The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 3, 1931, Page 4

{ Published by Page Four f 18th the Comprodally Strest, New York City, N. Y. Address and mail all checks to the Daily Worker, 50 East 15th Street, New York, N. ¥. hing Co., Inc. Telephone Al; ept Sunday, 6. Cable: at 50 East “DALWOQRK.” Dail orker’ Porty US.A. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By mati everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $8; two month: of Manhattan and Bronx, New York City. Foreign: one y $1; excepting Boroughs » $8; six months, $4.50. Gov. Roosevelt’ Demogogy--Called Relief! By EVA SHAFRAN For days and days, mouth-piece of Big Ca the New York Times and all the rest of the New York boss-papers have hammered “The Governor is thinking! The Governor is planning! The Governor has hit on a plan for unemploy- excellently worked-out plan to de- asses of unemployed who are starv- g desperate, and more and more into ting against starvation under the the naemloyed councils, an t hinder the plan and then ev is worked plan pose. that One nd the New New York able” to ranklin D red his me: n of the I ountain has he specia ‘on to behold! The birth to a 1 9,900, 000 for Why of 1,600,000 jobless in New Y This Action Was Taken. $20,000,000 is a drop i he graft for We will atte: this sudden action? | made his honor Frank- | act so “promptly?” For the same y a short time ago joined in ned that he following nessage : | program is the result of many months | I am con- re for platitudes as to { situation has passed, The e action is at hand Th's of study and reflection on my part. d that th necessities of the ‘ne growing old. Mr immediate vorkers, em- | nt to tell : This is a lie, Mr. You havé not just now become con- he sufferings of the masses and their needs, uu have now become convinced that the ma; will not stand for this starvation, but will fight and fight hard, and this is what made you act! No matter how little this sum of $20,000,000 will help; this is a partial victory for the unemployed and was won only thanks to the fight of the unemployed led by the Trade Union Unity League, Unemployed Coun- ¢ils, and the Communist Party. This program is not an isolated fact. This is part of the genera] campaign of bluff, of social demagogy, lies, carried on by Pinchot, Roosevelt and other social demagogues who fear the rising spirit of the masses. The chief bulldozer Her- bert Hoover too, is playing this game. Hoover and his head of the “emergency” committee, the millionaire Gifford, let the cat out of the bag when they came out and stated openly that their unemployment “activities” are due mainly in order “to prevent a plot of socialistic bills for legislation in the coming session of congress,” which means in actuality: Hoover is afraid of Roosevelt vinced of ir | remember the evictions! The shutting off of gas ot to speak ot | S ‘Plan of Social this fact at all: it is merely “a result of hs of thinking” that is all! Great Mass Misery Next Winter “The number of citizens who in this coming winter will be in need, so far as it is possible to estimate, will be nearly, if not quite, twice as many during the winter of 1930-31,” declares Roosevelt. Workers! Employed and unemployed! You re- member the last two winters! You remember the long bread lines, tens of thousands of workers standing in these lines in the bitter frost and cold waiting for a miserable bowl of soup! You and electr The cutting of the supply of coal, the grocery and the butcher credits! You th vernor Roosevelt assures remember us th is winter there will be twice as much misery, with twice as many workers, farmers and their families suffering! A Plan of Starvation What does the plan of Governor Roosevelt to be adopted by the New York Legislature pro- pose? This plan,” says the N. Y. Times in an edi- torial in its August 29 issue, is not a system of unemployment insurance .. . it is to provide work, so that the money would be expended as wages, not as charity.” But even this is a bluff! The plan provides for charity and nothing else (besides graft for the “administrators”) but charity! Charity, where wor! not be found” by the “local e, or forced labor where such work can be found, no cash relief! Franklin D. as Herbert, Hoover, is “afraid of the y refuse to grant the demand of the unemployed for cash payments! | Here are the provisions for the plan: | 1, That under no circumstances shall any | actual money be paid in the form of a dole or in any other form by the local officer to any unemployed and. his family. A blank refusal to in any way help distressed unemployed workers and their families in cases of need, sickness, ev ete. 2. That this relief should be restricted to | persons who haye resided in the state of New York at least two years prior to the enactment of this statute. emergency committe THE SHIELD An excellent scheme to discriminate against workers, especially militant workers and foreign | born, All the “commissioners” will have to do in such a case is—to declare a worker not to be a resident of the state for two years and that | settles it! But here a better one showing how | Roosevelt is ainst” charity! | “If any form of employment can be found | for the public use at vailing rate of wages | (whatever that means; the plan is not opposed to the present wage cutting going on—E. S.) be paid for such work; if, however, it is im- possible to provide work of such kind, then the local welfare officer may purchase and give to the unemployed, within jurisdiction, neces- sary food, fuel, clothing and shelter for them and their families.” Cash relief, the dgpand of the unemployed, is a dole that “we” must avoid in “our” land of milk and honey! But the welfare officer buying and giving food, clothing and shelter to the un- employed, this is not a dole, this is not charity! And workers! Do you realize what this ar- rangement of getting rid of these $29,000,000 will mean for graft for these “welfare agents” and these “emergency” committees? It will mean practically that the major part of this money will go into the pockets of these agents of the bosses. Part of this money will go into the pockets as graft to the various contractors who will have to “provide work” to these unemployed. The Legislature is now investigating graft in New York State. We unemployed workers are, by Roosevelt's plan being degraded to the posi- tion of actual beggars! But the essence of this whole plan is to provide more graft for these politicians. We must organize a militant struggle against this plan to degrade the unemployed to beggary and organize graft and demand real unemploy- ment relief in cash payments! iy eae: is still the struggles of the masses of unemployed ahead -* kim. Mr. Roosevelt pretends not to be moved The second article will appear in a subsequent issue.) Chicago Negro Democrats Try to Cash in on Unemplyment By JACK TILFORD. CHICAGO, Aug. 31.—At the Washington Park Forum, where several thousand Negro and white workers gather nightly to discuss their prob- Jems and listen to the speakers of the revolu- ticnary organizatio cal Negro misleaders are attempting to capitalize on these educational meetings for their own political advantage, Because our speakers are constantly exposing the Negro republican bosses who are the polit- ical enemies of the Negro democrats, the latter figure they can exploit our meetings for the purpose of themselves succeeding the Negro re- Ppublicans in power over the masses. They make the-mistake of thinking that the Negro workers are not wise to them, Negro workers have long ago realized that a Negro democratic boss can do no more for the workers than a Negro republican boss. They are both tools of the white ruling class and must take their orders from their masters. The prob- Jems and fight against starvation, unemploy- ment, tage-cuts, evictions and the police terror, cannot be solved by simply changing from one set of boss tools to another, nor from one party of the bosses to another (republican or socialist) party of the bosses. Both the republican and democratic parties, and also the socialist party, are the parties of capitalism and have nothing to offer the workers except lies and starvation and misery. The workers know that their con- dition cannot be changed by switching from one perty of misery to the other. That change can only come by changing the system. The Com- munist Party {8 the only Party that is fighting to change the system. Negro and ‘white workers! Don’t be fooled by these traitorous Negro democrats, allies of the blesdy Southern white ruling class. Bryant Hammond, John Lewis, Major A. E. Patterson and other Negro democratic tools of the ruling class, are no more interested in the workers than are the Negro republican tools, like De Priest, Jockcon and Anderson. Workers! Do not permit yourselves to be fecled by these opportunists and traitors who ‘ill continue to come to us in the guise of sym- bathizers and frends. We must build our own political party, the Communist Party. We must build political leadership out of the ranks of the workers, out of the core of our own class, the working class. We must file a complete slate of Communist candidates in the South Side and in every working-class section of Chicago. On with the fight against starvation and evictions! On with the relentless struggle for unconditional equal rights for the Negro people. Smash the power of political parties of Jim Crow capital- ism with its program of starvation and eviction of unemployed workers! Fir> Youth Delegates Will Visit the Soviet Union Five of the twenty-five workers to visit the Soviet Union on the occasion of the celebration of the fourteenth anniversary of the Russian revolution November 7 will be young workers. These five young workers will be elected to the Friends of the Soviet Union delegation by’ the mass popular vote of the members of the rev- olutionary trade unions and the rank and file of the A. F. of L. unions. Special preference will be given in these elec- tions to these young workers who are occupied in war industries. The youth delegates will spend several weeks touring the Soviet Union. During their stay they will make a thorough investigation of the working and living conditions of the Soviet youth. Upon their return they will travel throughout the United States on an extended speaking ‘tour in order to spread far and wide the wonderful achievements of the young work- ers and farmers of the workers’ fatherland. This is the first time that a youth delegation has ever gone to the Soviet Union from this country with the exception of the visit made by Bob Turner who went over as a member of the May First delegation. It marks a real step forward in cementing ever more tightly the revolutionary solidarity of the young workers of America with the young Workers of the Soviet Union, ~— £ ‘On the 13th Plenum of the Central | The Plenum was attended by members of the . Workers! Committee, (.P.US A; | HE 13th Plenum of the Central Committee, CPUSA, was held on August 21, 22 and 23. Central Committee, Central Control Commis- sion and by invited functionaries from the dist- ricts, trade union functionaries and functionar- jes in mass organizations—a total of 197. The agenda of the Plenum: was: 1. Report ‘on “the 11th Plenum of the ECCI, by. Comrade William Weinstone. 2. Report on the work of the Party’ since the 12th Plenum, the situation of the Party and next tasks of the Party, by Comrade Earl Browder. 3. Report on the next tasks in trade union work, by Comrade Wm. Z. Foster. Supplemen- tary report on the next tasks in unemployment work by Comrade Jack Stachel. The Plenum unanimously adopted (a) the draft resolution presented by the Polburo on the Next Tasks in the Organization of Mass Struggles against the Offensive of the Capital- ists; (b) Resolution on the next steps in the development of the. struggle.against unemploy- ment, and .(c) Appeal to the toiling farmers, which contained a plan of action for the Party in agrarian work. The following greetings and protest resolu- tions were decided upon: 1. Directing the Central Committee to send a letter of greetings from the CPUSA to the newly formed Communist Party of the Philippine Istands. 2. A special cable of greetings to the Com- munist Party of the Soviet Union. 3. Letters of greetings to the Parties of Latin- America, Germany and China. 4. Special resolution on the attack on the Communist Party of Canada and against the white terror in Poland. ° In addition, the following decisions were unanimously adopted: 1. The Plenums of the Central Committee shall be held at shorter intervals. 2. Conferences of the Party called by the Central Committee with wide invitation shall be held at longer intervals. 3. The Polburo shall send out fuller material on its work to the Central Committee members in order to enable them to participate more ac- tively in the leadership. 4. The Central Committee members shall be assigned tasks in carrying out the decisions of the Plenum and Polburo. 5. The policy given by the Comintern of sending members of the Polburo, Central Com- mittee and responsible co-workers of the Central Committee to districts under concentration for assistance to the districts, shall be fully put into practice. 6. The departments and apparatus of the Central Committee shall be {much more than until now on the principle of col- lective work. 7. The policy of leadership by direct guid- ance shall be fully developed in order to guar- antee quickest and most vital response to the needs of the mass struggles. SECRETARIAT, CPUSA. Join Party of. Your Class! ‘ Communist Party U. 8 A P. O. Box 87 Station D. New York City Please send me more information on the Com- munist Party. tho Name Address CHY wcacevecerorecceseseoenes BtAt® -sesvecceee | By BURCK Capitalist Press Admits the Crisis Will Grow Worse This Winter By ERIK BERT IN the current reviews by the capitalist finan- cial press of economic conditions we find a rather frank admission of the peérspectivé of a still further deepening of the crisis during the next several months, at the very least. While they were quite adept at finding signs of im- provement in almost any industry Sevéral months ago, they are now forced to admit that the turn for the better, which they hope for, is so distant that they no longer want to make futile guesses as to when it will occur. In the New York Evening Post for August 29 we find a sketch of a number of the basic in- dustries which it is well to summarize, They give us an idea of the present depth of the crisis and of the prospects of the immediate future. Steel production has been falling rather steadily for the past several months and it is now at somewhat above 30% of cdpacity.. While the steel companies have been. forced to reduce prices they have held back longer than most other basic industries and now they contemplate holding. prices at their present levels or even increasing them. Usually an increase in prices means that there is already an improvement in the industry or one is in view in the not too distant future. The Post points out that neither is the case in steel at the present time. “It is due to no sanguine feeling as to the future that mills are now standing out for full prices and even contem- plate making advances in some lines.’ Rather. it is the other way, that a demand far below capacity is expected for an indefinite time, and something therefore has to be done to make ex- penses out of the limited’ tonnage.” The steel industry, which is often used by cap- italist economists as a barometer of industrial conditions, expects no improvement from the present crisis depths of production for an “in- definite time.” The Post brings this out in the following also: “There is no hope now that steel demand will average much above the recent volume within the discernible future.” While the steel workers must face the coming winter with the prospect of even greater unem- ployment than at present, the steel trust is pre- paring to attack their living standards in a more wholesale scale than has yet taken place. This has already been pointed out in the Daily Work- er many times during the past several weeks. The financial press is getting more and more insistent on the prospect of general wage cuts in addition to those that have already taken place. Says the Post, “Rumors seem to have substan- tial foundation that mills contemplate reducing wage rates in the not very distant future.” This is the prospect that faces the steel workers— increased unemployment, together with a gen- eral attack on the already starvation wage rates. In examining the steel industry the Post has found that “Mills experience difficulty in pick- ing out classes of steel buyers who should need much more steel than they haye been taking of late.” ‘The absence of a perspective for greater activity in the steel industry results from the absence of an improvement of the major indus- tries using steel. Among these the automobile industry is one of the most important. “Auto- mobile executives,” says the Post, “have ceased Predicting near future conditions for the indus- try.” And why? “Careful estimates show the present year will rank probably lower than any twelve-month period for the last ten years and that the probable production will be in the neighborhood of 2,500,000 units.” The depth of the crisis is shown by this fact that despite the tremendous growth that has been made in the productive capacity of the industry in the ten years since the last crisis, production will be lower than in any of these years. With such critical depths to contemplate and not even a glimmering of an improvement, it is not altogether any wonder that the auto capitalists have ceased predicting the i future of the industry. The steel and automobile industries give in a general way the perspective for unemployment. this’ coming winter—substantial increases over the 11,000,000 that are now on the streets be- aamse af tbe capitalist arisiaa On the basis of some juggling of figyres and chart making,.one of the writers of ‘the Post’ has predicted-that the “normal” of employment will not be reached again until 1933. “In 1920, after reaching the low point it required twenty months to work back ‘to normal,” writes N. J. Kuehls, “if the same angle is applied and assuming that Au- gust will be the low point of the depression, we could not expect employment to get back to normal before the spring or summer of 1933.” But suppose the low point of the present crisis is not August but some month a few months hence, or suppose that the recovery from the present crisis if, as, and when it comes, is more prolonged than in 1920, then the jobless workers can look forward to perhaps two years more of | misery and starvation and disease for their fam- ilies and themselves. To the calm predictions of the capitalist press of unemployment for two years more the work- ing class must answer with a mighty demand for immediate relief and unemployment insur- ance that will shake a little at the very structure of this capitalist slave driving system that can no longer guarantee even life to the working masses that it exploits. If we go from industry proper to agriculture we find the same or even worse perspectives of a deepening of the crisis. Due to. the curtail- ment of the market during’the past several years by the worsening of the workers standard of living while production has continued to ex- pand “there is said to be sufficient wheat in the world to supply twelve months without rais- ing a normal crop,” writes the Post. If no wheat were planted for a year there would still be enough to feed the masses of the world for that period. In the midst of this flood of wheat that is choking the granaries, the elevators, the terminal warehouses, millions are doomed to hunger in the capitalist. countries and in the colonies as a result of the economic crisis. As a result of this flood of wheat while the Masses cannot consume it “prices are practic- ally the lowest in the history of the world, with stocks the largest known, while wheat. prices are below#the cost of production... The present prices of wheat, all things considered, are the lowest in history... At no time in the record of wheat trading has there been a situation like the present.” These record stocks and record low prices mean record misery for the farmers, unparalled bankruptcies, and foreclosures for taxes. These mountainous stocks of wheat mean hunger for the very farmer who has produced them’and even greater exploitation by the bank- ers and the agents of the capitalist class. In ,a further step in its policy of stupid de- magogy the Farm Board has traded off some for some of the coffee of Brazil which unused mountain heaps. The got rid of 25,000,000 bushels wheat: too is able to purchase just as little coffee and flour as before, as will the poor farmers and the workers of Brazil. The situation is not one whit different from what it would be if the coffee now owned by the Federal Farm Board would remain in Brazil and the wheat owned by the Brazilian coffee growers would remain in Chicago-— duly labeled as to ownership, etc. Insofar as this wheat may actu- ally be a change in the source of Brazilian pur- chases it means a sharp cutting of the market for Argentinian wheat and for American flour in “Brazil. The disposal of part of the stocks of the Farm Board thru barter will not change the crisis in agriculture one bit for the better while C7 will sharpen the antagonisms among the wheat producing countries. The same crisis conditions hold true in cot-, ton. Here tho there is the factor that the growth of cotton under the conditions that, are imposed in capitalist-America has been affected to such an extent that the quality of the do- mestic crop has been steadily debdsed. “The conditions of production of cotton in’ cap- {talist America are! such ‘that the debased pro- duct has found it increasingly difficult to meet 4 By JORGE Why 250,000 Died at Wuhan In. the center of China 600 miles from the se, there lie three cities, Wuchang,; Hanyang and Hankow, the industrial Chicago of China, known as the Wuhan District. Recently the Yangtze River broke through the dikes and now 250,000 men, women and children are reported dead “in Wuhan, with more than that figure threatened by starvation and disease as a result of the flood leaving them homeless and penniless. About this, the Associated Préss informs us that: “President Chiang Kai-shek, “who reached Hankow Friday after leaving his anti-Commu- nist campaign in Southern China to his: aids, expressed himself as shocked.” : The very idea of 250,000 people tabi killed and him not doing it! ‘That, we believe, is the origin of his being “shocked.” Because if Chiang, the most inhuman of human butchers, had not —for his own personal enrichment and for mili- tary expenses to enforce his banditry—stolen vast amounts of the national funds hitherto used to keep the Yangtze dikes in repair the 250,000 men, women and children would not have died, This is—quite by accident—revealed in a N. Y. Times dispatch from Shanghai, telling how still another 200,000 men, women and children were drowned at Yangchow, not far from Shang- hai. In just a few words it said: ... “the dikes, The repair of the dikes is a matter of life and which badly needed repair, quickly collapsed.” death to millions in China, and the continual wars of the. militarists, tools of imperialism, takes all the money—mostly in graft, And since American imperialism is the chief supporter of Chiang Kai-shek, who is allowed to steal every- thing loose so long as he massacres revolutionary workers and peasants, the deaths of 500,000 Chinese men, women and children last. week is really chargeable to Hoover, Stimson and, their masters in Wall Street. District, Section and Unit Literature Agents See that you are supplied at once with the following literature for current. campaigns: For SOLIDARITY DAY—September.7 Work or Wages, by Grace M. Burnham 10 Social Insurance, by Grace M. Burriham 10 History of May Day, by Alexander Trach- tenberg “10 Race Hatred on Trial 10 Graft and Gangstets, by Harry Gannies’’ 10 Lynching Negro Children in Southern Courts, by Joseph North 05 Little Brothers of the Big Labor Fakers by William Z. Foster 05. The Frame Up System, by Vern Smith 10 Tom Mooney Betrayed by Labor Leaders 10 for INTERNATIONAL YOUTH DAY—Sept. 8 Youth In Industry, by Grace Hutchins 10 No Jobs Today, by Phil Bard 05 Life In the U. 8. Army, by Walter Trumbull .10 For the UNEMPLOYMENT CAMPAIGN Fight Against Hunger 05 Out of a Job, by Earl Browder 05 20,000,000 Unemployed. 10 50,000,000 Unemployed 05 Also Work or Wages and Social Insurance For the ELECTION CAMPAIGN Why Every Worker Shuld Join the Com- munist Party The Heritage of Gene Debs, by Alexander ‘Trachtenberg American Working Women. and the Class Struggle 05 Revolutionary Struggle Against War vs. Pacifism, by Alex Bittelman 05 Also your local Election Platforms; “Out of a Job”, “Fight Against Hunger”, “Graft and Gangsters”, “Race Hatred on Trial”, “Lynching Negro Children In Southern Courts”, surance”, “Work or Wages”, “Social In- competition on the world market. While cap- italist agriculture has meant debasement of the quality of the crop it has meant an ever greater debasement of the cropper and of the small farmer. The record low prices for cotton mean hunger now and a desolate winter of starvation and misery staring them in the face. It is under such circumstances that the Farm Board suggests plowing under one third of the crop for the benefit of the speculators and bankers now holding a large part of the crop and at the expense of the great masses of the croppers and small farmers. While millions go hungry, great stores of wheat rot. While mil- lions have not enough to clothe thémselves, the warehouses bulge with cotton and the govern- ment suggests the destruction of one-third of the present crop. Increasing unemployment in the industries of the United States, increasing hunger for the unemployed workers, increasing misery thru evictions, disease and police oppression, and in- creased wage cuts either directly or thru the stagger plan—this is the perspective that the capitalist press offers to the working masses in the shops and in the mines and on the streets. Losses on the crop sold, bankruptcy thru inabil- ity to pay interest charges, and foreclosure thru inability to pay taxes, increasing hunger for the “tillers of the siol,” disease for farm children, ground down ever more by the bankers and the capitalists—this is the perspective the capital- ist press offers to the small farmers and the croppers. In its million ranks, the toiling masses of the United States must spread over the entire coun- try, in every workers homé, in every farmstead, the perspectives of the working masses—the de- termination and the will to struggle against hun- ger. The immediate perspective of the toiling masses is to face the coming winter not deso- late but with the food and clothing and shelter they have wrenched from the cipitalist class by the mighty pressure of the cctermined millions. The further perspective of the toiling masses must be the sweeping out by the iron broom of the proletarian revolution of the entire capital- ist system, with its torments, its misery, its mur- ders, Organize and fight against hunger. FIGHT STEADILY FOR RELIEF! Organize Unemployed Councils to Figh for Unemployment Relief. Organize the Employed Workers Into Fighting Unions. Mobilize the Employed and Unemployed for Common Strug- gles Under the Leadership of the Trade Unigh Unity League __