The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 3, 1932, Page 3

’ Pag THE FIGHT OF THE HUNGER CHILDREN By HELEN KAY wre were these children hunger delegates who dared “stain the serenity of the White House Thanks- giving?” Who were these children who dared declare themselves represen- tatives of the starving millions of American boys and girls, who dared enter the capitol of the nation amidst a “day of brilliant church services and bountiful dinners?” On Thanksgiving Day 150 chil- dren from as far north as Worcester and Lawrente “in Massachusetts, through Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, “New Jersey, Dela~ ware, Maryland, and Washington itself, came*by means of train and truck, to demand of the President protection of their homes, Unem- ployment Insurance, and immediate relief from starvation. 250 Cops Guard Hoover ‘The President. guarded his -seren- ity. The President had over two hundred and fifty police surround- ing the Whife House vicinity to in- sure a quiet. and peaceful turkey dinner, and.to make sure that these Negro and white newsies, boot- blacks, children. of unemployed workers who.know what it means to go cold and hungry, do not enter the “sanctity. of. the Presidential mansion.” Traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue was completely. stopped. Pedes- trians were -prohibited within the White House-area, and detectives filled Lafayette.Park. Trucks with tear gas; armed. guards with guns; police with night. sticks were on the alert. ND why?. Because a commitiee of five children and six adults 150 at a meeting two-texicabs to see the President of-the United States, and demand that he-take steps to feed 2d shelter the workers i. suffer ation: from the Young fea. The oes ‘amadi. unemployed vo years. Grace's er used to work in Print Pacific mills, are now completely shut doy WHAT IT MEANS to BE HUNGRY! ' “Why did- fou to Washing- ton, Grace?” a newspeperwoman asked, “I came here to fight.” The news- paperwoman looked as though some ene had taker the props out from under her feet. Grace's eyes flashed: “I mean I'm¢ going to tell President Hoover that hé’s a liar, that he promised us a chicken every’ day, and we haven't ven got a bone.” Sparks lit up Grace’s hazel eyes and her long brown curls bohbed up and down in her excitement to tell ell that she-knew. “I-have seven in my family, and I want to tell you we know what‘it means to be hun- gry. That’s..what I want to tell . Hoover.” “But you don’t iook hungry.” “Oh, don’t I though! Oh, don’t I though!” Grace hurled her words at the woman. “Some times we go for days without cating anything. There's a little baby in our family. He's two months. old, and he keeps us worried... He faints all the time. We never have milk to feed him with. We're afraid he'll die on us any day. - “The hardest job I’ve got is to try to comfort my Uttle brothers and sisters. You see I'm the oldest. Whenever we pass by a store with food in it, they start te cry. “One day’ we~went up to the mayor to demand free food and clothing, and‘the-mayor asked me if Iwas playinga*game’ with him. Oh, no, I said, this’is no game, and I took off my shoes and I showed them to him. “They gave us some- thing. Another time,we didn’t have anything to-eat for four days, and so I couldn't stand it any longer, and I went down to the mayor my- self and demanded something to eat. My head was so dizzy I didn’t care what I told -him then, and be- leve me I-teld him plenty. We got. some relief then, but not enough; six dollars for two-weeks. Now that’s why I came to Washington.” Red-haired, freckle-faced Bernard Sales, ten-year-old son of an un- employed New York baker, “The cakes and.bread that my father used to bake are not for us. We never get cakes-and ‘we're glad to get bread.” Bernard's “red-brown eyes, like bis hair, have an inextinguishable . His accent is typical of the ‘New York sidewalk, “My fadder, he hhasn’t worked for two years, and there are eight in my family.” As he spoke his.eyes became sober. “I 3 never have any--breakfast before I -eight in our family youngest. I have two and they can't find . My father gets $10 two weeks. We owe rent Hit i i zi é : 5 3 8 in DELEGATES Mack, ‘an eleven-year-old Philadelphia, with large and flaxen hair shoulder Bernard Brooks, an eleven- Negro boy from Baltimore, Soe Marvin he were id Mildred Lee, a fourteen girl also from Baltimore, were the other three children in the delegation, e ze i Little Alice Mack’s mother washes dishes in a Philadelphia soup kit- chen ara for this work she gets enough food for one meal a day for her six children, Her husband has been out of work for nine months, He was a dye-setter in a Phila- delphia factory which has been closed down. Bernard Brooks lives in the jim-crow Negro section of Baltimore. He lives in a cellar, and his father is an unemployed laborer, out of work for the past year and a half, Before leaving the hall for the White House the delegation was fed. ‘The children ate hurriedly, chatter- ing and noise were all around, but above the din murmurs of: “Don’t eat so much, take it easy, you'll get sick. You got to get used to the food.” And indeed several of the children were ill. Not because too much food was given them, but be- cause they were unused to food, their stomachs were hunger-drawn and they could not consume as much as @ normal child. A newspaperman asked a boy where he got his lumberjacket and pants, which looked rather new, compared to the clothes of the other children, The boy looked the man in the eyes and sad: “Why, Mister, you ought to know better than that. I had to fight for these clothes, I got them from the relief.” ee agar T 3:45 in the afternoon the dele- gation arrived at the White House, followed by four motorcycle cops with sirens blowing all the way from Georgia Ave. to the White House. The other children followed in taxicabs and on foot. When arrested, the police made sure that the adult workers were taken first and the children left behind. “We came to see the Presi- dent, too, and if you take our guardians you must take us.” The children were put into the police patrol. However, Mr. Kelley of the police department thought better of it, and hurriedly gave orders to take the children out of the Black Maria, and into the hands of wait- ing women detectives who hurried them to the House of Detention. While waiting for the police wagon, reporters hung around asking the children ail sorts of questions. Ber- nard Sales drew himselp up tall and straight and with real dignity told them simply: “No informa- tion.” Alice Mack, from Philadel- phia, yelled: “I don’t want any lies told about me.” Grace Chia- yamadi asked: “I want to ask you 2 little question, Mr. Officer, why is it that when hungry children come to Washington they are ar- tested and—threwn into jail,- I want to know why? It’s just a lit- SOPHIE BOADY tle question. I want you to answer it. I’m a little girl, and I want to learn.” A complete silence. No one vol- unteered to answer her question, CHASED BY THE POLICE At the same time that the dele- gation was being ejected from the White House and the children and adults were being “detained,” the other boys and girls were being chased all over town by the police. John Aguire, a fourteen-year-old Pioneer of New York, tells the story of what happened to his group: “In groups we were to meet on the street and go to the White House to meet our delegation. But the cops told our group to wait on the» next block, We were tricked and they began to surround us with hundreds of other cops. The ser- geant told our leader that we could not stay there. Our leader began to argue with them, but they had their way. They began to chase us block after block, motorcycle cops, detectives and flatfoots until we came to a park. We rested there, and newspaper men took our pic- tures. Cars stopped and out poured more detectives and more passersby who asked us what it was all about. And we told them, And then we hhad to gove on again.” Pioneer Sophie and me began to sing songs and crack jokes, to keep up the courage of the other kids: who began to get afraid. So Sophie and I told others to refuse to walk any further, but let the cops get cars to go back to the center. We have no shoes to wear out for them. So the leaders told the cops our demands. ‘We have no shges and we can’t wear those we got on out, just because you're chasing us.’ ‘The sergeant told the cops to make us move, but when they found out that we would not budge they held a conference, the sergeant and the two captains, and they agreed to pay for the taxis to the house, VER welcomed the Boy Scouts and Naval Guards with a band, but us he received with clubs. After two hours at the house the delegates who were arrested came in free. Hoover needed more ‘What will they need hey 3 Q work ers who are coming there for the same thing as we bs diaer ay se B hits not lost our fight, but just begun. The Hunger will continue oe fight, and we in our home school.” At night radio reports stated that the children were crying and wishing that they had not come, and they wanted to go back home, The children delegates declared: “We are glag that we were hon- ored by our delegation of children to go to present their and our de- DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1932 JOHN AGUIRE Hunger Fight Number-Labor Unity Is Out LABOR UNITY. Official monthly magazine of the Trade Union Unity League, December, 1923, oo 6 @ Wee the December issue, the special Hunger March and Un- employment issue Labor Unity takes on a new and more popular appearance. The cover, in red and black, attractively features photos of the life of and struggles the un- employed. A leading article is Jack Stachel’s “Results of the Elections.” Stachel tells how Roosevelt will carry out the hunger program begun by Hoover. Why did huge numbers of workers vote for Roosevelt? Was it “a triumph of democracy,” as the liberals state? What lessons are to be drawn from the Socialist vote; from the Communist vote? ‘These are brought out in Stachel’s article. Pepe ee | ‘HE Hunger March and various phases of its preparations are featured. An article, “The Muste- ites Kid the Jobless,” tells what happened at the Ohio State Con- ference of the Citizens Unem- ployed League, steered by the Musteites out of militant channels. The delegates of the Unemployed Councils played an interesting part at the conferezce, How the every-day local strug- gles in many steel towns, led by the Steel and Metal Workers’ Industrial Union, have won gains for the un- employed, is described in the article “The Steel Workers Fight for Un- employment Relief.” The Trenton doll workers’ strike was important, even though it took place in a smaller industry, Many lessons are to be learneq from it, Dave Doran, in “The Youth Set the Pace,” points out these lessons, and describes the fine militancy of the 800 young doll strikers, The Japanese subway workers teach us many points in the revo- lutionary conduct of a strike strug- gle. How they tied up the Tokyo subway system, fought off the po- lice and won a Victory in the midst of great terror, is told in»“A*Les= om From Japan.” Rae) W are we to approach workers who walk out in ind2pendent, spontaneous, unorganized strikes? _ Joseph Leedes points out in his article on “Independent Strikes” that the true application of the United Front is the only way to gain these workers’ confidence. In addition to the above articles there are many popular features, such as cartoons, many photos of the unemployed, a short story of the unemployed, “The Homeless,” and a section devoted to the Life of the Revolutionary Unions. Labor Unity is published at 2 W. 15th St., Room 414, New York City. The Hunger Children! By HARRY ALAN POTAMKIN. Empty is the cupboard, No pillow for the head; We are the hunger children ‘Who cry for milk ang bread; We are the hunger children Who cry for milk ang bread; We are the workers’ children who must be fed. WE WANT— Shelter and clothes, Shoes for our toes, Bread for the body, A roof for the head. Scolded in the schoolroom cause we cannot think Of anything but hunger, Of food to eat and drink; ‘We faint because we’re hungry And we cannot think Of anything but hunger— The teachers feed us ink. WE WANT— Shelter and clothes, Shoes for our toes, Bread for the body, A roof for the head, ‘The worker's child is fighting, He's too young to be dead; The hunger children go Thru frost and rain and snow, Yes, the hunger children go ‘Thru frost and rain and snow, ‘Thru biting winds that blow ‘The worker's child is fighting— We'll have the whole world know! mands. We are not afraid. We are workers’ children, and we had workers’ demands. That is why we were not allowed to see the Presi-~ dent. We are going home to carry on our fight. And we want the adult workers who are coming here next week to please carry our de- mands with them. Free food in the schools, no _ discrimination against Negro children, Unemploy- ment Insurance for our fathers so that our families can all be to- gether, aud the abolition of child labor. And we, too will carry on the fight.” To a Black Man By V. J. JEROME (It is significant that this poem by Comrade Jerome, “To A Black Man” was written during the same period as “An Open Letter to the White Men of the South,” by Langston Hughes, Negro poet, which was recently published in the Daily Worker.) * Back of the furnace room * * I heard you call your sons to your side and mutter: “Hate the white man!” And I a white man answer: In the deeps of your being let hate gather and rumble and rise, I too am a hater. And my hate is to the foe you hate— him of the white face him of the black. When they came in the dark rum-blooded and shot down the strugglers and brought footshackled and manacled for barrels of tobacco for barrels of rum— in the ports of Europe fierce-taloned white bondservants and drive them in chained gangs along the roads of New England Brother from the bodies lying bullet-gashed in the steel-yards of Homestead? on the strike fields of Leadville Telluride Coeur d’ Alene Cripple Creek was the blood white was it black? that night that scarlet night Was the blood black was it white felled in one fusillade of fury shot ringing after shot? And the slaughtered blood of Ralph the white-faced lad Harry Simms is it black is it white Call back your sons, brother and tell them the cause is not in the skin We against them. Slaves against masters. Fuse the fires you from the black breast I from the ‘vhite. It’s war for the earth! Workmen fieldmen Every hammer a gun Every scythe a sword War for the earth! In the coal fields of Colorado when they shot us when gunmen and soldiers shot us down stealing on the coast-villages of Africa when they fell upon the tribesmen in their sleep and shackled the valiant the finest-limbed and drove them in clanking herds with lash and gun to the slavers when they rammed their black cargo into the holds those that had not choked under the hatches brought to the seaports of Kingston Havana Rio, de Janeiro when they sold them in the market squares from auction blocks in the streets of Virginia in the streets of Georgia Maryland South Carolina did they not descend also upon the white man preying on the plague-driven the plundered of land the machine-supplanted did they not corral them hunger-herded child-captives spirited from the back-streets of cities dump them into the harbor towns of the New World along the roads of New Netherlands New Jersey from farm to farm from town to town from square to auction square? was it black was it white the blood that oozed dows Was it black was it white the blood at Ludlow when the torches were put to the tents. when the charred skeletons were heaped into dump-carts and taken away? when it flowed on the stones of Manhaitan from the worker-heart of Katovis the Greek when it gushed from the butchered breast of Gonzales the Latin when it dripped from the death-wounds of the Negro Levy Gray, black-skinned share-cropper of Camp Hill crying: Toilers Avenge! across the flelds of Alabama erying across the fields and the factories of forty-cight states— And the blood of the lad Harry Simms warm still on the cold mining road of Kentucky the gun-drained blood of Harry Simms? It’s a war over wheat-flelds and coal pits over clothing and houses milk and bread. |AMMOND, Ind.—Hunger march- ers. Hundreds of them in cars of all descriptions, medical supplies, food supplies, bedding, everything— the workers are on their way. ‘Trucks loaded with singing, cheer- ing proletarians on their way to the “front.” This was the impres- sion created in Hammond today as Column No. 1 wended its way through the towns. Thousands of workers were on the streets to greet and cheer the marchers on their way. Here in Hammond, where the March was brutally at- tacked last year, the Hunger Marchers were given one of the most enthusiastic welcomes en- countered on their trip so far, ac- cording to the marchers themselves. The Workers’ Hall was turned into a “mess hall” and the hungry marchers were refreshed with cof- fee and sandwiches. Food had been donated also for supplies to take on the march. From here the marchers proceeded to Indiana Harbor, where another large turn- The Hunger March Army As | It Moves Through the U. S. out greeted the column. Gary, Indiana, was the next stop. Here the enthusiasm ran even higher... Streets were lined on both sides for blocks before the meeting place was reached, Every section of the working class was represented in the welcoming crowds—black, white, foreign, na- tive, professional workers—all en- thusiastically backing the march. The Police Department of Gary must have had the major part of the force at the place of the meet- ing. However, the crowd was so large and so militant that even Gary's police hesitated to provoke any trouble. The marchers hag speakers here, also, the first time in the history of Gary when an open-air meeting of this size with speaking was ever permitted without violent interfer- ence, In a word—the march of Column No. 1 of the Hunger March through the Calumet industrial district was very inspiring and a huge success. L. J. 15-Year-Old Lad Tries to Kill Himself; Sick of Meals from Garbage (OLLY, Mich.—Here are a couple of stories on how children get treated in Henry Ford’s state. | George Terban, 15 years old, tried to commit suicide when his parents could not get relief and he felt himself a burden to them. His parents saiq that they have “been eating garbage because we can’t get relict from the welfare. Our neighbors give us food occasionally, but they are none too well off themselves.” The family of five have been living in Detroit for about 12 years. Four Iron River workers were sentenced from 30 to 90 days for slaying deer in order to feed their families. These are just two ex- amples of what suffering the work- ers in Michigan are undergoing and point the way to organizing strong Unemployed Councils everywhere in the state. Comradely, W. I 'Duranty’s Tale That ‘Soviet Union Fears German Revolution’ New, Editor the Daily Worker: Dear Comrade:—I would like you to explain the following item that appeared in the N. Y. Times of Nov. 23: “In Moscow,” writes Mr, Du- ranty, “there is one menace which is feared above all others, and it is the outbreak of a revolution in Germany or elsewhere in Eu- rop2. This is a far cry from the time when Lenin staged the Bol- shevist revolution in Russia, not because he was interested in Rus- Sia but because he wished to set Western Europ: on fire.” Comradely yours, 8. 8. s 4 8 EDITOR'S NOTE This is Duranty’s statement, not the statement of the Soviet Gov- ernment, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or the Commu- nist International. It is a conscious JOUN REED Farmers Are Beginning to, Hear and See By JOHN HERRMANN. (Novelist, author of “Summer Is Ended). HE old isolation of the farm is broken. In the middle west, the electric light is turned off because the bills can not be paid. The old kerosene lamp is hauled down frem the attic. Even the telephone wires are dead. Oft-n the farmer has not enough cash to buy gas. But he is not to be licked by the lack of the modern conveniences. He has cut through his isolation and found the solidarity of his fellow farmer. Out near Sioux City, Iowa, when 3,000 farmers were roused up within 15 minutes to resist sheris attempting to highpower truck- loads of cattle through, the farmer demonstrated his own strength. Now he realizes that he has only the united strength of the worker and the farmer to trust. He has listened to his medicine men, his bankers, his politicians, ters, his grange le: agricultural college, for years, Now his land has gone up at forced sale, his pigs and corn are not worth a third what he had put into them. A blight of taxes too high to be met by the sale of crops, fell upon him. The medicine men were paralyzed and when the farmer went from one to another, they could only lift their helpless hands. Burn your wheat, plow up your fields, sell your machinery and pay off your deficiency judgments. Sew sacking in your clothing if it wears out, use newspapers for warmth. Put on the wooden shoes, ONLY ONE DIRECTION. The farmer heard and saw for the first time. Suddenly, as the blind see when the cataract is peel- ed off by the surgeon, the farmer saw the impotence of his advisers and betrayers. His back to the wall, there. was. but one direction he could go. Forward. And with his own united strength. Stand still and be sold out to the insur- ance companies, see his barns ley- eled oft. tractors mowing down his fences, one gigantic chain farm hir- ing him for a pittance. es ¢@ 'HE answer to the farmers was to organize, to unite their strength against the common enemy. When the Farmers’ Holiday movement had its back broken by calling off the picketing, the rank and file farmer did not lose confi- dence in real united action. The politicians wormed their way to the leaders of this movement and did all they could to soft pedal united For years the farmer and asked whv didn’t he speed up and get his rights. As soon as he speeded up and began moving, newspaper in the middle west 2utioned him to “go slow” As scon as he mace his power felt, every big time business man ‘vas afraid of him. Every Chamber of Commerce was out to cut is throat. Bui of Commerce and the big time bu ness men, could not succeed in do- ing what they attempted, could not set the city worker against the farmer, Around Sioux City they tried to get the stock yards workers to break up the farmers, The farm by offerme to feed any workers who came to them. confidence the worker and hungry The the rmer should have in one another not destroyed. and little business again showed their hands, that was all. In Sioux City at the head of the parade in which thousands of farm- ers demonstrated their new found solidarity, rode Mother Bloor, At the Golden Slipper Dance Hall where 3,000 farmers assembled to determine to picket the roads against the threat even of militia, @ representative from the Unem- ployed Council of Sioux City, spoke. a eT WHEN the leaders succeeded in calling off the picketing, the rank and file farmers, gathered themselves together for their an- swer. The answer is the farmers’ conference in Washington on De- cember 7th. The answer is another long trek in a modern version of the covered wagon, this time east- ward, to demon. that the farme' slave to the insurance companies and the bankers and that the gray paw that would strangle him, may yet be netted and cautht by a power sironger than itself! ; Hold an Open Hearing on Hunger in your neighborhood; invite all jobless and part time workers and keep a record of their evidence against the starvation system. effort to discredit the U. S. S. R. among revolutionary workers and weaken its defense by revolutionary workers of other countries, ONANNIVERSARY OF. (The following speech was made by Earl Browder, member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party, at the John Reed Memo- rial meeting held in New York City on Nov, By EARL BROWDER NE thing said here this evening— the fact that John Reed was the first swallow in the sprir of the leftward moving intel! —causes me to recall at the same moment that John Red was some- what different, I think, from all our leftward moving intellectuals, in that he did not so much move toward. the Communist Party. That would be stretching it a little bit when you SeraHN ¥ that John Reeq was one of the¥founders of the Communist Party in the United States. So it would be a mistake to classify John Reed as a fellow- traveller. He was a graduated rev- olutionist. The figure of John Reed grows bigger as the years pass by, Prob- ably very few of us realiz2 when Reed was here that we had a big man amongst us, and for most of us it took many years afterwards to understand just how big and how significant he was. Mike Gold has described very well. the social environment out of which he came, and it has been a great puzzle to many people as to how—coming out of this environment—John Reed could have found his way to Petro- grad on Noy. 7, 1917, and stood at the side of Lenin and the Bolshevik Central Committze that led the Gc- tober Revolution. In my opinion, it was no accident that Reed, pam- pered son of the aristocracy of the Pacific Coast, found his way to the center of the Russian Revolu- tion. No accident at all. HELPED FOUND COMMUNIST PARTY I think if we examine the history of John Reed we will see that for a good many years Reed had been searching very feverishly for some- thing. And the reason why he was searching for something was be- cause he was profoundly disgusted with the socicty in which he had been born and from which he had dropped away long before he be- came a revolutionist. This turning away from the respectable bour- geoisie life of John Reed was one of the symptoms that the capitalist system had well entered into a period of its decay even before the outbreak of the World War, and at that period we saw being born out of the very heart of the ruling class the forces of revolution that are going to destroy this bourgeois Tuling class and create a new so- ciety. This is one of the most sig- nificant phases of John Reed's life. Another significant side of John Reeq is the fact that he showed throughout his life that in the com- ing American Revolution we are going to have fused together with the power of the working class everything that is best and most sensitive and most understanding and honest from the other classes * of society, and as inevitably as steel filings will respond to a magnet, every sound, honest, intellectual mind must move toward the Revo- lution in this country also. By identifying himself with the revo- lutionary class and fusing himself with this revolutionary class—the working class—John Reed became not only a fellow-traveller but one of the organizers and founders in America of that Party which will make the revolution in this coun- try and bring a profound social transformation which has already well ripened ere. IT is true that John Reed was not a theoretician in the sense that he wrote heavy books. Most of us became acquainted with John Reed through what has been described here tonight as a great piece of re- porting, “Ten Days That Shook the World.” That book was a mag- nificent piece of reporting. It was JOHN REED’S DEATH: also something more than that. Through that book many milli “eg of people, not hundreds of me sands—but millions of people have been given not only an evaliy /{ ation of the events of the tt , sition of power from one class another in the greatest revolutt iF history has seen, but they hi been given the feeling of these * events and an’ understanding of th @ events; and, more than tha, ; they have been given an impetus toward duplication of these events in other capitalist countries of the world. That is, his book was @ tremendous revolutionary weapom through which the influence and@é< lessons of this mighty upheaval im*«’ Russia was transferred to the com sciousness and understanding of masses all over the world, and evem:: more than that. His book became one of the principal instruments whereby the Russian people theme selves observed the lessons of thei > own revolution. John Reed was no passive reporter, a register of events. He was an active fighter —taking part in these events. Shortly after he participated in. the founding of the Communist~ Party in the United States amd:-~ after the Second Congress of the Communist International, there was a first great gathering of represen- tatives of numerous colonial peo- ples in what was called a great Congress of the peoples of the East. held in the wilds of Turkestan. somewhere. John Reed went down there tan ir Tepresent America in this greab gathering at which was laid the foundation for the present Soviet Republic of China—l2 years ago. On that trip this great figure was stricken with typhus. When I was in the Soviet Union a year later I was inquiring about the circum> stances of Reed's death—and one .. of the Soviet doctors of that time, was describing to me the illness from which John Reed died. He said Reed had the kind of typhus that is usually transmitted by the. bite of a gray louse. It is one of the ironies of history that a little, gray louse took away John Reed, just in the beginning of his really. fruitful period of work. We can > have some understanding of the. tremendous capacities inherent in this man when we remomber this: . that John Reed died just at the moment when he had found se self and found his real works and before he had an opportunity ie seriously take up this work. spite of that fact, the pee in which his influence wast ex- erted has had a profound : growing greater from year to-year —and already being expressetixdn. the growth ang development ofa. _ whole series of organizations: that, bears his name. This givesabs, = little indication of what abigh! have been if we had only that gray louse before it had) a’ chance to bite John Reed, ‘3 SIGNIFICANCE OF »? JOHN REED CLUBS These significant organizations of all these multiplying hundreds -of* the best writers, artists and pro-* fessional elements chiefly, who are* travelling much the same road that’”* John Reed travelled, almost univér . > sally when they come together Yor*°* permanent and serious work an@' for binding themselves for better™ or for worse with the revolutionary’ movement in this country—assuthé" the name of John Reed Clubs. If!” they take their name seriously, and» ’- more and more they are taking the ** name seriously, these John Reed: Clubs are going to provide for the Tevolutionary movement in the Uy” 8. and for the great revolutionary - battles that are maturing right now - in this country—they are going to’ * provide us with a strong, fine, new" * crop of young John Reeds that will’ « make the American Revolution take > its place in history right alongside’ of the history of the Russian Revoe « lution in which John Reed played such a mighty role. J. Louis Engdahl--His Years As A Revolutionary Editor By VERN SMITH . LOUIS ENGDAHL had been so active in the International Labor Defense and had so much placed himself in the minds of militant American workers as fearless chat npion and defender of workers that it is well to recall his career as an editor. Most & his life was spent as an editor of workers’ pape Bs ( charge of Socialist and left wing Socialist journals in his early days, and he was the first editor, jointly with Bill Dunne, \of the Daily Worker, and of the Weekly before that, He was an editor in those first weeks in New York, when the paper moyed here bodily from Chicago in the form of two staff members and a box of cuts or photos. Down on First Street, in a shop without fur- niture, with both linotypes and type- writers carrying Hungarian type in- stead of English and with part of the printers unable to read English, he made up a desk of boxes and books for his machine and with a window sill for a table proceeded to get out a paper. He was editor during the Sacco~ Vanzetti days, though conditions were much better by that time, Turn to some of your old copies of the “Daily,” and see how, with Fred Ellis’ best cartoons, Engdahl and Dunne made the Daily Worker a unique weapon in the fight to save those two workers. It turned out to be a losing fight, but es much energy and skill went into it as into any of the later victories—the main troubles was that the struggle de- veloped too late. I think the thing that stuck all of us on the Daily Worker most in con= nection with Enedahl's work was his tireless energy, his continuous, hour after hour devotion to details. .S: teen hours was a short working day for J. Louis, And so much was he interested in every practical detail of work that he used to go down into renin ‘the print shop and to the horror of. had | the printers scoop up the type in his hands and change it around here and there when he thought it would be better that way. He was certainly the hardeate, working editor the “Daily” ever had, and it is easy to believe that he care ried this same characteristic over into defense work, and literally worked himself to death. TheCase of Joseph Scovio, AnItalian Plumber, Buffalo| — Woes and anxious, pees 4 for his life, Joseph waits for news at Ellis ihland while while the International Labor Defense fights his impending deportation to Italy. Scovio, an Italian plum- i ber, has been in Buffalo 27 ry his 43 years and has worked there for one employer for ten years. A militant worker, he was sent to s year in prison on Oct. 10, 1931, to be followed by deportation. His arrest followed participation in a demonstration demanding more welfare relief for the wholly ahd. partially unemployed and their families. a He worries, too, about his fi What are they eating? How they get along without his h The I. L. D. is fighting this which is now pending in the co You, too, can help to save S from certain death in fascist Italy. Mcenwhile you must ease his mind. by helping to ke2p his beige (es Bb starvation. The I. L, D. you to support the Prisoners’ W wine ter Relief Campaign. Send all tributions to 80 E. lith St, 430, New York, oy