The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 9, 1932, Page 4

, SSRN OF iis STRPASSNY SEMA GB Dae. May Aeeast Seatey, at 89 Bast Telephones AN gonquis 4-1956. Gable y Werker, 66 Bast 18th Street, New Tork, BUSECRIPTION RATES: ener Party Recruiting Drive January 11 - March 18, 1932 i WE MUST SIGNAL THE DANGER Br ED SOLWAY (Philadelphia) quota, bul why no results us far? Do we pay rm e cruiting in our d c only lip service to factory work, or is it an im- a dangerous possible task? We must state categorically that time, will not help to | the units, section committees and even the Dis- sieve what e set for ourse! It is | trict Buro have not paid the necessaty attention we make a DRIVE, responsibility and co-opers n Commi nd Unit Bur ta has been reached. ber but: ir every still in our et. prov RECRUITIN e the full he Se However: the com worke the Party n to cor undertake dt What gains have In the mining industry 33 13 percent the 16 percent CAN WE ALLOY ATTON TO LAST? Of course not. Es of the present war situation, it must be o increase the quota in those e also lagging badly in our quotas for or om Negroes and young workers. We tically done nothing for the building fth G.I WHY NOT A SINGLE SHOP NUCLEUS? 1 at we did not organize a sing! 10p lary 8th, endangers tt NG DRIVE, ¥ whole t shop nucle to this The discussions at various mect- during the last weeks have revealed a ter- ‘ible confusion, Jack of knowledge and wrong conceptions on concentration, shop brigadés and on how to build shop nuclei. We find that con- centration ts still done through single units or few comrades, that our shop brigades are ap- pointed by the units or sections, and above all that our leading functionaries in the units and sections still believe that the new comrades se- work ings | cured from shops must first go through a train- ing as members of street nuclei, before they car be put into shop nuclel, These methods must be abandoned at once. CAN WE BUILD SHOP NUCLEI? Even without going into details and only upon an ar is of contacts in shops we find that the followi immediate possibilities for shop nuclei ex ction 1-3; section 2-3; section 3-1; Read- ing—1 and more in the other sections. Are we going to neglect tt any longer? The District Buro decided to assign leading members of the District Committee to all shop nuclei and brigades and sq help the comrades to overcome this seri- ous dar IRWARD TO BUILD THE PARTY IN THE SHOPS, MINES AND DOCKS! SHORTCOMINGS OF THE RECRUITING DRIVE IN WISCONSIN We slarted the recruiting drive on the Jan. 3rd ion Conference, with the determination not to increase our membership to 550, which 200 more members, but to change the com- tion of our Party: much more employed work- from the big factories, 5 new shop rengthening ourselves on the weak nore Negroes, more women, and young re workers won over from the most s of the enemy camp—the A. F. of party. Yo achieve this, a sharp turn is required in our orientation and methods of work. Shop work d of being left to a few comrades, without attention of the unit buro, must become the basis of mainly mo main orientation of the Party ail campa and activities; recruiting, election Daily Worker Drive, leaflet distributi etc, The i stick in determining the work of unit idual comrades will be the exetent to ch the turn toward the shop will be carried we pay enough attention to shop work when .we have. unemployment work to carry on Deily Workers must be sold. atures gathered or the election campaign, we must recruit, mem- bers into the Party, and our mass organizations where many of our comrades are active, etc. — this is the answer given by most of our functio- naries. This, comrades, is totally wrong. In the | first place, our campaigns are not separate; on the cont: they can, and must, be connected with one another, For instance, through gather- ignatures for the election campaign, we can and must get members into the C. P., shop con- tacts, prospective members into the I. L. D., L. S. N. R., etc., build the neighborhood committees of ing s' the Unemployed Councils through the needy cases | of a certain territory; sell literature, Daily Work- get subs for it, etc, If-we Jearn this simple fact, and not only learn it, but apply it in our every day work, much of the confusion and waste will be eliminated. The second point to be stressed, and this is a serious shortcoming—real, planned leadership in the Section and Units, involving every com- rade in the work. Many of our unit buros, made up in the main of unemployed comrades, meet during the day. They should have plenty of time thoroughly to go into the work, to discuss the activity of every comrade. Is this the real situation? Most of them just meet fof an hout or so, mechanically taking up the agenda, With- out making the proper assignments, so that the unit meetings drag out long, no timé for discus- sion, # lot of time wasted on petty things—and then these incompetent would be leaders, blame the membership for the shortcomings in our work! ' ers. By W. HONIG 1e biggest steps forward in the figlit inemployment insurance and relief, tablishment, since the National th, of unemployed workers’ papers iployed councils in at least ten cities. Phese lecal unemployed papers, the “Hunger Fighters.” can fast become mass papers and of thousands of new workers in the Ic in which they are published. The: ‘onstitute one of the best potential instrument in recruiting thousands more to the ranks of fighting for unemployment insurance and That is why we offer this ‘article in a spirit of constructive, helpful criticism. We will now take in hand those unemployed papers which we have thus far received. The largest of the unemployed papers is the New York Hunger Fighter, an eight-page printed monthly tabloid. The first issue was the Febru- ary one. Inasmuch as this was issued before the February 4 mass unemployment demonstra~ tions, it must be said that the February 4 de- monstration was miserably played down. There was only an article by Herbert Benjamin, with a comparatively small head. In the entire part f the article, which was on page 1, nothing is said about the February 4 demonstration. Our unemployed papers must make such de- for them reach) tens those relief. monstrations and the preparations their main feature, with streamers on the front page. Not only an article, but news giving the details of the New York preparations and pre- parations in other cities should have been pro- : y printed on the front page. ure to present the Mebruary 4 demonstra- tion as a big step in the fight for umemploy- ment insurance and relief, and especially the failure to'link it up with the next steps in the tight, would seem to be an expression of the tendency to.regatd our more spectacular unem~ ent actions as “Just another demonstra From reading the New York Hunger Fighter, and in fact all the unemployed papers, one would never realize that there is a signautre drive go~- ing on for the workers unemployment insurance pill. The signature drive must*be played yp big on the front pages of all our unemployed papers from now on. ‘The New York paper fails to any extent to re- flect the local conditions of misery, the points around which the local struggle can and must be centered. There is insufficient material ex posing the starvation conditions in the neigh- borhoods, in the flophouses, in the unemployed workers colonies of the “Hoover City” type. The paper is far too general. | ‘There are good points too. An editorial sec- tion, @ satirical column (“Hand-Outs”) workers correspondence (although ® very poor attempt at ft), some bat not enough news about the Soviet Union. From reading the New York Hunger Michter you would never dream that there was a war on in China, or that this war had anything to do with the unemployed at all. War and what it means to the unemployed as well as the cm-~ ployed, must be one of the main subjects on the front pege af every unemployed paper. ‘The very fact that the Unemployed Council of Indianapolis issues a printed “Hunger Fighter,” while such cities as Philadelphia and Boston do not a great credit to the activity of the In- dianapolis comrades. (It is a monthly paper). Nevertheless, we must say that the Indianapolis Hunger Fighter is a dead looking paper. It needs make-up. It needs a head-line acroas the front page on some outstanding local unemployment issue. It is noteworthy for one thing: it plays up the local starvation conditions with concrete examples. Yt tells of the chain gang, discrimi- nation against Negroes, unemployment “relief,” it has # big section for the activities of the Un- employed Council. It is, however, too entirely local, with nothing to say about the struggles of the unemployed in other cities. ‘The Detroit Unemployed Worker is published bi-weekly by the Unemployed Council (or such were the intentions). It contains very little about local specific starvation conditions (see criticism of New York Hunger Fighter). The front page is very unattractive, except that it least has a head-line, even though this headline is nothing | but a slogan (slogans are bad as headlines, head- lines should contain news or the like). The heads on the front page are too small. The De- troit Unemployed Worker gives very little news of the auto workers, employed and unemployed. It fails to expose one of the most important is- sues of the unemployed workers of Detroit and vicinity, the fake “hiring on” schemes of Ford. It has nothing to say about the signature drive. ‘The Chicago Hunger Fighter has an attractive front page, with a headline across reading “Denied Aid; Starves to Death,” featuring a story of what amounts to murder of an unemployed stockyard worker by the bosses’ charity. It gives (in part) the progress of the Unemployed Coun- cil. It attempts to start a worker correspondence section. It has much local concrete news of starvation. It runs an editorial It, however, has many of the shortcomings the others have. Space does not permit us to cover all the unemployed papers. However, the sume criticisms would apply to the rest. To summarize, the out- standing shortcomings ef our unemployed papers ere: 1) Failure to make the war situation and de- fense of the Soviet Union a big issue. 2) Insufficient expose of local conditions and charity agencies. 3) Failure to bring the signature drive before ses. 4) Failure to print news of the Soviet Union, the abolition of unemployment there, etc. 5) Failure to link up the struggles of the employed with the unemployed. 6) Failure to tie up the struggles of the unem- ployed in other cities with the struggles of the local workers. Daily Worker Fund Growing too slowly. Suspension danger, jadvanc 'Rush every possible penny. to Lek us take the Indianapolis Hanger Vishter, save the Daily Worker. by leaps and hounds. y TOM JOHNSON PART I have learned something of the value of self-criticism in our-Party. Our Plenums are replete with it. This is good, but it is not enough. There still seems to exist the fallacious idea that the only correct and proper place for self-criticism is at Plenums of the Central Com- mittee. There the air is filled with self-criticism of our mistakes in this or that action, and we go forth with our sins absolved—all too fre- | quently to make the same mistakes again. If «self-criticism is to be the sharp-edged | weapon in the Bolshevization of our Party that it can and must be, it must not be allowed to grow rusty in the attie until the next Plenum rolls around. Mistakes and weaknesses must be expressed AND. CORRECTEDin the course of the | struggle as they are made. This article ig an attempt to deal with our strategy and tacties in | the Kentueky strike from this standpoint. The Earlier Situation. What was the situation in Kentucky before the strike? A spontaneous mass movement against wage-cuts had developed in the spring of 1931. «The unorganized miners of Harlan County, called on the United Mine Workers of America to organize and lead their struggle. The | UM.W.A. stepped in and found itself up against | @ difficult job in its twofold task of breaking the strike and at the same time retaining the | strikers within its organization. ‘The operators unleashed one of the worst cam- ) Paigns of mass terror in the history of American | labor struggles against the strikers. ‘The | U. M. W. A. retreated fast and in the early sum- | mer deserted the field altogether, leaving some 30-odd strikers facing murder charges, some 3,000 -blacklisted and the strike movement tem- porarily smothered and crushed by the com- | bination of terror and the strike-breaking tac- | tics of the U.M.W.A. leadership, Then the Kentucky coal fields began to feel the repercussions of the Penn-Ohio-W. Va. | strike. A National Miners’ Union organizer was sent into the Kentucky fields. The response of the miners to the program of the National Miners Union was instantaneous and enthusiastic. Blacklisted and working miners signed up by the hundreds, locals sprung up everywhere and 25 delegates were sent to the July 15th Strike Conference in Pittsburgh. The will to fight was there. All that was needed was leadership and preparation for the coming struggle. Preparation for the Strike Vital. Proper preparation for the coming strike was vital The miners of Kentucky have little tra- dition of organization and that little a tradi- tion of United Mine Workers of America meth- ods and tactics. | The left wing of the American labor move- ment had never gained a foothold in these hills —the Communist Party was unknown and the Communist’ program undreamed of. Genera- tions of isolation has made the miners highly individualistic with highly developed racial.and social prejudices, Further, we were up against an efficiently organized and most ruthless ter- ror which made organizational preparations for the strike of paramount importance. Our Party correctly estimated: the Kentucky strike as of first class importance.’ We saw in the development of this mass action an oppor- tunity to open up the South for our moyement— to break through the terror and persecution which had smothered our Party in the South. We saw an opportunity to raise in the course of @ mass struggle fundamental issues such as the Communist position on the Negro question, etc, and to sweep fresh’ thousands of native American, Negro and white, into our ranks: on the crest of this gathering wave of struggle. What did we do to make this perspective a reality? We sent in one organizer from the National Miners’ Union late in June, still later another comrade was sent. One organizer came in from the I.L.D, and when the Straight Creek strike broke, a relief organizer was sent in, but during most of the summer and fall wien prep- arations were being made for a strike which we expected would involve some 20,000 workers, only two organizers were in the field—ono from the National. Miners’ Union and one from the In- ternational Labor Defense. Three weeks before | the strike actually started we sent in one of our more ¢ enced comrades to, complete prep- erations. ‘These wore the forces which prapared the Kentucky strike, The ineviiabe result was a poorly prepareg strike, & strike apparatus which functiona@ heltingly and without assurance, Uitle under slanding oo the part of Lue sirikere aud locet 4 | | | The Kentucky Strike—Our Mistakes and Their — Correction leadership of our strike tactics, no Party or- ganization to form the backbone, of the strike. On January 1 some 5,000 miners answered the strike call.; Another thousand came out dur- ing the first few days. ‘These numbers were augmented by perhaps 3,000 blacklisted and un- employed miners who were directly involved in the struggle. Additional forces were rushed in after the strike broke. Then came the first crushing blow of the operators—nine of our leading comrades were picked up in & raid on the union office in Pine- ville July 6 and held under prohibitive bail. ‘Two other organizers escaped the raid with their usefulness for actual work in the strike area | largely destroyed by warrants out against them. At one stroké the strike was beheaded and left | practically without outside leadership in the field for a period of weeks. Many (but by no means all) of the mistakes made since then are traceable to the lack of competent day to day leadership in the strike field itself. Weakness of Strike Machinery At the Mines. ‘This lack of leadership down below finds ex- pression in the poor functioning of the strike and union machinery in the sections and at the mines. It may be said that the only organ of strike leadership which functions in a com- petent manner is the Executive of the Central Strike Committee itself. Leading comrades from the outside are always present to guide the work of the executive and as a result it func- tions excellently. It is far different witl the Section Strike Committees, Due largely #o the fact that we | have no experienced leadership in the sections, the Section Committees fail to exercise real leadership. They meet irregularly, fail to plan the work in the section, are unable to give real guidance and assistance to the Mine Strike Committees. Weakest of all is the strike apparatus exactly where it is most important it be strong—directly | to broaden and politicalize the struggle, at the mines. Our Kentucky comrades are capable, they have initiative and they want to work, but they are absolutely without experi- ence with militant strike tactics. As a result | the united front at the mines is weak. The mine committees are not representative of the masses of miners and exercise no real lead- | ership over them, There is insufficient departmentalization in the committees and too little division of work. ‘The whole burden of organizing the strike ac- tivities, carrying’ through the distribution of re- lief, defense activities, etc., is thrown on.a few of the comrades in mine strike committees. “The strengthening of these mine strike com- mittees is therefore of vital and immediate im- | portance, | \Politicalization of Strike. Outstanding has been our failure sufficiently | Tf the Kentucky strike is to be the wave of struggle which will sweep us into the South, it is neces- sary to place before the workers in a clear and sharp manner our revolutionary position on every vital question facing the Southern wos¥- ing class. This we have failed to do. Am ex- | ample: It is obvious that in the territory where fully 50 per cent of the workers are unemployed the | basis for a successful strike must be the solidar- ity of employed and unemployed. In the present strike unemployed and black- | listed miners constitute the very backbone of our forces. In some sections everything is de- pendent upon the complete support of the strike by the unemployed and blacklisted miners. Yet, up to the moment of the present writing, we | have not worked out a concrete and under- | standable program of demands for the unem- ployed. We have organized no hunger marches or other mass actions of the unemployed. We have raised ‘hardly at all in our agitation the basic | demand of Unemployment Insurance. We have | failed completely to popularize our revolutionary Program against unemployment and its conge- quences. (TO BE CONTINUED) By HARRY GANNES. L a HE financail crisis in the United States at the present time is bringing out some new, vital problems for the American workers. It isnot only a matter of the inflation which the Glass-Steagall bill is bringing (an inflation - ary movement which began long before this measure was passed), but the whole development. of the credit crisis carries with lit new and greater burdens for the workers. The Hoover hunger government very cleverly put over the Glass-Steagall bill as a measure separate from the new policy of taxation closely connected with it. Even the manner of passing the Glass-Steagall Bill (the \details of which we will discuss later) contains for the workers im- portant, lessons of the powerful role of finance capital; te closer linking of the big bankers with the government apparatus; of the whole rotten, situation of the structure of American capitalism and especially of the extreme severity of the financial situation, carefully hidden by the capitalist press. On top of it all, the Hoover government has discovered a new method of swindling the work- ers. The anti-hoarding drive now being carried on, comparable oniy to the “Liberty loan” drive during the last world war, is intended to rob the workers and the petty-bourgeoisie of what- ever cash reserves the bankers failed to steal in the bank failures. How Inflation Works, Just how inflation works is not explained to the masses by the capitalist press. Whenever the capitalist governments issue more paper money than there is need for in the process of circulation of commodities, inflation takes place. The main ‘actor in.the development of infla- tion is the budget deficit of the gayernment. Tn order to meet its deficit, the government mercly prints, mere paper money. In’ the United Siates the process. is a» little more complicated. Instead of iprinting paper New Tortures for, the Workers— Inflation, Taxes, “Anti-Hoarding” | | mecnrey, the United States government is issuing | bonds, which the Federal Reserve Banks use | to base the issuance of paper money upon. In a period of financial crisis like the present, with the huge hoarding by the petty-bourgeoisie | and the bourgeoisie (with the workers who still have a few pennies left in the bank withdraw- | ing their money), the capitalist government continues to issue still more paper money. At the same time, the character of |the money changes. Less gold (and other gold basis se- | curities) is used to back up ‘the emission of the paper money so that the money is worth less | and less in exchange for other commodities. In practice it works out in this way: Formerly the dollar would buy a certain amount of com- modities at a given price. With the flooding of the country, with a greater amount of paper money, the purchasing power of the money drops, in terms of commodities. More dollars are needed to buy the same amount of com- modities, and the price goes up to the amount, and often above, the degree of inflation. In this way the workers’ living standard is driven down. He is paid in paper dollars whose value has been materially cut and with which he can no longer buy the same amount of the necessities of life he bought previously. For the unemployed the results are, of course, extremely drastic. Those who get a few dollars relief, find their relief cut, down. [They can no longer ob- tain even the’ few crumbs of bread they got before, 4 Inflation Grows With Crisis. As the crisis develops, ‘the government deficit grows, and more paper money is issued. With the government issuing bonds, and the federal reserve banks issuing paper money with the bonds as backing, there is no limit to the pro- cess of inflation; there is no limit: to. the value the paper money may drop to. So far as the workers are cohcerned, those who still have a few cents left in ‘the bank or in. their socks, it means every ‘such dollar ts * Sy pall everywhere: One year, $6; ste moriss, $3; © months, $1; excepting Beroughe é t ef Menbetten and Bronx, New Tork City, Forsign: ogs year, $8; sir mopths, 34.60 THE NEW MODEL--1932 By BURCK A Tough World for Babies “If my rather goofy-looking dad,” mused Lindy Junior as he was whisked out the window, “hadn't been kidnaped, so to speak, by J. P. Morgan's partner and used as an advertisement for Am= erican imperialism, this would haye never have happened. In fact, if I was just a worker’s kid, nobody besides my pappy and mammy would haye cared a hoot if I lived or died, not to speak of all this hullabaloo, “But then, if 1 was a worker's kid, just 2 plate Doughboy’s brat, although nobody would have kidnaped me for ransom, my dad probably would be out of work or have u wage cut and I could darned well starve to death, get rickets and dis of pneuinonia through lack of proper eats—as many thousands have died. It's a tough world tor babies! “What gives me the belly-ache is to see how much fuss is being made in the capitalist papers over the Morrow family, because they are rich! bankers and diplomats, but hardly a word about my dad’s folks, because they are workers. ‘They are given the cold shoulder, Granddaddy Lind- bergh once said something unkind about capital- ism and war, too, and that makes it worse, “Funny about this kidnaping business Capitalists can have their own sheriffs and eyen private hired thugs kidnap National Miners Union orgeni 17. 1%, D. lawyers in Ken- tucky and Tennesce, and 1 im up or kit them, and the capitalist press don i 1y Boo! Back in 1906 the bosses kidnaped Moyer, Hay- wood and Pettibone in Colorado and took them to Idaho and Senator Borah who was then a Prosecuting attorney, tried to hang them on a frame-up. Yep, the same Borah who ‘couldn't do anything’ about kidnaping in Kentucky, And ‘Teddy Roosevelt then said that kidnaping was all rightee, because Moyer, Haywood and Pettig bone, also miners’ organizers, were ‘undosirabla citizens.” “Well, It sure makes a lot of difference whose kid is kidnaped. Now I suppose after this fs all over, they'll take me back home and make a Boy Scout out of ime. It's a tough world, for babies and Red Trade Union on gani So This Is A “Liberal” Harry Elmer Barnes, who writes in the N.Y. World-Telegram, under the heading of “The Lib- eral Viewpoint” does his bit of confession: of what a “liberal” is when he wrote the folowing lines, as a prelude to an argument against “short selling:” “If there is any one cause above all others for gloom on the part of the well-wishers of capitalism, it is the seeming failure of the leaders of capitalism to learn anything of im- portance through experience. They appear unwilling to surrender any transient and du- bious gains from unsound practices, in order to realize the greater gain of the preservation of the capitalist system.” Now Mattie Woll or Ralph M. Easley might have written that, in fact they have written things just like it. But they are not known as “Jiberals.” slashed by,each new wave’ of inflation, “The petty-bourgeoisie suffer in a similar way, hay- ing their money holdings sliced for the benefit of the big bourgeoisic. In order to get a clearer view of the whole credit situation, and the present financial crisis, with its train of inflation, with its perspective of | at least a billion in taxes to come out of the hunger-ridden hides of the workers, with its schemes for giving the workers engraved gov- ernment certificates for their hard-earned cash, it will be necessary briefly to analyse the eon- nection of the creditary crisis with the general economic crisis in the United States. During the so-called period of “prosperity” in the United States, especially during the stock | market boom of 1928-29, the big capitalist cor- porations, the banks, issued billions of dollars in securities, bonds, stocks, mortgages loans, etc, Billions of dollars in worthless mortgage bonds were issued through which the big banks made huge fortunes by mulcting the petty-bourgeoisie and the workers. This great mass lof paper, forming the basis for credit, filled the banks, the big banks always shoving the worst of it to the smaller banks. This process of wholesale credit inflation and swindling helped stimulate the huge wave of rationalization, the attempt of the capitalists through the tremendous speed-up, through the tortuous increased exploitation to squeeze sufficient profits out of the workers and farmers to pay diyidends and interest on this great mass of pyramided stocks and bonds. As Marx pointed out in characterizing the de- velopment of credit in the capitalist system, “It | reproduces a new aristocracy of finance, a new sort of parasites in the shape of promoters, speculators and merely nominal directors; 2» whole system of swindling and cheating by means of corporation juggling, stock jobbing, and stock speculation.” This had reached its highest level in the United States in 1929; iad before the stock market crash. Meaning of Stock Market Crash. When the economic crisis came on with ‘full force, when a huge overproduction manifested itself, and the factories began to close down, with millions thrown out of work, the whole credit structure began to be shaken at its: very foundations, ‘The stock market crash itself was an expres- sion of the beginning of the creditary crisis. The full force of this crisis was later delayed. Stoc& and bond values dropped $50,000,000,000 bante- rupting a large section of the petty-bourgeoisie. One capitalist authority declared that soon after the stock market crash nearly every bank in the United States (filled with these deflated paper securities) was bankrupt. Through skillful manipulation, the largest banks, dominated by the leading capitalist financiers, Morgan, \La- mont, Mitchell, Dawes, Mellon and Owen D, Young were able to consolidate their position through the formation of a huge credit and’stock market pools, to make huge profits at the ex- pense of the smaller banks, to unload ‘ther worthless stocks and bonds onto, the lematie banks, and to make billions amid the wreckage. The result, however, was havoc among the smaller banks, especially among the agrarian banks. In the period of about two years over 4,000 banks failed with nearly $3,000,000,000 in- volved. The later bank crashes were not re- stricted to the ‘small agrarian centers. They began to involve the big financial centers such an New: York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia. {To be Concluded) omen thm Ce ee