’s of the lot. His pleasant smile lights up the whole Northwest side and along with Sam Hammersmarck he makes up a che- rubic pair one would expect to find on the mural paintings of the nearest cathedral. But he is’nt interested at all in the Daily Worker. Whether it sinks or swims or lives or dies is a matter in which he manifests not the slightest interest. In fact it would be hard to find in Chicago anyone in the District Office of the Communist Party who’ really IS inter- ested in the Daily Worker. The D. O. is SUPPOSED to be, both inter- ested and responsible. But his responsibility is to see that the Agit-Prop which is SUPPOSED to supervise, among other things, the distribu- tion of the Daily, really does it. But here is where we strike a knot, as the Agit-Proper is extremely devoted to what is known as “hoch Politik” and finds it necessary to spend all his time keeping the D. O. on his theoretical trolley. In short he must do all the heavy thinking for everybody in the dis- trict and has no time for such trivial matters as seeing that the official organ of the Party is properly distributed and—sometimes—paid for. So there is another “chenovnik” appointed, who is CALLED the Daily Worker Agent. You will notice that the system is beginning to look like Al Capone’s “cabinet,” in which there’ is a Secretary for Beer, a Minister of War (with- out portfolio but with machine guns), and so on. But the way they do things in Chicago does not provide that the Daily Worker Agent has anything much to do with the Daily Worker. Such a supposition would be a grevious error. True, he is understood to get a bundle of spe- cial editions now and then, payment for which was recently made in a $23 rubber check that bounced right back when our Business Manager laid it on the cashier’s window ledge. But the main distribution of the Daily Work- er in Chicago has long ago, some time between the time John Pepper went to Mexico and the disappearance of the movie magnate Bill Kruse, fallen into the hands of racketeers. Thus we find that neither*the D. O., nor the very proper Agit-Proper, nor the Agent of the Daily Worker has anything at all to do with distributing the regular bundle of 725 Daily Workers sent each week day into Chicago (850 copies on Saturdays). All this is “turned over” to somebody who is down on the books as “Freiheit-burba,” way out on Roosevelt Road. Whether “Burba” is connected with the Capone gang or the Moran gang we don’t know. But wiat we do know is that he takes too much “freiheit” with the Dai- ly Worker. ‘ Beiore our astonished eyes the Business Of- fice lays down the account of “reiheit-Burva” beginning with an old unpaid balance back in February of $426.48. Papers are billed to Cni- cago at $1.60 per hundred, and while in other Piaces at the same cost the sales price of $3.00 per hundred pays for distribution—all bets are oif on such a thing in Chicago. Of the 725 Dailies sent, for which our Busi- ness Office sends a bill of $11.60, and which should sell for $21.15, leaving a comfortable difference of $10.15 a day, the Daily Worker has received not one damned cent since the Lewis and Clark Expedition. ‘1nus the balance of $426.48 of last Feb- ruary has flourished like a green bay tree, unui on August 31, it had atiained the mag- niricent proportion of $2,589.65! And not a cent in payment all this time! Our Business Manager, being a curious cuss, has inquired occasionally of “Freiheit-Burba,” only to get the reply that it costs more than $21.75 to distribute $21.75 worth of Daily Work- e. anda hint we should end him a check for the difference! Perhaps. it’s the stockyards, but-there’s some- Maybe the Workers and Peasants inspection could find out. Maybe the D. O., the Agit-Proper, the rub- ber check Daily Worker Agent, the Control Commission and the Gay-Pay-oo could send us a thesis on the theory of diminishing returns, the bottomless crisis in the Business Office and a negotiable reliance on spontaneity of the masses that would suffice to pay the printer. But we would much rather receive some money we could bite on, + 8 * Medium Rare Now that Hoover has told us that the best thing we have is “the nation’s spiritual herit- age,” how will you have it, boiled, fried or on the half-shell with apple sauce? The struggle against the reactionary, fascist and social fascist leaders, the amalgamation of the Sick and Death Benefit Societies in an organization based on the class struggle for sick, accident, death, old age, and unemploy- ment insurance, and struggle against regist- ration, fingerprinting and deportation of the foreign born workers, to break down the shap division between the different nationalities, but preserving in some form the language auto. nomy of the different groups amalgamated in one international organization opening the way to the American workers, these are the next steps to be taken. The most advanced organizations, which are already based on the class struggle, which are already under workers’ leadership, shall point the way to the others, by amalgamating first. All workers, members of those organiza- tions, in which the agents of capitalism are the leaders fight to relieve the capitalists from the burden of state social insurance, will fol- low the example. They will understand, that unity. lends strength, in face of the crisis, for the struggle for social insurance and also such economic advantages which the organizations separately could not achieve, like sanatoria, rest rooms, me ical centers, etc. But the work- ers shall not forget that te real solution of their problems is given only with the setting up their own government, the workers and fare mers government. The workers of the Soviet Union through their victorious revolution . achieved with their liberation from capitalist class rule full social insurance, embodied in the Code of Labor Laws. Amalgamate your organizations on a class struggle basis! Fight for the Unemployed In- surance Bill proposed by the Communist Party and for real accident, sick, old age and death insurance!. Support the Communist Party lead- causes.of the approaching crisis in these so- | ing this struggle! Vote Communist on Novem- cleties. Ber 4th orn eens