A PROGRAM FOR UNEMPLOYED
A PROGRAM FOR UNEMPLOYED j -«Demands For Relief In States And Cities; Proposals To * Be -E|if^,.I5jjf*&-- By E&rmersTTERE is a program of activity for unemployment council*....
...Men, women, and children go without meals...
...The union is but a shadow of what it once was...
...Abolition of all private unemployment agencies and establishment of a municipal labor and unemployment bureau, its services to be without cost to the unemployed...
...Over 20,000 are out in five westen counties of Pennsylvania...
...The clue to business failures ii recent months is the increasing size of the firms collapsing, accord ing to economists...
...The ¦pSBttration has better proposals before it on which it has not ¦ft Does Walker want, another Equitable Bus scandal...
...It L_m however, be made perfectly plain that a moratorium only : MS* the basic question and, if it is not already too late, gives fEjto work for a general wiping clean of the slate accomLjgatf general disarmament...
...Why Not J ^^^-Tammanv .1 It Anrin jj^SS ON RETARAIHONS ^ ^ ^ . f 1 'sit the three most jn using for an American statesman I •'CTsjLissnrl'r---" •m*-*nWrt itilimrttn litlur ars To r Senate unemployment relief, to clear up the German rep- 3 r* sea i sratiOBs situation, to recognise Themis « P*k > sad to stop the dangerous threat of emHjj^^^^^y bargo...
...The Emerry Committee for Strikers' Relief at 112 East 19th St., New ik, is concentrating on the West Virginia struggle...
...Rows of rickety barns are "homes" of human beings, accommodations not fit for cattle...
...M MIXERS' NEEDS Kgnt is written just after the West Virginia Miners' Federation I su declared a coal strike in the Kanawha region...
...Ratherine Pollak of New York, writer and organiser, addressing a group of...
...Tak- struggle of the exploited miners concerns us all...
...LAMONT INTERVENES FOR THE BOSSES The Kentucky area of the struggle presents the seme drat human horror of life for the miners that is found in the other states...
...When the father din the children inherit his debts and are immediately caught in the same system of debt bondage...
...All lands held for speculation should be subject to purchase by the state and access to them should be given to* those who are unemployed and are willing to occupy them as a temporary measure of relief...
...The subject is "Smash Tammany...
...Prohibition of work by children under sixteen at any gainful occupation, including blacking shoes, selling papers, etc...
...Desolation broods over these centers of stark human misery...
...V ^a^K...
...Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky repeat their old history of struggles m the mining industry...
...Night lodgings to be provided for the unemployed of the dry who have no permanent homes...
...I haven't fci finn our League for Industrial Democracy Labor Chautauqua ks started Sunday for educational work in the field...
...The average of lis bill ties involved in bankruptele has steadily grown...
...Jubilation in labor circles because of this code was somewhat tempered for the Socialists by another development of the final session of the state legislature, when Governor Philip LaFollette appointed an interim committee to study unemployment insurance which did not contain the name of a stogie Socialist legislator...
...Probably over 60.00C workers are fighting in sheer desperation against starvation am degradation...
...Below) Homes of miners employed by the Sunday Creek Coal Company, Longacre, West Virginia...
...HUGE STRIKE ON IN WEST VIRGINIA Some 23,000 miners walked out in the Kanawha district o: West Virginia Monday...
...In each area it is the farmers themselves who must provide the leading items...
...Purchase , direct by the city market authorities from the farmers and selling to consumers direct...
...In making public the program, the National Main Offce of the Socialist Party, 2653 Washington Boulevard, Chicago, and The New Leader, 7 East 15th street, urge that both agencies be kept informed of the formation of these groups and of its problems and activities as the work proceeds...
...of McK seaport has shipped fas cots and The Edgar Thomson works of the Carnegie Steel Co...
...j Let us move over the border into eKntucky where another black hell of misery has swallowed up the men of the mines...
...Nearly thirty miners are held for alleged murder due to a raid by mine guards and sheriff's deputies...
...part of U. S. Steel, has built around the plant an...
...Elimination of contractors in such work, the homes to be rented at cost of the care of buildings and depreciation...
...Elimination of all contractors' profits in state public works...
...Wages are as low as two and three dollars a day—when the miners work...
...A grea number of these went under dur ing the first six months of 193C Now larger firms are cracking un der the strain...
...By all present signs America faces the worst Eg Me winter in her history...
...A 1 intelligent and fundamental socialize- 1 ¦ 9* J Of these three things President Hoover I BvpM^ / at the eleventh and a half hour has made ] | Ksi J some real progress only on the second...
...The industry is in chaos...
...Nothing that Hoover and the Cat Congress could or would conceivably do would core world BsBSton and unemployment...
...The first bus to esses to collapse under the panii strain were small ones...
...The councils that may use this program as a basis for action should add to it anything' important which local conditions may make possible and advisable...
...Pinchot revoked the commissions of the coal and iron police on July 1st, they were sworn in as deputies by the sheriffs of Allegheny County, and state police stand by while the brutal worlf is being done, , A few hundred miles south and the West Virginia he* If reached, West Virginia that seceded from the Old Dominion because its citizens would not support a war for chattel slavery...
...8-foot cement wal| and exchanged ordinary steel barred doors for gates of plate steel...
...Encouragement of farmers* cooperative purchasing sad marketing societies sad credit agencies...
...coal miners...
...Well, we ought Mm a gift tax to cover the matter...
...A liberal old age pension act for those over 65 years old...
...In May 18,000 coal-diggers went ot strike in Harlan County, Kentucky...
...Once more I repeat that whatever fgstted States loses in postponing or forgiving debts owed to Esjiersment should be repaid by an increase in income taxes l^'dMS which holds private foreign securities on which there EjBoratorium...
...The document governs litigation growing out of labor disputes and limits the jurisdiction of courts with reference to j—niTig injunctions...
...Such municipal profits, however, should not be employed to reduce the taxes of the wealthy...
...It is possible that the apparent [; \_ *re*t m the decline ot prices here at home I may be at least partly a result of Hoov|__^ 1 er's belate daction to save Germany and L. — the rest of the world from the conse[ HB"BMV THOMAS quences of Imminent German collapse...
...Besides these plants strike rumors name the Jones «e Leughlia Corp., and the Meats Machin« Shop, "the sweat Shop of western Pennsylvania...
...But the feudal system of company "homes" and company stores tie then in a system of wage bondage more brutal than the routine maintained by overseers on the old slave plantations...
...Another miner has been caged on the same charge although it is known that he was in Tennessee at the time of the clash...
...for June, 1981, was smaller thai for June, 1930, but the aggregate of failures for the first six month: of 1931 was the largest on recorc for a half year...
...But the hunger loan which we have DgBjIty advocated would immensely better things...
...MUNICIPAL ACTION An extensive program of slum clearance and destruction of old houses and tenements, the city to encage in building modern gad model homes...
...It is a system of debt bondage similar to the system of old Mexico...
...Scenes From The W. Virginia Battle Front | . i-t i ni iiip.Miii.-iii ii-.ii .1 ii...
...Above) One of the hundreds of miners* meetings that preceded the calling of the West Virginia strike...
...He invited some fifteen of the big coal barons oi Pennsylvania and West Virginia to meet ban in conference ot Thursday...
...The meeting is held under the auspices of the Williamsburg branches of the Party and the Y. P. S. L. Steel Bosses Prepare For Possible Strike PITTSBURGH — (FP) — TBS steel bosses, slarmsd by rumors of strikes, ars preparing to crush them by fores of arms if they take pkaee...
...The feudal chiefs who rule over their baronies an whose dominion is the scene of rags, starvation#-=elubsr disease and death will talk with the head of the department whose dutj it is to nurse capitalist enterprise all over the world...
...THE FARMERS A program for farmers is difficult because conditions vary so widely from area to area...
...Here is a miner and his family evicted on the hillside, his few pieces of household goods piled in s heap, nine children shelterless, one a baby in its mother's arms...
...Exemption from taxation and execution of dwellings, tools, farm animals, implements and improvements, up to two thousand dollars...
...The same privations for the miners and their families, the same perversion of the law for the mine barons, the same aspects of the class struggle to be found in this rotting and chaotic industry elsewhere...
...Pressure upon state legislature sad Congress for such other measures as farmer organizations think are essential for their I mmadvance osi Rnawsio— Two Untouched IK*L?__A Winter of Misery Ahead—Help the I rTT^_JHasg»trate SOberman Oat...
...State governments have come and gone yet in all this time a galling serfdom hat continued, broken now and then by strikes and occasionally by armed marches over the hills against private mercenaries of the mine barons, M To our desk comes a printed folder of revolting conditions surrounding the lives of the West Virginia miners and their families...
...The Westinghouse plant, employing the largest force of company police in Pennsylvania, has been mobilising them for duty, it is reported...
...Conservation and public development of all water power resources of the state and recapture from private companies of water power resources...
...Free state employment agencies should be established...
...THE KENTUCKY SECTOR One turns to the wage statements of the miners which' reveal the shocking story of exploitation...
...But some of "the boys" might not S»W4 ai.h...
...An I. W. W, organizer with as much right under American law to be on the scene as tJN sheriff himself is kidnapped, beaten and deported...
...m fa eotnlon, if the Mayor had been in earnest about getting the Mt for the City to run its own bus lines to save these enormous Ktk he could have succeeded...
...Br WORKERS' GIFT TO THE ASTORS EfOB Jt million dollar tax refund to the British As tors sticks in I ggr crop...
...Expansion of...
...Considering the large families of the miners it i no exaggeration to say that 200,000 human brings, men, womej...
...It is also suggested that the local councils enlist the aia ot sympathetic legal' authorities in their localities who could advise on the necessity for legal changes which the program may entail...
...The city should issue bonds secured by the plants to be acquired or built, paying for the enterprises out of the profits of municipal operation...
...Year 1931 Setting Business Crash Record The number of business failures as reported by R. G. Dun ft Co...
...PROGRESSIVE PENNSYLVANIA AND W. VIRGINIA A "progressive" executive, Governor Pinchot, permits these outrages to continue, tie is too busy arranging his political fences to intervene in behalf of the clubbed, the wretched and the starring...
...Extension of the principle of public ownership to all public utilities, union hours^and wages to prevail in such public services, with recognition of organisations of the Workers in the administrative departments of such enterprises...
...Here a slavery exists that Negroes never knew...
...Suggested Program for Unemployment Councils STATE ACTION Determined pressure should be brought upon state legislatures that meet this fall...
...Exemption of household goods and furniture of Workers from seizure for rent or other debts...
...I am glad Ejitaat 1,200 people of genuine influence have signed a petition E President for a special session of Congress to provide this mm ken...
...Erection by the state of elevators sad warehouses for the storage of farm products, the service being provided at cost to the farmers, or aiding cooperative societies of farmers to establish such services...
...Free meals, text books, clothing and medical care for children to avoid any absence from school for lack of these essentials...
...Pressure on state government for more accurate assessment and collection of taxes of corporations which are notoriously favored by tax officials...
...Three weeks ago the national executive Committee of the Socialist Party called on the workers to band together in unemployment councils to agitate for a program for the relief and prevention of unemployment...
...While the jobless in Pittsburgh seek decayed fruit in garbage cans, while women and Children of the miners in the outlying mine areas are in want of bread, miners are clubbed and pickets are shot...
...Passage of in enabling act granting autonomy .to cities in the matter of taking over all public utilities and other basic enterprises, the income from these to be available for any purposes related to unemployment relief...
...It is one scene in a desolate region where heroic men try to build a protective union, where they fight to prevent further, sinking into the abyss...
...The ted of rahf is desperate...
...waaH ,H4ncr ¦boal Convention jCTeactiers' Union I Crfe* Job Insurance BfcaQO— (FP) —Delegates to ¦Man Federation of Teach¦emention have adopted a reaHhvging a nation-wide sys¦ s] Bnemployment insurance...
...Another resoPU that a fund of $75,FnPI* voted for emergency Bfhyaent relief and that the ¦*tat launch a $5,000,000,000 wM approvements program...
...Speakers: Norman Thomas, Paul Blanshard, G. August Gerber, August Claessens, Abraham I. Shiplacoff, Harry Schachner, Abe Belsky and others...
...If these things were successfully ImW V attended to they would of themselves [^^^ \ a certain extent aid the* farmers, sad B| sJLvf *&*Jce it easier to push the campaign for < I^B...
...Lvug OUR WORST WINTER HOOVER's sudden assertion of intelligence with regard to ^Germany is not matched by any intelligence with regard to C^bdployed...
...An unemployment insurance act...
...From the pitiful wage paid in company "money" are (deducted items for rent, light, doctor, burial fund, insurance, smithing, powder and other items...
...A ship that entered any American port witr such shocking menaces to life and health would be quarantined, ye this dirty industrial sore festers while public authorities know nc other resource than raids, deportations, clubs and jails for th< victims...
...Prices charged at...
...23,000MinersQuit West Virginia Pits...
...Revolt In 3 States Misery in the Coal Fields Stirs 60.000 Workers to Fight Against Inhuman Exploitation of Miners TN all the history of the coal industry there have not been such revolting conditions as afflict it today...
...The committee has worked out specific goate for which such unemployment councils should work...
...To spread employment over as many workers as possible the six hour day and five day week should prevail...
...He gives twice who gives quickly...
...We are also Bag to transmit designated funds to reliable workers in Kenay or to the Socialist Party Committee la the Pittsburgh territy...
...abolition of the contract system, all public work to be done by the state direct...
...The reported agreement with France on I, the year's moratorium on German repI \ ~arations and inter-allied debts is good I \ \ JR& news...
...Note the clouds of smoke from nearby coke ovens...
...All anti-syndicalist, anti-boycott, and anti-picketing taws should be repealed and workers be encouraged to organize into trade and industrial unions...
...V> resolution urged that Con¦jMam e diately appropriate ¦MOO to help establish state ftps funds...
...Miners may work for yean without receiving any currency...
...Building of municipal machine shops and elimination of private firms in private profits in the city's repair work...
...However, a few suggestions are offered that are likely to be adapted to all areas and all types of farming—wheat, corn, cotton, fruit, truck, and dairying...
...Homes of miners are searched without warrant by deputieis and coal and iron police, protected in these raids by state police...
...School buildings and court houses to be open to the unemployed for meetings, lectures, entertainments and ether affairs related to education, organization, and action oh public issues ana problems...
...Building of municipal plants for the manufacture and assembling of materials necessary to the upkeep and'repair of municipal houses and other public works and services, private firms and private profits to be eliminated measure of home rule to the city that, may be .necessary in some states to carry out the above measures, stressing the emergency that prompts the demand...
...Exemption from taxation of homes of workers who, because of unemployment, are in danger of losing them...
...The National Tubs Co...
...It will be advertised by handbills and newspaper publicity...
...Finally Secretary of Commerce Lament proposes to do da heroic, thing...
...But withItsy special news I know the misery of the miners, the intoler11—TltVini against which they are striking, and their need tor' St That need of relief is shared by some Kentucky miners in osi behalf same Socialist comrades have written me...
...Extension of public improvements, such as building of roads, a comprehensive system of drainage, forestry and irrigation, ths workers to be paid the prevailing rate of wages in such occupations...
...die catupaay store range from a fourth to two-thirds higher this are charged at independent stores...
...The terms of occupancy should be consistent with equity, and the distress of those who occupy the state lands...
...This sector of the mining struggle has witnessed a number of armed marches of miners in the past thirty years...
...this program by state sad municipal governments to include stockyards and other distributing agencies...
...A large decorated platform will be at the corner and a committee consisting of the members of several branches and Y. P. 8. L. Circles, will handle this meeting...
...Paul Blanshard and I cabled Lord and Lady As tor if they did not want to contribute half their winnings to the Brsf the New York unemployed who with their comrades, the Br workers with hand and brain, created all this unearned ¦ft The legal ground for the refund is that the Federal gov¦fat should not have taxed a gift by Baron Astor to his chliKfissrtly before his death, said gift being almost wholly in Mjjhl- real estate, as if it were an inheritance...
...Wisconsin Socialists Win Legislative Fight For New 'Labor Code" (By A »w Leader Oirwisiiat) MADISON, Wis.—Final enactment of the "labor code" proposed by Senator Thomas M. Duncan, Milwaukee Socialist, is celebrated throughout the state, as "labor's greatest victory...
...In states where no regular session is to be held demand should be made that the Governor call a special emergency session to consider the industrial crisis, unemployment, and relief for farmers...
...Better yet, we ought to it land tax that would take for the city the full rental value . Hi Mad since it is society sad not the Asters which creates lor MANY JUDGES WOULD REMAIN f gj ERE in Hew York City one of our least desirable magistrates...
...State land or land acquired by the state through purchase or reclamation to be rented to landless fanners, the payment of such rent to cease when the total amount paid is equal to the value of the land, the tenant and his \ family acquiring the rlgBt of oceui*rihcy, tne title remaining with the commonwealth...
...j ..» , , ¦ i'Iisj.' i...
...No representatives of the unions in the industrj are invited...
...Elimination of private bankers by state exxtension of credit to farmers, the interest charge to pay only for cost of the service...
...George Powers, secretary of th« Metal Workers Industrial League, affiliated with the Trade Unior Unity League, said that the league Is sot preparing to call strikes ai the present time...
...Creation of a city bureau for the relief of workers who face eviction for non-payment of rent due to illness or unemployment of the family breadwinner...
...Use of idle land within the city, both public and private, which may in any way serve to relieve distress due to unemployment A free legal bureau to advise workers in need of legal service and the abolition of fine3 as an alternative to imprisonment...
...M. ess of tat many on my list when I began my attack on the Eafistrates in 1929, Jesse Sllbermann by name, has been removed |r taking orders from a district leader...
...State insurance against diseases of animals, diseases of plants, asset pests, hail, flood, storm, fire, and crop failures, the cost to the farmer to be the lowest consistent with the cost of service...
...From Western Pennsylvania to Kentucky gaunt men of the mines stagger with the wolf-stare of hunger in their eyes...
...Establishment of muncipai markets sad elimination of middlemen's profits in the products of farmers consumed by citizens of the cities...
...This is the first of a series of meetings in the nature of monster rallies...
...A fatuous.policy of drift has sacrificed the welfare of the miners and their families, but out of the depths arise* ft new determination on the part of the workers to fight and organize as they never fought and organized before...
...As state funds are important in any program, a demand should be made for increase in inheritance taxes and increases in income taxes upon large incomes...
...Extension of credit to cooperative enterprises of workers and farmers at cost...
...v Erection of a Labor Temple by the municipality in each city, where none exists, as an educational center for the workers of the city...
...The BBpwcnt relief resolutions MPeented by A. J. Muste, di9f Brookwood Labor Cola vice-president of the mg^rhers also went on recWt fef*P°*m°u to discrimlnaBMhrt married women sad ¦jgt of expenditures for eduWilliamsburg to Hold Huge 'Smash Tammany' Rally Friday, July 17 The first of a series of large rallies dealing with the issues of the campaign will be held on Friday, July 17, at 8:30 p. m., at the corner of Havemyer and South 4th streets, Williamsburg...
...Good enough, but if this f—* is followed just how many magistrates, municipal court fates, to say nothing of some higher court Judges, will there be MOTHER N. Y. BUS SCANDAL nKHT ROSNER, our research secretary, has Just shown me H figures to show that the two bus companies slated by the Jlkar Administration to get the valuable bus franchises in Queens ¦ sake more than 100% on their investment the first year...
...The principle is that as matters stand we must nnd Kan in way to subsidise consumers...
...Text of a model act will be supplied on request...
Vol. 13 • July 1931 • No. 2
