The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 24, 1933, Page 5

PLLIS: A | The Vital Chapter from Ilyin ‘RED 3? Co ARLIS) Al “WORK IN USSR By WALT CARMON | ead ELLIS will telf'‘you that he first received major recognition as an artist when in the’ course of his work as a sign painter he fell from the sixth story of a’bailding on to a cement sidewalk, breaking, every bone in his body.. He tells.this with a! twinkle in his eye, but, also with a Great deal.of warmth for the com-j radely appreciation -be.received then. He will also tell you-of.another fall he had fromthe fifth floor, With an engaging smile he recalls: “For some fool reasonwI walked off. the scaflold- ing backwards: I lauded on the can- vas top of a-passing*milk wagon and bounced off :t6 the ground unhurt.” | That was all in the<day’s work. | At that time, he was known as an) artist mostly amongnthe workers of | Chicago, ere he was born and FRED ELLIS (Drawn by Jacob Burck) that confuse Ups worker, He is con- raised; and where he drew cartoons for the trade union, Socialist and I, W. W. papers. He‘herdly dreamed that he was known beyond the limits of his city. Fe “Reed Stayed a Lotz’ While” This is what he thought as he lay mm the hospital in a ‘plaster cast, every bone broken.’ Many workers came to the hospital tb’ see him— sign painters, stockyard“ Workers and others, his comradé Then Art ‘Young, one of the leadjng revolu- tionary artists of his jday, passing from New York to Chicago came to seo hint. He had always admired EVjs’ work, watched it ¢losely. Robert | Minor, perhaps the greatest living) Political cartoonist, also came to offer him encouragement to get well, to ocontinue his valuable services to the working *class. Elis often tells how much’ these visits by’ two great artists ‘meant *to him. And he is particularly ‘proud of the fact that John Reed came to see him at this times “Reed stayed for a| leng while,” Ellis recalls: ‘He talked 01 his writing/how he was coming to the conclusion that “writers would haye to learn from the «cartoonist how to tell their storybriefiy, direct- ly. to reach a-great number of work- He planned then,"vEllis contin- ued, “to experiment witha series of brief. paragraphs instead of short stories. ‘A kind of literary cartoon idea,’ he called it.” 3 Today, after many years’ of service as an artist. in the-.revolutionary movement, through his. work in the Likerator, Workers’ Monthly, Labor Defender. Daily Worket-and many ether publications, MHis:is known far beyond the limits of:Ohicago. There is scarcely -a. revolutionary publica- tion in any country. Which has not reproduced his drawitts. - Worker All His Life Ellis comes of 2 workingclass fam- ily.. He has-been a<‘werker all his life. As a-proletarian- artist, and be- eeuse cf the deep lovéshe has for the class from.which he sprung, he has much in common with-Zille, revolu- | tionary artist. of .Germany. He worked in the stockyards-of Chicago, in Upton: Sinclair's Jungle; and took part in the-strike of 1905. During the long strike he etiended art school for four month he only art training he has receivéd. Then he became a sign painter. As an achive member of his trade union, he forked at this dangerous — Gccupatioh for twenty years, He painted signs on buildings and smoke stacks at great heights. In the evenings he perfgeted his art. ‘He has drawn for bourgeois publi- eations only once—three anti-war drawings he sold long before the world war. “My only, recognition in the bourgeois art world? he calls it. Asked why he does not draw oftener for bourgeois publications, he will tell you he has no time, Revolution- ary publications have’Sdbsorbed all his energy. He is in the forties now, His head is prematurely gray,,buthe looks ten tent with telling a direct story in pictures drawn simply, strongly. He is an expert craftsman. Robert Minor describes some of his drawings in the Red Cartoons sereis as equal to the best drawings done by Daumier, A book of drawings done by Ellis in Moscow will soon be issued here in book form. He is also busy on a series of drawings for the exhibition to be held on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the Red Army. Mean- while many of his drawings are now being shown at the International Ex- hibition of Revolutionary Artists at the Museum of Western Art in Mos- cow. But Ellis will tell you that all this | is “on the side.” “I’ve got a job,” he says. He must do his cartoons for Trud, where he is staff artist and where its thousands of readers are looking for the work of “Toyarishtch” Ellis, “Tell me,” I asked Ellis, while he carefully touched up a cartoon he was working on, “what comment has there been in the Soviet press on the work you have done here. I know the press has discussed your work. I also know that workers have writ- ten in to your paper about it.” “Well,” he replied in a slow, pleas- ing drawl. “I got a few letters from workers pointing out deviations in some of my drawings. And once I got a serious reprimand on my job.” He wasn’t joking now. * Robert Minor, great judge of art as Well as great artist, once called Mllis “the least appreciated genius in America.”* But that was a long time ago. He is known and loved now by workers in all sections of the world. “Note by Robert Minor: What I really said was “Fred Ellis is that genius of America who is least appre- ciated by himself’—a reference to Fred’s modesty as well as to his talent. A.A.U. Backed Attack on Labor Sports Meet The Labor Sports Union has def- initely established the fact that the Amateur Athletic Union, leading bourgeois sport body, is behind the smashing of the L. S. U. wrestling meet by the police last Saturday night, As a basis for their action, the police showed a letter to a L. 8. U. representative, sent by the State Athletic Commission, requesting the Police to investigate the wrestling meet and referring them to the A. A. U. for further action. The an- Swer given by the A. A..U. can be Harb from the action of the po- ice. Tt has been decided, to go through with the wrestling meet in spite of Police attacks. All workers’ and workers’ organ- izationg are urged to support the L. S. U. in its struggle against the Amateur Athletic Union and its po- lice allies by demanding of Commis- years younger. He has q delightful sense of humor and his‘stories of the reformist’ trade unionto which he had to belong in hisrtrade in Chicago are gems of story telling. Despite his views, he was liked so well in his union that he ied onee Broposed = the ition o! ‘agent. “! declined,” he says. “fouldn't shoot that straight.” In the American rev- olutionary movement ‘thére is hardly @ person better liked, @4%G.more loyal] _ personal friehds. s'. genuine per-| I’m an old farmer sonal warmth is in his|a@ Negro farmer drawings. : Ae in Mecklenburg County in North Indefatiguable Artist Carolina. Ellis has drawn for the American Daily Worker since 1924. Many of his cartoons.have been particularly effective in struggle. The packing house workers of Omaha sent for five thousand_copies.of one issue of the Daily Worker because of a car- toon by Ellis. His dgily cartoons at the height of the struggle to free Sacco and Vanzetti were inspired.His | best work has been collected in the books “The Case of Sacco and Van- zetti in Cartoons by Fred Ellis” and in the yearly “Red Cartoons,” books which were issued for five years. For two weeks in 1930 he drew car- toons for Rote Fahne in Berlin, on his way to the Soviet Union. Russian workers knew the work of Fred Ellis long before he arrived, His Amer- ican cartoons were reptifted widely in the Soviet Union, In Mocow he was for a while on the staff of Prayda (Truth). Since-then his work has appeared in the Leriifgrad Prav- da, Komsomolskaya__.(Komsomol— _ Young Communist League—Truth) “Pravda, Leningrad Krsnaya Gazeta) (Red Gazette), the Moscow Daily) News and many other publications. He hss done scores of posters. He thas illustrated Mary Heaton Vorse'’s sioner Bolan that police keep hands off L. 8. U. meets, My landlord the owner plantation’s the biggest in Mecklenburg County in North Carolina. My landlord he told me “Nigger look here, you'll have a home long as I live in Mecklenburg County tn North Carolina.” My landlord he told me “Build up your cottage, this is your home, be proud for to build it, and dig you a well, Isn't it your home even as my home? Pay for the digging, pay for the well, you'll be the one who'll pleasure himself with water you draw from well that you dig in Mecklenburg County in North Carolina.” I been paying that boss two hundred a year, said boss other day “Nigger look here, you're old as the county, you're no-account, nigger”— I worked for that fellow full twenty-five year— “You'll have to get out and hunt you a home” i \ Ellis’ best work has been done for ‘Trud (Labor), Moscow daily of the Red Trade Unions. 4s at home here. He understands the problems ° of the trade, union. workers, their struggles, their, friends, and their en- . His hold, sure limes, the sim- plicity and directness ,of his idea‘ hip bitter satire and mellow humor, all are incentive to struggle against the capitalism whichhe hates and exposes unmercifully,; “oz A worker, Ellis knqws:his fellow- workers. He has little patience with art “modernisms” and mannerisms _in Mecklenburg County in North Carolina? “Nigger don’t agk me. that's a nigger's affair!” That was my notice to dress up and go By M. ILYIN. 1. Work and People ‘HO is it that is making the world | over again? Human labor is creating labor |afresh under our very eyes. Man is | dividing continents by canals, dig- |ging new river beds, making tunnels | through mountains, planting forests, | creating new raw materials and new kinds of plants and animals. | Mankind has something to be proud | of. But is this really so? Are people really alway$ proud of their handi- | work? Take for instance a country jlike the United States. It was the | United States that made the Panama \Canal and divided America into North and South. The greatest fac- | tory in the world—the Gary Metal | Works—is to be found in the United States. It is in the United States |that automobiles are turned out by the thousand every day, just as pins are turned out by the paper and pencils by the gross, Let us visit any American plant. Look at the workers—there they are, the con- querors of nature. They work in silence, not exchanging so much as @ word or a smile with their neigh- hors. “We have scarcely any personal communication, People do what they have to do and go home—a factory is not a drawing room.” Thus Henry Ford, American auto- mobile magnate. Are Ford’s workers proud of turn- ing out thousands of automobiles and tractors every day? After all, every automobile is speed,created by human effort. I have not spoken to any of Ford's workers, but I don’t believe they're proud of their handiwork. How could they be? They are the serv- ants not the masters, they are noth- ing but the docile exponents of an- other’s will. A Ford worker has no idea what is going on in the neighboring work- shop, and if he asks he is not told. He does not know the plans of the administration, why some lathes are Substituted for others, why he is cal- led upon to do this today, that to- morrow. He does not even know what is going on at the other end of the work-shop. He has no time to go and see. He’s been given his work and this job demands his whole time and attention. 2. Working Hands and Working Heads The expression “hands” was in- vented by the bosses. For them a worker is nothing but a pair of hands. It is as if horses were called “feet”. For the boss the principal thing in a worker is his hands, and his ten fingers, not his head or his brain. The industrialist does not need the worker's head, or scarcely needs it. “Most of our workers have never been to technical school. They learn their work in a few hours or in a few days.” Henry Ford again. A man with a brain and the power to think and reason, is forced to do a task that scarcely requires learn- ing, that could be done by a weak- minded person or an idiot. “AS a result of investigations into the basic laws of assembling ma- chinery, it has been found possible to reduce the demands made upon the mental capacity of the worker.” That sotinds very scientific. In simpler language: “Under the new regulations for assembling machin- ery, stupid and slow-witted workers may be employed.” : THER we read: “Whenever pos- sible the worker performs one and the same task with one and the same movement. One of the least exact- ing functions in our work consists in a man picking up a piece of ap- paratus with a steel hook, dipping Mecklenburg County By HARRY ALAN POTAMKIN (A Poem based on Worker Correspondence to the Daily Worker) from house that I built from well that I dug from years I have slaved whence now TI have come, oh whence have I come? whither to go? Negro worn out not too worn to know man outraged like me must fight outrage so: as he built him the house that was taken from him, as he dug him the well tha was taken from him, as he slaved him the years full twenty-five year in Mecklenburg County in North Carolina. What then to do? how then to do? Mecklenburg farmer he joins him the croppers the union of farmers tenant and cropper men destituted of home and of well of cow and of cotton of ‘bacco on leaf in fields they have nursed. The maul will cross with the blade of the The maul will the fingers of gteed, the blade will cut to the roots of our need, and the farmer will sow his harvest-seed, and the ranks will grow, and the cropper go as the worker go, where the Party lead and overthrow who take from us home and take from us well and take of us years then send us to hell with mouth that abuses and threat of the noose in Mecklenburg County in North Caroling plow. Primer” Suppressed 4 by WU | Houghton-Mifflin Omitted SignifieantContrast | Between Capitalist and Socialist Society | it into a barrel of oil and placing in- ; to a basket at his side. The move- ments are always identical. He al- | ways finds the apparatus in the! |same place, always the same num- | ber of rotations in the oil, and re- places the machinery in the same | place. For this neither muscular strength nor intelligence is required.| | All he has to do is to make gentle| backward and forward movements of his hands. | Do the workers like this system? | “We had one worker who had to |make a single movement of his foot |day after day. He was convinced) that this movement made him one- jSided, although medical investiga-| | tion showed that this was not so. | He was, of course, given other work, | in which another group of muscles was employed.” ‘We read in an American paper: | “The most valuable»person in a work- shop containing automatic machin- ery, is the man without imagination, the man whose development is under the average.” It might have been thought that! automatic machines were invented not in order to make automatons of | men, but in order that man should work less with his hands and more with his head. Every inventor be- lieves that the ‘machine he has in- vented will free mankind from yet another onerous and tedious process of labor. Onerous and tedious labor is to be transferred from man to the machine. ‘That’s how it ought to be. But in America the opposite has come to pass. In a workshop with automatic machinery man himself becomes an automaton. Instead of freeing man- kind from onerous labor it makes the | labor still more onerous. ' oe 3. The Dead Against the Living Ultimately man becomés one of the machines in an American fac- tory. Some machines are animate, some are inanimate. And very often the inanimate steals the work from the animate. Every new machine, every new invention throws thou- sands of workers on the streets. One man in a glass works ean make three thousand bottles an hour. Formerly this used to employ 77 persons. This means that every bottle making ma- chine puts 76 human beings out of work, EVEN CONVICTS DRAW IN RUSSIA, SCULPTOR SAYS Minna Harkavy Reveals How the Masses Are Erioour- aged in Art. RETURNS AFTER 2 YEARS Soyiet Only Government That Aids Talented Stude NY She Asserts. “th wo RiD- Tee By MARGUERITE YOUNG, World-Telegrant Stafj Writer. Minna Harkavy, firtt Amerlean |) ‘Sculptor invited by the Soviet govy ernment to exhibit in Russia, re- turned today on the DeGrasse with an enthusiastic story of the new art —an art which {s developing, she | sald. in jails and factories as well ag in schools. the theatres, she related, and‘heard ‘Tschaikowsky and Beethoven in the concert halls. She saw “many, many” exhibits of simple still-lifes. ‘The Russian masses stand still in Ine to see Lenin's tomb, she -re- ported whén asked whether they ‘were a curious people. Denies Morbid. “Morbid?” an’ interviewer asked? “Oh, no, she laughed. “that's a weird idea.” ‘The mootquestion of proletarian art shé partied, as she did many - Others about food shortages, etc. But she related:— . i “Russia _is theo lent, is sem yvernment, —majnialed ind pand Tike any ¢ Tether peaoes, ne arise (full fledged) _m s he wa FUTURE OF CULTURE. SEEN AS UNCERTAIN) Writers, Scholars, Scientists Discuss Subject Under the Auspices of Nations League. IN MADRID | SYMPOSIUM ate Too Much Standardization Is Held te Endanger Art and Originality. - “The Future of Culture" was the subject of a recent symposium in ;| Madrid to which many of the ‘world’s most distinguished writers, cholars and sclentists contribyted houghts ting war summoned by The stories from the capitalist press which flatly contradicts each other “Future of Culture As Un- certain,” says the New York Times, while the New York World-Tele- ef reports that “Even Con- ‘The dead are squeezing out the living. The dead are fighting the living. corti “Machines afecifcreasing and mul- tiplying, thereé<are more and more of them, We-Haye nourished them ourselves, and’now they are hem- ming us in liké Wild and dangerous beasts, and we are in their power.” After this, could a living machine, a living automaton, love his work? DAILY WORKER. NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 1933 s “New Russia’s S. Publishers embankment, to pace the town all day looking for a job and to get the same reply wherever you go: work.” Better the dullest, most intolerable work than unemployment. There are people who do not fear unemployment. These are people with plenty of money. Such people can get on without working. don’t have to work. They are free from the penalty of hard labor. And so they are envied. Ask a bank clerk, what is his fond- “No | They | Page Five LALKS.OF LENIN SHOW HIS ESTEEM FOR CLARA ZETKIN The following is taken from “Reminiscences of Lenin”, by Clara Zetkin, 76-year old veteran German Communist leader, whose death in Moscow was reported Wednesday, The capitalist press—including the New York Times, Evening Post and the socialist “Forward”—all joined in creating the impression that Comrade Zetkin had been inactive since the time when she took 2 prominent part in the formation of the Com- munist International, The following discussion between her and Lenin on the role of the working women in the revolutionary movement is an indication of the high esteem in which Comrade Zetkin was helé by Lenin.—Editorial Note. * tt dream? Nine out of 10 will reply: © get rich and live without work- Would you undertake such work if it}ing.” In schools they teach chil- MRADE LENT re e =} is offered you--the work of a docile| dren that “idleness is a sin.” But if| CE zi eaeeny me tool, the work df an instrument ih|the teacher himself comes into| — t0 me about the women’s ques- another's hand? * I know what you will answer. Such work can only be hated. 4. Why Do They Go On | Working Then? | Why then do. these American workers go on Working, if they hate their work ant{;if {bis work that no- | body could help hating? Why don’t they leave the factories? Some of them do, and become tramps, thieves, bandits, burglers. It sometimes happens that these thieves and bandits, uniting in a powerful band, terrorize whole towns, great big! towns like Chicago. But there are~ not these. " ! What about the-rest? | The rest fear nothing in the world So Mmych as losing the work they de- test. To be without work means to} be without lodging, without fuel, without food.. To be without work means to spend.the night on a bench in a square, or.on the steps of the! so many of money, do you think he will go on| tion. He attached very great im- beni in the rin ike trad portance to the women’s movement will throw aside like so much rubbis! . i i ¥ his schoolbooks and equipment and as an essential part, in certain cir- live at his leisure, Not long ago 1 | cumstances as a decisive part of the Tead a novel by W. G. Locke on this} Mass movement. Social equality for | very subject. The hero had not the; Women was, of course, a principle slightest intention of going on teach-| needing no discussion for Commu- ing after he came into money. ‘Thousands of human beings work only in order to be able to live with- out working. Tf one has money one can become | the owner or owners of a factor’ 9 railway, a business concern, and make others work for one, without working oneself. that people fight each other so bit- terly for money. (LO BE CONTINUED) * This chapter which appeared in the original version published in the Soviet Union, was omitted from the American edition of the book pub- lished- under the title of “Soviet Russia’s Primer.” MOVIE REVIEWS SONG OF THE EAGLE NE of the current batch of films that is concerned with “historical analysis” and” the ‘solution of social | problems. Historical analysis: the crisis was brought on by the pro-| hibition amendment. Solution: take | all the brave unemployed ex-ser- | vicemen; put thém to work beating up the gangsters who are trying to muscle in onthe legitimate beer business, thereby. eliminating the racketeer whois poisoning our “civilization”; “them set all the vet- erans to work in the breweries. Presto! the solution of the problems of unemployment, gangsterism, de- flation, inflation, ete. The new deal is on; and the banker-controlled Hollywood moyies are giving us a) new deal and a good deal of rank- smelling, demagogic horse manure. —L, T. HURWITZ * PRIVATE JONES this is “undoubtedly one of! the best pictures on the war that| have recently-come out of Holly- wood, it nevertheless suffers badly from the same defect that usually mars all war ‘filfis, and that is the presence of comedy relief, so-called, | to interrupt the» reality of a situa-| tion. However; Private Jones gives| expression forthe first time in) American films to what the rank and file soldier actually felt and was sometimes not afraid to say, about) the late war. Unemployed even in| 1917, and drafted against his will, Private Jones =brings to the battle-| field a hatred against his superior} officers that Keeps him peeling pota-| toes from the beginning to the end of the war, except when in the trenches. | ‘The Private, of course, is a lone disser ° *) the reqiment and is not} taken <. jou ly by the other soldiers, who look upen hit as a shirker and a comedian, as though the producers wanted to give the impression that the ere of Jones was one in a mil- lion. In fac:} "all through the pic- ture the rebélliousness of Jones is counteracted by the pure and patri- otic motives of the dashing Lieuten- ant—the heto of: the picture. But the real story of the war will never come out of Hollywood. Only when the root of war—the capitalist sys- tem’ itself—is smashed by the work- ers, will we have an American war film from the tank and filers point of view that will make Private Jones seem thin and watery in comparison. —DAVID PLATT, eee GREAT JASPER the beginning of this picture, Jasper, a. horse-car conductor militant against. the coming street car which will doom most of the conductors to. idleness, suddenly be- trays his fellowmen and runs the first street car out of the barn simply to please the wife of the company owner—thereby making _ himself Superintendent. Simple Hollywood dialectics—can>be used in any film showing the rise of workers to posi- tions of prominence, particularly when bosses’ wives have plenty of sex appeal. This, then, is the scoun- drel in whose affairs of the heart, crooked deals, we are asked to sym- pathize. A typical product of the degrading capitalist system, under which it is impossible to rise with- out stepping om many necks, Jasper meets all kinds of obstacles (these are days of the crisis) on his way to success and-finally winds up as a fortune teller in Atlantic City, where he continues his‘career of blackmail and hypocrisy, until death. But, looked at from'a worker's point of view, the causes ‘of Jasper’s scabbery become very clear; The same sys- tem that deprives: hundreds of work- ers of jobs every time machinery is invented to do the work in half the time and sets workers against one by fostering racial and en- differences, also tries to buy off the most militant ones with higher paid jobs, ete, as a buffer against the rank’ and file. This is called by the” capitalists—‘oppor- tunity for advantement.” Today the working class is begin- ning to speak and act as a class in ‘era victs Draw in Russia.” their own interests and woe to the scab who dares to go against the will of that class! D. P. WORKING MAN ‘HE latest Warner Brothers-Arliss atrocity is no different from all the other so-called depression pana- ceas films. For an hour and a half in this film, Arliss spreads his sick- lening sweet smile and success “phil-| Without them we should not have} osophy” all over the scwen. This version of the Millionaire (Arliss is always playing millionaire parts to show workers how by industry and hard work it is possible to make one’s pile) tells about an old shoe manufacturer who solves the depres- sion by “hard and honest work.” Be- lieve it or not—hard or honest: work. A senator once made a statement in congress during a speech, also to the effect that work was the only solu- tion to unemployment, and was wildly applauded. So there must be something in it. We pass this in- teresting bit of information on to the 17,000,000 unemployed, in the hope that they will see the ight of the old shoe manufacturer, and thus help end the depression. Sounds simple? It really is—if workers organized and drove out the parasites that make jobs impossible, and films like WORKING MAN possible. —I. LERNER. And therefore it is| | nists. It was in Lenin’s large study |in the Kremlin in the autumn of | 1920 that we had our first long con- versation on the subject. Lenin sat} ‘at his writing table which, covered| with papers and books, spoke of idy and work without displaying "the disorder of genius.” “We must create a powerful in- | ternational women’s movement, on a | clear theoretical basis,” Lenin began |the conversation after having greet- jed me. “There is no good. practice | without Marxist theory, that is clear.| |The greatest clarity of principle is| | Necessary for us Communists in this} | question. There must be a sharp dis- | | tinction between ourselves and all jother parties... .” | | I was filled with enthusiasm about| | the work done by Russian women in| | the revolution and still being done} |by them in its defense and further | | development. And as for the posi- tion and activities of women com- |rades in the Bolshevik Party, that seemed to me a model Party. It] |alone formed an International Com- |munist Women’s Movement of use- | ful, trained and experienced forces | and a historical example. | | | “That is right, that is all very true! jand fine,” said Lenin, with a quiet} |smile. “In Petrograd, here in Mos- | cow, in other towns and industrial) jeenters the women workers acted splendidly during the revolution. | | been victorious. Or scarcely so. That is my opinion. How brave they were, how brave they still are! Think of all the suffering and deprivations they bore. And they are carrying on because they. want freedom, want |Communism. Yes, our proletarian women are excellent class fighters. | | They deserve admiration and love... *| “The energy, willingness and en- thusiasm of women comrades, their GETS EVICTION NOTICE, KILLS SELF EVANSVILLE, Ind. — Charles 8S. Scheer, 72, unemployed for the past four or five years, shot and killed himself after receiving an eviction notice. Scheer was formerly em- Ployed as custodian at Garvin Park | and as janitor of Delaware School. “Kid Johnny” By JOHN ADAMS NEW YORK—They call him “Kid Johnny,” but it is no kidding when Johnny Martin leads a delegation of zs into the Home Relief Bureau work iat Spring and Elzabeth Streets. They know this 20-year-old fighter. For three years, since that historic | March 6, 1930, Johnny has been in the forefront of the fight of the lower Eest Side workers against evictions, for relief and unemployment insur- ance. He was in the forefront when the cossacks of Whalen and Mayor Walker thundered into Union Square, trampling men, women and children under their mounts’ hoofs, More than 100,000 workers had gathered to domand Unemployment Insurance. In a few months Johnny Martin was a fighting worker in the day-to- day struggles that developed since They have a cop named Jerry at Spring and Elizabeth Streets. stays in the H. R. B. and throws workers out. When he sees Johnny coming, he tries to scare him out. But a couple of times, forty or fifty families that came with him have shown J the error of his ways. He | M re CLARA ZETKIN courage and wisdom in times of i- legality. or semi-legality indicate good prospects for the development of our work. They are valuable factors in extending the Party and increasing its strength, in winning the masses ‘and carrying on our activities. But what about the training and clarity of principle of these men and women comrades? It is of fundamental im~ portance for work among the mass- es. It is of great influence on what closely concerns the masses, how they can be won, how made enthusiastic. I forget for the moment who said: ‘One must be enthusiastic to accom- plish great things.’ We and the toil- ers of the whole world have really” great things to accomplish. So what makes your comrades, the proletar- ian women of Germany, enthusiastic? What about their proletarian class consciousness; are their interests, their activities concentrated on im- mediate political demands? What is the mainspring of their ideas? » RP HAVE heard some peculiar things on this matter from Russian and German comrades. I must tell you. I was told that a talented woman Communist in Hamburg, is publish- ing a paper for prostitutes and that she wants to organize them for the revolutionary fight. Rosa acted and felt as 8 Communist when in am ar- ticle she championed the cause of the prostitutes who were imprisoned for any transgression of police regula- tions in carrying on their dreary trade. They are, unfortunately, doubly sacrificed by bourgeois society. First by its accursed property system, and secondly by its accursed moral hy-~ pocrisy. That is obvious. Only he who is brutal or ited can | forget it. But still, that is not at jall the same @s considering prostitutes—how shall I put it?—to be a special revolutionary militant section, as organizing them and pub- jlishing a factory paper for them, Aren’t there really any other work- |iug women in Germany to organize, for whom a paper can be issued, who must be drawn into your struggles? |The other is only a diseased excres- | cence, | “Tt reminds me of the literary fash- ion of painting every prostitute! as a sweet Madonna. The origin of that was healthy, too: social sym- pathy, rebellion against the virtuous hypocrisy of the respectable bour- |geois. But the healthy part became corrupted and degenerate. Besides, Not Seared of Jail the question of prostitutes will give rise to many serious problems here, |"Take them back to productive work, bring them into the social economy. | That is what we must do. But it is |a difficult and a complicated task | to carry out in the present conditions Johnny has been in jail. That doesn’t worry him. They have ar- {rested him, but he goes on fighting. |The youth of the workers are in the |fght. They supply such fighting | oF our economic life and in all the leaders as Johnny Martin. More and | prevailing circumstances, There you more they turn to the militant fight | have one aspect of the women's prob- against hunger and evictions, the way | jem which after the seizure of power ef. the Unemployed Councils by the proletariat, looms large before As Johnny says: “What else can! ys and demands a practical solution. |we do? We've got to fight until we|r3t will give us a ereat deal of work win. We can’t win everything that|here in Soviet Russia. But to go we want, but we will some day, and | back to your position in Germany. in the meanime we win concessions the bosses of New York, through their | mouthpiece Walker, told them “to/ eat ice cream.” Meet Near Piled-Up Furniture Johnny joined the Young Commu- nist League. He organized young workers of Ninth Street, Tenth Street and other blocks of the East Side “Lancashire: The ‘Classic Soil’ of into eviction fighters. Capitalism” is the title of the sec- When the marshal’s crew comes|ond chapter in a book called The today, the workers go to Johnny in | Conditions of the Working Class in the headquarters of the Unemployed | Britain, just issued by International Council at 95 Avenue B. He goes Publishers. This chapter is of back with them and the Block Com- |Special imterest to American textile e n: treet holds | Workers, many of whom, at least in Doane Wie ek Hie turni.|the lower New England district, were from the bosses and landlords.” Book Notes , By ROBERT DUNN ture. Brushing aside the police and mar- shal, the furniture goes right back into the old apartment. Whsn the Block Committee says there will be no evictions, they mean it! Won't Be Bullied Down at the Home Relief Bureau on Spring and Elizabeth Street, Mr. Bevins knows and fears Johnny. He tried to scare him last week by boast- ing what he did to Sam Gonshak. “He told me that he guessed this weuld stop us,” Johnny told me. “T told him thet it wovld do no such thing. That we East Side workers were going to fight until we got Sam Gonshak out. We organized three new block committees and one big youth committee since Sam was framed,” he said. “How does the Unemployed Coun- cil fight for the workers at the Home Relief Bureau,” he was asked. “The Council doesn’t fight for the workers but provides a program whereby they can fight. When I or any other comrades lead a group ot families to the H. R. B. it is only to give them the benefit of our ex- perience. We know the red tape and how to expose it and get action.” |born in British textile towns, coming |to the U.S. later to secure jobs in| the mills here, | Cotton capitalism is analyzed by| | Allen Hutt, author of the book, and his indictment of conditions in Eng- land applies equally to the textile| | magnates of the United States. The over-capitalization of the British spinning and weaving companies is | similar to that apparent in many big} companies here, such as the Amos-| keag. Competitive chaos on the market-| ing side of the cotton business is de-| scribed, the author citing an esti- mate that more than $46,000,000 is the normal annual post-war toll “ex- tracted by these superfluous gentry (cotton brokers, yarn and cloth agents, shippers and so forth).” * MOSCOW SPY TRIAL BOOKS REACH U. 8. While it takes many months for the average American publisher to produce a book, the Soviet state pub- lishing house rushed through the} 8-volume proceedings of the sensa-| tional spy trial of English engineers in Moscow in a month and they are now being sold in America by Amk- ‘The Party must not in any circum- stances calmly stand by and watch | such mischievous conduct on the part of its members. It creates confusion and divides the forces.” | Marriage in Bourgeois Society | I interrupted nere, saying that the |question of sex and marriage in a bourgeois society of private property, involve many problems, conflicts and |much suffering for women of all so- | cial classes and ranks. The war, and its consequences had greatly accen- tuated the conflicts and sufferings |of women in sexual matters, had | brought to light problems which were formerly hidden from them. To that were added the effects of the revolu- tion. The old world of feeling and thought had begun to totter. Old social ties are entangling and break- ing, there are the tendencies towards new ideological relationships between man and man. The interest shown in these questions is an expression of the need for enlightenment and reorientation. It also indicates a re- action against the falseness and hy- pocrisy of bourgeois society. Forms of marriage and of the family, in their historical development: and depend= ence upon economic life, are calcu« lated to destroy the superstition ex- isting in the minds of working wome en concerning the eternal character of bourgeois society. A critical, his- torical attitude to those problems must lead to a ruthless examination of bourgeois society to a disclosure of its real nature and effects, includ- ing condemnation of its sexual mor= ality and falseness. All roads lead to Rome. And every real Marxist analysis of any important section of the ideological superstructure of s0- ciety of a predominating social phen- omenon, must lead to an analysis of bourgeois society and of its property niga Corp., 258 Fifth Ave., New York City, basis, must end in the realization, “this must be destroyed.” » piprsmenleay ae, \