The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 14, 1933, Page 5

SERVES YOU RIGHT WHY DONT YOU GIVE ‘ THEY WAN DAILY YORKER, NEW YORK, EI ad /COMRADES, WEVE GOT, MONDAY, AUGUST 14, 1932 I,—Signing On. «YOU ain’t afraid of getting your hands warm, are you?” The mate, a cocky Yankee named Calder, looked thé A. B. over. The seaman grinned “and held his hands out, palms out. Big, horny hands, cal- Joused and scarred from years of sea-going. “alright; go back “Aft and tell the, ‘bos’n I told you to'Stand by.” The mate turned and went back into the saloon. i “Slim got out onto» the deck, and rolled a Cigarette. The ship was a 4,000-ton well decker, Hog Island built, 12 or 13 knots. This type had been turned out by the dozen by the Shipping Board during the war, and Slim knew ‘them like his own pocket. No. 3 hold was loading rubber tires for Stockholm. A couple more slings and she'd be ready for the hatch covers.’ “Fwo men-in dungarees came over to’ Slim. Competition. “Know where ‘the"mate is?” Slim pointed his thumb’ over his shoulder, and went aft to hunt up the bos’n. He had been on the beach five months already, and was ifching to get a ship, In the Fo’castle, ) In the fo’castle, about a dozen men were -sitting around. Three or four among them were standbys. A hulk ' of-a salt; @lbows on‘his knees, with Sea-boots on, sat restihg on the end of the bench. He had a square, good- natured face, grigzly’and sea-beaten, and was Chewing Copenhagen snuff. Slim took him for the Dutch bos’n. “You thé bos'n?” “Well, what do. You, want?” “Mate told me to stand by.” “There's three hands standing by already. Tell the mate he’s crazy.” Ten mthutes to one. Three o'clock the commissioner was coming to sign ‘on. Pretty “soon a white- ie gent stepped into the f ‘Hello fellers!” Slim rec- ogniztd Windy Johnson, delegate of the Inteffational “Seamen’s Union. | He pulled out a wad of papers. “Let’s | see if there’s any more mail for you fellers. “Nope. Say Lag, did I get your dues yet?”. The seaman named was lying in his bunk, half asleep. Too much needle beer. He picked himself up heavily. “I ain't got a dollar left, Johnson. I'll fix it up with you next trip.” Johnson laughed loud, pretending to make a joke of it. “Still drunk? Hey bos’n, if I was you, I'd fire a guy like that. There’s plenty of good union men hanging around the hall, with dues all paid up, waiting to ship out.” Then he turned to the standbys. “How about you fellers, all lined up?” The first sailor pulled out an old blue-covered I. S. U. book. “How about the dues, all paid up?” “No, I been in the hospital ten weeks with stomach cancer, and on the beach since June. I'll settle up after this trip. That is, if I get on.” The man nodded towards the bos'n, meaningly. 2 Johnson looked the book over. “This man’s O.K. bos’n." Then he came over to Slim, “How about you? Got a book?” “Sure I got a book,” answered Slim, “I’m a union man.” Johnson caught the dig, and looked sharp. “Yeah? Can I see it?” Slim felt like showing the fink something entirely different, but re- alizing the I. S. U. was the official blackball agency for this line, he pulled out his little black book— M. W. I. U. (Marine Workers’ Indus- trial Union). “Oh, that outfit,” sneered the agent. “That's not a union, that’s a social club and reading room,” Everybody in the fo'castle perked up. The bos’n shifted his snuffball. Well, that’s more like my idea of a union than some other places I know of, where all a sailor gets for his dues is a place to park his baggage. And he'd better insure it first, at that.” “Are You a Red?” A couple of the men laughed. Johnson shifted the subject: “Say, you must be one of them Reds.” “Never mind what Iam! You got yourself to look after.” Slim. eyed Windy up and down. “And it looks like you're doing it pretty well, too. But you and your scab outfit don’t see any of my money, even if I never get another ship.” The bos’n scratched his bald head with the peak of his cap like he was enjoying the excitement, looked at his watch, and got up, “One o'clock, All hands turn to. Cover up No. 2 hatch.” The crew got up one by one and went out. Johnson followed the bos’n, Slim started to pick up his seabag, figuring it was all over now. But then his “Irish” prompted him to put it down again and stick around to see what happened. Up back of the galley, the “union” agent was holding onto the bos’n’s sleeve, telling him something. Slim felt like going up and chucking the fink over the railing down No. 4 hatch. He cussed under his breath and went into the messroom for a cup of coffee. “Hello Slim, what the hell are you doing on here!” “Well, for the love of jumping- faced Jesus, if it ain’t Fritz!” They shook hands warmly. Ship- mates from the West Coast. “Going to make a trip on here, Slim?” “Trying to, but I don’t think Ill get on.” “What's the matter? They need a couple of AB's.” “Yeah, the mate told me to stand by alright, but that crummyfaced Windy Johnson gummed up the works with the’ bos’n.” “How come?” Slim related what had taken place in the fo’castle. “Never mind that. You wait till that guy gets down the gangplank. The bos’n’s been bellyaching all the last trip because they put fellers on here that don’t know a marlin spike from a meat chopper. Did he see your discharges yet?” “No, he Slim shook his head. didn’t ask for them.” Fritz finished wiping the tables. He was a game little German, with sharp, steel-blue eyes and big teeth. Slim knew him to be a crank for cleanliness, who didn’t take any guff from anybody. The Library The fo’castle was empty when Slim went back, and this gave him a chance to look yer the “7 shel? The usual assortment of wild-west and movie junk, and some slobbery novels of the type donated by the daughters. of American racketeers to the seamen. He heaped them up in a nice pile, then, making sure the coast was clear, quickly chucked the printed*poison out of the port hole. Then he rolled another cigarette and laughed to himself: “We'll have a real reading room on here, too, if I can help it.” About 3 o'clock the deckboy came back and yelled for everybody to go up 'midships to sign on. Outside the saloon, the bos’n looked over the four stand-bys for a minute. Slim was the biggest man in the lot. The bos’n approached him first. “Let's see your discharges.” Slim pulled out a wad of them, and picked out one off a square rig- ger on which he had made a trip to Australia, “That's the kind of men I want,” grunted the bos'n with satisfaction. “Got your gear with you?” “yup.” “Alright. You and that other feller signs on.” cena etapa 11.—‘What, Passengers, Too?’ After stowing his gear away in the locker, Slim wrote a few quick lines to the Marine Workers’ Industrial Union, telling them that he was signed on the S. S. Utah, bound for Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsingfors, Leningrad and “Gdynia. The ship was scheduled to sail at 7 p.m. “Alright, fellers, cover up No. 1 and 3 hatches,” called the bos'n. Slim handed his letter to a long- shoreman to mail. On the bridge deck, he noticed a few well dressed ladies and a short bald-headed man with a fat cigar, “Who's the swell company?” Slim asked the sailor alongside him. “Them’'s the passengers.” “What, passengers, too?” This was @ new one on Slim. These vessels had been built as freighters, with every square foct figured and ac- counted for. And now the company, besides loading a heavy deck cargo and making plenty more out of their juicy mail contract with the govern- ment, was carrying passengers, too! No hog like a capitalist hog! The other seaman, a tall, red- haired Swede, guessed from Slim’s face what he was thinking, and said: “Yup, all their ships on this run have been built this way. They put Sparks up on the boat deck, the bos’n and crews’ mess back aft, skipper up on the saloon deck, doubled up the cadets, and put the slop-chest below store room. another squint at the dandy, who wore white spats and seemed to be enjoying the scheme of things. “Well, I'll be a sonofabitch!” in the galley Slim took “There’s one good thing to it,” of-| fered the Swede. “They had to g better cook to feed the passeng and we got to cat it pack there, wedged in between two stink- ing toilets,” retorted Slim Somebody from the bridge deck hollered, “Say Steward, got a couple of hands to move these trunks.” The two seamen ducked out of sight, moved by a common thought. ae a eae H1.—Dynamiie It was actually 10 o'clock before they let go the lines, and near mid- night before the deck cargo was finally lashed down. A common trick of the shipping companies: to tie up, let go, and batten down on the crew's time. The deck cargo was mostly heavy machinery for the Soviet Union, and had to be lashed with iron straps. Most of the men got bruised shins and blisters from working in the dark. Nobody spoke much, but worked away in a hurry to get.done and turn in. Only Lag, still drunk, let out a curse every once in a while, when he stumbled or got his fingers twisted in tighten- ing the turn buckles. In the Messroom About 11 o'clock Slim went back for a cup of ‘coffee. enough work for one day. A heavy- set A.B, named Gunnar, the Ordi- nary, and a couple of the black gang were sitting around in the messroom. “We pass the Hook yet?” asked a middle-aged oiler, with a dirty sweatrag around his adam's apple. He didn’t look very seaworthy. “Yep,” answered Slim. “Anybody know where the night lunch hangs out?” . A couple of the men laughed out loud. “Night lunch? You don’t know the belly robber we got on this tub, He’s up there tucking the pas- sengers in nighty-nighty. He ain't got no time for us yet.” “Here, make yourself some hot tomato soup,” grinned the Ordinary, a tubby Polish kid with fat arms. He was pounding the contents of the ketchup bottle into a tin mug. Then he added hot water from the coffee urn, shook salt and pepper in, mixed it up and showed Slim: “Tomato bouillon a la Waldorf.” The rest of the gang started com- ing in, followed by the bos’n, who grumbled something about “some of \KAYo- NEXT MONDAY WE'LL START A = SLDAILY_Conie STRIP He had had!| By QUIRT and NEWHOUSE. @'\ aa | you fellers get tired awful quick. Then he set the sea watches. “You He looked all pooped, but had to | turn. right to again and stand a 4-hour watch. The picture of Windy Johnson tapping him on the shoul- der, “This man’s O.K. bos‘n,” came back to Sliin. *“In- the fo’castle, Lag was snoring in his dungarees, stretched out on a bench. Most of the other sailors were already asleep in their bunks, Shoes and socks and scattered around on the deck, which was wet and filthy. Slim took his shoes off and climbed into his bunk without undressing or washing. He was dog tired, and weak from under- nourishment. He had been living on ocedsional hamburgers for over a After a minute of resting his stom- ach began to bark with hunger, and he hunted up the messroom again. The pale oiler was still sitting there, inavhalf daze. Slim thought of the Ordinary’s. tomato bouillon. But there was no ketchup left, The breadloaf bore the greasy imprints of the whole blackgang. All the smells of the fo’castle seemed to have settled on the butter plate: boiled dungarees, steampipe, stale beer, toilet, sweat, slops. “Better wait for breakfast”, sug- gested. the oiler, coming out of his daze Slim went back to his bunk, There were ten bunks in the fo’castle, and they were all occupied. That was too damn many for such a small room. It couldn’t be called a room, it was just a space. Slim glanced at the riveted plates,-where the damp lad ‘caused, the paint to peel off. Lloyd’s under-writers would never al- low perishable cargo to be stowed in such ‘a hole. But there was no in- surance risk on sailors, so that was alright. In the toilet the shower was out of commission, the seats missing, not enough washbuckets, but that was alright too. Slim swal- jJowed a bitter grin. His glance fell on the lockers. There were only 7 for the ten men, but he had been lucky to get one for himself. That reminded him of something. Quietly getting down and opening his sea bag; he pulled-out a pile of maga- zines, booklets, newspapers and put them on the bookshelf. “Dynamite”, he whispered, looking around at his sleeping comrades, “to blow the dust out of your brains.” (CONTINED TOMORROW THRLE-CORNERED MOON ‘THAZR-GORNERED MOON, based on the Play byrGextrude Tonkonogy; directed by Bllicth-Nugent; ®; Paramount production. At the Paremeunt: “2 Claudette Colbert Mary Boland . Richard Arlen Wallace Ford Tom Brown S William Bakewell Hardie Albright Joan Marsh Lyda Roberti Eddie Rintblezar. Dougles Ririplegar * Last “March there’ appeared on Broscweya. play by-Gertrude Tonk- onogy called the “Three-Cornered Moon. «The title doesn’t mean @ thing. ‘Itiwas a hilarious play about an “insane” middle-class family who had lost-their fortune’in the famous stock market crash and through “un- wise”. investments of the irrespon- sible but»tell-meahing mother. All their lives the children had been wrapped up in their own little no= tions, oblivious of each other and of the rest of the world. Suddenly they find themselves starving in their huge Flatbush mansion. unites them. A level-headed young doctor, a.friend of. the family, saves them by showing them the sensible way out—for them."/ * That is the’ story-+or as near to the story as anyone will he able to tell you—of “Three-Cornered Moon.” The screen version suffers from an anemic adaptation. But the real trouble lies'in the fact that the au- - thor made the mistake in making her characters too fantastic to bear “ | any relationship to reality. Although the author denies it, one is inclined He yah ef e seriously in- nded to do was to draw a portrait of a boufgéedis family hit by the de- pression. It succeeds now in merely being anventertaining and diverting comedy, -: : lot. Nugent has done a capable job in thi rection: One nee not have the feeling of geeing a photo- graphed play. The casting is unus- ually intelligent, with the exception of Richard Arlen, who'ives one an uncomf able feeling: oe . PR ARTI Y Wp “Five Yedr Plan” Playing At, Park..Row Theatre “The Five-Year Plan: Russia’s Re- shown today at the Park Row The- atre, 223 Park Row. The film is a telling ec of the economic and cultural progress being effected un- der the system of socialist state plan- ning. It shows the development of industry where many of the largest dlants in Europe are being built and \ modern industrialized nation being STAGE AND SCREEN Hunger | Ritcher, wi!) op~*> + Theatre Guild To Present Two New Eugene O'Neill Plays This Season Two new Eugene O'Neill plays are scheduled for production by the The- atre Guild this season. The two manuscripts haye been received from O'Neill, who has been at work at his home off the coast of Georgia. This is his first writing since his “Mourn- ing Becomes Electra,” which the Guild produced. The first play to be staged, open- in October, will be “Ah Wilderness,” described as a folk play, and which takes place shortly after the turn of the century, It will go in rehearsal in a few weeks: “Days Without End,” the second play, is called by the author a mod- ern miracle play. It is planned to stage the production in November or December. Moliere’s satirical com- edy, “The School For Husbands,” which was planned to open the cur- rent Theatre Guild season, will prob- ably come in later in the year. EUGENE O’NEILL Who has just completed two new Plays which the Theatre Guild will present this season, “Yeomen of: the Guard” Opens at Majestic Tonight Milton Aborn will present his sec- ond Gilbert and Sullivan operetta; “The Yeomen of the Guard,” at the Majestic Theatre this evening. The cast is headed by Roy Cropper, Her- bert Waterous, Frank Moulan, Vivian Hart, Vera Ross and William Dan- forth, “The Chalk Circle,” a Chinese fan- tasy by Klabund, trorsio‘e4 by I. 8. ‘tat aewn out of one of the most back- making.” an Amkino film, will be 48th \ West ing the sixteenth subscription season | Music Metropolitan Opera House Chorus and Tamiris At Stadium This Week ‘Willem van Hoogstraten’s program this evening at the Stadium will in- | clude Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony, Beethoven's “Coriolanus” Overture, Mozart’s Gavotte from “Idomeneo,” Pimsleur’s “Symphonic Ballade,” and Brahms’ Variations on a Theme of Haydn, Tuesday and Wednesday the Me- trogolitan Opera House Chorus, as- sisted by the soloists Alice Kurkjian, soprano, and Alfredo Gandolfi, bari- tone, will combine with the Philhar- monic-Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Hans Lange in a pro- gram of operatic excerpts from “The Bartered Bride,” “Faust,” “Pagliacci,” “Cavalleria Rusticana,” “Carmen,” “Norma,” and “Boris Godounoff.” ) On Thursday Van*Hoogstraten will conduct the “Fugue for Violins in Nine Parts,” by Dubensky; Fantasy on Two Hebrew Folk Tunes and “A Night in Bagdad” of Boris Lovenson; Beethoven's Seventh Symphony; We- ber's Overture to “Oberon,” On Friday and Saturday evenings there will be the last dance program of the season at which Tamiris and the Bahama Negro Dancers will join in a program featuring the primitive, ritualistic origins of the dance which, born on the East Coast of Africa, are preserved in the folk Mfe and customs of the Bahamas. Sunday’s program will include the following: Symphony No. 1 in B-flat, Schumann; Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G for Strings, Bach; Suite from “Sylvia,” Delibes; “La Valse,” Ravel; Prelude and Finale from “Tristan and Isolde,” Wagner. WHAT'S ON--, NOTICE FROM EDITORS: All announcements intended for the “What’s On” column must be in the office of the Daily Worker before 12 o'clock noon the day preceding publication, WORKERS LAB, THEATRE MEM- BERS—Past and present, you are invited to a reunion party and en- tertainment at the Kavkaz Res- taurant, 312 E. Mth St, N. Y. ©, on Friday, August 18, at 9 p. m. Help improve the “Daily Worker.” send in your suggestions sad criticism} the Playmmiilers 1 ms Le. as know what the werkers in You shop think about &..9 “Baily.” { | tive, alive and bustling, may be humorous fiction. The picture is the second Yiddish film produced in Sov- jet Russia. stars x six-year old boy, who is know Jewkt: “Selpiiy Cooper, Theatre Collective to Produce Three Plays During Coming Season i Kar coming season will witness intensive activity in the work- ers theatre movement and promises to be one of the highlights o the cultural front. The Theatre Collec- relied upon to continue its efforts to establish itself as ,the first permanent workers’ theatre in the country, worthy of the support of every class conscious worker and intellectual, Its plans for the comlg season, the Theatre Collective announces, in- clude the production of three \plays, “Dirt Farmer” bp Paul Peters;, a satirical musical revue as yet unnamed and Paul and Claire Sifton’s “1931—’ The The-. | atre Collective made its bow to the | public last season, Because of | requests for its continued perform- ance from many labor organiza- tions it remains in the repertory of the collective. “We Gather Strength ” Shows Growth of Revolutionary Verse WE GATHER STRENGTH. Poems by Herman Spoctor, Josey Kalar, Edwin Rolfe, 8, Funaroff. Liberal Press, Inc.—35 cents, . Reviewed by ALAN COUNT? Revolutionary poetry, as Michael Gold ~>mts out to t co'slet, a in character. It task of putting in struggles of the world working- class movement. But it d not develop with uni- | form stre-7th in all countries. Na-| turally it, has attained its most ma- in Soviet Russia Germany, where the most highly developed Communist movements exist. Yet even in countries like Japan there is already a growing pody of ripened proletarian Verse. In the United States, revolution- ture form a joetry, as the title and con- Projects for a’ school of the the- | tents of “this booklet indicate, is atre, on a broad basis, are also | «gathering strength.” From _ its afoot. Courses in Acting, Play- writing, Scenic Design and others will be given in conjunction with and as part of those in The Social Basis of the Theatre, Historical Materialism, etc. The student will be prepared for work in the the- atre with a correct knowledge of the needs of the theatre today as well as the needs of that vast po- tential audience, the working masses, which heretofore has been neglected. The Theatre Collective wil! shortly call a conference of mass organizations at which its relation to the movement will be discussed as well as production plans, the necessity of mutual cooperation, ete, a Fait A subscription drive will soon ‘be launched to enable the Collective to carry on its work, One may become a subscriber for fifty cents, entitling him to a 25 per cent reduction on all productions of a Season as well as free admission to the various symposiums, parties, etc., which are frequently held. “Jews Without Luck” New Amkino Film in September Worldkino Corporation, pow rel- easing “The Return of Natl Beck- er,” the first all-Yiddish talking pict- ure made in Soviet Russia, has ob- tained from the Amkino Corporation the American and Canadian rights to “Jews Without Luck,” a sound film based on a novel by Sholom Ale- ichem, the noted Jewish writer of “Jews Without ~Luck” in @ovie'land as the Russian- troubled birth several decades ago (in the crude songs of Joe Hill, the I, W. W. hobo poet and martyr, and in the rugged free verse of Arturo Giovannitti, who was then a mili- tant labor agitator), American revo- lutionary poetry has stumbled for- ward, passing through its adoles- cence during the period of Coolidge | “prosperity” and the beginning of Hooverian “depression.” ‘Today, in the period when the stability of world capitalism has collapsed, our revolutionary poetry is coming of age. One of the most promising indi- cations of this growth is this slender volume of verse. In it we can trace the recent development of our revo- Jutionary literature, from the early poems of desolation and revolt (dated 1928-29) by Spector and Kalar, to their more mature ef- forts like Timeclock and Worker Uprooted, which were written sev- eral years later. Spector's Time- clock is an impeccable portrait of the «white-collar worker. Kalar’s Worker Uprooted is a deeply moving picture of the unemployed indus- -| trial worker: “Now alien, T move forlorn, an uprooted tree, Feel the pain of hostile eyes Lighting up no more for me; The forced silence, the awkward laugh, Comrade no more and pain. But it is in the work of the two in laughter younger poets, Edwin Rolfe and S. Funaroff, that we find the expres- sion verse. tucky events of Harlan, and in his Hom- age to Karl Marx, written on the orcasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the founder of scien- of ripened, class-conscious Thus, in the former's Ken- *o°2. inspired by the bloody and | tific Communism, we find not mere lyricising, but calls to battle. In both poems the heritage of the rev- , clutjonary traditions of the past are | Inked with the militant work of the present and the future. The first ‘escribes the revolutionary Kentucky ‘iners as the heirs of the pioneers ‘ the state. In the second: H Now, fifty years since his days met their last midnight, we—his countless heirs—rise dauntless in | all lands, his wisdom in our brain, | ‘the’ added lessons of half a century, ‘to’ impregnate the earth with newer | life, to win the final battle; and, elascless, to assume the final right to our supremacy. | -In Puneroff's long poem, What the | Phunder Said: A Fire Sermon, and in his Dnieprostroi (with its in- enious use of the lines from Blake's 4 Tiger! Tiger!) we find the slogans and achievements of the international Cominunist movement transformed into ‘Verse of a high order: We gather strength in the springs . Of the iron mountains, | We take for ourseives and our fu- | “tures the ferges of Vulcan, | We toilers of the white fires of c-*youth, we dare And we leap! ... ‘These poems are devastating refu- tations, of the war-cry of the aesthetes that “propaganda” vitiates art; on the contrary, they show that the.class-conscious proletarian move- | ment can inspire poetry of a high | character. Despite the youth and comparative inexperience of these poets, their work already rivals the | bourgeois poetry produced during the | same* period. Spector’s Timeclock, Kalar’s Papermill, Rolfe’s Homage to Karl Marx, and Funaroff's Dniepros- troi easily belong to the “best Amer- ican poems” written in the past few years. EXC Moonlight Sail TENNIS; GAMES; Pier 11—Foot of Wall Street Round Trip In Advance $1.00 At Pier $1.25 Children in Advance 50 cents; At Pier 75 cents Auspices: Friends of the Soviet Union take the 4 to 8, with Lag and the kid here,” h led to Slim. The other new man put on the 12 to 4.| seaboots lay} moénth, and today’s first square meal} had been well sweated out of him.| ‘its job with professional pride and ALL DAY URSION Sunday, August 20th 10 A.M. to 11 P.M. SWIMMING; DANCING; BALALAIKA ORCHESTRA Page Ft Student Expelled in Strike | Answers S. P. Leader’s Boast | About an “Arkansas Utopia” | Commonwealth, “Non-Factional Labor School” Fired All Radical Students Last December Commonwealth College, located at Mena, Arkansas, was the scene of a student strike last December. Today the school is being glori- fied by leaders of the Socialist | Party. Nathan Fine, teaching there during the summer se wrote an enthusiastic article on the school in the New Leader of July 15. In the accompanying | article, a student who was there during the strike gives an account of the school and its policies. By GEORGE WRIGHT IOMMONWEALTH COLLEGE, writing in which Nathan Fine, a recent issue of the I took occasion to glo the most. int in the whole f (THE LABOR DEFENDER) By MICHAEL GOLD Without a doubt, the Labor De- fender, organ of the International Labor Defense, is the most effective magazine in the revolutionary move- ment of this country. It is the nearest thing to a mass journal that has been developed, cor- responding to the famous AIZ ma- gazine of the German movement. The Labor Defender, to those who have not yet read it, may be de- scribed as a journal which does its propaganda through the use of short, pithy articles and many photographs. The pictures are handled skillfully, with telling captions and dramatic contrasts. They are as striking as good cartoons, and do a job that words cannot rival. Is Credit to LL.D. The current issue (August) marks the 6th year of the existence of the Labor Defender. Here is a 24-page magazine, printed on a good stock of paper, with some fifty interesting photos of the revolutionary move- ment, reproduced by a modern roto- gravure process. The whole job is thoroughly professional, and a credit to its editors and organization. It sells for a nickel, a price within every worker’s reach. This low price is also an achievement, for it means mass distribution. The August issue is given over to the anti-war fight, and to such la- bor struggles as the Sacco-Vanzetti, Scottsboro and Tom Mooney cases. The workers are stirred to action on the great events now changing the world. Almost from its beginning, the La- bor Defender found its true func- tion in the labor movement, and did campetence. The journalism of the American revolutionary movement has suffered generally from confu- sion, sloppy workmanship, amateur- ish experimentation and lack of in- telligent direction. For years one has seen fitful ges- tures made toward an improved liter- ature, but with unsatisfactory re- sults. I have attended scores of these committee meetings. Resul}: Most of our papers look today ss they have always, like the products | of the same sausage machine. They have no color, no personality, no sparkle of life. One has to go to the Soviet Union to see what a rich vari- | ety of drama, humor, struggle and human interest the journalism of the | revolution can be. And it is not only because the workers have the re- sources there, but it is because they | have acquired a living, free and flex- ible attitude toward labor journal- ism. Popular and Effective ‘Through all these years the Labor Defender has pursued its own path, ever interesting, simple, realistic and popular. Its only rival for func- tional effectiveness in our moment, I should say, is the New Pioneer, another splendid job of editing. These two journals are still cap- able of improvement; they still con- tain too many politically-sophistic- ated phrases. But in the main, the Labor Defender and the New Pioneer are the best papers we have that | can be given to a worker as an in- troduction to the movement. He will not need a college degree, a dic- tionary, a thesaurus,,and a set of burglar’s tools in order to jimmy any | common-sense meaning out of what he reads. Let us support the Labor Defender and give it the mass circulation it deserves! “S. S. HOOK MOUNTAIN” DINING; Tickets can be gotten from F.S.U., 799 Broadway, Room 233 Workers Book Store, 50 E. 13th St. Workers School, 35 E, 12th St. of Mr. Fine as an apologist. students as something ent from the statement 's article. He has taken the propaganda ciaims of the ad- ministration word for word and set them down as unbiased observ- ation. Commonwealth needs the services Stu- dents there during the September= ber quarter, who went on e and left the school in pure gust over the timidity and con- servatism of the administration, have spread the story too widely of what the school actually is for administration stories of an Are k Utopia to be believed with- out some apparently “unprejudiced” support. Mr. Fine rejoices several times over the fact that nowhere in the 31 did he find “a single affili- ber of any of the Com- munist factions.” This is a mate ter eas: explained. Since the strike, class-conscious _ students have avoided the school and left onl; tt the lf-hearted liberals and des from which the adé tion may coax a student Jommonwealth now, more than when we were there, is a fes‘ tering place for the propagation of individualist-adventurist trends, for sectarianism, and for reformismy pees its faculty. Last De-= cember, at the time of the stri when two-thirds of the student body left, there were on the fac- ulty and administration three per= sons expelled from the Communist Party, two Socialists, a Trotskyite, a Lovestoneite, a Musteite and three who have had no organic con- nection with even the liberal fringes of the labor movement. One of those listed as expelled from the C. P. is Oliver Carlson. Carlsori was expelled from the Communist Party several years ago for per- sistent refusal to stick to the Party line and for negligence and lazie ness in executing instructions, a * yie | Wetkcrnecrs the policies of the ad+ ministration. As the best example of its timid and reactionary atti- tude, is its stand on the question of admitting Negro students, Quak- ing with fear over the. possibility of arousing the “neighbors” in thé lily-whige county where the school is located, the administration had® to be forced by pressure of student” opinion to consider a of neighborhood education leading up to the gradual admission of Negro students, “Administration action on the program was quick and in- stinctive—action on it was post- poned until September, 1933, in other words, until a new student body had come and the farce could be played over from the beginning, . | iikereb more potent than the feas of ‘Communism and its prine ciples in the minds of the Asso- ciation members that control the school, is the dread of organized student action. Ever since the present administration, at that time students themselves, ousted the former head of the school, William E. Zeuch, and assumed control themselves, there has been the dread of an upheaval that would throw them out in turn. This last December, when oppo~ sition to the stringent rules and to the administration’s attitude on the admission of Negroes took the form of agitation for student ad- visory government, the Association’ in the first impulse of wild terror, summarily expelled two students” who had been the most vocal in their opposition to the reactionary administration, Student anger took the form of & protest strike—the second school” strike of this school generation. Communist and Socialist students alike joined in a close united front and kept the strikers’ ranks solid” and unbroken. The only scabs were several blood-relatives of Associa- tion members and students paid by the administration in the form of scholarships and jobs. H Need the college joined forces . with its natural allies—the po-, lice and the courts. The strike. committee was put under arrest. This action completely exposed the. - reactionary character of the ad-.- ministration to the students. On the next day the strikers, compris- ing about two-thirds of the student’. body, packed and left in a body. Commonwealth is openly exposed. to the workers as an ideologically. bankrupt, reactionary school. Only, such stand-patter Socialists as Mr,,; Fine can find an enchanting pice... ture in considering it. But pere haps to Mr. Fine it is an “intereste. ing experiment”—an experiment to. determine how much and how long. working-class students may be dex ceived by reactionary ideas clothed - in the phrases of “revolution.” ‘ Amusements — “RED and WHITE” A Soviet Production also: “THE STRANGE CASE OF TOM MOONEY” | worsens Acme Theatre: i 14TH ST. AND UNION SQUARE q RKO Jefferson ith St. & | Now JOHN BARRYMORE and DIANA WINTASS, in “Reunion In Vienna” Also:-—““THE SILK EXPRESS” with TADIUM CONCERTS =——"* Phithatmonic-Symphony 0: strs Lewisohn Stadium, Amst. Av. & 138 Willem yan Hoogstraten, Conductor EVERY NIGHT at 8:80 PRICES: 250, 50c, $1.00, (CIretn 1-578) SENS enna CaN ELSE (a etna j