The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 19, 1932, Page 4

Pudlished by the Co! 33th St Page Four i Address end mail all c STARVA TION By HARRY GANNES. > Scheme GARNE) Representative “timber”. G: huge stretc supposed No Starvation? IN TEXAS--THE HOME OF | of Man! Ey mati everpwhere: Une year t1am and Bronx, SURSCI: 36, New York City. PTION RATES: S12 months, $3; two months, $1; excepting Boroughs Foreign: one year, $8; siz months, $4.50, Look at These Hovels in a Typical ‘“Hooverville” g OHN GARNER tion! | Such are conditions in Texas, the best example of Hoover's idea of | “rugged individualism”. This ought to give Will Rogers many @ point to crack jokes with his friend Garner over their good old state of Texas, pride of the South, and possible home of the future Democratic candidates that Wall Street may put up to “wipe out unemployment”, undoubtedly by spreading the blessings ot tne South- ern unemployed workers, as typified in Kentucky and Texas, plus the Chicago and Detroit shootings to all parts of the country, In Texas, too, the unemployed are not sitting by meekly.| The Daily Worker is increasing its circulation. The demand for the revolutionary press is growing. The workers don’t | think it’s as funny as Garner and But hw through Texas, just’ as Kentucky, where the Kentucky mountains achine guns as well as hunger. The Daily Worker today’s issue prints some pic from Texas | which Ga t use in his presi- Yo capitalist. news- would print any heir rotogravure the smug counte- dential atte sections nance of th xan kulak, Mr, Gar- | Along with these pictures we get a; who came fetter from Dallas, Texas, giving a Gescription of this Texan paradise for workers: “These shacks are situated on the | bottoms of the Trinity River, Dllas. We took the liberty to name the place ‘Camp Hoover’. These people are in dire circumstances. Work is not to be had. The health officer around to these people considered it funny be- | cause the worst storm of the winter | | was raging.” The writer refers to a |Dallas Dispateh with jideas of the humorou | Dispatch, referring w Ca: innoculate story in the; . The Dallas | jand a visit paid to it by Dr. J. ,W. |Bass, director of public health, “When the mercury dropped to 20 | degrees this week the weather cer- the river bottoms. It sure was fun- ny; even Thursday and Friday it was funnier. Dr, J. W. Bass, dire¢- tor of public health, laughed quite heartily to think of it.” Quite.a joke! It would make the perverse | mp Hoover, | , Said: jof his usual smirks had he heard of tainly played a good joke on 141 | it. Freezing cold weather, and starv- | people living in hovels in and near ling families living on disease infested |ruddy face of Garner expand into one | river bottoms shivering. The health director heartily to think of it”! And why did he laugh so heartily? A little while ago the starved workers developed ty- | phot fever, and the doctor had a jgreat time inoculating the other | tered unemployed and sadistically { “laughed quite larious, | them with his needle. Was he so con- !on to say: {cerned with the health of these hun- gry, homeless unemployed? Not at all! The Dr. didn’t want typhoid to spread to the Texan Garners, bloodsuckers. ‘To make the affair even more hi- the Dallas Dispatch (in a style of which only a enjoyed their misery as he jabbed |southern boss sheet is capable) goes | makes it so funny. the ‘well-fed lynch-mad “And here is ‘another thing that These innocula- tions leave an after-effect that com- ‘bine the worst features of flu, dengue fever, neuritis, lumbago and other things.” To the southern, degenerate ruling class this was just like a lynch- ing, to see their working class vic- tims squirm under the tortures of the Imost painful disease—plus starva- | and misery of the jobless. Dr. Bass seem to think it is. ‘The meagre charity relief is break- ing down and the plans for “penny parades” to feed the unemployed are not stopping starvation. The Texan workers are learning that. only by or- ganizing mass unemployed councils militantly struggling for relief and unemployment insurance. can they wipe off the smiles of Garner and Dr. Bass and Hoover over the starvation ‘The Six Governors’ Fake Unem- | ployment Insurance Plan PART II (CONCLUSION) @ “When the accumulated reserve per em- ployee shall exceed $50, the employer’s contri- bution shall be reduced to 1 per cent of his payroll, and when his reserve has reached $75, he shall make no further contribution to the fund until his reserve falls below $75 per em- ployee.’ his is another avenue of escape pro- vided for the employers in order to keep up the sham of unemployment insurance. The report further states: “The purpose of this provision is to offer employers effective incentives for the exercise of control of fluctuations in employ- ment.” In other words it is to be used as @ black jack over the heads of the workers who still have jobs, to keep them from putting up demands for increased wages, improved condi- tions, etc., in short, it {s a strike-breaking im- plement. “Certain firms or groups of firms are to be exertipted from establishing such ‘unemployment insurance funds,’ which have set up rserve funds providing benefits equal to, or greater than, those enumerated in the fore-going proposals.” This, of course, would apply to such firms as the General Electric Company, whose president, Mr. Swope, introduced a plan, whereby the workers in the shop are reduced to an average of $15 a week with a so-called “guanantee of 26 ‘weeks of the year.” In the General Electric in Schenectady, there were 25,000 thousand work- ers, of whom t oday 11,000 are employed, and 14,000 working part-time. The 11,000 remain totally unprotected by in- ®urance according to the Swope Plan, but the 14,000 are compeled to do any kind of work given them. These workers, many lof them skiled workers, are obliged to do work ranging from sweeping the yards to carrying boxes, in order to earn the $390 a year, which equals $32.50 a month, spread over the year. According t the Swope Plan in addition, the company pays 2 per cent into the fund and the men them- @elves 2 per cent, which means a further reduc- tion per year of $7.60 directly and $7.60 indi- rectly taken off by the concern as its “contribu- tion” to the unemployment insurance fund. At this point, it must be added that the Gen- eral Electric workers, like the U. S. Steel, Amer- fean Telephone and Telegraph, Goodrich, Good- year, Firestone, etc. and many other concerns fn years past induced their workers to buy bonds of the company, houses, autos, radios, etc. and Gaddied the workers with tremendous mort- Bages as 2 means of making them “loyal” to the toncern. These workers were terrorized at the prospects of losing their property and became “loyal,” “obedient,” willing slaves of the com- pany. Today, they have lost all this property end therefore are in rebellion and now Messre. Bwope, Roosevelt, etc. scheme that they shall be tied down to a measly $100 a year maximum and be used as strike-breakers against any work- ers in the shops who have the guts to fight egainst the shameful conditions in the shop. ‘This is the “exercise of control over fluctuation in employment” that the bill proposes. ™ “The State shall act as the custodian, investor and disbursing agent of the reserve funds.” ‘The bill proposes the establishment of an unemployment commission of 3 members, representing “labor, industry and the public,” which means that the scales are weighted from the beginnnig against the workers. Excluded from the so-called unemployment in- surance are all agricultural workers, and all workers in shops employing less than 6 workers, ‘This means to turn over to the pangs of hunger @ large number of agricultural workers and those working in small shops in these 6 states. No provision whatever is made in case a con- cern goes out of business voluntarily or through bankruptcy. The workers so affected will be deprived of all protection from unemployment. insurance and in view of the increasing number of bankruptcies, it is obvious that @ large num- ber of workers will face starvation. ‘The bill declares that “it is not sound to im- pose an onerous burden of cost on American in- dustry” and that thte measures can only “incl- dentally serve to mitigate the effects of severe and prolonged industrial depression.” “At the best,” the reprort statgs: “there will be for some time remain a residuum of unemployed who must continue to look for assistance to the agencies of private and public charity.” In the whole report no attempt is made basically to take up the question of unemployment and unemploy- ment insurance, since the advocates of this bill recognize that public and private relief agencies will be called upon to take care of a large sec- tion of the unemployed. In other words, the bill which provides a maximum of $8.33 a month for workers now employed who may lose their fobs, which excludes the agricultural workers and ail workers in small shops, which faces the fact of insolvencies'and bankruptcies whereby work- ers will be robbed of every protection, even in the smallest form, from unemployment insur- ance, and which totally disregards the 6,000,000 unemployed in these 6 states. as part of the army of 12,000,000 unemployed in the country, has the word FAKE written across its face. The proposals of the six governors’ conference | have already been embodied in bills introduced in the New York State Senate and House and are merely a fake gesture to make the workers of New York believe that steps are being taken to delieve their misery. Why is this bill brought forward at the pre- sent time? Under the leadership of Roosevelt, it is perfectly obvious that this is an election stunt and thata Governor Roosevelt believes he can fool the workers into the belief that, like Al Smith, he is “a man of the people” and sincerely interested in providing unemployment insurance and relief. Hoover, Roosevelt, Walker, all talked about building construction programs as one of the means of reviving work. These programs were supposed to involve millions of dollars—but today are non-existent. The claim of these republi- can and democratic politicians is that it is ne- cessary now to achieve “economy” in order that the tax rates may. not be raised. This means that the millions of building trades workers in the country who today are unemployéd—or as stated in the report, more than 62 per cent of skilled labor is unemployed today—have been faked into support of these parties, and therefore of the present system. Hoover does not hesitate to propose billions in relief for the capitalists, tthe bankers, the railroad magnates, etc. He advocates the issuance of “baby bonds” to extract the last pennies from the pockets of the workers and the small business men. But not one penny is taken out of the pockets of the capitalists for the benefit of the workers, and even the 2 per cent of the payroll as provided by the Governors’ Unemployment Insurance Bill will come out of the pockets of the workers. This is quite in line even with the charity re- lief plans that are the program in every state of the country. The community chests, the re- lief drives have been taken directly into the fac- tories where the workers were compelled, on pain of losing their jobs, to contribute either a lump sum or a sum to be deducted every week | from their pay envelopes. The school teachers in New York were bludgeoned into contributing | 3 per cent of their salaries, and an attempt was made to extort even 5 per cent for the relief of the school children which the school chcildren did not receive directly but- only in part from the emergency relief bureaus to which the teach- ers’ funds are sent. The “Block-aiders” now being formed all over the country are for the | purpose of making the workers in the neigh- borhoods bear the responsibility of providing for the unemployed. It is clear from the above that the capitalists have no intention of providing unemployment insurance and are bluffing with every kind of Proposal because this is election year and be- cause they are afraid not only of the voters in November but of the safety of the country if the millions of unemployed organize, and together with the employed and part-time workers, put up 4 real struggle. As against all these fake plans, the Communist, Party, the revolutionary unions and the Unem- ployed Councils, put forward the Workers’ Un- employment Insurance Bill, with unemployment insurance covering EVERY worker, irrespective of industry, size of establishment, etc., Negro and white, native and foreign-born without dis- crimination, to be borne exclusively by the bosses and the government. The Communists declare that the same governments that can provide bil- lions for the bankers and manufacturers and bil- liens fcr war purposes, can and ‘must be com- Pelled to tax these same bankers and manufac- turers for unemployment insurance. The rate of unemployment insurance shall be at full wages for the unemployed workers, covering tthe full period of unemployment, the fund to be controlled and administered not by a commit~ tee weighted against the workers, but by a com- mittee of workers, who, in these days of graft and corruption, alone can be trusted to handle such important responsibility. The schemes of the capitalists as embodied in the report of the six governors must be un- sparingly exposed and every worker be made to understand that it is FAKE being perpetrated against the millions now unemployed and those still having Jobs and that only by a united strug- gle for the Workers’ Unemployment Insurance Bill, can real unemployment insurance be ob- tained in this country, WINTER SPORTS IN By MYRA PAGE (Foreign Correspondent of the Daily Worker) Across the glistening ice more than two hun- dred skaters, wearing bright. scarves and caps, glide rapidly about the large circle, swinging in time to the broadcaster's music. To our left and right we can see other ponds, with their skaters —five in all. A smaller one is reserved for. those | more expert who are practicising their eights ) and swans while admiring learners look on. On the other rinks seasoned skaters mingle with youngsters who can barely keep their feet. Here and there are Red Army and Navy men, | @ few older specialist who go at a dignified pace, ; Students ,electriclans, office girls, machinists, | and innumerable groups of young workers whose | laughing sallies ring through the clear, brisk air. Some have come in families—man, wife and small children, to enjoy the ice on their day-off from work. of Moscow's two hundred new clubs and parks built ‘since the revolution. The large club, theatre, restaurant and other buildings which | fringe the ice, carry red’ banners and slogans, | class heroes, filled with busts and paintings of the best shock-brigades, side by side with drawings of Lenin, Stalin and other leaders. Practically every factory has its own rink and ‘This is the Park of Culture and Rest, thé largest | while near the entrance is a hall of working- | club free to workers, employees and their families. An entrance fee to public rinks, such as the Park of Sulture costs around 20 cents for adults, while season tickets run even lower. “FREE DAYS” HE) —~AND IN THE SOVIET UNION Russians skate well and love it. Skiing and | sledding down the Lenin Hills are equally pop- arms, headed toward a rink after the day’s work | is done—this is a common sight in any city | or villages now, where winter holds forth. Va- | Same vim that shock ‘brigades are organized in | the factories, in order to increase production, | ‘The skaters, enjoying their free day on the | ice or tobaggan, are carefree. Tomorrow their | Jobs await them. No specrte of unemployment, | evictions, hungry children shadow their pleasure, | n thoughts of unpaid doctor's bills, or bosses to | drive them. They're their own masters, con- | trolling their future. Only one danger threatens | them—imperialist war launched by world-greedy bankers, But even this they're prepared to meet. And in America, how are the part-time and | totally unemployed millions spending their “free” |days? Not skating! Standing in breadlines before closed factories. Do working men and women find it possible to take their children for sledding, movies, and skeeing? Where are parks and rinks End of a skee race of Red Army soldiers and factory workers. ular, Men, women and youth skates under their’ | | | | | | | | | | | | Tlous contests. and races are organized, With the | | MOSCOW for the dark East Side? In the Soviet Union, the freed laboring masses swing forward, toiling, playing, tackling problems of socialist construction. Recently in the Park of Culture, they enacted on the ice their slogan, “Five Year Plan in Four.” Soviet children begin their outdoor sports early. A young ski-ier. SOVIET PROGRESS -- CAPITALIST DECAY NEW YORK.—The repro- |duction of the New York Times \steel production graph, ith a | tory on one side of “Soviet \Steel Plant Producing Pig Iron,’ and another of “Steel |Production (in the U. S.) Con- ‘tinues to Lag,” shows striking- ly the decline of production in the United States while the So- ) viet Union forges ahead. Steel production declines are closely connected with the murder of four workers by Henry Ford's |gunmen, for as the Iron Age tells jus: “Ford production schedule has jbeen slowed up and has slowed up other automobile manufacturers to such an extent that steel mill sched- ules have been adversely affected.” |Hence when 5,000 unemployed came |to Ford’s plant to ask for jobs or |relief Ford answered by ordering his Police to shoot to kill, Steel orders from railways, etc., are declining. Production is less than |27 per cent of capacity. On the other hand, the story that the Associated Press cabled from | Moscow gives a ‘different and con- with SOVIBT STEEL PLANT PRODUGING PIG IRON Cleveland Engineer Reports the Successful Completion of Magnetogorsk Contract. CALLS WORK “ASTONISHING” MOSCOW, March 18 UM. netogorsk 18 producing pig {ron ‘Haven, vice president of Arthur G. Set at Pics Pet in recently of Biaat y) i STEEL A CONTRAST FROM THE N. Y. TIMES THE NEW YORK TIMES, (hese words William A. Co., Cleveland engineering hia finale steel capital which ts rainet 29.304 Slight Decline Shown by Steel Activity Index As Large Automobile rere Are Peeved ‘The adjusted index of steel toll! schedules while waiting to see what | in fctivity shows wight decline, that | kind of competition they will have to | 78 ended March 12 Deing| Fieve pas been 0 STEEL PRODUGTION | CONTINUES 10 LAG Lack of Progress Is Ascribed by tron Age to Delay in Buying by Auto Group. P A RAILROAD ORDERS LIGHT Movement {6 Increase Prices on Some Products Is Gaining: (or material, oper ‘ations in the eteel industry’ have Rat shown recently the ‘that had been trary picture: “Magnetogrosk,” producing pig iron. “Considering thé inexperience of Russians in construction work of this they write, “is type, the magnitude of the work ac- complished at Magnetogorsk is as- tonishing if the isolated location and the extreme ¢limatic conditions are kept in mind. “Equipment to produce 4,000,000 tons of steel annually is contemplated for the Magnetogorsk plant, for which a city to accommodate 200,000 per- sons is being erected where two years ago there was an empty steppe.” Hunger and murders of workers in ) capitalist America, where' the ‘Ford and the Morgans rule; increased pro- duction, more jobs and ‘better living standards in the Soviet Union, where the workers rule and are building up socialism, |RAILROAD WORKERS | EXPOSE WOLL (By LABOR RESEARCH ASSN.) 1 taken! WOLL, president of the red-balt~ ing National Civic Federation and vice-pres- ident of the American Federation of Labor, calls | the recent railroad wage-cut an “achievement which will go down in our industrial history”— in an raticle entitled, Behind the Railway Wage- Cut, in the New York Herald-Tribune. é ‘The Eastern Section of the National Railroad Industrial League, 2 militant organization of rank and filé railroad workers, has taken issue with Woll’s praise of the wage cutting agree~ ment. In an open letter to Woll, it writes: “In your article you say that only organized | workers could be capable of the ‘intelligent self- | control’ of ‘agreeing to a deduction from wages, which in a year will total the imposing sum of $250,000,000°. We lemphatically challenge this statement. Workers organize expressly for the purpose of fighting wage cuts, not for the pur- pose of exercising ‘intelligent self-control’ while their pockets are being picket. When labor or- ganizations are used by union officials for wage cutting purposes, it is high time to replace these officials with a rank and file militant leadership which will fight against just such sell-outs. “You raise the question: ‘If employers cannot provide the means of subsistence to workers in time of depression, from whom is this support to come?’—The rail- road magnates refused to consider this question and our union leaders were passive in the face of this refusal. We workers, however, know the answer to this question. We demand Unemploy- ment Insurance, padi for by the government from taxes on wealth and from the hundreds of millions spent each year on war preparations. YOUR answer to this question et the Vancouver Convention of the A. F. of L. was a denunciation of unemployment ‘insurance as a ‘dole’. “You say that ‘the financial structure of the railroads has broken down’ and that ‘the work- ers pay the price as the unsound base slowly crumbles.’ Yet the union leaders agreed that we workers, already hard pressed through un- employment and part time work pay an even greater price, in the form of a direct wage cut, in order to maintain dividend payments to a handful of. millionaire stockholders. How does it happen that. this ‘unsound structure’ yielded over four billions in dividends in the past eight years? “You say that ‘the representatives who agreed to this tremendous reduction from wages must go back to the rank and file and stand Tesponsible to them for that enormous payment of money back to the railroads'—Yet you knof, Mr. Woll, that every obstacle is being placed by union officials to prevent discussion of the wage cut agreement by the rank and file; that every expression of disapproval in the local lodges is being bureaucratically suppressed. “You state that this 10 per cent wage cut, re- sulting in a contribution of $250,000,000 from over a million workers; ‘is an achievement such as we have never before witnessed in the United States,’ that ‘it will go down in our industrial history’— Yes Mr, Woll, you are quite right. ‘This is an ‘achievement.’ But it is an achievment entirely in the interests of the stockholders. It is an ‘achievement’ which reveals the true character of the railroad anion chiefs as the betrayers of the railroad workers, It is clear from this sell-out and from its de- fense by A. F. of L, and brotherhood officials that we workers can expect nothing from a con- tinuance of this leadership but further wage cuts and the complete turning of our organization into company unions. In, the, program of the National Railroad In dustrial League lies the way to real united ac- tion against the wage cut alliance of the rail- Toads and our union officials.” .Workers!. Join the Party of. Your Class! P. O. Box 87 Station D. New York City. Please sec me more information on the Cxm- tmunist Party. AGAPOME oceccececssccecssesssceesesssesssusenss OUD ccesevcsmeussonresncee s/ StAte 1... Communtst ‘Party U.'8. A’ P. O. Box 87 Station D. New York City Occupation - Age. +Mall this to the Central Ome, Communiay