The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 7, 1931, Page 1

Celebrate the 7th Anniversary of the Daily Worker at the St. Nicholas Rink, on January 10th Dail Central er WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! Vol. VIII. No. 6 Katered ag escend-class matter at the Post Office at New York, N. ¥.. ander the act of March 3. 1879 NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY oe 931 CITY EDITION rice 3 Cents TheCapitalist Crisis Described by Capitalists 'OMETIMES the Daily Worker is accused of “exaggeration” in describing the crisis of capitalism. It is interesting, therefore, to see the words . used in this connection by that most conservative and eminently respect- able journal, the’ “Commercial and Financial Chronicle” of Jan. 3rd. It describes the year just ended as: “The most dismal year in the mercantile and financial history of the United States—with trade and industry prostrated as never before, | with business activity in many lines steadily dwindling almost to the | point of absolute stoppage, with the security markets in a State closely akin to utter collapse, and recording prodigious declines, with farmers passing through a period of acute distress as a result of the tremendous shrinkage in the market values of wheat and cotton and to a somewhat smaller extent in the case of other agricultural products, with the rail- road carrying interest suffering contraction in traffic and income, gross and net, to the point where its very solvency is threatened, and with bank failures all over the country, large and small, so numerous as to i, be perfectly startling.” In the presence of these throbbing terms of description of a system in collapse, the Daily Worker pleads guilty of a stylistic conservatism which it will try to overcome. | \ WELSH STRIKERS | TIGHTEN RANKS Red Leaders Call for, Determined Fight Organizations Come |) in Body to the Daily Worker Anniversary The Daily Worker Anniversary affair, Saturday, Jan. 10, at St Nicholas Arena, will be a demon stration against the “Committe: to combat Communism,” headed by Fish, Woll and company. Al workers’ organizations must be mobilized 100 per cent for the Daily Worker Anniversary as < proper answer to the fascists, Or- canizations should bring their |! banners. Vote substantial sums for the Daily Worker Emergency Drive and bring it along to the [| affair. Capitalist press reports from Lon- | don state that the 150,000 SouthWales miners are digging in for a militant strike. The MacDonald government ay is calling in the mine owners «nd yel- 1 low union leaders to plan a betrayal {i of the-strike. An Associatéd Press dispatch from | Cardiff says: “Communist organizers | have entered the district and yester- | _ day held outdoor meetings at a num- | ber of places despite the bitter winds _) which blew down from the snow-cap- | soon be a strike of the 20,000 who are | involved in the wage-cut | 1 hills.” The same cable says the| District 2 of the National Textile iners are becoming “more jnilitant | Workers Union in the United States ')) “and instead of there being any drift | has passed a resolution pledging sol "back to work, as anticipated in some | idarity with the British textile work: quarters, the stoppage today was even | ers and calling upon the British tex- | more complete.” tile workes “to militantly~ struggle | | In the Manchester textile district, | against this attempt of the bosses to | "more than 20,000 workers are already | further exploit and squeeze profits wit. It is expected that there will from them.” CLEVELAND JOBLESS EAT, Youngstown Officials} AY “CHARGE IT T0 CITY.” 2400 MARCH YOUNGSTOWN © 1500 FACE RAIN IN CLEVELAND City Council Hides Be- hind 800 Policemen; Refuses Any Aid CLEVELAND, O., Jan. 6. — March- | ing through a driving rain to the city hall last night, uhe vanguard of Cleve- {land’s 115,000 jobless workers deliv- | ered their demands for immediate unemployment relief to the city coun- cil. The city council was forced to sus- pend other business and hear the del- egation, but failed to do anything to |aid tHe jobless. Throngs of starving workers, leav- jing the demonstration after hearing | the refusal of the city government to | . . give them food stormed restaurants, _|ate full meals and told the proprie- | AMBRIDGE, Pa. Jan. 6—Over |tors to “charge it to the city”. The| 1,000 participated in a hunger march | ~~ organized through the Metal Work- | Police managed |to arrest some of ers’ Industrial League on the city | them. council in Ambridge yesterday. Geo Bailey, Edith er and Gilliom were arrested \ 1 the committee was submitting dem © the coun- cil for immediate reji-f. Bailey, after speaking for some (iche, was pulled off the platform by the burgess, whe pulled his gun, and, helped by the hief of police, dragged Bailey tc jail. Gilliom tried to defend Bailey and was arrested next. Edith Bris- ker, organizer of the M. W. I. L., was then arrested. The workers are in a militant mood, Forced to Promise Lodgings YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio, Jan. 6— Two thousand jobless hunger marchea here yesterday, forced their way into the city c6uncil session at the city hall and forced the city council to at} least promise concessions. The city government agrees to house the un- employed. The demonstrators were militant. Their spokesmen were Ja- goda, Karson, Il Ilijevich and Mar- chell. The city authorities were forced to withdraw their police from the streets and the jobless workers themselves directed traffic. Youngstown is a great steel mili center, with thousands of workers barely existing under the “stagger system” and a regular orgy of wage- cutting. Most From Negro District. In spite of the rain and heavy fog | which persisted throughout the whole | day, hundreds of unemployed joined | in the hunger march from three con- | centration points on the east, south- | east and west sides of the city, There were several hundred in each line of march, the parade from the ‘Negro | district at Central and Fast 30th St. being the largest, and tho mass dem- onstration at the city Lall numbered | (CONTINUED ON PAGE THREE) , the four shops in which over 500 fur Danbury Strikers Wii Oie Shop; Pickets Stop Scabs 500 Attend Strike Meetings; Struggle Will Spread to Hatters; Mass Picketing Halts Truckloads of Furs DANBURY, Conn., Jan. 6.—One of hatters from shops where wage-cut |are expected. There are speakers in | English, French and Syrian. The Lee Co. hat shops have an- | nounced wage-cuts. A meeting will |take place next Monday to support | the strike. There is a general mass | meeting Friday night. workers struck here last week, under leadership of the Needle Trades Workers’ Industrial Union, has giver in and withdrawn the wage-cut an- nounced. That is Hoyt’s. Mass pick- eting yesterday and today before the other three—the National, Easterr | and D. & B.—stopped scabs from en- | tering. | The picketing was most militant today, strikers mounting the trucks | of scab furs, breaking the bundles and throwing off their contents and | BOSS PRESS LIES stopping the scabs. | ON RUAR STRIKE tended by 500 or more strikers and|Seek to Confuse Men; also by workers in other shops and | Many Jailed NEEDLE WORKERS MEET TONIGHT ON STRIKE PLAN NEW YORK.—Tonight at 7 p. m there will be a general membership meeting of the Needle Trades Work-| ers. Police terror is raging here un- ers’ Industrial Union, to discuss the | token. Yesterday severe collisions work of the union and preparations | took piace. Over 100 strikers were ar- for the coming dress strike. However, | eae | rested. negotiations between the not just dressmakers, but all work- | "eS ee eee Oe - ‘ mine owners and the reformist trade ers of all sections of the industry union leaders, under the chairman- should attend. estions to be taken |SbiP of the Labor Minister Stegerwald ark the necormediation than | failed yesterday. The reformists are the executive council of the union | 2liberately spreading the le that the and the shop delegates’ council for a revolutionary trade ‘union opposition tax to raise a fund for the dress |i calling off the strike with a view sicibe to spreading confusion in the ranks : of the strikers, Yesterday evening the Prussian livered a radio speech against the re- minister of the interior, Severing, de- volutionary miuers assuring his cap- Commission. The P.W.C. announced | italist hearers that all preparations that no striker or his family would | were made to suppress the radical ele- receive any of the Christmas funds,! ments. (Cable by Inprecorr) BERLIN, Jan. 6. — Persistent re- | ports in the boss press alleging the collapse of the Ruhr strike are with- out foundation. These reports aim |at breaking the morale of the str CHARITY AND STRIKERS. GREENSBORO.—Strikers’ children in this vicinity were denied food on Christmas by the Public Welfare THOUSANDS DEFY STORM TO MARCH IN MILL CITIES MASS MEETINGS TODAY IN BROOKLYN, BRONX FOR TOMORROW'S MARCH NEW YORK.—Brooklyn, Bronx, Harlem and Down Town jobless are rapidly perfecting plans and organizing for the day of demonstrations and hunger marches, Thursday. A new preparatory meeting is announced for tonight, at 8 p. m., 140 Neptune Ave., Brighton Beach section. Other mobilization (eee tonight in Brooklyn MASS SUPPORT — FOR ‘D.W. AFFAIR Williamsburgh Workers Hall, 795 Flushing Ave., 8 p. m. As Workers Rally to Defense of Press | Green Point, Laisve Hall, 46 Ten Eyck St., 8 p. m. Borough Hall Workers Center, 15} Myrtle Ave., 8 p. m. Borough Park, 1373 43rd St., 8 p. m. Coney Island, 2901 Mermaid St., 8 p.m. Red Hook, Workers Center, Columbia Street, 8 p, m. ‘There will be three parades Thurs- day converging at Court and Fulton |Sts., where a combined mass demon- stration will be held, and a committee | | elected to go in and present the de- |mands of the jobless for immediate relief to the borough president. | One of these parades will assemble at Broadway and Myrtle Ave., at 10) a. m., where a meeting not longer | than twenty minutes will be held,| | then it will march up Myrtle to Court | and Fulton. Another parade will assemble at| | Hamilton and Columbia, at 10 a. m.,! hold a twenty minute meeting, and ; march on Columbia to Carroll, then) | to Court, and on to Court and Fulton. Bronx, Mobilizes. Today also the Bronx workers and jobless are conducting mobilization meetings to prepare for their part in the great demonstrations tomorrow. Under the leadership of the Bronx! | Council of the Unemployed there will | 312] NEW YORK. — The working class | of New York City is rallying to the defense of the Communist Party and its press against the vicious attacks of the Fish Committee and its sup- porting fascist organizations, Workers and working-class organi- zations are planning to make the 7th Anniversary Celebration of the Daily Worker on January 10 at St. Nicholas Rink one of the biggest demonstra tions of militant workers this city has ever seen, Many organizations have already endorsed the demonstration and have issued statements to their member- ship urging mass attendance. Among these organizations are the Interna- tional Workers Order, the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, the Inter- national Labor Defense and scores of others, At a meeting last night of its Exec- utive Committee, the Needle Trades Industrial Union went on record az giving full support to the anniversary celebration and called upon its mem. bership and all sympathetfi workers for mass attendance January 10. (CONTINUED ON PAGE TWO) 1s Unemployed Workers! Fight for Your Lives! Fight to Win! Trade Union Unity League Calls Upon All Workers To Struggle Militantly for Relief. Untold misery, mass starvation, death—this is the lot of the unemployed workers and their families throughout the richest country on earth. Hundreds of thousands of bushels | of wheat in storage, yet the workers starve. Plenty of milk, yet the workers’ babies die. Clothing for everybody, yet families in rags. Warm rooms in apartments, hotels, the mansions of the rich for all the embed and their fam- ilies, yet they freeze and live in squalor in unheated and crowded rooms and shacks, or walk the streets the whole night through. H Everything is produced by the workers, yet the rich have it all. “Let the damn unemployed go to hell and work the employed to death’—this is the murderous maxim of the bosses and their government. We must fight to live, and mobilize the widest masses of unemployed and employed workers for battle at once. We must know how to fight for bread, for immediate relief in every city and simultaneously enlist all workers an workers’ organizations in a mass attack upon Congress and the bosses that own it, for steady sustenance, for Unemployment In- surance. Workers—into action! Into action along a front so broad and powerful as to make it possible for the starving unemployed to obtain a!l they need. In the ranks of the stdrving jobless for steady day to day struggle for food, clothing and shelter. Support the Trade Union Unity League, organizer of militant unions and unemployment councils. Signature Campaign. The campaign for signatures for the Unemployment In- surance Bill must arouse the American working class for a decisive struggle for Unemployment Insurance and against the criminal neglect, abuse and degradation of the hungry unemployed workers. ' The unemployed workers from the neighborhoods, bread-lines, soup kitchens, flop houses must be and can be systematically drawn into this activity in addition to the employed workers. 4 The whole country, the entire working class must be made conscious of our nation-wide campaign for signatures. Every single working class organization must be visited by committees of unemployed in the signature campaign. Unemployed committees shall canvass all residential sec- tions systematically under the direction of the United Front Committees. Signatures shall be collected on the streets, at meetings, demonstrations, factory gates, in the factories, on the bread lines and every place workers gathers. The field for collect- ing signatures is limitless, The issue is broad enough to em- brace the vast majority of the population. The signatures: for the Unemployment Bill is the basis for the building of Unemployment Councils, revolutionary unions and the sup- port of all the struggles of the unemployed. No police regu- lations or interference must stand in the way of the signa- ture drive. The signature drive is the most elementary through the busy streets, display signs with slogans of the | Signature Campaign everywhere. Make the Signature Cam- paign an organic part of the militant struggle for Unem- ployment Relief. Hunger Marches and Local Struggles. The Hunger Marches on the City Halls, Municipal Build- ings and State Capitols must be preceded and followed by daily struggles, demonstrations and marches based on the most elementary partial demands of the urfemployed. Each Hunger March must have a purpose and a goal. The committees leading Hunger Marches must be ready \ to present concrete local relief demands to the respective City | Council, Board, Department, Legislature or Official. | The local demands are to be popularized among the masses and formulated with the participation of the masses. While a city or state hunger march is based on the gen- | eral demands of the unemployed, smaller marches on the directors of bread-lines, flophouse offices, charity institu- tions, city welfare departments, courts, eviction cases, can and should be organized on the basis of the most immediate grievances of the unemployed. The unemployed councils must raise and realize the slo- gan of “Stop the Eviction.” In a number, of cities evictions no longer take place due to the militant mass struggles against them. In addition to mobilizing the neighborhoods against evictions, the Councils shall organize marches of the unemployed to the eviction struggles both on the streets and in the magistrates’ courts. Every charity and City Relief institution is rife with hundreds of most burning and degrading and insulting grievances. The Unemployed Councils through its contacts in the bread lines, soup kitchens and flophouses must jaise these issues, Unsanitary condition, lack of heat, inufficient blan- kets, etc., in the flophouses together with the prison regime. Standing long hours in the cold, ‘bad quality and pitiful quan- tities of food in the bread lines soup kitchens, All these issues must be raised sharply. in these institutions and posi- tive demands formulated. Adequate relief and workers’ ad- ministration of relief. E atiom.of charity grafters, etc. Struggles must be organized on thes@,most elementary de- mands of starving workers and linked up with the demands for cash relief through the Unemployment Insurance Bill. All sections of the population must be drawn into the move- ment, especially the most exploited and those who are hard- est hit by the crisis. Women, children, Negro workers, for- eign born workers, depositors of the rapidly crashing banks. Entire families and whole sections of the population must and can be involved in all local struggles. Increase United Front Conferences, We need more city and town campaign committees for unemployment insurance (united front conferences) ; we need broader conferences. We must involve ever larger masses of workers in the drive for signatures for our Unemployment Insurance Bill. The conferences already established must be broadened to include delegates from hundreds of A. F. of L. ry d all oth 7 s, g Ww a 7 $3 or xara There must be direct representation from the bread lines and flop houses, from job agencies, from the shops, and all unemployed councils must send bonafide delegations of unemployed workers. No matter how few workers’ organizations exist in smaller cities, a conference should be established. Commit- tees of unemployed workers should be sent in great num- bers to workers’ organizations to enlist them in the strug- gles, the signature drive and secure financial support for that work. All conferences and organizations belonging to them and all members in these organizations must be won for our entire program of tasks, steady signature collections, local struggles for relief, hunger marches, organization of unem- ployed councils, mass meetings to elect members of the Work- ers Unemployment Insurance Delegation to Congress, the nation-wide mass demonstrations on February 10th. Conferences must plan the securing of funds to finance the campaign for signatures and the delegation to Wash- ington. In mining camps and other small industrial settlements where workers’ organizations are practically non-existent, committees of employed and unemployed workers should be = up to campaign for signatures, to fight for immediate relief. Mass Meetings to Elect Washington Delegation. A total of 135 workers are to be elected by the larger and smaller cities as members of the Workers Unemployment Insurance Delegation to Congress. Every city to which delegates have been assigned must elect them at an immense mass meeting, composed of unem- ployed and employed workers. Workers from the bread- lines, flop houses, job agencies, unemployed workers general- ly, must participate in the election so that the delegates will actually be their representatives. All members of workers’ organizations belonging to the city campaign committee (conference) must participate in the mass meetings, large masses of employed workers from the shops must attend. The mass meetings must be a source of financial aid to broaden the signature drive and finance the delegation to Washington. The Workers Unemployment Insurance Dele- gation to Congress will meet in Washington, D. C., on Feb- ruary 9th, to further discuss and agree upon the demands in the Bill, and go before Congress demanding unemployment insurance on February 10th. February 10th—The Day of Nation-Wide Demonstrations. On February 10th, the most gigantic workers’ mass demonstrations against starvation and misery and for bread and unemployment insurance must be held in every city. Every mining camp, textile town, steel town, every industrial center no matter how large or small, must arrange a mass meeting or open air demonstration. This is the day upon which the Workers Unemployment Insurance Delegation to Congress will make its demands for Unemployment Insurance at Washington, D. C. Employed and unemployed workers, in immense masses must make center of the rich bosses, on this date. February 10th must mean more to us than just another demonstration. By this date we. must have established tens of hundreds of additional unemployed councils in large and small citi Our demands for immediate local relief should | be so popularized anc local struggles and hunger marches of | such frequency, the fight for bread and shelter must assume | such proportions by then and our Unemployment Insurance | Bill must become so generally known, that hundreds of thou- | sands of unemployed workers can be counted upon as actually tied organizationally to our leadership, fighting steadily day after day for relief. j February 10th must be*the day upon which, noting our | organizational gains and the increase in the day to day strug- gles, we resolve to multiply them ten-fold during the follow- ing period of time. Impregnable armies of unemployed workers from the shops, women and children of the worki numbers of organizations belonging to our conferences, must occupy the streets in such masses that resistance by the agents of the bosses and city governments is swept aside. Steady and Growing Activity. | By February 10th, we must be in a position to march forward in all our activities upon a broader, better organized, more militant field. During the coming month, we must register a steady and growing activity, a decided advance in the organization of Unemployed Councils. To attain achievements we must understand that every task here out- lined is interwoven with all tasks. Every phase of the strug- gle for local relief, every street and hall meeting, every hun- ger march, every onslaught upon a bread line, must be a means of securing thousands of additional signatures for our Unemployment Insurance Bill. Every organization we in- terest in the Bill, every worker who signs it, must be in- volved in local struggles, must be interested in helping to organize unemployed councils, Starving desperate workers and their families, in fas! growing numbers, are ready today to organize and fight for relief. Win them upon the basis of our local demands and unemployment insurance. They will march forward mili- tantly to challenge the bosses and their government in every city, state and at Washington; to challenge them and fight them for a return of the wealth the workers have been robbed of. Into struggles! Fight for bread, shelter and clothes! For Unemployment Insurance! Enter this battle against the rich, who, reveling in wealth and splendor, condemn the unemployed to starve, to die; condemn the workers’ children to living corpses, to death. We want bread for the unem- ployed, and plenty of it, and we’re going to get it. Signature lists for our Unemployment Insurance Bill can be obtained from the National.Campaign Committee for Unemployment Insurance, 2 West 15th St., Room 414, New York City. Directions for organizing unemployed councils can be obtained from the organizing center for the councils, the pe © Sata nly ang en 1 Ne,