The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 18, 1932, Page 4

Daily, Worker PubNihed by the Compredaliy Publishing Ce., Inc., dally axexept Sunday, at me XK. ‘Isth St., Yerk Ofty, W. XY. Tel one Algonqats 4-796. Cab “Di Address 4 mati cheeks te the Dally Werker, 9 EK, 18th #t., Mew York, NH. ¥. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By malt everywhere: Ome year, M8; six months, 38: Berough of Mg@battan and Bronx, New York City. six months, $4.50. Canada. 8% per rear Facts About “Business Recovery” a baa professional optimists of the capitalist press are hay- ing hard sledding. The continuous drop in the stock market has wiped out about 60 per cent of the increase in prices since July-August. The S. W. Straus receivership, following the new revelations in the Insull bankruptcy, shows that the biggest mortgage investment house in the country was engaged in fraudulent practices ruining thousands of small investors. The atmosphere is not very suitable for optimism based on manipulation of the stock market. The financial writers of reactionary sheets like the New York Herald Tribune are compelled to make some sort of an explanation. These explanations are based on nothing sounder than a desire to gloss over the important fact—a disastrous one for the op- timists of the Wall Street propaganda machine—that the crisis is get- ting worse. 'HE financial writer for the Herald-Tribune said on October 17: “The two theories that one finds put forward most frequently in the financial district to explain the general downward trend of the markets during the last five weeks are: (1) disappointment on the part of the speculative fraternity with the extent of the fall busi- ness recovery; and (2) uncertainties surrounding the elections next month. As between the two explanations, it seems to the present writer that the preponderance of the’ logic is overwhelmingly on the side of the latter.” In other words the ‘Wall St. optimists now want to explain the fact that “business has (not—Ed. Note) turned the corner” by a purely fic- tional assumption that capital is worried by the prospects of Roosevelt's election. That this has no basis in fact is shown by the support of Roo- sevelt on the part of such influential members of the ruling class as Owen D. Young of the General Electric and Raskob of General Motors. The absence of any signs of recovery in such basic industries as steel is the real reason for the collapse of the Hoover stock market boom. In- accurately as the stock market under monopolist capitalism reflects the trend in industry, it has to come down to earth once in a while, An examination of production in steel, ahd the prospects of increased pro- duction up to the end of the year, even though made by reading the carefully-worded reports of “experts” who for the first time in history are figuring increases and decreases in fractions of one per cent, shows that the “general downward trend” in the stock market is the result of continued failure of basic industry to “recover”, * . * | Seale cannot replace tonnage or increased employment—altho the apostles of Wall Street try to make it serve. The New York Evening Post on Oct. 15 carried a story headed “Steel Producers’ Mood Is Hopeful”, ‘When one reads the story one finds that the @xact opposite is the case. For. instance: ‘In the trade itself there were no serious expectations of any greater tonnage increase than 40 per cent in two months, even though that puts the tonnage back only to that of last May, when steel seemed to grow very dull.” (12 to 14 per cent of capacity—Ed.) Another quotation: “It was well recognized that most or all of the usually large individual lines of steel consumption, would show no material gain, including structural steel work, the railroads, the automobile trade and the oil and gas industry.” The farm implement industry is the next big consumer of steel and steel products. What is the prospect here? We quote again from the story “Steel Producers Mood Is Hopeful”: “The farm implement infustry might haye got into its new manufacturing season but it still shows no signs of doing so.” Increased orders for standard pipe have been featured as signs of recovery. What are the facts? Again we quote: “4 sharp increase in demand for standard pipe largely is owing to work necessary to get systems in condition for winter, and that special demand soon will be lost.” Farmers in normal times do a lot of miscellaneous buying of iron and steel products. Today “Farmer buying has amounted to very little, contrary to expectations , . .” * * * THAT about the widely-heralded stimulating effect of loans to “self- liquidating enterprises” by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation? Let us take two concrete examples—those of the few substantial loans made by the R.F.C., one of them being a loan of $62,000,000 for a bridge between San Francisco and Oakland. A Pittsburgh dispatch of October 15 to the New York Evening Post says: “Three very large projects, one at New Orleans and two at San Fran- cisco, will not affect the steel mills for months.” Steel production is the barometer of industrial activity. The facts show that in all principal lines actual production is practically non- existent. The collapse in the stock market prices, in spite of the frenzied efforts made to make this the starting point of recovery, are directly connected with the paralysis of production, increasing unemployment and a general deepening of the economic crisis. New wage cuts put in effect by open wage slashes and the intensifi- cation of the stagger plan by the “share-the-work” a more ruthless attempt is being made to solve the c of the masses. This attack can be met effectively only by the united front led by the Commu Party. Standard Oil’s Share- The-Work Scheme HE “share-the-work” scheme, an extension of the stagger system initiated by Walter (. Teagle, head of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, and endorsed by Pre- sident William Green of the American Federation of Labor, is now taking its deadly toll among the working class on a huge scale. Thirty thousand employees of the Standard Oil has just been put on a five-day week with a “corresponding reduction in pay.” This is, of course, in addition to wage cuts made some time ago. Fifteen thousand office workers of General Motors have been put on the five-day week. These two giant concerns are setting the pace for new wage cutting in industry by the share-the-work scheme while Ford pursues the policy of thirty-three and one-third wage slashes. ‘Taken together the wage cuts by these three huge corporations undoubtedly mean that a new brutal attack on workers’ living standards, already heavily reduced by wage cuts, part time work and mass unem- ployment, has been launched on a nationwide scale. proposed wage cut of an additional 10 per cent for railway workers has not been withdrawn. Preparations by the railways and the Brotherhood officials for putting it over are being carried on quietly instead of openly. This Js the only difference. Just as the acceptance of a 10 per cent cut by the railway unions resulted in new attacks in the form of mass layoffs affecting more than 100,000 additional workers, so will the share-the-work plan result, not in the employment of a larger net total of workers being employed at part time, but in increasing the number of unemployed by the speed-up of those whose working time and wages have been reduced. Here and there a few unemployed workers will get a few days em- ployment per month at starvation wages—and this will displayed and ballyhooed as a solution of the question of unemployment relief. Further reductions of wages and the creation of new false hopes among workers to check the growing struggles for decent relief and un- employment insurance are the twin objects of the “share-the-work” plan. * * . ‘THIS new attack on the American masses gives the clearest confirmation to the analysis of the tactics of Wall Street government in this period of the crisis made by Comrade William Foster in the call to action issued by him on September 10 in Chicago, in the name of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and as the center of its election struggle. The Communists and militants in the Unemployed Councils, the local unions of the American Federation of Labor organizations, in the red trade unions of the Trade Union Unity League, in the organizations of veterans, in the shops and factories, must expose the “sharethe-work” scheme as the latest. development in the capitalist offensive. We must use the fight against it to broaden the united front mass struggles of the employed and unemployed whieh are arising on an ever larger scale, and to build up the National Hunger March, to Washington. PARTY Party Members Who Are Not in Our Unions | By a METAL WORKER S A NEW Party worker and mem- | ber of the Metal Workers Indus | trial League, I feel it to be my dut: to draw the attention of the Parts LIFE corrected. For example, I meet workers that belong to our organ- izations and at the same time they beling to the reactionary locals of the American Federation of Labor, to such locals where we have as yet no way of approaching. When you ask such a worker whether he belongs to the Industrial Union, his answer is No. He does not see the necessity of belonging to the union of his trade. It is enough for him that he belongs to the Inter- national Labor Defense, or the Friends of the Soviet Union, or the International Workers Order. SIGNIFICANT INCIDENT | It is sufficient to say that the Party members who do not see the necessity of belonging to our indus- trial unions must also be criticized severely. I witnessed myself an in- cident where non-Party members organized a shop where a Party member had worked many years.. The same happened in a lot of cases where the Metal Workers In- dustrial League tried for months to get into a certain factory; and when they happened to get one contact they found out that there are sev- eral Party members working there. Such a thing should not be allowed to happen in the left wing move- ment. And if such things do hap. pen then strong methods should be DAILY WOR to certain things which need to be | used to avoid them in the future. SUGGESTS REGISTRATION A registration must be taken of all Party members--where they work and whether they belong to the Union, A committee must be formed which should have as its main work the left wing organiza- tions and to find out where the workers in those organizations are working and to what union they belong. The task of this committee is to see that each worker in these organizations joins our unions. This would make our work of getting in- to the shops muth easier, oe ALSO want to call your attention to the shop groups. More atten- tion should be given to this work. A factory group is a big factor for organization. In this work we are quite backward. A shop group Council ought to be formed and this would make it possible to give a thorough examination to each shop and to be able to use the same tactics. It would also make it pos- sible to develop new leaders for this work—which is something that we need tremendously. URGES IMMEDIATE ACTION I hope that the Party will take steps immediately to clarify this thing to its members and draw their attention to the fact that a factory group méeting is an im- portant thing and more important than any other meeting. Making Profits by Firing Workers in Textile Mills OW to add to the number of un- | employed workers in a woolen and worsted mill while increasing output is described by Charles H. Hatch in the Textile World, Aug. issue. He tells how by the most modern efficiency and rationaliza~ tion methods $327,000 a year, or about 11 per cent saved on the payroll. He describes some of the effects. on workers’ employment, “For a certain type of yarn (in the spinning department) it) (for- merly took 16 operators to tend 3,200 spindles. Under the new ar- rangement of equippment, 3,200 spindles are tended by nine oper- ators and two helpers.” In another department a certain “concentration makes it possible for 28 employees to do the work that formerly required 46. This Saves $34,323 a year. “In .another division that for- merly required the services of 124 clerks.the work is now done by 82.” In the weaving division the staff reduced to 35 per cent. The list of wage rates “before and after revi- sion” given in the article shows cuts in every department and job. |New “Daily” Premiums | |For Subscriptions Go Into Effect on Nov. 7 Premiums offered by the Daily Worker with yearly and lesser sub- scriptions will be discontinued after November 1, according to a statement, of the Management Committee just. released. At the same time, the com- mittee announced a change in sub- seription rates for the Daily Worker to go into effect on November 7th. | The yearly subscription rate will remain at $6.00; however, the price of six-month subs will be raised to $350; three months to $2.00, and one month to 75 cents, In Manhattan and the Bronx the new yearly rate will be $9.00. The other rates are $5.00 for six months, $3.00 for three months and $1.00 per month, Workers are urged to take advan- tage of the last two weeks during which premiums will be given with all subs. These premiums are: Joseph Freeman's “The Soviet Work- er”; William Foster's “Toward | Soviet America”; the Soviet pictorial book, “The Land Without Unemploy- ment”, and a photo-sculpt head of Lenin. With six months subs workers can still receive the “Labor Fact Book”, “Memories of Lenin” by N. Krups- kaya, “Soviet Planned Economy”, etc, Other premiums include a Lenin me- dalion or a Red Cartoon Book —By Burck Starvation in Vienna--the “Pride” of the Socialists Conditions of Workers in Austria Refute Lying Claims of S. P. and its Associates of Capitalist Press (The following article is a smashing refutation of the bally- hoo articles on Vienna by H.R. Knickerbocker, Hoover's press agent, which recently appeared in the N. ¥. Evening Post. It is a striking picture of actual condi- tions in the much-advertised city ruled by the Social-Democrats, and the pride of the Second In- ternational.—Editor’s Note.) CBr ai: By GUIDO ZAMIS ‘OR years beggars have been a characteristic feature of Vienna. Today, however, there is added something which is reminiscent of the traditional misery and more children, often quite small, accompany the groups of beggars. Frequently in the same street one sees two or three women each with a baby in arms, with humble glances beseeching the passers-by for that aid which the State refuses them. In addition, one sees children of school age and below school age helping their parents in their alms-seeking. ef- forts. They collect the mone; or add their piping child’s treble to the voices of their parents. Among the children prostitution is not a privilege of the female sex. In the outer districts of “Vi- enna, boys who have just left school ang find-no work, are quite aware that their bodies can fetch a price, “CITY OF THE CHILD” This 1s the “city of the ¢™ild,” the pride of the II. Internatianc! of which its social democratic burgomaster, Seitz, once boasted that. it did not allow a single school child to go hungry. “Twelve thou- sand children are provided with a meal, each day by the schools. ‘One has only to go to the in the proletarian districts ane the children picking. the rotten ~ food up out of the gutter and from under the stalls of the fruit sellers, in order to get an idea how “well- fed” they are; or to see how theys gather apricot stones in order to break them open and eat the ker+ nel, IN a park in Simmering, in East Vienna, some children fixed up a “circus.” Price for admittance, 2 Groschen (about half of 1 penny). ‘They performed what they de- scribed as a “drama from life.” The father is unemployed, the chil- dren hungry. The father brings home food, but the joy of the fam- ily is short-lived. A policeman im- mediately appears and arrests the father; he has stolen the food. When the children were asked what they diq with the proceeds from the “circus,” tley replied: we buy fruit, FOOD! FOOD!— Food, food, food—that is the con- tent of all the wish-dreams of this generation of children. A_ little while ago a school teacher, as an exercise im composition, told the class to write an answer to the question; What would I do if I in Spain, | South Italy or the Balkans: more | had a shilling? The overwhelming majority of the replies were to the following effect: I would buy some- thing to eat. One of the recent numbers of the “Illustrated Red Week” published a letter from children living in 4 district in the neighborhood of Vi- enna, asking for the gift of a foot- ball. The -children, the — letter stated, had had the intention of buying one themselves, and for this purpose had formed a “savings club.” ‘They .wrote however: fa “Unfortunately here in Stra- shof the parents of most of the young pioneers are so poor that on many days there is not even a bite of bread in the house, so nothing came of our savings club.” The consequence of this hunger, of this systematic under-feeding of | the children are obvious even to the layman. In the streets of the working class districts of Vienna, or even in the provincial districts, in which nearly 100 per cent of the population are unemployed, we see the same pale, hollow faces of the children, which bring back the bad memories of the war years. There are, however, also medical investi- gations which confirm this com- parison. TELL OF STARVATION A group of social-democratic doc- tors visited the industrial districts in Lower Austria in order to exam~- ine the children there. Their re- ports are a collection of documents | 7” the progressive starvation of the industrial population of this coun- try, The report on Gotzendorf states: ' “Most of the children are. un- derfed. A quarter of the chil- -dren have bad teeth, Most of the babies were not fed at the breast. We saw strikingly under- sized and weak babies, but no Intellectuals Publish Foster-Ford Pamphlet “Culture and the Crisis,” a 10,000- word letter to the professional work- ers of America, was issued yesterday in pamphlet form by the League of Professional Groups for Foster and Ford, with offices at 35 E. 12th St. This important analysis of the social and cultural crisis in America is an amplification of the recent statement signed by sixty writers, artists and scientists, including John Dos Passos, Lincoln Steffens, Malcolm Cowley, Sherwood Anderson, Edmund Wilson, Countee Cullen, Adolph Dehn, Sidney Hook, Granville Hicks, Sidney How- ard agl Newton Arvin, The same group formed the League, with James Rorty as secretary, The League. will bea permanent organization, for the election is only one front, and the League intends to support the Communist Party on all fronts. Pamphlets may be obtained from the League offices at 5 cents each, : Serious cases of rickets, tuber- culosis or scrofula, The doctor who investigated con- ditions in the neighboring village of Mittendorf stated: “Almost ail of the small chil- dren have rickets; nearly 50 per cent have very bad teeth. A striking feature is the number of cases of diseases resulting from dirt. The greater part of the children are insufficiently clothed.” heer Se HIS is what the doctor records in summer. What: will become of these children in winter, if their clothes are not sufficient .even for the warm season of the year? In Marienthal there were many cases of glandular disease and the danger of progressive tubereluosis. The teeth of 64 children out of 100 were unsound, In Wilhelmsburg, another part of Lower Austria, it was found that 51 per cent of the children showed symptoms of tuberculosis; 21 per cent had curvature of the spine. In Trumau it was found that the greater number of the children showed physical defects; serious cases of rickets, pronounced danger of tuberculosis, orthopedic faults, while more than 53 per cent of them had bad teeth. In Guntzels- dorf-Schonau, 50 per cent of the children examined showed symp- toms of rickets, CHILDREN CHIEF VICTIMS The diversity of the results of the investigations in the six localities in question is very easily explained. They correspond to the different periods which have elapsed since the works situated in the locality were closed down. That is to say, the children in the industrial dis- tricts’ of Austria are all undergo- ing the same development, but they are not all at the same stage. But all of them have the same prospect of reaching before long that ter- rible state of starvation which dur- ing the war and shortly afterwards decimated the rising generation with scurvy, tuberculosis and rick- ets. The starvation, which is ex- pressed in decay of the teeth, ren- ders the child’s body incapable of resisting infantile ailments and tuberculosis. At this investigation it was found that 60 to 83 per cent of the chil- dren were underweight owing to under-nourishment. Even at the end of the war the percentage was only a few points higher. At that time, out of 50,000 school children examined in Vienna it was found that 91 per cent were underfed, How long will it be before this fig- ure is again reached? ° . . HAT is capitalist civilization, which calmly allows children to starve, in whose name, however, preparations for war are being made against the State which not How Meyer London, Hillquit Colleague, Fought the War. The.S. P. Congressman’s Speech in Congress The Daily Worker has been publishing on this page excerpts from articles and speeches by leaders of the Second (Socialist) International in support of the imperialist war of 1914-18. The following is from a speech by~Meyer London, Socialist congressman, before the Howse of Representatives on May 1, 1918. This excerpt is taken from “Meyer London—An East Side Epic”, by Harry Ria seal * * This quotation is especially enlightening since Hillquit and Thomas are trying to present themselves as fighters against imperialist war. Meyer London gave the real position of the Socialist Party during the imperialist war. The left wing inside the Socialist Party (from which the Communist Party arose) forced the official leadership of the Socialist Party headed by Hillquit to adopt an anti-war position. But the Hillquit leadership sabotaged the struggle against imperialist war. The St. Louis Resolution adopted at the Emergency Convention in 1919 called for the stoppage of shipments of ammunition and for concrete struggle against imperialist war, but this resolution under the leadership of Hillquit was never put into effect. Hillquit supported the position of the German Social-Democracy which betrayed the war, and in the U. S. he never went beyond pacifist phrases. When the Socialist Party split in 1919, Hillquit & Co. came out more in the open. At their National Convention May 8 to 14, 1920, they elimi- nated the section of their national constitution which prohibited a socialist in office from voting war preparations. The following section of their constitution was eliminated: “Any member of the Socialist Party elected to office who shall in any way vote to appropriate moneys for military or nayal war purposes, shall be expelled from the party.” 2 * * “When the war broke out the Socialists were staggered. They were nowhere numerically strong enough to prevent it. The duty of the French and Belgian Socialists was clear. Their countries had been invaded, the existence of their peo- ‘ple was jeopardized, and they rushed to the defense of their country as brave men were expected to do. In defnding France the French Socialists defended not only their own country but the cradle of civilization in Europe. There was no dissension among the French Socialists, no difference of opinion. By all the precepts of the highest patriotism and of International Socialism they were bound to give unstinted aid to protect France. In Germany, in which the government had been pre- paring for years for the contingency of a European war and where the ruling class, guided solely by strategic military consideration, selected the most favorable moment for the conflict, the Socialists found themselves in an impossible position. In twenty-four hours the government could have crushed every Socialist organization in the country. But that was not all. While Republican France and innocent little Bel- gium were to the west of them, what was then considered the powerful military force, Russia, threatened Germany from the east. The war was on. The question that presented itself to the Socialists was whether they should vote for the military budget.:The individual Socialists were already in the ranks, a part of the military machine. The Socialist par- liamentary group, consisting of 111 out of 397, was divided on the question of voting the war credits. By a caucus rule it decided to vote for the war budget.” “Managing Editor of the Socialist Jewish “Daily Forward”. The Fight for Recreational Facilities for the Workers By SI GERSON (Labor Sports Union) Woes today are being denied the most elementary things of life: food, clothing and shelter. This is admitted almost univer- sally. But they are being denied something else. That “something else” is recreation. The city governments—like the state and federal governments—do their little bit to help the big bosses escape the effects of the crisis. One of their methods is to slash from the meager funds that are set aside for recreation. Here are some fig- ure’ which show how workers are being deprived of recreational fa- cilities—gyms, pools, fields, etc. They show how much was being spent per each person during 1930 and 1931. MUNICIPAL PER CAPITA EX- PENDITURES ON RECREATION 1930 1931 $1.06 = 93 Los Angeles .... 83 82) Cleveland . WB AB Detroit . 10 68 Milwaukee 82 65 Chicago .. 67 63 Pittsburgh . 494k St. Louis . AL 39 Philadelphia . Bz 35 Boston 1 35 Baltimore 63 31 New York .. 23 22 (Figures are taken from the latest year book of the National Recrea- tion Association.) Notice the sharp drop in Boston from $1.17 per person in 1930’to 35 cents in 1931), If the sum in. 1931 in Los Angeles seems high and the drop relatively low, remember that they are reckoning in the money spent by the city fer the Olympic Games—money which went for fa- cilities for a hand-picked group of “stars” and not for mass recrea- tion. In New York City the fig- ures are the lowest. This city spent altogether $3,024,652 on recreation last year. This includes work done on parks, baseball diamonds, tennis courts, etc. This was exactly one- third of 1 per cent of the city bud- get! HIS means that there exists in most large cities a dangerous ‘overcrowding on ball fields, that there are not enough swimming pools, particularly in the working- class sections, that in many cities workers’ children have to play in the streets, that workers who once played basketball, for instanée, in a public gymnasium, today no longer have the use Of that gym, etc, FIGHT FOR FREE GYMS! True that the need for food, clothing and shelter is primary; nevertheless the desire for recrea~ tion, for athletics, still remains (and, in fact, even increases in some cases). The Labor Sports Union at its Fifth National Con- vention, held recently at Chicago, therefore struck as its major key- note the fight for free recreational facilities. This fight must be or- ganized, first and foremost by the sportsmen, by those who feel the real need of these things most. Every form of mass struggle—peti- tions, delegations to local authori- ties, demonstrations, etc, must be organized. Oo: Ha Sa 'HE Labor Sports Union clubs should take the leadership in these fights, building a solid united front with the worker sportsmen, the genuine amateur athletes, in all other organizations for the fight for this, common need. All class- conscious workers, whether they are sportsmen or not, should extend their heartiest support to these struggles, Mooney Endorses Militant I. L. D. Policy in His Case Mooney-Scottsboro Fight of Unity of Black and White Workers ? In a letter addressed to the Fifth National Convention of the Intere national Labor Defense which just ended in Cleveland, Tom Mooney, now. serving his 16th year in San Quentin prison on a frame-up charge, gives his complete endorsement to the¢- mass defense program and policy of very militant campaign on a national the I. L. D. seale and is now about to embark Mooney writes: ‘ upon an international campaign, for “One year ago, I sent out an ap-|the freedom of myself and all other peal to all working class organiza- | labor prisoners. tions to form a United Front to car-| “The mass campaign organized in ry on a militant fight for the free-|conjunction with my mother’s two dom of myself and all other working |transcontinental tours has done class political prisoners. much to prove to the master class of “Many of these organizations have | California that so long as I’ remain responded to this appeal, some very|in San Quentin the workers will meekly, and others, moderately; but |never cease demanding my freedom, to the International Labor Defefise|I want to take this occasion to goes the credit for the most active |thank the ILD. and its organizerd campaign for my freedom during this|who so successfully arranged my past year. mother’s tours, These tours helped “T ‘have no hesitancy in stating | crystallize the solidarity of the worke ers i,