The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 11, 1933, Page 1

= Give a Fellow-Worker Your Copy of the ‘Daily’ When You Are Thru With it. Discuss the News With Him! be Daily (Section of the Communist International ) Vol, X, No. 165 <s Eatered ne secend-cines matier at the Port Office at Mow York, M. Y., eméer the Act of March 3, 1078. “NEW YORK, TUESDAY, JULY 11 1933 orker ist Party U.S.A. In Saturday’s Issue—A Short Story Dramatically Pertraying The Fight for Relief in New York; Also Other Features THE WEATHER—Today, fair; contiomed warm; light, westerly winds, CITY EDITION City Had $24,000,000 Excess Cash As Relief Stopped; Workers Demand Estimate Board Vote Funds Today! The Richest City Dooms [Bread Prices Raised. a Million to Starvation ii cold blood, not giving a thought to the million men, women and chil- dren who will remain without food, the Mayor and city officials stop- ped all relief. When they made this decision, they knew that aside from the billion dollar budget of the city, there was an additional $24,000,000 ‘nusable cash on hand which could easily have been used for this emer- gency. Yet they did not do it. Why? Capitalist governments have developed the idea to call the city offi- cials—“city fathers.” These servamts of the bankers are not “city fath- rs.” They are watchdogs in office to protect the millions of the rich. They are city murderers who wantonly destroy the lives of our little ehildren. They will stoop to any level in order to assure that the bankers’ | interests are safe-guarded. The Board of Estimate meets today. The Mayor who talked over the relief situation with Governor Lehman in the surroundings of the Governor’s half-million dollar mansion does not intend to change this plan. On the contrary, he proposes a Sales Tax, a tax on everything that makes up our life needs. A tax that will add another empty space in the food basket. A tax to pay bankers’ interest. ‘What the unemployed demand is a tax on the rich to create a fund te be used for unemployment relief. ITY officials say “what shall we do in this emergency”? We'll tell you. First, vote today that the $24,000,000 be immediately appropriated for relief, Second, last year you repaid $578,050,000 for temporary loans alone. Stop paying @ the bankers. Start paying for Unemployment relief. Third, take up the demands of the Unemployed Councils and the workers’ re- presentatives which will be presented to you today. Committees of workers elected throughout the city will appear before the Board of Estimate today. They will represent us just as the Board of Estimate will represent the bankers. They will demand that no relief be stopped, no cuts in pay on wotk reef jobs, no closing up of the Home Relief Buros. But the final decision on relief will not be given today. It depends upon our forces to decide this. Is there a father who will accept Tam- many’s decision for his children? Is there a mother who will stand by to see her little ones starve? Is there a worker who will not respond with | his full might to fight to the bitter end against this attack? ‘Therefore, set up committees in your neighborhoods, on your block, build the Unemployed Councils all over, take this question up in your trade union local, fraternal and sick and death benefit society, workers’ club, everywhere where ,workers are. Adopt resolutions, demand an end to this starvation decision. Demand that every worker be given relief. Rally, today at all relief buros! Resist, the closing of relief stations! Fight against the stoppage of relief payments! Strike against cats in work-relief wages! _ “Pacifist” Navy Building ‘LAUDE A. Swanson, Secretary of the Navy in Roosevelt's cabinet, in an interview yesterday, declares himself a pacifist. How does this pacifist express his peaceful aims? He expresses them in his announcement that he will build a United States navy “second to none”. ‘This is no mere wish. The Federal budget for this year gives him oyer haif a billion dollars with which to do it. Swenson was one of the Amerlewn delegates to the Disarmament Conference. With a long record as a “big navy” man, he made hypo- critical proposals for naval reduction, carefully formulated to weaken America’s imperialist rivals without weakening American naval power. Now all disarmament talk is openly thrown overboard. Swanson throws it overboard in the name of pacifism! His argument is simple: Let American imperialism be powerful enough, and it can bluff its rivals and plunder the colonial and oppressed coun- tries in peace. 1 This is Roosevelt's “peace” formula on the international front. No unemployment insurance, a half billion cut in payments to the veterans, billions to the bankers, and billions to the arms manufacturers— all, no doubt, to insure peace on earth, N August 1 the workers of every country will demonstrate against war and for the defense of the Soviet Union. . They will reaffirm the way of heroic mass struggle as the only way by which imperialist war, a greater danger now than at any time since 1914, can be postponed. In reaffirming the revolutionary way against war, a prime task of the workers is to expose “pacifists” of the Swanson big navy stripe, and with him all “pacifists’” of whatever color, who help out the erg:- getic preparations for another world-wide blood bath of imperialism wth a cloud of lying phrases about “peace”. « Lives of Jobless in Danger T one. swoop, 1,100,000 are cut off from ali relief in New York City. Relief is cut in Chicago, with the city officials brazenly telling the workers they should consider themselves lucky because the smaller amount. of groceries 1s really worth more due to inflation. Wholesale slashes in relief is the outcome of the Roosevelt, program. The lopping off of reifef at this critical time of higher bread prices is made, say the city authorities, because they can't get the money to pay. Take New York for example. The city officials last year without diffi- culty found $500,000,000 to pay bondholders, to pay bankers, to pay loans from rich parasites. But when it comes to relief—money is missing. . oe T= Position of the unemployed is becoming more critical and starva- tion faces millions. It is not only a question of the cut in relief that is hitting the unemployed, but even if they get any cash relief at all the Tiging cost of bread and other food prices drives them nearer to starva- tion. roar aa RS eee a ae ent the city authorities slash relief or cut it off altogether. The starving unemployed have no source of livelihood except what the city authorities and the charities see fit to give them. At the most critical moment of rising food costs this is snatched away from them. Nothing more clearly shows the need for a struggle for unemployment insurance, forcing the exploiting masters to grant a cash payment to provide for the unem- ployed and their families. They have the billions, which they spend for war to provide this fund. They are coining fortunes out of steater exploitation, inflation, profiteering. . A . tT situation calls for the sharpest struggle for relief and especially the widest, organized and energetic struggle for unemployment in- surance, f The demand for unemployment insurance should grow into a mighty, organized shout, supported by the closed ranks of employed and unem- ployed. We must spread the demand for unemployment insurance to give the workers a guarantee for at least some means of livelihood in this period of skyrocketting food prices. Never was the need for a mass, deep-going struggle for unemployment insurance .so, clearias it is today. Organize behind the demand for unemployment insurance! Smash the starvation program of Roosevelt through an orgahized struggle for social wane Fight against cuts in relief! Fight against the high cost of Throughout Nation; to Soar Still Higher |Government Approves 20 Per Cent Increase in’ | Cost of Bread to Employed and Unemployed WASHINGTON, July 10.—All boss bakers are entitled to | | raise the price of a 5 cent loaf of bread to 6 1-3 cents, said | Secretary of Agriculture, Wallace, and if they want to they | | can cut down the size of the loaf. This announcement follow BREAD PRICES UP ONE to 1 1-2 CENTS ALOAR INN. ¥. ¢. Gives Bakers Extra Profit in Addition to Gov't Tax NEW YORK.—Price increases of one cent to one and a half cents on |loaves of white bread of 18 to 20 ounces were put into effect in prac- tically every store in New York City. | The price was boosted by the big \bakers following the institution of \the Federal government’s processing \tax of $136 a barrel. The price lineréase would give the bakers an \extra. income of $2.70 to $3 on every \barrel of flour they use,-so that’ the bakers are_making a good profit for themselves out of the increase. Secretary of Agriculture Wallace yesterday pretended that he would act to protect the public against this increase. He made a statement that jhe would “investigate” increases in iprices above one-third cents a pound on bread. Since the present in- crease is just below that figure, the statement means that the govern- ment approves of this rise, even though it is higher than the extra cost added by the proceessing tax. Other prices Rise | Prices of most other staple foods ‘have also been steadily rising. ed the actual raising of bread | prices throughout the entire country. The leading bakers and grocery stores, like the Atlantic |and Pacific, Ward Baking Co., the General Baking Co., are | _ OF raising prices on all bakery goods. The American Bakers’ Association announced last Friday that all the bakers should raise bread prices at least 1 1-3 cents, or cut the size of the loaf two ounces. In the small bakeries the prices have gone up from 1 to 3 cents. Not only is the price of bread up but the cost of all flour products will rise. The excuse given for the rise in bread prices is the starting on July 8 of a processing tax on wheat where- by the flour mills pay $1.38 a barrel to provide a fund to cut wheat crop and other crop acreages. The pro- gram of Roosevelt is to put a proces- sing tax on cotton and wheat to pro- vide funds to pay the rich wheat and cotton planter for cutting acreage in order further to raise wheat and cot- ton prices. The first levy for this fund to the rich farmers comes from the rise in bread prices. There will be a still further rise in Association made it clear, when the slavery code for the bakers comes |up. One of the main purposes of | these codes is to raise prices and in- crease profits for the bosses. Hence a further rise in bread prices is as- sured, ‘The increase in bread costs imme- diately acts as a wage slash for all workers, as bread forms an import- ant part of the diet. It means a cut in all cash relief payments to the unemployed, and an especially severe cut as bread is the predominant part of the diet of the unemployed. 47 p. c. of Children in City’s Hospitals Are Undernourished NEW YORK.—Forty-seven and | | a half New | i} York City hospitals asi | || year suffered from malnutrition, | |according to the report of Dr. | | Charles B. Conklin, medical dir- | |ecter of the Children’s Aid So- | |elety. | Dr. Conklin indicated the ex-| treme seriousness of such a con- dition prevailing among such a | |Iarge section of the City’s chil- | | dren, PROPOSE MINIMUM WAGE SCALES FOR DRESS, SILK CODES ‘$14 for Unskilled in Dress Industry; $18 | for Silk Weavers NEW YORK.—Some indication of |what the employers in the dress and |silk and rayon industry intend to in- | lelude in. their codes to be submitted |to the administration can be seen ifrom the proposals already announced | but not yet put into final form. | In the dress industry, the manufac- ‘turers are proposing a minimum wage of $14 for unskilled workers, and a |40-hour week. The manufacturers \also declare against child labor but |they know this measure can be easily jevaded through the thousands of |sweatshops now being used under the jcontract system. No statement has |been {ssued regarding the proposed |minimum scales for the skilled work- ers. | Contrasted with the union scales es- tablished by the Needle Trades Work- bread. prices, the American Bakers’ jers’’ Industrial Unton, which-range: |trom $18 to $50 for the various opere~ jtions in the industry, this minimum l|wage represents the instrument for \foreing down the union standards |gained by the workers. Dubinsky, President of the Inter- national Ladies’ Garment Workers 'Union, who has repeatedly sung praise for the Recovery (Slavery) Act and |has publicly supported a minimum |wage which would undercut the pre- |sent union scale in the ground that the workers are getting sweatshop |wages anyway, has nothing to say lagainst the proposal. However, he per cent of the children in| , JOBLESS COUNCILS, TRADE UNIONS, AT CITY HALL PRESENT DEMANDS, BUT MAYOR IS OUT ON VACATION Phote (top) shows police “guarding” the Home Relief | Buro, Spring and Elizabeth Sts., | to prevent star- ving workers from demanding that the bankers provide relief for the 1,000,000 persons facing destitution fol- lowing the cut ting off of city aid by the Tam- many. govern- ment, Photo (rghit) shows Mrs. Rose Vizzio of 302 Broome St. New York, and her five children. Mrs. Vizzio was re- fused her next rent yesterday. Her husband was fired by the Fdison Company about two years ago, | Night Sticks for Driving Out Hunger Pangs’(ROWDS ST AY AT _ BUREAUS ALL DAY DEMANDING AID | Unemployed Councils | Hold Meetings in Every Borough NEW YORK, N. Y.—While | the city stopped all relief for more than a million men, women and children last Fri- | day, on the same day it had on | hand $24,000,000 on deposit in lexcess of ear-marked funds, This is money over and above all regular city expenses, ail reserve funds, and any other money kept on hand. It is evident from this fact that Mayor O’Brien and the Board of Estimate have consi ously stopped this relief as a step to eliminating all Home Relief to the jobless and their families. While sufficient funds are on hand, the Mayor and Board of Es- [timate are determined not to touch any furids’ stored away so that the bankers are sure to be paid “but propose to put through a S Tax. By means of such tax want to further place the bur- den on the employed and unem- ployed who will have to pay, be- sides the increased prices on food- stuffs, a further additional tax Since the announcement of stop- ping relief, workers jammed the Home Relief Bureaus yesterdey. morning. They were walting in long lines outside the offices before the scheduled time to open anx- ious to hear whether their relief would be continued. Suffering and warns the bosses against announcing | In| In New Orleans, Bakers Local No. | the wage as it would have a bad “psy- 35 has protested against the rise and |chological effect” on the workers and {the chain stores, a survey revealed | that prices of staple foods have gone up since April. about 20 to 30 per cent. These stores are charging twice as much for potatoes as they did in April. Eggs, that sold for 24 cents|the bread price rise. a dozen in April, are now 30 and 35! Immediate organization against the cents a dozen. Butter is now 27 or | rise in bread prices should go on in | 29 cents a pound, as compared with | all shops and factories demanding 20 or 21 cents a pound in April.| higher wages to meet the higha Prices on vegetables show similar| bread and food costs. All workers |is demanding a cut in bread prices |and a raise in wages (see story on page 3). A united front has been |urged by other workers’ organiza- | tions, the organizations of neigh- borhood committees to fight against price increases, 500 Shoe Workers on ‘Strike at Carlisle, Pa. 'for Return of Pay Cuts CARLISLE, Pa, July 10.—Five hundred workers at the Carlisle Shoe Co. went on strike today de- ‘manding more than the ten per ‘cent increase in wages offered by \the company. The workers are de- \manding that wage levels in effect|Committees should be organized to needle trades workers drawn up by * ‘ f to | demand reduction in bread prices and lthe Needle Trades Workers’ Indus-| New York \last October before slashes of 5 should discuss this in their shops and formulate demands for wage in- creases using the fact of rising food costs to agitate for organization to carry through the demand. | Along with the actual cut in relief | for the unemployed there 1s now ad-’ ded the higher cost of bread. To re- sist this, organization and struggle for more relief, for unemployment in- | Surance should be pushed more than ever, | In the neighborhoods, housewives’ |may mean a strike at present when | negotiations for an agreement are jpending: The Silk Association has submitted \a starvation code for the silk and |rayon weaving industry, which estab- lishes a new low level for the skilled |section of the industry. For skilled weavers and warpers, many of whom lare organized, an $18 minimum wage has been set. Wages for weavers be- fore the crisis ranged from $30 to $40 a week and warpers averaged $35. Wages for unskilled workers, fol- jlowing the cotton textile code as a precedent, will be set at $13 in the North and $12 in the South. In 1928 ; weekly ayerage earnings of silk work- (Daily Worker Staff Photos) No One Will Srapie. Hungry Workers Told Harlem Relief Official Then Refuses Aid to Pregnant Mother By DAN DAVIS lers ranged from $17 in Pennsylvania NEW YORK.- \ to $23 in New Jersey. Union Submits Code for Needle Workers; | NEW YORK—The code for the city and rent checks for 1,000,000 unomployed were |30 per cent had been made be re~/for struggle against the rising cost trial Union will be submitted for dis- stopped by Tammany Hall. jstored. The Carlisle Shoe Co. is lawned by the I. Miller Co. of New | York. Strike Looms in N. C. Textile Plants, Demand 25 Per Cent Raise HIGHPOINT, N. C., July 10— Threat of a strike if derhands for a 25 per cent wage increase, an 8 hour working shift and for discontinuance of added work placed on knitters and fixers were not granted was made today by the Industrial Workers As- soeiation, an independent textile union formed a year ago. The gen- eral strike is announced to take ef- fect Monday, July 17. Jersey City Workers Given 40% Wage Cut JERSEY CITY, N. J., July 10.— A flat wage cut of 40 per cent was voted by the City Commission at a special meeting today for all city workers receiving more than $1,000 a year, and becomes effective on July 15th. Cold Kills Chilean Jobless. SANTIAGO, Chile, July 10.—A’ cold wave caused severe suffering among ill-clad unemployed today. Four persons died of exposure. The \temperature was at-24.8 degrees. | of living. |Chieago Bread Up. | CHICAGO, July 10.—Bread; former- ly 5 cents a loaf, sold at 6 cents, and the 10-cent loaf of bread was reduced four ounces today. Bread Up in Mich. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., July 10.— The price of bread has been set at a half cent an ouhce, it was an- nounced here today, oe Bread Higher in Conn. cussion at a miecting of all shop) In Harlem a pregnant mother was chairmen and active members of the |turned away from the Home Relief |Needle. Trades Workers’ Industrial Bureau at 235 East 125th St. Tears Union on Wednesday. The moeting |streamed down the expectant moth- will take place at union headquar- er’s cheeks as she told of her plight ters, 131 West 28th Street immediate- | An assistant supervisor came rushing ly after work. jout of the Bureau agitated and nery- | The Union code will be submitted ©US when she learned that a reporter \to the administration in Washington |¥2S talking to Mrs. Toffts, a Latin- |and will be the basis on which the |American worker. Union will mobilize the needle work- | “No One Will Go Hungry” ers for struggle to improve their) “We are giving this caso cx nt at~ | working conditions. jtention,” she said, “and you know it | Weak is against the rules to permit report- \Riot Squad Attacks lors to spéak to people in the bu- reau.” ~Worried workers, arms, childrcn clinging to skirts and holding the hands of |S°PS Started chasing the crowd, fathers who wearily leaned against picket | waiting, waiting in line to ask for relief that is finally refused. This was the scene at the Home Relief Bureaus yesterday after the food? NEW HAVEN, Conn, July 10.— JObless at Brooklyn | Bread prices went up throughout the whole state today. The immediate ef- fect of the Federal tax of $1.38 on a! barrel of flour and rising wheat pri- | ces was the reduction’ of the 8-cent | loaf from 24 ounces to 20 ounces, and | the reduction of the 6-cent loaf from 18 ounces to. 1¢ ounces. NaziPropaganda Sheet Appears in New York NEW YORK.—The first issue of a Nazi propaganda paper for America has just appeared. It is called “Die Bruecke” (The Bridge). The publi- cation address is given as 308’ East 86th Street. The first issue contains attacks on the, boycott movement against Germany and seeks to de- fend the Hitler regime tn general. Home Relief Bureau NEW YORK.—One work Kirsch- man, was badly beaten when a riot squad was called to drive | Workers demanding food and rent checks away from the Home Re- lief Bureau at Christopher and Belmont Avenue in Brooklyn yes- terday. A woman coming with a com- mittee from the Alteration Paint- ers Union, was denied relief which had been cut off previously, A pregmant woman was promised relief only after she had become hysterical. Various groups ef workers led by different organizations kept bringing jobless workers to the bureaus. As fast as the police drove ome group away another come ip “You can say," she added, echoing |Roosevelt’s famous words, “no one in Harlem will go hungry.” She claimed rent vouchers and food checks were being given as usual, adding in t! same breath, that the biggest croy in the history of the Bureau collected there yesterday morning. But the workers jammed into the ‘doorway seemed to think otherwi: “Food and rent checks to whom?”, they asked. “Maybe they sign ‘em and charge ‘em, but we never see them,” chimed in a Negro worker holding a two-year old baby. Many who applied had been cut from the rolief lists before the last order stopping ali relief. | Phillip Horowitz, of 105 Broome St., |whose wife is ill and needs a special diet, and whose food allowance the bureau had cut by one-third, had his| the misery and hunger of the mi- application taken under “‘considera-! Hen unemployed, mothers with children in school fences, all throughout the Three fomily mi children are in the of Mike Zowtansky of 246 EF. His ges 8 The rent of $ months. He has a Fifty cents was deducted from the 57.50 the Frumkin family of 251 Hast ith St. received every two weeks. One child is thirty pounds under weight. Electric and gas bills which have been with the bureau for two weeks are still unpaid. The family faces evic- tion At tho,78th Street and York Av- enue Fome Relief Bureau, where a militant all day picket line was estab- i d by the East Side Unemployed nei], a worker threatened to com- mit suicide. A Civil War veteran spent all day on the picket line. He had been refused relief because of his sympa- thies with the Unemployed Council. Mcanwhile, the members of the | Board of Estimate whose failure to make the July appropriation caused wholesale misery and hunger, and who went calmly off to their coun- try homes for the week-end, has no suggestions to offer. Mayor O'Brien, Comptroller Ber- ry and Deputy Comptroller Prial were visiting Governor Lehman at Lake George, talking about a spe- cial session of the Legislature, which will take days if not -weeks to call, while the city has $24,000,000 in cash which could be drawn on to relieve li half-million dollar mai worry lined the faces of men and women who waited over the week- end to have the chance to come to the Relief Bureaus to ask for their relief, | Heart Rending Scenes. In Harlem, 300 Negro and white workers waited at the relief offices. On Elizabeth and Spring Streets, groups of workers walked ffi and |out all day long while meetings were taking place outside. Heartrending scenes were witnessed at these offi- ces. There is the case of Mr. Toffts, who will soon bring anothr life into the world, pleading that t landlady refused the rent vouch, and she now faces eviction i At the same time, a tense feliz) permeated the group of worke waiting around. In Harlem, whe Negro worker remarked: | “There won't be enough cop to chase all the people away i | they cut off the relief.” The militant spirit of the wo ers, who under the sponsorship the Unemployed Council of H lem, largely organized by the } gro women of Harlem, met at protest demonstration near the 1 lief bureau, was manifested by Ru Edwards, of the Council, when/: addressed the group of erreur whites. ¢ “We Negro and white worker- die if necessary fighting fors and bread for our starving chilny she exclaimed. . Bertha Davis, Negro leader of LL.D. in Harlem, speakers. A committee of five, th sroes and two whites, were to go into the Home Relief and present demands of the but_were refused admittance. © Twelve workers, Negroes 4 whites, were elected to go down ® the Harlem delegation to the fe of Estimate today to protest. )"™ will meet the other delegates i Unemployed Council headqu: in Harlem, 109 West 133rd Stre: 19 o'clock. | Mayor Not In. In this grave situation facing @ million people, Mayor O’Brien the Board of Estimate, with f on hand, turned a deaf ear to workers. A committee from ¢ unions, headed by Carl Win Secretary of the Unemployed C ‘ceils and Robert Minor of the ¢ munist Party, went to see the ? jor yesterday morning, but were formed by his secretary J. Fox, the Mayor was still away on, week-end vacation. The Mayor} jaway for the week-end at the was among,