The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 1, 1931, Page 1

Speed the Signature Collection Campaign for the Unemployment Insurance Bill. Unemployment Insurance Must Be Won Now! Dail Central Orga —~Comn (Section of the Communist Pee atten) Norker Frumiet Party U.S.A. WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! Vol VII, No. 1 Entered se jecuahlins mailer a tne) Bet (Olee A New Year of rem Ee year just closed witnessed a drop in production of about 35 per cent from the high point of 1929. As a whole 1930 was 25 per cent below the previous year. The new year begins with a new stage of the crisis, wide-spread bankruptcies, bank crashes, and a new downward plunge of production. HUNGER is the keynote of 1931. HUNGER AND WAR! “Capital- sm needs a war now,” declared a prominent scientist yesterday, “to solve the two most pressing problems of the day—it would consume our excess production of‘commodities and it would slaughter the unemployed.” The capitalist class has nothing else to offer to the millions of starv- ing and freezing men, women and children. A new path of life must be found! On the path of Hoover and capitalism lies nothing but death and destruction for the masses of the people. Only by organization and struggle, against hunger and war, can the new path of life be found. Workers! Let 1931 be not only a year of HUNGER AND WAR, but also a year of FIGHT AGAINST HUNGER, and WAR AGAINST CAP- ITALISM! A Call for Struggle Against Mass Starvation By the National Executive Boards of the Mine, Oil and Smelter Workers’ Industrial Union and the Metal Workers’ Industrial League Workers: We call upon you to fight resolutely against the mass starvation which | the bosses are inflicting upon our class all over the country. In the min- ing and steel districts a horrible mass famine siezes upon us. Half of the miners have been totally unemployed for a year or more, and the rest work only an occasional day. Wages have been cut from 40 per cent to 7% per cent. The steel mills work at only 25 per cent, and the bosses are slashing the wages wholesale. The few workers who have jobs are driven to the point of exhaustion by the mad speed-up. In all the steel and coal towns the companies have developed a brutal terrorism to intimidate the desperate workers. | This is an industrial crisis of overproduction. There has been “too much” of everything produced. But our families are starving. Our child- ren are famished; they have no clothes, they go barefoot in the show, we cannot send them to school. Our babies die in hundreds for want of milk. Whole communities are being pauperized. Especially are the bitu- | minous coal districts, north and south, rapidly assuming the aspects of famine-stricken sections of India and China. The rich bosses give no unemployment relief beyong insignificant tharity crumbs. They leave the workers, the useful producers, to starve. fn the coal towns the hunger-driven workers are beginning to pillage the dountryside and to take food by armed force from the company stores. | In the steel centers starving workers feverishly search the garbage can for bread and beg from door to door. Thousands are sleeping in coke evens and living in the “jungles.” Crime, prostitution, suicide, infant mortality, tuberculosis, are rapidly on the increase. The dread hunger | disease, pellagra, the shame of civilization, now spreads among the im- poverished masses. Cold, hunger, eviction, terrorism and general misery are the lot of the wérkers. America has never befor® seen the like. Meanwhile, the “great” employers, with larger profits than ever, flaunt their wealth before the eyes of the starving workers. One spends $1,000,000 for the “coming out” party of his social parasite of a daughter. Another builds a steam-heated kennel for his dogs: Thousands go to Florida or Europe to enjoy the winter. The government spends billions for war preparations, but there is nothing for the unemployed. Our class, produce all wealth, are left to starve. Such is the bankrupt capitalist | system. Miners, steel workers, workers of every industry! We must not toler- fate such an outrageous situation. We must fight for the right to live. We must fight for bread and butter for our children. We must refuse to starve in the midst of plenty. The warehouses of the rich are over- flowing with food and clothing—everything necessary for life. We have produced ‘these things, and now the parasites who have stolen them from us try to compel us to starve. Workers! Don’t submit to this pauperization and enslavement. We must fight with all our strength. We'll get nothing without fighting for it. With the irresistable power of our class we must struggle for {mme- diate relief. Demand that the companies give part of their huge profits to their jobless workers. Demand that the local governments institute immediate systems of unemployment relief administered by the workers. Demand that the United States Government establish unemployment in- surance. Fight for. food, clothing and shelter for our families. Refuse to pay rent to the parasitic landlords. Mobilize the workers to prevent evictions. Demand free gas, water and electricity. Fight for food for the school children and milk for the babies. Organize and strike against wage cuts, and speed-up. Resist the coming war. Defend the Soviet Union, the only country of the workers, where unemployment has been com- pletely abolished. Demand that all war funds be used for unemployment relief. Fight against the A. F. of L. fascists, who are agents of the bosses. Organize unemployment councils. Build the revolutionary unions of the ‘Trade Union Unity League. Join the great national struggle of the Trade Union Unity League for unemployment relief. In every steel and coal town the employed and unemployed must organize hunger marches ‘upon the local governments, the companies, and the company stores. Let these be militant demonstra- tions of the determination of the workers not to starve. Make he ruling | class tremble before the militant marches of the hungry jobless. To organize the hunger marches from united front movements locally of all workers organizations—unions, fraternal, political, sports, etc. Every worker should sign the Workers’ Unemployment Insurance Bill. Every steel and coal town should elect a delegate of the mass workers delega- tion which will present this Bill to Congress. In every industrial center ‘we must prepare to participate in the gigantic national unemployed dem- onstration on February 10th, when our Bill will be submitted to Congress. Workers! Only by solidarity of white and Black worekrs, of native and foreign born, of men and women, of young and old, of employed and unemployed can we check the pauperization of ourselves‘and our families. ‘Only by militant action can we secure relief from the present intolerable situation. WE MUST ORGANIZE AND STRUGGLE! DON'T STARVE—FIGHT! GREEN ASKS BYRD TO END STRIKE Governor Or Admiral to “Arbitrate” deciding vote is given to either Ad- |miral Byrd, the agent of U. S. im- _ DANVILLE. Va., Dec. 31—After perialism in the Antartic, or to his tue United Textile Workers Union, relative, Governor Byrd of Virginia, controlled by the Musteites ema the man who sent the militia to bay- squelched every attempt of the 4,000 | | onet the strikers. ‘Danville strikers to mass picket and| No answer has been made yet by win their months’ long struggle, they | H. R. Fitzgerals, president of Dan salled in President Green of the A.|River Mills ¥, of L. to put the finishing touches. Meanwhile, when pickets on Tues- The U, T. W. took all the heart! day night told a group of textile wut of the struggle some time ago by | workers arriving from Ni forth Carolina snnouncing that the strikers now ask | workers went back, Lindsay L. Moore, mly “recognition of the union,” that | in ohar, ‘ge of county police followed t, the right to pay dues, nothing in/ the crowd itito North Carolina, and he ofd better wages or conditions. tried to both threaten and persuade Several attempts were made by them to go to Danville and scab, 3orman of the U. T. W. and other | ORGANIZE TO END shiefs to negotiate behind the backs STARVATION; DEMAND wt the strikers, which failed, as the wsses put their confidence in the RELIER “er sey? te, alli, and didn't want the U, TW, >} company union. @hey already had ;one company union. Gorman had the National Textile Workers’ Union president jailed for “slander.” Green yesterday, speaking to some 7,000, textile workers, according to the capitalist press, declared that the strike would now be settled by arbi- tration of a committee in which the “ s “ | banks closed in one day, with de- | _NEW YORK, ‘THUSDAY, JANUARY. 1, 1931 re By WILLIAM Z. FOSTER The capitalist press is crammed with New Year proc- lamations by prominent industrialists, bankers and boss politicians to the effect that the crisis is on the way towards liquidation in the new year, This is not borne out by the actual state of affairs. Production in the steel industry has now dropped to 25 per cent. Among the miners half of the workers have been unemployed for a year or more. The decline in producion and employment is general throughout the industries. The agrarian crisis grows deeper and more widespread There is no sign on the industrial horizon indicating a lessening of the crisis, but every sign points to its sharpening, not only in the United States but through- out the capitalist world. | More Hunger for the Workers, Never in the history of America have the conditions of the workers been so rapidly worsened as at the pres- ent time. The army of unemployed is at least 9,000,000, and is quickly mounting. Wage slashes are going into effect in practically every industry. The workers who have jobs are collapsing at their places because of the ferocious speed-up. On the farms millions face famine | conditions. poor farmers, country. theories of high w living standards. ployment, 11931 Will Be a Year of Sharpened Class Struggles The socalled relief measures of the cap- italists are a crime and an insult to the workers and Mass starvation spreads all over the To this horrible debacle of mass pauperiza- tion has come American capitalisr abolition of povert; The Workers Will Fight. It would be absurd to expect that the workers will submit passively to this whole: (CONTINUED ON PAGE with its boasted steady employment for all, the ete. AT I VOM SUH 4 Je reductio: In the past year, m of their counting unem- ECONO Tg SAYS cuts, stagger systems, and part time employment, the wage income of the American work- | ers has been reduced at least one-third. A wave of | radicalization spreads among the workers, | coming year undoubtedly this will find expression in the bitterest of strike struggles and hunger demon- | strations of the unempl of the employers the jailing of militants, the whole- | sale lynching of Negroes, and despite all efforts of the strike-breaking American Federation of Labor and the socialist party. During the pn eae | More Jobless Than In Any Previous Hidden under misleading hea¢ the capitalist press yesterday c the report of aespeech by Dr. Bruce | Stewart made at the conference of social sciences held in conjunction | yed despite the growing terror | So desperate is the position of the THR Faces 10 Years in Jail for At a well-attended mass meeting at the Ukrainian Hall on Monday night, under the auspices of the| Communist Party and the Interna- tional Labor Defense, the working- | class depositors of the closed Palotti | Androtti. Bank elected a committee | of eight which will lead the small depositors’ fight for the full return | of their savings. The committee of eight will call another depositors’ meeting on Thursday night at the| Labor Lyceum Hall, 2003 Main St. The sheriff refused to release Nat | Richards on bail Monday, to prevent him from speaking to the depositors. | Bail was set at $5,000. He was ar- | | rested after urging the depositors to | organize, Organizing Small Depositors | Workers 18 More Bank i: Smash | of a large bank here that crashed, | with a ten years’ sentence on a/ United States has been called for for militant fight, by the United Depositors’ Commit- meeting with Mayor Walker, which | ROB $50.000.000 Nat Richards Framed | Sines bed te for Mobilizing FROM BANK US. RLVEn Ueto | HARTFORD, Conn., Dec, 31.—For helping to organize small depositors In One Day Nat Richards, Communist section or- BULLETIN. | ganizer, is being held in jail, faced gave Lae, eee tiie | framed-up charge. Meanwhile, the | ie a ears © small depositors are being organized | Friday, Jan. 2, at 8 p. m., at Web- ster Hall, 11th St. and Third Ave., tee, elected by 20,000 small depos- itors. A report will be made on a | is scheduled to take place Friday noon. eS se NEW YORK.—Proof that at least $50,000,000 was taken out of the Bank of the United States by the directors and a group of Tammany politicians | is contained in a statement filed in court against the bank Tuesday. At the same time, the New York Post comes out with a story that was | published in the Daily Worker nearly | two weeks ago, showing that Al Smith, William F, Kenny, John F. | haye agreed to pay off in full the | Was blessed by the Bishop Piccioni. | with the American Association’ for DEPOSITORS W N Stewart is the employment author- ity associated with President Hoov- Show Organization of Workers Necessary mergency Employment Com PHILADELPHIA, Pa., Dec. 31— Due to the demand of the small depositors who were organized, the heads of the Blitzstein Bank here Worst Unemployment. Stewart pointed out that this is the worst unemloyment riod ever | known. During | ot the crisis, he decreased 35.7 per cent. pares with a fall of 3: the first 17 months of the 19: a fall of 9.7 per cent in the fi months of the. 1907 crisis; a fall of small depositors whose funds do not per cent in the first 16 month exceed $303, in order to reorganize of the great 1893 crisis. the bank. ‘Ihe smail depositors who| Stewart broke the news to had ben organized tc demand the ®@udience that even after the increase full return of their savii were ob- | of unemployment stops (and he said jecting to the reorganization unless it was still getting worse) there would they were first given their money. | still require some 16 months to make The demand was compiled with. | any epee mop Hgon nant Those having above $300 are promised | | the return of one third of their de- ‘GREEK FASCK s his posits. This shows -hat the militan’ or- ganization of small |depositors | against the bank robbers who are | greatly ‘responsible for the bank} crashes is bringing definite results. = ITALY PREPARES HERSELF, LEGHORN, Italy—In preparing for the coming war, Italy has launched | a speedy 10,000-ton cruiser, The ship | Sentence 2 to Death ‘The white terror in Greece is tak- ing on great dimensions. The Com- The Gorizia’s armament consists of | on a heroic fight for its existence. four double turrets, mounting eight | Hundreds of members of the Com- inch guns, and eight double turrets} munist Party and militant workers with anti-aircraft guns, haye ben thrown into prison and hundreds of others have been exiled Gilchrist and a host of other Tam- | many grafters were linked with the Bank of the United States before it | crashed. The Daily Worker pointed out that Smith was connected with | Marcus, the president of the bank, through one of the fake insurance companies formed by the bank. Slaughter the . Meanwhile, more banks crash every day. A whole flock of them failed on Wednesday. In Mississippi nine | posits aggregating $1,730,000. The | State Banking Department of Arkan- sas announced the closing of the Bank of Stephens at Stephens, Ark. It had deposits of $135,676. The Citi- zens Bank and Trust Co. at England, Ark., was also closed. It had depos- its of $229,777, The College State Bank of Manhattan, Kan., was closed. The Citizens State Bank crashed in Indianapolis. Ind. It had deposits of $1,400,000. In Ohio, the Doylestown Banking Co. at Doylestown, with $251,769 in deposits, was closed. The number of banks closed in December is now nearly 400! doomed. would slaughter the unemployed.” system that promotes it, The logical suicide.” inevitable.” “Capitalism Needs War To CLEVELAND, Dec. 31.—“War is not only likely but even imminent.” This was the declaration made yesterday by Dr. Leslie A, White of the University of Michigan before the American Anthropological Associa~ tion, meeting in connection with the American Association for Advance- ment of Science. Dr. White’s speech was a striking illustration of the growing realization of scientific circles that the capitalist system is “Indeed, one might say that capitalism needs a war now,” said Dr. White, “for it would solve the two most pressing problems of the day—it would consume our excess production of commodities and it Dr. White went on to explain that “war will eventually destroy the “Imperialism, and hence capitalism, can exist only as long as it can exploit fresh markets and untouched sources of raw materials,” said Dr. White. “The margin upon which capitalism has been operat- ing is rapidly diminishing and must soon disappear. The collapse is in the different islands of Greece and | left there without food and phe | | to die. Two Grek soldiers who were for some time in the military disciplin- | lary camp of Kalpaki (military prison) were sentenced to death by the military court of Giannina, be- cause they dared to protest against the atrocities of the army officials. | The Communist Party of Greece and the International Workers’ Aid of Greece call upon the International Proletariat to protest against the atrocities of the fascist Greek gov- ernment and to demand the freedom of the two heroic Communist sol- diers. A protest meeting against the white Unemployed” | | | freedom of the two soldiers will take place at Bryant Hall Sunday, Jan. 4, at 3 p.m. All workers are called | upon to the protest meeting and dem- | onstrate their solidarity with the rev- | olutionary Greek Proletariat. ORGANIZE TO END | STARVATION; DEMAND 'RELIEF!! conclusion of capitalism is martial New Year Brings Out Need for Daily Worker in Sharpened Struggle MASS SUPPORT OF $30, 000 FUND MUST STIFFEN Today. 1s New Years. In the Soviet Union one-fifth of the workers. are resting. Tomorrow they will go back to work—most of them for seven hours—to build up their own factories, their own plants; the first work- ers’ and peasnts’ republic. In the United States too, millions of workers are “resting.” Some of them have been “resting” for more than a year. They are forced to stand for hours in breadlines to receive a piece of bread and a cup of watery coffee or a bowl of equally diluted soup. They will sleep in lousy flop-houses or outdoors in the cold. If any of them succeed in finding jobs they will be forced to the limit of their endurance, whipped by the vicious speed-up—and fired as quickly as possible. But you would not suspect all this from reading the capitalist news- papers. They are crying for an imperialist war against the Soviet Union. They are filled with stories which tell of the millions of dollars that were spent for booze last night and of the “attempts” made to~ stop it by. police officers who are not for the moment occupied in mobbing work- workers fighting for work and wages. THE CAPITALIST PAPERS, WHICH HAVE NO SPACE TO COMMENT ON THE SUFFERING OF THE WORKERS NOTE WITH GLEE THAT THE DEPARTMENT STORES WHERE THE RICH SHOP HAVE HAD “A CHRISTMAS SEA- SON ONLY SLIGHTLY LESS PROSPEROUS let sags IN 1929.” , These papers obey their masters, the oapitalist They, went to es een ee Se een nee Ty ae Senlialies lame crush the Soviet Union. They try to distract the attention of workers in this country from their own miseries by talk of prohibition and pros- perity—for the rich. Only the workers’ own paper is interested in telling workers the truth. THROUGH THE DAILY WORKER, THE COMMUNIST PARTY IS OR- GANIZING WORKERS TO RESIST IMPERIALIST WAR, TO RESIST FURTHE EXPLOITATION, TO DEMAND UNEMPLOYMENT INSUR- ANCE, NOT SHABBY “CHARITY.” Comrades, we NEED the Daily Worker. We need it every day. THE DEFICIT THAT THREATENS THE DAILY WORKER IS A THREAT TO THE WORKING CLASS. THE WORKING CLASS MUST WIPE IT OUT. The $30,000 must be raised IMMEDIATELY. There are some indications that a continuous, mass, working-class support of the Emergency Relief Campaign is taking form. The Daily Worker representative, district 3 sends $81.65 for the fund. The Hung- arian Workers Home Society of New York sends a check for $10.00, “real- izing the great importance of maintaining the DAILY WORKER, the only English revolutionary daily in the U. 8.” This is encouraging. BUT If IS NOT ENOUGH. The mass sup- port must be strengthened. Take out a contribution list among your worker friends, Gi at union, shop and unit. Send funds to the Daily w er, 50 East th Street, New Korte 2 ta ont oe, Pop tn, oh dy Be fess CRISIS WORSENS oe —| munist Party of Greece is carrying | | terror in Greece and to demand the | Price 3 Cents STARVING MAN GIVEN] MEAL; DIES OF SHOCK DETROIT, Mich, terrible is the st according to news inthe Detroit Times of Dec. 29, John Hogan, }| aged 51, dropped dead from shock {| in the Ritz Cafe, Wyandotte, on the . 28, when a pa- od over something, lar on the counter for him and said: “Give this mama square meal.” Hogan was dressed in rags and had not eaten for a long time. Dec. 31.—So ation here that, | ; eG STOWN AND JOBLESS TO MARCH ON “CALIFORNIA CAPITAI DETROIT MARCH JAN. 2 ‘amento ‘Jobles Be Joined by City Delegations expose Rolph Trickery Detroit City Relie Wage Cut Plo Dec. ‘om the star’ in all cities of the s here Jane 7, ses of jobless in S march on the state Car employed The ma will start from Second and K streets at 11 a. m. It is expetced that at least 10,000 | militant w: s and jobless will be m outside points on tha EWARK MARCHES Sleep In Garbage, Eat It In Steel Town ments of citie: The latest annow in which hunger marches are to be held are Youngstown and Newark. In the great steel center of Young stown, jobless will gather from dif- erent parts of the city, trom the incinerator where they try to keep warm at nights, and from the bread | lines, and will march Jan. 5 at 7 p. m. on the city hall. A delegation will go in and present demands as follo All v: houses and public bi the jobless, free; no evictions; cutting off light, water, or gas; free | street car fare for jobless; no mort- | gage foreclosures on homes of unem- ployed; relief through committees of | jobless and workers, to be financed | by taxing incomes over $25,000, to; provide $10 a week for each single unemployed and $20 for those with | families. no 20,000 Jobl More than 20,000 working men and women in this city are jobless. With practically no relief to amount to anything, misery and starratfon pre- (CONTINUED ON PA E es \ HE ae Union County Board Tries to to Dodge | ELIZABETH, N. J., Dec. 31—The Council of Unemployed exposed the | | attempts of the bankers and their) | political agents here today when the! | Board of Freeholders of Union County of which this manufacturing | | city is the county seat met at 2:00 |p. m. The board was advertised to meet at 2:30 but tried to slip some- thing over. | | The politicians of the republican | party having secured information | that “the jobless are going to make objections to the budget” forgot all} about their own legal and constitu- tional obligations to themselves and other taxpayers and rushed the budget through by 2:20 p. m. As they were about to adjourn, however, Veronica Korvac, Communis( candid@te for Councilwoman 3rd Ward during the last m | and at present an unemployed “firk- er, threw the whole meeting into fits | by exposig the board’s trick and read the objections of the workers to the budget which gave only $1,000) “for the poor’ (unemployed) while $1,294,462.80 went for other uses which the workers have nothing to gain from, The President of the Board was in a spesm, with his mouth twitching, jete.; it was impossible for him to jeven talk without trembling,. The | workers and all other persons in the ‘back of the room yoted there and jthen, condeming the action’ of the | Board of Freeholders, and demanded , relief for the jobless. Later in front of the court an open air mecting was held, with Korvac and Sol. Harper, Negro worker of 75 |Court St. as speakers. The cops j pulled the first speakers, Korvac | down and Harper began to speak... |linking up the teror activities of the | police, the county officials in the mob formation and man hunt in Kenil- THREE) Tarty | ‘he | Worth, N. J. during the past 48 hours, pointing out that whenever a Negro worker is unemployed, and is c’ Re erie cgementibes in town fi loyment conferenc jes, particularly the o1 held Dec. 14 in Oakland, Dec. 15 ir San Fran 0, and Dec. 28 in Angeles ha nted committ to make prepa march, for this hunger Sacram ee and forced return of fees jobs which do no e3 which no one should wor The California jobless demand un- employment insurance from the n tional goveri_.uw dare cof cting signatures by thousands to be talon to Washington Feb. 10 and present ON PA OSE $ BOS OSS COURT F RAME-UP In Case of Oct. 16 Un- employed Delegates NEW YORK.—A motion for a jury trial in the case of Nesin, Le $ and Stone of the October 16 Unem- ployed Delegation, who were ordered beaten up by Mayor Walker, was. made yesterday by Joseph Brodsky, attorney for the International Labor Defense, before Judge Levine, Tam- many magistrate. Brodsky, in demanding a trial, de- clared that the boss class government of New York City is deliberately set- ting about to railroad these militant workers to prison, and quoted state- ments made by Inspector Lyons, head of the radical squad, while testifying before the Fish Committee. Inspector Lyons testified before the Fish Committee that: “We find that we get better rr sults by making a case of sim, assault, rather than felonious sault—bringing it before tt magistrates or three justices special session vather than befor: jury. We find that in all labor as- sault cases juries are reluctant to convict, and they asséciate these Communistic strikes with the legi- timate labor movement, which they are not.” In asking for a jury trial, which the Tammany justice was reluctant in giving, it was pointed out by the International Labor Defense in court that the boss courts always grant trials by jury when asked for as in the case of Mae West, the actress, for instance, when she was arrested. Brodsky: “Mae West did get jury trial when she asked for it, but a committee of the unemployed... .” Judge Levine: “In her case property rights were involved as the police closed her theatre.” Brodsky: “In this case it is more than property rights that is involved. It is a question of workers’ rights— human rights.” Judge Levine would not render a decision, but took the matter under “advisement.” The International La- bor Defense will force special sessions to postpone the trial again when it comes up on Jan. 9 until a decision is rendered in this case as to whether workers are permitted to have jury trials, bosses’ agents all take part in trying to work up a lynching. - ‘When the police demanded a per- mit of Harper he held up an anti- lynch leaflet. When he was arrested, Korvic, who had been released, be- gan to speak again. Both were taken, with K. Novich, Daily Worker agent, to Jail, where they were released for trial Jan. 2, at 10 a. m. A mass meeting of the jobless will be held Monday, at 2 Fy, 105 Rieti