The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 20, 1934, Page 4

Page Four DAILY WORKER, 3% Restoration Explained By Western Union Worker But They Must Lear Catch Is That Company Will Probably Cut | Employe That Has Extra Day Off By 2 Tel efforts of the Uni ph Worker Corres- ondent ed Committee of Action, a file organization of the Plant fic and Commer- cial Employes of the A.W.U.E. (com- been con- fight for mal return This Committee ion will confinue to ca on ilitant fight for the return of full 10 per cent with no catches. e employes should also carry on struggle for vacations with full and no forced extra day off. the notice k Evening f the 10 per c ai ne building lately, one being that we were to receive the whole of the 10 per cent deduc- tion and r of full vaca- eof, we were a week off. That pay By giving full support to the activi- ties of the United Committee of Action the workers will be able to better their conditions. ae ve oc hovine thar| Lelegraph Bosses Try to it wa Put Over Co. Union the an ment comes that the “restoration” would be only 5 per " 2, ai cent without any strings attached, | 3” * Western Union Correspondent In an effort to break up the grow- ing Telegraph Messengers’ Union, the Western Union Telegraph Com- pany is h ing all of the messengers into Association of Western So vacations are still three-quarters time, and it looks as though the| extra day a week off will also come to burden the employes Here is perhaps the reason why the the 10 per n't get the full] __ . + ‘ approval of W is. If the com= Union Em vees which is a com- pany restored 10 per cent ¢ Pany union. This decision was took off a day from each employe,| reached by the company after they the employes would gain a few|saw that all of the New York mes- cents from the way the thing is|Sengers were flocking into the T. M. handled now. Consequently the|U. and were determined to build it company offers a restoration of 5|UP into a powerful union. In the per cent. Now then, after every-| hope that they will be able to stifle body will be sitting back and think | the messengers once they are in this that the 5 per cent will be OK, and|C°™Pany union which has never that /iere wont be any additional | 20n¢ anything for any of the work- time off, the company probably has coun ee Eee Semaine up its sleeve the fact that the em-|} 5... tthe boys Save Roo cae A Pioyes should not have that 5 per|iney think of this by refucine ts cent, and they will cut the Poor | join the A. W. U. E. and by padi employe with the extra day off, ‘down to the Telegraph Messengers’ thereby giving the company the Union i iP 5 . in ever greater numbers. break between the 5 and 10 per cent Anotl z a th hers. i restorations, her way that the W. U. is | trying to break up the messengers’ junion is by suddenly arranging | Swimming meets, hikes and baseball games for the messengers, so they will forget their miserable condi- tions. Will give you more stories when we get the final lemon handed us. Editor’s Note: This worker is quite correct when he feels that there's a catch to the return of the 5 per | Rail Readiicss cent. The Western Union hopes| that by this move it will be able to| appease the employes and put ad- ditional burdens on their shoulders. However it should be remembered The Western Union Telegraph Co. may think that they’ve been pretty wise in these two moves but they underestimated the intelligence and militancy of the messengers. It will take much more than this to W YORK, FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1934 Chicago Cab Drivers Militant, /8T Company In Portland, Me., Full of Smoke Lack of Organizations Exposes Workers to Constant Layoffs By a Worker Correspondent PORTLAND, Me.—It is only a few years ago when the Portland | railroad shop called Rigby was full j;of life. There are only a |men working at present, and even these are afraid to be fired every day. Men are being laid off every week. | There is not a trace of sanita- jtion. The roundhouse, a costly | building, is so dark and full of |smoke that one can hardly find |his way through. In winter, when the steam and the smoke block your jWay, one must feel the wall with |his hand to reach his destination. | A few weeks ago, the company or- }dered the men to wear special | glasses, for safety’s sake. In reality |these goggles distort your vision, }you cannot look sideways. Espe- |cially, using a heavy hammer, you can hardly see where you hit. When ja few men complained about the goggles, they were told that un- |less they wore the glasses they | would have to quit. The blacksimth’s shop at the |same shop, Rigby, is made of tin and looks like a tin box full of smoke. The noise is simply nerve- | wracking. The other day one of @ woman. It is hot in the sum- mer like an oven and in winter it is cold as an ice-box. Since the last lay-off, they started to speed the men up. The men used to quit at a quarter to three to pack their tools away. Notices were posted: Any man quitting be- |fore three will lose his job. | The place is full of grievances but it is hard to get the men or- ganized. They are bitter against the A. F. of L. and the Railroad Bro- therhoods; they cannot forget the sellout of 1932. In 1928 the A. F. | | the belts fell down and almost killed | of L. attempted to get this place organized, but the company with the help of the company unon, drove the A. F. of L. out by giving the men an increase of 5 cents an hour and the workers were fooled. The company union consists of six men, all officials, but at the | Same time the workers just wouldn’t | join the Brotherhood’s union, which |started an organizational drive lately. There’s no special organizer |here to work among the men. The organizer who arrives from Bos- ton to attend a meeting once in a great while is just another job- holder, and the drive is coming slowly. Only last week, 192 men were laid off at Waterwill, Me., another Rigby shop. More lay-offs are expected and there is no organization to fight against them. ‘4c. an Hour for | being economically unable to us Engine Watcher on for them, having the kids brutally | torn from their side, and then being | | | n increase in wages was due to the | conditions. HELEN LUKE “Amor Matris” Gets a Break in the| their own, and the first “patient” “IN RUSSIA,” wrote my mother to| Furthermore the bourgeois dema- me some time ago, in horror at | S0Sues May paste it in their hats nist credo, “babes are torn from | Matris,” which is coming to be re- their mothers’ arms!” | 8arded as a malady by the capital- insisted (even though I was legally |# Potent factor in the radicalization “married”) that I bear no children | Of the masses of American women, tailing to me the above stale news- | @Nd tired of being forced to remain paper slander was highly ironic, | childless, or, having children and Communism to the younger by the| older generation become more and snatching of babes from mothers | ObJecting. becomes ever more widespread in| Ree Gane nes Can You Make ’Em Soviet, all women are enabled to bear and keep their children. the New York Daily News (April| Pattern 1828 is available in sizes 13), in an unusually callous piece |34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44 and 46. Size 36 Attempis Suicide as Court Seizes |lustrated step-by-step sewing in- Children.” It begins: | structions included with each pat- should take the two children of Mrs Apestolou, of 391 Madi- | and drive them off to the Gould | foundation as “neglected cases.” | law is a complex and wonderful thing, made up of big men in blue spectacled young women who lock at you and your children and call and judges who sit on big chairs behind high desks and say, ‘It is these children be taken from the mother’s care and placed in the get the necessary care’.” sweet story in the News, Mrs. Apos- | tolou tried to jump out of the win- | why hadn’t she learned to control such primitive emotions, like the concluding paragraph of the re- Port: | children away, Mrs. Apostolou and the relatives of the other girl threw to the alley through which must | pass all charges of the court. | bus attendants, and it was necessary to call radio police. Psychopathic Ward of Bellevue Hospital for observation. Was suffering from an ailment which is pretty wide-spread, not the world. Its scientific name is “amor matris,” but commen people it as ‘mother love’.” that the only reason that there was| squelch their struggle for decent CONDUCTED BY Soviet Unien | will be this capitalist system. my haying embraced the Commu-|"eht now that this same “amor Ingsmuch as she had always hotly | ist robbers and plunderers, will be because I was impoverished, her re- who will eventually get damn sick And such “arguments” against | more futile and ironical as the | Sent to the Psychopathic Ward for the “good old” U.S. A., while in the Yourself? That fascist-minded sewer sheet, of reporting, tells how a “Mother | takes 414 yards 39-inch fabric. Il- ybe it was best that ‘they’ %™. son St., away from her yesterday ’ “*Phey’ are the law and the | uniform and trim, tailored, be- you ‘cases’ and ‘case histories,’ the judgment of this court that | Gould foundation, where they will ‘After which, according to this dow. How irrational of her! Now polished bourgeoisie? Here is the “When the bus arrived to take the | themselves against the gate leading “They refused to move for the “Mrs. Apostolou was taken to the “There it was found that she only in Madison St., but all over —like Mrs. Mary Apostolou—know Yes, it’s our emphasis. And we quite agree that the law sure is a “complex and wonderful” thing | when it first drives people mad and | then drags them off to the psycho- pathic ward to see whatever is the matter with them. One of these fine days, the workers, tired of| Address orders to Daily Worker such monkeyshines, will set up a/| Pattern Depar:ment, 243 West 17th sevolutionary Psychopathic Ward of Street, New York City, a ie ek coins or stamps for this Anne Adams pattern. Write Plainly name, address and _ style number. BE SURE TO STATE SIZE. Send FIFTEEN CENTS (lic) in | (coins preferred) | New Haven Road | Rank and. File Must | Prepare Struggle At Elections By a Railroad Worker Correspondent BRONX, N. Y.—In the New Ha- ven Railroad Van Nest shops a guestion was asked by a worker. “Who and what is the Railroad | Brotherhoods Unity Movement?” | The R. R. Unity Movement was |bern in struggle originated by a group of engineers in Chicago, members of the Brotherhood of Lo- |comotive Engineers, to organize the rank and file after the sell-out and betrayal of the workers by Whit- ney and the other misleaders of the 21 standard railway unions in their acceptance cf the 10 per cent wage cut without the sanction of the | Workers or a vote being taken on such, United action of all railroad workers, organized and unorganized, under rank and file leadership, will force the bosses to return the 10 per cent wage cut, also a corre- sponding increase to off-set the ris- ing living costs, and get for the common laborer a $25 a week wage. An engine watcher cleans and starts new fires and keeps up steam on a locomotive, 205 pounds of steam, is rated as a common laborer and paid 43 cents an hour less 10 per cent. This worker has 25 to 30 | locemotives to keep up steam and water in the boiler for eight hours. | The most exnloited of any are the railvoad workers, engine and car cleaners and wipers, clerks, freight hendlers, maintenance cf way men, laborers, porters. pullman and sta- tion workers, all working on the | starvation coolie basic rate of wage- | workers making up the majority of employees but who are completely forgotten when wazes ave discussed. {Beyond the maintenance of way men, the bulk of these workers were left unorganized and left to shift |for themselves by the 21 standard | unions. Not even the company union committee would have any- thing to do with these workers. The wees of these workers rate from $6 to $15 a week—the blessings of the N.R.A. A gencral election will be held this coming June for the election of all officers in the Mechanical De- ‘tments Association, of the New aven Railroad. The M.D.A. is a company union supported by the workers and dominated by the be taken to put and file leaders ® n Solidarity 4 Must Stand Together (eee ese $194,622 Charged as To Defeat Charges | For Gas By a Taxi Worker Correspondent CHICAGO, IlL—In the restau- nts, around the stands, in meet- ings, everywhere where we meet ether workers, the challenge is flung at us: “When are you guys going to do like the New York cab-driv- ers?” We try to think up an intel- ligent answer. We try to look tough and in earnest, and counter with: “We're doing our damndest.” Are we losing our old-time fight- | |ing capacity? Who does not know | of the numerous, bloody Chicago “cab wars” as they were called? They were nothing but labor strug- gles skillfully converted into gang wars by the fleet operators. No. We | are still fighters. We are a better} | bunch of men now than we ever| | were before, but we are divided, | shackled, hamstrung, bluffed, duped. That is our problem now. Not to bolster our nerve; not to exhort | each other to militancy; but to con- | | vince the men that only a few of |us are company men and that the} |great majority of us will fight to- gether, shoulder to shoulder as| | buddies, for better wages and work- | jing conditions; to build the idea | that we drivers are class brothers, that we have common interests, and that these interests are flatly op- posed to the interests of the bosses; to show that we must discuss with | each other our grievances, our pro- Posals for organization of the driv- ers, and as to how we can beat down the fleet owners’ underhanded tricks of keeping us divided, disorganized | and suspicious of one another. Let's thresh these things out with | our fellow drivers wherever we have a chance of getting two or more| | heads together. Discussion will lead | | By a Longshoreman Worker Cor- respondent NEW YORK—While unemployed I have frequently gone to Union Square and there picked up copies of your paper, the Daily Worker. | It seemed to be very fearless in exposing graft and corruption. |. On April 1 I registered at the Municipal Lodging House and there I noticed how systematic graft is | being carried on and how it works, They gave me a ticket on Thurs- day, April 5, for the Glenmore Hotel, 4 Chatham Square. The ticket is a requisition for seven nights’ lodg- ing. When I applied for my last and seventh night at the hotel, they told me my seventh night was up already. I talked with many of the workers and they told me that they had experienced the same thing. They all agreed it was a system of graft whereby through the con- nivance of the Central Registration Bureau and the lodging house, the houses steal one night out of seven. I reported this to one of the regis- trars at South Ferry and he smiled | and said, “It is a mistake all you | guys make.” They send us to lodging houses on the Bowery, and for each meal we must walk to South Ferry. By Letters from A LIBERAL ViEWPOINT | Portland, Ore. Enclosed you will find a picture of a home of which there are hun- dreds here in Oregon and shows plainly where rugged individualism |leads to. |__Now yesterday the liberal Maurice | Hindus was speaking in the Audi- |torium here in Portland, on the subject of Hitler and Stalin. Of course, he came out with the same stale old story that there was no- body in his audience who was not eating better or wore better clothes and was living in better homes, then the best Russian workers. It was obvious that he was not speaking for the workers because he ap- pealed that those in his audience who spend pari of their vacations in Russia or Germany would agree with him. He used the same old gag of be- ing in a hurry to catch the train so that nobody could ask any em- barrassing questions. It takes time but people are getting wise to such fake liberals. Yours truly, A WORKER. | WE APPRECIATE YOUR INTEREST Detroit, Mich. Dear Sir: Flease find enclosed $1 to help |in the new press drive. I certainly do like the Daily Worker, with spe- cial emphasis on Michael Gold’s column, the Editorials, and the bril- liant analysis of the world situation to be found in the reports of the Communist conferences and Plen- ums. : It keeps one abreast of the times; and what stirring times these are! More than that, the Daily Worker enables one to help others under- stand the tremendous events which are transpiring all around the world today, their cause, and probable outcome; and there is no doubt about the fact that people today are taking interest in potitical eco- nomic matters, whose minds never rose above an interest in baseball, boxing or betting. ‘The great job of getting that in- terest guided into the right chan- nels, and it sometimes seems like a tough job, with the enemy con- (rolling practically every avenue of communicaticn, but whore the or- dinary newspaper is glanced over and sent do to the basement, papers like 4 “Worker” are avidly jeach other and then organization | will not seem so impossible. Some day we will not feel so sheepish when the New York strike is thrown in our teeth. Some day the operators will discover that we stand together solidly against pay- ing for gas and against the use of company sluggers. WORKER CORRESPONDENTS! The names of workers who write to the Worker Correspond- ence Department of the “Daily Worker” are never published un- less we are especially authorized to do so. The staff of the “Daily Worker” understands that to print these names might mean local perse- cution. Hence every precaution is taken to make absolutely cer- tain that all names are kept secret, However, we request that all letters sent directly to the paper be signed. We ask this because frequently letters arrive from important shops and industries from which special information is urgently needed. Valuable information concerning the activities of labor racketeers, secret war prepara- tions, and similar events are fre- quently obtained from worker correspondents with whom we are able to get in touch when any hint of this information comes into our office. The effectiveness of the “Daily Worker” can be tremendously increased if we are able to get in instant touch with correspond- ents in various sections of the country and in variows industries as occasion demands. Municipal Lodging House the time we get back from South Ferry we are hungry again and it is time to start down for dinner, The food is horrible. For break- fast; one half an ordinary bowl of what is called oatmeal. No milk or sugar. Three small slices of usually stale, moldy bread. For din- ner and supper—beef stew, a horri- ble stinky concoction. It seems to be made of chickens’ legs, cows’ tails, fish heads, etc. One worker said he thought there were a couple of horse hoofs in it. There are always cops watching the line and we are pushed and Kicked around like a bunch of ani- mals. The hotels are full of lice, bed-bugs and other vermin. For dinner we stand in line at least two hours, Our Readers read, passed on, read and passed on again, and everyone who works and suffers can recognize in it accounts of the same bitter problems as harass his or her own life, with the result that the influence of the paper steadily spreads, due to the fact, I suppose, that it is easier to convince a person that a spade is a spade, and not an automobile. I guess that is the psychological reason behind the steady growth of world revolt, something that grows out of the instinct of self-preserva- tion, added to an awakening sense of outraged justice, which awaken- ing can be credited in large part to the courageous men and women like yourself and staff, all over the world and through the ages, who have constantly opposed wrongdoing. I will close now with warmest frater- nal greetings. A. McK. NO JUSTICE FOR THE WORKER UNDER CAPITALISM Chicago, Ill. Comrade Editor: I wish you would print the state- ment I make in the “Daily” so the workers of the U. S. A. would wake up and get rid of these damned rot- ten laws we have in Chicago and all over the U. S. A. Some two and a half years ago I had an automobile accident, the re- sult of which I am a cripple for my natural life. I went to a law- yer by the name of W. E. K., lo- cated at ——. He grabbed the case, filed a pauper law suit against the Racine Paper Box Co. The firm had insurance with the Glens Falls In- surance Co. Finally the case came up, the 2ist day of March, 1934, at Judge Kava- naugh’s court. The jury was se- lected without me or the judge be- ing present. The case lasted all day. The next day it got into the jury’s hand. The jury was out for five and a half hours, could not agree on the verdict. The judge, I think, wanted to go home, so he called out the jury for instructions (or his dirty work) and asked them how long it would take before they came to an agreement. The answer of the jury was, “It may take all night.” The judge gave some rot- ten instructions and in less than ten minutes the jury came out with a verdict that the defendant was not guilty. I am a middle-aged man and cannot work any more. I would like to know if there is such a thing as Expenses to Fight Workers PARTY LIFE Union Hires) Worker Gives Valuable Points rmy of Dicks|on Recruiting New Members Convince Workers to Join Party by Concrete Action, Not Merely Words bee | By an LR.T. Worker Correspondent | Points on Successful Recruiting | NEW YORK—I buy your valu- able paper daily, and pass it on to others when I am through with it. jit is the only paper, with the ex- | ception of the Evening Post, that ;brints anything in favor of the | worker. I am an LR.T. worker and | glad to see you expose their com- | pany union, and that one must join jor be dismissed. In the applica- tion for a job one must sign that he will not join any labor organiza- tion except the I. R. T. Brotherhoed, the company-dominated union. The men have to pay dues to it. Thousands of men pay about $8 to $10 per year to it or lose their jobs. Any man who asks to know where it all goes is dismissed on some pretence or other. The men have to buy uniforms in a certain place —Schrieber and Meyer, 740 Broad- way, and bring back receipts to the dirty LR.T. Company union dele- gate, so that he and the company both get their graft out of it. The Interborough still has the 12 hour day in force and not a word is said about it. I think it was April 2 that the N. Y. Times printed the expendi- tures of the receivers since they took office. It had charged up these to the city before the city gets any- thing out of it. Conspicuous un- der the items is that $194,622 is spent for the upkeep of the com- pany union—that is, along with all they make the men pay into it. Why, the company keeps a standing army of about 20 delegates of their company union doing nothing ex- cept secret service work for the com- pany in order to keep out a union. The notorious strike-breaker, P. J. Connelly, is its president, along with P. T. Grosso, a bitter foe of your paper and all you stand for. At one of their fake meetings Grosso denounced your paper for a piece in it about the company union. You certainly have their fake down pretty fine. I think that if the city objected to paying or allowing that $194,- 622 there would not be 20 men of the LR.T. employees who would not be glad to see the union broken up. Occasionally they discharge a man on purpose, then take him back. Then the delegates go through the different terminals spreading the propaganda of having gotten so and so back again and so try to make us believe the brotherhood is powerful. The Fifth Avenue Coach Co. is about to get valuable franchises from the city, and that’s a com- pany that discharged 17 men for joining a labor organization. We men of the LR.T. would feel thankful if your paper will not for- get to expose the fakery of the ILR.T., company union, and their 12 hour day under the N.R.A. in the heart of New York. . + Editor’s Note:—This is a fine re- port. The only criticism one can make is about the honorable men- tion given to the New York Evening Post. This bosses’ paper has taken the line of printing “exposure” stories now and then to give the appearance of being on the side of the workers, but when a real strug- gle takes place, as in the taxi work- ers’ strike, then the paper joins the other bosses’ papers against the struggling workers, and then the Post becomes even a more danger- ous enemy of the workers than the more outspoken reactionary papers. And every day, the Post, despite its “exposure” stories is full of the same capitalistic propaganda as the other capitalist sheets. New Shop Paper Makes a Stir By a Worker Correspondent NEW YORK — I have been buying the Daily Worker every day in front of my shop and I thought I’d tell you about “The Oven” which is a shop paper that the Communists are putting out in our shop. It appeared for the first time two weeks ago and well, it cer- tainly made a stir. It was in everybody’s mouth all day. And, let me tell you, Otto, the rat, isn’t wearing his horn-rimmed glasses any more. The rest of the stool pigeons there also watch their step. You've got to hand it to the Communists! And don’t think the blood-sucking bosses aren’t trying to grind more profit out of us. Many workers have been laid off on each Monday and are rushed the rest of the week to put out the same work. Tl be writing you from time to time about conditions in this shop. justice for a poor working man un- der the present laws. So, workers of America, wake up, unite and organize, and drive the whole rotten law and system into the lake, and establish a workers’ and farmers’ and a Soviet govern- ment, so those fakers, lawyers, judges, and insurance companies can be gotten rid of for good, so they should not be able to give such dirty deals to the working class. I only hope that will not happen to any working man any more. After the trial I went back to see my lawyer, Mr. W. E. K. The advice he gave me was to take a gun and shoot myself or go to the lake and jump in. Cémradely yours, J.S8. The proletarian revolution can not take place without the forcible destruction of the bourgeois State machine and its replacement by a new machine—Lenin, Within a period of seven weeks, I have recruited into the Party five fishermen, one member of the A. F. of L., one C. W. A. worker, and a few others, a cement worker and several agricultural workers. This makes an average of more than one a week. It took me three weeks or more to sign up the first fisherman. It took me two weeks to recruit the A. F. of L, member. The rest of them took a matter of ten or fifteen minutes. In a number of cases, other com- rades had approached these con- tacts. Some of them had been in our T. U. U. L. unions, or Unem- ployed Council, for a year or two. Why hadn't they joined the Party before? Was it that they were not ready for the Party? All the workers to whom I talked, with one or two exceptions, were ready to join the Party. The main trouble was that the Party was not presented to them in the correct manner. Our comrades did not tell the workers that, first of all, our Party was a Party of ACTION. They did not show the workers where our program of action concretely IN- CLUDED that worker and the workers in his industry. In other words, our comrades agitated GEN- ERALLY without bringing the ques- tion of the Party home to the pro- spective recruit. Another reason our comrades did not succeed in their recruiting al- though I did after them, was failure to simplify the role of the Party to the workers, Whenever I talked to a worker, I showed the Party in its simplest terms, stressing its program of action, showing how it worked through units and fractions; and how it constantly moved toward its main revolutionary objective. I did not try to teach them historical materialism, surplus value, and Leninism overnight. I always made it my business to have an application card on hand, and never failed in the course of the recruiting to bring it out. If the worker hesitated at all, I al- ways asked him to tell me what objections he had to joining at this time. We discussed the objection. Often, I found that the worker understood the main role of the Party but held back for trivial rea- sons, lack of initiation fee; the question of dues; the question of fear of exposure; the question of lack of time, family complications, etc. Take the case of the C. W. A. worker. A unit organizer had talked to him without success and then asked me to help in the recruiting. I discovered two reasons why he had not joined. One, the Organ- izer had not asked him to sign an application card; second, he had no money and said he could not afford the dues. He told me he had a check coming in a week or so. 1 asked him if he knew how much the dues were. He said no. Need- less to say, when I told him he signed up. Afterward, I spoke to the Organizer and asked him why he did not tell the worker about the dues. He said “Well, he never asked me.” If our Organizer had tried to find out what the obstacles were, he could have overcome them himself. My first recruit was a fisherman whom our comrades had been try- ing to recruit for six months. The first week, I talked to him twice. I did not ask him to join, but out- lined to him our plan of work in the fishermen’s union, I attended union meetings with him, helped him in the work; offered him sug- gestions, helped him write a leaf- let and letters. I analyzed the meet- ing with him, showed him the weaknesses and explained how a Party fraction could overcome them, The second week went along much the same, except that I told him at that time, in view of the situation, I thought he could for the time being, carry on the work without joining the Party—although I explained it would be much bet- ter if he did. We drew several other comrades into the activities of the union and things began to pick up. One day I gave him an ap- plication card. A few days later, he turned it in with his initiation fee. We had convinced him not with talk, but with action. An important point in recruiting is to place responsibility upon the worker himself. A cement worker, who had been an agricultural work- er, came to the Party and told us that the agricultural workers in his vicinity were ready for organization. Being familiar with the situation, I showed him that our Party had no unit in his town, but units in two other towns nearby. Then I proposed that he join the Party, and take the responsibility of or- ganizing the workers himself by building up a fraction in his town and working with the other two units near by. This plan appealed to him and he joined. This same line has proved effective in reruit- ing the fishermen. I pointed out to them that only fishermen can effectively organize fishermen; and since they are class conscious and interested, the responsibility lies be- tween them and the Party. They recognize that responsibility. A worker likes to shoulder responsibil- ity, to be a leader. If you point out to him that joining the Party means simply that, he will under- stand what that means and will join. In the course of recruiting, very seldom do I use the word “I.” Tt is more effective to say “The Com- munist Party believes, says, does, etc.” In recruiting, it is most important to listen to everything the worker says. In most cases, he will on his own initiative, recruit himself into the Party. By this, I mean that we must not try to tell the worker what he should do or must do. First I find out what he thinks the Party must do; then I show him how he can help to do it. One time, I asked a worker what he thought of the Party. He said, “it talks too much. I want action.” This gave me an opportunity to go into our program, Finally, I asked him to join. He said “We'll talk it over some other time.” Then I bluntly told him “The Communist Party believes in action, not talk.” Most of our comrades who try to recruit talk too much. G. G., San Francisco. Join the Communist Party 35 E. 12th STREET, N. Y. ©. Please send me more informa- tion on the Communist Party. Name ... BOCES oe ces cecsveseccntssecaane’ Doctor By PAUL LUTTINGER, M.D. ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS Stammering We have reecived a large number of inquiries, from various corres- pondents, regarding certain aspects of the problem of stammering, par- ticularly among children. An ar- ticle on this subject has appeared several months ago in this column. In addition, we have lumped in the following paragraphs the answer which covers the rest of the ques- tions asked, as it is impossible to answer each correspondent sep- aratcly. There are over half a million stut- terers (including stammerers) in the United States; most of them be- ing children. Several thousand adults who are thus handicapped owe their unhappiness mainiy to the easy-going, but ignorant, friends and even physicians who told the par- ents to let the child alone: “He'll outgrow it.” Stutterers are the same as any other people. They feel and act like others. Physically, intellectually and emotionally they are often far above the average. The only dif- ference is that when the stuttering child attempts to express his thoughts, he finds that his normal flow of words is interrupted, in- stead of flowing smoothly and rhythmically. One of the most outstanding char- acteristics of stutterers is that their physical condition has a strong in- fluence on their inability to express their emotions smoothly. Thus a fever, disturbance in the digestion, fatigue, undernourishment or over- exertion will increase the stuttering. As we pointed out in our former article, the majority of stutterers have no difficulty in speaking or reading when they are alone. It is, therefore, safe to conclude that the personality of the listener and other factors of the environment have a lot to do with the hesitant speech of the stammerer. We have known many children who stutter more in the classroom than at play; others have more difficulty at home than at school. We have also observed adults whose speech is relatively smooth at all times, except when they telephone or have to ask for some information. There are some adult stutterers who show their handicap when they speak to their bosses or to somebody in authority over them; but exhibit no trace of stuttering when speaking to either children or to anybody over whom they have a feeling of “superiority.” Many children begin to stutter as a means of holding the attention of their mothers or nurses or to ob- tain privileges or delicacies which would not be forthcoming otherwise. Sometimes a nervous, sarcastic or irascible teacher or parent will cause a child to begin to stutter. Acci- dents, severe scoldings, jealousy of the newly arrived baby, have often been the starting point for lifelong stuttering. Sometimes children imitate stam- merers and when the parents are foolish enough to encourage them in their “cuteness,” they contract a lifelong handicap which they are unable to overcome in spite of their wish to do so. (To Be Continued) The dictatorship of the prole- tariat is a fight, fierce and ruth- less, of the new class against an enemy of preponderant strength, against the bourgeoisie, whose determination to resist has been increased tenfold by its over- throw.—Lenin, |