The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 22, 1933, Page 5

} " | What Has the Crisis Done to the Youth of America? The Story of George’ Casey By ROBERT JEANS Up to last week George Casey, 20-year-old son of a Queens truck driver, ‘Was ntimberéd among Amer- ica’s newest Legion of the Con- demned. He was thé homeless youth, roaming freightyards, jungles, flop- houses, ‘mooching along the stems, hitting the backdoors. He is not a homelsés ‘youth now. This is his story. + T’'ve lived on’ the’ same block with George“for ove six years now. Two and a half years ago when he grad- uated from Bryant “High I met him playing” stickball,’*“He didn’t know what t6"do. His application to City College had béeh rejected and he couldn't afford to pay tuition. For a few weeks he “had worked in a shoe~ stiihe patior=but that didn’t last. "The techifi¢al schools were filled and hi§ peoplé-aiéeded money very badi F Ge thing. “Reelly;" anything. He was young, strong “and Willing. He could operate a typewriter by the touch system. “Did I" know* of an opening? No, of course I tidn’t, George went jobless for a year. | When he could chisel fifteen cents somewhere hes ‘ent to the movies. When -he couldn't, he played hand- ball -ageinst thédrug store wall, listened tb the»radio, read the sports pages, chewed the rag in the corner stationery: cae He combed his hair carefully and polished‘his shoes and set out before six each morning tO make his rounds of the employriient agencies. After his father lost his job George woke up extra early to Save carfare. In the-winter of 1931 my uncle hired him-as clerk @nd order boy in his grocery store.-Géorge got twelve dollars. That was the family’s only income. He had “two elder sisters. He would come in half an hour be- fore ‘his time “atid leave only when he was told. George was conscienti- ous, skilful, scrupulously honest. My..uncle, whois “malevolently shrewd about those things tested him time and again...dGeorge came through with flying colors. He oper- ated the cash re; and the six months he worked thére were mono- tonously free of itregularities. When my uncle went into partner- ship the. store, 't support a clerk. and. they~di led him. George went back to his ronrmis of the Sixth Avenue agencies, the: baseball scores and the-.radio.. Qndbof his sisters knew a Tammany ward captain and through -him the family secured a weekly food ticket. Every once in a while one of tien Wow a hit on some- thing ‘temporary that kept them a jump abead of the. marshal. his. period I met George once and.at first I thought he seemed carefree enough. He took me to a sort of junior poHtical club their Tammany frien@<was sponsoring in |, the neighborhood ‘and wanted me to join. “The war tain paid the rent ‘of pes Sagres and the boys had fixed it couch, “tables; - pi Cagney, Clark. Gal magazines, easy | I asked; “Why those three actors in particular?” and:’George said it _wasn'(shis ided, the fellows liked them b“ause of tie -way they hand- led wome.>. probably. Later..in ‘he evening he became bitter and. repeated. some rigamarole he had.-obviously just heard about @ real live guy elways finding some- “ thing to.do for; a.living and there wasn't @ thing. I.could tell him. No, no, it Was all his: own fault, Then;.onc «ayiakout last Christ- mas, My. uncle opened up his store and fourd the back window forced open, the store.in disorder, fourteen dollars, fifty cents missing from the cash register and two rolls of nickels trom the change box. He rang head- cause no outsider ddtild possibly have known about “thé ‘location of the change ‘box. Nobody. thought ot 0, ij ‘ Eg vhf ¥ g E i i H Ege F 4 e line. by wet ye EE ze ge fi z i i i F i ? z § S : Ss E é Fee] iH - Hi CF 8! 5 a 4 | Le i i il ay said she would take any- | up your throat. He came home last week and slept for two days and a night. I saw him again when he started working in the A. & P. He does a regular clerk's work for eight dollars. He's there sixty hours a week and it’s not only the broken teeth that keep him from smiling. George is sullen and bitter, his toothless lips there is a hatred and a rage which can no longer be swept aside by ward captains or railroad dicks ,or chain store pro- prietors. George is the raw material of the American Revolution. By CARLITOS Hush, my little one! Born in the storm. Sleep if you can, Sleep soft, sleep warm, While hunger snarls And the sabre rattles And we gather our strength For the grilling battles. | | | Ours is the path Of pain and struggle, But you in your crib Must peacefully snuggle. We'll fashion for you A much richer life Than could ever be ours In this maze of strife. You will not know The mastér’s whip, His merciless eye And his sneering lip. The world will be new, The years will be sweet, The road will be clear For your lightsome feet. Love and Labor And a crimson song, And Joy for neighbor Your whole life long— So sleep, my little one! Close your eyes And dream of a red star Alight in the skies! Book Notes “GERMANY: Revolution and - Counter-Revolution,” by Fre- derick Engels, is the most recent. addition to the series of Marxian classics issued by International Publishers. It is issued in an en- Jarged edition including copious ex- planatory notes and important re~ lated documents. An introduction by the editors of the Marx-Engels Institute shows the basic importance of this work to the present situation in Ger- many, and in relation to the col- onial and semi-colonial. countries where the popular revolution against imperialism is proceeding. The book consists of a series of articles on the German revolution of 1848, which appeared in the New York Daily Tribune. Until recently these articles have been ascribed to Marx, but it is now known that Engels wrote them. Included as appendices are En- gels’ “History of the Communist League”; The Demands of the Communist Party of Germany, and the first Address of the Central Committee of the Communist League to the German workers, summing up the meaning and ex- Periences of the revolution of 1848. “Germany: Revolution and Counter-Revolution” (160. pages) is published in two editions. The Library edition (cloth) Sells at $1.50; the pamphlet edi- tion at 60 cents. The book can be obtained at bookshops or di- rectly from International Publish- ers, 381 Fourth Ave., N. Y. eee EORGE BERNARD SHAW’s ad- dress in the Metropolitan Opera House last April will be published within a few days by Dodd, Mead & Co, It is to be called “The Future of Political Science in America.” The Poetry those who knew Harry Alan Potamkin, his death comes as a Profound shock. ‘There was in him { @ rare gift for friendship which in- spired affection as his talents in- spired respect. -No one who talked with him or worked with him could fail to be captured by, his gatety, his wit, his deep conviction and his e , all of which he devoted wit Teserve to the cause of the proletarian revolution. ‘These personal qualities graced a capacity for creative work that was In| Worker’s Lullaby content. A poem in the New Mass- es of May, 1932, on the Haymarket martyrs erids: “Masters of provocation, Pinker- tons of prey, et © Boards of Trade men, mer- chant princes. your rewards, ‘These are the days of liquida- tion!” ‘The sense of the continuity of the aaa DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JULY |ANSEN’S job was to walk along the subway tracks with a lan- tern and poke at nuts and bolts with a rod. When he found a loose nut he tightened it. When he saw a piece of paper he tossed it aside. When he saw a train approaching he ducked between the steel posts and waited till it passed. It was a cinch, the easiest thing he éver handled by a long shot. At times when he failed to find anything wrong for hours he even felt a | little foolish about it. No matter. He was due for a break like that. You don’t go bat- | tling around the country for two years without some kind of a_break. Two years of bumming were plenty. Two years of that and a year of this, that’s three since he saw Hilda and three and’ a half since he lost the B. and O. job. Hilda lasted half a year after he lost his job. The day they fore- closed the mortgage . . . the hell with all that. Hansen stepped aside for the Van Cortlandt express. By,now he didn’t even have to turn his back. The train roared by like a series of explosions and he stood there, eyes half closed, counting the cars by the number of dark spots be- tween platforms. Nine. By now he didn’t have to hold his breath or anything. The tunnel became very quiet. * 'HAT was one of the things he liked about the job. You did your work, nobody! bothered you. Your body was tied down, but you weren't. After a while it got so he could tell if there was anything loose by just letting the rod strike against the rail. Sometimes he clanked his way through a lighted Station without looking up or know- ing where he was. U Now he came into the station at 116th St. There the subway cuts through Morningside Heights. You see the boys and girls from Colum- bia. They hurry even more than the others. There was also an Ar- row collar ad of a man in full dress suit escorting a vision in ermine. After 116th there’s a dip in the ground and the subway becomes an elevated. Gradually, so you get used to the daylight. The Hudson is gray and dirty, the shores are gray and black and dirty, but the Palisades are green and fine to look at. When the buildings are low, or you come to streets, you look across to the Jersey shore. Windy days the river is ruffled with little waves, i Then there’s a rise in the ground and the line goes under again. Something went wrong with Han- sen’s lantern, but he didn’t bother to putter with it because it was just a block or two to 137th. An- other college station. When he was on the night shift this was where he punched the clock. Waiting for his time, he used to sit around on the benches below the Orphanage upstairs and watch people . go-to Stadium concerts. FULL OF COPS At 137th a policeman stopped Hansen and looked at him and let him pass. He stepped to the plat- form and examined the lantern. The station was full of cops. He went to the stationmaster to get a new lantern. He said, “What's all the excitement about?” “You better knock off for a while,” Reilly said. “Go upstairs and take a rest with the other boys. You can’t go through now. They got Meyers in there. He's liable to try to shoot his way out.” Hansen went upstairs. There was & crowd milling around Broad- way and mounted cops trying to disperse it. He had never seen so many cops. Before he got to the benches he asked a man about The man said, “He's a murderer. He wounded a policeman. Hope they get him.” “why?” The man looked queer. “Why do, you hope they get him?” Hansen said. Five years ago he would have wanted the guy to get away~just for the adventure of it. Three years ago he would have wanted the cops to get him. Now it made no difference one way or the other. “You mean to say you want Meyers to escape?” the man asked. “He don’t mean a thing in my young life,” Hansen said. ‘ED was on the bench with a couple of conductors. They had | the papers. “More cops than they said, “and they're not even posi- tive he’s down there. Wherever he is, you gotta hand it to the guy.” “Why all the Whole police force isn’t worth that fuss.” “If that patrolman’d been your brother you'd kick up a fuss all- right,” one of the conductors said. “If you think so,” Hansen said, “you don’t know my brother.” He sat back. “Let’s have the sports section, Ted.” : Ted handed him the whole sheet. “Red Trapped In Subway .. . Would-Be Killer of Officer Carthy Eludes. ...” So that was it. Han- sen read the story. When he finished he walked off a little ways so Ted wouldn’t notice his face. So that was it. They evicted a family down Amsterdam Ave. and this guy Meyers got to- gether some of the tenants and people around the block and tried to take the furniture back and the two cops came and got Meyers in the apartment, but he resisted, so one of them drew a gun to scare him, but Meyers, the guy must have him, kicking and threw the gun to the floor, where it went off and wounded the other flatfoot. Mey- , ets: picked up the gun and got away through the fire escape, but now they thought they had him. COPS RIDE INTO CROWD Hansen came back to the bench and watched the cops ride into the crowd. They got tougher and tougher. Finally the crowd broke and ran for the next station under blockade, that’s 145th. He showed his pass to the sergeant, so they let him through and he reported to Reilly. Reilly said, “Not yet. He'll shoot you on sight.” “Td better go through,” Hansen said, “I wouldn’t take the respon- sibility for that switchrod under 140th. Ted knows what he’s talk- ing about.” “How'll you come out at the other station? It’s dangerous busi- ness, you're crazy if you do it. We Jet a special car through, you know, with detectives in it. They didn’t see a thing, still, he might be there. The lieutenant thinks one of the trains ran over him and him awdy. They're ex- amining all the cars up at Van Cortlandt. We're having all the conductors call up and report, but had for Two-gun Crowley,” Ted At 137th a policeman stopped Hansen| been. plenty powerful, he knocked | 99 22, they don’t see a thing either. They'll wait awhile before they hold up traffic and let the gas in. I wouldn’t go through if I was you.” “He won't shoot me,” Hansen said. “Call them up at 145th and tell them I’m coming through.” Reilly called the lieutenant. He was a big guy, big as Hansen, al- most. “You're taking your life in your hands,” he said. “That's a pretty good place for it,” Hansen said. “I won't take the blaine for no loose switchrod. Only don’t forget to call them up. Han- said alright, it’s your lookout. 'HE detectives looked at him funny, the cops joked and Reilly brought the lantern. Han- sen took it and walked into the tunnel, clanking his. iron bar along the rail. He thought, “Fifteen to one the guy isn’t here at all.” | . Still, if he was, Hansen would try to do something. Ted had said you gotta hand it to him, first plugging the cop, then holding them off this long. For all syou know he would have done the same thing when they *foreclosed the mortgag2 on the Trenton place. Hilda . . with all that. He smacked his bar against the switchrod at 140th. The Broad- way express whistled and Hansen stood aside. The conductor was the old Italian who could do any- thing with a deck of cards except make 'em tapdance. He had taken Ted over for $28 once. Hansen saw the face for a moment, then the sssush and the wind of the train cars. Ten. Meyers would be on the cementing if he had any brains. The cementing started around the slight cutve ahead. “YOU GOTTA TRUST ME” Hansen tightened a nut. As he bent, a crayon fell out of his over= | alls. He picked it up and stuck it | in his pocket. A voice from the cementing said, “Get your hands out of there or I'll shoot.” Meyers was pointing the gun at him. Hansen placed the bar against a steel post and put his hands up. “I come down to try and get you out. You gotta trust me.” ~ Meyers said, “Keep those hands up and turn back. Give you three counts to do it. One... two... three.” Hansen said, “See, if I was a cop you’da scared me. I might help you out of here.” “Y didn’t shoot,” Meyers ‘said, but you better keep these hands | up and stay where you are.” “I'm not gonna stand here, this curve isn’t sharp enough. They might be seeirig me now. against the wall anyway and lis- “You can tell me anything you got to say from right there.” “I’m not gonna keep hollering,” Hansen said. “I know you're in a jam and you gotta be careful, but it's too dangerous for me to keep hollering here. Can you hear me now?” “Yes.” “Listen then. I’m an employe switchrod. They're expecting me at 145th in the next half hour. Change into my stuff and go through.’ Ill give you my pass. ‘They'll never notice.” Meyers said, “I wasn’t born yes- terday. Maybe you want me to give you the gun, too?” “You better take the chance,” Hansen said, “They'll get you if you stay here, that’s one sure thing. Look, I'll undress and leave my stuff here and go back there where you can keep an eye on me. You change into the overalls and every- thing and take the pass. Pull the cap on your face. You-keep point- ing the gun at me and I'll turn my back and you sock me with the butt to make it look good. Don’t knock me out, but be sure it leaves @ mark. You can take the gun and use it if you have to. Make it hit him*and he began counting the: sen’s the name, Charles. Pass No. | 0662.” The lieutenant Jooked worried, - no, no, the hell, the hell | here. Supposed to be fixing, a | Let me | 1933 they're waiting for me. snappy, Tell them you didn’t see a thing.” undressed and laid his cloth- ing on the ground and walked | back a little. from the cementing. the .overalls efficiently and read the,. pass. “Be sure to number if they said, “0662. Meyers jumped down ember the pass you,” Hansen asl Now sock me.” “T might be walking into a trap, but: I don’t give a hoot in hell,” M said. “If this is straight, thanks a lot. Here put these on— youmight catch a cold.” “Nothing to what you'll catch if you “don’t stcp ta ig and sock me.” Use your brain, for chrissake, you lesve me here in my urder- They'll come for me before eold becomes pneumonia, don’t Look up the ad- ss on the pass if you make it. Sock.” t worry about that. dre Here: “I ean’t Sit you on the head,” Meyers said. “Sock, you damn fool.” Meyers shook his head and patted Hansen’s shoulder and turned on his heels and walked north. He swung the lantern and shouldered the bar and pulled the cap Gown and studied the pass as he walked. Hansen gathered up the clothing and carried it until he reached the last’ spot where he wasn't visible. He could see the figures of cops and plainclothesmen at 145th. He threw the stuff around carefully | and watched Meyers walking ahead | with even steps. For a moment his “More cops than they had for Two- Gun Crowley” figure merged with a group of de- tectives. Then Meyers placed the lantern on the platform and walked up. the steps after it. The dicks remained stationary. Hansen rubbed his : forehead roughly against the concrete, rub- bed- it- until the blood came and then he spread out: Meyers’ trousers and.lay on them comfortably. AXIM GORKI, the father of proletarian literature, takes. up the cudgels for the defense of the Soviet. Union and all that it stands for in his new book, “On Guard for the Soviet Union” (Interna- tional Publishers). In. his introduction to this book, Romain Rolland calls Gorgi the “first udarnik (shock-worker) of the Universal Republic of Labor.” “On Guard” contains a selection of Gorki's articles which have ap- peared in Soviet papers and jour- nals since his return to the Soviet Union, The articles are of two kinds. _The first are written in reply to large numbers of snarling letters. which Gorki received from the enemies of the Soviet Union and of proletarian culture. In the second Gorki acts as mentor of the Soviet workers, encouraging and enlightening them, explaining the tremendous significance of the building of Socialism. Tell them the switchrod was okay. | He got into | Feared by By BENNETT S'1EVENS T a re ny joint meeting of five A. P. M. Flemin of the Metropo! trical Company recently fou | and wrecking the Soviet Union, | was given the floor to call scien- tists to battle tor the preserva- | tion of capitalism. The speaker | brushed aside the much-heralded pretense that nce - impa tial under capitalism and frank declared that the intellectual front is one of the most im it lin of battle in fig! between Communism and capit: n, | Fleming was impressed with and outspokenly fearful of \the ad- vances in science in the USSR. “Within its borders,” he declared, “it contains most of the natural resources required by man, and of its these for the people, with a view Standard of living re | | its government aims at developing | | i} i not higher than, that of other countries. Here are a great num- ber of nationalities already inter- nationalized in the most complete with the absence of tariff barriers, international currency re- strictions and any diversity of in- ternal political aspirations. “Research, including that of a fundamenial character comes un- der the control of one department of the State, so that all scientific work can be co-ordinated. Great expenditure has been incurred in setting up the most up-ao-date lab- and in the selection and ing of research workers. “There is in the U.S.S.R. a larg- er body of organized research workers under unified control than exists in any other country of the world.” | | | in capitalist countries must heed | the challenge of Russia and pool | their scientife resources and ex- | perience to save capitalism against | the advance of communism. There | Was not one word in ifs lengthy | address about scientific co-opers- | tion witlr the Soviet Union. He urged instead that the combined intellectual energies of capitalist scientists be arrayed in a duel against the scientists of Russia. If capitalist scientists of the world do not plan and work together, he warned, Soviet Russia will advarice | so far ahead in scientific and tech- nical progress as to make the civil- ization of the rest of the western world resemble by comparison that of the Dark Ages. KEMING’S pleas can bear little fruit even ‘iough many of his listeners may have been sytfipa- thetic. For planned scientific re- search on an extensive scale and | the international pooling of- sci- jeentific resources which he advo- | cated is not realizable under capi- talism. Science is linked with pri- vate industry and is, as such, secret and competitive. Modern scientific research requires vast financial ex- penditures which in capitalist individual | His conclusion was that scientists | he Triumph of Collective Science in the Soviet Union Hostile Powers ken When funds were put a f was done before th y in the eli and oil industries, th i each had laboratories ing on the same problems with a vast overlapping of ; ch sought to get solu- rded them jeal- veries and inven- ons, instead of being used for the efit of the masses and even for yielded efior- They inten- capitalist pro- i possible great output. Many inven- shelved because of would destroy the value of ex! products. Cap- italist indus uld not absorb all the inventions made even in the eG prosperity because ady flooded with s which ‘ers could not buy to low wages. Thus factories, increases in tions have been the fact that Iready not working at their full capacity, could not install new pro- cesses with profit. And when the inevitable capitalist c of the first economi OVERNMENT and university sci- entific research workers in cap- italist countries are in a similar predicament. Unless government research directly serves the inter- ests of the large capitalists it is killed in embryo and ignored. The governments and the universities have spent millions on agricultural research only later to plead with the farmers not to avail themselves of the knowledge they have ac- quiréd, but instead to clirtait pro- duction by allowing a large section of their fields to go unplanted Other research activities have had a similar fate. There can be no planned, direct- ed research in a competitive, cha- otic econdmic society. It is only possible when the proletariat con- quers power through revolution and by means of its dictatorship estab- lishes, in the place of capitalis a socialist society as in the Sov’ Union. For planned research de- mands a planned economic system in which the results are utilized for the benefit of the masses. In the Soviet Union there is a flower- ing of inventive power such as ““s never been equalled in previous tory. The masses have identified themselves with the achievements of their industries; their personal initiative and enterprise has been | stimulated and they are contribut- | ing valuable suggestions for the | improvement of their trades. They | are no longer “hands” forced to | carry out mechanically the orders | | of exploiting masters. They are the builders of a new society along with the experts who are being trained | and employed by the thousands to | extend the control of science ovér | nature so that the standards of | living and working of the masses may be improved. Described in Reviewed by GEORGE LEWIS BOOK PUBLISHING UNDER | TZARISM, by M. S. Kedrov; THE BOLSHEVIKS ONTRIAL; | by S. Tchernomordik, Both pub- lished by Workers Library Pub- lishers. Ten cents each. towards the towards our “Work conspirativ enemy, act openly class.” This advice is given the German Communist Party in the latest is- jsue of the “Communist Interna- | tional.” | How the old Bolsheviks carried |this formula into practice is told revolutionary tradition also fills his poem on the Paris Commune which appeared in the New Masses of April, 1932, ending: “This is our heritage, our con- ty ‘Ys The one blood of the one class The world has lohg awaited To catapault its law against dis- T, To load the guns aaginst the master rogues, To load the guns against the loaded The stratagems of delusiop, ‘The virtuosities of greed. Ours is the blood of the one as- ‘surance; ALL POWER TO THE SO- IETS!” The last line of this poem is an example of Comrade Potamkin’s be- Uef in the poetic effectiveness of rade Potamkin wrote about the with deep insight and with bit Rpt ed John Drinkwater’s life Potamkin observed: and movie are inseparable in the present pat- tern; and the first whisper in the movie business was racket. Its ac- cents are thunderous now.” His review of current films in the ‘New Masses of May, 1931, was stud- . .. The movie is a ritual that purges everything it touches— purges everything of veracity and sense... . It is, after all, the re- sponse and agent of the class that produces it. . use of the film by the capi- talist for fascist is exposed in the last review which Comrade Potamkin wrote for the New Masses. Discussing “Gabriel Over the White House” in the May issue of this year, he pointed out that the film sanctifies the fascist dictator while providing the loop- hole of fiction. “The American audience,” the re- view continues, “already duped by the glibbest of campaigns, now has an active image of the ‘benevolent dictator’ and the ‘new deal’ tion in support of F. D.’s aero pro- gram, followed by a Japanese na- tionalist demonstration against the League, concluding with a Hitler parade, approved by the announcer as stemming the ‘Red Menace.’ RKO is the component of RCA, whose head is Major General Har- board, America’s leading Nazi. In French venal slang “nazi” is s; ilis: a correct picture of the virulent stage of capitalism.” In contrast to the capitalist film, Comrade Potamkin pointed to the Soviet film. He took the revolu- tionary movement and the Soviet film too seriously to be an uncritical enthusiast. ia “I do not think,” he wrote in 1929, “the Russian film has as yet found a method that suits its pro- found material.” Einsenstein and Pudovkin agreed. Comrade Po- tamkin, following the development of the Soviet film carefully, was able to report its progress by 1932. He saw it approaching a point where it was coordinating the ex- periences of the individual worker with mass events. . 8 understood, too, the ‘reasons for the progress of the Soviet film. “Creation and _ criticism,” he pointed out, “are in constant touch with one another in Soviet Russia, not solely the specialized criticism of the professional, but also the crit- icism of the alert worker. This fluidity of relationship is the chief guarant Political life of the U.SS.R.” Comrade Potamkin carried his ideas on the film into the daily struggle and advocated in the Film and Photo League, in which he was ® leading spirit, “methods of di- tee of the artistic as well as | against’ rect action, boycott, picketing anti: - working class, anti-Soviet. films;” and urged “the education of the workers and others, inthe part the movie plays as a weapon of reaction in the U.S.A., and as an instrurnent for social pur- poses in the U.S.S.R.” His*great services to the revolu- tionary film are described in the following resolution adopted by the Film, and Photo League: “The Workers Film and Photo League ‘records the death of Com- rade Harry Alan Potamkin, revo- lutionary film critic and a member of the National Committee of our organization, as a severe blow to the struggle against the reactionary, openly anti-working class film in America. . . . Comrade Potamkin was. beyond any question the best equipped among us in this import- ant struggle, having been a close student of the cinema for over a decade. “Comrade Potamkin, even long before he joined the ranks of the revolutionary workers, instinctively recognized the complete bankruptcy of the bourgeois film as an art, which he later understood to be an integral part of the decay of bour- geois culture as a whole. No other single writer has done as much as he’ to force the recognition of the high artistic merits of the Soviet cinema and its personalities by the bourgeois intelligentsia. Comrade Potamkin was recognized even by “respectable” bourgeois film circles as an individual whose knowledge of the cinema ranked infinitely are than that of their own best “Comrade Potamkin’s death must. be the signal for the redoubling of our efforts to build a powerful Workers Film and Photo League in | America, His unreserved devotion to our cause, which undoubtedly proved to be a contributory factor in his premature death, must serve as an example to thousands of oth- ers who must fill the place he oc- cupied in our ranks.” To this must be added the fol- lowing statement by the National Board of Review: “To the National Board of Re- view>of Motion Pictures, Harry Po- tamkin was one of its best loved and most admired co-workers. For years he had given immeasurable help in the slow task of developing public appreciation of what is worth while and important in motion pic- tures. No American critic—no crit- ic known to American readers—was his equal in technical knowledge of films, in sensitiveness to the fine qualities of cinematic art or in a profound feeling for the social significance of the motion picture, and he had the literary power to express what he knew and felt with | an analytical vigor and eloquence that put him far in the lead in film criticism. Moreover, since with all | his artistic gifts and appreciation, he cared more for human beings than he did for art, he stood almost alone among writers in his pas- sionate insistence that the great force of the motion picture should be used in the broadening and strengthening of human under- -standing, and in helping build a civilization in which the lives of | Men and women and children would be worth living. As a man and as a writer we can look far and near and see no one to take his place.” Heroism of Old Bolsheviks Two Pamphlets in two very interesting pamphiets, “Bolsheviks on Trial” and “Book Publis™.ng Under Tzarism.” Revolutionary workers who fell in- to the hands of the czar’s agents were very skillful in their use of an open trial when an open trial could be forced out of the czar's government. The preparations for defense, the use of lawyers, a sam- ple Bolshevik speech in open court that was later widely distributed in illegal literature, form part of Bol- sheviks on Trial” and show how the Bolsheviks used the capitalist court to “act openly toward our class.” A speech of the same nature war published in several issues of the Daily Worker during the past week It is the speech of one of the defend- ants at the trial in Japan of the 184 | Communists. Heroism Under Torture. The heroism of Bolsheviks in guarding party secrets under the most extreme torture, described in \“Bolsheviks on Trial,” shows how a |Communist Party worked “conspir- jatively towards the enemy.” Conspirative work that could make use of every legal and illegal de- vice in the distribution of illegal \literature was another part of rev- jolutionary work in which the Bol- sheviks excelled. How one of them did it he describes in the pamphlet “Book Publishing Under Tzarism.” | Both books are not only -hand- |books for revolutionaries. They are jalso full of the sort of action ap- pealing to the imagination of the most untrained member of the work- \ing class. They are therefore good |for wide popular circulation. Their jagitational value, in showing that = |Communist Party has the courage jand the skill to guide the working class in the most difficult circum- ‘stances, is high, particularly at the present time when the bourgeois and |social-fascist press (and the rene- jgades) unite in paiting the condi- tions of the German working class junder the present fascist terror as “hopeless.” Vanguard Press during the past two years has published several books dealing with prole- tarian life in all parts of the globe. “Young Lonigan” by James T. Far- rell described a boyhood in Chi- cago; “Hunger and Love” by Lionel Britton treated of a London boy- hood; “And No Birds Sing” by Pauline Leader dealt with a girl- hood in a small Vermont city. In the fall Vanguard will issue another novel by James T, Farrell that will be called “The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan,” and next spring Vanguard plans to bring out a novel of proletarian life in New Zealand ‘