The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 5, 1932, Page 4

Page Four Hunger Marchers Call for Mass Support for Demands of the Jobless for Immediate Relief and Unemployment Insurance! “Make the Bosses and Their Government Pay,” (Statement prepared by employed Councils for prese finally acted upon at Marchers today.) demands before iate winter quire congre lief. This is Conspiracy of Silence This apparent blind: that are general put now is in reality a deliberate policy evading the problem of starvation It is the same policy which at the outset of the crisis denied the very unemployment more thar led by existence of m until on March 6, 1930, a million unemployed Unemployed Counc: ed throughout the co ashing the hypocritical the y of ac; ce. The under 000,000 rsons regular income ha lished in detail fact by fact. A y ago the } 1 Hun with its 1,600 delegates + to Congress a detailed statement setting forth the then almost in- credible starvation conditions pre- vailing in the country. Since then public hearings have been con- ducted by Unemployed Councils to | all of which government officials have been invited where the star- | vation conditions and resulting dis- ease and mortality have been ex- dosed in detail . the honorable gentlemen Congress, together with their leaders, refuse to admit the y of the investigations of the in Mass Evidence above examples are typical evidence which the The @ mass of Unemployed Councils are prepared of to lay before Congress, if there are stil] any Congressmen who have the effrontery to repeat the state- ments of Hoover and Roosevelt that present provisions cor- fespond to the necessities and that | there is no serious threat of star- vation for the unemployed millions | and their families | | | relie | In the face of the appalling needs, local systems of relief which were | always entirely inadequate, now | have completely broken down, cal relief has never reached more Lo- than a small fraction of the un- employ and this mainly in the | large centers of concentrated pop- ulation, and now even the miser- | able charity doles, instead of ex- | panding to meet the | needs, are being systematic slashed in city after city and in many places discontinued alto- gether. For the past year in all | the leading industrial cities under the pressure of the bankers of Wall Street, even the meagre char- ity relief has been cut. It is only through the militant struggles of Boss Schemes C Great advertisement has been given to the action of Congress last July in providing $2,000,000,- 000 for self-liquidating public works through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. This has proved to be dnly a cruel joke on the unemployed masses. Only a small percentage of this fund has been released, and even this has been used not to provide employ- ment even for a few thousand, but for the purposes of election ma- neuvers. Not a single worker has Teceived a job in connection with the R.F.C. public works loans. Ac- tually the amount spent in public works of all kinds, city, county, Negro Workers Chief Discrim The group which suffers the most from unemployment and which receives the least relief of any kind, are the Negro workers. For example in Baltimore, the Negroes formed 17 per cent of the population, but make up 35.1 per. cent of the unemployed. In every city the percentage of Negro un- employed is four to six times as high as the rate of the city as a hole, yet the proportion of re- “Nef given to Negroes and their families is much less than given to white workers. In the Harlem section of New York, a special sur- vey disclosed that among those families where all workers were |, of the Negroes 72 per cent were receiving no relief what- eral National Committee of Un- to be Conference of Hunger National ntation to Congress, o deny problem included President Hoover and Presi- times re- Ww ice among those us nature of t and hur the coming Roosev New funds adequate t relief on Growing Hunger then we re- mony of their publicists Tr Counci he t mpl r them to own and fol- most trust administré relief Say Jobless ing are only a few typical ex- then 20 per cent of the | ool children of New York City suffering from malnutrition (polite mame for starvation), ac- the report of the Health riment (New York Times, Oc- | 29, e depression has so affec Pennsylvania ool children, tha more than one-quarter of them are uffering from under-nourish- ment, ording to Governor Pin- chot of Pennsylvania (letter re- sed to the press March 16, 1932). Fourteen children died of star- vation in Denver, Colorado, in a period of one month (see Catholic Register, September 22, 1932). The conditions in working class neighborhoods are not revealed by the general averages, thus while the Health Department reports 20 per cent of New York school chil- dren undernourished, one health tober 1932) d center, according to the report of | the National Organization for Pub- lic Health Nursing, the number of starving children has grown to sixty out of every one hundred. of Starvation the Unemployed Councils, which we represent in this petition, that local relief was not completely dis- continued. Even those special mea- sures for relieving the most evi- dent starvation of the children are being abandoned. The Chicago schools have discontinued the free lunches for children of the unem- ployed. The New York City schools announced they on October 19, that have abandoned the free milk bread centers maintained dur- g last winter. The measures Congres previously taken for unemployment re- vad not the slightest re- lation to the actual needs. With over forty-eight million unemploy- ed and their dependents, the fed- eral government has loaned to the various states up to October 19 fess than $44,000,000, which is less than a dollar per person for those in desperate and immediate need. Even if the full $300,000,000 appro- priated by Congress for loans to the states is finally granted, this will amount to about six dollars ach for those in need, or about 52 cents per month over the pe- riod of a year. by lief have riminally Futile state and national, has decreased by more than 75 per cent since the onset of the crisis. Where “work relief” is actually being carried on by towns, cities, or states, it has been already de- veloped into the most degrading form of FORCED LABOR. This system of virtual enslavement of the unemployed, is more and more being turned into a weapon for the general reduction of the wages of the employed workers and the further impoverishment of the en- tire laboring mass. In most cases even a nominal wage is being en- tirely abolished, and the relief is given in the most humiliating form, grocery baskets. Sufferers—Victims of ination. third of the faiilies totally un- employed are without relief. In many Southern cities Negroes and their families are denied all pub- lie as well as private charity re- lief. This is true of even such large cities as Dallas, Texas, and New Orleans, La. A particularly vicious part is be- ing played by the Red Cross in the relief activities. The Red Cross has been placed in charge of the distribution of flour provided by a small appropriation by Congress out of the ‘enormous stores of wheat held by the Farm Board. This distribution has been made through irresponsible local com- mittees composed in almost every case of appointees of Chambers of Commerce and) employers sssocia- Hons | DAILY WORKER, N W YORK, MONDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1932 Red Cross and Community Funds Victimize, Blacklist Workers These local Red Cross tees have used the flour distribu- tion as an instrument for destroy- ing all organizations of the un- employed and trade unions and have forced down wages and liv- ing standards of all workers. The list for flour distribution almost everywhere become a blacklist sys- tem in the hands of the most vi- cious enemies of the workers. This has been carried to such ar tent that in the minthg region of Ken- s refused to to the starving unemployed and has used Unemployed Councils For millions of workers families these conditions have resulted in a complete disrupti¢n of all possibili- ties of life. employed families on the threat of losing relief are compelled to sur- render their children to orphan asylums and to public institutions. In the wholesale destruction of the family now going on, a most dis- ruptive part is played by evictions for non-payment of rent. Literally millions of workers’ families have been thrown out of their homes. In New York City during eight months 28,000 eviction orders were issued. The mounting wave of evic- tions has grown everywhere except in those places where the workers have begun to organize in their Unemployed Councils and engage continued family Un- commit~ it ins' ad in the place of wages to keep the miners at work in the mines owned and operated by the same man who administered the Red Cross relief. The present Com- munity Chest form of relief or- ganization headed by Newton D. Baker places the control of collec- tions and distribution of relief in the hands of the Chamber of Com- merce, the bankers and employers. It is used to blackjack contribu- tions from workers employed part at time starvation wages and to bla workers active in unions, strikes and unemployed struggles. Res in mass _ resistance evictions. Thus, in Chicago, where evictions in 1931 were averaging 300 a day, the mass struggles led by the Un- employed Councils to resist evic- tions had reduced this number to about 300 a month in February, But wherever the workers ha not learned to organize and fight against evictions, they are in sist Mass Evictions nl to | ever larger numbers being thrown out of their homes. The Home Mortgage Loan passed by Congress applies only to the homes of. the well-to-do, and does not in any way prevent vast number of fore- closures upon the homes of un- employed and part time workers. Not the slightest legislative relief has been granted anywhere to preserve the homes of the unem- ployed. We Demand! 1.—Immediate federal emergency relief appropriation of $50 for each unemployed worker, man or woman, plus $10 for each dependent, in addition to existing local relief. 2.—Immediate enactment of a system of federal unemployment in- surance by the government through taxes upon wealth and income, and direct levies upon employers, providing for cach unemployed worker the average wage of his industry and locality for the full period of unem- ployment. 3.—Full an d immediate payment of the war veterans adjusted com- pensation certificates (bonus). 4.—Inpmediate cash relief to the impoverished farmers, and legisla- tion prohibiting the seizure of farms or other property for the collection of debts, rents or taxes. 5.—Federal legislation prohibiting the eviction of unemployed work- ers from their homes, and a provision of adequate housing for the homeless. 6—The administration of all relief funds through representatives elected directly by the workers and farmers through their own ogan- izations. 7.—The provision of all necessary funds for relief and insurance by direct taxes on welath and income, and the diversion of all present appropriations for war purposes. Abolition of all taxes on articles off mass consumption (sales tax, etc). Break-Up of Homes; Army of Wandering Youth The breaking up. of the homes as a result of these conditions has created a vast army of drifting un- attached men, women and chil- dren. Their number runs into the millions. Even the U. 8. Children’s Bureau has officially admitted that from 200,000 to 300,000 horneless boys are roaming the country, driven from place to place and not even allowed the starvation char- ity given the local unemployed. The past summer was marked by the appearance of homeless women sleeping in the parks. No institu- tion seems to know where they are sleeping since the advent of cold weather. The epidemic of suicides to escape the suffering arising from mass starvation has become so great that it is no longer treated as news in the daily press. . F THE gentlemen of Congress, secure in their own snug quart- ers and surrounded by the well-fed comfort of ‘their class, are still of the opinion that the delegation of the unemployed are exaggerating, they should refer to the statement of the eminently conservative and respectable Mr. Harry L. Hopkins, Chairman of the New York State emergency relief administration. Declaring on October 20th, that one million and five hundred thou- sand persons in New York State, or one in ten, were receiving re- lief, and that at least two million persons, or one in six, should be | receiving relief, Mr. Hopkins said: “The ptain fact is that the crisis is not being met. And if it is not belng met in New York City and New York State, what in the name of heayen must the unem- ployment situation be through- out the United States?” The amounts paid in relief are not enough even to furnish the bare necessities of shelter, fuel, light clothing. and to say nothing of medical aid which is no longer even attempted by the welfare agencies. The U. S. Children’s Bureau, in its Special studies of economy budgets declares that at least $5.15 for food alone is the minimum requirements for a family of three perSons. Yet this is more than twice the amount now given by most agencies, Unemployed Must Eat from Garbage Cans It has become a common sight in every city of the United States to see workers standing over the garbage pails on the street, brush- ing off pieces of food an@ putting them in old paper bags, to take hoine to their families, At South Water Market, in Chicago, at at about 2 p.m., every day, hun- dreds of hungry workers wait for the’ garbage refuse from the mar- ket. They fill bags with decaying Relief for Bankers; Charity Hunger Schemes Charity, whether public or priv- ate, is not only entirely inadequate but large amounts go to overhead, salaries and office expenses. Re- lief administration is honeycombed with graft and corruption. The unemployed and the starving have no control over the funds administered by the relief organ- izations. Relief is at times cut off entirely on a moment’s notice by order of some employer or at the whim of the charity agents who discriminate against Negrocs, against the foreign born and Growth of Terror; Denial of élementary political rights and outright political per- secution are the order of the day in unemployment demonstrations, vegetables and fruit. In Cleveland the best garbage is to be found outside a fashionable club and here the jobless workers congregate daily to rescue the half eaten food cast out by the rich. ‘This is now a typical scene in the world’s rich- est capitalist country. This is what “relief” amounts to for untold numbers of workers and their families in the United States in this coming fourth winter of the deepening crisis. against radical workers, The conditions of the entire working class and the ruined farm- ers in this period of increasing mass unemployment and the fourth winter of the worst crisis in the history of the United States, with no relief from the federal govern- ment except for the banks, railways and industrial corporations res- ponsible for the crisis, are made more intolerable by the brutal poli- tical offensive against the workers organizations as their leaders. The Negro masses suffer far more than the whites in this respect. Attack Foreign-Born eviction struggles, hunger marches and strikes against wage cuts. Courts, clubbing and gassing of workers om @ wholesale aoale has “CHNELEMELL WE ARE BEBE } become commonplace. Police, troops are called out on the slight- est excuse or without excuse. They and the gangsters have murdered both Negro and white workers, un- employed and ex-servicemen de- manding their bonus. Foreign born workers are singled out for special persecution. They are intimidated and terrorized sys- tematically by the agents of the Department of Labor and Immi- gration authorities. Secretary of Labor Doak boasts of some 30,000 deportations. This threat is held over the head of every foreign born worker active in the struggles of the unemployed and in strikes. Farmers Ruined, Starving; Swell Ranks of Unemployed Conditions of the workers in the cities are being furcher worsened by the farm crisis. The bankruptcy of the agricultural system is driv- ing large numbers of farmers into the cities to swell the ranks of the unemployed. Especially are the farmers children leaving the country districts where conditions of life have become intolerable. The disastrously low prices being paid to the farmers are in no way re- flected in the cost of living in the cities, which is maintained by the marketing monopolies at the fig- | ure only a small fraction below pre-crisis levels. Relicf for the farmers and securing them the possession of their farms become vital demands therefore for the unemployed workers also. The Un- employed Councils join with the farmers in their demand for im- mediate federal relief, stopping all | evictions and forcible collection of debts and taxes and for a joint struggle against the marketing monopolies to force up the prices of | the farmers and force down the retail prices in the cities. Growing Arm yof Permanently Unemployed The head of the Democratic Party—-President-elect Roosevelt— made promises for unemployment insurance and relief. The platform of the Democratic Party also makes vague references in favor of un- employment insurance. Large numbers of the hungry masses brought down to starvation levels by the charity relief, favoring un- employment insurance, voted for the standard-bearers of the Demo- cratic Party because they believed them to be really in favor of un- employment insurance. The hun- gry masses are demanding now that the Congress, which is con- trolled by the Democrats and the the President-elect make good the promises made during the election campaign, All the promises and talk about the return of prosperity, about im- provement of conditions, have proven to be false. It is admitted by some of the most conservative economists that should there ever be a return of prosperity—and all present signs point to a worsening of the economic conditions of the country—a very small number of the present sixteen million unem- ployed will ever find a way back into industry. The perspective is for permanent mass unemployment. on a huge scale. At present in ad- dition to the sixteen million totally unemployed, the largest number rated as employed are working only part time at greatly reduced wages as a result of the sweeping wage cuts. The percentage of part time workers ranges from 20% in mer- eantile establishments to 40 per cent in the railroad industry to 90 per cent in mining, metal and machinery, Tax Rich to Provide for Starving Millions! While the number of unemploy- ed are increasing, the number of those on the stagger system, share the work plan, is continually mounting. The policy of the federal government is to free the fich from the tax: burdens through a system of taxes upon articles of consumption and by inflation meas- ures and monopoly prices which raise the cost of living thus plac- ing additional burdens of the crisis upon the shobiders of the starving masses. The deficit of the federal govern- ment is mainly created by the huge expenditures on armaments and by the refusal to tax the rich. We propose that the fund expended for armaments be turned into the fund for unemployment insurance. We Propose that the poor be relieved from taes and that the rich with their high incomes be taxed to create the additional funds for un- employment instirance. The Unemployed Demands Upon Congress The delegations of unemployed and employed workers afsembeld in Washington on December 5th place before Congress the following demands as the neccessary imme- diate steps to preserve the lives of millions of men, women and chil- dren: 1.—Immediate federal emgrg- ency relief appropriation of 350 for each unemployed worker, man or woman, plus $10 for each dependent, in addition to exist- ing local relief. 2.—Immediate enactment of a syStem of federal unemployment insurance by the government through taxes upon wealth and income, and direct levies upon employers, providing for each unemployed worker the average wage of his industry and locality for the full period of unemploy- ment. 3.—Foll and immediate pay- ment of the war veterans ad- Only Mass Action Can: In making these demands upon Congress, the Unemployed Coun- cils and their delegation warn the masses of workers and farmers that this Congress is composed of justed compensation certificates (bonus), 4.—Immediate cash reliet to the impoverished farmers, and legislation prohibting the seizure of farms or other property for the collection of debts, rents ‘or taxes, 5.—Federal legislation prohi- biting the eviction of unemployed workers from their homes, and a provision of adequate housing for the homeless. & 6—The administration of all relief funds through represent- atives elected directly by the workers and farmers through their own organizations. 7.—The provision of all neces- sary funds for relief and insur- ance by direct taxes on wealth and income, and the diversion of all present appropriations for war purposes. Abolition of all taxes on articles of mass con- sumption (sales tax, etc). Win These Demands! representatives of their class en-. emies, whose main purpose is to preserve the property and profits of the capitalists and to put the en- tire burden of the crisis upon the UNEMPLOYM Es INSURANCE wiih te Statement is Call ee Struggle |(/ Against Hunger Offensive workers and farmers. Action on’ from Congress for the relief of the starv- ing masses can only be secured by the power of mass organization and mass action of the workers and farmers. In every case where the suffering toilers have failed to or- ganize and act for themselves, they have been left to starve in silence by all the agencies of government, local, state and national. Only the building up of strong fighting organizations, Unemployed Coun- cils, block and neighborhood com- mittees, farmers’ committees of action, city, county and state coun- clis, the rapid development of lead- ership from the ranks of the toil- ers, and the formulation of de- mands upon every governmental institution and arousing of masses in every locality to fight for these demands—only in this way will it be possible step by step to foree the greedy capitalists to give up’ some of their enormous accumu-' lations of wealth to feed the starv~ ing population. Only in this way will it be possible to force Con- gress, composed of representatives of the parties of bankers and em- ployers, to enact into law our de- mands. Only in this way will it be possible to lay the foundation for the organizations of workers and farmers with sufficient mass strength to begin the fundamental solution of the problems raised by the crisis, which requires the basic change of the entire social system and the destruction of the power of Wall Street monopolist capitalism, which rules through the present governmental institutions, to be replaced by the power of a work- ers and farmers government. NOTE. national oppression of the Nesro masses. to the white ruling class term, “nigee: treatment of Negroes which it symbolix order to paint n troe pietore of to use this term as otherwise he ers terms of respect for Negroes HE warden shook his head, “Hit’s the law, Preacher. If they ain't nobody to claim the body, fo’ burial we gotter sen’ hit to a medical school or bury in a* pauper’s field, an’ dey ain’t no nigger pauper’s field roun’ here.” “Dat boy'd sho die a lot mo’ peaceful if he figrered he'd be buried some place all whole.” “Well,” the warden said medita- tively, “I don’t know what I kon “Maybe you'd let me bury him, suh—some pleae.” “will yo’ burial society take him?” “No, suh. I reck’n not. He ain’ no member. But dey’s lot o’ lan’ ain’ bein’ used——” A PROMISE. He motioned vaguely to the sun- bakes area rolling to the swamps ‘beyond the barbed wire. “Tl tell you what I'll do, Preacher,” Bill Twine said ab- ruptly. “You tell him I'll see to hit he ain't cut up none. Maybe hit kin be arranged. That's the bes’ I kin do.” “Thank you, suh,” murmured. “Ain’ nothin’ ath the preacher to worry yo’ haid boy,” he assured Con gently. “Dey ain’ gonter sen’ you to de students if you die. Cap'n Twine jes’ promised me.” “I was scairt,” the boy whispered. “Awful scairt.” HEAVY humidity hung over the stockade. Few could sleep in the heat, and the stench of their bodies and night pots made it hard to breathe. They were wet, sticky as though hot, slimy water had been poured over them. David was stripped to the waist. The pants clung to his legs, ir- ritating them, and the spikes were monstrous things that grew out of him and were part of him now. His ankles hurt from the rubbing weight and he feared the irritation would bring shackle poison. Sam Gates had had shackle poison and he remem- bered how swollen the leg was. Sometimes, a Convict’s leg has to be cut off if the swelling gets too bad. ‘ “HE'LL BE A LITTLE LATE” Smallpox bent his massive form over the edge of the bunk. “How you, Con?” he asked. “Not so good.” “Dat doctor man’ll fix you up fine,” the nigger said cheerfully. “He'll be a li'l late w'en he do * ° NEGRO SLAVERY TODAY John L. Spivak’s Stirring Novel "GEORGIA NIGGER” “Georgia Niggee” is a amashing ©: sh they do not use. INSTALMEN are of the bideous persecution and ‘The Dally Worker is relentlessly opposed to the oppression and costempteons he author shares this view, but, it nditions, he considered it epessary e Put into the months of the boss lyneh- Ester. eee eeeene ee 30 come.” There was something terrifying in the quiet, resigned answer. A Negro cursed. Others raised them- selves on their elbows, shadowy forms staring sympathetically, Pe edie | val bie ALRIGHT. Only I git scairt sometimes,” the boy said ap- ologetically. “Hell, dey ain’ nothin’ to be scairt of! Cain’ nobody git in here to hu’t you! Lawd, you sho per- tected in dis cage!” “No, I’m scairt ev’rybody’ll go to sleep an’ leave me alone. The huge Negro dropped from his bunk, his chain rattling on the floor. | “Tl set up wid you. T cain’ sleep nohow.” He crouched at the foot of Con's bunk. “Wan’ a song, jes’ to kine o° cheer you up?” he asked. “Dat'd be fine,” the boy said, SMALLPOX SINGS. Smallpox began: * If you wanter sneeze, Tell you whut ter do— “Sing Star in de East, will you Smallpox?” Con interrupted. he huge Negro hesitated. “Sho, if dat’s whut you wan’,” he agreed. “O Jawd,” he sang: O lawd! Ain’ dey no rest fo de weary one? One star in de east, One star in de west, An’ between de two dey ain’ never no rest. Let us cross over de river, ‘Let us cross over de river, Let us cross over de river, An’ rest. Ain’ dey no rest fo’ weary one? . Hell, O lawd! de EBENEZER BASSETT was the first to join in the singing, One by one the others added their voices and those who did not know the words hummed the tune. The whites in their cage listened. The guard came out of his shack and listened. They sang for an hour, and silence again descended over the cage. ‘The lanterns on the cross smaked, Con was asleep, one hand hang- ing limply over the edge of his bunk. Smallpox crawled stealthily ‘back to his. R b es A CRY OF TERROR , A LOUD cry of terror shattered. the silence of Buzzard’s Roost, ‘The convicts awake with starts. A half-naked Negro stood trembling in the passageway, his teeth chat- tering audibly. “Ob, lawd!” he cried. . “He' A white cried daid!” A convict swore. out irritably. Trusties in tattered underwear appeared at their shack door. The guard ran to the cage shouting. $ “Hush! God damn you! What the hell's the matter in there!” “He's daid!” the Negro cried again, : . A CONVICT cursed angrily, A voice added a rebellious cry and then another. It seemed that they had been waiting for some= thing like that frightened shriek in the darkness to loosen the floods with cries and shouts and bitter oaths. The guard bellowed for them to quiet, but his voice was lost in the rising bedlam. White and black, the convicts went mad in a delirium of expression. Cat-catss mingled with screams and curs Some found their shoes and a on the iron doors or A on the bars. The noise could: be heard half a mile away. Bill Twine, pistol in hand, came running in his underwear, swear- ing luridly. His paunch wabbled. furiously and his jowls shook. “Git ‘im out o’ herel” a volce cried from the Negro cage. “Stop that noise!” the warden roared. “Stop it, or Til stretch -evewy damn one o’ you!” ‘ . Senthoat Tomarnag: of their emotions. The cages filled | if |