The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 8, 1932, Page 4

Page Four t New York City. N. ¥. Telephone ALgonquin 4-7956, 13th 8t., Cable £ Pudlioned by the Comprofafiy Publishing Co, Inc, Gafly except Sunday, at 50 East | D il ‘Address and mail all checks to the Daily Worker, 50 East 13th Street, New York, N. Y. a “DATWOR of Manhattan and Bronx, SUBSCRIPTION RATES: New York City. By mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $3; two months, $1; excepting Boroughs Foreign: one year, $8; six months, $4.50. Party Recruiting Drive January 11 - March 18, 1932 WOMEN WORKERS, JOIN THE COMMUNIST PARTY! The Communist Party of the United States is in the midst of a recruiting drive which will continue until March 18, 1932. The goal in this drive is to recruit large numbers of workers from basic in- d tr The Central Committee of the Communist Party makes a direct ap- justries. Je ce tte ssed section of the American working class, the Negro and white wom It calls upon you to join the sia eager Party, to help the Communist Party ¢ rry on more intensive work amnog the exploited masses against wage cuts, to fight for unemployment insurance. The Communist Party points out that as part of the United States rational- ization and war program women and children are replacing men in the factories at half their wages, thus lowering the living standards of the workers. NEGRO WOMEN SUFFER MOST. rs, 1920-1930 (according to United States census report), peal to the most exploited and o the Tn the last ten ye ted SI T women wage earners have increased by two and a half million, making a total of nearly 11,000,000 women wage earners. At the same time, the wages of the women workers have decreased from ten to forty per cent. The number of unemployed women is now estimated between two and a half million and three million. The greatest sufferers as a result of the economic crisis and extreme un- employment are the Negro women. They are the first to be thrown out of jobs, the first to receive wage cuts, the first to be evicted from their homes. Under the excuse of solving the unemployment problem by giving jobs to men, the bosses are firing older married women and replacing them with younger ones at lower wages, and who can more easily maintain the inhuman speed-up. ‘ “SOCIALISTS,” PACIFISTS BETRAY WOMEN. The capitalist class is fully conscious of the important role women will play in the coming imperialist war, and are therefore directing their energies to win the working women on their side. Towards this end they are extending a vicious set of activities through the church, bourgeois women’s clubs and patriotic or- ganizations, They make greater use than ever of the pacifists and “socialists” to betray the women of the working class, to hold them back from struggles for their interest. The working women should not be fooled by lying propaganda of the capitalist class and their agents. It is for this reason that the women workers should fight shoulder to shoul- der with the men workers under the’militant lead of the Communist Party and the Trade Union Unity League. JOIN THE COMMUNIST PARTY! Recognizing the fact that the degree of militancy and class cons Soust ss of the Negro and white working women in the United States is not reflcoc.cd suf- ficiently in the ranks of our Party, the Communist Party urgently appeals to the Negro and white working women to join our ranks. Working women! You who are taking an active part in the working class struggles against wage cuts and unemployment—you who have proven to be among the best fighters in strikes. You who, together with the Communist Party, are in the fight against Hoover starvation program, against imperial- ist war, and for the defense of the Soviet Union, become a member of the Party which represents and fights for the interest of the working class. Join the Communist Party of U. S.! CENTRAL COMMITTEE, C. P. U.S. A, -— EXCHANGE OF EXPERIENCES 4 Every experience in the recruiting drive must be studied and lessons drawn from it. The experiences in one district must be utilized for the benefit of the entire Party, D THE RECRUITING DRIVE recruiting drive experiences. So far, none came in. The writing and sending in of the brief ar- ticles must be ORGANIZED. It cannot be left to chance. The District Agiprop and Org Deptarments have the responisibility for it. | Mistakes are continually repeated in the various districts, because one district does not | The recruiting drive can be successful if we benefit from the experiences of another district. | crop up from time to time in connection with In fact, in the various sections of the same | recuiting, The comrades should bring to the district, the same mistakes are committed, be- attention such expressions which come to light cause of failures to EXCHANGE experiences | in connection with the PRACTICAL tasks on and COLLECTIVELY. draw the POLITICAL | varous wrong politial conceptions and ideas that lessons from the experiences re i On January 8, the Daily Worker, in the Re- are particularly requested fo sena ruiting Drive Column, carried a statement on in articles on “Why I joined the Party.” These “Leninist Self Criticism and Recruiting Drive.” | articles should also deal with our methods of The statement urged the districts, in the spirit | recruiting. The comrades must HELP the new of self criticsm, to send in brief articles on their | Party members to write such articles. “OH, JOHN, OUR BOYS HAVE COME TO PROTECT US!” By BURCK A Short History of Muste and ~ Unemployment Insuranc cent, whenever a federal bill is adopted. Bene- fits could constitute 40 per cent of the regular wage and run to a maximum of 26 weeks in one year.” (Practical Plans,” by Nathan Fine, “Labor Age,” July, 1930). This, however, smacked too much of the later betrayal of the Labor Party of England (the equality of obligation of boss and worker to the “national welfare”) and so Muste, with his eye on left phrases, dropped it. Must Have Worked a Year The final program is, in essence, the same and provides: No worker gets any unemployment insurance if he hasn’t been exploited by the boss for at least a year immediately previous. That leaves the majority of unemployed out today, If the worker is lucky and has slaved for a year, or may be 20, he is entitled to 26 weeks insurance at the rate of 40 per cent of his wages. If he has a wife he gets 10 per cent more for her, and a child gives him another five per cent ‘The maximum is 60 per cent of his wages, The employers, says Muste, should pay the bill— from the wages of the worker when he slaves throughout the year Muste provides. Another of Muste’s lieutenants clears us up | @ little on how this unemployment insurance bill would be handled. In a pamphlet published by the C.P. , entitiled: “Why Unemployment Insurance” by Israel Mufson we read: “How would this insurance fund be handled? The fund would be administered by the State | Department of Labor under the direct supervi- sion of a special board consisting of two employ- ers, two workers or their representative, and one representative from the public.” In short, the usual A. F. of L. class collabora- tion scheme through which the workers wages are cut in every single instance. But we get the full force of the Muste unem- By HARRY GANNES Three men of god stand out among the rest offering to lead the workers out of the wilder- ness of capitalist unemployment and into the valleys of plenty. We will hear much more from | all three as the crisis grows and as unemploy- ment takes heavier toll of deaths and starvation, Father Cox is a recent co: , using new meth- | ods, receiving the support of the leading capi- talist elements of Pittsburgh. The reverend Nor- man Thomas and the reverend A. J. Muste and two others, ‘believe the Socialist party is the best instrument for leading the workers away from the revolutionary devil. They believe So- cialist phrases fill the stomach with greater savoriness than the crude speeches of Father Cox. Muste works mainly through the Conference for Progressive Labor Action, and now that he is loud in support of what he claims is a strug- gle for unemployement insurance, it would be well to trace the history of his program during the present crisis. Muste’s basic principle is to work with the A. F. of L. In Sept. 1929, when the crisis was beginning to play havoc with the workers, what was Muste’s answer? Concluding a long artic!s in the official organ, “Labor Age,” on the political activity of the workers, Muste agitated the workers to:— “Let the American Federation of Labor give the lead. Let us begin to build solidly up from the bottom, on however small a scale at — | the outset, an independent party of labor (shades of MacDona'd!) end all the liberal tnd honest elements of the jon will rally to the A. F. of L. as they have done in many a day, and the slogan double the membership will be translated into reality.” Wage Cuts Two months later the A. F. of L. leadership accepted the bosses’ “no strike” agreement, and | proceeded to help cut. wages, which, according to Mr. Green himself, for the duration of the crisis, cost the workers $1,000,000,000 a month or about $28,000,000,000 since the crisis began. “Let the A. F, of L. lead,” said Muste. At the same time the A. F. of L. was rapidly losing membership, when the role of the A. F. of L. officialdom was to-act as the main instrument | in helping the bosses to put the burdén of the | crisis onto the backs of the workers, Muste | spread the illusion about “double the member- ship” of the A. F. of L. Muste and the Crisis On came the crisis with its crushing blows against the workers. All of the contradictions of | capitalism were coming to the surface. World capitalism was crumbling, and the Communist Party pointed the road to a revolutionary strug- gle. The Communist Party proposed a struggle for unemployment insurance, based on the mass fight of the workers, winning relief by class action, weakening the capitalists struggle, to prevent them from transfering the burden to the workers, and fighting to prevent them from ending their crisis in a capitalist way. The chief answer of the Communist Party to the crisis was a struggle on every front against, capitalism—fighting against wage cuts, building the revolutionary trade unions, carrying on a mighty battle for unemployment insurance, building the revolutionary party of the workers for its conscious task of rallying the workers for ending capitalism. What was the Conference for Progressive Labor Action’s answer to the crisis? Louis Francis Budenz, one of the Muste’s lieutenants tells the workers: “Unemployment Insurance is the chief answer to the crisis here and now.” (‘Labor Age,’ July 1930). In other words, pass the Muste un- employment insurance bill and, lo and behold the crisis is solved! Capitalism is saved and thc workers keep on slaving until the next crisic comes on. What is the magical formula of unemployment insurance that Muste offererd. First of all it is based on the collaboration of the 12,000,000 unemployed with the wage-cutters, the exploiter: and the capitalist government. The Muste un- employment insurance bill went through severa! stages before Muste thought it was in proper ‘ape to mislead the workers. The first draft | was as follows: | “Perhaps the simplest plan in the United States would be one in which the employer, the worker, and the state government each contri- buted 1% per cent of the wage or salary, The national government could add another 1 pes s At the last Trade Union Unity League Plenum one fact was established. Although, out of all the strikes which took place during the year only about 35 per cent were led by the TUUL, never- | theless quite a step forward could be recorded in the ability of the revolutionary unions to or- ganize and Jead struggles of the workers. The mere fact that the biggest strike during the year —the miners strike—was led by the TUUL, is certainly a positive achievement. It was also brought out at this Plenum, that on the basis of our past experiences and correcting our past mistakes we were able to mobilize thousands of workers around concrete partial demands for struggle, and as a result increase the member- ‘ship and prestige of the TUUL unions. While we can'record this achievement, it must be stated very clearly, that we did not succeed to win over the working class youth on a large scale around specific youth demands, and for our revolutionary unions. In such strikes as the miners and Lawrence, we found that a large portion of those work- ers on strike were young workers. These youth fought militantly on the picket lines and in general were very active during these strikes. However, we find another thing, and that is that for instance in the miners’ strike, in many places the young workers were the first to re- turn to wrok, and in many cases were used by the bosses and the reactionary unions to helr to demoralize and break the strike. Why? The answer to this is very simple. We have aot. yet learned how to work out concrete de- mands for the young workers. Demands for which they would be willing to fight. Also we have not brought clearly enough before the workers as a whole, the important role the oung workers play, And because we have not done this, we were not able to win the work- ng youth for struggle and build up youth sec- tions ni the various unions which would further help carry on the struggle of the young workers. We cannot attribute this to the fact that the or for organization, but to the fact that the TUUL as a whole has wholly underestimated the important role youth plays in industry. For instance, we can cite one example (which is not an isolated one, but one of the many) that young workers are not yet ready for struggle | ployment insurance bill when we read on, and are told that a federal unemployment insurance bill would “be administered by the U.S. depart- ment of labor.” Who is the head of the U.S. department of labor? None other than Doak, the Hoover official who deports tens of thousands of foreign born workers for the crime of being unemployed; Doak who helps to put over wage- cuts. This is the capitalist offical that Muste wants to administer unemployment insurance. Not having spread enough illusions the same pamphlet tells the workers to believe that “Gov- ernor Roosevelt of New York and Senator Wag- ner of New York” are stauch supporters of un- employment insurance and can be depended on. (page 15). Now all through, Muste is very carefull to preserve the workers faith in the A. F. of L. When the A. F. of L. 1931 convention in Van- couver voted against unemployment insurance, Muste rushes in to apologize, saying: “Green promised, if the A. F. of L. did not reverse its stand in the matter, to go to Con- gress and demand millions, yes billions, for re- lief” He ventured also to assert that unless conditions radically changed, some form of per- manent relief against unemployment must be devised. We are ‘traveling fast toward it but the time has not yet arrived.’” Fellow-traveter Muste is willing to wait, even if the 12900,000 unemployed do starve. Muste tells the workers that not enly will Green arrive at the promised goal, not only will Roosevelt and Wagner lead the fight, but the harrassed workers have friends in the ranks of the richest exploiters. “Preachers demand un- employment insurance,” Muste assures the work- ers. “Rockefeller Church Hears Revolutionary Doctrine!” And “Labor Age” goes on to tell the hungry millions: “Why can’t we have unemployment insur- ance?” asked the Rev. Dr. Harry Emerson Fos- dick, in his sermon at the Riverside ghurch, the church that was built in part as a memorial to John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s mother and for which he contributed millions of dollars.” Yea, these preachers verily lead the work- ers to the promised goal! Young Workers when a report was given at the Philadelphia TUUL City Council, on the last TUUL Plenum, the comrade who reported did not even mention one single word about the young workers and their role in the many struggles that he men- tioned. This comrade explained this by say- ing “that he did not think it was necessary to bring forth the question of the young workers at that particular time.” This is the typical attitude that our com- rades have towards the work among the young workers. Whenever a comrade has the “nerve” to bring the question of the youth into any of the meetings of the TUUL, that comrade is just smiled upon with tolerance and there the matter rests. In most cases our youth com- rades have to actually put up a fight for ex- istence, not saying anything of receiving guid- ance and help fro mthe adult comrades, This is one of the main reasons why at the Present time we haven't many youth sections in the TUUL unions and why we do not lead struggles of young workers. Not only do the comrades not guide and help our young com- rades in this work, but the entire orientation of the TUUL (at least in our district) with ‘ew exceptions, is not in the direction of organ- zing one of the most important sections of the working class. As for instance in the Needle Trades Union, where the majority of young workers are found in the cotton shops, the NTWIU is absolutely neglecting this work and carries on work only among the workers in the silk shops, The same applies to the unemployed work. Whenever young comrades become active in this vork they are immediately drawn in to general activity. When they insist on working amongst che youth, the adult comrades do not think that this work is important enough. With the result, that out of our unemployed movement of over one thousand (in Philadelphia alone), the young workers in the Unemployed Councils can be counted on the fingers of two hands, | _A situation as this, of course cannot exist any | longer. If we are to organize the youth for | struggle against the miserable conditions in the shops, and amongst the unemployed, for un- employment insurance, and. immediate relief such attitudes on the part of the adults will By Jores With Good Reason We cannot think up off hand, any name bet ter suited to take a seat in the 72nd Con; than that of the new barbarian from Louis — HUEY. With good reason Huey Long represents hig part of American capitalism, and, incidentally ; his name as well as his state government show distinct traces of “Chinese descent.” “Huey | Long” might well be a laundryman—or a Kuow' mintang general. Probably his proud “Nordi@ } soul” would squirm at the inference, but so far ag! names go, the “gentleman from Louisiana | might just as well be from Kiangsi. Further, Louisiana government is now juss about on a par with the Kuomintang “governs ment” and one cannot really distinguish any visible difference in method between the con« flict in Louisiana over who is to be governor at | Baton Rouge and the row at Nanking over whé is to be top dog in the Nanking list of servants to imperialism. There has been no end of official and unoffis clal violence over the Louisiana governorship, ' including kidnapping and murder. And, of January 26, a gent who is a dentist by profess sion and thus inured to shoving things down Peoples’ throats, headed an armed mob of poe litical supporters in a successful assault on the state capitol, carried the place by storm in spite of the armed guards of the “acting governor”, Alvin O. King, and got himself sworn in ag “governor”. Just who the hell is governor of Louisiana is ® matter of dispute there and of entire indif+ ference to us. But one thing is certain. These methods are just as fully a proof of the rotten« ness of capitalist government in the U. S, As as they are of the rottenness of the capitalistw feudal-military government in China. There are many other evidences of such a state of affairs as would justify Me: ico, for ex- ample, invading and occupying U. S. soil “to restore order” or “clean out bandits,” as Japan uses aS excuse to invade and sieze Chinece tere tory. In fact we recall that two Oklahoma deputy sheriffs murdered two Mexican students last year, in cold blood and with ng possible excuse, except that “they were Mexicans”. And one of the students was a relative of the President of Mexicg, too. But instead of sending in an army, Ortiz Rubio, the Mexican president, was so ser= vile to his Yankee imperialist masters, that he helped hush up the whole affair. Anyhow, keep your eye on those~-Louisiana “Nordics”. They are giving us splendid precedent in the matier of “seizing state power”. If they have a right to do that—why, pray tell us, can’t we? The Week's Prize Hokum Slinger:—“One of the greatest social revolutions in history has resulted from the depression, evclving a new and finer ideal and conception of life."—from speech of Joseph V. McKee, president of “Cor= Tupt and Contented” Tammany’s Board of Aldermen at a luncheon of Y. M. C. A. execu tives at the Commodore Hotel, New York City, January 25, 1932. That “Moscow Gold” (From “Mundo Obrero,” Madrid, Spain, Nov. 21, i 1931) if happens that, according to the social magi- cian, Oliveira, editor in chief of “The Social- ist,” that “Mundo Obrero,” in “four days,” is a “great daily,” not in virtue of a really heroid effort of the Communists and the fervent sup- port of 40,000 workers, but because of the famous “Moscow Gold.” “We do not know which troubles most these Gentlemen and Genltemenettes: the fantastic “Moscow gold,” or a “great daily’—of the workers., We believe the latter. Because, for the social magician, Oliveira, and other gentlemen, despite their three cabinet ministers, and their hundred parliamentary deputies, and their intellectuals and professors, and the subsidies extracted from workers’ so- cieties, and the eternal contribution lists, and the gifts of their rich supporters, and the bene- volent credits of capitalist supply houses, and | the disguised advertisements, etc., “The Social- ist” remains a repulsive journal. However, these gentlemen and gentlemenettes are as immaculate as the Holy Virgin: we are informed that they do not receive “money from Moscow.” : It is enough and more than enough for them, what they receive from the capitalists, Regarding the “miraculous” publication of periodicals, would the editor in chief of the re- pulsive paper of Carranza Street, organ of the bourgeoisie, tell us if it would have been able to appear for many years if it did not have the benevolent credit of certain capitalist supply houses? “The Moscow gold” does not get into the cash box of “The Socialist.” But there enters with much more ease the dollars (exchanged into pesetas) of the National Telephone Company—of Wall Street, North America. It is clear, of course, that this money is coy- ered by “honest” advertisements. have to change from the top to bottom. If we are to begin in earnest to build up our youth sections, which can only be done on the basis of struggle, we will require the utmost coopera- tion of the TUUL as a whole in all ways pos- sible. It is not only enough to say that “it's important to do your work,” words alone will never remedy the situation. What must be done is that our comrades beginning with the Na- tional Office, down to the different districts, sit down and seriously discuss this question and proceeds immediately, through its various chan- nels, such as press, etc., to bring to the fore the importance of organizing the youth. Thus act- ually making it possible for our young comrades to carry on ,work by assigning capable leading comrades to help and guide them in their daily tasks, It is also necessary that not only we receiv cooperation from the higher committees, but. the same should apply to the lower committees and to the membership as a whole. The tolerant uttitude towards the young comrades will have .o be stopped from top to bottom and be sub- stituted with actual guidance and leadership on he part of the adult comrades. In this way can we fulfil our task of winning the young workers for the many coming struggles, /