The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 12, 1935, Page 5

DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1935 ? 4 Page 5 - By MICHAEL GOLD HEN all is said and done, we Commu- nists must be credited with doing just a little good in the world. Even our enemies must admit that we have helped the regal daughters of high society to be- | come aware of, in General Johnson's cute phrase, | “the ants of consciéncé crawling in their pants.” Let me explain. According to Dirty Willie | Hearst, the Communists are the worst boogeymen you ever saw. They lurk in every corner, and under evéry Amieritan twinbed. They are in the schools, the factories, the public parks. Willie | probably has found oné in his soup, and it crawled out, whiskers and all, and hissed, “Boo! you double- crossing, sexualizing, yellow rat of a bloody money- bags!” or words to that effect; which scared him | mightily, as it would any peaceful millionaire, and | madé him flee to Mother Hitler for protection, as who with twenty million dollars wouldn’t? Yes, they are everywhere. And if this is true, WHO can say with much confidence that among | the thousands of butlers, first and second maids, footmen, chauffeuts, gardeners, lapdog guardians, cooks, masseurs, pastry bakers, coiffeurs, private sectetaries, ghost writers, dressmakers, publicity ménh, jéwellérs, pefsonal doctors, yacht captains frid other able-bodied meh and women who must waste their valuable lives ntrsing the idle fich afd their wives and daughters—. Who can say that in this vast army of forced and useless labor there does not éxist a nucleus of rebéls who would rather be men than mice and who hate their worthless masters and long for a new world wheré manhood will be everyone's right and no mani can havé money with which to ruin the | lives of other mefi and make of them trained flunkies? In other words, surely there are rebel hearts, aye, even Communist hearts beating under many the stony shirtfront of a perfectly trained butler. | And it is not fantastic to suppose that copies | of the Daily Worker or the New Masses have beén secretly thrust under the noses of our Ruling Clawss, as Redfield has named them, in Newport or Palm Beach. The society ladies must surely have learned what we think of them. Robert Forsythe has done valiant service in expressing the lack of respéct for society now gtowing in the mind of the masses. His raspberries have been inimitable; he is a real Jeremiah of the Bronx cheer. Bufck, Limbach, Gropper and others of our cartoonists Have often drawn Mrs. Fatt and her daughters. Thé thing must have struck home at last. Even a lady with forty séfvarits and a mighty rear pooch has her feélings. Well, the ladies have taken our words to heart, and it seems they are going to work. They have been nationalized—I méan, democraticized. Hooray! Likewise banzai and balonéy! * * . Those Ungrateful Bolshies eee is the story. At first, they did not take our | unkindly batbs with sufficierit seriousness. They thought it was just catty spite or jealousy. They had pearl necklaces and yachts and were carefully massaged every day. We owned no pearls or mas- seuts arid so we were just being petty and jealous. The ladies, however, were sotnewhat touched. | They made gesttites toward proletarianism, just to | divert some of the arrows of spite. The ladies; you will tethembeér, bécame photographef’s miodels to show their good-will, Every cold-cream adver- tisement, every ad for Camel or Lucky Strike cigar- ettes now was headed by a de luxe photograph of the swellest dame§ and fanciést names in high society. You saw them in theif velvet gowns, against a backgfound of gilt luxury, dabbing in cold cream or puffing a Camel. They wrote (or their fiunkies wrote) exquisitély worded little tes- | timonials testifying that cold cream improved their facés or that cigarettes madé them healthy. It was work of a sort, and theréfofe irritating. but the ladies did it gallantly for the cause of democ- racy. Yet the awful Bolshies kept up the criticism, the snéers and the hoots. The sacrifice was ré- ceived ungrateftlly. The red bloodhounds still bayed, and the ladies knew that something drastic must bé done. Our Pearls and Butlers (ee ts cial fo a story in the New York Post, sociéty Women aré fiockirig to Hollywood to enter the movies. There, you Reds, we hurl your in- sinuations in your teeth. We are not parasites; we are going to earn our pearls and butlers in the sweat of our brow. We are just as proletarian as Joan Crawford, and God has given us the same lips, eyes, noses, enameléd complexions, sex appeal and rear ends. “Two pretty and very, very blue-blooded society women, Dorothy Fell of Park Avenue, and her sister-in-law, Mrs. John R. Fell, will board the train tomorrow night for Hollywood and take screen tests,” announces the liberal Post. ‘Miss Fell is the daughter of Ogden L. Mills (how or why I cannot téll, society being a puzzle.) You know him, of course, he was Hoovet’s treasurer and pal. Miss Fell, the paper says, has been comrhiuting between Palm Beach ahd New York, getting in training for a movie career. Life has grown serious, and it is all thé fault of those Communists. TUNING IN x 7:09- WEAF—Hobbies—Samuel * 9:00-WEAP—Béen Bernie Or- Lewisohn, Quenna Mari ‘ ete Besneans dette: ga WOR—Sports Resume—stan| wor—tHillbilly Music Lemax Wdz—Grace Moore. Soprano WR Amon ‘nt Andy WABC Bini Crosby. Sones: aOohe tte. a Broun 1:18-WEAF—Jack Smith, era, Bones; Joan Bennett, Wiecworten Some VEAP ea Wynn, Com i Wynn, a= Tenor; Binatta OFeh: Guy ear pss S i) Na ir WOR ‘hantment— WABC-Just Plain Bill Woe—oanadian, Ooncert. 9:80-WEAF—Easy Aces—Skete WABC—Jonés Orchestra: WOR—Thé street Singer Blizabeth Lennox, Con- bad eer tpgs oar ry traito arles Seats, ‘ :00-WEAF—Operetta—Lai Conéért Orchestra ani Ermine se as WABC—Jerry Cooper, Bar- | WOR—Testimonial Dinner to Former New York State Supreme Court Justice itone Jeremiah T. Mahoney, ant, Former Governor of ‘Hotel Waldorf-Astoria OR -Comeay ahd, Musto eelgeat, Calverniy at ient, University joake Carter, Com- Wisconsin, Speaking at mentat National Republican Clu> 8:00-WE, an Oreh.; Lineoln Day Dinner Phil Duey, Baritone ‘ay Otchestra; ah iteh Annette Hanshaw, Songs; Harmonica Band; Henry Surhle, Comedy Wd%—The Borgian cdititage WABC—Concett Orchestra; Frank Munn, Tr! Walter O'Keefe 10:30-WJZ—Na‘ional Defense —Georgé H. Dern, Secte- tary of War g WABC—Emery Deutsch, Violin 11:00-WEAF—Talk—Stanley High BS sett Hazel Glenn, Sopra: $:30-WEAP—Wayne King Or- wor Vari ty Musicale ety oa WJ%—Lawrence Tibbett, | They know | strangle-hold of the Sotithern tex- | the textile workers in every state \too. All of them mill hands of LITTLE LEFTY I'VE GIMPLY GOT Te FIND A Goop SPOT FoR OvR ry NEWSBOYS UNION” fl Home Sweet Home! SECRE ENTRANCE! by del LOOK SPUNKY ! WHAY A SPOT § FoR. ® UNION |All Seven Defendants) Slaved in Mills from Childhood By ANNA MAE JOHNSON (EY are all Southern-born and Southern-bred—the seven work- érs whom the textile bosses of Bur- lington, N. C., have séhtenced to jail. Afid they are all mill workers. and they hate the tile mills on the life and being of a worker. That’s why they ofgan- ized, that’s why they sttuck. When came pouring out of the mills in the great strike of September, 1934, these workers of Burlington camé, long standing, four of them meti« | bers of the United Textile Workers’ Union. x To break that strike, to smash the union, the Burlington bosses had sotie dynamite planted, and ealiéd in the shefiff, and got the help of three stool-pigeons—whom they paid well—and four dicks from that happy-hunting grotind of dicks, the coal fields of the Frick Company in Pennsylvania, The judge was “right” and the jury was hand-picked, so the seven workers —Tom Canipe, John Anderson, Florence Blalock, Howard Overmeh, J. P. Hoggard, Avery Kimrey and J. F. Harraway—these seven men got a total of 27 years in jail. It could havé happened to al- most any textile worker in North Carolina with sense enough to or- ganize and strike and stand up like a man for his rights, These seven | men are just iike most of the Southern textile workers. They've lived the same lives and had the same troubles. Take J. P. Hoggard, now. He's a native of North Carolina. His father was a logger, and while his father was away at work his mother and the kids ran the farm. So the boy got almost no schooling. At 11 he left the farm and since then he’s scratched for himself, At 18 he got @ job in a cotton mill in Duke, N. C., at $1 a di After he got skilled they paid him $8 or | $9 a week. He married. They be-| gan to move from place to place— the Southern mill worker's everlast- | Owners to Strangle Southern Textile Union’ oo serene ere Picket line during the textile strike at Dunean Mill, Greensville, S. and six wounded by National Guards, ing search for “something a bit mighty young in North Carolina’sAnderson, who worked in Graham, better.” Worked in Roanoke Rap- ids, Greensboro, Winston-Salem. Then Burlington, the union, the strike—and the frame-up. “I’m a Union Man” “I'm a union man and always will be,” Hoggard says.. “I was one of the first to start this union here in Buflington. They're sendifig us to jail to make people thifik strikes aré bad things. But that’s the only way the working péople will ever get anywhere. “They tried to blacken my char- acter in the trial. Here’s how they did: We've always been broke. Once my oldest son was killed on a freight train. They wanted us to send money to bring the boy’s body home. We wanted to, too. We loved our boy. But we just didn't have any money. What do you think the state did in the trial? They used it against me. Said it showed I had no feeling.” Or take Howard Overman. Fif- teen brothers and three sisters. A little work here and there—nothing lasted long enough to get a start. It was always that way in the fam- ily. At ten years of age Howard's mother had gone to work for ten cents a day, working 12 hours. She was s0 little she had to get an older person to wipe the railings she was | supposed to keep clean. Since he was old enough to work—and that’s textile towns—Howard has trudged |@ach day to the mills, except when | there wasn’t any work. “We have been railroaded by the mill companies of Burlington for crimes we are not guilty of,” says | Overman, “on evidence brought by \the mill company, which is un- | true.” Tom Canipe, another of the de- fendants; his fathet was a mill worker also. Tom Was born in | North Carolina. Blacklisted since |the strike, the $13 a week his wife makes in a hosi¢ry mill must sup- port all three of them—there'’s a baby. Fought For Better Ventilation John Anderson was born out of the state—as far away as Virginia. The mills claimed him when he was |14. He fought against what he | thought was wrong. The workers in the Mayfair Mill in Burlington | were almost suffocating, because | there wasn’t any ventilation to give | you a breath of air. Anderson took \it up with the Welfare Department in Raleigh in 1931. He got fired for his pains—but the Mayfair Mill workers got their ventilation! When jthe U. T. W. came, Anderson got jelected president of the whole Piedmont Textile Council. So with all the defendants. When the union came, and then the strike, they were all in Burlington—except | | | two miles away. Burlington is a town of 9,700 people, a little place |owned and run, lock, stock and |batrel, by the mill bosses, éspecially | | by Eugene Holt, who runs the Holt | Plaid mill and some other mills. | | There isn’t an ant-heap in the town | that these textile bosses don’t con- | | trol. Not only the mills, but the | local bank, whose president is the owner of the Whitehead Hosiery Mill. And the mill villages, with | their small rooms, and gréen lum- ber, and leaky, tar roofing. And the weifare station, where you can | only get work if you're “in right.” And the schools, whose studies and Policies are dictated by the mills. And the local newspaper, the Bur- |lington Daily News, in which the |owners of the May Hosiery Mill have $7,000 invested, and which | | fought the strike tooth and nail. And the city government and the | court and the sheriff, of course. And even the hospital, owned by Officials of the mills, which sends | | doctors to do you out of compensa- tion, Skilled Workers Become “Learners” Some of these seven men figured things would go better when the |N. R. A. came in. But the Nv R. A. only hélped the bosses to press them harder. Lots of people were laid off. Skilled workers’ wages | were cut. The mills ate just full of | Two hundred bobbifis every 19 min- [if they Faced Tear-Gas and Bayonets During Textile Strike ‘learners.” They calt them that! because bosses don’t have to pay “learners” but a few dollars a week, maybe $5, maybe $6. You “learn” for a long time in one department. Then you “learn” for a long time | in another department. And then, | unléss you are very lucky, you're likely to get fired. But the sttetch-out, the stretch- out! That’s the worst thing of all. utes for a woman weaver. At the Oneida Mill, t4 looms raised to 20. At the Holt Plaid Mill, first 4 or 6 looms; now 8. The workers can get a drink of water once in a while— run for it and run back. If they walk—the work is so far behind they can’t get caught up. And then the lousy little tricks the bosses use. Docking you all the time for no reason at all. Selling at a good price the cloth they dock you for because “it’s no good.” Do- ing you out of your compensation no matter how bad you're hurt. Shutting the windows tight so you can't get a breath of ait. Why, of course they joined the union, and struck, and picketed, and scrapped back when the sheriffs came with tear-gas and thé guards- men with bayonets. Not only these seven mén. But just about all the mill wofkers in Burlington. The bosses picked on these seven. But they might have picked on a lot of othér brave, good union men and women in Burlington. The Bosses’ Frame-Up That's just the danger of it. That's just what the bosses mean by this frame-up. They want to y: “If you join the union, or you, or you~you'll get the same.” And that’s why the International Labor Defense coming into this frame-up is so important. Because how there'll be a real fight. A fight } for the right to belong to a union | and to strike and picket. That's really What the Burlington dyna- mit casés are about—the dynamite is just a plant and a fake, of course. It's the union that the bosses aré worried about. The following article contains | valuable material to show the realities behind the “Liftcoln | myth” which has been built up | by the American capitalist class, | pottraying Lincoln as some kind | of inspired savior of the Negro people. At the same time, the ar- ticle neglects to point to the gen- ngs revolutionary character of the Civil War and of Lincoln's act. It is correct to reveal the bourgeois basis of Lincoln's ac- tions; bit it is also necessary to show their evolutionary signifi- cance. Only in this way can we use these traditions for the wort- ing ¢lass revolution—EDITOR. ees By EUGENE GORDON BRAHAM LINCOLN as a mythical figure is of recent ori- gin. During his lifetime and shortly after his death so much truth Was written about him that it-is little short of amazing how the myths up. The fact is that the fanci- ul tales about Lincoln's being the savior of the Negro did not origi- nate until the Republican Patty originated them. We do not intend to go into a disctission of the Re- publican Party. All that is neces- sary is to point out that this party of northern capitalism, feeling the need of the Negro’s loyalty, invented the tale of “The Great Emanci- pator.” Until then everybody had taken Lincoln for just what he was, @ clever politician and a tool of the young capitalist class. George 8. Merriam, author of “The Negro and the Nation,” had no illusions about Lincoln. Frederick Douglass, who knew ae well, was far more realistic appraisal than the Negro re- formist leaders who today slobber at the memory of the “Great Eman- cipator.” Let us, therefore, examine the opinions of two men who knew Lincoln, on the one hand, and Lin- coln’s own statements about slavery and the Negro, on the other. Out of the whole we should get a pretty | fair picture. Abraham Lincoln was not “The Great Emancipator,” since, although he signed the Emancipation Procla- mation, he did nothing actually to Ww, ‘Orchestra 11:18-WEAF—Robert Royce, ‘Tenor WOR—Moonbeams Trio Oreh ‘ABC—Dailey make the Negroes ftec, In fact, he opposed freedom for the Negro; that is, the kind of freedom the Fight Aga Do It’, Lincoln Wrote to Horace Greeley, in Reply masses of whites were supposed to have as a matter of course. Before we go further into that, however, we shall look at Lincoln as the vacillat- ing wartime President. Faithful Politician Lincoln was a politician who served his party faithfully. That party was, of course, the Republi- can, The Republican Party had re- cently been organized to carry out the wishes of the péople in the North who wanted slavery checked. The party répresentéd the interests of the growing young capitalist class. Unless the growth oF slavery was checked, capitalism could never spread throughout the great Ameri- can continent. Slavery was a hold- over from feudalism; capitalism was hew afd vital ahd strong. It was then thé society of the future, whereas slavery represented a so- cial ordef that had been buried everywhere except in the southern part of the United States. When Lincoln, therefore, seemed to hate slavery, he was reflecting the attitude of the class which con- trolled his party. When he seemed to waver, to vacillate, in his atti- tude toward the South, it was be- cause the Republican Party itself wavered. He could not act inde- pendently of his bosses, the men who furnished money to keep the Republican Party going. Some of the abolitionists did not understand these facts. They ac- cused Lincoln of weakness. One of his most persistent accusers was Horace Gresley, editor of the Now York Tribune. Greeley published an open letter in his paper, entitling it “The Prayer of Twenty Millions.” During the course of this letter Greeley suggested that Lincoln write to the United Syates Minis- ters in Europe and ask them to say candidly “whether the seeming sub- serviency of your polity to the slaveholding, slave-upholding in- terests, is not the perplexity, the} despair of statesmen and of parties, | and be admonished by the general | answer!” | Greeley forgot that Lincoln was acting that way because the Re- publican Party did not want to hurt the South rulers too much. To free the South; the-efore, said the Re- publican Party, don’t even threaten to do that until every other device Saving the Union |. But Greeley’s letter made Abra- |ham Lincoln | Wrote: “I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way un- der the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be re- stored, the nearer the Union will be ‘the Union as it was.’ If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them, If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slav- ety, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to savé or destroy slavery. If I could save thé Union without free- ing any slaves, I would do it; and jif I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it ‘helps to save this Union; and what I forbear doing, I forbear be- cause I do not believe it would help save the Union.” (My emphasis — E.G) Did Lincoln actually say that he was not in favor of giving the Negro the kind of freedom white men en- joyed? If he did, then he was really against real freedom for the Negro. Tf he did, he was against equal rights for the Negro. But how could “The Great Emantcipator” be against equal rights for those whom he. emancipated? If we remember that he emancipated the Negroes only because he thought that act would weaken the South, we can understand how he could oppose actual liberation for the Negro people. Disclaimed Belief in Equality In one of his famous debates with Stephen A. Douglas, says Merriam, Lincoln declared that the North had a right to be concerned about what the South would do with the Negro. Your doctrine seems to bs, Lincoln said, “that if ome man wants to the slaves would be a severe blow to ra wae man a slave, a third has failed. Lincoln obeyed his or- | _| Gers. He was a good party man. so ahgry that he’ Lincoln Abolished Slavery—But Did Not Carry inst Southern Landlords to the End Abolished Slavery Only To Preserve Northern Capitalism—“If I Coul dSave the Union Without Freeing Any Slaves, I Would to Charge That His Main Interest Was Not Negro Liberation | man has no right to prevent him.” | Mertiam goes on: “Douglas con- | stantly twitted Lincoln with belief | in Negro equality. This Lincoln dis- | claimed; he did not believe in the | Negro’s equality with the white! man; did not believe in making him | a voter or a juror; but because an | inferior, had a Negro no rights?” | Not only did Abraham Lincoln be- | lieve the Negro to be inferior to the | white man but, like the rest of the | Republicans of his time, “he diss | claimed any disposition,” says Mer- | tiam, “to agitate against the fugi- | tive slave law; as to practical re- | striction, he had nothing to urge ex- cept exclusion from the territories.” | When he declared, at still another | time, that he did not believe the na- tion could exist half slave and half free, he meant just ‘this: that a capitalist society could not exist side | by side with a bastard feudalism. One of them had to be crushed. | Bastard feudalism was crushed only because vigorous young capitalism was stronger, Frederick Douglass, whose mother was a slave but whose father was a white man, was about eight years younger than Ab:aham Lincoin. A judicial balancing of their lives side | by side shows Douglass to be in| every way a gteater man than Lin- | coin. The very fact that Lincoln did | not believe in the full equality of | white man and black men, that he | was not personally concerned whether the great masses of blacks | were ever truly liberated, marked | him as inferior to Douglass. A True Estimate of Lincoln And if Lincoln-day orators among the Negro “leaders” today absurdly claim him as the Negro’s “Great Emancipator,” Douglass, who knew the man and had every opportunity to eulogize him, was never guilty of such a blunder. At the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in mem- ory of Abraham Lincoln in Wash- | ington, D. C., April 14, 1876, Doug- | lass, cne of the main oratozs, said | frankly what he thought of Lin- | ‘coln, What he said was not denied | by anybody. It was what every | body at that time knew to be thé} | truth, It was only later, when the | | Negro was needed by the Republi- ean Party, that the Lincoln myth was created, \ | where it existed Abraham Lincoln | was not less ready than any other On this occasion Douglass said, truth being “beautiful at all times and in all plates,” ... “It must be admitted, truth compels me to ad- mit, even here in the presence of the monuniént we have érected to his memory, Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model.” Pointing out that Linesin had shown himself “in his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices,” to be “devoted to the welfare of white man’—meaning, undoubtedly, the white men whosé interests Lincoln served, the white men of the ruling class—Douglass said that the war- time president was willing and ready “at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, post- pone, and sacrifice the rights of hu- manity in the colored people to pro- mote the welfare of the white peo- ple of the country.” But Douglass goes much farther in telling the truth about Lincoln. He says: “To protect, defend, and perpetuate siavery in the states President to draw the sword of the nation. He Was reatiy to execute all the supposed guarantees of the United States Constitution in favor of the slave system anywhere in- side the slave states. He wa willing to pursue, recapture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and to suppress a Slave rising for lib- erty, though his guilty master were already in arms against the govern- ment. The race to which we belong were not the special objects of his consideration.” During this week, when more will be said in praise of Lincoln than of Douglass, it would pay every worker, white and Negro, to learn something more of the early history of both these men; to learn more especially of the early life of the man who, not knowing who his white father was, later dropped the name of Bailey and adopted the name Doug- ass, because he liked the he o of Sir Waiter Scott's “Lady of the Lake.” We need such leaders as Douglass in our present-day strug- gle for Negro liberation and for the liberation of all workers from the yoke of capitalist oppression Questions and Answers This department appears daily on the feature page. All questions shotid be addressed to “Ques- tions and Answers,” ¢/o Daily Worker, 50 East 13th Street, New York City. * . . More on the Labor Party Question: If the Labor Party that the Commu- nists propose is not to be reformist, will it be revolu- tionary; and in that case why do we need two revolutionary parties in the United States?—V. T. Answer: The Communist Party stands for a class struggle Labor Party which will further the de- velopment of class consciousness among the work- ers and further their class battles. But there is only oné—and there can only be one—revolutionary party in the United States. The one revolutionary party is the Communist Party. It is the vanguard of the working class and represents the general and lasting interests of all workers. By its ability to maintain inseparable ties with the masses, by providing them with correct political leadership which is verified by the daily experiences of the workers, the Communist Party will lead the working class toward the revoittion< ary overthrow of capitalism. This does not méan, however, that the Labor Party, which the Communists propose would be a reformist party carrying out a policy of class col+ laboration with the capitalists. On the contrary the Communists are fighting for a Labor Party with a class struggle program. Such a party would put forward demands closely connected with the struge gies of the masses for relief, unemployment insure ance, higher wages, genuine labor unions and so on. This kind of a Labor Party based on the trade unions and the mass organizations of the workers, while at the moment, not accepting the full revo- lutionary program of the Communist Party, would further the revolutionary understanding of the work- ing class and speed-up revolutionary developments in this country. By accepting class struggle prin- ciples as the basis for its struggles, the Labor Party would teach the workers that only class battles against the capitalists can win their economic and political demands. Through these daily struggles and through this independent class political action, the present breakaway of workers from the old capitalist parties would be directed towards the Communist Party and its fight for the revolutionary emancipation of the toiling population from thé oppression and ex- Ploitation of capitalism. Thus it can be seén that the Communists do not propose to build up a reformist Labor Party which would be controlled by the labor lieutenants of the capitalist class. The Communist Party by participating with the masses in a broad class strug- gle Labor Patty will further their class conscious- ness. It will educate them through their experiences and struggles so that fhe common fight against the interests of private property will lead to the revoe lutionary struggle for the dictatorship of the pro- letariat and the overthrow of the capitalist scheme of things. Literature to the Masses How Not to Reach the Millions Philadelphia is one of the largest districts in the country. One would expect that a. good-sized order would be sent from Philadelphia for the two new pamphlets which have just been published, “The Assassination of Kirov’ by M. Katz, and “How Do We Raise the Question of a Labor Part; Instead, the Distri¢t Literacure Department in Philadelphia ordered 100 copies of the Labor Party pamphlet and 25 copies of “The Assassina- tion of Kirov.” The Kirov assassination and the counter meas- ures against the White Guardists in the Soviet Union are being utilized by the capitalists, and their Jackeys of all shades, as the starting point for a furious campaign of lies and slander against the Soviet Union. With the workers anxious to learn the political implications behind the assassination of Kirov, Philadelphia orders 25 coples of this pamphlet. The Labor Party question is causing a tremen- dous amount of discussion among workers, and they are thirsting for clarity on the Communist ap- proach to the question. The Philadelphia district is going to satisfy this thirst with 100 copiés of the Labor Party pamphlet What is wrong here? What is responsible for this short-sightedness on the part of the Philadél- phia Literature Department? The answer is: a lack of political alivéness; failure to keep an éar to the gtound; moving along complacently in the sarne old groove; no imagination, no initiative, no pep. When these two pamphlets were announced did the Literature Departmént in Philadelphia get to- gether with the Org. Dent. which afranges mett- ings and with the Agit-Pron Dept. which directs the discussions and our counter campaign against the attacks on the Soviet Union? Did they es- timate their potential otitlets for these pamphlets and make pians to use them up to the hilt? Evidently not. The Literature Department must have figured something like this: “We'll order a few, and if they seil then we'll order some more.” Instead of stimulating the sentiments and interests of the workers, we are @ragging along in the wake of their desires. This attitude must be uprooted. To remain satisfied with present literature distribution will be fatal to the huge publishing program now being embarked upon by ihe Literature Commission, Literature diréctors in districts, sections, and units, and literature agents in mass organigatioris must constantly, persistently, continuously work out new and improved methods of distributing literature among the workers. Above all they must always keep in mind the necessity today of gctting our literature into the hands of thousands of workers. Otherwise we will not be able to carry out our— task of REACHING THE MILLIONS. . . . Washington Challenges Baltimore Entering the revolutionary competition increase literature sales, the Washington section in the Philadelphia district issues the following chal- lenge to the Baltimore section in the same district: “We hereby challenge the Baltimore section to sell more literature and especially Lenin Sets in the months of February, Meh and April. The winner will badgers ined by the amount of money 2 Fine pe the central office. ; the full knowledze that the 1eutimore section has at present a much bigger ma. “OVe™ment than we have here in Wash= ington.”