The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 3, 1932, Page 4

a ET Yorker Porty USA Published by the Compredaily Publishing Co., Inc., daily exexept Sunday, ot 0 KR 13th St., New York City, N. X. Telephone ALxonquin 4-7908. Cable “DAIWORE.” Address and mail cheeks to the Dally Worker, 50 5. Jéth St, New York, R. ¥. SUBSCRIPTION everywhere: One year, $6; six month: hh of Manhation and Bronx, New Yo six months, $4.50. Canada, $8 per year: Protection of the Children ELL-DRESSED LADIES of the leisure class, meeting in the grand ballroom of New York’s ritzy Waldorf- Astoria Hotel, on September 29, applauded the lies of Herbert Hoover, Hunger President, speaking over the radio on the protection” of children in the United States. Owen D. Young: rich supporter of the Democratic candi- date and notorious for his anti-labor policies in the General Electric Co., was present to join in the general ballyhoo about the beauties of leisure and culture. % “If more children were eliminated from those few industries where they are still employed’—Hoover's thick, smug voice spoke the words into the microphone, it would not only help childhood; it would also help to solve the depression problen Few? No less than 3,300,000 boys and girls of school age (under 17 years) who should be in the schools of the United States are not in school, according to the official statements of the U. S. Children’s Bure “It is conservative to say” admits the National Child Labor Com- mittee, “that there are a million minors at work who should be in school.’ Remembering that in May his own Secretary of the Interior, Ray Lyman Wilbur, had brazenly called the depression actually a good thing for children, Hoover hailed the reports from his own public health service (which says exactly what Hoover wants it to say) showing evi- dence of the special care given to children in this crisis! Wilbur had said: “Our children are apt to profit rather than suffer from what is going on.” “Our” children? Whose children? ‘Yes, the children of the rulers. Here is the true story, told in the cautious, scientific estimates of physi- cians who have the clinic records on the situation of workers’ children. Said Dr. Thomas D. Wood, i n May, 1932: - “Malnutrition (the polite word for slow starvation—Ed.) still stalks like an insidious specter through this land of ours, threatening one child in every four or five.” Health Commissioner Wynne of New York City reports a great in- crease in malnutrition among school children in the first quarter of 1932: RATES: , 33; two months, $1; excepting City, Foreign: one year, 08; 75 _conts_per_month. 'HILE Hoover continues lying about the “solicitude being given thru- out the nation to the welfare of children through this trying dis- tress”, the U. S. Children’s Bureau officially reveals that several hundred thousand homeless boys (if does not mention the homeless girls, driven to prostitution) are roaming the United States, riding box cars, exposed to disease and accidents, with no pretense of care or protection offered them in the cities through which they pass. The report says: “Conservative and reliable authorities estimate that between 200,- 000 and 300,000 boys between the ages of 12 and 20 are ‘on the road’, cut loose from their home surroundings and unable to adjust themselves in any normal picture. And the total is constantly increasing.” Such is the beautiful “solicitude” of the ruling class over the wel- fare of children ORKERS’ children arc being ground down by child labor, with its sweat-shop hours and wage cuts, and unemployment of their parents, and the Starvation Relief diets. The Communist Party and Young Com- munist League demands the abolition of child labor, and fights for food, clothing and shelter for the children, and unemployment insurance and adequate wages to take care of the children. Vote Communist for this program! Fight for it! For a Mass Struggle Against Terror IN Friday’s issue the Daily Worker carried a letter from a Worker pointing out the growing terror in Pennsylvania and inquiring whether the method of filling up the jails would stop the break-up of meetings. “nfortunately the letter had a caption “A Good Way to Fight the Terror,” which left the impression that this method used by the I. W. W. in free speech fights before and during the war was the best way to curb the reactionary bourgeoisie. This method had certain agitational value, but in most cases it only lead’ to filling the jails with the active organizers and thus leaving the workers leaderless. This tactic was based upon the idea that all that was necessary for the development of the workers move- ment was revolutionary will and initiative on the part of a small minority of determined people. It excluded the revolutionary initiative and activ- ity of the broad masses of workers. At the present time such a method would only lead to a beheading of the movement of the workers by unnecessarily placing the leading forces of the proletariat in the clutches of the enemies who are only too eager to imprison militant fighters. The fight for the rights of the workers for freedom of speech, press and assemblage must be carried on with the greatest resoluteness. This involves, of course, sacrifices on the part of the Communist and revolutionary workers, Without such sacrifice the bourgeoisie would be able to carry 0 n its offensive unchecked. But it is the task of these militant workers above all to involve the largest number of workers in the struggle, to make it a real mass fight, as only by confronting the bourgeoisie and police with the unshakable determina- lion and struggle of the masses can these rights be maintained. ae y movement in the United States of alists and their agents in the protec- tion of worker: must be supplemented with the bolshevik policy of surrounding the militants with wide mass support and of bringing the spirit of the revolutionary fighters into the ranks of the workers them- selves. This can be done by showing clearly to the masses that the fight which the Communists and revolutionary workers are carrying on is in their interests, that it is a fight devoted to protecting the social and polit- ical interests of the work by skilfully eombining economics and politics, that is, showing that the defense of the day to day interests is impossible without a struggle against the capitalist terror which becomes more and more the weapon of carrying through the capitalist offensive in, keeping the workers subjected to the bankrupt system of wage slavery, * * * INTERNATIONAL day of struggle, Oct. 8, for the freedom of the Scotts- boro ‘boys and Tom Mooney must be organized on the basis of the broadest fight against the capitalist attacks now under way. In the prep- arations for this day and for the national conference of the International Labor Defence, Communists and revolutionary workers must find ways and means to reach out to new sections of the radicalized toilers and involve them in the fight 2 : capitalist reaction and for workers’s rights fearlessly battling w How the Socialists Supported Imperialist War of 1914-18 IN PREVIOUS ‘issues we publish- ed excerpts from speeches and articles by leaders of the Second | (socialist) International, in support | of the imperialist war. | The following is from the Mani- festo ‘the Socialist fraction of the Prench Chamber of Deputies on the occasion of the entry of two MORE EFFECTIVE, AND FROM DAY TO DAY THE PRODUC- TION OF MUNITIONS MUST INCREASE. The presence of our friends in the government is a guarantee that republican demo- cracy is prepared to fight to the last drop of blood... Socialist leaders into the French “The first trisis and the en- Somes thusiasm of the mobilization give . . . us the certainty that we are fighting not only for the defense of the Fatherland, not only for the greatness of France, but for freedom, for the republic—for civilization. We are fighting to free the world from the stifling embrace of imperialism, from the horrors of war, and to give the world peace in which the rights of all shall be respected, ‘The socialist ministers will imbue all their colleagues in the gov- ernment with this conviction, They will rejuvenate the work of the Cabinet and they will con- vey this conviction to the het army in which the flower-of Ration 1s AAghting.” | -sehepperm “WITHOUT waiting for a de- | monstration of the will of | the people the head of the gov- ernment has approached our party and our party has an- swered: ‘We are prepared!’ This is the spirit in which our friends have entered the government. We shall begin the work to rouse the masses ..+ “We shall examine the sources from which our armaments and our supplies come, and we shall do our best to multiply them. FROM DAY-TO-DAY THE CO- OPERATION OF ALL AVAIL- ABLE FORCES MUST BECOME . ¢ ‘ é Wd PARTY LIFE At a Unit Meeting in New York By ETHEL STEVENS 6 A student of the 1932 Central Training School of our Party, I looked forward to attending a Party meeting in New York. Now, with the little training gained in the School, I was able to see more clearly some of the reasons res- ponsible for our Party remaining essentially in the same groove. The meeting started five to 9 with eight comrades. The organ- izer, who opened the meeting, ap- pointed a chairman. He then read off an agenda for the meeting with eight points. Each of these points was reported on by the same unit organizer. (At 9 p.m. another mem- ber drifted in.) THE ASSIGNMENTS The following were some of the undertakings for the week of this unit, with nine members present. (1) comrades were assigned to go to Harlem to help in the signature drive; (2) a demonstration was or- ganized for Saturday against the beating up of a certain laundry worker; (3) Thursday, Saturday, and Monday the comrades were assigned to go out with the Daily Worker; (4) All comrades assigned to unemployed work were told to go to a certain fraction meeting (9:20 two more members enter the room). (5) An open air meeting Friday night at which, of course, “All Comrades Must Be Out,” ac-. cording to the unit organizer. Or- ganizer still speaking: “Comrade ‘S’ is the main speaker, comrade ‘B’ must be chairman, and comrades ‘T’ and ‘F’ will sell literature.” One comrade, at this point, took the floor and explained that since he works till 8 p.m. every night and already has two assignments he won't be able to be the chair- man of the Friday night meeting. Then the unit organizer began to list a dozen assignments that he | has for the week in order to con- vince this worker that if he wants to be a good Bolshevik, he must follow his example. Of course the unit organizer again monopolized the floor for about 15 minutes try- ing to make a good Bolshevik of this worker. (10:00 p.m. three com- rades drift in.) I passed a note to my fellow student attending the same meet- ing, asking him what he thought of the meeting and this was his reply: “Too complicated for me to make head or tail out of it.” None of the comrades in the room knew who we, the three students were, and no one cared to find out, or to talk to us. WHAT IS WRONG? At the close of the meeting, among other things, I asked why the meeting is so dry, and why does it only take up assignments. To this the organizer replied “When we have an open meeting our meet- ing is entirely different, but when we have a closed meeting it must be of a highly technical character.” A few lessons we must draw from the above brief picture: The unit is “highly technical” it is not a political factor in the territory. The entire meeting was taken up with assignments, without an ex- planation of the political import- ance of every undertaking; buro- cracy, which workers simply won't swallow, is rampant; the organizer simply reports on the Buro deci-~ sions and all initiative is taken away from the workers; all activiti- ties seem to be like a hodge-podge, there’s no center around which they revolve. We have goog com- tades insour movement (if they remain in spite of such activities), sincere and devoted workers, but it, is necessary to fuse with the work- | ers in the territory (this was a re- sidential unit) to daily develop act- ivities around the burning issues and not only to record events tak- ing place, but to gradually lift the workers to a higher level of strug- gle. |School Children Begin ‘McKee Hunger Drive (By a Worker Correspondent) NEW YOFK, October 1—This af- ternoon about 2:30 I was over to the public school about my daughter's glasses, I was told by the principal and the nurse to have my daughter's glasses fixed, because he eyesight is poor. This happened in the month of June, So these glasses were repaired at $3.50. I was told that the school would pay for it. I’m unemployed. So today I went over to see about, it, and was told that they won't pay for it. The principal of P. S. 96 told me that all relief would be cut off by Friday. This is on York Ave. and Bist and 82nd Streets. No more lunches to the children in that school, and those children who receive lunch in the summer schcool will not receive lunch this year, until orders come from the Board of Education and from Mayor McKee, The prinipal’s name is Miss Light, Iasked her whether the children must starve after Friday? She told me to go down to the Board of Edu- cation and fight them, not her—H.R. Rank and File of A. F. L. Local Back Scottsboro Fight NEW YORK.—-Responding to the appeal of a rank and file member, the regular meeting of Local 499 of the Painters, affiliated to the A. F. of L. unanimously adopted a motion to send a telegram to the governor of Alabama protesting against the Scottsboro lynch verdicts and de- manding the release of the 9 Scoits- boro Negro lads. The motion also called upon the rank and file members of other A. F, of L, union to join the mass fight for the freedom of the Scottsboro boys, 'To Feel Effects of | | | | | | | | } By CHARLES MUMFORD WALKER | | FORTY-FIVE MILLION ROVING CHILDREN SecyMucs fae (Hoover Man) a —By Burck ROOSEVELT “{ am not here to tell you today the depression is over and that the victory is won, but I do tell you, my friends, that there is a new light in the east and that it is not an aurora; it is the rising sun of a new day.”—Ogden L. Mills, Secretary of Treasury, in a speech before Michigan Republican conyention. “Communists Can Create Land With J obs for ALP : “Big Business Has No Fear of Socialists’’-- (The writer of this article, author of “Steel, The Diary of a Furnace Worker,” “Bread and was formerly Assistant Editor of the Atlantic Monthly.) events AM not writing this article for that small class of our popula- tion who are voting Democratic or Republicans because they are busi- ness men; but for the vast majority of working men, farmers, engineers, and to large numbers of small business men who are convinced that the two traditional parties are bankrupt. -Nor is this statement addressed to the Communist who knows already, but to the voter who is willing to learn what a red vote really means. PERSONS STARVING Some forty-five million persons— men, women and children will be in need of relief this winter in the United States. These figures are taken not from a “red” publication but from Fortune, a magazine pub- lished for business men and whose editorial policy is making the world better and safer for millionaries. Most readers do not need to be re- minded of these figures or of tle fact that the industrial machine and its operators have failed utterly to meet the relief problem, The United States has a larger number of unemployed in proportion to population than any country in the world. In this condition it is ob- vious that there is but one out- standing issue before the country. ‘That issue is jobs and bread. There is but one party which makes that issue primary im its platform. That is the Communist Party of the United States, id Statistics of the Children’s Bu- reau of the government at Wash- ington show that there are 300,000 children, boys as well as girls, who are now homeless and on the marclr in roving bands throughout the country, begging and looting in order to keep alive. These “wild” children of America” are perhaps the most dramatic demonstration of the breakdown of Hoover pros- perity and of the system which both the old parties support. Do either of the old parties propose that wealth be taxed or that the government feed these children? They do not. They propose that local relief and private charity handle this relief, There is not a single city in the United States in which local relief has not broken down. I will give one example. The mayor of Hamtramck, Mich., complained last winter that in order to keep within the budget decreed by the bankers, “it was necessary, for the welfare ment to cut from its list all those families in which there are two children or fewer.” While insisting on the efficacy of local. relief to care for the hunger probiem, Con- gress, aj its last session, appro- priated two billion dollars for the relief of banks, railroads and business, eae etal 5 ‘HE Communist Party proposes, first of all, that these thildren be fed, and that the millions of unemployed and the partially em- ployed at starvation wages be the first charge on business and gov- ernment. The primary issue of their campaign is “jobs and bread.” But the Communist vote will be relatively small—probably less than a million votes. Howthen can they win? They will win relief—and immediate relief because the gov- ernment is aware that for every conscious Communist who gets to the polls there are thousands more who are voting Communist with their stomachs. A red vote ex- presses the political desire not only of the voter but of the masses of the non-voters, the disfranchised Negro in the south, the unemployed “foreigner” who cannot vote, the American born who are too poor to pay their poll tax, as well as millions who are tied through in- timidation or bribery to the party machine. No government can with- stand the aroused masses demand- ing that they be fed. It is important to note that there is plenty of food; two hundred mil- lion bushels of “surplus” wheat in government granaries today; mil- lions of pounds of fruit left to rot on the ground each year (in Cali- fornia, in 1930-1, 391,200,000 pounds, or 149 pounds per person for 100,- 000,000 unemloyed) and thousands of tons of milk—a good sized river —poured into the sewers each year to keep up the price. ‘This wheat, this fruit, and this’ milk, as well as direct money re- lief, can only be voted for by voting Communist. Why? Because a red vote is recognized by the govern- ment and by business as a vote by a man who means _ it. No one — votes Communist lightly or by tradition, or and jobs, as well as for a system that will forever guarantee both. Whereas a vote for Hoover or Roosevelt is a vote that money first be given to the banks and the rail- roads and the commodity pools, that after the investor has been guaranteeed his dividend he may be “encouraged” to lend to the manufacturer and the latter, if he can find a market for his product, be encouraged to pay wages that men may eat. Who of the millions and store keepers and ruined busi- ness men does not ask himself if family may not break up or his child die before Hoover pros- perity or Roosevelt prosperity is ready to give him a job. And if he holds out, what is the prospect ahead? A few years at a wage minimum (the leaders of business decided that the so-called “high wage” policy of 1929 was a mistake), and then another crash, in from seven to ten years. BANKERS, BUSINESS MEN VOTING SOCIALIST Certain people who have grown disgusted with the Republican and the Democratic parties are asking this year: Why not vote Socialist, why not vote for Norman Thomas? Everywhere I go, I find business men, professional persons, bankers even, who have decided to make a “protest vote” this year for Norman Thomas. Norman Thomas says he is for unemployment insurance and for, greater relief. What about that? My own conclusion is this: ‘The oligarchy of business men and bankers who really run the country are not in the slightest degree afraid of the Socialists. In an emergency, they always take the side of the vested interests, of the big shots who are running things. In 1914, “socialists” in all coun- tries voted to go to war to fight each other, in defense of their respective “fatherlands.” Last year in England, Ramsay MacDonald, the “socialist” prime minister, took the side of the bankers against the unemployed. Socialists are rec- ognized by the government as safe and sane people, safe in keeping things as they are. They talk about “a new order of society,” but they defend the old one. That is the reason why a Com- munist vote will count in this election and a Socialist will not. For. every American who has learned to vote Communist the goy- ernment realizes that thousands of jobiess and starving will learn to vote Communist tomorrow. And it does not relish the prospect. The number of reds in a strike or in a political campaign are a barometer of the seriousness of the strike or the election. In the newspapers, the auth- orities always belittle and twsult the Communist participants by calling them criminal and irre- sponsible, “a handful of trouble makers,” etc. In their own coun- cils and in police circles, they do not belittle them. I read a secret paper the other day, prepared for a large employers’ associa- tion, on the Communist leaders of a major strike last winter. The report said: “These men have courage; they are ” THE THE STRUGGLES ON THE SOUTH SIDE NEGRO REDS OF CHICAGO By MICHAEL GOLD. INSTALLMENT V. [AC DONALD flung himself into the Unemployed Council work —a fine speaker and able organ- izer. He.spoke at the hunger march at the stockyards, four cops surrounded him, He went in with the delegation to see “Com- rade Swift” and “Comrade Ar- mour.” He was arrested often, he studied and grew. In August, 1931, he joined the Communist Party. “My doubts were settled; now I knew where I belonged, I came to my home, where I shall live and die. Yes, comrade, I found the Party at last, But it was through much struggle, many struggles and illusions, This is the crooked path that life takes,” Candidate for Governor Now he is ‘candidate for Gover- nor, Albert Goldman, the I. L, D. lawyer, went to bail him after a demonstration. From a dark cell, @ lanky figure stuck out, and a, deep, humorous voice chuckled, “Comrade, here’s your Governor.” Tt was Mac, Another exsoldier and South Side Communist is that remarkable per- son, Brown Squire. I shall never forget the afternoon I spent in his home. It’s a bit tricky for whites to visit the South Side. The police roam these streets ceaselessly in their squad cars. They pick up all whites who don’t look like Jandlords, instalment agents or other exploiters, Then a visit to the police station, a few hours of questions, clubs, fists, etc.—it has happened often, One of these squad cars filled with beefy brutes rounded the cor- ner just as we ducked into Brown Squire's home, Manly and attractive, one of those calm, smiling giants such as the Negro and Slavic races produce, it was good td see Comrade Squire, He was dressed in a khaki shirt, one of his seven kids on his power- ful arm, Behind him, on a battered dresser stood a bust of Lenin, In the bookcase one saw Daily Work- ers, pamphlets, books. Bie eo ALL this in a typical Chicago slum, in a ruined shanty facing out on a backyard piled with a hill of the most amazing garbage, Signs of the new age: Lenin in the steel mills, Lenin in the stockyards, Lenin hovering over workers’ chil- dren playing on a garbage dump in Chicago. Brown Squire fought in France for two years and eight months, He was a good soldier, a born leader, and rose from the ranks to return a second lieutenant. “Yes, I was a good instrument for the capitalists,”. he smiled, “a firstclass soldier, You can still blindfold me, throw all the parts of a machine gun on the floor, and I will re-assemble it by touch.” Lieutenant Squire came back from the war in 1919, believing he'd won his freedom. A month later the race riots broke out, “Ym a Communist Now” “I can understand them, now that I’m a Communist, They were part of the captialist strategy, by ‘HAT was on March 6, 1929. Since. then Squire has been arrested at least a hundred times for his speeches and other activities, is a leader in the fight against evice tions, and in the Workers’ Ex-Ser- vicemen’s League, This day of our visit was typical of all his busy days. He had just come from a meeting of vets. The bonus marche ers needed food and tobacco, and he had been collecting nickels and dimes. This afternoon he was cole lecting signatures for the Commyu- nist election campaign; he had already: signed up eight blocks in his house-to-house canvass, At 5 o'clock he was due to speak in Ellis Park, at a demonstration against the Republican Presidential convention, at which the Negro del- egates were jim-crowed. In the evening he was booked to speak in a Negro church on Communism, The Road to Communism And this man and his seven kids were living on charity relief; he had not been able to work in years, What courage, what heroic faith! The room filled up with people as we talked. One by one they drifted in, saying “Hello, comrades,” even the children. His wife came from her boiling kettle of clothes in the kitchen and listened to the talk. “Yes,” said Brown Squire, in his deep, rich baritone, “We Negroes have gone through many disap- pointments in America, But more and more of us will fing the road to Communism, It is our only way out, Only thhrough the Commu- nist revolution will the Negro ever find freedom here, exactly as the Jews, Tartars, Mongols and other races found it in the Soviet Union, “We have trusted many leaders, and they have let us down, But Comrade Lenin will never let us | down. The Communist Interna- | tional can never let us down, The Scottsboro case and the nominae | tion of James Ford as Vice-Presi« | dent proves that the American Communist Party has not let us down, i “The white Communists need us, as we need them. We are a fourth of the American working class, and how can the white workers free themselves if they do not free us, also? For, when the land is na- tionalized, when the factories be- long to the workers, when all wealth is socially owned, who will want to exclude us? Who will be able to? “No, comrades, this is no Garvey rainbow, or Christian hokum, it is the real thing at last. The price we will have to pay is high, but freedom is worth any price. And is there any easier way out for the Negro? Where is it? The Social- ists never did anything for us; they never went South like the Communists, and fought there for Negro rights, Certainly Hoover and Roosevelt, all the capitalists, have done nothing but oppress the Negro. If Communism seems the long way, the bitter and costly way, it happens to be the only way, Short cuts and opportunistic ap- proaches to freedom have always been traps for us. Garvey, Dubois, Booker Washington, Oscar De Priest—where have they led us but A recent demonstration of Negro and white workers against Jim- Crowism held in Chicago, which they tried to separate the white and Negro soldiers and work- ers. But then I was bitter, I fought in the riots; some of us captured guns from the lynchers and barri- caded this street. No lyncher could enter it; many tried, but failed.” ‘Then he shared, with most of his race in America, (he years of the Garvey mirage. When he came out of that, he didn’t know where to turn, One day he saw a parade with banners against lynching. He was still bitter, couldin’t believe ; that whites would fight for such a. cause, ,So he began to study this thing, “to see whether the Commu- nists really meant it.” After two years he decided that they meant it, and joined the party, “T was one of the first Negroes in the party then, We were iso- lated, the cops singled us out. I can remember my first arrest. ‘They almost tore off one ear, and shut my left eye, They stomped on my bare fect with their boots, and .almost broke my bones. Then they burned my body with cigar butts; yes, they like to kill me, They wanted me to say I'd go to no more Communist meetings, But I would not say it. It was pretty bad, com- rades. I lay in bed for a week after- ward, coughing up blood. “But it made a solid red out of into stagnation? Ee ied “mMpHIS is the cause I have enlisted in for life. I am @ good sol- dier, comrades, and I know what Iam fighting for, If I must die, it will not be as a coward running away from the lynchers, but as & man fighting for the freedom of race and my class.” that's right, Brown,” said the others, “that's right, comrade.” ‘They clapped their hands, and the childyen shouted, and tears stood in the eyes 0 Brown Squire's young wife, She is less than thirty, the mother of seven kids whom she cooks and washes for, and a Com- munist Party member, busy with meetings. Withal, handsome and slim, as a tigress. if “Do you know,” sald Brown} oes . 7) | } Squire joyfully, “that everyone om/ 4 this street is a Communist or Com-( munist sympathizer? Go into any home and they know about the Soviet Union, We have educated them; no, sir, I could not live now unless everything about me is red. Even my kids are red.” “PIONEERS ARE WE” He lined up his seven kids, and from the lean, serious 11-year-old girl, who led them, to the baby on his arm, Brown’s children sang the Pioneer. songs. “One-two-three Pioneers are we Fighting for the working class ‘geoisie—" Mero Be a