The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 14, 1932, Page 4

———S—S——— Dail Central | | Worker Porty U.S.A. 15th St., New York Cit; Ppblished by the Comprodaily Publishing Co., Inc., daily excxept Sunday, at 50 E N. ¥. Telephone ALgonguin 4-7956, Cable “DAIWORK.” Address amd mail checks to the Daily Worker, 50 E. 13th St, New York, N. X. SUBSCRIPT! By wall everywhere: One year, $6; six Bérough of Manhattan and Bronx, Ni Vets, This 0° Monday, Attorney General Mitchell of the U. S. Gov- ernment gave out his and your demand for the bonus by attacking the Bonus Army with slanders and lies. We of the Mitchell statement which said: “Prior to June 12th, 3,656 of the marchers who were arriving at Washington, registered on the muster rolls of the Bonus Army, | giving their names, army numbers and other data respecting their | These muster rolls came into the hands of the World War service. police.” Who had control of these muster roll Waters! Who gave them Waters! Yet this stool pigeor pretended “opponent” of the a pretended “fighter” and even a But there’s some the bonus! ECAUSE the Hoover-Mitchell statement stepped on the toes of the Washington Chief of replied yesterday. military police, an organization ment mainly for that purpose.” So, veterans, your “good friend” full assistance of “Commander” Waters, the M. P.’s that you thought were “our own”—were just a part of the Washington police department that later shot down your buddies, You should learn something from all this, veterans. six months, $4.50. to And Glassford—this “good friend” of the vets, said: “The attempts of the Communists and radicals to circulate in the loyal (!) camps were completely frustrated by the veterans’ ON RATES: months, $3; two monthi jew York City. Foreign: Is for You! | Hoover’s statement attacking hope you have read that part Sommander” | police? “Commander”: n has the gall to come out as a Hoover-Mitchell statement, as “leader”: of the fight for more. s « the | | Police, “Major” Glassford, Glasseford sponsored by the Police Depart- ” was spying on you! ‘And with the Huska and Carlson! The M. P’s that were a part of Glassford’s police department, were “keeping the reds out” precisely because the “reds” would have organized an effective fight for the bonus, with your own elected leaders and not a gang of stool pigeons picked by Glassford and Waters. Look at the Legion convention with the delegates being “generally the more solid and prosperous members of the Legion.” N. Y. Times.) See how these “leaders” of the Legion openly talk about how they would like to strangle your demand for the bonus and your censure of Hoover— only they are a litle afraid to do so. bei THAT can you expect from such “leade! press that they will “have to” support that they don’t mean it? Isn't it high time, veterans, that you cut loose from such “leaders?” Isn’t it time that you of the rank and file of veterans, in the Legion or outside it, got together and elected your own leaders? We think it is. And we think that if you want the fight for the bonus to go forward and over the top, you will do just that. You will elect your own delegates to the Rank and File Veterans’ Conference which is to meet at Cleveland, Ohio, on September 23. And there, freed from the traitors and the pussy-footers, you will hammer out your own program of how to fight for the cash payment of the bonus—and to win it! Against the ‘Coffin Ships’ MHE toll of workers’ lives in the explosion of the “Observa- 4 tion” in the East River, N. Y. is now 43 dead and 20 missing.” A plain case of murder by the shipowner and the government “inspectors.” Why, when there are plenty of ships, and plenty of ship-builders. out of a job, to build ships, was such a rotten old tub as the “Observation” allowed to carry anybody? To save some money, to make some money for the owners— ” who give statements to the x demand for the bonus, but. and a bit of graft no doubt for the “inspectors.” With the hull of wood so hand; with boilers so rotten that leaks were being patched with concrete, and patches wouldn’t stick because the boiler rotten that it crumbled in the The Real Criminal rasa By J. BURCK. The Basis of the Present German Government (Concluded From Yesterday.) WHO ARE THE MEMBERS? The “Gentlemen’s Club,” of which the Chancellor von Papen is a member, modestly declared that it had not the honor of being the father of the Papen Government, and pointed out through its pub- licist Schotte that it was precisely General von Schleicher who pro- posed to the Reich President that von Papen should be appointed Reich Chancellor. But Mr. Schott, the herald of the “Gentlemen’s Club,” is quite needlessly modest. The role played by the Gentlemen’s Club with regard’ to the Papen- | Schleicher Government is no slight one—quite apart from the ques- tion of who seated its member von Papen in the Chancellor's chair. The journal “Die Tat” (“The Deed”), the organ of a literary group which feels itself capable of becoming the brains of the “purged” fascist movement, a group haying at its disposal such brilliant publi- cists as Zehrer and Fried, publishes the following characterization of the composition of the “Gentle- men’s Club” «JERE we find every brilliant name in Germany united, the best and oldest nobility, agricul- ture, banks, industry and press. Beginning with a number of princes, and passing from the rep- resentative of the imperial inter- ests, Herr v. Berg, from almost the whole of the representatives of Germany’s Chambers of Agricul- ture and leading agricultural asso- ciations, to such industrial names CONTRASTS IN PARIS By NATHANIEL BUCHWALD. «Red? City Governments; “Hoovervilles” Inj IS.—Past the glimmering bou- levards, past the swarms of tour- ists in the cafes lies workers’ Paris. To the tourist, Paris may appeal as a charming city, and if you con- sider Paris in terms of its historic buildings, museums, gardens and boulevards, it is a. charming city. But a 15-minute ride by subway to any outlying districts will take you to the workers’ quarters where the streets are paved with cobblestones, where houses are shabby, where shops and cafes are dingy, where people spend their days in toil and their pennies—in an effort to keep body and soul together. Beyond the workers’ quarters, be- yond the numerous “gates” of the city stretches a belt of so-called “gones.” A comparison of a Paris “gone” with one of our American “Hoovervilles” will leave little to choose between the two. In a “zone” you will find a long unpaved lane with rows of miserable shacks on both sides. Not a trace of sanita- tion. The lighting facilities there have not advanced beyond the era of the kerosene lamp. Water is fetched by pail from several blocks away. A typical shack consists of one room where a family of five or six is huddled together amidst the most wretched household im- aginable. Mothers bathe their chil- dren outdoors in dusty tin tubs. France; Lessons for U. S. Workers nist Party have organized the zone dwellers into zone committees to fight the mass eviction planned by the district administration, The slogan is “If you want us to leave the zones provide us with modern dwellings at the same rent.” COMMUNIST ADMINISTRATIONS -The slogan is by no means far- fetched. Beyond many of the zones are over a dozen municipalities which have Communist administra- tions. I visited one of the larger of these towns, Ivry, with a popu- Jaton of 60,000 and a voting popu- lation of about 12,000. ‘The Com- munists have been in control for the past six years and they have of home-building at very low rents. mapped out an extensive program homes in up-to-date apartment ‘The program called for 15,000 new hhouses. One thousand of these apartments have been built and rented to workers. But the dis- In the city hall the walls are hung with pictures portraying the class struggle. On. the official bulletin board outside the city hall.one can see posters of the Communist Party calling upon the ‘kers to fight imperialist war. e “Comrade Mayor” and the unemployed ad- dress each other in the familiar “thou.” The city council entertains and adopts motions to appropriate funds to aid striking workers. LOCAL STRUGGLES But all is not revolutionary ro- mance in a Communist municipal- ity near Paris. A comrade from our L’Humanite (official organ of the French Communist Party), who conducted me through Ivry told me of the incessant struggle the local administration has wage with the police, the judicial authorities and above all—with the district ade ministration. The struggle is man- ifold. To begin with, the police is trict government has put a stop to this building program by refusing further government loans. And the bourgeois members of the dis- trict council made no bones about it, stating they would not aid the wall was so thin the’patches wouldn't hold—yet * * * IR. HOOVER (not “prosperity” Hoover, but “safety” Hoover), who has the high-sounding tiltle of “Chief of the Bureau of Navigation and | Steamboat Inspection,” has the nerve to insist that the boat was inspected “regularly every four months” and found “in perfect condition.” In a “perfect condition” to explode, may be, but not to carry passen- gers—that much is obvious. Nor to be the coffin of a crew of workers | who have to go on such tubs and risk their lives every day to earn a living. But Mr. “Safety” Hoover is bending all energies to try to unload the blame for the explosion upon some of the crew. The farce is carried to the extent of arresting some of the crew now lying-near death in the hospital. Perhaps Mr. Hoover thinks that marine workers pick out boats in “perfect condition” and blow them up just to commit suicide in style. It is time that this criminally ridiculous “inspection” service should be called what it is, a service for the shipowners to use floating coffins, in return for graft. Mr, Hoover's “inspectors” also gave the “Vestris” of the Lamport-Holt line a clean bill of health about three years ago, and yet it was the coffin of passengers and crew, who found that nothing was any good on the old hulk, except the pretty “Certificate of Inspection” hanging on the walls of the “Vestris” gangway. It is common knowledge among marine workers that a little financial oil applied in the right place can get a “perfect condition” for any ship still above water. Even new ships, such as the “Georges Philiphar” of the French Line that went to the bottom on her first voyage, are unsafe for both crew and passengers. | Somebody goes to the Riviera on Communists in carrying out this program because this would strengthen the influence of the Communist Party among the work- ers. The French bourgeoisie can sometimes be very candid. To an American worker a Com- munist municipality like Ivry would present many points of interest. On market days, held two or three times a week, one can see the red flag flying over the market place. LIKE “HOOVERVILLES” These zones are not a protuct of the present crisis, like our “Hoo- vervilles,” but. a permanent feautre of “charming” Paris. The inhabit- ants of the zone-shacks pay rent for their abominable dwellings. the profit, made from unspeakable mass misery. Recently, the district administra- tion of the Prefceture de la Seine not under the jurisdiction of the local city administration, and it is not at all an unusual occurence when the Communist mayor is ar- rested in his own city hall for dis- obeying a police order. The work- ers of Ivry, for instance, may not hold a meeting, indoor or outdoor, without the permission of the Ivry police, and as often as not the Ivry Police refuse permission and breaks up a workers meeting in the best style of New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. The trony of the situa- tion is that the town administra- tion has to pay the policemen’s sal- aries. The Ivry town council elim- inated the item of police pay from (Paris) made a move to dislodge the zone-dwellers from their shacks. Aftr all, it is only 15 minutes ride from a zone to the Place de L’Opera, and should an epidemic break out in the zones, the boule- vards are not safe, either. ‘The zone-dwellers are the poorer paid workers, many of them for- eign-born and hence at the mercy of the police. The white guard Wi2H the Monthly titerary Ser- vice of the Revolutionary Writers Federation the proletarian The “Philiphe paratus. The murder of the workers on cally, on the way to a job building a to be placed at the door of the shipowners and the steamboat “inspec- Equal responsibility lies with the officials of Local 52, Iron Work- ers’ Union, whose members had demanded the withdrawal of the boat tors. from service. * * * UT there is only one organization about it. men’s Union” never has and never will do anything. Schcarrenburg of San Francisco, the I. S. U. officials are usually holding | jobs as “harbor commissioners” or some other official graft that makes | them accomplices in the murder of the seamen and other marine workers. The organization of workers that wants something done about all ’ had blue marble palm gardens but no life-saving ap- The company union, that calls itself the “International Sea- | the “Observation” (who were, ironi- prison to keep workers in) is plainly that can be expected to do anything Im fact, like Paul | this is the Marine Workers Industrial Union, which demands that the crew have the right to determine whether a ship is seaworthy. All marine sen TTT workers who want to save themselves from death in “coffin ships” should tie up with the Marine Workers Industrial Union. New York’s Literature Quota Under the quota assigned to each district of the Communist Party for sales of election campaign literature, the New York district has the fol-| lowing: Two hundred fifty thousand plat- forms, 20,000 of each of the other pamphlets, and 700 of Foster’s book, “Toward Soviet America.” Here are the New York directives to the com- rades to convince them that this quota can be reached, and how it can be reached. For the election campaign, we want to once and for all put the New York district in the position of speaking in terms of millions. Of course, at first very modestly, in terms of a quarter of a million. A quarter of a million sems a big figure, but is it really? Let us see. July, August, September and Oc- tober, four months. If every member of the New York district 25 copies a month for the four months, we would have dis- tributed ONE HALF A MILLION. If every member of the Party sells 2 in two months, we will distribute a QUARTER OF A MILLION. Why are we so anxious to get the Party talking in terms of millions?! | We know that in order to build the} |Party, we must reach the masses of | workers. We know that a worker will join the party if he once becomes | conscious of the fact that he is a rker who is being exploited under capitalism. We know that he will join the party if he once knows the| jaims and the historic mission of: the |Party. Just picture to yourselves, a| quarter of a million of New York! workers reading our election platform in four months. Do you think it will help build our Party? Do you think | it will help reach the masses of| workers? There is no question of that. If this is so only in one pamphlet, what do you think would happen to our Party if all our literature was distributed in the terms of MILLIONS? Can each member distribute a 100? ‘There will be house to house can- vassing, open air meetings, indoor meetings, Socialist meetings, Demo- erat, Republican: Workers at all these meetings. EVERY PARTY MEMBER TO SELL ONE HUNDRED ELECTION CAMPAIGN PLATFORMS. emigrees are welcome in Paris but foreign-born workers are in con- stant fear of deportation. The dis- trict organizations of the Commu- The Communist Position on the Negro Question LITICAL clarity is absolutely essential in all fields of activity if work is to be carried on effec- tively. This is particularly true in the work of mobilizing the Negro workers to the Communist pro- gram. The new propaganda pamphlet, “The Communist Position on the Negro Question”, attempts to pro- vide Party members and all work- ers active in the labor movement, with material through which they can clear up for themselves, many complicated theoretical problems and problems of tactics in the field of Negro work. The pamphlet contains the fol- lowing: For National Liberation of the Negroes! War Against White Chau- vinism!, by Earl Browder (extract. from Comrade Browder's report to the American Students at the Lenin School, Moscow), i Wipe Out the Stench of the Slave Market (Extracts from Com- rade Browder’s report for the Cen- tral Committee at District Con- vention, District 2, June, 1932). Who Are the Friends of the Ne- gro People? (Comrade Clarence Hathaway's speech nominating James W. Ford for Vice-President on the Communist Ticket, June, 1932), The ‘Theoretical Defenders - of White Chauvinism in the Labor Movement, by Harry Haywood. Resolutions of the Communist International on the Negro Ques- tion in the United States: 1. Reso- lu of October, 1930; 2. Resolution of October, 1928, literary movement of this country strikes out into new territory. It is not a magazine, but what its name implies: a monthly service of stories, sketches, poems, critical ar- ticles, etc, for the revolutionary press. And its most significant feat- ure is that for the first time it breaks down the language barrier which isolates so much of the reyo- | lutionary writing done in this coun- try, and offers translation of the work of writers in many languages. The Revolutionary Writers Federation, 63 W, 15th St., New York City, is a section of the Workers Cultural Federation; it was organized at two conferences Monthly Literary Service Aids Revolutionary Press workers, and the whole outlook of their authors is definitely defeatist. And the editors should most cer- tainly be criticized for including the story, “Southern Night” ,by Lionel White. This story is a good ex- ample of the fact that not every piece of writing dealing with Ne- groes or even with the mistreat- ment of Negroes is revolutionary. The author tells us nothing to in- dicate whether the two Negroes in the story are workers, hoboes or crooks, His story is told from the standpoint of bourgeois “objectiv- ity,” but the author is enough of a white chauvinist to refer invari- ably to his Negro characters as “niggers.” A story such as this has absolutely no place in any revolu- tionary collection. held last January and April, bringing together not merely get agers ag aie ait writers in various languages, but uniting for the first time writers and workers correspondents. The Writers Federation, basing itself on the experience of such coun- tries as the Soviet Union, Ger- mai and Japan, believes that the workers co nts are the more fertile source for the development of American prole- tarian literature. * . ° N bara Monthly Literature Service is edited by Keene Wallis, of the John Reed Club of New York, with the assistance of an editorial committee representing a number of organizations. Its first number consists of about 80 mimeographed pages of various types of material. What strikes one is the high lit- erary quality of the work present- ed; unfortunately, the ideological side is not nearly so strong, and some of it is entirely unsuited to the needs of the revolutionary press. ‘Too many of these stories, sketch- es, poems, etc., give the impression of being written from a distance; they do not breathe the spirit of the stguggle. Stories such as “Some- thing Unforseen” by Dorothea Spieth, and “I Get a Job” by Eu- nege Nagy, though they deal vivid- ly with proletarian material, are nevertheless, not revolutionary. The workers are shown as helpless vic- tims of the existing order, isolated their fellow- from the struggles of +f)N the credit side are “John Gay- ro,” a story of the struggles in the mine fields, by the noted Hun- garian proletarian writer, Emery Balint, who is executive secretary of the Revolutionary Writers Fed- eration; “The Coat,” by Bela Illes, secretary of the International Union of Proletarian Writers; “New Jersey—1932” by P. Pullman, a se- ries of four sharp satirical sketches of the struggles in New Jersey; “Food and Guidance,” by Helen An- derson; “An Alabama Mother,” a story based on the Scottsboro case, by Marie B. Lear; “The Dishwash- er,” by Stephen Balogh; Sketches of the Hunger March to Washington by Oakley Johnson and poems by Johannes R. Becher, N. Tarnow- sky and Maurice P. Smith, The number also includes articles on the movies, and “The Paris Commune,” @ mass chant by the John Reed Club of Hollywood. pete . ‘THE first number of the Monthly Literary Service is a good be- ginning. More careful selection of material, the stimulation of the creative activity of the work- es correspondents, and the in- clusion of writers from a larger number of nationalities will help to convert it into a pon in the fight for emancipation, tes en Lot its budget, but the district admin- istration finds a way of collecting the cops’ pay: the sum is deducted from the regional appropriation due the municipality for various city improvements and for the unem- ployed fund. ‘The budget of the Ivry munici- pality (or any other municipality within the district) is not valid without the approval of the dis- trict administration made for the welfare of the workers of Ivry, and on every such point there is a sharp conflict between the work- ers’ local government and the bour- geois district council. The socialist members of the district council are the most vicious in their opposition to the constructive measures of the Communist municipalities. Yet, the district council is fre- quently forced to concede, partially at least, many of the budget items on behalf of the resident workers. On every local issue the Party mo- bilizes the workers and their mass pressure cannot always be success- fully withstood by the bourgeois or socialist councillors. Fighting cap- italism may sometimes appear to the workers as an abstraction, but fighting for the right to build de- cent homes for the workers, or for the right to appropriate some money to aid strikers, or for the right to build a new bathhouse, or for the opening of the local sub- way station—these are very con- crete and very burning questions, and the local Communist Party has ever so many opportunities to mo- bilize the workers on local issues and thus to educate them up to the true meaning of class rule and class struggle. It is significant, indeed, that in the last municipal elec- tions, the Communists of Ivry poll- ed 10,000 of the total of 12,000 votes. The Party membership of Ivry is only 300. RED MUNICIPALITIES Multiply Ivry. by about 15 and you will get an idea of the red belt surrounding Paris. These. munici- palities immediately outside of Paris have contributed heavily to the 300,000 vote which the Com- munist Party polled at the last na- tional election. But Paris is red as that of Roland Brauweiler of the Association of Germany’s Employ- ers’ Unions, of Friedrich Flick, so often named of late, Privy Coun- cilor Prenzel of the German Potash Syndicate, Edmund Stinnes, the Munich Haniel, and to the banking world with the names of Herbert gant club in the Friedrich Ebert Street in Berlin (history makes no jokes!), a club uniting the heads of Germany’s landowning class, Ger- trust bourgeoisie. .And this is pre* cisely the source of the power of the Gentlemen’s Club, which has its local groups in every province, and seeks to unite the upper strata of Germany’s ruling class—and not merely for the sake of supper. The composition of this club throws a vivid light on the Presidial Govy- ernment Of von Papen. The “Presidial Government,” backed up by the physical force of the Reichswehr, is hence a government of the leading circles of Germany's bourgeoisie, those circles which finance the National Socialist Party, but aré not will- ing to give it the whole of the power, preferring to employ it in the future as in the past merely as their tool. THRUST BURDENS ON WORKERS In this present period of monop- olist capitalism, shaken to its foun- dations by the war, the social con- tent of the politics of the ruling classes is of a very definite charac- ter. The trust bourgeoisie is en- deavoring to thrust the whole of the burdens onto the shoulders of the workers and peasants, and of the petty bourgeoisie of the towns. Everywhere it is striving to cancel social reforms, and everywhere it calls upon the state to cease paying tips to the labor aristocracy, and rather give the money to the banks and trusts on the verge of bank- ruptey. According to the strength of the working class in each case, monop- alist capital is carrying out this policy abruptly and rapidly, or step by step—this is the difference be- tween the policy of the ruling class in France and Italy, in Great Brit- ain and Germany. Where the geoisie is weak, where the ground under its feet is uncertain, it »strides forward through a series of stages to open fascist policy. This was the case in Italy, in Poland, and in the Balkans. In Great Britain, however, it can ‘still pursue its policy without formally vio- lating the rights of parliament, for here it is still successful in retain- ing an influence over the masses of the people. We see the same in France, Oe, eee IN GERMANY there is a combina~- tion of the profound capitalist crisis, urging the capitalists to a fascist policy, with the fact that both the working class and the trust bourgeoisie have mighty pow- ers at their disposal. The trust bourgeoisie has lost its immediate influence over the masses of the people. The National Socialists, who have grown into the largest Political party’ in Germany, now present their bill. They are will- ing to carry on the policy of trust capital. But mighty Germany's bourgeoisie is not yet willing to re- linquish the immediate leadership of the state to a tool which it man- ufactured for itself. Not only is it afraid of the petty-bourgeois com- position of the National Socialist Party, and not only has it no faith in the business abilities of the Nazi leaders, but it doubts whether the forces of the National Socialists will suffice to save capitalism from the storm of the working class when the crisis becomes acuter. The far-seeing elements of Ger- man fascism—ideologically we must. certainly count the “Tat” group to these (it may be observed that the Kolnische Volkszeitung asserts that this group is in contact with Gen- eral von Schleicher)—already see a situation coming to pass in which Guttmann, Stauss, Kehl, and Solmssen.” The “Gentlemen’s Club” thus | ridiculed is the most ele+ many’s bureaucracy, and Germany's. not only.on its fringes. If you get into a subway car early in the morning, when Paris is on its way to work, you will find many if not. most of the passengers reading the L'Humanite, central organ of the Communist Party and a darn good mass paper. (Concluded Tomorrow) *YCL Organizer’ Vital for Youth “1FODAY, we cannot continue in a campaign of pure agitation. It is the moment to pass from agi- tation into action.” The spirit of these words from the speech of F. Brown, Central Committee repre- sentative at the Young Communist League National Committee Ple- num, permeates the first issue of -“the Y.C.L. Organizer” from cover to cover. This excellent booklet ig- sued by the National Committee of the Young Communist League will be of invaluable aid to all young workers and can be used to translate “agitation into action.” In it are related experiences of Y-C.L. functionaries, in their every -day work of leading struggles of young workers for better condi- tions, exposing the boss dema- gogues, and particularly, experi- ences acquired in organizing nu- clei in the shops. The first part ig devoted to extracts from speeches at the National Plenum held in Detroit in June. Then there are two other sections on Organization and Agitation and Propaganda. Out of 17 titles the following are only a few chosen at random: On Struggle Against War, Developing Local Leadership, Activity of Shop and Street, Nuclei, Struggle Against the Father Cox Movement. Beginning with this September issue peopel ge “The Y. C. L. Organizer” appear monthly, and will sell at 5 cents each, Or- Youth der from 28, Station D, New York it will be necessary to draw over Social Democracy to them for the purpose of breaking up the united front being formed under the lead- ership of the C. P. G. ‘This is the decisive reason why the reactionary circles of the “Gen- tlemen’s Club” and of the Reichs- wehr are afraid to let the ship of the National Socialists sail out to the open sea: this is the reason why they are afraid to put all state tional Socialists. ‘And the final cause is the existence of the great mass revolutionary trend in the form of the Communist Party. WHAT WILL . NAZIS DO? The struggle for the formation of the new government is proving a lengthy one. The National So- cialists demanded the post of the Reich Chancellor. The Reich Pres- ident refused. It is doubtful whether the Nazis relinquished the struggle for the commanding posi- tions in Germany's government on Hindenburg’s first command. They are acting not only under the pres- sure of the petty-bourgeois masses, for whom they must draw pictures of a real change in Germany, but, at the same time under the pressure of that intellectual wing of their party which thirsts for posts and ) offices. What will the National Socialists do now that Hindenburg has re- power into the hands of the Na-/ fused to appoint Hitler as Reich» Chancellor? ‘Will they accept posts of secondary rank, in order to be able to exert pressure on the Gov- yet been decided. Nor is it decided whether in the present situation they will be able to draw the Centre Party into the game, and withovt this the government will have no majority in the Reichstag. Hence for the -present everything is un- Last Days of Ryan Walker er By JOHN R. McMAHON. (An Interview With His Widow) ACK in New York City, after ten months spent inj the Soviet Union, during which time her hus- band, the late Ryan Walker, staff cartoonist of the Daily Worker took ill with pleuro - pneumo- nia and dfed, MarjorieE.Smith, anthor and newspaper woman, yesterday expressed herself as “more than grateful for all that was done for Walker by his Russian com- rades. “She char- acterized Soviet medical care as “excellent”, and said that Ryan Walker had been given more care than she could ever hope for. “Walker was under medical care for eight months”, she said, “four of which were spent in Botkinsky hospital. He had a private room, two nurses, one an English-speak- ing nurse, and the other 2 Russian nurse. I have long since lost track of how many specialists attended ¢ HIS LONG ILLNESS “This is wh&t they call social insurance, and social insurance was ereated to take care of work- ers in the Soviet Union when they are ill, It is rather difficult for one, who has been brought up in America to understand free hos- pitals”. Asked about Comrade Walker’s Jong illness, his widow said: “walker was as delighted as a ten- year-old when he was selected to go to the Soviet Union with the November 7th delegation. He had good reason to be, For thirty-two years he had been a revolutionary artist, drawing pictures of a true socialist state where workers would rule . . . but this was to be the first opportunity for him to see with his own eyes: the Socialist country he pictured in his simple line draw~ ings. I went along with him, but only as a tourist. I was not at- \ ae KYAN WALKER tached to the delegation. “When we landed in Lerfingrad, Walker's enthusiasm was unbound~ ed. He saw the old Russian life in the form of the various palaces of the Czars, and he saw the new Russia, with its factories, its work- ers’ homes, its workers’ clubs, and so on, He caught cold in Lenin- grad, and was not able to throw it off readily. RED BANNERS FLEW PROUDLY. ~ “When we got to Moscow, he saw a doctor, and his cold lessened somewhat. He sat with the dele- gation in Red Square on the morn ing of November 7, and witnessed the great military display and the workers’ demonstration. Here, be fore his eyes paraded the victori- ous proletariat. Across Red Square the red banners of the victorious workers flew proudly in the breezes. ‘Thousands and thousands of work- ers marched by the reviewing stand, (shock brigade} buttons . . pla~ cards reported their factory pro- gress ... their plans for the new year. Walker was elated. “A few days later the delegation went out for a tour of the Soviet Union. Walker saw Stalingrad, Dnieprostroi . . . all the giants of the Five-Year-Plan, from the frozen north to the semi-tropics. On the tour each delegation carries its own medical staff, and Walker was carefully watched. At Kisslo- vodsk he was invited to remain a month, in a sanitarium, because they felt he needed a rest. He was not really sick then, but he was tired. “Walker preferred to keep go- ing. He wanted to see everything.” IS RUSHED TO HOSPITAL. “The delegation was out a month, and Walker returned to Moscow with a heavy cold. This developed into pleuro-pneumonia and on Feb- ruary 22 he was rushed to Botkins- ky Hospital. Pleuro-pneumonia left him with a complication of ail- ments which he had not the strength to combat. He died on June 22, and, following my request, proudly flaunting their ‘udarnik’ | was cremated on the following day ‘(PS at 7 in the evening. “Walker's funeral was the most impressive ceremony I have ever witnessed. Because he was a mem; ber of the Communist Party, he was buried in the red coffin of the Communist. As the red coffin was placed in front of the hall, a guard of Young Consomols in uniform stood at attention. Representa- tives of the erican Communist, Party, and various Soviet organi- zations spoke of Walker's long career in the revolutionary move- ment. Cables of condolence were read from the German and English Communist Parties. BELONGS TO WORKERS. “There was no profusion of flowers. One wreath of blood-red roses rested on the side of the cof- fin. When the ‘speeches were over, the red coffin was lowered slowly through the floor for crentation be- low, and as it began.to disappear, the organ burst forth with the strains of ‘The Internationale.” “In the final conflict ... let each stand in his place, The International Soviet shall be the human race .. .” “Walker was gone. ‘Dasfedanya, (Good-Bye), Tovarisch Walker!” “There was ‘no feeling of sad- ness... of that hopelessness usu- ally associated with death. One only felt that here was a man, who worked for an ideal... just as hundreds and thousands of his comrades had worked. His life was ee but the ideal was now a ree iy. “To me that was a fitting end Ryan Walker. That’s why e