The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 18, 1930, Page 1

4 | BIG SUPPORT FOR ‘DAILY’ TAG DAYS ri ti Speed the Signature Collection Campaigr for the Unemployment Insurance Bill. Unemployment Insurance Must Be Won Now! (Section of the Communist Interna tional) WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! nail ‘at New York, N. Emtered as second-class matter at the Post Office ¥.. under the act of March 3. 1879 NEW YORK, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1930 Vol. VII. No. 302, What Your Employer Is Fixing for You ILE the regular liars of the capitalist papers keep up the pretense that employers are not cutting wages, the “inside” papers published by the capitalists for themselves alone, show a regular propaganda for wage cuts. The journal called “The Commercial and Financial Chroniele,” for example, in its issue of December 13, has @ long editorial on the “neces- sity” (to capitalists) of wage cuts for workers. It speaks to sympathetic readers of the “untenable attitude” of wage earners who are “profiting (?) at the expense of the sorely distressed employer”, and argues that “there is no hardship to the wage earner in lower wages”. This is, of course, the moralists of the capitalist class, teaching their more unlettered fellows that what increases profits must also be just and righteous. Wage cuts will help the profits of the “sorely distressed” employers, and hense justification must be found in order to claim that they will also “help” the very wage workers whose wages are cut! More, they go on and state that “this unfortunate attitude” of wage earners against wage cuts—‘“is developing into a real obstacle. to. busi- ness recovery and to the solution of the problem of unemployment.” How wage cuts—for those workers who have a job—helps the unem- “ployed is beyond us. Again, it is only a “moral justification” to hide the simple greed of the employers for bigger profit. Nor is this campaign to cut wages something for the future. It ts going on now, and has been going on for a year with increasing mo- mentum. The income of the wage working class has, by the two factors of wage cuts and part time alone, been cut about 20 percent in the last year, while with unemployment added, the aggregate income of the working class has fallen in one year, at least one-third, or thirty-three per cent. In such a situation, can any worker fail to see the hypocrisy of Sec- retary of Commerce Lamont, who in his annual report made Monday dared to say: “It is a noteworthy fact that practically no cuts in wages have been made by employers as a result of the recession in business.” A refutation of the glaring lie, as published on page 6 of the N. Y. Times of December 15, was found by chance, on page 5 of the same paper, ‘where the Bureau of Labor Statistics admitted that during November employment fell off 2.5 percent, while payrolls—that is to say, wages— fell off 5.1 percent. i But the capitalists are not satisfied with the present wage cuts, and are openly campaigning for bigger wage cuts. Your employer is fixing up a wage cut for you. Just because you haven't felt it yet is no guarantee that you won’t. The whole boss class is savagely attacking your class, the working class, all along the line. , Workers, don’t stand for it! Refuse to shoulder more misery and hardships for the benefit of your employers (who are far from being in want and who are. on the contrary, maintaining their Florida homes and comfortable parasite lives!) Refuse to accept wage cuts—and to refuse effectively, organize with your shopmates and prepare to strike at any moment the employer tries to put over the wage cut attack on you. Fight back! Prepare well in advance! Organize «xi strike! Know Your Enemies. EDNESDAY witnessed the arrant hypocrisy of the so-called “progres- sive” wing, or “Musteites”, of the American Federation of Labor. Their leaders, the Rev. Muste, and Lovis Budenz, arranged through their vest- pocket organization, “The Conference for Progressive Labor Action”, to ‘march upon the city hall” and there present humble petitions to His Excellency, Jimmy Walker, Mayor of New York, about unemployment. Not that they expected anything to be done avout it. It is not with- in the intentions of these “progressive” fakers to have anything done about it, but it is their intention to try to keep the workers from following the Communists. And it was for that reason that Muste and all his hosis, | Budenz, the “socialist” Norman Thomas, the case-hardened opportunist ~ Ludwig ae others got together and arranged a meeting at Lafay- ette and nard Streets, with the intention. so announced on adver- * tising handed out, of “Parading to City Ball.” Alas, for the fakers! The workers who came flocked to a Communist speaker, and to save them from embarassment the police refused at the last moment to allow the “parade”, so of course these “leaders” would not think of disobeying the police, and thus the grand petition to the Mayor Was postponed indefinitely. . Such horse play with the interests of the hundreds of thousands of hungry and freezing workers is the worst of hypocrisy. When it is un- derstood that these fakers went into this pretense merely to try to check the influence of the Communists, one sees to what depth that the s0- called “socialists” (in fact social fascists) will descend. With Green himself, head of the A. F. of L. acknowledging that the Communists were correct in estimating that 800,000 were jobless in New York City; with savings gone or lost in the spreading bank failures; with winter winds freezing the bones of the homeless and starving, these scoundrels, the “progressive” Muste group and the “socialist” party think only of trying to prevent the workers following tle Communists. And why? \ ‘Because they know, these servants of capitalism in the guise of “labor” that the workers. employed and unemployed alike, united under leadership of the Communist, Party, can struggle successfully, can win, by battle and only by battle, the relief, the food, clothing and shelter necessary to keep alive the great number now starving. If the capitalists of New York (and other cities) think that the des- perate workers, with starvation staring them and their wives and babies in the face, with the bitter winter chilling their blood, are going to re- main passive victims, going to accept the measures crumbs of charity as sufficient, then they are damned badly mistaken; Nor can the capitalists count upon the “progressives” and the “socialists” side-tracking the masses from following the Communists. ad i. ‘The workers already know that only the Communists .are able and willing to put up a real fight. Further, only the Communists farced unemployment to become an issue. They have forced, by their. battles, the capitalists to “give” even the little they do as charity. ‘ ‘The masses can win more than charity! Led by the Communist Party they can break down the resistance against real unemployment in- surance shown by the hysterical exhibition in congress over “the dole”. Under lead of the Communist Party the million-masses can this .winter rally in such force that the capitalists will be glad—rather than face .an alternative—to open the empty houses to the homeless, to clothe the cold, to feed the starving! tens of thousands of workers and get their support to build the Daily Worker. Thirty-two stations will be open throughout the city on Saturday and Sunday, where volunteers will get: all their supplies, boxes, credentials. Communist Party units throughout the district are getting voluntary do- nations to save the Daily Worker. Saturday and Sunday. Price 3 Cents U.S. BANK|Babies Are Going Hungry AIILISTS IN CIRCULATION CONDITIONS Over This “Land of ARE VERY BAD Small Depositors Must Organize or They Will Lose Out Fake Loans Fool Few State Examiner Tries to Cover Up Mess BUBLETIN. All worker depositors of the Bank of U. S. called to a meeting } tonight at 8 p. m. at 105 Thatford Ave., Brooklyn. At this meeting plans will be worked out for a fight for the return of the workers full deposits. NEW YORK—-Out of 400,000 de- positors of the wrecked Bank of the United States only 5,500 were fooled by the fake promise of a 50 per cent loan on tbeir deposits. Most of them expect the return of the full amount they- put into the bank. However, from reports that have been published about the condition of the bank, the grafting, the mix-up in fake real estate deals and the very fact that the bank could not be saved by the combined efforts of the leading Wall Street banks shows that. unless the small depositors organize and demand the return of their full devosits this will not take place. The further fact that the other banks “promise” only 50 per cent loans shows they do not think, at the most, that the depositors will ever get more than half of what they put in. A provisional meeting of 300 de- positors of the Freeman St. branch of the Bank of the United States was held on Tuesday night. The small depositors chose a” Worker” Deposit~ ors Committee of 25 to carry on the fight for the. protection of the in- terests of the worker depositors. The soi is calling a mass meeting of all the worker depositors and {will take the necessary steps to protect themselves. According tore- ports made at the meeting, the de- pesitors who surrender their books do not receive 45 per cent of the de- posit, bat through some maipulation or. other it amounts only to 35 per (CONTINUED ON PAGE THREE) NEEDLE WORKERS MASS PICKETING MilitantDemonstration Foreshadows Strike NEW YORK.—In line with “the coming strike of the dressmakers to end the wage slashes and win union conditions, the Needle Trades Work- ers Industrial Union members and other militant workers are mass pick- eting Lorbreen Dress So., Foremost Sportswear, Banner Skirt Shop and Modern Sportswear. The two last are contractors for the foremost. During the demonstrations Tour more were arrested at the Lorbreen shop, 36 West 24th St. Two previ- ously arrested, Harry Greenspan and Sophie Rubin are- held for trial on Dec. 29. They are on bail ' March on Contractors The demonstrators before the Fore- most, 1385 Broadway, marched on the Banner at. 327, W. 36th St. and de- clared it on strike. Some in the shop came out immediately and joined the pie ee By EARL BROWDER. A new stage has been reached in the economic crisis. It was signal- lized in the past few days by the crash of the Bank of the U. S., by the crash of hundreds of smaller banks over the country, and by the sudden drop in the bond market. The crisis has reached into the very heart | of capitalism—the most sacred alters | of finance-capital are being en-| gulfed in the general catastrophe. It is true that the case of the Bank | of the U. 8. is complicated by the most complex network of chicanery, Tammany politics, and “get-rich- quick” legalized robbery of the masses, which makes even the more conservative capitalists blush as it is revealed bit by bit. An effort is be- ing made to explain the whole busi- ness by the “exceptional” crimjn- ality of those who controlled the Bank of the U. S, Without denying any of the charges made, it is necessary to point out that this is only incidental. What the Bank of the U. S. was do- ing, the entire banking system of the country Was doing, more or less. It is only a question of degree. The whole system is sliding into the abyss. Consider the question of’ bond prices. Bonds are the gilt-edge secu- rities of capitalism, they are the in- nermost. protected “values,” they are the foundation of the entire fine~cial | | ry Prosperity” Pay YouR: Pew Tomy | } FRiewn-or | (Gee Ut went up. We were assured that this was the proof of the ‘essential sound- ness” of American capitalism; J. P. Morgan, Herbert Hoover, and Jay Lovestone, .all assured us that the “depression” had not touched the heart of the capitalist system, for the banks and bond “values” were listed higher than ever before, Now the banks and bonds join the general debacle. Peffiaps Messrs. Morgan, Hoover, and Lovestone will now explain that it is not banks and bonds, but some- thing else, which is witness to the transitory nature of the crisis. More than 40 million people have been cut off from their usual source of livelihood. Millions of them thought they had safeguarded them- system. When last year, stocks took their first big tumble, bond prices selves by “saving for a rainy day,” but their savings are being wiped out overnight. Hundreds of thousands of small business men, who thought un~ employment was not their concern, and who fought against unemploy- ment insurance because it might raise their taxes,’ are now themselves being suddenly “expropriated” by bank crashes. One of the outstanding signs of the depth of the crisis is the tremen- dous drop in the consumption of milk. The babies are going hungry all over this “land of prosperity.” The soup lines lengthen; the flop houses overflow, while the ware- houses pile ever highed with unsold goods, more and more houses stand empty, and millions of tons of coal are heaped up while millions of workers shiver in the zero cold. Only the Communist Party points out the cimple road to solution, the only possible solution. Open up all the empty houses to the people, free of charge; and move the freezing women and children into the palaces of the rich! Break open the warehouses, and distribute the food and clothing among the starving and freezing peo- ple! Seize the great stores of milk and distribute it among the children of the workers! Open up the great stores of coal for the free use of the masses! The crisis enters a new stage! THe winter winds grow colder! The peo- ple must find a new path! That path, the only one possible, is the path tto Communism! Senator Makes Public Crash, Drought, Price Starvation Sweeps Arkansas; Call to Farmers to Organize Pitiful Letters; Bank Smash Spreads Ruin; . United Farmers’ League Urges Struggle WASHINGTON, D. C., Dec. plain dying for lack of food, and 17. — Actual starvation, just slow starvation for thousands, BOB MINOR TO SPEAK DEC. 26 At Meet for Defense of Soviet Union NEW YORK. — Of Friday étening, NEW YORK.—Enough employed and employ: SPERRY GYRO- SCOPE WAGE CUT “Relief for Needy” Made an Excuse Is (By a Worker Correspondent) NEW YORK.—Sperry Gyroscope Company will put into effect Satur- day a wage cut of one per cent under the pretense that it will be given “voluntarily” by the employees to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle fund for the “neediest” in the borough. It has been made very clear that the company wishes to extend this, wage cut for a period of “18 weeks.” However, the workers in the plant know very well that it will continue forever if possible and most likely the company will give more wage cuts under othe? preténses iii the future. Dec. 26, the Friends of the Soviet, Union will hold a mass meeting at the New Star Casino, 115 B. 107th St., is reported to Senator Caraway from Arkansas in frantic letters ‘from his state, made public by him today, As the millions of jobless hunger in the cities,-so the farmers, hard hit in great areas by drought and hit still everywhere by the hunger too. Teachers in England, Ar- kansas rport 200 children ir. their schools dull and numb from semi- starvation. The letter-that reported this declares:/ “Thousands of our! people will not be able’to subsist for | another 30 days.” S. H. Mann, county relief chairman at Forrest City,.Ark., writes that his own investigation “convinces me: that | one third of tae population is in ac- tual want of food and the other two thirds are not @ble to help.” A Round Pond (Ark.) grocer wrote: “Conditions are rapidly get- ting more serious: Stores are be- | ing broken into and held up; banks are being robbed; cows and other animals are being killed for food by | thieves, and the only way to stop it is for the farmer to get money crisis, demonstration, and the most of the others came out later, A strike has been won at Mollin and Grey at 241 West 23rd St. Here” miserable conditions prevailed with pay below the scale, and discrim- ination against the Spanish speaking girls. After a two hours’ stoppage. the boss surrendered, giving an in- | crease in wages and agreeing to union | conditions. Today at 6 p. m. there will be a meeting of dress cutters at 131 W. 28th St. to mobilize for the great dress strike. y harder| through federal aid, because we have no security, and give the un- employed men work to do. Crops are all harvested and the money is all spent. Fifty per cent of the farmers are. without food, feed and clothing.” Bankers point out that the smash- ing of the-eotton price and the fail- ure of 60 banks in the state recently have wiped out savings and stopped the farmers’ income—‘People are starving and unable to secure em- ployment.” All agree that the Red Cross is hot doing anything and does not Propose to do anything. A man ffom Cash, Arkansas, winds | up a letter telling of starvation of himself and family of eight’ by say- Aig: “If the government can furnish $25,000,000 for a chain of banks, it looks as though it could help the starving people of Arkansas.” But the governnient is not. planning to help anybody but the rich. The farm relief program is a joke, just a scheme for loans that will add a burden of mortgage and debt to an already hopeless situation. Against. this cold blooded exploita- tion of the farmers, robbing them | while they have been knocked down by the crisis, by the bankers and farm machinery makers, and further in- jured by the drought the farmers must organize. The United Farmers League calls on them to organize by in defense of the Soviet Union against the threat of intervention as exposed in the Moscow trial of eight wreck- ers. Robert Minor, one of the Unem- ployed Delegation which was jailed by the. bosses. for demanding relief for the unemployed, will make his first public appearance since his re- lease from prison at this meeting. Lem Harris, newspaper correspond- ent, who has just returned from the Soviet Union where he travelled ex- tensively. will give a first hand re- vort of his experiences in the land of the Soviets. Mossaye Olgin, editor of the Frei- heit, will be one of the speakers. Bob Dunn will act aS chairman. The speed-up system in th eplant has plated hundreds of our fellow workers who were employed in the plant a few months ago out on the streets to starve and neither- Mr: Redding, the bosses’ appointed presi- dent of the “Sperry Industrial As- sociation” nor any of the manage- ment has said a word about them. We, the workers of Sperry demand: (1) No wage cut be given to any workers under any pretense. (2) We further demand that the Sperry Gproscope Co. is to pay full wages to all those workers who were fired and laid off durnig the year of 1930. ‘We want the workers of Sperry to write to us.and express their opinion about this wage cut. Write to the Sperry Workers Organizational Com- mittee, 61 Graham Aye., Brook] Jobless, Ignoring Musteites, Rally to Unemployed Council Support Demand for Immediate Relief and Insurance Bill—Boss Press Admits That Fakers Only Drew Handful NEW YORK.—Over 3,000 unem- ployed workers in front of the city! fake employment agency yesterday heard speakers of the Unemployed Council for four and a half hours expose the viscious starvation poli- |cies of the bosse$ and the betrayal of the struggles of the unemployed by the Musteite and “socialist” fakers. townships and counties, and to fight against taxes, interest on mortgages, foreclosures and for cheaper supplies. @ Across the street from the Unem- ployed Council meeting the Musteites and “socialists” aided by the Love- Emergency Campaign lags. Only 10% of $30,000 Total Raised in Month IMMEDIATE ORGANIZED SUPPORT CAN SAVE “DAILY” / ~ as Many Workers Aid NEW YORK. — ‘Individual workers. and »workers’ organizations are rally- ing in large ‘numbers to the support of the Daily Workef, the central or- gan of the Communist Party..A work- er who until recently was a member of the “socialist” party came in to the Daily Worker office, stating that he was convinced of the treachury of the “socialist” party, and gave @ donation for the Daily Worker also to get other workers to donate. Workers’ organizations throughout the city are mobilizing their member- ~ ship to go out on Saturday and Sun- Section 1, Unit 8, pledged. $50.. of which $30.50 has already been. turned in, one unit has made a loan. of $60 for the emergency campaign... The Laisve, Lithuanian Communist Daily, rollected at a concert $110.40 for the Daily Worker. A Ukrainian club do- nated $25, Polish Workers. Club $6. Many donations are already, coming in from the International Workers Order branches, and Jewish Workers Clubs. All workers organizations that: have not as yet taken up the question of the Tag Day, and want to get» ma- terlal, should\ phone, Algonquin 5707, District, Daily Worker, 35 East 12th «The Daily Worker. $30,000 Emergency Fund Campaign is a month old. It has brought a response to date of only .$3,197.02— ABOUT TEN PER CENT OF THE SUM THAT MUST BE RAISED IF-THE DAILY WORKER IS TO CON- TINUE. At the same rate it would‘take about a year to get together the sum that the workers’ paper must have im- nediately. to insure its existence. Tomorrow the complete figures will be published show- ing the response from ‘each district. They will reveal that Detroit hus sent only ‘$260.62; Chicago only $141.19. What does this show? _... It shows laxness and indifference. It shows that the workers in these districts are not organizing behind the campaign. Laziness must be overcome, : The Daily Worker is the workers’ paper. While capital- ist papers are discussing the latest development of the pro- hibition “issue” and Hoover “discusses” unemployment, the Daily Worker is bringing the true issues of the increasing depression before the working class and aiding the workers to organize for the struggle. .. THE DAILY WORKER CAN CONTINUE ONLY WITH THE FULL MASS SUPPORT OF THE WORKING CLASS. There are some signs of hope. “Laisve,”’ Lithuanian Communist Daily sends $110; the Lithuanian Workers’ Liter- ary Society sends $25. But this is not enough, There must be immediate ORGANIZED mass support. 3 Use the Red Shock Corps coupon.on page 3.’ Rush con- tributions to the Daily Worker, 50 East 13th St., New York. : ae j ; ¢ ne ee Y stone renegades vainly tried to get an audience for their fake proposals of unemployment. “relief.” Musteite and Lovestone renegades peddled the “Revolutionary Age” on the outskirts of the Unemployed Council meeting, while the policé tools of the bosses tried in vain to help them by attempting to disperse the Unemployed Council meeting. The jobless workers, however, re- sisted both the attacks of the police | and the lures of the betrayers. Norman Thomas, Muste and Lud- wig Lore spoke to a handful; Lore declaring that the “police and the bosses are not to be blamed, that it’s just “smiling Jimmy Walker,” while Muste, after calling off the proposed “march” to City Hall, because the police refused a permit, said that | “when the workers had the guts to fight” they would get their demands. Spakers at the Uneraployed Coun- cil meeting were Nesin, Stone and CONTINUED ON PAGE TWO) Cops Attack Toiler in Place Over Zelgreen NEW YORK, — A Greek worker uamed Constantinedes entered the | Greek restaurant over Zelgreen cafe- teria recently and laid his Daily Worker on the table while he ordered coffee. The owner immediately called three police, and the cops beat up Constan- timedes viciously, and falsely accused fim of breaking an electric fan be~ lunging to Zelgreen cafeteria. e mass violation of the injunc- tion campaign has centered around FOR 2,000,000 NAMES DEMANDING INSURANCE Orders in From Trade Union Unity League Organizations, and Many Local Groups for 50,000 More Lists for Jobless City United Front Conferences Formulate Local Demands and Plan Hunger Marches Whole Sections of Country Not Touched by Drive Before Are Swinging in; Misery Ap- palling in Farming Regions, Small Towns! ignature lists are already in cir- culation to allow the collection of two million signatures of un= ed workers, signatures that demand the passage of the Workers Unemployed Insurance Bill to take the war funds of the national government and use them to pay $25 ; ~ va week to each of the jobless, the National Campaign Com- mittee for Unemployment In- surance (2-West 15th St., New York) announced yesterday. The committee states that signa- ture lists now in the hands of city campaign committees, the Trade Union Unity League local organiza- tions and workers organizations of all categories are being speedily dis- tributed to workers and members for ® quick and steady collection of sig- natures in the shops, mines and mills, in working-class neighborhoods, on the bread lines, at job agencies and wherever unemployed and employed workers are to be found, The demand for signature lists is widespread. Orders for 50,000 addi- tional signature lists are on hand and being shipped out as fast as the press can print them, Demands for lists are coming through from a sur= prisingly wide area—from the South and West, from workers in small cities and industrial centers where no form of worker organization ex- ists, even from the farms, states the committee. The drive for collection of a huge numter of signatures is coupled with the preparations for united front con- ferences in all important cities. The National Committee urgently insists that the smaller industrial districts (CONTINUED ON SE THREE) FOSTER SPEAKS AT MEET TONIGHT Sophie Melvin, Others, at Women’s Rally NEW YORK.—The mass meeting of working women, called by the Trade Union Unity League, will take place tonight at Irving Plaza at 7:45. It will mark an important polit~ ical event, being the first step to- wards drawing masses of women workers into the struggles facing us in the immediate future. Sophie Melvin, one of the Gastonia defen- dants, will report on the first Inter= national Women’s Conference, re= cently held in Moscow. Anna Korn= blatt and Helen McLtin, the other speakers who also were delegates to the conference, will tell of the tre+ mendous progress made by the works ers of the Soviet Union, where uns employment has disappeared and poverty and misery is vanishing, and where the care of the children takes the predominant place in cultural and material life of the masses. June Croll, organizer of the Needle Trades Workers’ Industrial Union, wil speak on the preparation of the union for the coming strike. Wil- liam Z. Foster will be the main speaker of the evening. Maniacs, Babes Voters in N. J. A man who votes only once City elections is regarded with suspicion. Among those who voted in the last election were found dead men and maniacs, the ma- niacs, for the most part vot- ing republican, The last time they counted the ballots in Atlantic City they found the number of votes cast was greater than the number of inhabitants in- cluding babes in arms and de- partment store dummies. Startling tales of boss graft and labor rackets in the Daily Worker soon. (60,000 news on pafe 3). in Atlantic