The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 6, 1934, Page 7

DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1934 Page 7 Py CHANGE ——THE — WORLD! E. Byo MICHAEL COED =e HAVE a guilty conscience, and I might as well talk it all out and get it over and done with. This columnist has sternly avoided all the tricks with which bourgeois columnists fill their space. He has rarely talked about himself, or his views on cauliflower, pajamas and similar trivia. But today he must talk about himself because he has a guilty conscience. It won’t happen again soon, . Pangs of Adolescence 'T SEEMS there are about 200 unanswered letters in the office. They come from the readers of this column, and most are of the kind of letter that makes one feel like a skunk if one doesn’t rush to a | typewriter and send an immediate reply. Letters come from young people with bad personal problems. They are out of work, or going through some bewildering love affair, or they feel defeated by life. Some of them talk of suicide, which always seems like an easy solution to youth but is, of course, an unintelligent solution. Many of them are Communists, but haven't yet been able to adjust their personal lives to the great struggle. Emerson advised the young, “hitch your wagon to a star,” but it isn’t always easy. I feel guilty because I haven’t written long, comradely letters to these youngsters. Some of them need only a Spartan course in self- discipline. They are going through the pangs of adolescence, when one’s ego looms larger than the universe. They are self-centered, and that is why some of their relatively minor problems seems so enor- mous to them. But a good dose of social work, with the mutual criticism and pressure that goes with group activity, would polish off some of the rotten spots. Action, action, is the only answer. Force yourself to learn how to work with others, and how to act. It is better than all this lethargy, this self-doubting, this bourgeois introspection. Only in action can one find oneself. Action has its penalties, too, of course. It can destroy one. But it is always better to be used up | in action, than to perish of the slow rust of morbidity. At least one has functioned and lived. And in the life of action, there are great glorious moments and adventures that the trapped dwellers in the dungeons of introspection never can feel or know. Action. Intelligent Communist action, that changes the world, | that gives one the sense of being nécessary and important to the worid, that gives one roots in life. * Vast Social Neurosis Be I know this kind of generalizing will not satisfy some of the youngsters. They want specific solutions for their own personal problems. However, some of these problems can be solved by nobody. We live in a world of capitalist evil. Most individual neuroses are merely the reflection of the vast social neurosis. Freudianism is only another variety of impotent reformism, and cannot cure the great evil, As fast as one victim is hélped, this capitalist system sends a dozen new cases to the doctors. Yet we must all determine to be well, and strong and socially useful. Communist activity often solves the personal neuroses caused by unemployment and race oppression and the like. I have seen this happen in many cases. The casés that cannot be helpéd in this manner need a sympatheticc physician, I wish there could be a clinic for our comrades who have been made physically and mentally sick by the chaos and horror of capital- ism. The Daily Worker Medical Bureau is doing a splendid job. But all this is a drop in the bucket. . Those Haunting Letters HOSE letters, those piles of tnanswered letters, I repeat, they haunt me, but what’s to be done? TI am only a single individual with too much work to do. I speak several times a week. Next montn I will be on a lecture tour for over a month, doing one-night stands in the Middle West. I must write a daily colurin, I worry about the novel I haven't yet written, I get dozens of phone calls every day and sée all kinds of people who have things for me to do. I rush around, like everyone in this neurotic city, eating at odd times, and trying to get to bed nights. There are committees to be sat. with, and an occasional picket line to walk on. I try to keep my head in all this, and remain serene. I know that what I am doing is nothing, I can see how some of our leaders must work--Earl Browder, Hathaway, and the rest. I know the enormous sacrifice of time and health the rank and file workers make every day for the movement, without expecting or even wanting anybody's praise. But those letters. Something like a hundred of them come ih every week. For many months I tried answering each one, and broke down on the job. It is really a day’s work in itself, and would leave no time for other work. So now I don’t try to answer them, and they haunt 1%. Who is to help all these workers, young and old, in their personal entanglements? But this is capitalism, which forces each of us to sink or swim alone, I read these letters from all over Mr. Roose- velt’s America, and it renews my bitterness against his damnable system of profit and poverty. And I hope the writers of these letters will try to understand my predicament, and forgive us. I seem to have a personal problem here almost as bad as some of those they write about, and there seems to be no solution for it. . Contributions received to the credit of Mike Gold in his Socialist competition with Jacob Burck, Dayid Ramséy, Harry Gannes, Ann Barton, del and the Medical Advisory Board, in the Daily Worker drive for $60,000. Quota—$500, Sadie Hollander Patients of Exp. T. Home Abe Furer Previously received . + $1.00 - 1.00 Total to date Contest by the New Dance Group NEW YORK—The New Dance Group is sponsoring a contest for the Workers’ Dance League. The contest calls for a prize winning dance script or scenario for a ballet or mass dance, One need not be a dancer or director of dances in order to participate in the contest. This is for workers, writers, poets, dancers who have ideas they would like to see performed, Subject mat- ter must be suitable for May Ist Performance, The prize will be the entire Little Lenin Library, Dance scripts must be submitted before Jatiuery Ist, 1935 to the Dance edi- tor, New Theatre, 114 West 14th Street, New York City. TUNING IN 1:00-WEAF—Press-Radio Election Returns we Ford Frick. WABC—Myrt and Marge—Sketeh :15-WEAF—Gene and Glenn—Sketch WOR—Comedy; Music WJZ—Hirsh Orchestra WABO—Just Plain i'li—sketch 1:30-WEAP—New Rights for Old—Profes- sor James T. Young, University of Pennsylvania $ WOR—William Larkin, Tenor WIZ—Edgar Guest, “Poet; Charles Sears, Tenor, Concert Orchestra WABC—Jack Smith, Songs “to-WEAF—Press-Radio Election Returns ¢45-WEAP—Frank Buck's Adventures WOR—Dance Music WABC—Boake Carter, Commentator 8:00-WEAR—Reisman Orthestra; Phil Duey, Baritone WOR—Dave Vine, Comedian WJ2Z—Revenge Is Neat—Sketch WABC—Concert Orchestra; Frank Munn, Tenor, Hazel Glenn, Soprano 8:30-WEAF—Wayne King Orchestra WOR—Variety Musicale WdZ—Lawrence Tibbett, Baritone; Concert Orchestra; John B. Ki :15-WJ2—Story Behind the Claim — 9:30-WEAF—Ed Wynn, Comedian; Duehin Orchestra ¢ WOR—Lum and Abner—Skétch adian Concert WABO—Jones Orchestra; Olga Albani, 5-WOR—Barnett Orchestra Scat aoe ‘ano de Ber- gerac, With Gladys Swarthout, sop- wae John Pane e and Others OR—Keller Sisters and Lynch, Songs Ws2—Sea Sketch, Cameron King, Narrator WABO—QGray Orchestra; Annette Hanshaw, Songs; Walter O'Keefe 10:15-WOR—Ourrent Events; H. E. Read 10:30-WOR—Vatiety Musicale WdJZ—Tim and Irene, Comedy Radio Election Results ae V. Kaltenborn; Raymond lapper 11:00-WEAF—Coleman Orchestra WOR-—News Bulletins WdJZ—Campo Orchestra WABC—Salter Orchestra 11:18-WEAP_Robett Royce, Tencr WOR—Moenbeams Trio 11:30-WEAF—Heff Orchestra WOR—Dance Music WdZ—Dursey Orchestra Ww. jusse Orehestra en- Segal, Soprano; Oliver Smith, Tenor 9:00-WEAF—Ben Bernie Orchest>a WOR—Eddy Brown, Viclin 12 ‘WORLD of the\German Retu Mouthfuls of Powdered Sugar | THE FARMER TAKES A WIFE— | @ play in three acts by Frank B.| Elser and Marc Connelly, pro- duced by Mix Gordon, at the| 46th Street Theatre. Reviewed by LEON ALEXANDER T= 1934 season continues to grow| duller and more insipid. Now| it is that little thing by Connelly jand Elser called so appropriately |“The Farmer Takes a Wife”—a |Mother Goose fairy tale for the not |too grown-ups. | Quaint and growing quainter as |the play progresses, interrupted by |long, nostalgic sighs, the unevent- |ful drags on, while “canawlers” and jtheir “cooks” spend their time jquarreling and making faces at the | railroads. And if the above reference to canal cooks should stir in any reader's mind the possibility of something salacious, let us reassure him at once that everything is Sweetness and light on the Erie “Canawl,” a lost Eden darkened only by the threat of the iron horse, It is hard to get angry with the innocuous little thing. The hero is handsome and the heroine cute, Perhaps it is only a growing dys- pepsia caused by seeing too many Broadway productions that makes me cantankerous tonight. But as I left the theatre, I glanced again at the stubs of my tickets (presented to us so graciously by the manage- ment). They were priced $3.30 apiece, by a coincidence, exactly the amount which home relief fol- lows a grown man for two weeks’ food, Our readers can get the same effect to be derived from seeing the play by staying at home and eat- ing great mouthfuls of powdered sugar, Like the play, it will get into their nostrils and into their hair. To those so inclined, we recom- | | | | jmend the “Farmer Takes a Wife” as an effective soporific and an excellent aid to the digestion—if they are lucky enough to have a meal under their belt. The tender smiles with which the metropolitan critics received the play raises serious doubts in my mind as to their virility. Plenty of Laughs PERSONAL APPEARANCE, a three-act comedy by Lawrence Riley, Staged by Antoinette Perry and Brock Pemberton, and fea- turing Gladys George, at Henry Miller's Theatre. He is Broadway as Broadway likes it—a bombardment of Lawrence Riley’s “Personal Appear- ance” ts something you look at and laugh at and then forget. It is a hit, it will make money, and then it will be superseded by other at- tractions at the box office. Opening with the final scene of Carole Arden’s picture, Lady,” in a Scranton movie palace, the play carries the star from he: curtain speech to a home for tour. ists on the highway to Wilkes Barre. and she decides to while away the time by seducing an earnest but in- nocent gas station attendant, How her Public Relations Manager thwarts her dishonorable intentions forms the denouncement. “Personal Appearance” provides Plenty of laughs for those who find Hollywood's specie of glamour funny, Gladys George, as the siren whose brain defies division, and Otto Huette, as her Public Re- lations Manager, contribute most |Of the mirth—B, H. MUSIC Satire on Feminism PRINCESS IDA, Gilbert and Sulli- van operetta, presented by the @Oyley Carte Company, at the Martin Beck Theatre, ‘ are warriors three Sons of Gamma, Rex, Like most sons are we Masculine in sex. Politics we bar They are not our bent On the whole we are Not intelligent.” This delightful ridicule of the pro- fessional soldier runs through the whole of “Princess Ida,” the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta played last week at the Martin Beck Theatre. The Story is ® parody on Tennyson's “Princess” and satirizes the extreme phases of the then growing feminist movement, Prince Hilarion, engaged to Prin- cess “I-I-I-I-da” at the “extremely early age of one” comes to Ida's university for man-hating women and finally wins her from her un- becoming, emancipated pursuits, But there is lots of fun in the process. The rollicking scene where a scal- ing party of hand-picked tenors in- vades the castle of the thoughtful virgins, is especially well done. The entire cast acts and sings very well; the utter gravity with with they carry out this farce is very funny, Gilbert and Sullivan were both of middle-class parentage and back- Little Leftv 00-WEAP—Danee Music. Interspersed ‘With Election Returns (Also WABC, WOR, WJZ, WMCA, WEVD) WABC—Bing Crospy, Songs; Boswell Sisters Trio; stoil Orchestra wisecracks at a hard-to-miss target. | “Drifting | There her car breaks down | 1) KNOW HOW You FEEL ABOUT EVICTIONS- BUY “feLLME- HOW DID ou yore??? | THEATRE Of Gruesome Murder by Nazis of Erich Muhsar PRAGUE, Oct. 16—Kurt Hiller, now in Prague after his release from a German concentration camp, pub- lishes in the “Neuen Weltbuhne” the following frightful account of how Erich Muhsam, German writer, came by his death: “On Monday, July 9, Muhsam was called to see the new camp com- mander, He returned to the com- mon room shaking, and pale as chalk. Eicke had calmly commanded him to hang himself within forty- eight hours; otherwise, he said, something would happen to him. “Some of the comrades tried to console Muhsam, saying that this must be just another one of their brutal jokes. Others, however, took it seriously, as did Muhsam himself. One of them advised him to run through the room shouting: ‘They are going to murder me! They are going to murder me!’ He thought that if hundreds of people heard this, the commanders would not dare to murder him, although they would no doubt subject him to hor- rible torture. “Muhsam did not follow this ad- vice. A few hours later, he was told by Eicke (or perhaps it was the battalion leader Eckhardt) that there must be no further delay; the matter would have to be settled that night. Muhsam was ordered to ap- | pear in the commander's room at nine o’clock, after the other prison- ers had gone to bed. He was told to wear the uniform of a Storm Trooper, which he had. to clean, and to bring a rope. “Muhsam cleaned the coat, got a piece of rope, a length of clothes- line like that from the company leader of the sixth company, said farewell to his comrades, and went across to the management building | opposite the sleeping quarters. did not return. “The next morning (July 10th) his | straw sack was empty. Shortly after | Muhsam had gone out the night | before, Himmelstoss inspected the company as usual. In reply to his| question if we were all present, we answered: ‘All except Muhsam, He Said: ‘I know that, he is on duty’.” “Next morning, when waking us up, Himmelstoss asked especially | about Muhsam. On being informed that he had not come back, Him- | melstoss shouted: ‘Then we must look for him’. “He called upon several prisoners to accompany him, and went | straight across the courtyard to the privies, There hung Erich Muhsam, seal neck and around a beam, his body | suspended against one of the wooden | partitions. Himmelstoss pretended | to be surprised, “No one was allowed to look at the | body after it was cut down, but a comrade whose trade enabled him to have expert knowledge of such matters, had noticed that the rope was knotted in a manner utterly impossible to have been done by |Muhsam, who, incidentally, was no- toriously awkward at manual tasks, The knot was the work of an ex- pert. And in addition, the distance between the beam and the head was so small that no living person could have pushed in his head. The dust on the wooden wall against which the body hung was undis- turbed. The tongue was not hang- ing out. The fists were clenched. Besides this, comrades whose anx- iety about Muhsém had prevented them from sleeping had noticed that lights were lit and turned out. twice in the yard during the night.” THIRD WEEK OF D. W. NAT. TRAINING SCHOOL DRIVE INCREASES TEMPO The determination and enthu- siasm of the students in the N. Y. |school is clearly indicated by the |fact that the collections for the | third week equalled the sum col- lected for the first two wecks, making a sum total of $650 up to date. The instructors are taking an active part in the Drive. They are challenging each other and there- fore are creating socialist competi- tion in their respective classes. The prizes are selected by the class, to be given to the student collecting the most money, The class in Political Economy C, ,James Field, instructor, is so far collection of $29.45. However, if this class wants to keep the honors, it will have to work |hard because many other classes are trying to gain the lead. | |. The series of lectures conducted |by Comrade Hathaway ended last |week. The registration for this class was immense. However, it did not serve its full response, since comparatively very few Party, |Xoung Communist League and Trade Union members registered jfor it. These Saturday afternoon |courses should be utilized partic- \ularly by those comrades who have not the time to attend classes during the week. The next series of lectures will begin this Saturday, Nov. 10th, on “The Growth of the International Proletarian Class Struggle as ex- pressed in the First, Second and Third Internationals,” with Max Bedacht as instructor. The fee is $1 for five lectures. Registration now going on at 35 Street, Room 301. * Herbert Benjamin, National Or- ganizer, National Unemployment Councils of the U. S., will lecture on “The Fight for Unemployment Insurance in the Sixth Year of the Crisis” at the New York Workers School Forum, 35 East 12th Street, Second floor, Sunday, November 11, at 8:30 p. m, Admission 25c. East 12th me te ground, the former the son of a retired surgeon who wrote mediocre plays, the latter of a less affluent army band-master, It is no wonder, then, that their satire was, for the most part, directed against individ- uals and not social institutions and, that, for this reason, their plays were generaliy acceptable to the bourgeoisie. Why do we still find these operet- tas so delightful? Because satire of smugness and caste, even if as indirect as that of Gilbert and Sul- livan, is rare and refreshing, There 4s so much in our Hitler-Upton Sin- clair-blue eagle set-up that could be dealt with in like manner, to the advantage of the movement. Where are our revolutionary satirists? 8. F. PARTIES NIYEARS RAND What's Doing in the Workers. Schools of the U. S. ~ SAY! You've BEEN VOTING FoR CAPITALIST SUCCESSFUL FALL TERM AT BROWNSVILLE WORKERS SCHOOL How much stronger and more ac- tive is the administrative and organizational structure of the Brownsville Workers School than before can readily be seen from the growth in size, number and success of the forums, socials and fund- raising affairs during the present fall term. The peak of the sea- son’s activities will be reached on Friday, November 16, at 8:30 p .m., when John L. Spivak, author and feature writer of the New Masses, will lecture at the Brooklyn Acad- emy of Music on “America Faces Pogroms,” under the joint auspices of the Brownsville Workers School and the Brownsville Workers Book- shop. * . . | The Buffalo Workers School, 720 Main Street, which has been or- ganized this term, has had a suc-| cessful fall registration. The school committee, at its next meeting, will discuss plans for the coming term. They will particularly make plans to conduct a drive in the trade unions and mass organizations. age uaa We have received a letter from a comrade which we feel will be of great interest to the readers of this column. The comrade states: “One of the courses now being given at the Workers School should be brought to the aWention of the membership of the Party and jLeague. It is éspecially important in view of the tasks confronting the movement at the present time. I mean the course in ‘Organka- tional Principles.’ One of the ma- jor tasks before the movement is the building of the Party and League, and concentration within shops, ete. Yet, the fact that this course would aid the comrades in the fulfilling of their tasks is not brought to the attention of the membership,” This criticism is very true. The importance of theoretical training in the class struggle is very often underestimated by those comrades who are very active. And it is this comrade who should take courses in order more ably to apply the theoretical weapon in the class struggle. Paty FALL TERM ANALYSIS OF LOS ANGELES WORKERS SCHOOL We have just received a com- munication from the Los Angeles Workers School, A total of 200 stu- dents registered for the Fall term, all of whom are native Americans. A large percentage of the students are employed in light industry and white collar work. The balance are composed of basic industry work- ers, professionals, ete. a great many students attending the school are affiliated with the various trade unions. re ee Several Workers Schools have sent in reports on their activities concerning the Sacramento terror. We would like to hear from the other schools. Sold for a Cigar! = PERHAPS HIS ON “THINGS L WAGE Cours, FOR YEARS, gee Tells WORLD of the\Graphie Deser MOVIES A Soviet Film Masterpiece THREE SONGS ABOUT LENIN, Soviet film produced by Mejra- pomfilm, directed by Dziga Ver- tov, at the Cameo Theatre. A world premier released on the oc- casion of the 17th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Reviewed by SAMUEL BRODY T WOULD be presumptuos to at- | tempt an exhaustive estimate of | “Three Songs About Lenin” after | a single viewing. It is not merely | a question of looking into the structure and analyzing the con- tents of a “great” film. In “Three | Songs” you are confronted with | something so completely new in the | realm of artistic experience that you are compelled to struggle to free | yourself from the overpowering emotional upheaval that grips you dead, yellow, a rope around his | before you can attempt an objec- | the politicalization tive dissection. I predict that this film is destined | to become one of the most talked | of since “Potemkin” and if this piece is to be the opening gun, let it roar to some 45,000 readers of the Daily Worker that it is their duty as class-conscious American citizens to see it and popularize it | iption of Lower Middle Class Decay in Herbst Nove THE EXECUTIONER WAITS. By Josephine Herbst. Harcourt, Brace: $2.50. Reviewed by EDWIN SEAVER NE of the hard middle-class perhaps, espe class writers become fellow Communist Par years, is a unified material, Even if the dynamics of the d talist and the emergi societies, he tends to re’ bourgecis approach There is a notice. of his art either thro ist lectic overboard altogether w he writes his novel or his 5 else foists it upon his mate lis “ ter and thi a hat Wendell that it sticks out like a sore t It is, therefore, gratifying to fi novelist like Josephine Herbst ‘traying the decline and change a por le eyes on son-in-law, ‘ated with psychology, the symtoms, pf ~~ among all those with whom they |of the American lower middle class come in contact, | without forgetting that the primary In the current issue jof New| job of the novelist is to write about Theatre magazine, Jay Leyda, its | real people, and depicting the stru Moscow correspondent, has the fol-| gles of individual men and women lowing to say about “Three Songs”: “The great convincing tradition that reached the peaks of ‘Po- temkin,’ ‘Mother,’ and ‘Soil’ is carried forward gloriously in Driga Vertov’s new film ‘Three Songs About Lenin.’” And when a film utilizing ex- clusively material recorded in reality can reach the emotional and lyrical heights of “Three Songs,” | then indeed we are dealing with | a real revolution in the artistic form | of the revolutionary cinema. With “Three Songs” the Soviet film has| reached its Great October and a most complete and satisfying revo- lution it is! How inescapably convincing, these factual pieces put together by the hands of a master who knows cine- matic construction better than any one in the world! How completely overwhelming the orchestration of sound and sight, where even the brief words from the mouth of a shock-brigader becqrke such moving music! In one sequence about the death of Lenin, there is a long series of perfectly still shots ac- companied by the mournful blow- ing of a siren... Well, see “Three Songs" and ask yourself when a passage in any acted film has so affected you. This sequence oc- curs in the second song about which Jay Leyda says: “The deep sincerity and tragedy of the second Song, about the death of Lenin, achieves an emotional impact that one seldom réalizes to be within the capacity of the medium of the cinema... Only afterwards does one ask how..such profundity of suffering was conveyed.” And almost all of the second Song is composed of old library material taken around the life and death of the genius of the prole-/| tarian revolution, V. I. Lenin! Are | not the Songs themselves documents | heard in the first and last sections of the film from the mouths of the Tadjiks themselves? Vertov is the new giant of the Soviet cinema and infinitely more important than any other single director, inasmuch as his work has influenced and will continue to in- fluence the whole course of Soviet production. I will have occasion | to expand on this question in the} near future and to discuss the sig- | nificance of Vertov’s work in rela- tion to revolutionary film produc- tion in America, For the moment I want to confine myself to the task of shouting from the house- tops: “See ‘Three Songs About Lenin’! It is the most inspiring, the most glorious product of Soviet cinematography! It is a heroic symphony of Lenin and Leninism!” “We loved him . . .” they sing in the darkest corners of that vast land, the Soviet Union... “We never looked upon his face, we never heard his voice, but he loved us like a father. No, more than that—for no father ever did for his children what Ilyich did for us... And if Lenin could see this country today—” Vertov has trans- ferred the voice of Ilyich, whom they loved, to this film from an old dictaphone record. “Lenin’s Voice!” The voice of the great liberator! “If he could see our country to- day...” The final Song evolves into the whirlwind tempo of a mil- lion-throated chant to Socialism, to freedom from oppression, to the true pursuit of happiness, to Vladi- mir Ilyich Lenin! Hail “Three Songs About Lenin,” the Soviet cin- ema’s greatest contribution to the great treasures of revolutionary proletarian cinema art! Contributions received to the credit of David Ramsey in his Socialist competition with Jacob Burck, Mike Gold, Harry Gan- nes, Ann Barton, del and the Medical Advisory Board, in the Daily Worker drive for $60,000 Quota—S250. Total to date . $28.24 without forgetting the larger social implications involved. “The Executioner Waits” is a: cellent sequel to the author's equa! excellent novel, “Pity Is Enough.” The latter book started with the aftermath of the Civil War in the get-rich-quick days of the carpet baggers, took us throu: he days of the “robber barons the years just before the War. the saga of the Trexler family the families related to it by riage, through the years of the w up to the depression. And just as the great American middle-class longing for “a little capital” to get started on some business enterprise was the main theme of “Pity Is Not Enough,” so the same longing persists through “The Executioner Waits,” only with increasing doubt and frustration on the part of the older generation and, at the end, Tevolt on the part of the younger. (Rew! first novel of the projected trilogy was concerned main! with the fortunes of Joe Trexle:. remembered as “poor Joe” in the second volume. Joe Trexler was a handsome, generous, up-and-coming lad. He wanted what every Amer- | ican was supposed to want: the op- portunity to make good, which is to say, to make a fortune. went South after got in with the best peovle on some crooked deal and was left holding the bag when the best people pulled out, As I remembered it, Joe went West after that to find gold, but it all came to nothing. The great American dream ended | in defeat for Joe, as it did for most of his kind. But what made the Not | py The present novel continues | . So Joe | the Civil War, | 1e two Wendell and Vic- against the h has turned 1em, are en- h the Wob- ie tion= a dud for in sympathy w sym ize t ary If in the al of those members of the generation” who did st Jonat his middle-class herit housekeeping for ther rural commun en © set and bef with the falling two young | have There {; their new neighbors | the embattled I have wri here of the fine soil qua: of Josephitie |Herbst’s prose, which is perhaps seen to best advantage in ti |casional “flash-aheads” in the Jent novel, those excellent wor jtures of different sect | United States in the depression. Josephine Herbst | Serves to be much moré widely read ‘than she is. de- Questions and Answers We publish today the second of several letters with accompany- ing answer in connection with the discussion in this department on Oct. 18 on the question of what is | the correct attitude for the work- | ing class on interfarriage be- tween Negroes and whites. We are printing only those letters taking exception to the position of the revolutionary vanguard on this fundamental question. aE Editor, Daily Worker: On page 7 of the Daily Worker of Oct. 18th are a question and an- swer which are of very great im-| portance. Now I am not a party member. I have, however, been a reader of the paper and a follower of the party theoretical line for a long time. I therefore feel at lib- erty to disagree most emphatically with the reply to that question. You say in many words that if a white person expresses himself as being unwilling to marry a Negro, then they are “white chauvinists’ and therefore not good Communists. I cannot see why you should tie up the party to a course of that kind. Communist theory says absolutely nothing about whom one should marry, and why you should commit the party of Lenin and Marx to the policy of definite intermarriage of the races is more than I can un- derstand. The comrade who asked the ques- tion was no chauvinist. He was a broad individual, with honest opin- ions, honestly expressed and if he had a personal preference for his own race in sex relationships, I think you are entirely wrong in con- demning him... ‘Your answer could turn thousands and thousands away from the party. The party line could be only one thing in this respect: riages are not to be condemned, nor encouraged either. Children of these marriages naturally are to be CANDIORYES DoN'Y ACT IKE. UNEMPLOYMENT, AND HUNGER— accepted as equals as well as the ~BUT THINK OF —THe FREE B002E g NICIGARS ATeLEcrion time! Intermar- | parents. But the party could not Possibly command such intermar- riages under penalty of being called white chauvinists, M. KING. Answer: The Communist | does not command intermarriage of | Negro and white persons, and cer= | tainly there was nothing in the An- swer published in the Daily Worker of Oct. 18th that could lead to such an erroneous impression. The Party | does not say that a Negro must | marry a white person, or vice versa. It does say, however, that all re- strictions to the freedom of the in- dividual in the matter must be broken down in the interests of the unity of the toiling population, white and black, against their com- mon oppressors. It fights against |the ostracism of “mixed couples” who have dared to defy the dictum of the white ruling class (anti-in- termarriage laws in some 39 states). | Without the sharpest fight against | all boss-imposed restrictions between the toilers of various races and na- tionalities there can be no true in- ternationalism. Any fight for Ne- gro equality that does not include full equality in all social relation- ships could be nothing but a hollow mockery. A truly revolutionary party cannot be guided by oppor- tunist considerations that its posi- tion on the Negro Question “could turn thousands and thousands away from the party,” but must boldly state its position and seek to coh- | vince all sincere white workers of | the correctness of its position. This |the Communist Party is doing with |increasing success, eyen in the South, the stronghold of the white chauvinist poison of the imperial- ists. Party Contributions reecived to the credit of Del in his Socialist competition with Mike Gold, Hardy Gannes, the Medieal Advisory Board, Ann Barton, Jacob Burck and David Ramsey, |] in the Daily Worker drive for $6C,00C. Quota—$500, Van Dermoien J. Edwards Previousiy reeciver Total to date East Side Post No. 191 of the Workers Ex - Servicemen’s League, feeling a close comradely .bond with Uncle John, have written him asking him to dd his buddies a favor. The Post needs a radio, D. C. currents badly but they can’t pay for one. Would some sympathetic soul inf possession of such a radio turn it over to the Post? It should be sent to 69 East 3rd Street, New York City. P. S. The Weasleg j Promise to credit all collections for the “Daily” to Little Lefty: (They say this isn’t a bribe!)