The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 14, 1931, Page 6

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Cable: “DAITWORE Address and mail all checks to the Daily Worker, 50 East 13th Street, New York, N, Y. orker Party US.A Page Six wail Central Ong Proposals of the Workers Unemp oyment Insurance Delegation Sate eS ove SU ase to the Congress of the U.S. for a THE MICRAPHON National Unemployment Insurance Law Ww the Workers’ Unemployment Insurance Delegation, made up of every industry and coming from all the important industrial centers of the United States, demand that the Federal Government shall, during the present session of Congress, enact legislation providing for an ade- quate system of unemployment tnsurance to re- neve the workers from the present intolerable conditions growing out of mass unemployment. In making this demand, we speak as direct delegates of the more than 1,000,000 workers who have either signed or otherwise given their sup~ port to the Workers Unemployment Insurance Bill (which is contained herein) and whose for- mal endorsements we are handing you, together with these proposals. We represent the will of the overwhelming majority of the working class, who unequivocally demand the establishment of a national system of government unemployment dmsurance. The Struggle Against Hunger. The workers’ demand for unemployment in- surance is a demand for the right to live. It is a fight against mass starvation. Ten million workers now walk the streets jobless, with no income whatever. That many more ‘work part- time. Wages have been slashed in practically every industry and also in government work. Even the “Annalist” of Jan, 16 is compelled to admit that for the past year the loss in wages and salaries amounts to $1,000,000,000 per month. No unemployment relief worthy of the name is being given. Consequently, actual starvation stalks among the workers, whose slender re- serves in millions of cases have long since been exhausted. of workers’ children in rich Amerig¢s are hungry. They are being stunted in child labor and slow starvation. In coal districts, unclad and starved, the children go barefoot in the snow. Pellagra, the dread hunger disease of famine-stricken crowded with what amounts te actual cases. Great armies of workers, vainly séaroh- ing for work, starve and freége as tramps on railroads or eke out a miserable existence in horrible “jungles” which are to be found in é¥éry city. The “crime” wave and prostitution, fed by the mass destitution of the workers, mounts to unprecedented heights. Many workers, driven desperate by unemployment, drown themselves or blow out their brains, The Breadline and Nightstick Policy. This mass starvation is enforced against the workers by the employers and their government through various terroristic means. Wherever unemployed have dared to organize and demon- strate against the intolerable starvation condi- tions, they have been clubbed, gassed and jailed unmercifully. Thousands of workers who have invested their life savings in homes are being evicted by mortgage foreclosure, and tens of thousands of workers have been evicted from their miserable homes because they could not pay rent. Vicious vagrancy laws are being re- vived and enforced against the workers. In the industries, the spy system, the blacklist and other forms of economic terrorism are being used as never before. Foreign born workers are being systematically persecuted and. « discriminated against in every way. And in the South, the ruling class, with the connivance of the national, state and local governments, are using more than ever that crowning shame of America, lynch- ing, in order to try to cow into submission the awakening Negro masses. The Federal Govern- ment has given its stamp of approval for and sounded the keynote of this whole program of terrorism by its establishment of the infamous Fish Commission, which aims to crush every pro- test of the workers. cet For the workers, as well as for millions of poor farmers, of whom Senator Caraway’ says, 1,000 are daily dying of starvation, America, “the Jand of opportunity, the country of prosperity, where every worker is becoming a capitalist,” is are bursting with wealth, the workers’ and their families must go without the barest necessities of life. The workers are beginning to see the idiocy and the bankruptcy of the capitalist sys- tem in all this outrageous situation. Tf capitalist America brutally forres its pro- The federal government has been criminally negligent in dealing with the unemployment problem. Its practical policy is to let the work- ers starve, even as it does the farmers. It has not appropriated a cent for unemployment relief, although it has no difficulty in finding $162,- 000,000 for tax rebates to already over-rich cor- porations, two billions for war purposes and hun- dreds of millions for various pork barrel approp- rations. The much-advertised $115,000,000 Hoov- er emergency building program is a fake and false pretense. The number of the unemployed steadily mounts in the face of such building President Hoover has shown him- self, like his capitalist masters, an alert enemy of the working class. He has systematically underestimated the number of unemployed and minimized the depth of the crisis; the plain purposes of this being to confuse the workers, to prevent them from organizing, to force them and their families to remain unresistingly in starvation. His stagger plan is a phase of the contemptible scheme to throw the burden of the industrial crisis upon the shoulders of the work- ers by spreading the misery of unemployment over the entire working class. His no-wage-cut agreement with the fascist leaders of the Amer- ican Federation of Labor was only a smoke screen behind which widespread wage cutting and speeding up has taken place. His Commit- tee on Unemployment, which is typically headed by Col. Woods, a policeman, is the employers’ national board of strategy to prevent the workers from securing unemployment insurance or re- lief in any other substantial form. Organized Starvation. , ‘The state and local governments, regardless of which party controls, have shown a similar cal- lous attitude to the starving of the workers. In “socialist” Reading and Milwaukee, equally little relief is given the unemployed as in demo- cratic New York. or republican Chicago. They all treat the unemployed workers as beggars or criminals. Their building programs, heralded as panaceas for the industrial crisis, exist mostly-on paper, Where they do have any reality, they serve to furnish work for only an insignificant section of the workers, mostly the henchmen of the locally dominant political parties. For every worker who finds a job at such work, a hundred ate being dropped from the factory payrolls be- cause of the deepening crisis, New York City illustrates thé outrageous re- fusal of the city governments to meet the un- employment relief problem. When its yearly budget was proposed recently, it contained ap- mates met secretly and allotted $1,000,000, or about $1.25 for each unemployed worker. In De- troit, banner American city for unemployment relief, where the workers haye made millions for the bosses, an worker is allowed only the miserable pittance of 20 cents daily. In most of the cities, no relief measures what- ever, outside the regular miserable charity insti- tutions, are in effect. The various municipalities reduce the unem- ployment relief problem to a charity basis. The impoverished unemployed worker, who has spent his entire life in useful production, is before he will be given even the insignificant re- Hef pittance: he will fist have to sell whatever petty (furniture, clothing, etc.) that In all the cities, only when actual . Both of these organizations support the government terror against the militant unem- ployed. They are active enemies of all struggle for unemployment relief. countries are notoriously inadequate and now the bosses, with the assistance of the reaction- | any labor leaders, are trying to reduce them. But the capitalists in these countries are com- | pelled to pay at least this minimum of relief. They deliberately mislead who argue that American workers receive sufficient wages and have enough reserves to enable them to meet the unemfloyment siiu.tion with their own re- sources. The workers have no such reserves. The fact is that even in so-called good times, with wages of unskilled and semi-skilled workers not exceeding $20 per week and with a large unemployment prevailing, the majority of the working class were actually living in a state of poverty. With the great increase in unemploy- ment through the industrial crisis, these vast masses are thrown face to face with starvation conditions, Permanent Mass Unemployment. They also deliberately falsify the situation who assert that the unemployment problem is about at an end, that “prosperity,” with jobs for every- body, is just around the corner, First, the in- dustrial slump is still deepening. This is indi- cated by the continued decline in industry, the wave of bank failures, the growth of unemploy- ment—for December the New York Department | of Labor showed a decline of 4.1 per cent in factory employment. Official figures for Jan- uary show further decided declines in produc- tion and employment. The deepening of the crisis internationally is indicated by 25,000,000 unemployed in the capitalist countries, by the widespread drop in production, by the rapid fall- ing off of international trade, etc. Second, even a rise in production in the United States would not provide “jobs for all.” For the past ten years, the rapid rationalization of industry has been developing a permanent army of unem- ployed. Just before the present crisis, this had reached the number of 3,000,000 to 4,000,000— during the 1928 election campaign even the democratic leaders stated that there were then 5,000,000 unemployed. During the present crisis, the rationalization process has been greatly has- tened and new vast armies of workers have been permanently displaced from industry. The United States now confronts, from rationaliza- tion and industrial crisis, a permanent army of unemployed numbering several millions. This situation imperatively demands the insti- tution of a system of federal unemployment in- surance. Such insurance will not wipe out un- employment, as it cannot solve the basic con- tradiction between the rapid expansion of the forces of capitalist production and the shrinkage of the purchasing power of the masses, created because the workers and poor farmers, robbed by the capitalists, cannot buy back the commodi- ties which they produce. Only the proletarian revolution can liquidate unemployment by abolishing the private ownership of the means of production, the exploitation of the workers, and production for private profit, and by estab- lishing instead a system of social ownership of industry and of production for social use. ‘The Russian workers have given a practical demonstration of how to cure unemployment. They have completely wiped it out in the So- viet Union. Their industries are flourishing and growing at a rate unparallelled in industrial his- tory, while the world capitalist system is par- alyzed. Their industries now require 2,000,000 additional wérkers, while every capitalist coun- try is overwhelmed by a gigantic mass unem- ployment. Meanwhile, they are steadily rais- ing the wages and living standards of the work- ers, have established the seven-hour day, five- day week, etc., while in all the capitalist coun- tries the wages and general working standards of the workers are constantly on the decline. But if unemployed insurance cannot abolish unemployment, it can and will help to relieve the workers of the terrible distress arising from unemployment. It is in this sense, that the workers resolutely demand it, and they will in- creease their struggle for its establishment. The Workers’ Unemployment Insurance Bill In consideration of all the foregoing facts, we therefore demand the enactment of Federal legislation for unemployment insurance. In order to meet the requirements of the workers, this must be based upon the following general propositia Y" 1. Persons entitled to Social Insurance. (a) All workers, unemployed because of no jobs being available for them or incapacitated thru accident or sickness, shall be entitled to social insurance for the whole period of their unemployment. If two or more unemployed workers belong to one family, they shall each receive the insurance. (b) Workers reaching the age of 55 years shall be entitled to retire on full insurance rates. (c) Ex-Servicemen, workers, and all those incapacitated as a result of their service in the military and naval forces, shall be entitled to social insurance, of $15. per week for partial dis- ablement and $25 per week for total disablement. (ad) Women workers, for six weeks prior to and after childbirth, shall be given leave of absence from work, and allowed full insurance. (e) Abolition of child labor under .14 years of age and government maintenance of all those now employed under that age, All child work- ers 14 years of age and over shall come under the insurance law provisions. (f) Part time workers shall be paid insur- ance sufficient to raise their incomes to the regular insurance rates. (g) In applying the insurance law, no discrim- ination shall be made against young workers, Negro workers, women or foreign born workers. (h) The insurance law shall not be used to compel workers to work under non-union wages and conditions. \ 2 Amounts to Be Paid As Insurance. All workers are entitled to unemployment in- surance, as above set forth shall, during the whole period of their disemployment, receive $15 weekly, with $3 additional for each dependent. 3. How to Finance the Insurance Fund, All appropriations heretofore made or now in effect for military, naval or other war purposes, including war pension funds, shall be repealed and all such sums shall be appropriated for financing the unemployment insurance. ‘The additional funds necess: shgll be raised by (a) a graduated capital levy upon all capital and property accumulations in excess of $25,000, and (b) by a graduated income tax upon all incomes in excess of $5,000 per year. The work- ers shall not be required to contribute to this funds. 4, Administration of the Insurance Fund. ‘The Unemployed Insurance Fund shall be managed and administered by a workers’ com- mission, elected solely by the unemployed and employed workers, and in such manner as they may see fit. 5. Special Winter Relief. We further demand an immediate emergency federal appropriation to pay for two winter months of unemployment insurance on the basis of 11% times the regular rates proposed herein. In Support of the Workers’ Demands. On Point 1. The social insurance provisions must cover all workers unemployed for any cause whatever, The government, not the work- ing class, must assume the responsibility for maintaining workers industrially incapacitated in any form, The insurance fund must not be used as a strike-breaking institution, On Point 3. The worker and his family must be guaranteed at least the minimum neces- sary to live upon. The rates proposed here pro- vide only the barest necessities and the workers will fight to further increase these amounts. On Point 3. The United States Government can find billions of dollars yearly for past wars and to prepare for future mass slaughters of the workers; we demand that these funds be used to provide the unemployed and their fam-- ilies with the necessities of life, The capitalistg must pay, out of their wealth which they sys- tematically steal from the workers in their in- dustries, for the cost of the unemployment in- surance, Efforts to throw this burden or any part of it upon the workers will be militantly resisted. - On Point 4. Manifestly the workers alone must control the unemployment insurance funds, To allow the capitalist politicians to get their itching: hands into the monies would be to render the workers dependent upon them and to add a new saturnalia of graft to that already existing in every section of the national, state and local governments. By BURCK necessary in order to alleviate the existing actual | winter starvation conditions. The Workers Will Fight, Not Starve. ‘The government has done nothing to relieve | the terrible distress of the unemployed. This | is because it is a capitalist government, alert | to defend the interests of the employers but | callous to the sufferings of the workers, and it | will do nothing real in the matter of unem- ployment relief until it is compelled to do so by the mass pressure of the workers. If the question of unemployment insurance now comes forward as a major and living issue, this is primarily due to the great demonstrations, pro- tests and struggles, that the workers have carried through in every industrial center of importance, How soon unemployment insurance will be es- tablished and whether it will be of any benefit to the workers, or will be used by the capitalists to exploit and disorganize the workers, will de- pend upon the solidarity and militancy which the working class displays in this fight. Only by struggle can the workers compel the Federal government to adopt a system of un- employment insurance. The employed workers. whose interests are equally involved, must stand shoulder to shoulder with the unemployed work- ers. The fight for unemployment insurance must be coupled up with the struggle for the other important and burning issues of the work- ers—against wage cuts, against the speed-up, for full pay where the stagger system is in force, against lynching and other oppression of Ne- groes, against the registration and deportation of foreign born workers, for the release of po- litical prisoners. In the fight against unemployment, the work- ers especially demand the seven-hour day, and five day week, with the six-hour day in dan- gerous or unhealthy industries, and for young workers. We demand the immediate institution of this shortened work period in all government institutions. The unemployed and employed workers will fight against the war which the capitalists are preparing to make upon the Soviet Union. The workers will support the fight of the farmers against starvation and for government relief. They will unite in struggle against the whole infamous program of the Fish Committee. Until the adoption of adequate unemploy- ment insurance by the federal government, the workers, despite all police terrorism, will inten- sify their demands for local relief in every form -—for financial relief pay from the local and state governments, against evictions and for low- er rents, for the opening of all vacant houses and public buildings to lodge the homeless un- employed, for free light, gas and street car fare for the unemployed, for free food for workers’ school children, for abolition of the vagrancy Jaws, for full wages on emergency public work, etc., etc. We call upon the working class to rally be- hind the demands of our movement. Workers, don’t starve, fight! Don’t let yourselves and your children hunger in the midst of plenty. The brave Arkansas farmers, in taking food where they were denied it by avaricious exploiters, sounded the militant keynote of the awakening toiling masses. Organize unemployment coun- | A Bone Is Not A Bonus By JORGE From the way it looks now, the soldiers who asked for the bonus are about to be given a bone. But a better one than that comes to us as an answer to the objection that if they got the cash bonus now, all the bonds would. fall in price about three percent. Somebody says that at that rate, the poor Capitalist with $1,000,000 would have to get along $970,000. s the chap at the next desk, why don’t the veterans ask the sorrowful bondhold- ers, about how much they think their bonds would have been worth, if the veterans had not fought when the World War came along? SE ea No, Junior, just because they keep Fish in the House of Representatives, we cannot call that institution an Aquarium. * ae Mr. HenesSey On Relief Flanagan: “Whist, Hinissy; would yez be so kind as t’ till me what’s th’ mattre wit our prisidint? Henessey: “Wots th’ joke? seein’ prosperity in sixty daze? Flanagan: Naw, nuthin’ like. But wy duz he get th’ shivers at th’ menshun iv th’ wurd FOOD? Shure an’ Oi wuz jest raidin’ wot he sed in 1924, wen he apeeled t’ Kongress for $10,- 000,000. Shure an’ lit me rade it t’ ye: He sed: “T assume that the first obligation of a Gov- ernment is to apply its resources to nourish- ment for its people, whether due to poverty or otherwise.” Hez he agin bin enessey: W'll, wot’s rong wit that? Mr. Hoover ez a grate-harted man, Flanagan: Yiz, Hinissy, Oi onderstand that perfekly. But wy don’t he say th’ same thing tday? Henessey: Ah, k’wan wit yez, Flanagan! Shure an’ ye don’t onderstand dialeckties! Cir- kumstances alter kases. Faith an’ didn’t ye ivir hear iv Bullshevism? ‘ Flanagan: That Oi hev, Hinissy, but wot, beggin’ yer pardun, hez Bullshevism t’ du wit Hoover. Yer not sayin’ that Hoover's a Rid, be yez? Henessey: Flanigan Oi’m surprized at ye! Iv korz Hoover’s not a Bullshevik. But he’s there loik a Free State Trooper whin it kums t’ fightin’ Bullshevism. Ef yez kan rimimber as far back as 1924, ye’ll rekall that Germany wuz waverin’ betwixt goin’ Bullshevik wit th’ Soviet, an’ goin’ broke wit th’ Dawz Plan. An’ Hoover stept in t’ save th’ day fer Kapitalism. He open’d hiz grate hart an’ th’ U. 8. Treasury t’ feed German woikers so they wudn’t go Bul- Ishevik. Flanigau: Yis, Hinissy. But, begorrah, didn’t he get $20,000,000, wich ez twoice as much, t’ feed th’ Rushins AFTER they win’t Bullshevik? An’ how th’ divil did hiz grate hart stant. th’ strain, till me? Henessey: Flanigan, shure an’ it’s an’ infant. ye be in politicks. Rimimbre that en 1920, whin Hoover did that, th’ papers wuz kumin’ ‘out iviry day wit th’ nuze that th’ Bullsheviks wuz overthrone on’ th’ kapitulists heer beleeved it an’ wuz ankshuss t’ be in on th’ ground floor. An, thin, wit an organizashun thare, wit a few spies tucked in, shure an’ we moight hev saved Roosha frum fallin’ inta th’ hands iv th’ British an’ Frenchies—an’ don’t forget thare's a lot t’ fall. Flanigan: Faith an’ Oi wuz wunderin’ wy th’ Bullsheviks didn’t hang a medal on Hoover. But ‘ere Oi see a piece in the paper, th’ N’Yark ‘Telegram iv Monday, wher? a fellah named Sam Levin, wroites th’ iditor that he’s sint th’ Amtorg th’ followin’: “American farmers and unemployed are starv- ing. In 1921, when Russia was afflicted with a drouth, the American ‘people helped Russia with $20,000,000. Can your government return the help to the starving Americins, as the American government refuses to help its own people?” Henessey: Um-m-m.... Flanigan, Oi fear that yer razin kwestions iv internashunal kar- acter. Did ye heear that it’s offen against publik interest t? answer kwestions?. The Postmaster Jineral only Wednesday refused t’ tell Kongress wy th’ giverment wuz payin’ $120,000 yeaily rint fer twinty years, t’ a kontributor t’ the Repub- likan Nashunal Kommittee fer a bilding in Saint Paul that’t assessed at $334,000; an’ he sed it wuz inkumpattible wit publik interest. Flanigan: Yis, Hinissy. But wot wud happen ef th’ Rushins tuk Mr. Levin seriously an’ want- ed t’ sind a Relief Expedishun here wit a lot iv Bullsheviks t’ run around th’ kuntry t’ feed th’ cows, farmers, th’ unimployed an’ other live- stock menshuned in th’ Arkansas Kompromize betwixt th’ Hoover democrats an’ th Robinson republikans? Henessey: Sh-s-s-s, Flanigan! Shure an’ it’s plum dippy ye be, t’ ask sich a kwestion. Shure an’ it’s well ye know that Hoover wud kall out th’ Boy Scouts, th’ Kustoms an’ Immigrashun service, the Standin’ Army, th’ Nashunel Guard an’ the Atlantik Fleet ¢’ stop th’ invasion. Bill Green wud kall it a “dole,” besides. Niver, niver, wud we permit it, bekaws ef them Bullshevik: wuz allowd t’ get’ wit-in talkin’ distance iv this land iv Opportunity, they’d mesmerize th’ ig- norant masses an’ th’ kuntry'’d go Bullshevik over nite. Shure, an’ that’t an awful noshun! Mr. Fish an’ Mr. Woll wud drop ded! - Flanigan: Yis, Hinissy, but wot ef President cils, Build the Trade Union Unity League. Workers, unite! Employed and unemployed, or- ganized and unorganized, join hands in common struggle, without regard to race, creed, color, age or sex, Organize a great national demon- stration against unemployment on February 25, in every industrial center of America, in soli- darity with the workers of the world, who will demonstrate on that day in all countries, against, the mass starvation now being forced upon the toilers by the bankrupt world capitalist. system, Demand with all your power and militancy the enactment of the Workers’ Unemployment In- surance Bill! The Workers’ Unemployment Insurance Delegation. ESS ES SIM Oae cary Correction Tn the Daily Worker, issue of February 4th, in the “Party Life” column, under the reading “Suggestions for the Conduct of the Recruiting Robinson an’ Mr, Hoover—ach! Shure an’ Ot get thim all mixt up wot wit thim bein’ so mutch aloike—but wot ef th’ hungry farmers. an’ un- imployed ain't fed? Shure an’ ain't they loikely t’ go Bullshevik jest t’ same? Henessey: Faith an’ that toime ye sed’ a mouthful, Flanigan. An’ that’s th’ thing th’ republican-demol-rat-kavitulist admihistrashun iv the nashun ez gamblin’ against. Furst an’ fourmost, all th’ profets are coached t ‘iiake foks beleeve Prosperity ez kumin” bak, wit a chicken in Iviry Pot. An’ thin, ef th’ chicken don’t kum, th’ unimployed kan be ‘kepp kwiet by makin’ beleeve that they'll all’ get a livin’ sellin’ each ither appels. An’ as fer th’ farmers, Sekretary Hide has sed that he'll be simpathetik an’ ef th’ farmer ez hungry, all he has t’ du ez t' get th’ ole woman t’ harness him up wit @ crupper under his tale an’ make a noise loik @ mule, so’s t’ kum wit-in th’ Provisions Iv ‘Work Stock’; while th’ ole wom'n an’ the kids kan moo loik cows er grunt lo'k pics tiv distress t? Drive,” an article was published with a credit line to the Chicago district. ‘This should have read Minnesota District, as these suggestions On Point 5, ‘This immediate appropriation is | were worked out by District No. 9. kwalify as ‘other live stock”, an’ th’ grate hart iv Hoover will be touched an’ Sekretary Hide will filt their cups, till they runneth over, wit